End of the Year Anime Update

On Monday I watched the first episode of Eminence in Shadow on HIDIVE and today I did the same for Reincarnated as a Sword now that their Dubs are started, then I watched the 9th Detective Conan OVA putting my MAL Total Entries number to 1000 and my Completed list to 750.

Detective Conan has been a big part of my 2022 Anime experience, first diving in back in January, then going through another period where I focused largely on that show specifically.  I've now seen all the Theatrically released movies, a good chink of OVAs and Specials and more episodes of the show proper then I've bothered to keep track of.  A new episode should drop on News Eve making some Detective Conan part of how I'll end the year as well.

But I've also watched a lot of other stuff,  I completed Boochie The Rock last Saturday and returned Beast Tamer to my Currently Watching list.  

Other stuff I've watched since my last Updates post include all of Jobless Reincarnation and The Hidden Dungeon only I can Enter, all of Kaguya-Sama Love is War and what was left of Rent-A-Girlfriend, and also Love Live season 2.  Also the third Girls Un Panzer Das Finale went up on HIDIVE, I think I'd already seen the second Princess Principal Crown Handler movie.

Looking forward for 2023 I want to further do what I talked about in those posts I did on Early 2000s Anime.  2003 is arguably the last year of the early 2000s so next will be the year of the entirely of what can be described that way turning at least 20 years ago.  I'll look for stuff I haven't seen yet to finally watch, but also re-watch some of what I already like and try to watch more.  Noir and Witch Hunter Robin are both on Crunchyroll now, subbed and dubbed so that should make each of them more accessible.

That won't be all I'm doing though, I'll keep following what's currently airing, a few shows I already know are on the agenda.  And probably based on when I feel like it watching and re-watching stuff from other eras as well.

I think I'll spend what's left of this year trying to test more Isekai Re-watchability as I mentioned wanting to do in my last post.

I'm finally more motivated to try .hack/sign again then I ever was before but it's not legally streaming anyway.

Update: I went and watched Orbital Children on Netflix before the year was over as well, it was good.

Also I was wrong there isn't a new Detective Conan episode on New Years Eve, it's taking the week off.

Isekai ramblings

So this is for some Isekia related thoughts I've been wanting to document on this Blog but that I don't think any on their own could justify a whole post.

First is how historically I've come to feel like the Summer of 2017 was a key turning point in Isekai discourse, at least among English speaking Anime onlies.  Before then people being transported to another world may have already been observed as an increasingly popular plot device, but I think that Anime season with Smartphone and Restaurant was the beginning of it being spoken of as a Genre.

I'm pretty sure English speakers using the Japanese word Isekai at all was not as common before that season, like there were prior shows with that word in the title and so English speakers who liked to use the Japanese title would have been saying it in that context, (that word being in Japanese titles goes back to at least 2009 with War on Geminar), but I think that was mostly it.  When I look back on 2016 and early 2017 AniTube videos about Konosuba, Re:Zero, No Game No Life and Gate from people like YGG, Mother's Basement or Gigguk I don't think even they were using the word yet.

But maybe that's just my biased perspective from that being the season I became a fan of the genre principally via In Another Worl With My Smartphone.  I just did another rewatch of Smartphone which I mentioned on Mastadon and it still holds up.  Thing is while I see a lot of unique distinct value in that show it kind of is the first Anime to really tick off all the boxes of the current conception of a Generic Isekai.

I've been contemplating that it's about time I tried giving some rewatches to some of the other Isekai I've watched seasonally since and mostly liked at the time, see how their rewatch value holds up.  I just tried returning to Deathmarch to a Parralel World Rhapsody which I recall being the second Isekai I watched seasonally, and I wasn't into it but I kind of figured it would be the kind of show I wouldn't want to rewatch that much.

Shows I think might hold up better when I rewatch them include Isekai Cheat Magician, Make my Abilities Average (which I think I actually did already rewatch some of), Reincarnated as a Slime (season 1 at least, I kind of didn't like season 2), Highschool Prodigies, 8th Son, Spider-Chan, Million Lives Isekai, and In The Land of Leadale though that might be too recent still like the Lesbian Executioner one.  Some others might've slipped my mind.

Since these Isekai are supposed to be Fantasy settings with Medieval Western Europe principally England and France as the model, there are two common trends in these worlds I consider odd deviations from that model.  The presence of Chattel Slavery which during the real middle ages this specific region was just about the only place where that wasn't practiced.  And a tendency for the otherwise vaguely Aesthetically Catholic dominant Church to be seemingly Matriarchal with even the Pope analogue being a High Priestess.  I find it amusing how together both these details make these societies more like Ancient Athens then Medieval Europe.

I wonder if this is another carry over from Dragon Quest III?  For those who still don't know in Japan the Dragon Quest franchise actually tops even Final Fantasy as the most popular JRPG franchise, with Dragon Quest III specifically usually being the primary model for what "Generic JRPG" tropes are.  For example Dragon Quest II was the origin of Orcs being depicted as humanoid Pig/Boar creatures which I observed being a common thing across these shows in 2018 and 2019.  So Dragon Quest as a whole and III specifically is kind of the Ur Text for a lot about why the Fantasy Worlds we see in Isekai and other generic Fantasy Anime are the way they are.

But without playing the game myself the question of Slavery and Matriarchal Religious institutions are a more difficult world building question to simply google, they aren't simply in the Bestiary the way the Orcs are.  So It's something I'd have to ask people who've played them.

Sachi, Sword Art Online and Survivor's Guilt

The third episode of Sword Art Online is often considered a Christmas Episode because of it's last segment.

But what I like about it is it's depiction of Survivor's Guilt.  Survivor's Guilt is a fundamentally irrational phenomena where someone who survives something others did not feels guilty simply for surviving and latching onto anything to rationalize it.

But too often stories in fiction meant to address this do give the character in question a reasonable reason to blame themselves, usually nothing that would make them truly legally, ethically or morally culpable, but still some decision they made that if they decided differently could have made a difference.  Because modern standards for good writing are obsessed with things like "consequences" and "Cause and Effect" and trying to avoid getting a plot hole ding from CinemaSins.

What I like about this episode of SAO is that Kirto truly has no rational reason to blame himself, the thing he latches onto is the whole not telling them how high leveled he actually was, but what lead to their death was their acting rashly and overconfidently, knowing how OP Kirto actually was would have had the opposite effect.  

But as expected the SAO haters trying to give it the RLM treatment constantly do treat this as a pothole when it's in fact exactly what makes it a good depiction of Survivor's Guilt.  Yeah it does also serve the purpose of giving Kirto more reason to be a Brooding Loner while not undermining that he's the best at playing this game, but so what. 

SAO was never about IF Kirito is a good Gamer or not, it's about how this experience was Traumatizing regardless.

Gate is Fun and Problematic

Gate is an Anime adapted from Light Novels in 2015 and 2016 that aired as two 12 episode seasons but really feels more like one 24 episode season.  It's a show I enjoyed even though it's political messaging is very messed up.

Breadtube is constantly criticizing shows and movies with premises like this of not being critical of Colonialism and modern post WW2 Imperialism enough, they criticize stories trying to be critical of those things but falling short because they are starting from a Liberal rather then truly Leftist perspective.  Gate however is what it looks like when this kind of behavior is actually unapologetically lionized.

The story is written so that every intervention that takes place is justified.  But all those justifications are exactly what modern Democracy espousing Empires try to paint their interventions as being.

It's also such an idealized take on modern Soldiers in general, making clear to the audience that not a single one is partaking in this other world's native sex workers.  

There's a lot in this show that's good, lots of individual characters I like and some interesting world building, more interesting then most generic Isekai of the last decade.  And just look at this Screenshot.

I love the fact that I can show this to people and then explain how we know from earlier episodes that each of these Bas@$$ Lady Knights is a Fujoshi.

I think the Main Character of this show would have came off much better if they'd allowed him to be more like Captain Kirk.  What do I mean by that?  Once I watched a handful of episodes of the Original Star Trek with my Dad, and we observed how most of this set of episodes happened to follow a similar pattern where Kirk is unable to get a quick response from Starfleet so he has to make a decision to act in a way that could prove controversial, but then after things are resolved they finally get a response from Starfleet giving him permission to do what he already did.

Gate however keeps taking the opposite route, where our protagonist is basically given unofficial permission to go beyond the official limits of his orders in advance so the SDF can have the excuse they need to intervene further.  This approach besides just making the "good" side as a whole look a lot shadier then the writers intended also makes the MC less of a Maverick then they intended.

What really bugs me is the use of Rise of the Valkyries, I suspect that Zack Snyder's critics accuse him of in Watchmen not understanding the Irony in how Apocalypse Now used that song, but he absolutely did.  Gate however I don't think properly understood it, because I suspect a lot of people in Japan have only seen that movie through references to it in other movies and especially don't have the context for how it's a satire on Birth of a Nation's use of that song.

Update April 2023: Gate's Pilot and the 3 episode test.

Gate was a big part of YGG's How to Tell a Bad Anime from just one episode video, and even though that has little relevance to the original premise of this post I have thoughts on it and I don't want to make another post specifically about Gate.

The premise of the Gate part of the video is that Gate's pilot is bad and the rest of the show is still bad in the same ways and does nothing to retroactively fix anything.  However there is one reason to be bugged by the pilot that she actually failed to mention.

I did not realize our main character was already a trained SDF solider before all this happened, I thought we were supposed to believe he knew exactly what do during this Fantasy invasion because of what he learned playing Fantasy Games, and then got sorta drafted because of his actions in this battle.  But several episodes later it becomes clear he was already a solider.

Maybe it's my fault, maybe the shirt he's wearing which I didn't notice the first time was supposed to tell us that, but other characters he interacts with didn't pick up on that either.  And so much of YGG's criticisms of the Pilot are that it tells rather then shows or does both which she consider redundant (Goodfellas shows right after telling in the exact same way as these scenes she complains about all the time).  But for this piece of information the show does the opposite and only shows.  On some level maybe I was supposed to pick up on it because of the fact that he knows what to do, but this Genre of Anime absolutely would do what I assumed was going on so I was not inclined to consider that.  In both Anime and western media I'm frankly not used to Solider characters who aren't telling people they're Soldiers every chance they get.

A lot of YGG's criticism of the pilot is it's structural incoherence and that definitely becomes less of a problem.  Or at least to whatever extent it still is a there it's less of once one's actually gotten into it.

YGG is correct that it's mainly the Premise that often takes 3 episodes to figure out, or in Gate's case the premise wasn't unclear in the Pilot but a lot of the meat of how it will function takes time to clarify.  I'm however the opposite of YGG in that I'm more interested in watching a flawed show with a premise that interests me then a perfectly executed show with a premise that doesn't.

So she talked about how the only reason someone would like the rest of the show but not the pilot is if they're into it for a specific character who didn't show up yet, as if that's irrelevant.  And yes it is irrelevant to the actual quality of the writing or animation.  But that doesn't change the basic point that most of what's "Fun and Problematic" about Gate isn't in the Pilot yet and therefore you are potentially missing out if you dismiss it based on the Pilot alone.

I think YGG's least valid criticism is her simply hating that the SFD beats the mediaeval army so easily.  Yes that technically does play into my criticisms, but I do not inherently have a problem with stories where the Protagonists are not actually challenged by the Antagonists physically, I think there are interesting stories to tell with that premise and Gate does sometimes kind of tell some.  YGG mentions some old Japanese movie where a time isekaied SDF unit gets totally beaten by Sengoku era Samurai tactics.  But that's not better, that's just the other side of the same coin, one panders to people who want to believe Sengoku era Samurai are the most awesome warriors ever while Gate panders to people who want to believe the modern SDF are the most awesome warriors ever.

Willow, finally a good Live Action Western Fantasy show

First I should explain that I'm new to this franchise as a whole, I watched both the original 88 movie and the first three episodes of the new Disney+ show today.

The original Willow is a satisfying charming 80s Fantasy film.  What's neat about it is while a lot of the influence Tolkien has had on the Fantasy Genre has been through LOTR and later the Silmarilion, Willow feels like George Lucas's take on The Hobbit with a little Narnia inspiration as well.

The new show however has proven to endear me personally even more.  After the late summer and early fall of 2022 being largely HOTD and ROP discourse, this show came along and frankly blew both out of the water.  It also easily beats all the SW shows Disney gave us this year.

HOTD is fine, it's what I'd expect from a GOT prequel, but GOT type shows are of limited appeal to me.  ROP I enjoyed plenty of, but I also hate how much it basically felt like a post GOT fantasy show wearing LOTR cosplay.

I made two posts in the last two years about why Fantasy Anime has generally been more appealing to me then any Western Fantasy shows of the last decade, one on how they look and one on the kinds of stories they tell.  Willow is finally a Fantasy Show taking the right approach to both those issues.

And comparison to Fantasy Anime isn't the only reason to recommend the show to Anime fans, Kit has a very Bifauxnen appeal, and her being canonically Gay seems to be where they're going, so it's something Yuri fans may like as well.

I'll be following the show every Wednesday till it's done.

Spin-Off shows waiting for seaosn 2 to bring in older characters

This is a Stragey for Spin Off builindg that I've noticed the existence of recently in fairly recent stuff, maybe it always existed.

Some people don't like it, or they don't like the second half of it.

Obviously I feel like I have to start with The Mandalorian since that's the first time I noticed this approach being a thing, but it may not actually be chronologically first one this post covers.  I've come to hate talking about Star Wars in the current climate of the internet, but sometimes it's unavoidable.

The Mandalorian season 1 features no characters we already knew, not even minor characters, it's always featuring Star Wars stuff, but while introducing new characters and usually new locations.  Season 2 then has Mando meet characters from Clone Wars and even the Original Trilogy.

This approach works, if Mando was sharing screen time with older legacy characters right from the start their shadow could have made it difficult for him or the other new characters to make their mark.  But once they're established it's then cool to see these new characters we've come to like meet other characters we like.

But now I have to address what I said above.  There is a certain type of aggressively anti-fanservice fan among those who make YouTube Videos that liked the independence of season 1 and felt season 2's bringing in the older characters was chickening out on that.  And I feel like you're not really a Star Wars fan if you're so damn hostile to seeing Star Wars characters in a Star Wars show.  I'm a fan of Star Wars because it has characters I like, not vauge late 70s aesthetics.

Mando season 2 is still principally about Mando, none of the other characters detract from that but are  there to serve Mando and Grogu's story.  But JustWrite in his Andor video said season 2 was still good but it feels like the story was built around enabling all these cameos and crossovers.  And I say so what, every story is written to do what the writers want it to do, which may or may not also be what the fans want.

I have mixed feelings on Andor, I feel it is not remotely the bold and brave political manifesto so many shallow online leftists are pretending it is, but I did enjoy it more then I expected to, which is frankly at all.  However JustWrite's praise of the show's avoidance of Fan Service, even noting the lack of Aliens, I can't agree with.  Because for me that just makes this story feel like any other shallow YA Dystopia from the early 2010s barely even wearing Star Wars clothing.

I suspect Andor when it gets a season 2 will also follow this formula I'm talking about here.  Now it's technically not because it's main/title character is a prior established character, but Cassian Andor in Rogue One was such a bland blank slate generic cishet male hardened solider archetype that this show was effectively building a new character.  In a way it hurts Andor's status as a prequel to a prequel as I'm wondering where this personality is going to disappear to, but whatever.  Now that he's signed up to the Rebellion I predict season 2 will inevitably bring in more characters we've seen before, even if they're mostly characters from prior Disney Star Wars, both Solo and Obi-Won featured Proto Rebel groups who could play a role, and most of the cast of Rebels have Live Action actors now thanks to Ahsoka.  I hope Disney has the guts to bring back CGI Leia and Tarkin.

But it's time to finally move this discussion outside of Star Wars.

Disney had actually done this before with Milo Murphy's Law, in season 1 it's connections to Phineas and Ferb are just occasional in-jokes until the very end, then they do the big crossover and former P&F characters become a more regular presence in season 2.  And it worked out great, I'm still annoyed at the lack of a 3rd season.

I was in fact already noticing this about Mando years ago and back when Pennyworth only had 1 season I was hoping it'd do the same.  But it's a Batman prequel way to far in the past to really feature any more then who they did and where the show did wind up going is mostly fine, I feel it's underrated in fact, it's a better fictional depiction of Fascism then any Star Wars has ever been.

But I'm mostly a Weeb now and so the rest of this post shall be about Anime.

The principal Anime example of this approach is Lostorage incited Wixoss.   For the first 9 episodes I didn't even think it was actually in continuity with the original Mari Okada written Wixoss saga with it's very different rules and everything.  Episode 10 however establishes that one of the most minor notable characters in this show is also one of the most minor notable characters from Selector infected Wixoss.  But it's a subplot that doesn't really impact the resolution.

That show's second season Lostorage conflated Wixoss is then about bringing the Lostorage cast and the original cast together.  So I entered it very hyped and do like it over all, but I don't feel like I can praise it's execution of this approach as much.  Now the thing is in the rules of good writing people like JustWrite base their career on this season 2 crossover may well qualify as more "organic" then Mandalorian Season 2, but Organic vs Contrived is not a dichotomy that concerns me.

I first of all simply feel that basically doubling the cast of this show for season 2 kind of made it need more then just 12 episodes.  This is after all the first show where the rules for the new version of the Selector Battles aren't even partially set up in the first episode.

Now the character who was very minor in all previous shows becoming the Main Character for the Avenger Assembling is itself probably the best part of how they approached it, and this character being a Kuudere of sorts makes her very appealing to me personally.

But I also can't help but feel like I'd have preferred the only additional OG Wixoss character to be added was Akira Aoi.  Akira was the only major character of the original who's story felt incomplete, plus her specific history with the character serving as the glue connecting these stories fits perfectly.  But instead Conflated winds up effectively regressing her Spread development and using her mostly as a punching bag, very mean-spiritedly.  I like Akira and one of the things I like about Anime is it not being as Hostile by default to her personality type as western Nerd media often is. Conflated's opinion of Akira seems like what a western Nerd's would be, and it's shockingly not the only time Conflated does something that feels more western.

There is a plotline in the latter half where the villain manipulates the main protagonists of the prior shows into fighting each other, and it so annoyingly reminds me of how every DC or Marvel Superhero crossover has to feature them fighting each other for some dumb reason first.  And I know this probably isn't the only Anime to do this, it's maybe even in Anime I've watched before, but in a show that I'm thinking of as tangentially related to the Magical Girl Genre it feels wrong.  As a fan of both Batman and Superman I understand why those characters would sometimes come to blows, but as fan of these Anime protagonists and others like them I know them jumping into a fight without even trying to talk first is really out of character.  And the thing is this franchise has built in reasons for people who aren't enemies to still battle each other, they didn't need to do this trope to get this fan service, they chose to.

But I also feel Conflated should not have included Yuzuki if they were going to be afraid to even acknowledge the existence of Kazuki.  My personal headcannon for what happens after the end of Spread/Destructed is a Yuzuki/Kazuki/Hanayo threesome.  This show wants to neither confirm or contradict any shippers on that triangle to appease them while not grossing out whatever normie audience the show has.  But to me Yuzuki simply isn't Yuzuki if that is never on her mind.

Basically the difference between Conflated and Mando season 2 is that Mando didn't turn the entire Original Trilogy Cast into new main cast members.

There is actually a third Wixoss show now but I haven't watched it yet, I will probably give it a try eventually.

Another Anime that does this to a lesser extent is Magia Record.  The original Madoka cast have a handful of cameos in season 1, but season 2 is where they team up with the new cast, and then they're mostly out again for season 3.  Magia Record was fine but I'd already talked about why Madoka EU stories the way they tend to be handled have a limited appeal to me.

Update February 2023: Season two of House of the Dragon can't do this in terms of specific characters, but in a sense the Starks finally entering will have the same effect.  Having no Starks in season 1 is part of what helped it establish it's own identity, but now that the Dance has started the North is going too have to play some role.

Another update on my Anime watching

To pick up from where we left off, I finished both Lycoris Recoil and Engage Kiss and gave both very high scores.  LycoReco is the kind of show that I think is better off not getting a second season while for Engage Kiss I'm very curious to see where they could go next.

All of the fall shows I was following I either dropped or put on hold for now.  Call of The Night I simply lost interest in  Spy x Family's Joke was starting to run thin but maybe I'll return when I can binge the rest of the season, Beast Tamers is still fun but I just don't feel like continuing it right now.   Taming The Final Boss however is the one I'm most disappointed in, it was good till episode 4, but durring Episode 4 they clearly rushed to the ending of the first Light Novel when in fact I feel this should have been fleshed to 6 or 7 episodes per LN like Haruhi.  Then in Episode 5 the new arc just instantly lost my attention.

However I've started a new show, Boochi The Rock which I"m actually watching Subbed, it's adorable and fun.

There are three Falls I am still waiting for Dubs for.  Two of them I have no doubt will be dubbed.  Detective Conan: Hanazara The Culprit has been picked up by Netflix and they dub everything they get, and there's no way the new mainline Gundam show won't be dubbed.  So the only real question mark is Akiba Maid Wars, I feel like there is still time for Sentai to decide to Dub it, but if they haven't by the end of the year then I'll try just watching it Subbed in January or maybe even right before New Years.  [Update: Sentai has announced an AMW Dub, we just don't know when exactly it'l start.]

But I also have stuff outside the seasonal docket to mention.  I already posted on the first SAO Progressive movie.  Before October was over I watched Housing Complex C and will going forward be adding it to my Halloween Anime Recommendations.  I have also now seen both already released Princess Principal: Crown Handler movies and the shorts that came with them, but I don't think I'll be able to properly form an opinion on them till they're complete.

Rumbling Hearts and Comic Party are both older shows I got into recently that I've already commented on in recent posts, and I highly recommend them.  Which reminds me I should link to my Mastadon account, I've talked about those shows and some others a lot there, last I checked the tags seemingly the only person talking about them there.

https://c.im/@KuudereKun

@KuudereKun@c.im

I've also watched a bunch of Galaxy Angel and Kodocha which are both good Comedy Anime, and I watched all of the original Nurse Withc Komugi which was awesome.

I've also done some retro Pokemon Rewatching and finally watched all of the Twilight Wings shorts on the PokemonTV App which I'd regrettably ignored when they came out.

I also rewatched both seasons of Selector _____ Wixoss and think I'm maybe finally ready to just watch the rest of that franchise Subbed.

SAO: Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night, Retcons stuff

I finally got to see Sword Art Online the Movie: Progressive - Aria of a Starless Night now that it's up on Crunchyroll English Dub included.  And in execution it's very good, has most of what makes SAO fun and none of it's most egregious problems.  The issues I have with the movie are only as someone already somewhat of a fan of prior SAO content and wouldn't be relevant to someone watching it as a stand alone or choosing to start their SAO experience here, if that's you then the rest of this post really isn't relevant and I say you should go ahead and dive in, it's a better first impression for Normies then most of the original first season is.

And the principal new character of the film Misumi/Mito is good, I like her and her story in this movie.

There are two types of Retcons.  One is the kind that reinterprets or recontextualizes old events in a way that is not actually absolutely a contradiction, and when they fix continuity problems rather them causing them this kind I tend to be fine with or even like.  Mito's very existence can be considered this kind, she explains the paradox of how Asuna both never really played an MMO before and yet so quickly becomes one of the highest ranked players, she had a Beta Tester Mentor even before she met Kirito.

But sadly this movie also has the more conventionally bad kind of retcon, the kind that is definitely changing what happened.

First is how Asuna and Kirito's first meeting is moved up, and then what was their original first meeting is expanded on.  Some fleshing out of that specific scene could have been fine, but I really always liked that Asuna and Kirto's Meet Cute wasn't predicated on him saving her.

Now this next bit may be a misunderstanding, but it seems like they've also went and implied the Sachi/Moonlit Black Cats incident already happened on the first floor in this new canon.  If true that really does annoy me, to whatever extent I was interested in seeing more of Kirito in the Progressive Movies it was seeing Kirito between episodes 2 and 3, seeing more of how he was before that trauma became such a defining part of him.

But the thing is in general I wanted minimal Kirito in these movies, the premise of the series I already knew going in is a Light Novel/Movie for each floor which based on the original timeline means there should be more movies then the Infinity Saga of the MCU before we reach what Asuna was doing at the time of Episode 3. And the other part of the premise was that it's Asuna as the main/pov character now, which means the new material should be stuff Kirto wouldn't have been privy to, especially when retelling events we'd already seen.

And the way the original series presented things, Kirito and Asuna do first meet in episode 2 at the end of the first floor but most of the romantic development starts in episode 8 with episodes 5-6 being of debatable relevance.  In the original SAO Light Novel it jumps from the events of episode 2 to episode 8, everything in 3-7 is short stories published later.  So there is prior precedent for Reki Kawahara deciding to add interactions between Kirito and Asuna in between, but what happens in 5-7 is still consistent conceptually with them not being regular partners yet but only occasional acquaintances.

So the ending of this movie basically amending the ending of the second episode of the show so that Asuna and Kirito are still part of a party going into Floor 2 really bugs me.  I wanted the Progressive movies to be Asuna with maybe occasional cameos from Kirito.  More stories about Kirito and Asuna as a power couple there is plenty of room for at much latter points on the timeline.

I'm now caught up on Titans

Clearly there are others who enjoy this show, you don't get 4 seasons on brand recognition alone, but they aren't the people making YouTube videos on it.

I talked about the first 2 seasons of the show on this blog previously giving them probably one of the most glowing reviews they'd had.  Now originally when I tried following season 3 as it aired I got frustrated, I got annoyed at them doing mostly Batman stuff instead of using more villains from the Teen Titans comics.

But just recently I decided to give it another chance, and it's fine, once we got into the latter half of the season Raven and Donna's returns made things a lot more enjoyable.  And also once they started getting into the head of this take on Scarecrow I decided that this is a pretty decent interpretation of the character, different from what we've seen before but still distinctly Scarecrow.

Season 4 is 4 episodes in and doing actual Titans storylines again, so the show is back on track.

This show is far form perfect, it is again far from what I would write, but I still maintain that it captures the Spirit of the Titans Comics I love better then the more universally praised mid 00s Cartoon.

A lot of the Credit for that goes to the Actors, the Actresses they got for both Raven and Donna embody the characters as I've always thought of them perfectly.  And most everyone else does a good job too.  

The show has real Heart to it, it flexes it's Edgy Muscles constantly but as someone who's watched Fate/Zero multiple times this show's darkness is child's play to me.

Party like it's Ninteen Ninty Nine

The previous post on this blog was about early 2000s Anime, but I technically mentioned a couple that are really from 1999, To Heart, Steel Angel Kurumi and the starts of Johto Era Pokemon and One Peice.  When you take stuff back to it's source material even more of what I mentioned there has it's roots in 1999, Comic Party's original Video Game and a lot of stuff based on weekly Shonen Manga that got animated in 2000.

At face value To Heart seems difficult to justify as relevant to the early 2000s at all, it's a single cour show that was done halfway through 99 and based on source material from 97, the others at least had active continuations.  But first of all it's directly relevant to Comic Party, I'd dare say it's almsot required viewing for Comic Party in the same way Haruhi is required viewing for Lucky Star.  But it's also simply that when I look at To Heart I kind of still see 90s style Animation but I more see how much of 2000s and even still 20tens and 2020s Anime is built on foundation that To Heart laid.  And it getting sequels in the mid 2000s proves it was at least in Japan consistently still popular all through the time in-between.

But those shows aren't the only examples of how much Anime in 1999 feels like the 2000s started early, Excel Saga, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Corrector Yui, Ojimajo Doremi, Hunter x Hunter, Digimon Adventure, The Big O, and Turn A Gundam are all interesting examples of shows that started airing in 99 and ended in 2000.  And then for Detecive Conan January of 1999 was the Anime introduction of Ai Hiabara in episode 129 (136-139 of the international numbering).  And on the subject of Source Material for future Anime, Kanon came out in 99 launching Key and adding the next layer to the foundations laid by To Heart.

For the sake of organizing our memories we like to try to define drastic changes in culture as correlating to decades of the Gregorian Calendar, but 1999 sticks out to me as an interesting case study in how culture isn't actually paying attention to calendars when it changes.

As someone who used to be more interested in following Music then I am now, I've always noticed how 1999 was the year Eminem, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore and Jessica Simpson all became stars, all of them are now mostly more famous stuff they did in the 2000s not to mention how much people who started their careers later were influenced by them.

In the world of Video Games the Sega Dreamcast and Sonic Adventure were released in late 98 but reached the U.S. in 99 thus starting the Sixth Generation of the Console wars.

Pro Wrestling at first glance doesn't seems like it fits what I'm talking but rather the opposite, the first year and a half of 2000s Wrestling feels like the end of 90s era Wrestling.  However I feel like mid 99 was a sever drop in quality for both WWF and WCW, I know I'm nearly alone in this, most pretend WCW stopped being good as soon as Sting vs Hogan was botched and the WWF stayed impeccable till the Invasion storyline was botched, but for me everything I dislike about post Attitude Era wrestling really did start happening in 99.  And of those that so amusingly both Anti Vince Russo people and Pro Vince Russo people will connect the quality drop  that happened in 99 to which company Russo worked for changing, but for me the problems on both sides started a couple months before that, it started in the Summer, October marked a noticeable change in WCW but not so much WWF.

In the world of Western Superhero Comics, the Batman No Man's Land storyline is definitely the beginning of what early 2000s Batman Comics were like, as well as The Titans run that started in 99.  And in the world of adaptations of Superhero Comics Batman Beyond and Spiderman Unlimited changed things.  Sonic Underground feels like it's of a similar zeitgeist to those shows.

When it comes to Theatrically released movies from 1999 there are three that I mainly recall, the first Star Wars Prequel, the first Stephen Sommers Mummy movie and the first Pokémon movie.  Again all three were first not lasts.

In Japan the first Pokémon movie was in 98, but in the U.S. the franchise as a whole made it's debut in late 98 and I'm pretty sure it didn't catch my attention till it was 99 already.

Early 2000s Anime is overdue for it's Nostalgia Boom.

After stumbling upon and enjoying Comic Party and it's sequel Comic Party Revolution I watched some YouTube videos discussing the franchise from 4-6 years ago.  And one of them lamented how Anime from about 2000-2004 is pretty neglected in online discussion for being both too old to be modern but not old enough to be Retro.  And I remember feeling the same way at about when those videos were made as I lamented the lack of online Fandom appreciation for shows like Noir and Witch Hunter Robin.

But now the 20 year Nostalgia cycle for that era of Anime should be in effect, yet it seems to be slow in starting.

And the thing is at that time Nostalgia for other stuff of that era was already taking off.  Maybe the Star Wars Prequels Nostalgia boom was bumped up by getting the new Disney stuff, but there was already a spiked up interest in Raimi's Spider-Man movies and other stuff.

The Internet has always been to a large extent driven by Nostalgia, and I'm fascinated by how we've entered the era where the Nostalgia the internet celebrates now includes Nostalgia for the early Internet itself.  YouTube videos documenting Internet mysteries and old Fandom Dramas, even whole channels getting most of their views from that kind of content.

Anime more then most mediums was going through particular growing pains at this time, chiefly the transition from Traditional to Digital Animation.  However with Video Games there was also once a narrative about the awkwardness of early fully 3D games but now those aesthetics have become charming and nostalgic.  I've been feeling that way about early Japanese Digital Animation for awhile and I was not actually into much of it at the time.

Part of the problem may be how we forget that the Western Fandom was frequently behind, sometimes not getting these shows till a whole 5 years later.  So even if today Western Otaku are always citing the Japanese airdates because that's what's on MAL and ANN and AniDB in many cases our actual memories of these shows aren't 20 years old yet, two decades ago today we were mostly still getting delayed releases of 90s stuff.  I'm pretty my first experience with Noir started in 2005.  But we did make a big deal out of 2016 being the 20th anniversary of Pokémon even though it didn't make it's American debut till late 1998.

A certain type of Western Anime fan resents this era for being when MOE was truly taking over.  A lot of the redemption arc MOE has seen began with TrixieTheGoldenWitch leading the charge in singing the praises of K-On.  So the MOE stuff that predates KyoAni's Golden Age often simply gets neglected rather then hated or defended.

I want to play a role in getting some of these classics the fresh perspective they deserve.  Rumbling Hearts and Comic Party Revolution are among some shows recently added to Crunchyroll.  Sadly the original Comic Party and To Heart and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and Madlax are still lacking an official streaming option, while Noir and Pretear and Witch Hunter Robin are still only on Funimation a site that's supposedly being phased out. [Update: all three of those shows are on CR now.]

And then there is the subplot of what this era was for certain long running shows.  For Pokémon this is principally the Johto and early Advanced Generation including the Pokémon Chronicles side series and specials like Legend of Thunder and Mewtwo Returns.  

Probably the most not neglected stuff from this era are the long running Shonen that started then, Naruto, One Peice, Yugioh, Inyuasha ect which are kinds of shows I've personally never been into.

But I have this year been getting into Detective Conan, and for that show this era largely is the Vermouth Arc, from her introduction in episode 176 in January of 2000 to the big epic showdown in episode 345 in January of 2004, an arc that produced a lot of great episodes.  The movies during this era are 4 through 9 of which only movie 6 I wouldn't rank in the upper teir of Conan films.  And interestingly episode 304 a 2 hour special from January 2003 is actually connected to the most recent movie 25 the Bride of Halloween.

But thinking about a show I discovered recently reminds me that I need to watch more myself, other Anime based on Leaf or other early VNs, and Steel Angel Kurumi being another work from the same studio as To Heart and Comic Party.  And as a fan of Comedy there are more Nabeshin shows I need check out as well.  Galaxy Angel has also interested me for awhile but I keep putting it off.

Vandals in the Time of King Arthur.

This is a sequel of sorts to the post I made a few years ago suggesting that the Gaiseric of Berserk may have more then just a name in common with the historical Vandal King Gaiseric.  Since then I have watched the 97 Berserk TV Anime, in fact I think I did before the Manga Author passed away.  But this post shall be even less about the actual Berserk franchise then my first one.  But actually seeing the Anime has firmly convinced me that Midland is mostly just based on France not Middle Francia.

Gaiseric's Kingdom continued for awhile after he died, his successor was his son Huneric.  The next Vandal king was Gunthamund the second son of Gento the fourth and youngest son of Gaiseric.  After that was Thrasamund the third son of Gento.  Then Huneric's son Hilderic finally took the throne in 523, but because of Hilderic's conversion to Chalcedonian Christianity Gelimer lead a coup against him.  Hilderic is referred to as Gelimar's "first cousin once removed" on Wikipedia.  It was Gelimer who was defeated by Belisarius in 534 AD.

Now I've seen it claimed more then once that Procopius says the entire Vandal nation sailed away in ships after Gelimar's defeat.  It's also worth noting that late antiquity sources like Procopius use Vandal/Vandals and African/Africans interchangeably when identifying this kingdom and it's people, since their capital was Carthage previously the capital of the Roman province of Africa which was no where near the entirety of the continent we today know by that name but mainly the northern most Mediterranean coasts of north western Africa.

Geoffroy of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain is a mythologized account of British history from the Welsh POV.  I do not take it at face value, but I do think it can provide glimpses into history not recorded elsewhere, we just need to consider what it says carefully.  In book 11 about a generation after the time of King Arthur during the reign of a Briton King who Geoffroy calls Keredic/Ceraticus and the Brute Tysslo calls Ceredig, a King of "Africans" who had been doing some plundering in Ireland named Gormund makes an alliance with the Saxons.

I'm not the first to suggest this mysterious "African" King suddenly popping up in a semi-mythical account of mid to late 6th Century Brittan was actually a Vandal, the name Gormund fits in well with the names the known Vandal kings used.  It's further mysterious how after this Gormund succeeds in defeating Keredic he simply hands over England to the Anglo-Saxons.  

While the term "African" doesn't come up till the time of Keredic in Book 11, given the confused natured of Geoffroy's sources maybe some references to Ireland or the Irish before this are also really this Vandal presence in the British isles?  Back in Book 9 the "King of Ireland" is named as Guillamurius, that name sounds like it could be an overdone variant of Gelimar who was contemporary with much of the Reign of King Arthur.

Awhile later at the end of Arthur's reign at the start of Book 11, which would be after the downfall of Gelimar, four Irish leaders are mentioned among the killed in battle allies of Mordred and Chelderic, they are Gillapatric, Gillamor, Gistafel, and Gallarius.  Those names also sound like they fit in with Vandal names.

Mainstream historians don't consider there to be any evidence of Vandal presence in Ireland or Britain, the idea that there was is in terms of historical references only this somewhat coded reading of Geoffroy who isn't a reliable source on his own anyway.  However I feel there is DNA evidence.

I believe the presence of Y Chromosomal Haplogroup I in Europe is primarily via Germanic Language speaking peoples, with  I2a1 being specifically the East German Language Tribes.  Most of I's presence in the British Isles is via the other two major subgroups as one would expect since the Anlgo-Saxons and Franks were West Germanic and the Normans formally North Germanic.  But I2a does have a small presence, strongest in part of Western Ireland, and there is no alternate theory to this Vandal one for East Germanics leaving any DNA behind in the British isles at all.

The Alans were also a part of the Vandal Kingdom for awhile, as a Scythian/Iranian Tribe their dominant DNA Y Haplogroup would have probably been R1a, it too has a faint presence in Brittan and Ireland.

Early Visual Novels were wrriten by men who were into Shoujo Manga/Anime.

That thesis if true can explain a lot about the development of Otaku Media in general.  

But to clarify my definitions of "men" for this thesis can include Trans Feminine people who were assigned male at birth but hadn't hatched yet (if they ever did).  I'm not aware if anyone involved actually was, but if any have come out then I apologize for defaulting to referring to them as men here.

By early Visual Novels I principally mean the foundational texts of the genre which largely came from a handful of early developers.  Leaf's Visual Novel trilogy which were the first to use the term and culminated in To Heart, Tactics games like Dosei and One, Key's Seasons Trilogy, Elf games like Kakyuusei and YU-NO: The Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World, and early Age visual novels like Rumbling Hearts.

Early in the 2000s we already start to see VN developers being mostly just influenced by earlier VNs and so whatever Shoujo influence remains is indirect.  Though Nasu of Type Moon has outright said he was a fan of some 90s Shoujo if I remember correctly, Shinji Matou sure seems directly based on Saionji of Utena.

Some of the early Anime adapted from VNs, especially TV Anime where the most explicit sexual material is removed, truly seem indistinguishable from Shoujo Manga adaptations being made at the same time.  2003's Rumbling Hearts can absolutely pass as an intense Shoujo Melodrama while 1999's To Heart would resemble a more light hearted Shoujo Slice of Life RomCom. 

And even in the ones harder to confuse with a Shoujo Anime because of their indulgence in Ecchi fanservice like a lot of Elf based Anime, the influence of Shoujo tropes is still visible.

But the more concrete evidence exists in the specific characterization Tropes.  I've already made a thing on this blog more then once of my observation that in the 90s the Anime characters who seem like Tsunderes are mostly the main characters in Shoujo Manga adaptations, I've seen it in Sailor Moon, Wedding Peach, Marmalade Boy, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.  But the kicker was Saint Tail where the female lead actually says The Line in 1995.

The word Tsundere was coined on the internet in the 00s as an observation of how certain love interests in Visual Novels behave.  I think the mid to late 90s VN Heroines who would come to later be called Tsunderes like Mio from YU-NO were principally the characters modeled after Shoujo protagonists.  And in these early ones the male protagonists aren't quite the generic Otaku self inserts we'd get later, rather they seem like the male romantic leads of these same Shoujo Manga where the protagonist was being a Tsundere, and so like them the Tsun is often mutual.

There are two well known 90s Anime characters who are often labeled Tsunderes even though they come from neither Shoujo Manga or Visual Novels, and so perhaps you could consider their existence a weakening of my thesis.  In the case of Misty from Pokémon, I've also already written on how most of the key staff of that Anime had previously worked on Shoujo Anime like Wedding Peach and Minky Momo and some other more obscure ones.  So I think they simply wrote Misty the way they were used to writing Shoujo protagonists, then in time her character just got sort of Flanderized.

Asuka Langley however I don't feel truly counts.  She's an example of a character who'd be pretty hard to deny technically qualifies, but there is a massive difference between the way she acts and the Visual Novel characters the term was coined in reference to.  Asuka was simply Anno's poorly thought out attempt to write a character who was mentally unstable because of her Trauma.  And what pisses me off about Evangelion Simps is how because they interpret the archetype entirely through the lens of Asuka they keep saying in their Video Essays that Tsunderes are only good when their behavior is explained by Trauma.  When the truth is the original Tsunderes were the very definition of normal and average in the Manga/Anime most meant to be relatable to normal average Japanese school girls, Trauma is absolutely not necessary.

I've since discovered that the Kuudere also seems to start as a Shoujo thing, in Sailor Moon with Manga Rei and Hotaru in both versions, but I suspect more exist in stuff I haven't watched yet.  And then Goldfish Warning! shows how the hyperenergetic pink haired Genki girl also started in Shoujo.

We could perhaps add to this conversation some Games who's status as Visual Novels is a bit controversial but do seem to have developed at least in part from the same zeitgeist, like Konami's Tokimeki Memorial, Sega's Sakura Wars with it's clear Takerzakua influence, and Night Walker which honestly may have had a female target audience even in it's porn game form.  

Stosugyou: Graduation is listed on AniDB as the first ever Anime adapted from a Visual Novel, yet it predates Leaf's coining of the term.  I just watched this two episode OVA and it's quite interesting, it has the same Character Designer as the first two seasons of Sailor Moon and Wedding Peach which only adds to how much it tends to feel like the Slice of Life parts of those shows.

Halloween season Anime Updates Gaiden

Well first of all is there any reason to update my general Halloween Anime Reccomendation from last year?  Not much, I've watched more of Karin but that's something I was already aware existed and just didn't think of then, and it's not on any legal streaming sites.

As for new or current Halloween relevant stuff, I've watched 6 episodes of Call of The Night, the ones that can be watched Dubbed on HIDIVE, a couple more will go up before Ocotber's over as new episodes drop on Thursdays.  It is enjoyable so far.

And that's it for Halloween stuff.

I've finished Lupin III Part VI and Classroom of The Elite Season 2 both of which were good but not likely to be shows I'd ever label as favorites.

I've also watched even more Detective Conan, now seen all the Movies but 25, and think as far as what's animated goes I'm pretty effectively up to speed on the main storyline.

I finished Magia Record as the Dub for the rest of it finally dropped and it's was as good as I figured it would be.

But let's return to the other currently airing Simuldubs I'm following.  There are five and they all happen to be dropping on Saturday on Crunchyroll.

Lycoris Recoil and Engage Kiss I'd already mentioned on this blog, they're up to episode 9 now and I like em both.  Engage Kiss deserves more attention.

Spy x Family's second cour has started and it's still fun.

Beast Tamers looks like a fun little show that is not an Isekai but may as well be.

I'm The Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss is officially the second of the reincarnated as an Otome villainess genre to get an Anime, so the one we had before can no longer simply be called "The Villainess show" people other then me will have to start using the official shorthand Hamefura.

This show is very distinct from Hamefura.  

For starters part of the joke with Bakarina is how she's not like the person who's body she's taken over at all, the actual titular "Villainess" kind of no longer exists when the Japanese memories awaken.  This new show's protagonist is a reincarnation of a modern Japanese gamer (I'm not actually sure what their original gender was) but still also is Aileen, she's still molded by the experiences of living that life.  I'm a Pretty Little Liars veteran who enjoys watching a Mean Girls be bad@$$ in their own special way, and so find this protagonist more appealing actually.

From the pilot it doesn't seem we can expect the Yuri that Hamefura has, but that's fine, I'm totally down to watch this girl Tame Anime Daemon Targyreon.

Update October 17th: I just watched the first 3 episodes of Housing Complex C on HBOmax, and they're interesting, got Higurashi vibes and Lovecrafting themes.

These Gaijin have Eastern European Accents in the Dub, but also seem to be implied to be Muslim, there are some Muslim counties in the Balkans but not everyone remembers that, so it's an interesting direction to take.

There is a character named Kahn.  I predict eventually some situation will cause a character to scream or shout their name loudly, and then there will be Memes.

Werewolf by Night was okay

I just watched it and enjoyed some of it.  But it really didn't feel like the kind of story you should be wasting the visually homaging Universal Monster Movies gimmick on.

As someone who's brain has been thoroughly poisoned by Anime, at the beginning I quickly found myself thinking "oh it's the Battle Royal/Death Game/Holy Grail War" set up.  But then also about how the thing that makes Anime with a premise like this work is that at least some of the characters are ordinary people who were drawn into it.  Everyone involved being a hardened monster hunter completely changes the vibe.

This of course reminds me of Patrick Willems criticisms of the post Whedon MCU in general, the lack of the perspective of ordinary people that for example the Raimi Spider-Man movies used so well.

And doing a supposedly Classic Monster Movie throwback really draws further attention to it.  When everyone in the story is used to dealing with monsters then there is no one to be quite as horrified by them as the average viewer would be.  Moon Knight exists somewhat in this same corner of the Marvel Universe but it works so much better because Grant was living a pretty normal life when it started.

I also think about the rather lazy handling of Ted.  Again what an Anime Protagonist might have done is taken a shot on actually being kind to the monster without already being told in advance it's actually a chill dude.  That much better serves the "don't judge people by how they look" moral that is supposed to be the point of having a monster that's not actually evil.

Detective Conan is the Batman of Anime.

In more ways then one, if indeed we consider Goku the Superman of Anime and Sailor Moon the Wonder Woman.  

In Japan Detective Conan is just as all consuming and ubiquitous a franchise as those shows and Pokémon.  Every show I'm inclined to compare to Batman is some similar ways are fairly popular but not one of the goliaths of the industry.

I'm qualified to say this because of my unique Nerd history.  Batman is my oldest fandom, many of the oldest memories I have are of watching Batman shows and movies and playing around as Batman characters with my brother, and I spent the late 2000s and Tweens calling The Dark Knight the greatest film of all time and yes I also read lots of actual comics, enough to have some unconventional opinions on which ones are good and not good.  

Then I got into Anime fulltime in my 30s but quickly felt like it was everything I'd been looking for and needed only a few years for it to take over my self identity.

Then this year I started watching Detective Conan and have increasingly come to realize it combines nearly everything I loved about Batman with much of what I love about Anime in an unbelievably perfect symmetry.

In general I don't think there's many other Anime that do the double life thing as similarly to Western Superhero Comics as Detective Conan, with the Teen Drama stuff making Spiderman perhaps just as valid a comparison. It's technically a factor in Magical Girl shows but tends to quickly not actually matter much, and shows like Code Geass being set in a more alt history setting makes it function differently to begin with.

I also remember one of the fun Memes of being a Batman fan in the 00s was claiming Batman can beat anyone because he's "always prepared" or something like that.  Conan is the Anime character who in my view has earned the same hype, not from being "always prepared" but from being able to use quick thinking to deal with what he was unprepared for, which in truth is more how good Batman stories work as well.

But some of what makes Conan like Batman is stuff film only Bat Fans haven't really seen yet.  The Batman was hyped as being a Batman movie that's finally a detective movie, but it's more Film Noir/Hardboiled Detective. In the Comics Batman can also be a Sherlock Holmes style detective who solves puzzles and defeats his adversaries by outsmarting them.  Detective Conan becomes like Batman by accident because of how he combines inspirations from the same sources Batman did.

I increasingly don't think it's a coincidence that Detective Conan has the same initials as the Comic Book anthology series Batman debuted in and which became the namesake of his publisher.

He's even done that disappearing act a few times.

I guess the only thing missing is that there isn't as diverse a Rouges Gallery of recurring villains, just the Black Organization and Kaito Kid who's not really a villain at all.

But the real core reason is that in Anime only Detective Conan has a similar relationship with the No Kill rule, believe it or not even Magical Girls don't follow it as consistently.  It is fairly rare for it to really be that much of an issue in an episode, but when it is it really is, in 649 (the middle episode of a 3 parter) Conan prolongs a crisis endangering his family because of his insistence on not killing the criminal.  It was also a big deal in Movie 24 [and Movie 25 now that I've seen it].  There is never any "but I don't have to save you" BS.

Episode 119 (126 of the old Funimation localization and Dub) is a filler episode that I'm often inclined to recommend to be a good first impression of the franchise for Western Comic Book fans.  On multiple levels I think it's an episode Linkara would love, I hope his Patreons eventually get him to watch it like they have a few Tokusatsu shows.  And SFDebris may like it as well.

Another place where you can watch these Early Detective Conan episodes is Filmrise's Anime section, where the show is still called Case Closed and the episode I just referred to is numbered as episode 13 of season 5.

Update: Did I forget to mention that the first Detective Conan movie has a "somedays you just can't get rid of a Bomb" sequence?  It looks like I did.

Update October 2023: I could just as easily call Atom/Astro Boy the Superman of Anime, he's certainly the equivalent of Action Comics No.1 in starting Anime's Golden Age.

Teenage Vampires can never be guilty of Statutory Rape

 I’ve noticed there being an issue in Vampire fiction discourse lately, tied to the summer Anime Call of The Night but also older stuff like Twilight, of these Teenage vampires being called “Pedophiles” for being in relationships with people the same age as them simply because they’ve technically been around for decades or centuries longer.

Most Proshippers defend this with the usual “it’s not real” argument which I do support.  But this problem runs deeper because it’s really not even accurate to what the scientific reality of such creatures hypothetically actually existing would be.

Everyone gets that if you are turned into a Vampire at a very young age you stop aging, physically, and will thus never truly grow up, physically.  The problem is these people are assuming these Vampires would still age and mature mentally and psychologically.  But that isn’t how it works, if physical aging freezes that also freezes the brain which isn’t actually fully developed till about 25.

There is more to adulthood and maturity than how long you’ve existed.  The hypothetical scenario of someone who’s been 16 for 600 years would only be different mentally from other 16 year olds in having a larger pool of memories to remember.  Experience in and of itself does not equal maturity, maturing lies in how your brain processes that experience and a brain frozen at a teenage state of development cannot process that experience properly.

One YT video I watched on Twilight said that what makes someone an adult is their “position of power” or something and so the reason Edward hasn’t become an adult is because he’s still living as a dependent basically.  That’s a bad argument, there are normal people still living with their parents in their 40s and they shouldn't be dating teenagers.  In my argument it wouldn't matter if a Teenage vampire was living on their own, a Hundred years on the streets for them would create less maturity then one year on the streets for a normal teenager because their Brain at least developed some during that year, the vampire’s did not.  And plenty of people have held power as teenager, Alexander The Great conquered a city and rebuilt it in his name serving as Regent at 16, are we going to treat such a person as less of a minor then a regular 16 year old?  I don't think we should.

But it's not just the Brain, part of the reason Teenagers can't be trusted to make rational decisions related to Sex is that their Hormones are in a more chaotic state then they will be when they're an adult.

Now Vampires are Supernatural creatures so if a writer wants to ignore that Science and write their physically Teenage Vampire as mentally an adult that’s fine.  This is directed at Smug Tumblr and Twitter Antis who think they’re on some moral high ground by insisting on treating fictional Teenage Vampires as Adults even when the writers are clearly not writing them that way.  Because most Teenage Vampires in fiction are clearly written to be Teen characters in Teen dramas.

It’s Vampires who were turned even younger who are sometimes written as “body of a child and the mind of an adult” (Speaking of that tagline the Detective Conan franchise often stresses the use of the word “shunkun” over “deaged” when defining Conan and  Haibara’s condition).  Like for example that one antagonist on the Blade TV series (only version of Blade I’ve actually seen believe it or not).

This difference in approach is only a problem when both clearly seem to exist in the same universe, which off the top of my head I can’t confirm ever has been the case.  If it were though an in-universe explanation could still be contrived.

Thing is, it is especially the Antis in the Anime Community who I know are being hypocrites about this. Any excuse to accuse an Anime or its fans of encouraging problematic behavior they’ll latch onto even when one runs contrary to the logic they used against a different show or character previously.

As in they'll call a Vampire who's been 16 for a 100 years a statutory rapist for being in a relationship with a 17 year old human, but put the same vampire in a relationship with a 35 year old human and then they'll repeat all the facts I talked about to explain why the adult looking character is in fact more mature.

Update: I wrote this in part framed as discourse around Call of The Night even though I hadn't seen any of it yet.  Turns out the main Vampire of that show was turned in her 20s, but maybe still under 25, so that part framing wound up being awkward.  But it's still not just about that, it's also about things like Twilight discourse.

Tolkien's Middle-Earth Theology was Platonist and even a little Gnostic

I was wishing I could discover that Tolkien's Metaphysical Philosophy was unintentionally Stoic like I have for Star Wars and Final Fantasy VII and maybe even Zelda.  But no, both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis are firm examples of Platonist Christianity.

It starts right with what the name Eru is said to mean in the opening lines of the Ainulindale and Valaquenta and the Index of the Silmarilion, "The One" and "He that is Alone".  That comes from the Pythagorean concept of The Monad which became core to the Monotheism of Neopythagoreanism, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism.  Lewis does the same thing in the Space Trilogy by calling the first person of the Trinity the "Old One".  The New Testament never uses any form of Mono to define God, the verses people often cite as saying "God is One" or "The Lord is One" have a different word being translated One which I argue is a misleading Translation, Unity or United is the idea being conveyed by that word.

Another part is the very concept of having the Valar do much of the heavy lifting in actually physically creating Arda, this echoes the Demiurge concept of Numenius of Apamea or Plutarch's Daimon subcreators and is firmly Unbiblical.

The most truly in-depth discussion of Theology in anything Tolkien wrote for his Middle Earth mythology is the Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth or The Debate of Finrod and Andreth, published in The History of Middle-Earth Volume X: Morgoth's Ring.  It's in the style of a Platonic Dialogue but more importantly then that are three key things it reveals about Eru Iluvatar and Arda and Men.  

In my copy of Morgoth's Ring (a Hardcover edition with a Red Sleeve) on page 311 near the bottom Finrod says that Arda "was made by Eru, but He is not in it" and goes on to basically say the same of Ea the equivalent term for the Universe/Cosmos.  This God being outside the Universe concept is another idea that has been taken as a given by most Christian Theologians because of the influence of Platonism, but that I have come to view as actually contrary to Scripture, Stephen says in Acts 7 quoting Isaiah 66 that the Heavens are His Throne and The Earth his Footstool, and remember in Hebrew and Greek the Heavens means the Sky and Outer Space. making it fundamentally part of the Universe.  The Ancient Platonists referred to the World of Forms where their transcendent God lived not as Heaven but as "A Place Beyond Heaven".  The Biblical God is Imminent within the Universe not outside of it.  

Next on page 314 Finrod explains that the Spirit/Souls of Men unlike those of Elves are not confined to Arda nor is Arda their Home.  Thinking things like this about the nature of the Human Soul is a gateway drug to de-physicalizing the Resurrection, now Tolkien doesn't do that, Finrod's ultimate conclusion regarding the destiny of Men and the remaking of Arda involves their Bodies becoming as immortal as their Souls.  But still I tend to be uncomfortable with even introducing a concept of the Soul being somehow less tied to The World then The Body is.  But when interpreting The Bible this idea naturally comes from the previous one since Adam became a Living Soul when God Breathed the Breath of Life into him.

Then on page 318 they basically adapt the Platonic World of Forms concept to be in the Mind of Eru.  Related to that is how the openings of both the Ainulindale and Valaquenta state that Eru made the Ainu of his thoughts.  That comes from the 2nd Century Middle Platonsit Alcinous who defined the lesser god subcreators as Ideas made of the thoughts of the First God.

Now when I discussed Gnostic Interpretations of certain Anime and Video Games I mentioned how a lot of ideas we associate with Gnosticism are irrelevant to the point.  Not all Gnostics believe the Demiurge and/or Old Testament God was Evil, nor was making good guys out of certain Biblical villains a requirement.  The core is that Gnosticism believes The Physical World is in some way tainted by Evil, but the degrees can very. 

The World Soul is a metaphysical concept I've mentioned on this Blog before mostly in relation to Stoicism, but versions of it existed in various forms of Platonism and Gnosticism as well.  Tolkien's Cosmology winds up kind of incorporating two conflicting World Soul ideas.

The one thing in Tolkien's Middle Earth Theology that seems close to my Christian Stoicism is the Flame Imperishable, which Tolkien in one letter identified with The Holy Spirit, it's also placed in the Center of the World and is the source of all Sapient Life.  So easily comparable to the Stoic concept of the World Soul and Pneuma, if it weren't in the context of all this Platonism I'd be much more excited about it.

However the Middle Platonist Plutarch introduced the idea of an Evil World Soul, a World Soul that is responsible for corrupting all physical matter, which Numenius of Apamea also agreed with.  And this leads us to the entirety of what Morgoth's Ring is about, Morgoth emptied his essence into all of Arda corrupting and marring it, this taint is called the Morgoth Element.

Now The New Testament does agree that the current world is imperfect, it is still far from God's final design for it.  But the blame for that is chiefly Man's Sin not something an evil god did, however mainstream Christianity loves to overstate the significance of Satan.

None of this changes my enjoyment of Middle Earth set Fiction, in fact I'm glad to have a popular Fantasy Universe that is rather Gnostic to contrast with the ones I feel get called Gnostic unfairly.

And it's hard to tell how much any of this actually reflects Tolkien's real Religious beliefs.  On the one hand he seems to have clearly said to his Priest friend not to take it that seriously.  But on the other every core idea I've objected to here has been genuinely believed by many Christian Theologians.

Rings of Power thoughts so far

It's not what I would have written, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Mainly I would have avoided Numenor for all of season 1.

The main argument being repeated by everyone who's upset about Black Dwarves and Elves and probably I'm sure also a Black Queen of Numenor is the whole "Tolkien was writing a mythology for England" thing.  However there is another revealing quote from Tolkien.

When asked by an interviewer²⁴  whether his Middle-earth was ”in a sense … the world we live in, but at a different era?”, Tolkien, puffing at his pipe, replied simply ”No… at a different stage of imagination, yes.” 

Meaning we're not supposed to care about the logic of how these civilizations eventually become Wales and Wessex.  Saying that everyone can only be White because "It's a mythology for England" ignores the fact that England today and even by the time Tolkien was writing was made up of more then just White people.

Tolkien did care about his world having internal logic, he did base on much of it on his love of studying languages and how they developed.  Which is why one difference if it was me writing this is there'd be even more PoC, I'd have entire groups of non White people but also in time have all the groups intermingle.  I've have these Souhtlanders who we know will eventually lose to their lands to Mordor and Nuemorian Colonizers be at least Brown.  

There actually is basis in what Tolkien wrote for younger Galadriel having been a warrior.

Tolkien is not a writer one can apply Auteur theory too, in the LOTR preface he basically laid out Death of The Author before any pretentious French philosophers coined it.  And in one letter he talks about intending his mythology to be expanded on by other hands.

And it is also a natural part of being mythology that there are conflicting versions and accounts and timelines.  So I don't care about any of those kinds of changes, if the Stranger is Gandalf it'll be weird but I'll accept it.  I would actually consider it more of a betrayal of the Spirit of Tolkien if he turns out to be Evil after how he's been set up.  But that could just be my particular bias as one who likes comparing Tolkien to Sailor Moon.

3 Episode Test Anime Gaiden

Today I'm officially three episodes into the Simuldubs of both Engage Kiss and Lycoris Recoil.  Meanwhile I'm also deep into Classroom of The Elite season 2.  And the only show still airing that I was watching last time I made one of these is the Simuldub of Lupin III Part 6.

Trixie The Golden Witch has retired from Anitube, which is truly the end of an era.  Her contributions to Internet Anime discourse in 2016 and 2017 were a big role in making me the Otaku I am today.  She will be missed.

Among the very first videos of hers I'd watched were the How to Spot a Great Anime in on Episode series, which was her deconstruction of the 3 episodes rule, which are a good analysis of some Anime pilots but I still disagree.  Her core point was that the 3 episodes rule is taking 3 episodes to figure out the Premise, but to her the premise of a show si what matter least because she can any premise hypothetically.  But that's where I'm different.

I can see the quality in pretty much anything, if I drop or refuse to even try something it's because the premise couldn't hook me.  I genuinely would prefer to watch something highly flawed that I find personally interesting or compelling then something perfectly executed that doesn't.

And these two Saturdaily Simuldubs I've been watching are good examples of that.  For both these 3rd episodes core aspects of the premise of the show have been made more clear.

However Lycoris Recoil is a show that pretty unambiguously already had my undivided attention.  With Engage Kiss however I spend much of episode 2 last week feeling like I'll probably drop it if episode 3 doesn't change anything.  Fortunately it did, it's now clear this isn't a standard Love Triangle and I am quite curious to see what happens going forward.

As for the other two shows I'm watching, I may need to wait till they are complete to really comment on them.

Lupin The Third and Detective Conan Crossovers

I've now seen both of them.

The 2009 TV Special is structured like the annual Lupin III TV Specials while the 2013 Theatrical Film is structured like the annual Detective Conan movies, and that overall makes it better.  Lupin III's cast are inherently travelers and pretty fundamentally flexible in the kinds of stories you can tell with them and so I feel any Crossover with Lupin III will always work better if it's more throwing them into the other franchise's world.

In fact some fans think the biggest problem with most Lupin movies and TV specials is how they kinda follow the same formula, chiefly the Castle of Cagilostro formula.

Meanwhile Detective Conan is a surprisingly rigid franchise for something that has gone on this long and most content produced is technically filler.  So even in the movie the Detective Conan characters feel off sometimes.  For me personally the movie served as a fun introduction to Detective Conan going into it as a Lupin fan, but once I re-watched it as a seasoned Conan fan how the characters were off became more noticeable.

The Special is still sometimes enjoyable however, but it certainly feels off to watch a Crossover story and find the most compelling part to be the completely original characters.  Christina Vee does a great job as Ran's Princess Doppelganger.

Basically Detective Conan is not a franchise that lends itself well to crossovers, even it's connections to other franchises from the same creator are often questionable to the few actually versed in both lores.

Lupin The Third however is tailor made for Crossover potential and it's a shame it doesn't happen more often.  In the late 2010s DC Animation gave us a Batman meets Scooby Doo movie and a Batman meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.  I got the impression these kinds of crossover movies for Batman with not even DC stuff would become a regular thing, but it wound up being just those two.  I already commented on the Lupin III influence in Catwoman: Hunted, so since people at DC see the relation why not try and actually make a Lupin III meets Batman movie?

Scooby Doo seems to do crossover stuff more regularly, and given how many of their bad guys plans are kind of heists it too could suit a Lupin The Third Crossover well.

But chances are doing it with another Japan based franchise will always be easier to arrange.  What other Anime franchises are basically in the contemporary real world and are reasonably Episodic with pulp inspired elements?  That's actually a rarer combination then you'd at first expect.  Maybe Sailor Moon could work?

The Detective Conan Crossovers happened because they're both TMS, there really doesn't seem to be a third TMS franchise on their level.  But TMS is under the TOHO umbrella which opens the possibility of Godzilla.

Update: So the Lupin III project for 2023 is going to be Lupin III vs Cat's Eye an Anime about Classy Cat Burglars from the early 80s, which is a natural crossover choice.  But the image we have implies it'll be a return of Pink Jacket Lupin which is interesting.

That makes me think again about the prospect of Lupin III crossing over with Batman, as both Lupin and Batman have had different tones over the years.  

The Pink Jacket Incarnation of Lupin The Third is who I'd have show up in Batman The Brave and The Bold the same animated version of Batman used for the Scooby Doo crossover I mentioned above.  

I'd have Red Jacket Crossover with the DCAU/Timmverse Batman voiced by Kevin Conroy and other still working BTAS veterans.  

Green Jacket I'd have crossover with the Batman of The New Frontier Animated film as a late 60s/early70s period piece, preferably written and directed and drawn by the same staff as The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

And Blue Jacket (Parts 4 and 5) with the up coming Caped Crusader show or the Tomorrow verse films being the most modern incarnations.