There is no Anime like Witch Hunter Robin

Glass Reflection had said in his pre season video that he thought Fairy Gone might remind him of Witch Hunter Robin a little bit.  That of course was a speculation based on seeing none of it yet, now that the first two episodes' Dubs just went up I watched them and can say it's not really similar, this is one of those SteamPunkIsh Anime.  I have my doubts I'll follow it to the end but I'm not dropping it yet.

Anime is very diverse, as I've said before way more diverse then Western Animation which is why all the attempts to stereotype it annoy me.  But while Anime may have a lot of boxes, and a lot of variety within said boxes, most Anime can be put into some kind of box.  Even most shows you might be thinking are obviously more "unique" then this mostly forgotten 2002 show fit into the elusive box of "other stuff from the same bat$h!t Insane director".  But in the case of WHR I honestly don't right now know if I've seen anything else from the same creators.

By the broadest possible definition of the genre you could perhaps call Witch Hunter Robin a Magical Girl Warrior show.  But it's very clearly not what one expects of that genre, even Vampire Princess Miyu is closer to fitting into it.

Witch Hunter Robin is one of the very few shows I think very highly of that has absolutely no Yuri content to speak of.  (It also has no Yaoi either but one character who I think might be coded as Gay.)  It's not a Harem or a Reverse Harem and isn't set in a High School, and honestly I can't even guess whether it's marketing classification was Shonen, Senien, Shoujo or Josei.  And thankfully it has no creepy Fanservice. 

I've compared it to Noir as being the only other show I've seen that uses it's 26 episode structure in a similar way, but that says nothing about the content of the story those episodes tell.

Basically, if someone told me this was currently the only Anime they've seen but they love it and wanna see more, I'd have no idea what to recommend them to watch next.  Usually that wouldn't be a problem for me at all.

As someone who does constantly compare things in my mind, what this does remind me of (or more often other things reminding me of it since I first saw this a loooong time ago now) is Western stuff.  It's the only Anime I've seen that I think might appeal to fans of American TV Police Procedurals like NCIS, and absolutely the perfect example of how to blend that Genre with a Supernatural element.  There is one character I remember thinking could be played by Bruce Campbell based on his performance on that Burn Notice show.  I also thought of it when I was watching episodes of both TV versions of Nikita (Noir is more inspired by the original French movie).  But the one thing WHR does have in common with other Anime is my ability to find it more satisfying then it's western counterparts.

But all this could be because compared to most people blogging about Anime you could say I still haven't seen a lot.  By my MAL count I've watched only 69 days worth of Anime, less then 4,000 episodes and under 400 entries completed.  But considering I only became a full time Otaku less then 5 years ago it's amazing that I'm already nearly a third of the way to catching up to Digibro.  Still maybe I just haven't seen enough shows from the same studio or same director or same writers or even the same year.

Update: Apparently the studio is just friggin Sunrise, I certainly wasn't expecting to find it came from the same machine as Gundam and Code Geass.

The director has indeed done other stuff I've heard of before but haven't watched yet.  I'll have to try one of them sometime soon.

Sarazanmai and other Shet

Well I have reached the three episode point for two Spring shows already.

Ikuhara shows are ironically not the best to judge by it, YuriKuma and I think also Penguindrum started breaking with their initial formula right in episode 4.  Sarazanmai is pretty interesting so far.

My relationship with Ikuhara stuff is complicated, I'm far from the dick-riding association you usually see, but not as harsh a critic as someone like WhiningAboutYuri either.  When I say I tend not to like his endings I mainly mean YuriKuma there, the Yuri genre had already moved beyond what he was deconstructing and frankly what Yuri fans really want/need are unambiguous they will live happily ever after together endings.

On Sailor Moon I absolutely love most of the Ikuhara directed episodes and his Movie, what I'm not always so thrilled about are the changes he made to the overall plot as series director for R, S and SuperS, but the guy who took over for Stars wasn't a great improvement in that regard either.  I think Sato was generally the best series director even if he also made changes that annoyed Manga fans, season 1 and the Doom Tree Arc had the most solid structuring.  He then made Hugtto probably the second best PreCure series after Doki Doki.

But that's Ikuhara as an adaptor of source material, in his original works his unusual way of structuring the story tends to suit what he's trying to do excellently.  Thing is I don't think he'll ever top Utena, even if episode by episode I often finds his 2010s stuff more re-watchable.

The other show I've seen three episodes of is Wiseman's Grandchild.  This show took a bit of a darker turn in it's 3rd episode, which is not generally what I'm looking for from Isekai.  I think this show will for me be made or broken by it's fourth episode.

I also watched all ten episodes of Manaria Friends aka Mysteria Friends.  This is a spin off of the Shingeki no Bahumut franchise, I think I may have tried to watch that show once but couldn't finish the first episode and thus wouldn't have added it to MAL and now remember nothing.

But given what I look for in Anime I tend to often get pretty into these Yuri-Ish spin offs regardless of if I saw or liked the original or not, from Hidan no Aria AA to Hina Logic.  This little series was quite fun and easy to follow, only one episode had some fan service I didn't like.  It doesn't transcend being an example of this as phenomenally as Railgun does, but it still can stand it's own for a Yuri fan who hasn't watched the original.

I'm also enjoying YU-NO, and still watching Star Twinkle PreCure.  And I got a pretty good laugh out of the first episode of Isekai Quartet.  Knosuba is the only of those four shows I haven't watched, but I still know all their basic gimmicks because the community doesn't shut up about them.

I have Completed Season 3 of A Certain Magical Index

I'm currently giving it a 9, I also gave season 1 a 9 but season 2 got a 10.  Both seasons of Railgun I've given a 10 as well as the Endymion movie.

MAL still isn't saying exactly when I should expect season 3 of Railgun to start, should I assume it'll be Fall like past seasons?

There are a number of OVAs and other side stuff I haven't watched yet because they haven't been Dubbed.  I wish they'd get on those.

I wanna make some deep analytical observations and theories about these shows.  But right now I can't think of the words to express them.

I wasn't able to finish any show that started in January of this year, it was Index and Slime as carry overs form last year that kept me occupied through winter.  Well there are a couple shows I'd been waiting to Binge if I try them at all.

This season I'm already watching Sarzanmai which is the one show I'm willing to watch Subbed, I also watched YuriKuma subbed originally but I do like the Dub more.

There are two Simuldubs I'm following already, YU-NO and Wiseman's Grandson.  Both are pretty entertaining so far.

Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knight

I've watched five and a half episodes of this show, and currently have it listed as dropped.

There is stuff going on in it I like, and I love the English Dub voice cast.  But there are things I just have trouble tolerating.  The main thing keeping me from finishing it isn't even the main thing this post is gonna be about, rather it's the creepy fan service.

One thing that's, interesting, about the show is how much it's doing what Fate/ has made popular, turning certain historical men into Cute Anime Girls.  I could talk about how maybe now even Fate/ is over doing it a bit, but that's not for today.

I am very up for seeing a Fantasy world that is basically a more Matriarchal or at least Egalitarian version of Medieval Europe.  But the thing about doing this in specifically the context of fictionalizing Jeanne d'Arc is what makes her story interesting in heavily tied to how it was kind of inconsistent with the gender norms of her time.  You can also say that regardless of her gender her turning this war between Western European feudal lords who were all Papists into a Religious Holy War was unprecedented, but this show isn't really playing up that aspect either.

There are inevitably things that are gonna play out differently when you turn it into a Fantasy epic instead of just a straight historical drama.  But they shouldn't fundamentally change what the core appeal of the story is for no real thematic purpose.  This isn't exactly the only time an Otaku version of Jeanne d'Arc kind of does this, but the Puella Magi Tart Magica Manga just adds characters rather then changing any, and has plenty that thematically makes Jeanne still stand out.

There were historically other women around to enable you to pass the Bechdel test and devise a diverse collection of Cute Girl character designs.  Most of the men this show has flipped had either sisters or wives you could use.

Marie of Anjou, the wife of the Dauphin Charles, has been claimed by some websites I'm not sure I trust to have been trying to help Jeanne after she was captured.  Most fictionalizations seem uninterested in if these two women even met.  As a fan of the theory that Jeanne was in some way Queer I'm very into the idea of some Femmeslash being written about them.  Marie's brother Rene was married to Isabella Duchess of Lorraine.  Another sister of theirs was Yolande of Anjou, who was married to Philip I Duke of Barbant. And if you want an older woman around there's their mother Yolande of Aragon who was very influential at this time.

Interestingly enough there was another Prophetess active in France at the same time as Jeanne, Catherine de La Rochelle, I can't find a lot of information on her, it seems like she may be known only from the one letter where Jeanne mentions her.

Philip of Burgundy's sister Anne was married to John Bedford who was the Regent of Henry VI overseeing the war.  He also had 24 known mistresses.

Catherine of Valois probably never met Jeanne being in England the whole time, but in an alternate history you could change that.  In Shakespeare she had a Lady in Waiting named Alice, I don't know how historical she is.  Another sister of Charles was Joan of France who married John VI of Brittany who this show leaves male giving the gender flip to his brother Arthur who's historical wife was Margaret of Nevers, they also had a sister, Marie of Brittany.  Her son was Jean II Duke of Alencon who was married to Jeanne of Valois.

Eleanor Cobham  married a brother of Henry V in 1428, she had previously been his mistress, and was convicted of Witchcraft in 1441 in collaboration with Margery Jourdemayne, "the Witch of Eye".  She was possibly the mother of his two illegitimate children, Arthur of Gloucester who died in 1447 and Antigone of Gloucester, who married firstly Henry Grey, 2nd Earl of Tankerville, Lord of Powys (c. 1419–1450) and secondly John d'Amancier.

I'm not sure how much this is a spoiler for the show but...

Spoiler Alert....

The main character is Gilles de Rais, which makes it interesting that the woman he was married to at this time, Catherine de Thouars, seems to be absent from the proceedings, preferring to make his Harem out of Jeanne and the various gender flipped characters.

Who is the Gaiseric of Berserk based on?

I'm going to do something unusual and engage in some theorizing about a fictional story I haven't actually watched or read anything of yet.  I'm planning to watch the late 90s Berserk Anime someday, but I need to get myself in the right mindset for something that dark.  But when you've been in the Anime community for a few years like I have now it's difficult to not hear a lot about Berserk.  Berserk comes up in videos I watch about other Anime, which puts more specifically Berserk based videos on my recommended videos feed, which leads to me deciding to click on ones with interesting titles.

Berserk is a Medieval European fantasy story, but it seems to be drawing more on Continental European history as opposed to the usual British Isles focus of Tolkien/Lewis, Game of Thrones and Final Fantasy Tactics.  Gaiseric is a figure in the lore of Berserk who most fans seem to think is partly based on a real historical figure, but they disagree on who with the common theories being Julius Caesar and Charlemagne.

I was drawn into this discussion by randomly clicking on this video about The World of Berserk, it argues for a theory that Gaiseric was analogous to Charlemagne and Midland is Middle Fancia from the division of Charlemegnes's Empire that Extra Credits made an interesting video on.  Which would probably make his capital either Aachen or Pavia.  But there are other theories that Midland is more just plain France or Germany.  That video has a lot of interesting criticisms in it's comments section, like how Kushan being a Muslim empire doesn't make that much sense.

But there is something I'm sure I'm not the first to notice, but it doesn't seem to be a popular theory.  And that is that there is a real historical figure literally named exactly Gaiseric, a Fifth Century King of the Vandals.

The Vandal Gaiseric reigned for about fifty years ending in 477 AD.  In Berserk Gaiseric is supposed to have lived about a thousand years before the present narrative, which seems to be from what I gather near the end of or following a fictional analogue of the Hundred Years War, which was about the mid 1400s aka the 15th Century.

Most maps you see of what the Vandal Kingdom looked like are based on what they had during the time of Justinian who sent Belisarius to conquer it, which was the same chunk of North Western Africa Rome used to control and some Western Mediterranean islands like Corsica and Sardinia.  But Gaiseric ruled more having conquered all of that and a decent chunk of Italy, he even sacked Rome in 455.  Still he didn't ever rule the main countries Midland seems to be based on, but maybe Bersek is an alternate history where he ruled far more then he did historically?  The origins of Gaiseric do seem to be a mystery to the people of Midland.

Pavia also seems to have never come under Gaiseric's control, but it was becoming the real capital of Italy already in Gaiseric's lifetime.  In an alternate timeline where he conquered all of the former Western Empire, it may have become one of his capitals as well.

Their Tax Policy is complicated to compare, Berserk's Gaiseric is simply said to have levied heavy Taxes, the Vandal Gaiseric taxed the Nobility but not the common people.

The biggest problem with the Julius Caesar theory is that Gaiseric was clearly not someone who made a public show of refusing to be crowned King.  But there is a secondary problem.

The Holy See in Berserk is pretty universally agreed to be based on the Catholic Church (Berserk may be like a lot of JRPGs which kinda make the God of Christianity Evil, but the Lost Chapter is of disputed canonicity).  The Holy See clearly existed already at the time of Gaiseric which hurts the Julius Caesar theory.  However Gaiseric was not on the same page religiously as the Holy See which makes him clearly not Charlemagne who was very much the Pope's man, it was the Pope who crowned him Emperor of The Romans.

Gaiseric however was an Arian, a sect of Christianity condemned as Hersey at both the First and Second Ecumenical Councils during the 4th century.  But for a time between them it was popular in the East and because of a missionary sent by the Arian Emperor Constantius II it gained a lot of converts among the then northern Barbarians which included the Vandals, Alans, Goths, Suebi, Burgundians and Lombards.  Quodvutdeus could be the basis for the Sage said to have been imprisoned by Gaiseric.  That would make the Albion of Berserk Naples, that name could come from Alboin a King of the Lombards.  A lot of what we think we know about Gaiseric in Berserk seems to come from the Holy See who have a bias against him.

Arianism was a non Trinitarian form of Christianity, it taught that God The Son, Jesus, was Divine in a sense, He certainly existed before His physical incarnation.  But defined Him as a Created Being unlike the Uncreated God The Father.  There were also Semi-Arians who refereed to this Creation as being Begotten and saw their Theology/Christology as compatible with the Nicene Creed.  Modern Christian movements often compared to Arianism include the Jehovah's Witnesses, possibly some forms of Mormonism (though the Book of Mormon is quite Trinitarian and Brigahmite Cosmic Pluralism is not quite Arian either), some Unitarians, and at least one anti-Paul Hebrew Roots website I stumbled upon once.  Some have also described the Logos Doctrine of Philo of Alexandria as being kind of proto Semi-Arian, and certain anti-Arians of the Antiochene School also saw some of Origen and Clement of Alexandria's ideas as anticipating Arianism.  Some Neo-Arians look at the Old Testament and define YHWH as The Son and The Father as El Elyon, I don't know if there was any precedent for that among the Ancient Arians however.

The Arians were not Gnostic, but the potential to compare and confuse them does exist, since both the Gnostic Ialdabaoth and the Arian view of The Son can be seen as having their roots in the Platonic idea of the Demiurge as a Creator god who is lesser then the true original God.  And many Trinitarinn Christians have had a habit of grouping everyone they didn't like together.  This possible confusion could be relevant to Berserk which might like many Gnostics be viewing the God of mainstream Christianity as Evil.  And there was a Gnostic presence in the West contrary to the usual assumptions it was just an Egyptian and later Persian problem, remember Augustine himself was a former Manichean, and Priscillianism was derivative of Manichean ideas.  Also later during the middle ages the Albigensians appeared in southern France.

Another character in Berserk known as the Skull Knight is often theorized to either be Gaiseric or someone who was a loyal Knight of Gaiseric.  The later theory suggests that Gaiseric was in a way like Griffith but made the opposite choice, and the Skull Knight was perhaps his Guts. Once I've actually watched a decent amount of Berserk I may return to this subject. 

So what will I be watching this Spring?

There's only one show I'm willing to watch Subbed if it gets no Simuldub, and that's the new Kunihiko Ikuhara show, Sarazanmai.  MAL currently says it's only getting 11 episodes, this frustrates me, Ikuhara's style needs the time drag things out, the fact that his shows keep getting shorter is part of why they keep getting weaker.

It seems like it's not gonna get a Simuldub, one hasn't been announced yet, but who knows.  It premiers April 12th, I might wait to give it time to see if it gets one.  Because if it does I don't want my enjoyment of the Dub cast to be tainted by any comparisons to the Japanese voices.  Of course the only time that's ever hurt my ability to enjoy a Dub was Revue Starlight which I wound up not liking that much in the end anyway, it's basically a poor imitation of Ikuhara.

Everything else to interest me right now seems to have a confirmed FUNimation Simuldub already, but things could change.

Demon Slayer:Kimetsu no Yaiba has my attention since it has Yuki Kajiura on the Music, but in general it doesn't look like my kind of show, not in my current mood anyway.
[Apparently I jumped to conclusions and this show might not be getting Simuldubbed, if not then I'll probably wait to check it out.]

Fairy Gone I'm gonna consider simply because Arkada says he thinks it might be kinda like Witch Hunter Robin, and he's seemingly the only person on AniTube who shares my nostalgia for that show.

Isekai Quartet should also be fun, if only Mini Toji could have gotten Dubbed.

Some other stuff being SimulDubbed I might also check out, it depends.  Even the Isekai shows are no longer a guarantee after both Summer lost my attention and then Shield Hero wore on my patience.  Slime Incarnation was great though, since I'm still mostly optimistic for the genre.

A few times I've been optimistic that I might wind up liking to completion more shows then any prior season, but wind up finishing only 3 or 4, and then for Winter 2019 literally none that actually started in January.  Of course given how much enjoyment I got from revisiting shows I originally didn't finish in 2017 maybe I should stop giving up so easily.  But I keep giving Ulysses from 2018 a second chance only to instantly regret it.

Star Twinkle PreCure still has me on board.  But when it reaches the slow point most PreCure shows have in the middle of the year, I'm not sure I'll be able to stick by this one as well as I did Hugtto.

On the stuff that isn't from this season agenda.  I'm trying to finally watch Nanoha StrikerS, and considering that I should give Katana Maidens a re-watch if I wanna stand by calling it the best show of 2018, and in the process I'll try to find time for Mini Toji.

It's also vital I catch up on Symphogear before July starts.

It's hard for me to truly settle on a 3x3

I made one recently, based mostly on the mood I was in at the time.

I simply really like too much stuff to easily settle on 9 shows to call my definitive absolute favorites.  On MAL I've given out 66 10 out of 10s so far.  Digibro has completed almost three times as many shows as I have but has given out less then half as many 10s.

For one this was a 3x3 of just TV Anime, no movies otherwise Nausicaa would certainly have had to be on it.  I was working on a 3x3 of just movies at the same time I worked on this, but I couldn't settle on one, and had trouble finding the right size images for some I knew I wanted to include.

Index and Railgun was something I'd only just recently discovered when I made this, a year from now will it still be so dominant in how I think about Anime?  I have no way of knowing.

Code Geass is perhaps the opposite problem, I feel the need to include it for how important it was to my early history with Anime, but it's been awhile since it'd really been an active part of my fandom.  Maybe that'll change when I can finally see the new movie.

My mind also continually changes on whether I prefer Fate/Zero or Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works to be my top installment of the Fate/ franchise.

And am I overrating Smartphone just a little bit because of how much I feel the community at large underrates it? and because I wanted to include something recent? Is it even really my favorite Isekai?  The fact that I only have 12 episodes to go on is what holds it back, but my other top Isekai is also only 12 episodes so far, No Game No Life.

And one show missing from the current 3x3 is a show that had once temporarily topped even Noir as my absolute favorite, Revolutionary Girl Utena.  It remains what I consider the most important Feminist Anime.

The Lupin The 3rd franchise is also missing, it's provided 2 movies that would be likely to make a 3x3 of just films, and a miniseries that is perhaps the 2nd best Feminist Anime, and plenty else I've enjoyed. 

When I made this I felt the need to limit myself to only one Magical Girl show, but I certainly feel like the Magical Girl genre currently makes up more then just a 9th of my interest in Anime.  I wound up settling on Nanoha at the time I made this.  For awhile I was considering Yuki Yuna Is A Hero my favorite, but before I watched that I would have said Madoka Magica which played an important role in my becoming more of a full time Anime fan.

And then there is Sailor Moon, it's very important to my history with Anime, and in theory certainly should be a favorite.  But there are currently so few single installments of Sailor Moon I'm willing to give a 10, currently I only give the first movie at 10.  All of the main arcs have me too much thinking about how the different versions have their own different imperfections.

Thing is I can basically say the same thing about Pokemon, where on MAL I only quite give a 10 to the 3rd movie.  Yet for both Pokemon and Sailor Moon it'd be highly rare of me to rate anything below a 6, and fairly rare for one to get below an 8.

There is also a genre completely missing, and that's the Yuri Genre.  Now Yuri content exists in arguably almost everything on that 3x3 or that I've talked about at all so far in this post.  But primarily Yuri shows like Citrus and Strawberry Panic and others have trouble earning a perfect score or competing with my long time faves, but they are still pretty important to me.

And that's just scratching the surface of shows I feel are quite important to defining what kind of Anime fan I am, yet that I have trouble definitively calling better enough then other shows to make them undeniably an absolute favorite.