More then half the Anime I've completed is from the last Decade

 The decade that begins with 2011 and ends with 2020.

The reason for that has to do with how while I’ve had some interest in Anime since the 90s my truly diving into it started in the middle of that decade, and then a couple years later I started following currently airing seasonal Anime.

Last time I made a post observing this I assumed that this decade best fits my Anime tastes, 2011 did set a lot of our current trends.  But once I went about trying to create a 3x3 I realized how much my top tier favorites do tend to be older.

It might be that a lot of the most recent stuff I’ve seen just needs to stand the test of time more and could improve upon my revisiting it in the future.  Currently the Anime of this decade I consider 3x3 worthy is stuff from early in it and/or connected to older franchises.  But I do think Your Name, A Silent Voice and Weathering With You are all among the best stand alone Anime Films ever made.

Looking at Anime history from the standpoint of the end of 2020, there are ways in which the 2000s almost seem like a giant transitional period from 90s Anime to modern Anime.  But it’s that very quality that makes a lot of it’s stuff seem like the most unique Anime ever made, for better and for worse Kannazuki No Miko and Nanoha both feel like they could only be products of that decade.

But that’s largely the current perspective talking.  I think a lot of 2010s Anime will be better appreciated when revisiting with the benefit of hindsight.  I’m certain eventually 2020s Anime discourse will include a lot of waxing Nostalgic about the Isekai craze.

I’m back to having seen more of 2017 then any other single year, 2018 had pulled ahead at one point, I’m not sure what I recently watched from 2017 to change that.  I’ve completed 39 from 2017, 31 from 2018 and 28 from 2019.  That’s based on their start dates of course, some shows are included that started late in one of those years and continued into the next.  Somehow 2013 is currently tied with 2018.  And there is still stuff from 2017 I want to watch or finish eventually.  2020 has produced less than other years, meaning it still will even once I’ve completed everything on my currently Watching list spend a little while as the only year of this decade I’ve completed less than 20 from.  For 2010 I’ve completed only 12, so there is a big drop off immediately once we go earlier.

I need to digest the end of this Decade a bit more before I make another attempt to rank my favorites from it.  But for now I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

_________________________________________________________

I’ve decided to make a list of my favorite Anime from each year of the 2011-2020 Decade.  The more recent a year is, the more possible it is that I'll change how I rank Anime from that year in the future even if I don’t increase the sample size I’ve seen of it.

I’m going to list a Movie and a Series for each year.  By “Series” I mean TV Anime as well as OVAs, ONAs or serialized films with enough episodes to work like a TV Anime.  For movies I’ll probably only count Theatrically released films with at least a full 60 minute runtime.  But maybe I’ll consider counting some TV movies or feature length OVAs if they feel cinematic enough.

The general rule is one each per year, but exceptions can be made for ties.

2011

Series: We actually start with a tie, Steins;Gate and Mawaru Penguindrum.

Movies: The K-On movie, it really is a masterpiece.

2012

Series: Robotics;Notes

Movies: Pretty Cure Allstars New Stage: Mirai no Tomodachi

2013

Series: A Certain Scientific Railgun S

Movie: A Certain Magical Index The Movie: The Miracle of The Endymion

2014:

Series: Yuki Yuna Is A Hero

Movie: N/A, there are no movies I even gave a 10 this year

2015

Series: School Live

Movie: Girls Und Panzer Der Film

2016

Series: N/A, Wow, for this year there’s no series I gave a 10.  But season 3 of Sailor Moon Crystal was important to me that year.

Movie: Another tie, A Silent Voice and Your Name

2017:

Series: Technically no definitive 10s here either, but I’m giving it to Fate/Apocrypha

Movie: Similarly I’m giving this one to Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya Movie Sekka no Chikai

2018

Series: Final tie, SSSS.Grdman and Citrus

Movie: Pokémon The Power of Us

2019

Series: YU-NO The Girl Who Chants Love at The Bound of This World

Movie: Weathering With You

2020

Series: A Certain Scientific Railgun T

Movie: High School Fleet Movie, but that’s about the only film of this year I’ve already seen.

Just how much have I changed?

So I posted some thoughts on Wonder Woman 1984, I overall like the movie but had some issues.  I'm not even at all surprised that other people's issues were the opposite of mine.

But what gets me is how often the criticism the movie is getting is frarmed as it being a "Richard Donner style" which allegedly can't work anymore.  And it reminds me of what I (and others) used to say about Superman Returns, calling it the worst movie ever made.  But WW84 isn't actually like the utterly boring Superman Returns? Is it????

I haven't actually watched that movie all the way through since 2006.  But what I like about WW84 is tied to my tastes in Anime not some reversal of how I feel about "Cheesy" Superhero movies...... but none of the Anime I'm thinking of here I had seen yet in 2006, a good deal of it existed already, but I'd still only seen a handful of shows.

And as I was recalling what I was like as a mid to late 2000s Comic Book Nerd on IMDB message boards it all came rushing back to me, I used to be an Edge Lord.  I used to be the type of Batman fan who wanted the legacy of Adam West and Joel Schumacher buried, and used Silver Age as a dirty word.  It's true I was not one of those Robin and other sidekicks shouldn't exist people, but that's because I wanted the stories where The Joker kills Robin and cripples Batgirl.  I got into DC Comics because of War Games and Identity Crisis and OMAC Project.  And yes I even specifically wanted Superman stories to be darker then what Christopher Reeve ever gave us, more then once I was disappointed at Smallville not killing Chloe Sullivan off.

Even the beginning of my relationship with Anime (besides the literal kids shows I got into in the 90s) was Darker stuff, that I still call Noir my favorite Anime probably gives a bad impression of my current tastes.  And after that it was the other Bee Train Shows, Witch Hunter Robin, Code Geass which has dark moments, Death Note, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, Attack On Titan.  The first Magical Girl Anime I watched to completion was Madoka Magica, then I saw Utena, then Rose of Versailles, then Le Caviler D'eon, then Gankutsuou.

I was never only into dark and edgy stuff, Pokémon for example was always somewhat of a balancing presence.  In fact I've always been unashamed to admit to still liking the kids shows I watched as a kid. Plus I've always been a defender of Superman IV and Batman Forever.  And there were always certain limits, I always found the first issues of Allstar Batman and Robin offensive, and the way season 8 of Smallville ended always bugged me.  I've always preferred a happy ending and I oddly valued Batman's no kill rule more then then I do now.  And I haven't lost the ablity to appreciate Dark stuff, I still like what I liked then and get crap for defending Zack Snyder.

But something has changed.  I've on this blog attempted to summarize the timeline of my descent into Anime before.  But I'd been trying to think of it as me simply being late to finding what I secretly wanted all along.  However the me who was super into every shocking thing DC was doing in 2005 would never have predicted I'd wind up defending the idea of having an epic super heroic battle to save the universe where no one dies.

When I watched Madoka and Utena for the first time, it was while the Sailor Moon revival was starting in 2014.  Sailor Moon had an on and off again presence in my life, but at that point I still hadn't seen most of the season finales, and I considered S the best season because it was seemingly the darkest.  (Now my Sailor Moon rankings are greatly different.)  Remember what I said about being concerned some westerners might learn the wrong lessons from Sailor Moon? well I'm remembering that that would probably have been me if I'd gotten to write a Sailor Moon knock off back in the 2000s.

Before the Sailor Moon revival kicked off, earlier in 2014, certain western TV shows I was watching had disillusioned me by crossing those lines I always had.  And the one I was starting to love more then ever before was in one of it's darkest hours.  So I think I was primed to appreciate Sailor Moon in a way I hadn't before, even though I wasn't connecting these things at the time.

2015 helped shape my modern sense of humor between how much I enjoyed the early episodes of Gotham and my at some point getting into Engaged to The Unidentified.  Meanwhile I started watching more Magical Girl shows too.

But 2016 was the major turning point.  My relationship with Batman V Superman is complicated, I wanted it to be the best thing ever, but after it came out I initially praised it but believe it or not there was a period where I was pretty down on it.  And that's when I watched Yuri Yuri and Lucky Star and began my relationship with slice of life Anime, they picked me back up.  And then I watched Haruhi to help me further appreciate Lucky Star, and then slowly but surely got into things like Fate/ and Nanoha and Steins;Gate.

All this did kind of coincide with some of the changes in my Theology and Politics, my becoming a Communist and a Universal Salvation proponent.

And then following seasonal Anime over the course of 2017 and 2018 further radicalized me.

So the question is, would I suddenly like Superman Returns if I rewatched it now?  I don't know, I still feel like it's largely boring in a way WW84 definitely is not.  But I guess I should give it a try some time soon.

However I now consider the worst movie ever made to be End of Evangelion.

Anime 2020 ends for now

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

The first 4 episodes of Gleipnir were interesting.  Aspects of it aren’t to my general tastes but it is interesting.

Okay, I have no idea what to make of the ending of episode 13 of HigurashiGou.  There will likely be a delay in my starting the next arc, I think I need to take a break.

Million Lives Isekai episode 7 was fun, I wonder if that “most Talent” comment was a subtle meta gag?

Yashahime episode 8 was neat.

TONIKAWA episodes 5 and 6 were both pretty cute.

Talentless Nana’s season finale was pretty good.

Gleipnir episode 5 was fine I guess, but I don’t think this show is for me.

This is it for my Anime 2020 tag in actual 2020, I’ll be continuing it next year as I finish shows and maybe watch some stuff I didn’t watch right away.  I’m gonna make a point not to watch whatever remaining new episodes of the shows I follow come out till new years day at least.

My next year long seasonal Anime project won’t begin till April, I’m still working on exactly what to call it.

If I had to right now declare something my favorite Anime of 2020, it would probably be Railgun T.

I will before the year’s over probably make a post looking back at the last decade.  But jsut case I'll here wish my readers a Happy New Year.

Mahou Josei Diana Prince

There is a hypothetical Wonder Woman movie that can be described that way, but it still doesn't exist yet.

Wonder Woman 1984 was a good movie, probably the best Wonder Woman movie so far, definitely best Live Action one.  Judging it by the general standards I do Comic Book Superhero movies it's great.

But I had gotten my hopes up from some initial reactions I'd seen that it would be like a Live Action Magical Girl Anime, a genre that has always been somewhat Wonder Woman inspired from the beginning.  And so had decided what I would title my blogpost about it before I watched it.

WW84 is close in a lot of ways, is it the closest Wonder Woman movie to almsot achieve this so far?  Aesthetically speaking it's closer then Bloodlines which has that New 52 inspired look I never want to see an Anime try to emulate.

People praise how she doesn't win by fighting, and that's true in terms of Max Lord, but she still has to beat Barbara, I would have greatly preferred she resolved that conflict by reasoning with her.

But even without that, there is more to what makes a Magical Girl then just not being as explicitly violent as western Superheroes.  There is also the rejecting the notion of Sacrifice, of refusing to play along with the difficult choice.

As I said on Twitter when I watched the first three episodes of W.I.T.C.H.  Sailor Moon as the prototype of the genre does a lot of things different from the genre standard that I kind of only tolerate in Sailor Moon.  And so my greatest fear regarding attempts to create a Western Magical Girl show is that they will learn the wrong lessons from Sailor Moon.

But going back to the subject of Violence, the scene with her fighting the security detail in Egypt reminds me of when I would discus the hypocrisy of how people reacted to Dawn of Justice and the Nolan Batman films.  Diana is equally doing things that should have killed all those people (this also applies to how she beat Barbara) but people react to it differently because the Tone in BvS is emphasizing Bruce's Rage while the Tone here wants us to think of her as being Heroic.

This is also no where near the first time I've seen a Comic Book Superhero story set during the Cold War use the brink of Nuclear War as a plot point.  But I do feel like this is the only one to not say anything about that.  It's just throwing it in there with all the other madness because that's what 80s Superhero stories do.  Honestly for that element The Quest For Peace is still the best.

In 2017 I was restraining myself from expressing my issues with that Wonder Woman film because I wanted the first WW movie to be a success.  Now I feel the need to express my issues more even though I actually liked this movie far more.  I also like it more then Captain Marvel which I've spoken positively of in the past even though it's almost the antithesis of a Magical Girl.

Horror is a genre that generally does better when it’s low budget

 or at least seems low budget from a 21st century perspective, the Lugosi Dracula and Karlof Frankenstein may have been the most expensive films of 1931 for all I know.  My point is in the Hammer Dracula movies it’s not a bug that all the blood looks obviously like red candle wax, it’s a feature.

Sometimes the superficial expectations of what “high quality” looks like doesn’t actually fit the aesthetic of the kind of story at hand, it’s similar with classic Film Noir.

Big Budget movies about Frankenstein or Dracula just wind up looking like superhero movies using Victorian pulp rather than comic books as their source material.  I enjoy some of those movies, but they aren’t movies I’d recommend watching as Horror.

My reason for this rant here is that every week now when a new HigurashiGou comes out there is somewhere a twitter image comparing an old 2006 Higurashi screenshot to it’s Gou counterpart saying “and you think Deen looked better then Gou”.  And it feels similar to what I ranted about in that old Sakuga post.

Art is subjective.  And Gou is not objectively better because it looks more pristine and shinier and more like an average generic 2010s Anime.  Rather that is exactly why it no longer feels like Higurashi to me.  I enjoy plenty of generic 2010s Anime, but that’s not what I watch Higurashi for.

I don’t want to dunk on Gou, it’s not the worst looking, I can tolerate it more than Pokemon Sun and Moon which I dislike for similar reasons, and the storyline has my attention still.  My point is the old Higurashi worked, it became nigh universally considered the best Horror Anime partly because of the very visual aspects these people are now trying to bury it for.

This is not any kind of Childhood Nostalgia for me, I first watched Higurashi in 2017, my first post about it on this Blog was when I had just first watched it, so not even half a decade yet have I been into it.  What I do have childhood Nostalgia for is Sailor Moon. I'd started seeing it on TV before it was ever on Toonami even.  And I am fine with how Sailor Moon Crystal looks, it also looks very different from the 90s Anime, but it’s not simply trying to force those character designs into the most conventionally modern artstyle, the opposite really, it's trying to be stylistically faithful to a 90s Manga in a way the limitations of 90s Anime couldn't.  

But perhaps a more apt comparison is Fate/Stay Night another Visual Novel adapted by Deen in 2006 and then later by a more "respectable" studio with "seemingly" more budget put into the Animation.  Fate/ has horror elements but that's not it's primary appeal.  So yes for Fate/ the Deen Anime is almost unwatchable to me while UFOTable is in every way an improvement.  But the reason Deen's style didn't suit Fate/ as well is because Fate/ is meant to feel Epic and Mythical rather then Spooky.  

Robotics;Notes episode 15 is a good Christmas episode

I feel compelled to make this post about it even though I'm not entirely sure how to articulate my feelings.

Most of Japan is similar to California and Israel in that Snow at this time of year isn't as common as it is for those of us living further north.  That makes a subtle difference in the thematic role Snow plays in Anime in general.  In my post a couple years ago on episode 6 of Noir I got the name of that episode confused, it's Lost Kitten not Snow, but it kept using the word Snow in ways that confused my memory (I think it's because Snow was the name of a song on the Soundtrack).

The episode climaxes in a Christmas Miracle that is really a simple act of kindness.  Standard Christmas episode tropes.  But it's also specifically tied to the show's Sci-Fi setting and how Otaku driven it is.

I'm sure all the Christmas episodes BeneathTheTangles talked about are perfectly good if you're into those shows.  But I think this may be the best Anime Christmas Episode at being Christmas for Anime weirdos.

Haruhi Suzumiya watch order controversy

I forgot to cover Haruhi in my last post on watch orders.  (I also need to again update my Raildex watch order.)

Digi has commented on this issue more then once but most notably in the How to tell a good Anime from 1 episode series.  That was supposed to be about the three episode rule thing but both Haruhi and Lucky Star are completely separate from how that usually goes. 

Digi's main argument for the original broadcast order is that if you watch them chronologically the end of season 1 doesn't have a climatic finale that feels like something built up to.  That is an issue that mattered to the network when they originally were only gonna have 14 episodes and had to air them once a week for about 3 months.

However from the standpoint of being someone new to watching these kinds of Anime when Digi made this video in 2016 as I was and thus planning to binge all 28 episodes followed by the movie in probably less then a day, that is irrelevant.

For all intents and purposes new Haruhi fans are going to be watching them as if it was a 2 cour show.  And I actually don't like when a 2 cour show's exact halfway point feels like a season finale.  I don't want 2 cour shows to feel like 2 single cour seasons airing in quick succession together.  I want them to feel like 1 season that has twice the runtime to work with.

My main reason for advocating chronological viewing is because the 6 episodes that directly adapt the original Light Novel are the best introduction to this universe.  In the source material only the first novel is called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and that's why she is only actually melancholy during those 6 episodes.  After that the rest of season 1 are basically bonus side stories where the order you watch them doesn't matter much at all.

The story of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is a satisfying piece of art all on it's own, even if it had never had sequels or an expanded universe it would still be worth revisiting.  Something that isn't always the case with Light Novels that start ongoing sagas, especially the trends that blew up in Haruhi's wake.  However when Anime viewers are interrupting that narrative to watch future random one off stories some of which are set after season 2, it tricks people into thinking it doesn't stand on it's own.

My first time watching Haruhi I did follow Digi's advice and I deeply regret that.  For a brief time right after watching it I convinced myself that the weird tirppiness of binging the show in that order had some artistic value to it.  But I have never felt compelled to rewatch the show in that order, and when I did finally just watch the Melancholy episodes in succession they felt so much more cohesive.

And I really don't care that the Anime director says he prefers the broadcast order, because even if you want to apply hyper strict Auteur Theory like Rick Worley would the Auteur of Haruhi is the Light Novel author, the Anime like most Anime was originally made to be a glorified commercial for the Light Novels which is why no one cared that they teased the Sigh arc with no guarantee it'd ever get animated.  

After this point I am officially getting into Spoiler territory.

BNA, Lupin III and more Seasonal Anime 2020

 Last Monday and Tuesday I watched BNA.  I’ve now seen a total of 3 Trigger shows.  I gave it an 8 on MAL, it’s fun but I think it needed more than 12 episodes to properly flesh out what it was trying to do.  The final episode suddenly makes the Pure Breed/Half Breed thing a big deal with no prior set up.

Before I watched it I had seen a video from a certain NazBol Anituber who tried to lay out how it’s Anti Israel propaganda (which would be a good thing from their POV).  There are several problems with that reading, not the least of which being there is no stand for the Palestinians.  The far more meaningful parallels are to Native American Reserves and Hong Kong.  Vic and Hope did a better video on it.

Our Last Crusade or The Rise of A New World episode 7 was… an episode.

Lupin III The First’s Dub became available recently and it was a pretty solid Lupin movie, and by far the best CGi Animation I’ve seen from Japan thus far, for that reason alone it’s great.

HigurashiGou episode 12 was fine.  After finishing this Arc I think I may wait to binge the rest.

Million Lives Isekai episode 6, “but over time some failed to comprehend what our scriptures said about love and peace” that sure sounds familiar.

Assault Lily Bouquet episode 6 was great.

The Day I Became A God episode 5 was emotional.

Warlords of Sigrdrifa episode 6 was pretty interesting.

Yashahime episode 7 provides the context of the framing device of episode 1.  Newbies who followed my advice of starting with episode 2 can probably just watch episode 1 now, unless you’d rather not watch an Inuyasha epilogue till after watching the actual show.

Talentless Nana episode 12 was great, only one episode left, this show should turn out more than decent.

So episode 5 of the TONIKAWA Dub has an Audio Sync issue because Crunchyroll sucks at Quality control.  It seems a lot of people were able to finish it in spite of that issue but I can’t.  So I'll have to wait awhile.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Die Hard of Anime Christmas?

I have in the past both on this Blog and elsewhere referred to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's as the Batman Returns of Anime in terms of the debate about classifying it as a Christmas movie.

I have since then learned that Die Hard is usually the first Hollywood action/adventure movie people think of when it comes to movies that are technically set at Christmas time but not directly about Christmas in an obvious way.  I agree with James Rolf that BR is more of a Christmas movie.  But I have enough posts on this Blog referencing Batman in the title for the time being.

I have however remembered that there is another Anime I've seen that fits that category of Christmas movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.  That being a movie is probably easier to compare for most people.  There is a film version of the story of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's but I honestly don't remember if it included the Christmas references and for a number of reasons I don't like it nearly as much as the two series.

The Haruhi film probably spends a larger percentage of it's run time referencing Christmas, BeneathTheTangles only lists episodes 9 and 11 of Nanoha A's as Christmas Episodes.  But I feel Nanoha is more properly thematically right for Christmas.  

Nanoha A's is also more like Batman Returns in being specifically a second instalment.  Disappearance would've been the 3rd or 4th movie if Haruhi had been done as films from the start.

Still both are very good, Disappearance has pretty consistently been on my Anime Films 3x3 and Nanoha A's is one of my favorite instalments of one of my favorite genres.  

Disappearance is also arguably a good example of a Eucatastrophe for any Tolkien nerds reading this.

Anime 2020 deep into December

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Our Last Crusade episode 6 reminded me how tired I’ve gotten of people with superpowers being persecuted minorities in speculative fiction.

HigurashiGou episode 11 was good, still not sure what to make of this arc.  I didn’t finish episode 4 of the Dub, not really because of the Dub itself, at least it didn't create new issues.  It just didn’t take long for me to realize I don’t really wanna rewatch this one, the first arc is kind of the least rewatchable for me in the old show too, and this different ending was just not as shocking as I feel they wanted it to be.  I may wait to return to the Dub till I can binge it a good chunk of it.

Million Lives Isekai episode 5 was very amusing.

Yashahime episode 6 was very conventional.

TONIKAWA episode 4 was totally fun.

Warlords of Sigrdrifa episode 5 was better than last episode.

Ya know this huge arc of SAO is starting to remind me of my issue with True Blood and Game Of Thrones, jumping around all over the place constantly to barely connected plotlines.  Meanwhile this episode randomly threw in the Anime only Movie characters and it felt totally awkward.

Talentless Nana episode 11 was good.  To a certain extent what I said about Our last Crusade is applicable to this show too, but that’s mostly from what I've told about where the Manga goes later.

Final month of 2020 starts

 I watched the High School Fleet movie which in Japan came out in January of this year.  The series from 2016 was pretty good and this movie was a lot of fun too.  My favorite part was when that one Captain goes full Batman.

Well I watched the first two episodes of TONIKAWA and they were pretty amusing.

HigurashiGou included some scenes I’m pretty sure we didn’t get till Kai last time, but were I imagine always part of the Question Arc in the VN.

Assault Lily Bouquet episode 5 was very fun.  This show is a throwback to the old Catholic School set Yuri genre but with modern Action Anime tropes thrown in.

Million Lives Isekai episode 4 was alright.  The continent they’re on looks like Australia.  Glasses called herself a Magi-cal girl which made me realize something about how that term is mapped onto the lip flap of Mahou Shoujo.

Wandering Witch has a Dub starting, I thought the Dubs would have been done starting a few weeks ago.  If I give this show a second chance for the Dub it won’t be till the Dub has gotten past what I already saw subbed.  So for now I have no comments on it.

Yashahime episode 5 was alright.

The Day I Became A God episode 4 was hilarious.

TONIKAWA episode 3 was pretty fun at first, but the absurdity of that Three’s Company esque misunderstanding at the end was a little much.

Warlords of Sigrdrifa episode 4 was a beach episode.  I don’t like beach episodes, they’re rough, coarse, irritating and they get everywhere.

Well I think I have an idea of where Alicization is going next.

Talentless Nana episode 10 was okay.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Frau Bow from Robotics;Notes

 I want to make a post on why I think the character of Kona Furugoori is unique and interesting.

There are generally two types of female Otaku who pop up in Anime.  There are the ones based on Japanese culture's actual stereotypes about Fugoshi or women that are into the Anime and Visual Novels at women.  And then more commonly there are the ones that are basically a stereotypical male Otaku inhabiting a Cute Girl's body usually with the idea of treating that as a humorous absurdity.

In Lucky Star for example the former is represented by Hiyori Tamura while the latter is represented firstly by Konata but also every other Otaku who shows up in the Anime at least with Patty specifically being the Weeb.

Frau in Robotics;Notes however seems to be a genuine mixing of these traits in a way you don't see very often.  She's into Yaoi/BL but also into devoting herself to a 2D Waifu.  

She also falls in love with the male MC and is actually the first girl to get anywhere with him which was enlightening in how surprising it felt, in fiction female Nerds actually have less luck at love then male Nerds which is the opposite of how most people think the real world works.

She also has her own plotlines related to being a Game Designer and trying to find out what happened to her mother.

Honorifics rant and more Fall Anime 2020

 HigurashiGao episode 9 is indeed introducing another Teppei timeline. 

The classic Higurashi Dub was perfectly willing to say Sama when referring to OyashiroSama, but the Gou Dub we now know from episode 3 is instead saying Lord Oyashiro.  That is a regressive change antithetical to the direction I want Dubs to go in.  On the other hand I do prefer Demoned-Away to the more cumbersome “spirited away by the Demon”.  But the Sama change is going to have an ultimately bigger impact, this doesn’t bode well, are they also gonna chicken out of saying Nii Nii?

For me this kind of breaks my ability to enjoy this Dub.  I want Honorifics to be just left untranslated in general, but some are more important than others.  And Sama when used as the epithet of a deity is perhaps the most important, because yes we do use the English Lord in that way, but kind of only for Jesus and/or Yahweh, you don’t see a lot of “Lord Zeus” in Greek mythology films.  And there’s also the fact that Sama is gender neutral while Lord is not, when Subs translate Sama being used for a female it’s usually Lady or Mistress.  The Gender Ambiguity of Oyashiro is actually quite important.

And thing is I wasn’t even prepared for this to be an issue after the more than a decade old Dub knew to get this right.  Is the old Dub so irrationally hated that Funimation thinks they have to do everything different just for the sake of being different?  The Yuki Yuna Is A Hero dub also understood this.  Is this a general difference between LA Dubs and Texas Dubs?

I decided to give Our Last Crusade or The Rise of the New World another shot, I finished episode 4 and watched episode 5.  They were good but I wonder if this time they tried to do a whole Light Novel in only 2 episodes.

Episode 3 of that Million Lives Isekai was not what I expected, there were some interesting developments.

Assault Lily Bouquet episode 4.  Yuyu seems very different now that we’re actually getting inside her head.  YuRI as their in universe ship name is hilarious.  There was a genuine Spit Take, I always think of Garfield and Friends when I think of Spit Takes.  This show is shaping up to be quite fun.

Yashahime episode 4 was pretty enjoyable as well.  I am perhaps more confused than Inyuasha fans would be but that’s fine.

I just watched Talentless Nana episode 9.  The problem with comparing this show to Death Note is it has so many unforeseeable variables being thrown at Nana right from the start.  People sometimes complain about how much Misa was an unfair disadvantage thrown at Light but that was still over a Cour into the show, L had already gotten onto Light’s trail solely because of Light’s own mistakes made because of his hubris, she was introduced exactly when the show needed a Wild Card to spice things up.  Nana seems to have had the deck stacked against her from the start.

I was not able to complete By The Grace of The Gods episode 4, it was always the least compelling show I was watching this season, and now it’s officially gotten boring.  So it is now Dropped.

Zelda Age of Calanime

I still haven't played any truly recent Video Games, but I now know the main plot of what happens in Age of Calamity and I like it.

The mainline 3D Zelda games tend to have fairly Sad or Bitter Sweet endings, Link defeats the bad guy and saves the world but not all the tragedy can be erased.  A lot of Zelda fans like this, it doesn't break any of them for me by any means, it makes Zelda comparable to LOTR in a way most Japanese works of High Fantasy aren't.  Skyward Sword is the one that's kinda going overboard with it, Link has to say goodbye to Fi and then Zelda has to say goodbye to Impa TWICE.

A Link to The Past however had an unconditionally happy ending, Link uses his wish to bring back every non evil person who had died.  And that's what I prefer, doubly so for this medium where the ending is supposed to feel like something I earned after putting in all that work.

Age of Calamity is how it is partly because of technically being a Hyrule Warriors game, but the first Hyrule Warriors has this in how Lana at least is sad about what happens to Cia.

Age of Calamity plays out kind of like a Visual Novel based Anime, it's about fighting against Fate to undo a bad ending.  That makes a satisfying Gaming experience in my book.

Visual Novels and their Adaptations

I'm not the only person who's liked a number of Anime adapted from Visual Novels even though I've never played/read a single one of them.

However unlike many others in that situation I am interested in them.  I respect them as an artform, my inability to consume them directly is if anything a result of my own laziness (though my ADD is probably also a factor) and not at all an indictment of the medium.  I've been trying to understand their history more, a YouTube channel named Bowl of Lentils has a couple videos I recently watched on the subject I recommend.  I also made a blog post where I advocated for Visual Novels by comparing them to The Stage.

Thing is being a fan of Anime adapted from Visual Novels can actually lead to conflict with Visual Novel fans, because inevitably they will have criticisms of those Anime that an Anime only viewer is less likely to care about as much if at all.

That problem exists with all Adaptions of course, but it's more pervasive in certain contexts then others.  No one cares that Jurassic Park isn't like the book, I would argue the moral of the story is different in Spielberg's Version and still no one cares, in fact much of what people hate about Jurassic Park sequels happens to be things they are bringing back from the original book.  But Peter Jackson adds stuff to the Hobbit and everyone loses their mind.

Within the Anime community however while the Manga and Light Novel fans complain sometimes the memes about them are more just how they're ahead of us.  It's VN fans who almost seem like they resent the Anime versions even existing.  And frankly it might be because their medium doesn't get the respect it deserves, and in that area I'm on your side.

The big four Visual Novel based Anime are Clannad (and Clannad After Story), Higurashi When They Cry (plus it's second half Kai), Steins;Gate and the UFO Table Adaptations of Fate/Stay Night.  In all four cases the visual novels are important and influential within that medium while also those TV Anime adaptations are considered top tier Anime, probably the best of their genres.

Now I'm not gonna claim all four of those are equal in VN purest complaints.  Heck with Fate/ the complaint is almost more just that Anime fans aren't starting in the right place.  And apparently Steins;Gate is considered the Gold Standard among VN fans as an adaptation, but there's still cut content they miss.

Higurashi is the one that gets the most complaints.  It is almsot universally considered the best Horror Anime, and yet is also criticized as a completely garbage adaption by fans of it's source material, how does that happen?  Well the thing is the VN fans don't even like it being classified as horror, complaining that too much time is taken away from slice of life fun and character bonding moments in exchange for all that shocking horror.

Thing is Ryukishi07 said the initial mission statement of Higurashi was to create fear where VNs like Clannad were focused on sadness, so that artistic intent makes it by definition Horror, at least the Question Arcs.  So you kind of just have to accept that adaption to a more fully dramatized medium with less screen time and different rules is going to cut things.  No Dracula movie is even close to exactly like the book and some details still haven't shown up in any of the 20some films that have been made.

The complaints about the Higurashi Anime are mostly in the execution, even when they arguably do have more they could mention.  I've spent a lot of time now watching Higurahsi VN fans complain about the Anime but still never seen anyone mention that it has a Filler Arc that begins Kai, a scourge that normally only long running Manga Adaptations are supposed to face.  I of course am a defender of filler arcs, just see this Twitter thread or any time the Doom Tree Saga comes up.  And in this case an arc from Satako's POV about her noticing Rika's odd behavior was a fitting parenthesis between the semi Answer arcs and full answer arcs.

I of course am someone who likes more then just what's nearly universally praised, I'm notorious for liking things that don't get good IMDB scores.  And when it comes to Visual Novel based Anime the ones you're supposed to consider good Anime aren't the only ones I enjoy.  Plenty that get labeled bad both as adaptations and as stand alone Anime I will unapologetically say I like, and I've also seen some rarely talked about at all.  

However I do not put all of those in the same category.  Tsukihime, Deen/Stay Night and Umineko are shows that I understand why they aren't considered Masterpieces and would generally not want to be anyone's first impression of Anime unless I had really good reasons for thinking they'd be to that person's interest.

Robotics;Notes is currently the most recent Anime I've completed.  It's generally considered okay rather then Bad but I personally think it is equal to Steins;Gate maybe even better in some areas.  I talked about it more on the SFDebris forum.

It's technically in the same universe as Steins;Gate, called the Science Adventure or SciADV series.  One generally considered bad VN Adaptation that I did indeed fail to get into is another from this series, Chaso;Head.  However I don't think my issues with that Anime have much to do with why VN fans don't like it as an adaptation, rather I think they'd be the same for an Anime equally as well executed as those two shows.

Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes are pretty clearly based on a specific SciFi premise, one that is common in SciFi but adding their unique Otaku approach to it.  Chaso;Head however doesn't have as clear of a focus, and for that reason I as a viewer couldn't figure out what to latch onto.  There are some other Anime from this series I haven't tried yet, one could prove relevant to another subject I want to talk about (a subject Umineko would also be relevant to).

Then there is YU-NO an Anime I've talked about a few times already, but only me it seems, I don't know what fans of that VN think of the 2019 Anime because none of them make YouTube videos.  It's source material is one of the first VNs with a truly Epic and Ambitious story to it, it was influential yet the West never got the memo on it.

Anime 2020 autumn continues

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Since Talentless Nana seems like it’s not gonna get a Simuldub I decided to binge the first 7 episodes.  It’s pretty good. 

I was not able to finish the 4th episode of Our Last Crusade or The Rise of A New World, this was one of those shows that was only entertaining to me as it set up its premise.

HigurashiGou episode 8 was not what I expected at all.

That MillionLives Isekai had an entertaining second episode.

Episode 3 of Yashahime was fun.  For some reason it has a lot of music that keeps reminding me of Zelda music.

The latest episode of Alicization was jam packed with stuff.  I feel this show is better binged, when I watch it one episode at a time I never feel like I got a complete episode.  I’m also annoyed at two straight episodes with not Suguha after the season premier gave her a big entrance.

The Day I Became a God episode 3 was quite fun, I can begin to see it’s connection to Angel Beats, I’ve still never watched Charlotte.

Warlords of Sigrdrifa episode 3 was pretty good.  In this episode what the Valkyries actually were in Norse Mythology is made relevant, something not usually acknowledged in all this modern Nerd fiction that treats them as Germanic Amazons.

Episode 8 of Talentless Nana was quite tense.  This show gets compared to Death Note a lot, I’d say it’s inferior overall but inherently lacks what some people’s main problem with Death Note was.

I have a feeling I won’t have much to say about By The Grace of The Gods so I’ll post this before it goes up.  There’s a chance I’ll be dropping it soon anyway.

Anime 2020 progresses

I’m unsure whether or not even it’s Dub counts as 2020 but I saw Weathering With You on the morning of the 9th and it was pretty good.

Well Our Last Crusade or The Rise of A New World episode 3 suddenly does something I usually wouldn’t expect a show to do till the last three episodes of a season.  It’s bold but then weirdly resolved as quickly as it happened.  Since it’s a Light Novel adaptation it makes we wonder if they decided to rush to the climax of the first book, something that usually takes 4-6 episodes.

HigurashiGou episode 7 was interesting.  From now on I’m gonna try to avoid saying anything Spoilery about Higurashi in these posts.  With episode 2 of the Gou Dub I’m already getting more used to the new voices.  But there are still some things I won’t be able to have full opinions on for a while.

I’m Standing on 1,000,000 Lives or I’m Standing on a Million Lives had an interesting pilot.

Assault Lily Bouquet episode 3 was Gay, really really Gay.

Well I have finally gotten to finish Railgun T and it was pretty awesome, Raildex has quickly become one of my favorite franchises.  I’m gonna rewatch all the Dreamranker episodes sometime soon.

The second episode of Yashahime should have been the first, it takes place before the framing device of the pilot and is a much better introduction to this world for new fans.

The 11/14 Toonami episode of SAO Alicization jumped around a bit but had some good stuff.  And it seems like the other Dubs I was expecting for Saturday and Sunday inexplicably took this weekend off.

I’m currently following 8 Fall 2020 Simuldubs plus SAO on Toonami.  Been awhile since I had that many at once.  Statistically when I have I wound not watching all of them to completion.  But either way it looks like I’ll have some fun to enjoy for the remainder of the year.

The Anime 2020 Tag will probably still be added to in 2021 as I finish shows that started in 2020 and maybe also comment on some movies I couldn’t get to sooner.  In the meantime I’m working on another idea for my next year long Anime watching project.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Update: it turns out Warlords of Sigdrifa episode 2 did become available today after all.  If the other two shows drop in the next Day or so I'll add another update.

The second episode was pretty good, make sure you don't skip the post credit scene.  I'm always amused when an Anime has the MC be a Gaijin reacting to Japanese characters.  It gives us an idea of how Japanese Otaku want to be perceived by the rest of the world.

By The Grace of The Gods episode 3 was okay, but I have a feeling this may be the first show I get bored of.

When exactly does the Child Timeline start?

Hyrule Historia made the split timeline official, but there is still one aspect of of it that is unclear and that's how much of the Child portion of OoT still happened?

Most Zelda theorizing videos on YT seem to be operating under the assumption that on the Child Timeline none of the actual events of OoT still happened besides in Link's memories.  But I find that unlikely for a few reasons.

1. The Great Deku Tree still died, since I think it's unlikely he's simply off camera in Twilight Princess.  That should have been prevented if Link was sent back far enough to undo all of the problems Ganondorf caused.

2. Link having Epona in Majora's Mask.  A common assumption seems to be that Link's relationship with Malon had to start over from scratch, that he just shows up at the Ranch as a stranger going "you don't remember me but we had a thing in the future so can I borrow your favorite Horse?".  I really think everything up to Link first being taught Epona's song must've still happened.

3. I've also seen a common sentiment that Ganondorf's imprisonment and attempted execution in the Twilight Princess flashbacks is some Minority Report type situation where he's being punished for what he could have done but didn't actually get to.  But I really don't think that much moral ambiguity is the intent of the scene.

4. And Skull Kid remembers Link teaching him Saria's song in the Lost Woods.

Clearly a lot of Zelda fans like the pathos of Link being in a situation where no one he helped remembers him at all, especially to explain the mood of how Majora's Mask opens.  But the opening of Majora's Mask explicitly tells us this is about him missing Navi, that's the only angst necessary to explain it.

There is a recent fanmade animated project on YouTube that depicts Link as being sent back to exactly when he first pulled the Master Sword.  There is a lot of logic to that mechanically, that's when Time started being messed with so that should be the furthest you can reset it to, and if Link went back any further he'd be stuck inside a locked Room of Time.

The problem with that theory however is the ending scenes of OoT seem to show Link going right to the place he first met Zelda when her and Impa should have fled the Castle by that point.  But I suppose there are ways around that.  

And that initial opening of the Door of Time still happening perhaps best explains why the Triforce pieces still splits up.

Fall 2020 Anime Dubs finally start rolling out

The Day I Became A God had a very entertaining pilot, I’m certainly gonna keep watching it.

By The Grace of The Gods also had a decent pilot, it has my attention for now.

Our Last Crusade of The Rise of A New World episode 2 was also good.  I’m annoyed at this show getting called a “Romeo and Juliet with magic” or something along those lines.  I get that it’s common to make that analogy for any romance between people on opposing sides plot, but sometimes it’s worded as if it’s as similar as West Side Story was and this one is not.  But in the context of Anime we have shows named after Romeo and Juliet that are just as different from The Bard’s version as this is.

If it’s going to be compared to something based on a very basic premise I’d prefer the Bright comparison I made last week.  But I suppose that too can be viewed as arbitrary, I suppose there are technically other Anime I’ve seen that have as much in common with that premise and I really can’t explain why this is the one making my mind go there, it simply is.

HigurashiGou episode 6 was enjoyable.  I guess Takano does Shaft Head Tilts now.

A Dub for Gou with a new Cast has been announced.  I’ll give it a shot but I’m someone who actually is a fan of the old Dub cast.  If this new cast does turn out to be good then they need to Dub all of it with them, because Gou should NOT be anyone's entry point to this franchise. 

Well I watched the Dub of the first episode of HigurashiGou, besides the after credit scene this is pretty much the same as the old pilot so it’s the most direct comparison.  The new Dub cast will definitely take getting used to, but I don’t want to be unfair.  I feel my brain is criticizing things it probably wouldn't if I weren’t comparing it to a prior Dub I’m kind of attached to.  The only thing I feel close to being able to say maybe doesn’t work right are those moments where the camera zooms in on Rena or Mion’s mouth to imply they’re hiding something.

Of the three characters I particularly praise the old Dub’s VAs for only one is in this pilot and that would be RIka Furude.  Yu Apphia is an actress I’m a fan of from other stuff, she’s one of the handful I follow on twitter.  But those are very different kinds of roles mostly, her roles in Wixoss for example are characters who are “normal” by Anime standards, and some are fairly Kuudere.  

I suppose some people feel the opposite of me about Rebecca Forstadt’s Rika.  Part of the problem is since they only did season 1 she only has a select few moments to do her Dark Rika voice but for me it was enough to show she had this dual voice character down.  I also know some people give certain Dub Voice Actresses crap for being technically too old for a character even though Japan does the same thing.  Rebecca is the oldest actress to voice Rika but all of them were adults and Rika is mentally older than her physical age, and Moe voices are not meant to sound like authentic children.  Yu is probably the youngest actress who’s voiced the character but Rebecca’s Moe voice definitely sounds better.  We still haven’t gotten to hear Yu’s Dark Rika yet however.

Assault Lily Bouquet episode 2’s title is a direct reference to the Song of Songs chapter 2 verse 1.  This show is truly going all in on it’s Yuri tropes, it’s basically Strawberry Panic with an action show premise.

I also watched the first episode of Yashahime now that it’s Dub has dropped.  As I said before I want to be the one person watching and publicly commenting on this show with the perspective of having not already seen Inuyasha.  In that context how much of this first episode focused on the old show’s cast rather than the new one was not what I was hoping for, though it also reminded me of This Year’s Girl being the first episode of Buffy I watched which was not a bad experience.  

Still I feel the general best route for a next generation sequel is to focus the pilot on introducing the new characters and then get us up to speed on the in-between history and the original cast later, that’s the approach I feel generally best works for both potential newcomers and the older fans.  That way the start can work as a stand alone pilot while also making the returning fans wonder what happened.  Then when the reveals do come, for the new fans it can be the same as any other worldbuilding or backstory exposition you’d get in Fantasy stories that aren’t sequels.

The Day I Became A God episode 2 was amusing, it seems in Japan people still remember the 1998 film Armageddon.

The pilot of Warlords of Sigridrifa was interesting. It looks like Odin is popular this season.  Also I suspect there was a Doctor Strangelove homage at the beginning.

Well at 11:30 Central on Saturday November 7th 2020  the last sub-season of Sword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld started airing on Toonami. SAO is a uniquely difficult show for me to even comment on, so I may not even bother including in future Anime 2020 posts.

At any rate this episode brings Sinon and Suguha into the action and they are my favorites.  I don’t get why so many Anime refer to Human Pigs as Orcs?  To me Humanoid Pigs as armies serving a dark lord are Moblins from Zelda first and foremost, but that term I assume only Nintendo is allowed to use.

By The Grace of The Gods episode 2 was pretty fun.

Zelda Manga follow up post

I decided one of my projects for Zelda Month 2020 should be a follow up on talking about Zelda Manga.  But also make sure you check out the Zelda post I made in October.

To be slightly more critical than I was last year, The Adventure of Link Mangas suffer from a desire to give the story proper villains.  I guess some people assume the particular villain less nature of AoL can only work for a Video Game.  But this genre has plenty of truly no villain stories like the third Pokemon movie or Frozen II or….  Ya know Voyage of the Dawn Treader is a pretty good comparison, on my most recent rewatch of the 2010 film I found myself more able to enjoy it.  But still it’s issues mostly stem from the movie wanting to give the story a villain, and it seems like adaptations of the second Zelda game fall into a similar trap.

Another thing AoL Mangas do is give the first game’s Zelda a role in the story, that I don’t consider a problem however, I’m all for Video Game adaptations giving the MC a party of sorts to interact with like the Pokemon Anime has always done.  And the weird Dynamic of having two Zelda at once by the end is worth exploring.

I now own a box set of most of the Akira Himekawa manga, I’m not sure I ever will read all of them, but I’ve started with A Link to The Past, I always knew I probably would like it, but it is different than I expected.  The Dark World bosses are all given a backstory as transformed normal people that kind of gives this whole version of ALttP’s story a Magical Girl vibe.  And Ganti is an even better character than I expected, they have me now shipping a Threesome between this Zelda, Link and Ganti.  They also draw Link as such a Bishi Anime Boy in this, I think this Manga may be an overlooked step in how Link became so popular with the Gay community.

They made some similar adaptational choices to the Nintendo Power ALttP Comic, like Link’s Dark World beast form being a Wolf rather than a Rabbit (which would also become Game canon in Twilight Princess) and the Silver Arrow coming from it’s main OC rather than the cursed fairy.  It’s also interesting to look at this particular ALttP Manga remembering it wasn't made till 2005, there is a glimpse of Gerudo Ganondorf.  But it does also draw directly on the classic Instruction Manual and really doesn’t change anything to conform to OoT's retcons.

There is one more comment I want to make about the Nintendo Power ALttP Manga.  In the game when you go to the Dark World counterpart of Sahasralah’s hut you find this shrubby looking thing that provides some interesting exposition.  You don’t need to do this to beat the game, but it’s a detail that sticks in my memory.  It’s something I would not fault an adaptation leaving out as indeed I don’t fault Himekawa for not including it, but I do love how Shoutarou Ishinomori incorporated it.

I think ALttP is by nature the best to make an interesting adaptation of, it has enough story that you don't have to constantly invent things to keep it interesting, but still enough blanks to allow writers to express their creative freedom.  And as long as the art style uses the classic instruction manual as the starting point it’ll always have my favorite kind of Zelda Aesthetic.

I decided the next Himekawa Manga to read should be Four Swords, and I’m having trouble getting into it.  It’s perfectly competent and I can easily see some fans liking it the best of them, and I do love the meta knowledge that they decided what personalities to give the four Links from watching them AI controlled in SSB Melee.  But this story is simply not to my tastes as well as their ALttP is.

I had thought the other ALttP Manga didn’t even have a fan translation I could read, but it turns out if you know where to look the Ataru Cagiva Manga does have one.  

This is the longest version and for that reason ought to be the most fleshed out.  It unlike the others changes the start of Link’s adventure so it’s no longer in response to a telepathic message from Zelda.  I like the little things the early games do to give Zelda agency, even in the 1985 original she has a certain agency that Princess Toadstool didn’t in that the player character's mission is carrinyg out a plan she laid.  And in this game while there is a lot of backstory to parse, both distant and recent past, the Game proper begins because of Link’s (and his Uncle's) reaction to Zelda’s actions.

It looks like this one has also removed Sahasrahla.  And instead of Ganti or Roam we get a Shonen style rival character.  Nonetheless it has its own strengths and is worth reading.

Interestingly there is one thing that makes the Game of A Link To The Past more like what I look to Anime for then any of the Manga versions, and that’s how at the end Link’s wish when he touches The Triforce brings back everyone who died.  These adaptations are afraid to do that, and instead make the endings more bittersweet, something the Games would start doing more and more with Ocarina of Time.

I do want to comment on the Yuu Mishouzaki Manga again.  It’s by far the most unlike the Zelda we’re used to even among other Manga that had only the NES games to work with.  But it’s interesting seeing such a radically different take.  It ought to be interesting to those Tolkien fans who wish Tolkien had more Human-Elf pairing that went the other way gender wise.  I love how the titular Zelda of this Manga knows about her mother’s affair with someone who wasn’t her father and is totally okay with it.

With Sailor Moon I talked once about how the Manga is kind of driven by a fantasy of a girl having it both ways, being a powerful heroine and a princess reduced by a Knight in shining armor at the same time.  Well, this particular Zelda Manga I think was trying the same thing.  Zelda is so powerful and bad@$$ at the beginning, but then talks at the end about how she was dreaming of Link rescuing her.  It’s an interesting duality that so far, I’ve only seen Japanese media pull off in this way.

I then decided to start the Himekawa Oracle of Seasons Manga (it’s placement in the Box Set has me assuming it’s meant to precede Ages).  Even though I’ve never played the Oracle Games I’ve always felt like they are the only post OoT games to recapture the vibe of the pre OoT games.  And that’s why I think I might enjoy their Manga.

They give this Link an origin story I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have in the games.  And as a Shadowmen nerd I can’t get over how much this first chapter reminds me of the beginning of The Three Musketeers with Link as D'artagnan.  Upon finishing it they definitely left a lot of stuff out, I know little about the Game but I do know it’s the 8-bit debut of Malon who wasn’t in this Manga.  It was pretty enjoyable.

If I decide I have more thoughts on Zelda Manga to share within the next month or so I’ll edit this post adding them here.  In the meantime I may have other Zelda topics to discuss for Zelda month.

Halloween 2020 Anime

Today is Halloween which is also my Birthday.  

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

So HigurashiGou episode 5 is beginning an arc that should be another take on the timeline that focuses on Shion, I’m unsure what to expect.  In a sense the way the first arc ended isn’t that unprecedented, the one who goes nuts is still one of the three who were already susceptible to that happening.  The main curveball is what happened to Rika and Satoko.  But since this premise is us knowing Rika’s role from the start, why aren’t we seeing her reaction to that yet?

There is a chance I’ll put Gou on hold after finishing this arc, in some ways this kind of show is one I prefer to binge.  In general I may wind up making less Anime2020 posts in November then I did in October.

I enjoyed the pilot of Our Last Crusade Or The Rise of A New World, I’d watched Lidnsay Ellis’ video on Bright and was thinking of that, this show has the potential to be a better execution of Bright’s core gimmick, a High Fantasy World that has advanced to the modern era, but with far less lazy world building.

I know some will consider the World Building Exposition at the beginning lazy, but I really don’t care how “organically” that is handled, just tell what I need to know to start following the story at hand.

I also gave the Pilot of Assault Lily Bouquet another shot now that it’s Dub is out and indeed it was much easier to follow.  

So as soon as Riri explained her flashback I assumed the pale haired Lily is now deceased, and the scene of her and Yuyu at the end only further convinced me of that, that’s clearly Yuyu imagining her.

The Dub of episode 24 of Railgun T took very slightly more than 2 weeks, but I’d already gotten used to that being a possibility.  It was pretty good too.

I now have the Batman Death in The Family BluRay.

I first did exactly one route, I was trying to get the happiest ending possible so those who already know everything can probably guess what ending that led me to.  

My plan was to do one route at a time, but I honestly don’t feel like I even got a full movie experience out of only one route and that isn’t good, the total runtime of all the routes is 3 hours, so I felt each route should have no trouble being as satisfying as one standard 70 minute movie.  

There are a total of 7 endings the opening said, but I have a sneaking suspicion everything after the first choice I made leads to the same outcome.

Then I watched the rest of it and found one of my initial assumptions was the opposite of correct.

It was a pretty fun experience, the closest thing I've done so far to playing a Visual Novel.  If you liked the Under The Red Hood animated movie from 2010 you'll probably enjoy this as a companion piece.  But I'm not sure it's worth the full price, maybe wait to you cna get it used for a little cheaper.

Anime 2020 creeps along

 Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Episode 23 of Railgun T was great, I love in a genre like this when the story is being told from the POV of a supporting character temporarily.  And I considered it a pleasant surprise that our quirky group of antiheroes actually came out of it with a win.

Episode 4 of Higurashi Gou was unpredictably predictable.

I’ve decided to drop Majo no Tabitabi.  I think the show is fairly decent for anyone into it’s central premise, but I’m really not right now.

I'll try to have more to say in the next update.

Zelda Timeline speculation that is now long outdated

I know I'm making this Zelda post a little early, if I wind up blowing my Zelda load before November I'll just make sure to give this post additional promotion.  I simply have too much Zelda on the brain right now to post about anything else.

I'm one of those people who hated the Split timeline theory before Hyrule Historia made it official, and kind of still do.  My relationship to Timeline theorizing was always complicated however, as on some level I prefer seeing each Game as it's own universe.  None the less I'm the kind of person who also just can't resist getting into that kind of speculation, and the fully 3D games at least were definitely implying a shared universe.

I am still convinced to this day that the split timeline was not at all what anyone was thinking when they wrote Wind Waker and Twilight Princess.  The fact that in TP of all the sages they had Ganondorf kill the Water Sage was clearly meant to foreshadow things going wrong with that element in the future.  

There was always this notion that single timeline was simply "everything is the child timeline" and so they'd make arguments like "how does Adventure of Link have cities named after the OoT Sages if they were never awoken?"

1. Each of them was already at least an important person to their tribe.

2. The Sages clearly exist in TP with the same elemental symbols, so clearly they transcend timelines in some capacity.

3. And it turns out AoL is on the not at all anticipated Downfall timeline where there is no logical reason to celebrate anything the OoT characters did.  So in hindsight that argument for the split meant nothing.

I always viewed the end of OoT as the same as the perfect ending of Majora's Mask where the Goddess of Time somehow creates a timeline where Link did all of the Mask missions even though that's not actually possible.  Link gets to have his Childhood but the Sages are still Sages and Ganon was still captured.

Breath of the Wild has confirmed that TP's Ganondorf wasn't permanently killed regardless so that argument isn't valid anymore.  If I'd seen Infinity War at the time I would have made a certain reference to compare the finishing blows of WW and TP.

Another theory I always advocated before Skyward Sword retconned why Hyrule always has a Zelda was that the Sleeping Zelda of AoL was the same Zelda as OoT Zelda.  She was supposed to be the first Princess named Zelda, but her father also ruled a recently united Hyrule and in OoT Hyrule was unified at the time it's Link and Zelda were born. Her brother is missing from OoT but we never see the King either, or the Shiekah as a tribe, a lot of stuff was somehow off screen there.

A Link To The Past however remains the major problem for creating a timeline.  

Ocarina of Time was definitely made to be a prequel originally, but it was also retconning like crazy.  The real reason the Downfall timeline was needed was because that's the only way to have a Ganon with the full Triforce.  That plot hole clearly didn't concern them at the time however.

I don't mind OoT making the Sages all come from different tribes since that alleviates a certain problem this Genre often suffers from.  But it is still a retcon, in ALttP there is no ambiguity that all Seven "Wise Men" were all Hylian.  It was also heavily implied that no one before this Link ever wielded The Master Sword.

I have a lot of Nostalgia for ALttP, it is roughly tied with my Mom reading The Hobbit to me as my introduction to High Fantasy.  The game may have always been promoted as a hypothetical prequel to the NES games, but it was clearly written as a remake of the original, all of it's core elements now more fleshed out.  

And so I still prefer to envision all of the backstory that game and it's instruction manual gave us as I did when there wasn't a Zelda 64 yet, as taking place on those maps and in that art style.  And with the reason for Mandrag Ganon being a humanoid Boar being simply that that is the Darkworld form of Ganondorf Dragmire.  And that he was just the leader of a gang of thieves that were like the thieves you encounter in that game, none of this only male Gerudo or reincarnation of (basically Morgoth)'s Malice stuff.

I suppose that's how certain Star Wars fans feel, they had their own vision for what Episodes 1-III should have been that they were attached to.  But I'm not a hypocrite because I'm not offended by the existence of Zelda Prequels, I don't think they actually work as Prequels as well as the Star Wars Prequels do, but I still like each of them as their own story, as their own take on the basics of what Zelda is.  My ablity to imagine something different isn't taken away.

Maybe ALttP as the start of it's own timeline but also a prequel to the NES games can also work.  Maybe Sleeping Zelda is that Zelda and the Triforce pieces were separated after Link entrusted it to the Royal family and then left.  That still gives Zelda an offscreen brother, and makes him trusting a shady wizard even weirder after the whole Agahnim fiasco, but never underestimate the selfishness of a spoiled rich kid.

When I first played the game I actually didn't know that the Golden Sword was just another upgrade of the Master Sword.  What the Cursed Fairy said (at least how the SNES localization translated it) made it sound like a completely new sword, and the official artwork made it look like more then just the color of the blade had changed.  I also because of a friend I think used to believe it was called the Magical Sword, same as the final sword in the original.

October 2020 Anime Midway Point

 Well, I was not expecting episode 22 of Railgun T’s dub to show up as quickly as it did.  The Dreamranker ark is proving to work as a pretty fun epilogue to the season’s main feature.

Episode 2 of Mago no Tabitabi was enjoyable.

HigurashiGou episode 3 was fine.  One of the things I like to see in this new series of timelines is an arc where we get Mion’s POV.  We were denied her POV originally since she was a constant red herring, the Melissa Hastings to make a reference PLL fans would get.  I’d like to learn why she felt the need to act the way she did at the end of “Oni’s bloodline” and the beginning of “Revenge” in the Eye Opening Chapter.  And I would enjoy getting confirmation of what I now think happened in Curse Killing.

With episode 3 of Majo no Tabitabi I realized that this is basically Kino’s Journey but with Magick.  I have one criticism of the Sub I watched, translating “Majo-San” as “Miss Witch” really doesn’t look right (and it certainly wouldn't sound right in a Dub).  “Miss Witch” reads in English like something you'd say derogatorily or at least condescendingly, which I know is not the intent of the Japanese.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html

Anime 2020 and Witches

 I gave the pilot of Majo no Tabitabi a watch since that also fits October, it was pretty good.  Reminded me that I really should get to finishing Little Witch Academia. It’s good but Anime Harry Potter has limited appeal to me since I never liked Harry Potter.

In Praise of Shadows did a series on Witches in fiction and their relationship to the real legacy of the Witch Trials.  The only Anime covered were Belladonna of Sadness and Kiki’s Delivery service.  It really does feel to me like a study of that genre is incomplete without including Revolutionary Girl Utena or Puella Magi Madoka Magica.  

Of course he also in general wasn’t covering TV shows or else he’d no doubt included Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Charmed, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (at least the Gingerbread episode), Wizards of Waverly Place and maybe even The Secret Circle which I consider an enjoyable mess.  Of course The Secret Circle was loosely based on a series of books from the 90s which he didn’t cover in the novels episode, I haven’t read them but I have The Vampire Diaries from the same author and they are very good.

Burn the Witch is another 2020 Anime project using traditional Witch imagery I should maybe look at.  The only Pretty Cure series that is explicitly Witch centric enough to be worth mentioning here is the 2016 series Mahoutsukai aka Maho Girls Precure!

Episode 21 of Railgun T was pretty good, the actual storyline of the Dreamranker arc is kicking into gear.

Assault Lily moves too fast for me to watch Subbed.

Burn The Witch wound up not being what I was expecting.

So episode 2 of the new Higurashi confirms we’re getting a new arc.  That’s good I don’t think I could watch this new artstyle for its own sake.  But it does have me suspecting that I might need to finally binge those OVAs to fully get what’s going on.

Follow my Anime viewing in real time at these links..

https://myanimelist.net/profile/JaredMithrandir

https://twitter.com/JaredMithrandir 

Also here is the introductory post for this series.

https://jaredmithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2020/01/anime-2020.html