Anime was always Seasonal in Japan

In the Anglophonic Anime Fandom an interesting subgenre of "things aren't as good as they were back in the day" discourse is complaining about the nature of Seasonal Anime Discourse where shows people were so hyped about all season are seemingly instantly forgotten when the new hot shows drop.

The structure of how Anime broadcasts was seasonal like this in their country.  But overseas fans were always behind and often getting what did get in bug chunks then one episode a week consistently for 12-16 weeks.

So when whatever old show an Anituber is currently trying to sell you on while complaining about this was also being talked about in Japan a lot less when it wasn't airing anymore.  However it's easy to look back now with hindsight of knowing what shows did "stand the test of time" and find the documentation that were indeed still being talked about by a loyal fan base.  But guess what so are plenty of these modern seasonal shows on their own dedicated subreddits or discord servers or even on regular social media apps when you seek their Tags specifically.

The other things that's different now is the nature of Social Media making what we used to call "water cooler conversation" more amplified and documented.  But you can still find the evidence that what I'm claiming is true.

Ghost Stories did NOT flop in it's original Japanese Broadcasts, a few Antitubers have already debunked that myth.  But part of the reason the myth seemed so believable is because it didn't stay power, it topped polls in Anime magazines for the year it came out but it never became a permanent staple of 2channel.  Unless it did, I don't know.

Mother's Basement thought Classroom of The Elite was one of those forgotten seasonals and then when season 2 dropped he sought out and found the vibrate fan community that been hiding in plain sight the whole time.  And that's only one of a number of 2017 seasonals to suddenly get a new season in recent years.

Thing is plenty of old shows that didn't "stand the test of time" also had active loyal fanbases for awhile or even to this day.

Lost Kitten

Noir is my long time Favorite Anime.  Of every one off target of the week episode with no bearing on the main plotline the episode I consider the best is the 6th episode titled Lost Kitten.  It’s the one I think about the most intently.

And that’s no small feat since I love all of them. In the many times I’ve rewatched this show the only episode I’ve ever even considered skipping is episode 5 and it’s technically not a one off, it’s the one that names the villain organization.

Maybe you find that weird if you remember how in 2018 I misremembered the name of the episode as Snow.  But that just shows how great and memorable Yuki Kajiura’s music in this show is. Snow is the name of a song from the soundtrack that only plays in this episode since this is the only episode to feature any snow.

I shall spoil what happens in the episode for the rest of this post, you have been warned.

Our assassin protagonists have been hired to kill an old man living in some vaguely Eastern European city devoting his time and energy to helping all the poor and homeless people.  However decades ago he was a participant in an ethnic cleansing.  He has a pet kitten that Kiraka kind of befriends and so they bond some.

But we then learn that way back when he was a child his people were ethnically cleansed by the people he massacred later.  Mirielle talks about how that doesn’t make what he did forgivable and in the end Kirika kills him and he accepts his fate.

One of the themes of the episodes is clearly Violence and Revenge being a cyclical.  It’s a theme I see in Anime a lot but it hasn’t been unheard of western media.

But it’s a theme some online Leftists are uncomfortable with, it reminds them too much of the “Reverse Racism” BS of American Conservatives.  The righteous vengeance taken by the oppressed against their oppressors can never be morally equivalent in their minds.

The YouTube Channel M Laser History has a video on what happened to the Germans of the Sudetenland after WW2 called Germans of Czechoslovakia : What Happened?  The truth is what happened there is inexcusable, no matter how much you view it as payback for what the Nazis did.  I can’t prove that is what inspired this episode of Noir but I definitely think about it.

Kaitou Ace and Sailor V

The original serialization publication dates of the chapters of the Codename Sailor V Manga are not easy to find, they aren't on that Manga's Wikipedia page or Wikimoon or MAL.  Fortunately I found this Forum Thread with the dates provided for both Sailor V and Sailor Moon.

https://www.sailormoonforum.com/index.php?threads/timeline-of-the-mangas-original-serialization.34386/

For most people the main thing they know up front about the Sailor V Manga is that it came before Sailor Moon.  However it was published in a sporadic schedule and in fact only the very first chapter actually came out before Sailor Moon did.

However what I really want to talk about in this context is the character of Kaitou Ace or Phantom Ace.  It's easy to read the Sailor V Manga assuming it predates Sailor Moon more completely then it actually does and then observe how the Kaitou Ace storyline is both similar to and different from Tuxedo Mask and think that Tuxedo Mask was subverting expectations set by Kaitou Ace.  But in fact Kaitou Ace isn't introduced until Chapters 9 and 10 which were published in February and April of 1994 when Sailor Moon was starting the Infinity Arc the source material of Sailor Moon S.  Meaning it's the opposite, Ace subverts what a Genre reader expects based on Tuxedo Mask.

Now I shall have the Spoil the Manga to discus that subversion.

Kaitou Ace does in fact turn out to be a villain, he's given a sob story backstory but still is revealed to have been working for the Dark Agency the whole time.

There is also dispute about how much the Sailor V Manga and Sailor Moon actually work as being in the same continuity, some things arguably don't line up.  But still I think the idea that future readers might read Sailor V in relation to Sailor Moon chronologically may have been part of the idea.

Because Sailor Moon pretending there is any ambiguity to if Tuxedo Mask is one of the good guys or not tends to be one of things Genre Savvy viewers/readers with decades of hindsight find pretty silly, of course the love interest in a Shoujo Manga isn't going to be evil.  In that context Kaitou Ace may have been written explicitly to say, yes it was theoretically possible.

I do kind of wish the genre would do a Reverse Femme Fatale type villain more often.  When there is Romantic Tension between a Magical Girl and a villain it's usually more that it's what leads to his redemption rather them him at all trying to be seductive.  In Shoujo Manga based Anime that aren't any type of Superhero story like Nana the melodrama of the protagonist being seduced by a Hot guy she knows is bad for her can be quite compelling.

Shoujo Vibes

D.N. Angel is an Anime adapted from a Shoujo Manga in-spite of the fact that it's a story with a male Protagonist with Hair that looks right out of Shonen Jump and more then one female love interest.  

I however could tell it was Shoujo off it's first episode from it's hard to describe Vibes even though I know full well there are Shonen Manga based Anime with a high emphasis on Romance or even Romance being the main genre.  Shows like Rent-a-Girlfriend I like but I would not ever confuse with Shoujo.

Maybe you think I was prepared for this to be Shoujo because of how it's like a Male Counterpart to Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne and Saint Tail, but I'm also well aware of how this High School double life Phantom Thief genre started in the 80s with Manga like Magic Kaito which was Shonen.

Thing is I have detected these Shoujo Vibes in Anime that turn out to not officially be Shoujo or even Jose Manga or Otome Games for that matter.

Shonen Manga based Anime like Blood+ and Karin have enough Shoujo vibes to make not impossible that a Shonen Phantom Thief Manga could be this Shoujo.

But it is Shattered Angels that most surprises me when I see it classified as Shonen.  I've long memorized that it isn't officially Shoujo but I keep misremembering it as a Seinen.

Often the most Intense Shoujo Vibes are in Otaku Visual Novel adaptations like Rumbling Hearts and White Album, these are actually the Anime I'm inclined to recommend to people who loved Nana and want something with similarly great Melodrama.

Assassins Pride is a fall 2029 Light Novel adaptation that defies the usual Otaku Seinen vibes of that ecosystem to feel very very Shoujo.  It's so Shoujo that Mother's Basement hated on it.

And that's without even touching the messy debate of which Yuri are and are not legitimately Shoujo.

The Pseudo-Mainstreaming of Anime

So I’ve done a series of posts on this blog trying to debunk the notion that Anime is Mainstream now, and this recent hype over “The Vatican has Embraced Anime” has helped me realize part of the problem is how a vague understanding of the Anime Style is somewhat Mainstream.

Luce is not proof that anyone in the Vatican has seen any Anime just as someone throwing around the term “Big Brother” isn’t proof they’ve read 1984.  It’s just proof that everyone now knows how to draw the basic concept of an Anime Girl.

I realize this kind of distinction sounds to some like it’s related to the rhetoric of GateKeepers.  I don’t think you need to have seen all the Anime I’ve seen to at all qualify as being into Anime, I haven’t seen a lot of things others consider essential viewing like Gurren Lagan or any Satoshi Kon stuff.  I considered myself into Anime when I’d only seen a fraction of what I’ve seen now.  But my point has never been about how well versed in Anime culture any individual is.

In order for Anime as a whole to truly be mainstream the pool of specific shows and movies that are well known even to people who aren’t particularly into Anime needs to be much wider.

Feral Historian is a YouTube channel I stumbled upon recently, they are fairly conservative and so someone I disagree with a lot, but unlike a lot of Conservative who talk about Nerdy stuff on YouTube he has actually insightful and interesting things to say rather than raving about Wokeness every time a protagonist isn’t a White Male.  He largely talks about Sci-Fi and some Fantasy stories often with a focus on War, Dystopia and Alternate History.  He’s covered some very mainstream well known franchises and some fairly niche books and forgotten movies and tv shows.

So anyone who is very into Anime reading all that can probably quickly come with a long list of Anime right up his alley, but in fact the only Anime he’s covered is Cowboy Bebop a very mainstream show that feels barely relevant to the general themes of his channel.  For me 86 pops into my mind as the first thing I’m curious to hear his take on, but I’m sure others more quickly jumped to Gundam, Macross, Gunbuster, Evangelion, Code Geass, Psycho Pass, Attack on Titan maybe Darling in The FranXX.  But other niche even within the world of Anime options would include Muv-Luv/Schwarzesmarken, Rahxephon, Aldnoah Zero, Kado the Right Answer,Babylon and the Sekaikei trilogy.

If Anime actually had the mainstream pervasiveness of Star Wars or Star Trek or Marvel and DC Superheroes there’s no way none of those Anime would have been covered by now especially since Bebop proves he doesn’t have an innate bias against Anime.

Update: Feral Historian's interest in Bebop stems form an interest in Western tropes translated to a fantastical setting.  And I have a prior post on the other Anime that cna appeal to that.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2024/04/anime-neo-westerns.html

Anime with Messy Characters

There are a number of Anime I’ve watched where a lot of the appeal is how all the characters are very flawed making very human mistakes but ultimately no one is truly a Bad Person, (or very few at least).

But then watch the YouTube videos about them and their takeaway is that they are shows where no one is a good person.  Clearly we are mostly seeing the same thing but they simply have a much more cynical outlook than I do.

Take for example Shoji in Nana, I think one of the most compelling things about this show was their willingness to depict him so sympathetically even as he cheats on the main character in a Shoujo Manga adaptation.  But nope all the Antiubers feel they have to boil it down to simply him being a Jerk.  

Nana is a show where the only character I wouldn’t object to calling a bad person is Takumi (well there’s also Takeshi but I barely count him as a character) and even he has nuance.

Now maybe some will think my sympathy for Shoji is simply a biased result of my being an AMAB who identified as Male for most of my life.  But I feel the same watching Rumbling Hearts where Mitsuki cheats on the male protagonist in this Anime who’s source material is a male targeted demographic, anyone calling her a bad person I would also object.

Heck I’ll go further than that.  I think I find most unrelatable about the comments section under most NTR Hentai is how harsh they are the female lead even though she’s usually being Raped.  I’m the opposite, even in the rare one where it’s completely Consensual I still sympathize with her.  Even if she’s literally cheating for no reason other than the other guy is bigger I still can’t consider that entirely invalid.

And it’s the same with Nana which kind of is a prolonged NTR in its latter half.

Both White Albums are also similarly messy relationship Melodramas that I quite enjoy.

I think someone is only a Bad Person if their behavior is consistently harmful and unrepentant.

Woke Leftists like to claim they have a purely Harm based understanding of Morality, but then try very hard to define Harm so abstractly that they wind up becoming pretty Puritanical.

Mab Darogan and William The Conqueror.

I have a theory that specifically Geoffrey of Monmouth’s presentation of the Mab Darogan Prophecy in his History of the Kings of Britain was designed so one could argue it was fulfilled by William The Conqueror. 

Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon who Geoffrey in the final chapters of Book 12 presents as the last King of the Britons and from whom this prophesied Savior wild descend is nominally a real 7th Century historical figure but his biography is almost completely changed.  Others have focused on how the pilgrimage to Rome is actually based on the contemporary King of Wessex.

But what interests me is how Geoffrey ends Cadwaladr’s story with him not in Wales or even Britain. The fact that the medieval Kings of Gwynedd and Princes of Wales descended from the real Cadwaladr not only isn’t mentioned but seems to be something Geoffrey doesn’t want his readers to know.  Rather he ends Cadwaladr’s story in Brittany closely linked with a King of Brittany named Alan.   It’s likely the medieval audience would have presumed dynastic intermarriages would occur between their lines.

Which is interesting given how Alan’s line was already Prophetically significant.  He is in this narrative the direct Heir of Hoel of Brittany son of Budic II of Brittany by Anna King Arthur’s Sister.  Back in Book 8 Chapter XV the Prophecy Merlin gives about Arthur also says it would be Uther's daughter from whom the long term line of succession will descend.  Now Arthur having sisters seems to be precedented before/independent of Geoffrey, but Geoffrey alone has any sister much less his full sister by Uther marry a ruler of Brittany.  The actual Breton traditions about Budic and Hoel do not connect them to Arthur at all.  Budic II does take refuge in Britain after losing his Kingdom to the Franks but it was actually in the court of Dyfed.  Meanwhile Arthur’s full sister is usually married to Loth by whom she is the mother of Gawain and Agravain and Medraut.

So Geoffrey has two different Prophecies tying the legacy of Sub-Roman Britain to Brittany rather than Wales or Cornwall or Cumbria.

William The Conqueror’s Paternal Grandmother was Judith of Brittany a descendent of Breton rulers including at least one named Alan.  And the Dukes of Normandy may have had dynastic ties to Brittany even before her via Sprotta.  And William also had Breton allies during his conquest of England.

One of Geoffrey’s patrons was Robert of Gloucester, a Bastard son of Henry I and a supporter of Matilda during the Anarchy.  So legitimizing the Norman-Plantagenet Dynasty’s rule over the Island was arguably in Geoffrey’s interests. 

Geoffrey is also seemingly the oldest source for a lot of the basis for identifying Arthur geographically with the area of Wessex (I have come to believe based on the older sources that Arthur was mainly in The North).  This fits in with the theory that a lot of Arthurian motifs originating during the Norman period were partly about attributing to Arthur accomplishments of Alfred The Great.

Going back to his sponsor’s support of Matilda, I wonder if this is part of the origin of the Cornelia daughter of King Leir legend I discussed in a prior post?  Cornelia and Matilda were both married to Kings on the Continent before ruling Britain/England.