I'm late to talking about Watanare.

Full name There's no freaking way I'll be your Lover! Unless...

This was somewhat hyped in 2025, but that it was going for an actual Poly resolution was not something I recalled coming up. As much as I am a long time Yuri fan I have spent the last few years feeling less obligated to watch every Yuri, especially when so many are still not even being Dubbed. 

I have talked on this blog before about by enthusiasm for Polly Anime of all form but also wanting them to come in more forms then just some variation of 1 guy and multiple girls. Even the excellent Dusk Beyond the End of The World as much as it wants it's world building to be about more then that the main trio we're following is still 1 guy and two girls. 

So a Yuri Anime with a true Threesome resolution is something I wish I'd heard about sooner. 

This is still only the start.  I want more Yuri Polycules but I also want Yaoi Threesomes and Polyandry and a Polycule form of Anime's common 3 girls and 2 boys School Club dynamic. And also some with Non Binary characters. 

I would like to see an Anime adaptation of the Light Novel/Manga Kono△Love Comedy wa Shiawase ni Naru Gimu ga Aru by Chihiro Haruna it is a 1 guy and 2 girls Threesome in the end but the girls are explicitly unambiguously also in love with each other (there is some slander going around right now that this is a Homophobic story turning the girls' straight, that is not what happens).  It is a good story, you can argue the Threesome nature of the resolution felt abrupt, but I think it worked. 

Getting back to Wartnare. Besides having this satisfying ending it's a good build up, lots of Comedy and Drama and all the characters are fun. Where the Anime currently ends it's just a Threesome but it seems like it could expand to a full 5 person Polycule. 

So this is now tied with In Another World With My Smartphone for being the best Poly Anime. 

Lucky Star is set in 2006

I find it interesting how many YouTube videos about Lucky Star the 2007 TV Anime as being a time capsule depicting what Otaku Culture was like in 2007.

But the show isn't set in 2007, it's clearly set in 2006.

The first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is clearly currently airing, one scene depicting Konota's reaction to the episode Someday in The Rain which aired May 28th 2006, neither she or the people she talked to online had seen it before.

Another show presented as current is Code Geass.

Full Metal Panic is presented as no current but still pretty big.

The only 2007 show I recall being mentioned in any capacity was El Cazador de la Bruja but that was only a promotional poster, it aired in spring 2007 and was hyped as a spiritual follow up to Noir and Madlax so it could have had prominent posters already in 2006.

To be honest I don't think there is a coherent timeline if you overmilitarized everything. But this show is also a Spring 2007 show so it likely entered production before 2006 was over.  it's a product of vaguely 2006 Anime culture. 

The Ribbon Hero is a Masterpiece

It more then lived up the Hype.  It made me Cry more then once. 

I don't have the ability to judge it as an adaptation, I don't think adaptation is the best word anymore, more like Reimagining. It does justice to the legacy of the original in exactly the metatextual way I was hoping.

There is no exposition about Saphir having a Heart of Both a Boy and a Girl, but she is still called a Knight, from my perspective the original Androgyny is still there. It's just a lot of the traits that were inherently masculine for a Anime Girl in the 60s have been more commonly Anime Girl traits since. 

I love the line that's an Attack of The Clones reference. 

There are also parts of this film that look like what an Anime adaptation of The Fall of Gondolin could look like. 

I gave a 10/10 and am currently listing it as a Faveorite on my Anilist. 

The Ninth Jedi is what the Sequel Trilogy could have been.

It manages to do much better the seeds of compelling new ideas The Sequel Trilogy introduced and squandered, but without all the falling back onto wanting to also be an OT Remake. 

The sequel trilogy wanted us to believe that Kylo Ren wasn't a Sith but something different, but no meaningful distinction was ever made.

Nawaan in The Ninth Jedi is the opposite of a Sith, while the Sith are all about indulging in your emotions Nawaan's ideology is about trying to empty yourself of Emotions.

And that context finally provides a new meaning to Balance. The Jedi are not the opposite of The Sith but the Balance between these two opposite approaches to Emotion. The Jedi's flaws in the Prequel Trilogy are a result of being a little too much like Nawaan. Nawaan is what most people wrongly think Stoicism is, The Jedi are at their best true Stoics. 

Now explaining why Kara makes a better Star Wars protagonist then Rey is going to be difficult to explain because of the sentiments I don't want to be mistaken for endorsing.  I don't agree with calling anyone a "Mary Sue", I don't even think having a protagonist be perfect from the start never making mistakes is an inherently bad thing in general, but it doesn't work for Star Wars. Kara makes mistakes and has to grow and learn in exactly the way Rey didn't. 

There are even other smaller ways in which this comparison is fascinating.

We have a story where one of our Mentors' has a valid reason to feel responsible for the villain's fall. But if this scenario or something close to it was done with Luke it would not have felt like a complete reversing of his core ROTJ characterization the way TLJ's twist does.  

There's also a character whose role resembles what Leia's could have been. 

Even the Kaiber Canon somehow does this,  Functionally it's the same as Starkiller Base, how it's an ever bigger superweapon then the Death Star is exactly the same.  But the context around it manages to make it more interesting. 

Also of course the fact that it isn't aesthetically repeating the Rebels vs Empire, or even prequel Aesthetics, it is mostly all new Stuff, lots of compelling Seeds for a new Expanded Universe.

It introduced what are essentially Star Wars Dwarves but without feeling cheap and unimaginative. 

The confrontation between kara and Nawaan in episode 4 felt evocative of Luke vs Vader in Empire Strikes Back but without feeling like it was simply copying. 

As an Anime it also satisfying what you would want from an Anime. Kara even turns a Bounty Hunter to her side by defeating him like a Battle Shonen. 

Code Geass and Genre

When discussing why I feel April 2006 through March 2007 can be considered the best year of Anime I referred to Code Geass as an important Anime that transcends Genre rather than as one of the shows I consider the best of its Genre. And I felt like elaborating on that.

As an Anime with a consistent spot in my top 10 since I first got into it, I feel I can safely call it my favorite Anime that can be classified as a Mecha Anime. And yet defining it as my favorite Mecha Anime when I talk about why I love it so much feels wrong. 

As a Sunrise show it is in conversation with other major Real Robots Mecha Anime in a way that makes it not something I can dismiss as merely a show that has Mecha in it like I can so many other 00s Anime. 

And yet it does not feel close to being a Platonic Ideal of what Real Robots Mecha should be. A Gundam or a Macross is probably the Anime that should be defined that way.

When we look at how the Mecha function in the show Real Robots is indeed the subgenre of Mecha it should fit into.  Except that when combined with so many other elements it feels less “Real” then any other Real Robot Mecha. All the Geass Lore makes the show feel more Fantasy then Sci-Fi. 

There was a time when I was contemplating writing a story set in an alternate timeline whose point of divergence was during the reign of Commodus and thus Rome never Fell or even became Christianized, Christianity remained a Minority Religion.  Many aspects of what I actually wanted to do in the present narrative were so heavily Code Geass inspired that I honestly suspect it could have been accused of Plagiarism. Except that the Mecha Element was removed, how I wanted to make cool fight scenes was instead going to rip off Star Wars.

I know there is a thing among Mecha fans on YT and Twitter about saying no Mecha show is actually about the Giant Robots, and I feel sad that they think saying that is necessary to defend the respectability of the shows they like. But objectively most Gundams and Macross and Evangelions are about the Giant Robots in a way that Code Geass is not. Code Geass is much more about the Geass powers being its defining fantastical element. 

Detective Conan Dubbed episodes for August.

 My prediction of what episodes would be included in the second half of the FBI collection were partly correct but not entirely.

Ayu's Tumblr Post hasn't updated the Watch order yet but I'm sure she will.

https://matchaandmayhem.tumblr.com/post/799001080524570624/detco-dub-order

[Update: It's updated now.]

If I have any criticism it's the decision to pronounce Yaiba as Yaiber. 

Now that I'm 40 I have to side with Yukiko about her being called old.

The Gunma detective makes i think his first apperence in this Dub.  And while we had heard Sato before this drop contains contains one she plays a prominent role in finally.  Once again the Nano casting is perfect.

The episode it chose to end on is a good episode, it's a Columbo case and a rare example of one where Conan doesn't tranquilize anyone but simply nudged Kogoro in the right direction.

But given the theme of this collection it felt incredibly random. They really should have included The Convivence Store Trap.

Code Geass, Nina and Racism

Nina Einstein is by the end of the R2 not at all Racist anymore. Which is not unique to her, the show is filled with Britannian characters who were being quite racist to the Japanese early in the show and aren’t at all anymore by the end. None of them have a particular moment where they repent of their past racism and denounce it, it simply becomes apparent that they clearly aren’t racist anymore.

Her primary sin is creating and then at first consenting to use of the Fleija. But she’s far from the only person complicit in that, we’re introduced to the plotline via Lyod learning about it and encouraging her. But more so it is Sechenizal's manipulation of her that really drives that plotline.

But let’s return to the topic of racism.  Why is it in a show filled with people who are racist at the start and not by the end is it Nina alone whose early racism is treated as a defining character trait and an unforgivable sin? 

Racism seems to have been a more passive character trait in a lot of other characters.  But they are also people in real positions of power. It is how casual they are about it that in my opinion makes it worse. Characters like season 1 Cornelia and Jeremiah whose use of Racist rhetoric is more a means to an end in their political power playing are not materially speaking less racist because of that, they’re Herman Goring. 

Nina at the start of the show is a teenage girl with severe social anxiety in a highly systemically racist society, and also a repressed Homosexual in a pretty systemically homophobic society. She didn’t choose to be living in a colony rather than the homeland, that was her parents decision. By the time she actually does anything significant in the plot her Racism is no longer a primary motivating factor in her actions but at most a filter in how she’s directing them. Finding out Zero isn’t Japanese wouldn’t make her not want to kill him anymore. 

I’ve seen people say they wish there was more of an explanation for why Nina is this way, a specific thing to happen to her to cause it. But I feel that misses the point of viewing Racism as a systemic issue. Nina is Racist for the same reason everyone else is, but innate issues with who she is as a person makes it harder both for to change when presented evidence contradicting that world view, and to hide it.

There are a number of YouTube videos I started watching but didn’t finish because they open with a rant about how “most” Gay Representation in Anime isn’t great, such sentiments annoy me since I feel exactly the opposite. One uses footage of Nina among its visual B roll for this which I found interesting. With Nina it is definitely backwards, to me Homophobia and Misogyny is clearly a huge factor in why she is such an irrationally hated character. 

This is not about making excuses for anything, it’s about having coherent standards in how we judge people. If some former Racists can be forgiven for their past Racism while others can't, that's fine. But Nina’s circumstances should clearly make her the easiest to forgive not the most unforgivable.