Poly Anime needs to diversify

Back when I first defended In Another World With My Smartphone season 1's Poly plot twist as an inherently progressive step forward I also said that we need other types of Poly representation in Anime as well.  And now that we have two Polygamous Anime airing in the same season it's time for me to restate that.

I'm enjoying both Girlfriend, Girlfriend season 2 and 100-Girlfriends so far.  This is not me condemning either of them, I find Weeb Revolution's overly cynical analysis of them rather annoying.  It is simply me demanding more. A Harem that takes a Non Mogamous Resolution will always get points from me over the most that don't.  Cat Planet Cuties is a show I wish I'd known about sooner.

The first alternative likely to enter one's mind is Polyandry.  Post 2017 Anime already had an opportunity to drop some Polyandry rep and rejected it in how the 2019 Anime adapted the first Boogiepop and Others Light Novel.  But even that would have been among side characters to the main plot, Shoujos and Otomes deserve the same wish fulfilment fantasies that these Shounen and Seinen Anime are providing to their target audiences.

But more importantly then that I want scenarios where it's not just 1 person with multiple other binary gender partners.  One thing firmly baked into post Haruhi Anime culture is the idea of a show built around a core cast of 5 with 2 guys and 3 girls.  How about one of those where it's also a Pansexual Polycule, I recently watched Gamers from 2017 and it feels like it should have just gone there.  But also the mainstream Binary Genders shouldn't be the only ones in on the fun either.

But even going back to the topic of Heteronromative Harems that take the "marry them all" option, there are a lot of assumptions involved in assuming they can only appeal to someone projecting onto the one guy or girl and not the other gender involved.  In the world of online Erotica I've seen a lot of evidence that people of either Gender can be into the idea of sharing the object of their affection, and I don't just mean in the Cuckolding fetish type way either.  One old Meme is that written porn is for women, well I've read a lot of written Porn that is Polygynous.

It's frustrating how many criticisms of Non Monogamy as a concept still assume the alternative has to be Polygyny in it's worst most blatantly Patriarchal forms.  I watched one Youtube video recently where some guy felt it made sense to refute Gen Z Polyamory culture by talking about Bride Price and stuff going on in Africa.

But returning to the topic of recent Poly Anime I think about that Girlfriend, Girlfriend scene where Shino asks Naoya if he's thought about how he was gonna support two people, and how at no point did anyone think to question the assumption that it has to be the guy alone providing the financial support.  Because even in how to do Monogamy Japan is still fairly old fashioned in it's default thinking.  When Marriage is still being defined by a Patriarchal starting point actually doing Polygamy is a lot more viable for the wealthy.  But obviously a Communist Polycule is going to take a more Collectivist approach.  From each according to their ability to each according to their needs.

Light Novels should be adapted as Movies rather then TV Shows more often

I say this as someone who is in general biased for more serialized modes of storytelling and in fact that bias has played a role in why I like Anime so much to begin with.

But the Anime that embody the strengths of serialized story telling are usually Original TV Anime (and some OVAs and ONAs), and Manga adaptations.  And a lot of Visual Novel or Video Game adaptations work being adapted into a more serialized format because their structure is often like something serialized so that the player can be given convenient places to take a break.

LNs however are kind of the Japanese equivalent to YA novels or airport novels except shorter in length, their original narrative structure is usually much more similar to Movies then to a TV Series.

My problem with the broadcast order of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is that it butchered the structure of the original LN which actually is a good stand alone work of art on it's own even if it had never gotten sequels.  The chronological first 6 episodes of Haruhi are the adaptation of that LN and I kind of wish someone would just fan edit them into a movie (both a Subbed versions and a Dubbed version).

Sword Art Online was actually adapted similarly to Haruhi in this regard except in that case the inserted short stories written later to flesh out the original arc made the Anime more chronological then the source material rather then less.

The fact that some LNs are short story collections is perhaps the counter point to this thesis.  I suppose the short stories could be adapted as OVAs or ONAs.  But some movies are made as collections of shorter stories rather then one feature length story.

We've already seen success in adapting LNs as movies rather then TV shows.  The Live Action Boogiepop and Others movie, the Kara no Kyoukai films, the SAO Progressive movies of which only one I've gotten to see currently.  Aura: Koga Maryuin's Last War which I think is a pretty underrated entry in the Chunibyo genre.  And most successful of all The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

But I also think about the niche examples where the serialized format combined with wanting to make a lot of progress in one season has hurt a story structurally.  I'm The Villainess, So I'm Taming The Final Boss rushing to the end of the first novel in only the 4th episode killed my initial enthusiasm for that series.

There are exceptions, Fate/Zero and Fate/Apocrypha are LN adaptations and I don't see how they'd work as a string of movies.  Some LNs do seem to be written from the start with the idea of being adapted into a TV Anime.  However more often then not in Japan the Anime is glorified marketing for the source material not the other way around.  But sometimes whether it gets adapted or not a first novel can seem more like set up for future stories then a satisfying story on it's own.  Maybe it's mostly older LNs this is true for.

The point I'm making is perhaps most proven by the Raildex franchise and the popular discourse around it.  

A Certain Magical Index's first LN was also written to originally stand alone if no sequel was greenlit, that is the plot of the first 6 episodes and they too feel like they could've been a movie.  I enjoy the Index Anime just fine but I'm a notoriously easy person to please, and I can definitely see how every arc that is given only 3 episodes or less (Deep Blood, Tree Remnant, Crystal Fleet, all of season III) could have used more screen time to flesh everything out.

A Certain Scientific Railgun was serialized from it's inception and so the Anime is able to improve upon the Manga in the same way many past Anime based on Manga have from Sailor Moon to DBZ to the original FMA Anime by adding much needed episodic filler episodes and the occasional filler arc that is just as peak fiction as the Manga yet purists hate on them anyway.

Railgun works as a series because the source is also a serial, Index would have been better as movies.

It is true that sometimes even the LNs will split an arc across more then one LN.  SAO started doing this as early as Fairy Dance, and Boogiepop did it back in the 90s with Vs Imaginator, and Index has indeed done it a few times.

So those being adapted as a movie per LN can at first glance be mistaken for those misguided times Hollywood has split the last novel of a YA saga into two movies.  However Across The Spiderverse was pretty universally praised in-spite of ending on a Cliffhanger.  And in the world of Anime we have prior precedent for this with the Nanoha Reflection and Detonation movies being one story split across two films, and then the latest Prisma Illya movie also ended on a cliffhanger.

Maybe 20 years ago the idea of devoting a 20+ novel saga to movies rather then TV would have seemed unthinkable.  But now we live in a post MCU world where Cinema itself can be serialized.

Update November 2024: In the slightly over a year since I wrote this I've now finally seen Durarara! and Baccano!

Durarara! works surprisingly well as a TV series, I wouldn't change anything about it or recommending doing anything different if more season of the Anime are made.  It can be another lead counter example to my thesis.

Baccano! also works very well as a miniseries, but I do think what Baccano! pulled off is likely to only work as a one season gimmick, I'm skeptically a second season to do the same thing with another 4 LNs.  It helped that the Flying Pussyfoot was story was a two parter and that they could use Isaac and Miria as the main glue connecting the different stories.

If Baccano! gets more Anime, and I very much want it to, I would suggest just making movies out of as many of them as possible.

Perhaps some of you think too many individual Light Novels are not "Epic" or "Cinematic" enough to warrant a movie.  But I like plenty of small scale low stakes movies, from random Lifetime Original movies I've watched to old movies set in very isolated settings.  Not everything needs to be about the potential end of the world or destruction of an entire city to be film worthy.

Railgun T has only one problem

 A Certain Scientific Railgun T is an Anime I'm loving more each time I rewatch it.  Railgun S as a complete work of Art is still the greatest Masterpiece of the Raildex franchise.  But Railgun T being a bit less intense and more episodic is perhaps proving to be more rewatchable.

The Daihasei Festival Arc was perfect, and most of the Dream Ranker Arc was very fun, lots of cool one offs that expand the universe, and for the most part even what it's main plot winds up being is very interesting.  But I have one thing against it.

And that problem is a Spoiler so don't read ahead if you don't want to be spoiled.

The fact that the show does in fact declare the Doppleganger to not have a Soul really really bugs me.  And honestly it makes me wonder if anyone even knows what that word even means anymore.

The Soul is not actually something the existence of which is debatable, what's debatable is if it's immortal or not, yet it's clear many writers of modern fiction think it's definition is the thing certain religions say still lives when the Body dies, but it's not.  The Greek word translated Soul is Psyche.  Even the most Hyper-materialist ancient Greeks like the Epicureans did not dispute the Psyche existed, what they argued about was if it's immortal or not.

Anything that has a Psyche has a Soul, anything that has Self Awareness has a Soul.  Most important of all though, only a being with a Soul could ever be suicidal.  A life form running on pure animal instinct or AI programing could never develop a desire to end it's own existence.

The concept of an AI wanting to die but being unable to act on that directly because of it's self preservation programing is an interesting idea for Sci-Fi to explore.  But to then turn around and proclaim that entity doesn't have a Soul is absurd.

And to top it all off the Doppelganger's Psyche even proves to be immortal still existing after it's body dies.  So I honestly am baffled and have no idea what definition of the word Soul this Anime was possibly using.

A Certain Magical Index Deconstructs Meritocracy

During the Index account of the Sisters Arc back in season 1 we are shown how the official propaganda of Academy City is that any Esper could reach Level 5 if they try hard enough.  But in Index III at the end of the plotline with the Item characters it is made clear how only certain people had the potential to be a level 5 and those in charge mostly know who they are.

And this was always heavily implied, by the Sisters Arc itself Misaka was selected for the cloning experiment as a small child long before she was officially known to be a Level 5 yet the implications of that don't ever seem to be something that's occurred to her.  We've also seen that Accelerator and Mental Out were also already singled out to be experimented on as small children.

And now I feel compelled to return once again to The Last Jedi/Sequel Trilogy discourse.  The fact that so many online leftists think it's more Left Wing for anyone to be equally a potential Jedi shows how actually Liberal their mindset still is.

Leftists are Materialists, we acknowledge that some people do have innate natural advantages to being able to be successful that most people don't have.  We are the opposite of Nazis in that we reject that those with innate advantages should actually be considered more valuable.  But to deny the innate advantages exist ultimately serves the interest of Conservatives, it lets them convince themselves those already with power must be the ones who earned it.

Meritocracy is the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

The Raildex Anime are better social commentary then any Dystopic Science Fiction precisely because they are avoiding the usual Aesthetics of Dystopia. It's world is different from the real world but about the same in how Free or not Free it's society is.

Update May 31st 2024: I recently watched all of Durarara!! and it has a similar especially with the character of Shizuo Heiwajima who becomes of his naturally strength and rage is unbeatable in a fight even though he's had no trainer, multiple far more trained fighters consistently lose.  

Interestingly that's another Light Novel series that also started in 2004.

Daihasei Festival chronological watch order

I have constructed what I think is the closest thing possible to a Chronological viewing order of the Daihasei Festival episodes of A Certain Magical Index II and A Certain Scientific Railgun T.

For Index II ,two numbers each are listed since some websites number them by number of Index II specifically but others by of Index as a whole.

Railgun T Episode 1

Index II Episode 8/32

Railgun T Episodes 2&3

Index II Episodes 9-13/33-37

Railgun T Episodes 4-15

The consistency of the Raildex Anime are pretty amazing, almsot exactly a decade separates when these two Daihasei Festival Arcs were animated and yet jumping back and forth between them doesn't feel jarring at all.

It makes all the more jarring how much not like the other shows the Accelerator Anime looks.  I wonder if that show will have it's own Daihasei Festival Arc if it lasts long enough?

[Update: It didn't take me long to regret this order, lots of things won't line up.  Strict Chronological viewing isn't my actual recommended watch order for Raildex anyway.]