I like when a Cool Intimidating Villain is Metaphorically Castrated in a sequel, adaptation, reboot or remake.

In the original 1997 TV Anime Revolutionary Girl Utena the character of Akio aka End Of The World is a very cool and charismatic villain, he needs to be for that original version of the Utena story to work the way it does.

But then Ikahara made a movie called Adolescence of Utena that was a reimagining of the entire premise of Utena but also maybe ambiguously a Sequel somehow???  Either way this more than any other Anime Film borne from a TV Anime it is not a stand alone work of art, every detail is wrapped up in the Symbolism codified by the original show.

In the movie Akio is no longer cool or charismatic, his first scene makes a Joke out of him and then later he’s presented as absolutely Pathetic.  And this was a deliberate artistic choice with deliberate meaning behind it.  VraiKaiser in their discussions of the movie breaks it down way better than I can.  

https://vraikaiser.com/2014/01/20/i-know-why-she-turns-into-a-car/

https://vraikaiser.com/2015/07/04/the-adolescence-of-utena/

Originally of course a good chunk of the fanbase had a negative reaction to this decision,
"how dare you take the coolness away from the cool character I liked". This sentiment was in Jacob Chapman’s review of the movie back when he was known as JesuOtaku.  However in this case continuing to feel that way has become more rare, WhiningAboutYuri on Tumblr was very critical of the movie but supported this specific choice.  And it wouldn’t surprise me if even Jacob himself has repented of that old bad take.

However The Joker is a different story, that character most people still want to see treated with respect.  JackSaint’s video on Suicide Squad’s take on The Joker argues that Leto’s Joker is supposed to be an uncool cringey edge lord, which is also independently hinted at in Josh McNamee’s Sixteen Attempts to talk to you about "Suicide Squad".  

It is a good idea to remind people that the real life Jokers of the world aren’t cool or charismatic but pathetic losers, and the same is true of Adult Men in positions of Authority who take advantage of teenagers.  That doesn’t actually make them not dangerous, but it does make them less glamorous.

However there is a certain kind of fan who identifies with such characters even if they would never approve of their actions in real life. And there is a not insignificant overlap between these fans and the kind who become Internet Neo-Reactionaries.

I’m not arguing the “cool” takes on these characters shouldn't exist, I do believe most people can separate fantasy from reality and those who can’t have deeper problems than how they read fiction.  I’m simply defending the innate value in taking that coolness from them.  The intended message behind having a Pathetic villain is more potent when done with one previously seen as cool then it would be with one who was always depicted as pathetic.

Now for both of those examples I’ve already demonstrated that I’m far from the first to make this defense of them.  However as far as I’m aware I’m still the only person to read the Netflix Cowboy Bebop’s take on Vicious this way.  And even if I find out others have, I'm still confident I can claim to be among the first since I was reading him this way the day of the show's release. Largely because I was already familiar with these two discourses, so I was prepared.  But if you’ve seen someone else talk about Vicious this way please link me to it because I would read or watch it.

Netflix Vicious is entirely driven by how insecure he is in his masculinity, a problem that began with his daddy issues.  He is all through the show exposed to be a manchild who wants to be seen as intimidating far more than he actually is intimidating.  And the people who have that problem in real life who also watch Anime want to be like the Vicious of the original Cowboy Bebop or some other similar kind of Anime villain.  I’m not saying everyone who had a knee jerk negative reaction to this reinterpretation of Vicious did so because they are that kind of person, but I am saying this is why they should reconsider the value of this artistic choice.

Now it’s only with Ikuhara that I’m confident this reading was intentional.  Ayer and Leto have both said things that lead me to suspect that this isn’t what they intended.  With Netflix Bebop it does seem to be stated outright quite a bit that's what the message is, but you can never be certain with Netflix  But it doesn’t matter because the Author is Dead, this is a valid reading of the text whether those who wrote it like it or not.

And I want to see this done more.  As someone who’s devoted a chunk of their online identity to being a Star Wars Prequel Apologist I should show I’m not a hypocrite by saying I’d support Palpatine being given this treatment.  Of course I’m already Free from hypocrisy here, Batman is my oldest fandom. During the late 2000s and early 2010s I loved quoting Heath Ledger’s Joker to seem cool as much as anyone else did.  Yet I didn’t have a knee jerk negative reaction to Leto’s Joker, I didn’t in 2016 understand yet why I liked it, but I do think on some level this was always why.

In the context of Anime however I think the problematically Idolized Villain who needs to be taken down a peg the most is Light Yagami. And maybe to the fans of Netflix Death Note that’s why that movie works.  But the thing is there are lots of reasons I don’t like that movie, all three movies or shows I praised above have a lot more to like about then just doing the thing I named this post after.

More importantly though the way in which Light Turner is Pathetic for most of the film functionally exonerates him of being fully culpable for his sins, his psycho girlfriend is the real monster and she is cool and charismatic (or at least the movie wants her to be).  The way the three villains above are Pathetic highlights how horrible they are.

But also the three examples I praised are not at their core entirely different characters from the prior versions that so many people found cool, we’re simply seeing them now from different angles, in different contexts.  They do act differently in ways that would make them hard to see as in the same continuity, but the most basic character description is the same, or at least can be.  Light Turner lacks any actual similarities to Light Yagami. I don't see him as a different interpretation of the same character, he simply is a different character.

Netflix Cowboy Bebop holds up on Rewatch

As one of the few people who unironically loved it when it dropped in late 2021, I have decided to verify its rewatchability before doubling down on my defenses.  And I’m glad I did because I’m appreciating it even more this second time around over two years later.

I don’t love all parts of it equally.  The conversation about Faye not having an Orgasm before I find cringey, and since it’s not getting a season 2 the bleak way it ends doesn’t sit well with me.  I’ve said before that my preference for happy endings doesn’t mean I can’t respect the artistic choice to end a story more tragically, but in the case of Cowboy Bebop I really don’t find it justified.  So yeah I wanted Bebop to be Bowdlerized.  I agree with Mother’s Basement that Netflix Bebop is the less Woke version at least where its take on the Police is concerned, but MB is wrong in thinking Carol and Tuesday is Woke, its ending is fundamentally Centrist.

At least one of those complaints is the opposite of what most hate about this show.  To them Bebop is supposed to be gritty and dark and tragic.  The truth is the original also had its goofy and silly and kind of stupid elements and this remake also has real emotional resonance.  The exact balance between them is different and that’s good.  Batman fans have spent almost 20 years now learning to accept that different takes can have very different tones, much wider differences then these two Bebops have.

Cowboy Bebop was always an homage to old American genres like Westerns and Film Noir, and for many that comparison is the first thing they mention when explaining why this remake is so bad and insulting, but the thing is those Genres were never Highbrow or Respectable and they kinda still aren’t.

One specific proof that way too many Cowboy Bebop fans take the original way more seriously than it was ever meant to be taken is how this remake’s take on Faye is responded to. I criticized one scene involving her but the rest I love.  The haters hate how in the Netflix version Faye is an awkward Dork who’s actually very Bad at being a Femme Fatale, she is competent at other things but bad at that.  And that is exactly how I’d describe her in the original show too, like it’s really obvious to me that that’s always what they were going for.  But instead people wearing Nostalgia goggles decided that she actually unironically was the Fujiko Mine of our generation, which is a notion I can’t take seriously.

I think a big factor in why I’m more okay with this adaptation is that I have actually been into American Superhero Comics and their adaptations for longer than I have been into Anime even though now I’m into Anime the most of all my Nerdy interests.  Anime fans who are familiar with the source materials of Anime are used to relatively direct adaptations, where even if lots of changes are made it still essentially follows the same basic plot besides the occasional Filler Arc or dreaded Anime Original Ending.  Superhero fans are more used to adaptations that take the elements of the source material, characters and settings and lore concepts, and mixes them around, completely reimagining some, to create a fundamentally new story, but that still feels like a love letter to what came before.  And that’s what Netflix Bebop is, a new work of art still clearly crafted out of love for the original.

Netflix Bebop is fun, and that’s what Bebop always was, pure fun.  I do like the original show, but the Netflix Bebop is more the kind of Fun I enjoy.  It actually feels more like an Anime to me then the Anime did.

Now the thing I like most about the show I’m going to save for a different post since it’s kind of an entire thesis statement on its own.  So stay tuned.

Film is not ONLY a Visual Medium

One thing I’m sick of seeing among those who critique films for being too dialogue or exposition heavy or not following their understanding of “show don’t tell” properly is the rather dogmatic declaration that “film is a visual medium”.

Film and Television and Animation are mixed mediums of storytelling designed to in different ways stimulate both sight and sound to convey whatever their artistic intent is.  A purely visual medium would be things like paintings, something way more visual than anything else would be Comic Books/Manga or the very modern artform of motion comics.  Something that’s not visual at all would be Audio Dramas and Music Records.

I make posts like this to defend allowing artists to make what they want and the audience to enjoy what they want.  I am not someone who devalues the visual aspects of film or opposes films that prioritize the visual elements over everything else.  Such films have less appeal to me personally but I absolutely respect them, and absolutely do appreciate the visual elements of the movies and shows I do like.

That said there are sometimes bad directorial decisions made because of this over prioritizing of the visuals that YouTube critics defend simply on the principle that they did “something” visually instead of “nothing”.  Take for example JustWrite’s video on Rise of Skywalker where he is very critical of that film (more than I am really) but still defends Abrams as a Director over Lucas by showing a scene from a non Star Wars Abrams film where the Camera is spinning around some characters talking as inherently more “interesting” than the Prequels' more muted directorial style where the camera is still while characters talk.  As someone who likes Dialogue I don’t appreciate the Camera trying to disorient me while I'm trying to follow a conversation.

But that doesn’t mean I'm always against having some motion going on during a dialogue scene.  As an Anime fan I love the scene in the first episode of Fate/Zero where Kerie’s father and Tosaka walk in a circle around him while recruiting him into their scheme.  But it’s not nearly as disorienting as that Abrams scene and more importantly serves an artistic purpose beyond just avoiding the accusation of being boring. ReplayValue has a video essay on the scene that explains it way better than I could.

The Irony of all this is how some visual aspects of film get disrespected by this dismissiveness towards anything not purely or primarily visual.  When a character is talking, more is going on than just the words themselves, are they being sincere or manipulative or is their trustworthiness ambiguous?  How do they feel about what they’re saying, are they talking about something that traumatized them or does it give them great Joy to talk about?  Is there maybe something else they are failing to say?  These ideas are in part conveyed by how they say it, their facial expressions and how they’re moving.  In Live Action that is pretty much entirely in how the Actor performs it, however in Animation the more visual aspects of Acting are done by the Animators, so no you're not respecting them by dismissing dialogue scenes, sometimes the visual performance of a character talking is the best work they’ve done.  Maybe none of these people intend to dismiss all that when they say “film is a visual medium” but when saying it in the contexts they do that’s the implication.

That’s why it offends me when Zero Woolfe says sarcastically “what a great way to use this VISUAL medium” about Andrew Garfield’s performance in No Way Home because he has some ideological problem with simply saying what was previously unspoken.  His praise of the Marc Webb films are good, it’s the looking down on everything else that bugs me.

But that’s just how this attitude towards film can unintentionally disrespect visuals when it comes to a single scene. When a film gets perceived as an overly talky film it can cause the things that counter that narrative to be willingly ignored.  Back when the IMDB forums existed, one forum I liked to spend time on was the 1963 Cleopatra film.  And there was such a strong narrative there about how much “overacting” Elizabeth Taylor did in that film that I feel like I’m the only one who noticed near the end when she sees the ring she gave to her son earlier on Octavian’s hand and realizes he’s lying and her son is already dead.  That is an understated moment not conveyed in dialogue at all, but because it goes against a common narrative no one talks about it.

Thing is these people know non Visual elements are important because no one would dismiss the value of Music in films and be taken seriously.  George Lucas can describe Star Wars as almost just a glorified Music Video for John Williams score and no one goes “um film is a visual medium so why are you putting so much emphasis on an audio element:.”

It’s just talking that seems to bother these people.  Maybe they’re Introverts who don’t talk much in real life, but the thing is, so am I.  I like watching fictional characters who can do what I can’t, from Flying to Changing Gender at will to talking good.

Maybe it’s just the opposite. Maybe they love talking in real life so much that they want the characters in films to just shut up so they can talk over them and not miss anything.

Update April 2nd: Once again I found a Video Essay that had already argued what I am here with different examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWdoqVkXcwo

Suicide Squad Isekai has Anime Writers

That's why I think it has a better chance at feeling like a true Anime then other recently announced Anime takes on Western Nerd properties like The War of The Rohirrim or Scot Pilgrim.

I know it seems counterintuitive to some people but the way it's Animated and Drawn is not the main reason I like Anime so much.  I have developed a deep fondness for various Anime Art styles, but it's because I already associate them with so many stories I like that give it that meaning for me.

Principally the two people slated to write Suicide Squad Isekai are the main writers behind Re;Zero and Vivy the later of which I just watched.  Both are very good and do I think show them to be the best Isekai writers to take on the this section of the DC Universe.

Teppai Nagatsuki also wrote Warlords of Sigrdrifa which I liked a lot.  

Eiji Umehare wrote Pokémon: The Power of Us which is definitely the best of the most recent Pokémon movies.

People who care about the Director may be concerned that this seems to be the first thing Eri Osada has directed, but I think it'll be fine.

The Music is gonna be from Kenichiro Suehiro who also did the music for Re:Zero and Uncle from Another World and The Eminence in Shadow.  I'd have preferred Yuki Kajiura but those shows sound perfectly fine.

So all in all I'm excited for this project.

Some more Anime Writers

So there are some Anime Writers I've taken note of now that I don't think I've spotlighted on this Blog before.  For all of them I still haven't seen everything they've written.

Code Geass was for a long time my second favorite Anime, and it still securely has a place in my top 10, and since it's an Anime Original I figured I should take a look at it's writers.

Ichiro Okouchi was probably the head writer of Code Geass, more recently he was the head writer on Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury.  He wrote 5 episodes of RahXephon and 10 episodes of Angelic Layer and Princess Principial.  He also wrote much of Lupin III Part V which seems to be most people's favorite Lupin project of the last decade.  Two things he's written for I haven't watched yet but which are notable are Lupin Zero and Kabenari of The Iron Fortress.

Another notable writer for Code Geass was Hiroyuki Yoshino, he also wrote the Anime for My-Hime and My-Otome, and some of the notable Anime original content for Raildex like the Miracle of The Endymion movie and much of the Febri arc.  He has the Series Composition credit for Izetta: The Last Witch but no individual episodes.  He's written a lot of stuff I still haven't seen yet but might in the future.

Another key writer on Witch From Mercury was Yasuhiro Nakanishi who was also a lead writer on My Love Story with Yamada-Kun at lv999 probably the most underrated RomCom Anime of 2023 and an upcoming Isekai called No Longer Allowed In Another World.  Also Kaguya-Sama Love Is War but I don't know how much Anime Original Content that series even has.

Bowdlerization is Good Actually

The term Bowdlerization comes from the name of Thomas Bowdler who’s 1818 Edition of William Shakespeare changes the text in a lot of ways many deem to be “Censorship”.  Now in the sense that the term strictly speaking originally refers to the act of changing the text of an older work and presenting it as if that simply is what it is that I don’t want to defend.

However due to the drift of the word it is often used primarily of one particular change a lot of Bowdler’s versions made, changing the Tragedies to have a happy ending.  And as such is often applied to adaptations and reimaginings of prior stories, not merely edited editions.  

So it’s in the context that it's treating that act as fundamentally wrong that it bothers me.  Because retelling a story that originally had a Happy Ending to subvert that ending is often praised as a bold and brave artistic choice.

There is an attitude among a certain time of Leftist that feels like Bad Endings are inherently more subversive, or at least endings that are not completely happy, where something is still lost, there is still some “consequence”.  That the first and foremost goal of Left Wing Art needs to be to show how bad things currently are.  However Karl Marx was a fundamentally optimistic person who believed a Communist future was inevitable, so there is plenty of room for Left Wing Art that plays into that optimism.  

But I also don’t need to agree with the politics of something to enjoy it.  I can artistically respect stories with bad endings, but as far as what I like personally I’d generally prefer a conservative story that makes me feel good to a fellow Leftist trying to depress me with all their cynical observations I already agree with.

So let’s go back to the Shakespearean context of the word’s origin.  It’s fairly well known that almost all of Shakespeare's plays were based on some older story, some even already had prior Elizabethan Stage Plays.  What’s relevant here however is that some of his Tragedies were a lot less Tragic in their original versions.

Even Hamlet, one of the top two most well known of them all.  The original Danish Legend of Prince Amleth does end with him taking the Throne rather than dying.

However no Legend is in my view more cursed by having its popular perception now entirely filtered through Shakespeare than that of King Lear and his daughter Cordelia.  Shakespeare probably got Lear from Holinshed's Chronicles but the oldest surviving account is from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain where Leir of Britain reigned in the 8th Century BC.  Now because it’s a chronicle of the entire history obviously they died eventually, but the sequence of events Shakespeare is dramatizing ends with Cordelia restoring Leir to the Throne and then succeeding him as Britain's first Ruling Queen.  That happy ending is maybe undermined by knowing that Cordelia’s sexist nephews are going to overthrow her in a few years but still it was something, could have even made great thematic propaganda for the recently passed Queen Elizabeth.

King Lear is among the plays that would get a changed up happier ending in the Bowlder era, but still not restoring the original ending since it has Cordelia marry Edgar (a character not in the original source at all, the whole Gloucester family stuff Shakespeare took from a different source) seemingly forgetting that she was married to the King of France/Gaul.  Now of course I’d be all for having Cordelia reign as a Polyandrous Queen but I don’t think that’s what these editors intended to go for.

I’d change the outcome of the Leir saga to make it even happier, have Cordelia reign longer and have her Nephew’s coup fail and have her usher in a Gender Egalitarian Communist Utopia.  Because one thing I disagree with Marx on is that we had to do Capitalism first, I think going right from Feudalism to Communism was theoretically possible and I’d love to see some Speculative Fiction explore that theoretical.

Thing is if I ever wrote my own version I’d still include some stuff from Shakespeare, Shakespearean Fools are always fun, and the complexity the Gloucester plotline adds is thematically useful, but I’d try to subvert the Bastard son being the bad one.

But let’s move the conversation to stories that were already Tragedies in Shakespeare’s source material.  The notion that it's sacrilege for any story calling itself “based on Romeo and Juliet” to let them live happily ever after I mostly just find boring and unimaginative. But I more so think any adaptation that also makes them the same gender is morally obligated to give them a happy ending, being doomed to only tragic endings is an old trope the Gay community doesn’t like being reminded of.

However Othello is the one that I really think needs to be allowed to end differently.  It is the one Shakespeare Play everyone wants to see as about Race, and Shakespeare's story was indeed more Anti-Racist then his source material.  But the nature of how Racism works has changed, so much so that some feel it’s anachronistic to even call anything that far back Racism.

I think a lot of modern people want to read the play more allegorically, they want Iago to represent systemic forces that push Black People into Crime.  But that doesn’t work. Bad Individuals make Bad allegories for Systemic Racism.  And Othello is in a more privileged position than a poor Black person living in a modern American inner city.

The fact is Conspiratorial White Supremacists never actually make Black People the Evil masterminds of their Conspiracy Theories, they refuse to see Black People as capable of that level of intelligence.  Their world view is built on seeing them as aggressive, easily manipulated pawns of Evil White People, or at least people who can pass as White like Ahskenazi Jews.  Iago is etymologically a form of the name Jacob so maybe it’s not a coincidence this play is set in the same city as the explicitly Antisemitic one.

And then there’s how Race issues aside, modern people no longer think adultery justifies murder,  There was this movie in 2001 called O that was about remaking Othello as a High School Drama.  And its decision to end the same way is really jarring, Odin not realizing murdering his girlfriend was wrong till he learns she didn’t cheat on him yet still telling everyone they’re racist if they blame him for his own actions really doesn’t work.

So it would actually fight Racism more if the villain who thinks the Black Protagonist can be pushed into violence over such base emotions is proven wrong.

Shakespearean Anime

I’m going to list these by how Shakespearean they are, not how much I generally like them.  They are all stuff I recommend.

Romeo x Juliette

This Anime is not an animated staging of the Play, in fact it’s far from the only Shakespearean Play this Anime is drawing on.  It uses lots of random quotes and vaguely Shakespearean language.  But for the specifics of other plays it’s story could be compared to the first that comes to mind is Juliette being put in a Hamlet situation, however Romeo is arguably in a Prince Hal situation.  The presence of a Senate can remind one of the Roman Plays.

I’m not the biggest fan of how it ends, but that only affects the last 2 out of 24 episodes.

Requiem of The Rose King.

For this one I recommend the Manga more so then the Anime, in fact I was originally very harsh on it’s 2022 Anime but I gave it a second chance just recently and while the pacing of the early episodes still bugs me it eventually either gets better or I got used to it.

It’s based on the Henry VI plays and Richard III, but again not a direct adaptation.  Its starting premise is reimagining Richard’s deformity as being Intersex and deconstructing his popular demonization.  

The tells that it is still partly filtered through Shakespeare are things like William of Suffolk having been Margaret of Anjou’s Lover rather than Beaufort (the Beauforts aren’t mentioned at all).  And its use of Joan of Arc.

First of all the name itself, this is the only Anime that says “Joan of Arc” rather than ”Jeanne d’Arc”, there is a lot of Jeanne d'Arc in Anime and usually even the English Dubs keep that more properly French Pronunciation.

However, on the subject of Joan, there is one cut the Anime made from the manga I do still have to complain about.  Having Joan’s ghost haunt Richard feels a lot more random when they’ve removed the reference to it being Richard of York who burned her at the stake.  And that itself is a deviation from the history that comes directly from Shakespeare, every other fictionalization of Jeanne doesn’t mention York because they know he didn’t come to France till years later.

This is a Shoujo Anime, where Richard has a pretty large Pansexual Harem.

Now it is still Problematic, not by ever endorsing any Transphobia (or whatever you call Bigotry against Cis Intersex people) towards Richard, but in its Internalized Misogyny.  The only Female identifying characters who aren’t ever vilified are Anne Nevill and Elizabeth of York.

Now I really like this take on Margaret of Anjou, she can be read as a manifestation of Internalized Misogyny even more potent than Cersei Lannister.  I could take or leave its handling of Elizabeth Woodville.  But what bugs me is the decision to slander even Catherine of Valois to explain Henry VI’s trauma, I happen to really like the historical Catherine.

Code Geass: Lelouch of The Rebellion.

This show gives me Shakespearean vibes more so than any objective reason to say it was definitely influenced by the Bard.

Death Note is similar to Richard III in a very different way from Requiem, rather it’s like how House of Cards is compared to Richard III in how it kind of makes the audience an accomplice to Light.

Gundam The Witch from Mercury of course draws on The Tempest as much as it does Utena.

And that’s it, there’s kind of shockingly little of Shakespeare in Anime.

There are random references here and there, a movie with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as it's subtitle but no actual connection to that play I could notice.  Shakespeare is himself is a character in Fate/Apocrypha but he doesn't amount to much.

It definitely gets me to thinking how I wish there was more.  What unique takes on Shakespeare could only Anime do?

Henry V should be adapted as a Mecha Anime since it is the Shakespeare Play most about War, and at least can be interpreted as Anti-War.  Other plays have battles but they're just plot points, in the Henry VI plays they only serve to explain why who's in control has changed.  In Troilus and Cressida the Trojan War is a framing device but what its actually about is Netorare.

I'm not even joking, I totally think PoRo should make an adaptation of Troilus and Cressida.  Of course it's not the only Shakespeare play with NTR, given the abstract nature of how NTR Hentai can work I'd say it would count to have Richard III seduce Anne Neville on her dead Husband's Coffin.

And remember I have in older posts quoted Much Ado About Nothing to demonstrate that the basic concept of the Tsundere is nothing new, (I suppose I should acknowledge that I got that from TVTropes before Hbomberguy comes after me).  So imagine having Beatrice played by an Anime Voice actress with experience voicing Tsunderes interpreting the character through that lens?

Update May 2024: I really should included Fate/Zero on the same grounds I did Code Geas but even stronger.  

Spoiler Alert

A particularly potent example would be how Lancer's dying words in episode 16 give off strong Mercutio vibes.

Let Detective stories do what they want

Last time I did a post about how Detective Fiction seems to have less permission to break its perceived Genre Rules than any other Genre was before I got into Detective Conan in early 2022.  Since then I’ve become more of a fan of this genre and become even more passionate about the opinions I expressed back then.

Now the Detective Conan aka Case Closed franchise has plenty of cases that will satisfactorily play by the rules these critics care about so much, in fact other people praising this franchise online will praise it on exactly those terms.    But thinking about this genre in its specific Anime forms has brought another argument to my attention.

I’ve recently seen a few YouTube videos explain how no Mecha Anime is actually about the Mecha (I would argue Robotics;Notes is but it's definitely unique) in response to all these noobs who think Eva or something else is oh so innovative for being “a Mecha show that isn’t about the Mecha”.  I don’t think how much a given Mecha is or is not about the Mecha should matter to its quality, but it is telling.  Normally we understand that certain Genres refer to plot or narrative framing devices not what the individual story is actually about.

Mysteries however are treated the opposite, one that doesn’t treat getting the mystery itself right as it’s number one priority is considered to have been badly written.  And the rules they care about so much are in tension with each other, they want there to have been a fair chance for the reader/watcher to have figured it out before the answer is formally revealed, but at the same time it’s bad if it’s too obvious.  Striking that balance can be rewarding, but it shouldn’t be an absolute requirement.

Well the first and fourth Detective Conan movies are two of my favorite Detective Stories ever written and yet they fail this metric in opposite ways, almost as a perfect case study.

Naturally I am about to Spoil those two movies.  You have been Warned.

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In The Time Bombed Skyscraper it’s really obvious, Leo Joel looks like a villain the moment we meet him (and in the Japanese he's basically named Moriarty) and the only Red Herring provided is a Cop which you should never expect a Detective franchise this mainstream to be willing to commit to.  It doesn’t matter because the real drama of the film is about other things and then Leo Joel simply is a very good villain, he’s basically Howard Roak of The Fountainhead and I hate that I can't lead with that when recommending the movie to people since it’s technically a spoiler.

Captured In Her Eyes has the other issue which is ultimately the one people hate more, there is no fair chance at you solving the mystery on your own, the killer winds up being someone never even presented as a suspect.  But it's fine because who the killer is is even less what the movie is actually about then the first one.  And in the English Dub the killer is voiced by John Michael Tatum so once he takes his mask off he’s a lot of fun.

Sailor Moon S and Marmalade Boy 30th Anniversaries this month

March of 1994 saw the premier of two Toei shows, Sailor Moon S and Marmalade Boy.  

Sailor Moon S is often considered the best season of Sailor Moon. I personally still prefer the era when Junichi Sato was the series director but this is the best season after that, and the only good one with Ikuhara at the helm.

Thing is there was a brief hiatus very early on and so episode 3 the proper introduction of HaruMi didn’t air till April 16th.

To some extent it’s semantics that this is considered a separate series on MAL from the prior and following one, the OP changed but the Theme Song did not, in most ways the creative team is the same.  Pokémon's first 5 or 6 years is one MAL entry even though Kanto, Orange islands and Johto saw objectively more drastic changes.  However, that Sailor Moon’s character designs change at exactly this point does make S and SuperS screen shots of Sailor Moon instantly distinguished from season 1 and R.

Marmalade Boy is a Shoujo Anime, one of a string of them that aired in a special usually Shoujo Time Slot that since 2004 has been occupied by Pretty Cure.  Of shows that aired in this time slot during the 90s this one is one of the few that has an English Dub.  Its premise I am tempted to describe as the Het version of Citrus.  I’ve only seen a handful of episodes so far so can’t say much about it but I think it’s decent.

The end of 94 and beginning of 95 are what I consider the transitional period from the Silver to Bronze Ages of Anime.  These shows are perhaps two of the last significant new shows of the Silver Age and I’d say they are a decent swan song.