My recommended viewing order for Raildex Anime.

My recommended viewing order for Raildex Anime is not identical to either the release order or the chronological order.

It's possible only one of these two shows will actually appeal to you, they are kind of barely even the same genre, and different approaches have been taken in how to adapt them.  The Railgun Anime seems to be more popular then the Index Anime, but in the source material Index definitely sells more books.  This is partly because Railgun expands on it's source material while Index tends to cut a lot (even more so for the new season it seems).  If you can only enjoy one that's fine.  Especially since I feel Railgun has a much better chance at being a good gateway Anime then Index, I think to people who were big fans of PLL Railgun is perhaps the perfect Anime to start with.

Misty Chronexia did a video breaking down what the chronological order should be if you wanna know.

I will probably need to update this once Railgun season 3 is out, Misty will likewise need to update his guide.  But I might be able to guess.

My recommended viewing order is.

A Certain Scientific Railgun, season 1
A Certain Magical Index, season 1
A Certain Scientific Railgun S
A Certian Scientific Accelerator, season 1
The first 7 episodes of Index season 2
A Certain Magical Index: The Miracle of the Endymion (The Movie)
The rest of Index season 2.
(I suspect when Railgun 3 is out I'd place it here being consistent with the above pattern.)
A Certain Magical Index season 3.

There is one issue to starting with Railgun season 1 I should mention.   Episode 2 should be skipped, it is filler, and is not a good first impression for a character I greatly like.  I prefer that episode to be treated as non Canon if possible.  There are a couple Anime tropes at play here I don't like but have more tolerance for then others.

Update October 7th 2019: I didn't need to wait for Accelerator too end to know where I'd place it.  It's relationship to the Index series is about the same place I think it falls chronologically.

Throwing Time Travel into a series

Time Travel is always a tricky thing to write about, and even franchises that had Time Travel as a fundamental part of what it is from the start can still through added sequels become convoluted messes. None the less there is some great Time Travel based fiction out there, like Steins;Gate.

However in my opinion adding a time travel story-line to something that was not initially about that at all is almost never worth it.

This is by no means a consistently inherent deal breaker.  The more episodic something is, the more it can be fine if the time travel stories are kept away from the main overarching story-line and lore.  Even more so if consistent continuity was never a top concern.  This is why Star Trek and Pokemon can get away with doing occasional time travel plots, or at least Star Trek used to be able to.

But in Western Superhero Comics, the existence of Time Travel as a potential regular thing in those universes continues to cause more problems then it solves.  Fans accept it, but there is a reason it hasn't been a thing in any highly regarded Superhero movie, yet.

And then there is Sailor Moon, I love Sailor Moon but I just can't endorse the Black Moon Saga, even in the Manga/Crystal version which makes more sense then the 90s Anime.  Are we supposed to believe the timeline was saved from being changed at the end?  Then how-come Neo-Queen Serenity and King Endymion do not seem to remember everything Usagi and Mamoru experienced?  But if it is changed even slightly then why is everyone so certain Chibi-Usa will still exist?  Even if it's still a given that Mamoru and Usagi will get together there is no guarantee the child they have will be the same child, in fact the odds of it still being the exact same Sperm fertilizing the exact same Egg are almost impossible. People don't think about this because the show is about Magick not Science, which is exactly why I would have never added a Time Travel story to it.  I almost want to cite this as the ultimate example of what not to do when adding Time Travel to an ongoing story.  And the only value I see in the Black Moon lore as it's own story is how it unintentionally makes me think of Revelation 20.

I don't have the beef with Chibi-Usa as a character that many Sailor Moon fans have, she is exactly what I'd expect of Usagi's daughter and I mostly enjoy their antics.  My problem is how much her presence in future story-lines makes them dependent on the fact that this convoluted Time Travel story happened.  It's lessened by the fact that it's mostly just an excuse for our main couple to have a Daughteru when they haven't actually gotten married yet, but it's still there.

Fortunately two out of the three movies are stories you could write her out of pretty easily.

She plays an important role in the Infinity Arc, but fortunately the Time Travel is of little effect there.  In SuperS and Stars that is not so much the case anymore, and that's part of why the Infinity Arc is pretty much the end of what I care about.

But let's leave the Sailor Moon subject.

So if I've convinced you to agree that it's never worth it to throw Time Travel into something that wasn't about that from the start.  The next question is, how soon is the start?

Let's say you have a 12 episode Anime that reveals we'd been in a Time Loop all along more then half way through?  Well that's a situation where it depends on the execution.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Shoujo Kageki Reveu Starlight are two stories for which that is the case.  What's fascinating is how Reveu Starlight makes this reveal sooner, yet it's the one that feels like an @##pull.  The reason is on that show it becomes just a sub-plot, the person experiencing the loop is not part of the main couple.  Because Madoka Magica is almost just as much about Homura as it is Madoka it was very easy to make the Loop feel like it was always what the show was about.

Actually using the term "Magical Girl" in universe.

My beef with the legacy of Madoka Magica is not any increase in "darkness" or "edginess" in the Magical Girl Warrior genre, no that was an inevitable result of the genre turning 20.  I'm more annoyed at how it's become more acceptable to actually use the term "Magical Girl" (Or "Mahou Shoujo" in Japanese) in universe.

For me it greatly helps the immersion of a Magical Girl show when they have their own uniquely Branded term for what a Magical Girl is in that universe.  Sailor Senshi, Love Angels, "Cardcaptors", Pretty Cure, Twin Angels and so on.  And some shows may have not really had a term for it at all.

Pre Madoka the only Anime that might have used the term in universe were one off parodies or hentai.  It is in the full title of the first two seasons of the Nanoha franchise, but in universe they never used that term, not in the Dub anyway.

In the case of Fate/Khalied Liner Prisma Illya the Manga predates Madoka but not the Anime, I think the term might have been used a couple times but it isn't standard.  At any rate because this is a Fate/ AU it doesn't need to immerse me, I'm already immersed in this multiverse just show us what happens when you throw Magical Girls into it.

I wouldn't mind having a throw away line where a character says something like "that girl sure is magical", like how some Comic Book Movies homage a Codename they don't actually want to use.

Now this is the kind of thing where in Madoka itself it works because....  well my mind continues to fluctuate on how appropriate I think it is to call Madoka a deconstruction, but whether or not it's a proper deconstruction the way Watchmen is, it's definitely a Meta Commentary of some sort.  So in that context using the name of the genre in universe works.  I also have only watched it dubbed and so don't know whether the original dialogue uses "Mahou Shoujo" or "Puella Magi" (I hate when certain spin off Manga use "Puella Magi" in the English translation, it just doesn't sound right).

Not all post-Madoka shows have done this, leaving aside older franchises that either never stopped or got a revival, we've got Yuki Yuna Is A Hero, Symphogear, Hina Logic and I haven't watched Daybreak Illusion yet, but generally it seems like you know whether or not a show will do this based on whether or not it puts "Magical Girl" in the title.

But why don't I feel this way about other genres?  Superhero films and Comics use the term "Superhero" and it doesn't bug me, in fact I was annoyed at the 2015 Supergirl pilot for refusing to use the word "Superheroine", insisting on instead awkwardly saying "Female Superhero" constantly.  In fact you may be thinking "Yuki Yuna just calls them Heroes, isn't that even more generic?".  And when an Isekai uses the word Isekai the dubs I watch translate it in a way where I generally don't even think about it.

I guess it's just in the context of this genre's history, where it took about 20 years for a hit show to use the name of the genre in-universe, and that show was at least perceived as being some sort of important Meta Commentary. That makes it feel like now you only would use the term in universe if you want it to have the same cultural relevance, but it really just comes off as a lack of creativity.

Which is why this very superficial complaint of mine can easily be seen as overlapping with the more common complaints about post Madoka trends.  The shows that didn't simply throw "Magical Girl" in the title seem a bit safer from being completely dismissed as Madoka Clones, at least to some extent.  They showed their creativity while the ones with "Magical Girl" in the title are just "Battle Royal with Magical Girls" or "Magical Girl Rambo".

I however am someone who has tried to oppose dismissing shows that way.  To me the most useless criticism you can make of any art is to say "it tried to be like _____ but without understanding why ____ actually worked in the first place".  Because to me all good derivative art is based on applying this new innovation differently, it should work for a different reason not the same reason, maybe even a completely opposite reason.

Last year I was putting myself at odds with a lot of my AniTwitter mutuals by defending Magical Girl Site as it was airing, even though I was indeed thinking about this very nitpick at the time.  And I can't help but fear my being more critical of Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka right now is an unfair result of my not being in the same mood I was then.  Literally right after Site ended I experienced something that has since greatly decreased my tolerance for Nihilism in the media I consume.  Before that Site was lucky enough to premier during the time in which I'd finally come to terms with the fact that I like Batman V Superman, so defending a darker take on something traditionally bright and cartoony was all the rage in my brain.

Still, all that context in mind something about episode 8 of Asuka feels like far more of a betrayal of the genre then anything last year's hated edgfest did.  Outside of my opinions about the state of this genre, I have low tolerance for military themed fiction, that's the first reason I can't get into Rob Skiba's Seed project.  So it's the last genre I was looking to see crossover with the Magical Girl genre.

But I'm never gonna blame Madoka or the very idea of Dark Magical Girl shows for the fact that a current show isn't one I like. It's simply that this one didn't appeal to me.

This issue might also relate to how only the Magical Girl Warrior sub-genre is doing this, which only further causes westerners to not know that the term can apply more broadly.

Sailor Moon 90s Anime differences

 After reading this check out my Semi Filler Free Guide to Season 1 of the 90s Anime.
https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/p/smf.html

My understanding of the perspective of people who prefer the Manga and Crystal versions of Sailor Moon even for the Dark Kingdom arc has improved quite a bit lately.  Largely from listening to episodes of the, seemingly now defunct, loveandjusticepodcast.

The fact is the Manga was made for women by women while the 90s Anime was made by men to appeal to a much broader audience.  This podcast in particular gets really upset by what the 90s Anime seems to think of teenage girls when talking about it's episode 16 in the Podcast on episode 5 of Crystal, and episode 36 in the podcast on episode 11 of Crystal.

I've also noticed that specifically the Ikuhara directed episodes seem more likely to have Panty Shots.  The Manga and Crystal go full Magic Skirt trope.  And I realize that can be seen as a fetishization in itself, but in the context of Sailor Moon where the original version made by a woman for women didn't want us seeing under the skirts but then an adaptation made by men goes "but Panty Shots are realistic" it really comes off as creepy.

To me the 90s Anime will always have the advantage precisely because it has so much filler, I want to spend time with these characters and I really feel like we don't actually in the Manga and Crystal.  And in this genre especially I prefer redemption narratives for the villains.  But there are a lot of issues.  Vrai is also someone who was very dismissive of Lindsay Elis's Stephanie Meyer video because they think "we need to hold both boys and girls media to a higher standard" which is bull#h!t.

Two people who have gone all in on saying every 90s Anime change was for the better are Zeria in and Vraikaiser.  Zeria is a Lesbian Trans woman of color and Vrai is Non-Binary.  So they are more marginalized then Cis-Women.  But I think their preference for 90s Anime Sailor Moon largely comes down to being Ikuhara fanatics.  Like Zeria has literally only talked about Sailor Moon in the Ikuhara video she made.  Utena was nearly perfect, but it seems a lot of people don't want to face that Ikuhara is still a cis-het male who isn't exactly perfect.  I like a lot of whiningaboutyuri's old critiques of Penguindrum, YuriKuma and the Utena movie. 

In particular both are pretty all in on the idea that Mamoru was an inherently problematic character and Ikuhara fixed him.  Zeria says this in the Ikuhara video, Vrai said it in a comment on one of Josienextdoor's Sailor Moon blog posts.  And this area is in particular one where the loveandjusticepodcast disagrees, they see the Manga and Crystal as a beautiful gender inversion of how romances usually go in Superhero stories, and 90s Anime Mamoru as a complete jerk and also a pretty bad father.  And I have to conclude that they're right, precisely because of the complexity in my history as a Cis-Het Male viewer of Sailor Moon.  Because in the 90s Anime he is at his most likable when he's being treated as an audience surrogate for whatever male viewers the show has.  Like in episode 6 of SuperS where only he actually listens to Artemis, that episode is entirely a depiction of what a lot of dudes think women are like, and it's rather odd to see a Shoujo show seemingly vindicate it.

Every version of Sailor Moon has Yuri, but only the 90s Anime ever gave us any remotely canonical Yaoi.  Thing is the gay male representation on that show was always villains, sympathetic villains but still villains.  It's clear that Zoisite and Kunzite's relationship is what is good about them and not tied to being evil.  But at the end of the day the only Shitennou redeemed was the one most interested in women.

In the Manga and Crystal it is highly implied that Haruka may be Non-Binary, Bi-Gender or Fluid or something and not simply a very Butch Cis-Woman.  Some people are hostile to that, as if it would make HaruMi less Gay or something, but it really doesn't.

So I've kind of changed my mind a little bit on what I've said before about the Infinity Arc.  The core story is absolutely better in Crystal, but S is still valuable for the additional time spent with the characters, even if some of that is kind of counter productive.

[Update July2020: most of what I said below about Rei I kind of regret now]

I was mentioned in another Charles Q Banks Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wtalvPqRvs&t

In response to my comments on that last one.  It's a good video, and I made another interesting comment, but I'm not gonna copy/paste it here, I'm gonna recommend you watch the video then scroll down to find my comment.

How does Palpatine know so much about the Sith anyway?

That's one of the memes going around about the Prequels, often said by fellow Prequel fans in jest.  But it is sometimes presented as a legitimate criticism "how can Anakin be so stupid" and so I felt like writing something about it.

First this opera scene needs to be understood in the context that Palpatine is someone Anakin currently trusts, who's been a father figure to him since he was ten.

Second, Palpatine does not present it as something only a Sith would know, he calls it "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise" as if the Shakespeare of this galaxy had written a play about it (I was older then Anakin was in this scene when I first learned Shakespeare had done more then just the five plays everyone knows).

He says it's because it's a Sith legend that the Jedi wouldn't tell it, in a way that implies they do know it.  He's playing on Anakin's insecurities that Obi-Won and the Council are actually holding him back, (a feeling established in the prior film and exasperated just before this when they don't give him the rank of Master), by implying they're keeping this information from him.

He's almost saying it as if Anakin is the only person who hasn't already heard the story.

The problem is the audience had already heard before the film came out that Darth Plagueis was Sidious's direct mentor, and since the Sith were presumed extinct for a thousand years we know this isn't a story that's common knowledge, or learn-able via a simple search of those exhaustive Jedi archives.

But Anakin doesn't know what we know.  And it probably is true that the Jedi don't tell Sith legends, even the ones that should be well known throughout the Galaxy.  Palpatine could have asked about the Tragedy of Darth Malak or Darth Traya or whoever your favorite KOTOR era Sith Lord is and Anakin would have been just as clueless.  Frankly I don't think they even tell the story of Darth Revan given how in ROTJ both Yoda and Obi-Won seem to think the idea of turning back from the Darkside is impossible.  So if he doesn't know any Sith Legends there is no reason to be surprised by Palpatine mentioning one he hadn't heard before.

As a side note, going off the films alone it's not really confirmed Plagueis was Sidious's master, yes his mischievous grin as he talks about the Apprentice killing him in his sleep heavily implies it, but that could be read as him simply having done the same kind of thing, since presumably this is how most Sith Masters got that promotion.

So it's another alleged Prequel plot-hole based on not really paying attention to what's going on.

I was mentioned in a YouTube Video

From the channel Charles Q Banks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPvut34kkQ&t

It starts by citing a Comment I'd left on a prior video, unfortunately what I said was misunderstood, so I'll share here the comments I left.

Woah, this begins with citing me, I was not expecting that. I wasn't referring to morality at all, I was just referring to people who don't like it compared to the old FMA, it seems to be similar to Sailor Moon Crystal and Hellsing Ultimate in being more rigidly faithful to the Manga. I only used the word Abomination to be over-dramatic, I guess I should've known that might be misunderstood. If you've only seen Brotherhood you may want to try the older Anime.

I haven't watched any incarnation of FMA yet, right now I'm not looking forward to hearing Vic Migonogna's voice. He apparently had trouble accepting Ed being an Atheist, but that's the least of why people are mad at him right now.

I like Jesus Christ Superstar, I'm not overly concerned with how compatible the fiction I consume is with my faith, I just look for what does work with it, hence my Higurashi observations.

And I like plenty of stuff with Alchemy and Hermetic Magick in it, like the Fate/ franchise, and now A Certain Magical Index

 I have become increasingly aware of people who feel the opposite about Brotherhood. Again I haven't seen any version yet, but I know these people often similarly prefer Hellsing Ulitmate over the original Hellsing Anime, which is certainly not to my tastes. So looking at the general trend of these more faithful to the Manga reboots I tend to prefer the older Animes.

Mother's Basement said in one video (I forget which one) that he prefers Brotherhood overall but prefers the old Anime for the early part of the story, in particular the Nina story-line which was apparently just a one off episode in Brotherhood.

It is a pretty interesting YouTube channel, has one of the few reviews of Lilith I've found.

The Best Anime of 2017

You might be thinking “this is awfully late, even best of 2018 stuff is past it’s trending date now”.  Thing is I feel time needs to pass before you can truly pass judgment on something, and in the over a year that’s passed since 2017 ended my opinions on the Anime I watched that year have shifted a bit.  Nothing has completely flipped from a like to a dislike or visa versa, but I wouldn’t now rank them the same as I would have in January 2018.

I don’t feel like 2017 was the best year in Anime history, but right now I’ve seen more Anime from 2017 then any other single year so I feel it’s the year I’m most qualified to pass judgment on.  Part of why this is would be it being the first full year I watched Anime seasonally, and then plenty I didn’t watch when it was new I have seen since, I've even finished some shows I originally dropped.

I have currently completed 38 Anime from 2017, and there are others I have On Hold and even a few I dropped.  I’ve completed over 360 Anime, of which close to half are less than a decade old and only about 66 are pre 2000.  So yeah I’ve definitely seen more of 2017 then any other year.  If you wanna know all the shows I watched in 2017 here is my MAL profile.
https://myanimelist.net/profile/KuudereKun

Don’t think a failure of something I saw to make this post is an insult against it, if it’s a TV anime I had to have been enjoying something about it to have completed it at all, and I’ve given nothing from 2017 lower then a 6.  I’m not even structuring this as like a Top 10 list or anything, I’m just gonna talk about everything I gave a 10 and only some of what I gave a 9.

Section 1, what I gave a 9.

Section 1a, Movies:  As a warning, movies in general aren’t what I’m mostly into Anime for, as such I’ve seen no completely stand alone movies from 2017.  And when I do see A Silent Voice, I seem to be the only person who remembers that was 2016 in Japan.

Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale was a fun satisfying filler movie similar to how the Endymion movie works for Raildex, it’s not gonna be great to people who don’t like the series, but if you do it’s about as a good as a filler movie can be expected to be.  I’m not that big of an SAO fan so that’s why this can only get a 9.

Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Movie: Sekka no Chikai shouldn’t be watched as a Magical Girl movie, but it’s a pretty satisfying Fate/ AU and decent Prequel to the Prisma Illya series as a whole.

No Game No Life Zero was a very good movie, not as great of a Prequel as the Star Wars Trilogy or Fate/Zero, but pretty satisfying nonetheless.

Section 1b, TV Anime.

Fate/Apocrypha is not the only TV Anime of 2017 I gave a 9 but it is the only one I’ll mention here even though plenty of others I probably like more then the movies I mentioned, but I don’t want to overload this post.  This is the one I’m choosing because I’m slightly tempted to upgrade it to a 10, but in the context of being a Fate/ Anime I don’t want to give the impression it’s on the same level as the UFO Table shows.  Speaking of which I feel I can’t fully pass judgment on any Heaven’s Feel movie till I’ve seen the full trilogy, and that’ll be awhile.

Fate/Apocrypha is ridiculous but fun.  I recommend watching the Dub even though I don’t like the decision to say “Heroes of Charlemagne” instead of Paladin. 

I’ve talked about this show on this Blog already, and it indeed demonstrates what I was talking about on how my perspective on this year of Anime has changed with the passing of time.  I was enjoying it at the time but was not expecting I’d consider it a potential best, but the more time has passed the more I keep returning to this show over so many others I thought were better at the time.

Section 2, TV Anime I give a 10 (no Movies made it).

New Game!!, this series as a whole has the potential to become the K-On of Cute Young Adult Girls shows, including how season 2 topped season 1.  But it needs a 3rd season and/or a movie to cement it.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon-Maid is still the best of the Winter season which I originally considered the season I most enjoyed.  It’s the most like what I used to enjoy about Sitcoms of any comedy Anime I’ve seen.  I recommend the videos on it from the likes of Digibro and Pedantic Romantic.

Princess Principal, with Yuki Kajiura on the music is the closest any recent Anime has come to making me feel like the Bee Train Girls With Guns formula is back.  It’s also a fun spy show that reminded me of the BlackCoatPress and Tales of the Shadowmen style stuff I enjoy, as well as Les Miserables.  And I again highly recommend the Dub, I was skeptical of the ability of Anime Dub actors to do British Accents well, but these pulled it off.

In Another World With My Smartphone is the only show from the last few years to make my 3x3.  I’ve talked about it on this blog already.  There is nothing ingenious about it but I simply love it’s basic charm, it’s unapologetic wish fulfillment and I love the non-monogamous resolution to the Harem.

It’s a personal favorite, I don’t expect to convince anyone else it was the best show of 2017, but I’m hoping in time to shut up everyone who dismisses it as worthless.