Radish Vacation Days

I’ve expressed before my feeling that the decision to reveal Kagura is dead now in the Inroi Route added to Shiny Days in 2012 was a retcon.  When Kagura is name dropped in the Summer Days routes it seems like a reference to someone still alive. 

My attempts to decipher the Timeline of the Overflow Universe lead me to placing Summer Radish Vacation 2 as no longer a Prequel/Period Piece but in fact set basically when it was released, the Summer of 2004.  Which would also make it either the year before or the same year as the events of School Days and in turn Summer Days.

Summer Radish Vacation 2 and the Days Series are both presumed to follow the same ending of Summer Radish Vacation, where Shun, Kagura, Youko and Mai form a Polycule but Rina and Rio are both taken by Tomaru. 

In Summer Radish Vacation 2 none of the main protagonists of the prior game are on screen characters, but according to the Wiki it is referenced that Kagura is still in a relationship with Shun and that Mai had left home, no reference to Youko seems to exist.  

That reference to Kagura is Summer Days can be interpreted as being consistent with her still being with Shun, the reference comes from Shun, someone playing this not knowing the full genealogy might well assume Shun was talking about his Mom not Mai’s.  And of course the entire premise of the Days series presumes Mai and Youko left the Polycule for some reason (what Setsuna assumes about why her Mom left her Dad may not be accurate given everything else she probably doesn’t know).

In my PureMail post I talked about the awkwardness of most people, especially in the West, referring to these prior Overflow games as if they’re prequels to School Days when the relationship was originally the opposite.  It’s easy for people to assume Youko and Mai are the Waifus who matter most in Summer Radish Vacation because it’s their involvement with Shun that created two of the most important Waifus of School Days/Summer Days.  But it was made first and foremost as a sequel to Snow Radish Vacation.  So it was in a sense Kagura who was originally thought of as the female lead, giving her a true Happy Ending after the sham of her supposed happy ending in Snow Radish Vacation fell apart is arguably the most important objective of the game.  Maybe she’s even the only one ever actually properly married to Shun (that they have the same father is probably not legally acknowledged, I'm not even sure if they know about it).

I view Kagura as the true most important protagonist of this meta franchise.  Her getting to finally live a happy life after the events of Summer Radish Vacation is kind of important to me.

But all that is assuming they all follow the same ending.  

I kind of wish more of these multiple ending games would have separate sequels for separate endings. What if we could pretend Summer Radish Vacation 2 and the Days Series are exactly that?

Originally Overflow released an “Adultery Chart” that said Tomaru not Shun was the father of Sekai and Setsuna.  This is clearly firmly retconned by Summer Days but maybe School Days was first written with that idea in mind?

In Summer Days it is contrary to what I first thought implied that Shun being Sekai’s father is also known to both Sekai and Setsuna, it’s just not explored as much because Sekai doesn’t interact with Shun.  

I already laid out what definitely is pretty consistent between Summer Radish Vacation 2 and Summer Days. 

If they follow different endings, perhaps it is the fate of Rina and Rio that’s different?  School Days does refer to there being an Inou who was about Makoto’s age in Grade School, which the Wiki presumes is probably Rio’s daughter Risa Inou who wouldn't exist if Tomaru didn’t take Rio since Shun as scummy as he cna be sometimes I don't think would impregnate Rio at that young, in fact he certainly doesn't have the means Tomaru has to make it biologically possible. But what if this Inou could be a daughter of Shun and Kagura?  But if I'm correct on them somehow getting legally married their kids would probably be named Hazama. 

If there is actually a problem for Summer Radish Vacation 2 and Summer Days being in the same timeline it’s Itaru Itou. Itaru is supposed to be usually staying with Tomaru and SRV2 depicts Tomaru’s household seemingly during this same time period or only a year prior.  Maybe she’s absent because she spends a chunk of each Summer staying with Makoto and their Mom as seen in Summer Days, but not all of it.  Maybe Tomaru is only so interested in keeping Itaru around because he doesn’t have any Inous in this timeline?  

If they are separate timelines then perhaps Rideru Takatsukasa and Makoto Itou are in some cosmic sense different versions of the same entity?  Both are born after the events of Summer Radish Vacation, both are children of Tomaru by a Nurse, both are protagonists who start their debut games knowing who they want to romantically pursue but can still wind up with someone else. But for Makoto it’s the first choice who turns out to be a Rapist.  And Rideru does seem like a much less passive character then Makoto.

But they probably are the same timeline and some explanation for Itaru’s absence from SRV2 can be dreamed up. It could be the Itou family only wound up in this shared custody situation less then a year before the Summer of Summer Days, I don't recall if the games themselves mentioned a timescale for it. 

Intense Emotion Fueled Magic in Anime

Puella Magi Madoka Magica from 2011, the  Black Rock Shooter TV Anime from 2012 and Blue Reflection Ray from 2021 are three shows where it is built right into the Lore, into the very Metaphysics of their worlds, that young girls feel their emotions far more intensely than anyone else, especially anyone male. 

Also all three of these shows are rightly or wrongly viewed (by certain critics at least) as being principally made by and for adult men due to how they seemed to be demographically marketed. 

Now most Western Feminist Anime Critics have a very cynical theory on why such stories would be made by and for men. Whether they wind up liking these shows or not there is still a desire to criticize their appeal as “Crying Porn” or “Suffering Porn”.

However as someone Assigned Male At Birth who saw myself as a Cishet Male for most of my life and sometimes still does, I have a different theory.   

We live in a society where Men are often told they shouldn't openly feel emotions at all, that even over something as big as a loved one dying they should shed nothing but a single tear. Where even in shows made by allegedly “Woke” Hollywood and praised by online Leftists, men are still expected to be either Vulcans or Klingons

I think it’s natural then that many would feel like the only way they can process their emotions is to project onto highly emotional female characters in the media they consume. That they perhaps Envy young girls for being allowed to have emotions.

I would agree that the real solution to this problem is more fiction that does say men can and should cry.  And guess what I often see that too in Anime more than anywhere else.  Gundam Seed repeatedly gives Kira permission to cry.  Then Gundam Unicorn goes even further subverting the usual trope of it being only girls men can safely cry in front of, its MC is told by a character much more conventionally Masculine then He is that he absolutely should cry. In Sword Art Online Alicization there is a beautiful powerful scene of Kirito crying over some flowers being destroyed, and then supposed Leftist Mother’s Basement mocked him for it. 

Large Pon Pon is perhaps the most accessible Overflow Game

In addition to also being their first.  

And what I mean by accessible here is it could have a wide appeal if it was available in English.  It not being translated makes it less materially accessible then School Days or Shiny Days or even Cross Days which seems to have an unofficial translation floating around out there somewhere.

Large Pon Pon is a Visual Novel where the main cast seems to be mostly in their 20s.  Ayumu Inou the main protagonist is 24 if what I’ve read is correct.  One girl in the game is in High School and I presume that route is avoidable or at least it’s H Scenes are if there are any.  There are absolutely no Lolis.

Its content seems to include plenty of Depravity, but there are lots of people who are okay with Anime depravity so long as it’s between adults.

This is all stuff I know from reading about Large Pon Pon as I can’t play untranslated Japanese Games. 

So when trying to get Overflow Games on the radar of those English speaking YouTubers who can play Japanese Video Games that have never been translated, we really should start with Large Pon Pon not the Radish Vacation series.  Something I wish I myself had thought to consider earlier. 

Since the madness that is the Overflow Family Tree was mostly built by a game series that was a prequel to this, its relationship to all that is at face value more direct than say PureMail yet possibly still 100% Retcons. So most of the questions I’d want answered by seeing someone else give a deep analysis relate to that.

The infamous Overflow Family Tree makes some of the relationships Ayuma can have in this game Incestous, but I’m highly skeptical that any of that was in the minds of the developers when they first made this game, and if so it shouldn't be relevant to this game as a stand alone piece of Art. 

On the Overflow Wiki the biography of Ayumu Inou prior to the events of Large Pon Pon is already a very insane one.  But it seems to be all offscreen even in those Prequel games, Ayumu himself does not appear to be an onscreen character in any of them. 

Part of my brain is highly skeptical that any of that was mentioned or even hinted at in Large Pon Pon itself.  But I hope I’m wrong, I think Large Pon Pon is a more compelling story if Ayumu’s sexually traumatized backstory is relevant to the present story. But it’s certainly by no means boring if it’s not. 

For those who don’t know, that history includes being sexually enslaved by his Aunt Asagi for years, a complicated history with his older sister Kagura, sireing multiple Bastard children who he may not know about, most of them with biological relatives, and being the possibly acknowledged son of the most vile fictional character ever written.

Tomaru Sawagoe is not an onscreen character in this game, but I really am curious to what extent he is mentioned. Because onscreen characters in this game do include the woman he’s actually married to and his son by her and that son’s wife, in release order the Sawagoe surname first belonged to those characters. And even in the canon established by those prequels Tomoe seems to have already had that surname before she married Tomaru. The Wiki presumes her to be Tomaru’s Aunt but I think that’s a mistake since Aunt-Nephew marriages aren't legal in Japan but Cousin marriages are.  And in Snow Radish Vacation they are either the same age or Tomoe is younger, so a possible but not typical Aunt-Nephew age gap.  

Also is the Hospital that Tomaru is said to own in Shiny Days the same one much of this game takes place in?

But I’m even more curious if Kagura is mentioned in any capacity. To me the Radish games have made her the most important protagonist of this Epic Saga of Depravity, so it’d be nice if there was at least some hint of her existence where it all started. Even if it’s unnamed, if it's just an offhand statement that Ayumu has an older sister.  Kagura and Ayumu are siblings who share both parents and have the same last name and were raised together, so it’s a sibling status that has no asterix attached to it. 

Makoto Itou's lack of Free Will

One mechanic that separates School Days and its sequels from many other Visual Novels is how making no choice serves as a sort of secret third choice further complicating the branching path system.

The Philosophical and Metatextual implications of that are further layered by how the player isn’t in control of every choice Makoto makes, or indeed even every important choice.  It really is more like we are merely being consulted on choices he can’t immediately make on his own.  For all my interest in apologizing for this guy, yes some of his decisions I can’t directly influence do frustrate me. He is sometimes a dumb horny teenager, but unlike seemingly most Anime fans I don’t think that’s a capital offense. 

Thing is, some of the results of choosing nothing do not look in universe like Makoto not making a choice, some do, sometimes it is as simple as him not answering a question he was asked.  But sometimes it seems almost functionally indistinguishable from what one of the offered choices were.  In fact the first choice of episode 2 is one of those, making no choice results in Makoto asking about the kiss, clearly that’s what he wants to do but his hesitation gives the player the chance to prevent him from asking. 

But there are also times when we’re only given one option, that is secretly two.  As I talked about when discussing Makoto as a Rape Victim in one situation the options for him are to say no or nothing to what Kotonoha is asking to do.  Remember the casual fanbase memes on him being a horny idiot who never doesn't want to have sex.  So the fact that in this case the player does not have the option of making him consent is a very huge oversight in the popular perception of him. 

I feel all of this adds up to making it a valid reading of the text that the Route which comes from the player making no choices is the most Canonical baseline for who Makoto is.  And that the player made choices are not quite equally valid representations of his personality but the player being an outside influence on him. 

Maybe you think that’s a reading one can only come to in a post Doki Doki Literature Club world, or before that in Japan You and Me and Her: A Love Story.  But the thing about a good metatextual commentary or “Deconstruction” is that it’s drawing attention to what was already there, making explicit a subtext that is in fact nothing new. 

A lot of my defense of Makoto is based on how in the VN everything that happens in the TV Anime can’t happen on one timeline and there are timelines where he does very little wrong. If you still think that every version of him should be judged based on the sins of the worst versions of him, that says a lot about you and how you view questions like Human nature and Free Will. 

One of the reasons why Calvinism and Arminianism are functionally the same to me is that if you have an absolute belief in human Free Will then inevitably you can conclude what choices a person makes reveals who they always were.  So Calvinism and Arminianism both result in simply believing Bad people just are innately Bad people. And as I’ve said before Existentialism is just Secular Arminianism.

I am a Materialist with an Optimistic view of Human Nature. I believe when people are at their Best they are being the closest to who they truly are, and that when people are bad they are succumbing to their material conditions and proving their lack of Free Will. But even that is not entirely the point of what I’m saying about Makoto in School Days. 

What I’m pointing out today is that who Makoto turns out to be when the Player doesn’t interfere is far from the worst version of him and may very well be the best.  

The ending that results from the player making no choices is With Honesty.  Making no choices isn't the only way to get that ending, the Overflow wiki at the top of it’s page says it’s a moderately hard ending to get,, which tells me one editor got it through a more convoluted means.  To be more specific the no choices route results in episode 2 being The Distance Between Us, episode 3 being Conflicting Desires, episode 4 being With Great Reluctance, and episode 5 being A Christmas Invitation.  I’ve affectionately nicknamed this The Luigi Route.

This ending is a Sekai ending, which feels very vindicating since I concluded Sekai is who Makoto should be with well before I learned this little fact about the game. But most importantly he never cheats at any point. The stuff that’s uncomfortable to watch in this route is mainly Taisuke’s behavior. 

Which does lead to the one thing in this route people are hard on Makoto for, his lack of intervention when he sees Taisuke’s lack of respect for Sekai’s consent. Makoto is clearly bothered by what he saw, unfortunately the way Japanese culture is about these kinds of things it is pretty expected that he’d conclude it’s not his business. And other cultures are like that too, including our own sometimes. This is not me saying it’s fine, but it is me saying its a product of society, of Material Conditions. 

Maybe you think it’s bad game design that what happens if the player does nothing is still a good ending, isn’t the point of a Video Game that the player saves this world from some bad fate it’s heading towards?  Of course a lot of RPGs and Zelda Games have a major element of McGuffin Delivery Service to how their plots are written, the player making things worse first is far from unprecedented. And even for players who want Makoto to get with Sekai, other Sekai endings probably feel more emotionally satisfying even when the route to get there involves more ethical misdeeds. 

The infamous Bad endings of the Game are themselves fairly difficult to get.  I can’t say they aren’t at all potential results of trying for a good end and failing, you can definitely be on a certain route long enough and wind up with a bad ending being what you’re most likely headed towards. There is a degree of High Risk High Reward where one Bad ending is closely tied to the route for the Threesome ending. But they are not from the start what you are most likely winding up on from simply playing the game badly. 

The most common endings one winds up with on a blind playthrough seem to be Christmas Eve if going for Kotnonoha or Setsuna’s Feelings if going for Sekai. Christmas Eve is in fact the Kotonoha counterpart of With Honesty in terms of the scenario leading up to it so it’s one where how much Makoto does wrong is about the same as that route, maybe even less.  Setsuna’s Feelings is one of many routes that involves Makoto cheating on Kotonoha with Sekai, but at least he doesn’t swing back later, once he realizes he’s happier with Sekai he sticks by that with a lot of the failure to break it to Kotonoha sooner coming down to equal hesitation from both him and Sekai.  It’s not good but hardly worth labeling him an irredeemable womanizer.

As I argued in other posts, going off just School Days I don’t think Makoto is ever as bad as people make him out to be.

It’s definitely unfair to hold against any Makoto of School Days the crimes he committed in different games, normally that’d be a given, School Days was clearly not written as something that needed a sequel, it’s a stand alone work of art.  But since vilifying Makoto as much as possible is everyone’s favorite pastime, the morally worst route of Summer Days has to be referred to as a revelation not an addition. I was at first gonna include a parallel analysis of Summer Days/Shiny Days but it looks like that may have to be a separate post some time in the future.

Top Femme Fatale Anime Girls

The reason for that title and not “Femme Fatales of Anime” or "Anime Femme Fatales” is because I’m not actually limiting this to Animation, it can include Manga, Doujinshi, Visual Novels and other “Anime Style” Games.  I’m writing this intro before I’ve fully finalized the list so don’t take that as a guarantee all of those will be represented.

I’m not including Fujiko Mine because she’s so synonymous with the concept of Femme Fatales in Anime that her inclusion would be a distraction. I'd unavoidably get comments either complaining that anyone but her is number 1, or that making her number 1 was a lazy spineless choice.  Plus I have nothing to say about her that hasn’t already been said.  I’d rather use this list to draw attention to more Niche characters. 

My standards for what makes a Femme Fatale can be at the same time more rigid and more fluid than others.  First of all the meaning I mean here is a literary synonym for a Seductress/Temptress, not women who kill. Noir is my favorite Anime but I don’t consider anyone in it a Femme Fatale.

I also disagree with TVTropes separation of the Femme Fatale from The Vamp (and on the topic of Anime specifically a good chunk of who they call Fille Fatales rather than Femme Fatales) they are the same in my view. Also unlike TVTropes I’m not acknowledging any “rare male example”, I do think it’s theoretically possible but on TVTropes it’s more often just a male character being a Player in a typically male way.   I have already talked about Kaito Ace from the Sailor V Manga but I only considered calling him one in a specific context.  An Otokonoko might make the list, but I doubt it, most Otokonoko characters I’m familiar with are pretty Wholesome. 

But there are still a variety of kinds of characters who fit my definition of a Femme Fatale.  Fujiko is the Catwoman type, but there’s also the Poison Ivy type, the 40s Film Noir type, the classical Biblical Epic type, the literal Succubus type.  You can also be a Heroic Femme Fatale in my view, many certainly are morally ambiguous and sympathetic, me giving this Label to a character isn’t innately a moral condemnation.  And maybe even some types I would perhaps deem truly unique to Otaku/Shoujo media with no good analogues in Normie media.  

For example an Anime Femme Fatale could theoretically not be offering anything Sexual or Romantic at all.  Moe is in part about understanding that men don’t necessarily need to expect anything from a Pretty Girl to be convinced to do what she wants.  Most Anime Girls use this power for Good rather than Evil though, so I can’t guarantee anyone like that will be on the list.

And that’s enough talking about who’s not on the list. Let’s get started. 

I’m going to put an Asterix on my inclusion of Gigi Andelucia from Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway since in Anime form that story is still incomplete.  People have read the Novels even in English and thus have an idea of how off the mark or spot on I am about this, but I haven’t.  For now though this film gives me mild 40s Film Noir vibes, not aesthetically but in how it’s written.  And so Gigi’s unique place on this list would be as the Anime character most like a Classic 40s Film Noir Femme Fatale.  Again not every character designated the Femme Fatale of a given Film Noir is an entirely bad person. 

Nana Hiragi from Talentless Nana.  Really just the first episode where she is a good example about it not being necessary to be Sexual or Romantic at all.

Akane Minegawa from Scum’s Wish. She’s a character who likes Reverse NTRing people just because she can, she's quite fun. 

Riko Mine Arsene Lupin IV from Aria of the Scarlet Ammo and its spin off Aria of The Scarlet Ammo AA.  She’s my favorite character from these shows and a large part of why I watched them to begin with, voiced excellently by Luci Christian. I believe I've talked about this character on this blog before in other contexts.  In the spin off she has a younger protege, I’m not giving her her own entry though. 

Mami Nanami from Rent-A-Girlfriend.  I suppose I have as little to say that hasn’t been said already for her as I do for Fujiko.  But as an unironic Rent-A-Girlfriend enjoyer I wanted to express my solidarity.

Kaede Sakura from Kampfer.  Some might consider it a spoiler for me to list her here, but I don’t care.  She’s great, once she shows her true colors she is very seductive.

Maya Kamiwazumi from Fault!! Service: Aratanaru Rival. She's the best example I can think of right now of being both a Kuudere and a Femme Fatale.  She also fits into the trope of a spurned Lesbian going after the boyfriend of the girl who spurned her, which is a problematic trope but can be done well in my opinion.  I'm optimistic that in the source material for this you can get a true Threesome resolution to this triangle, but I can't know for certain since the game probably isn't available in English.

Sempai from Your Fault a Yuri NTR Doujin by Kazushiro also known as 115990.  She’s a great example of the kind of Femme Fatale that is most commonly found in Yuri.  A compelling combination of traditionally Masculine Assertiveness and Feminine Allure.

Kaori Nanahoshi from another Doujin with a longer more inconsistently translated name, 516668.  Unlike most Reverse NTR doujins this one truly is a gender reversal of what usually happens in a regular NTR in that the villainess Rapes her male target.  Now you may think “if it’s Noncon where does the Seductress stuff come in”, well what’s really devious is she uses those Seduction techniques after she’s already Violated him in order to emotionally confuse and manipulate him. 

Flay Allster from Mobile Suit Gundam Seed has quickly become my number one. This character has an Arc and really isn’t a Femme Fatale yet during the first 10 episodes  She’s a Femme Fatale in a distinctly Shoujo feeling way as a result of a Woman being the lead writer of Gundam Seed giving it a number of Shoujo qualities.  It’s one thing to watch a woman pretend to love a man she’s indifferent to.  But what’s really Toxic and unnerving here is that Flay actually Hates Kira when she starts emotionally seducing him.   One could also make a whole Video Essay about how the Electra Complex is in play. 

Ki Sho Ten Ketsu

First I’ve made this playlist of a number of YT videos about Kishotenketsu, I haven’t actually watched all of them yet but the ones at the start I have.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CWxmx4wepidrlF-PrpezIs-mVr3Q0Ls

In this post I’m going to talk about it in a few different ways.

First, as I've already said before, I think the common translation of Ten as “Twist” is unintentionally misleading. And one manifestation of that is how it’s applied to Attack on Titan.  Yes I think even Pause and Select is wrong in trying to argue the Kishotenketsu breakdown of Attack on Titan correlates to the official Season designations of the Anime.

This is largely driven by the confusion of Ten with being a plot twist, because Season 3 revolves around plot twists way more then the first two seasons.

The first 3 seasons were designated three seasons even though they functionally aired as 4 broadcast seasons and have slightly more than enough episodes to theoretically be divided into Five seasons because of the quirks of how it aired. I’m convinced the 5th Broadcast season was branded as the “Final Season” purely for marketing, because the Manga was about to end and they’d committed to adapting the rest of it. 

However, narratively speaking I believe the Ten begins when Reiner becomes the main POV protagonist for a while.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Ten at least when applied to long form stories like this is about the story being very different then it was before.  And that if there is indeed a Plot Twist that causes it, that plot twist isn’t always part of the Ten but can often happen at the end of the Sho.

And one precedent for that is the Evangelion Rebuild films.  

One reason I think some people have trouble accepting the claim that the Three Act Structure isn’t as big in the East is because so many Anime film series are made as Trilogies, but honestly I think that kind of is just the Japanese Film industry mimicking Hollywood. Take the Mobile Suit Gundam 0079 Compilation films, they are a trilogy but I feel would clearly have worked much better as four films with the second beginning and ending with the Ramba Ral and Crowely Hamon arc.

And that’s why the Rebuild films are special, they are a true Kishotenketsu Tetralogy.  Evangelion 3.33 feels almost like itself a Reboot, but why everything is so different now is because of what happened at the end of 2.22.

And this also fits how I feel Kishotenkestsu very intentionally applies to the Wachowskis Speed Racer film from 2008.  Basically each of the film’s four races are the culminations of each of the four acts, with the film’s main “Twist” if you can call it that happening alongside the second race.

Like many who are aware of Kishotenketsu I often get annoyed when seeing some Normie YouTuber try to force the Three Act Structure or some other Western Structure derived from it (any proposed structure with an Odd number of parts is clearly just trying to stretch out the Three Act Structure) onto an Anime or Manga.  

However I also admit it’s not entirely wrong.  There are natural things that led to the Three Act Structure that can make it not limited to the West.  But I think the reverse is also true.  One video in that playlist argued Kishotenketsu is a Rhetorical device not a Story Structure, I disagree with the “not” part, or rather would add an “only” after it.  Both the Three Acts Model and Kishotenketsu can be viewed as lenses through which to look at stories that are not necessarily mutually exclusive.  After all most 12 episode Anime are either 4 Acts of 3 episodes each or 3 acts of 4 episodes each.

Still there is a Western Chauvinism I think in how often the Three Act Structure is imposed on Eastern stories rather than the other way around.  So I figured I should try to even that out.  I already mentioned Speed Racer but as an Anime Adaptation it’s certainly not independent of Eastern Influence, rather it shows how the Wachowskis did their research better then a lot of other Hollywood Anime Adaptations. The Cynic Clinic video at the start of my Playlist cites examples of people in Japan seeing Kishotenketsu in Frozen and Little Red Riding Hood. 

JustWrite has a video on how Batman Begins actually follows a Four Act Structure, but a differently defined one then Kishotenketsu.  And yet I can apply a Kishotenkestsu lens to it fairly easily by simply saying its midway point Twist is the introduction of The Batman to Gotham City.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace certainly can be broken down into four acts instead of the usual three based on what Planet the main cast is on, Naboo, Tatooine, Coruscant, and Naboo again.  The question is how plausible Kishotenketsu is? It could be in this context the Midway Point Twist is the existence of Darth Maul becoming known to the Jedi. 

But also on the subject of Star Wars, each season of Andor is divided into 4 Arcs of 3 episodes each just like a lot of Anime.

I also think about how Superman The Movie and Superman II are meant to be telling one massive story across two movies and that kind of fits.  First Superman is introduced to the world, then stopping Luthor’s plan is the development, then the introduction of the Super Villains is the Ten and the eventual battle between them and Superman is the Ketsu. 

I recently rewatched It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World and concluded it too can be given a four act breakdown.  The first ends when the race properly starts after the failed negotiation on how to split up the money.  The Intermission breaks up Acts 2 and 3.  And Act four begins with the finding of the money.  

A number of DC and Marvel limited series that get referred to as Graphic Novels were originally published as 4 praters.  The Dark Knight Returns might actually the easiest to apply Kishotenketsu to. 

I added an update to my post about Spin Offs that start with no prior connection to the main cast arguing how they can fit one way of defining Kishotenketsu. And that also got me thinking how Phase One MCU can be viewed as following that kind of Kishotenketsu.  The first Iron Man film is the Ki, Iron Man 2 is the Sho, Thor and Captain America are the Ten and The Avengers is the Ketsu.  

I also got to thinking how one could make a standard Hollywood Trilogy into that by taking a setting or character only in the third film and making a prequel about them placed on the watch order between movies 2 and 3.  For the original Star Wars trilogy I guess the Ewoks would be the best option for that, (and there are Ewok focused Spin Offs but I don’t know where they hypothetically fit on the timeline). [Update: I guess a movie about the Bothans could also work if it also gives screen time to Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma.]  For The Dark Knight Trilogy an origin story for Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman would be the best bet.

Four Koma Manga like Azumanga Daioh are often cited as the perfect way to demonstrate Kishotenketsu on a micro level. But strangely never actually contrasting it to the standard Three Panel structure of American Newspaper Comics like Garfield.  It perhaps says something about my biases that I think the Azumanga Daioh girls in a Three Panel comic would look weird, but I think Four Koma gags with Garfield and Friends could work pretty well.

But I also notice Internet Memes and Web Comics tend to be Four Panels instead of Three (but you have to read them Right to Left unlike a Manga).  Is it possible that is because of how indirectly Japanese Comedy has influenced Internet Human form very early on via Video Games and Anime and the sillier Godzilla movies?

The most infamous Four Panel Webcomic is arguably Loss, but honestly I’m having trouble even forcing it to fit Kishotenketsu.  It is more like Western Storytelling where the “Twist” happens in the last panel.  That’s not me dissing it, frankly I’m sick of the unfair hate that author has received and honestly I think it's a brilliant piece of wordless purely visual storytelling, and the way people have abstracted it to mock it only further proves that.

However what I do think shockingly conforms to Kishotenketsu is a Prequel Meme, the one based on that Padme and Anakin scene from Attack of The Clones, “You’re Joking Right”.  Because I can easily argue that the Ten is the implication that Anakin isn’t Joking. 

I honestly am shocked that much of this wound up being about Star Wars.  Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in. 

I’ve wondered if maybe Japan also has a more niche Six Act structure given how many OVA series (like Gunbuster, War in The Pocket, Tenchi Muyo and Murder Princess) and Anime Arcs (Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and the first arcs of A Certain Magical Index, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Sailor Moon SailorStars) I’ve observed play out over exactly 6 episodes (and the School Days Visual Novel is structured as 6 episodes). But then I think about how the Freytag’s Pyramid Five Act structure is just the three Act structure with a couple extra steps, and suspect these Six Part stories have a similar relationship to Kishotenketsu, with it probably most often being the Sho and the Ten that get an extra episode each. 

That allows the Phase One MCU model to fit even better. I'd already split the Ten into two movies and now I can add The Incredible Hulk to the Sho rather than ignoring it.

Can I make the 6 episode George Lucas Saga fit? Maybe.  The Phantom Menace as an Introduction to everything obviously works, then we have two episodes covering the Clone Wars, then two episodes of following the next generation before Return of The Jedi brings everything together. 

Is Anime a Genre?

The simple answer is No, because the definition of Genre I expect to be the first to pop into your mind is a type of Story or Setting for a Story, and Anime is not one of those.  And a number of Anime YouTubers have expressed annoyance at it being called a Genre thinking of that definition. 

But the word Genre is actually broader than that in application, it really just means a Category, it is etymologically cognate with Gender.  In the context of Video Games we don’t usually use Genre to mean Story or Setting but to categorize the way a Game is played Mechanically.   Platformer, First Person Shooter, RPG, Point and Click Adventure Game, ____ Simulator, ____ Like and so on. 

So a Medium can be a Genre, as can an Art Style or any other definition for Anime you can come up with.

The thing about Anime being mistaken for a Genre in the first sense is that I can understand why many in the Anime Fandom hate it because of a fear that it will make people think Anime has less variety than it actually does. But I also think that conflation has caused some of what I like about the Anime Community. 

Back in the 2000s and even much of the 2010s when I was still more Western in my Nerdy interests and only dabbled in a select few Anime, I’m sure I was far from the only person into DC Superheroes and Star Wars type stuff but also Teen Dramas, but as far as how people engaged in such fandoms openly online they were very segregated.  And often a perceived crossing over between them was a source of hostility, people hated Twilight for tainting their precious Masculine Vampires with Teen Girl Melodrama.

The Anime Fandom was the first Fandom I ever encountered where it was normal to appreciate those different kinds of Story Genres together.  Where the same Vloggers will give weekly coverage to both currently airing Isekai and currently airing Romantic Comedies.  That I can talk about Nana with the same people I talk about Gundam.  Because Anime itself was a distinct Category of content to be a Nerd about, the variety of Genres within it could coexist in a way they couldn’t elsewhere.

That’s not to say there are no internal beefs within the Anime community along these lines, the Anti-Shoujo and Anti-Moe “OldTaku” were and still are a thing.  But it manifests differently precisely because Anime was always crossing over these things. Western media has its own long history of hybridizing Teen Drama and Superheroes going back to the 50s Superboy Comics.  But with Anime this has been the default form, it’s Superheroes being Adults that’s a novelty.

I created a Playlist on YouTube called Anime Defined where the true nuances of what the word Anime means is broken down and certain popular misconceptions are refuted.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4CWxmx4wepj2gZet-357KQT3bgJjLErC 

But one topic not covered in any videos there yet is how I think the most interesting difference between how Westerners and those in Japan use the word Anime is that only we use it for a “Style” of Character Design. A Character who looks like this….

…is called an Anime Girl even though she hasn’t yet been in any Animated Media. And certain Video Games are called “Anime Games” because of the style of their Character Designs.

In Japan Anime is not given priority among the various Mediums these Styles have appeared in. The oldest Styles used in the Oldest Anime would probably be called Manga Styles if anything because they were usually adapting Manga or imitating older shows adapted from Manga.  Plus the word Manga in Japan is more analogous to the English word Cartoon then Comic.

However the particular kind of Anime Style associated with what Westerners typically mean by “Anime Games” I’m pretty sure actually started with the Games, it was Anime adapting and/or imitating those Games that created the styles of modern Anime. 

The Puyo Puyo series started in 1991 (spinning off from something older if I remember correctly), Doukyuusei and Galaxy Fraulein Yuna then came out in 1992, Tokimeki Memorial came out in 1994 as did Panel de Pon.  Their OVAs were among the first Anime to have this style, but even in 1995 TV Anime still didn’t quite look like this yet.  1996 was the big breakout year with Shizuka and Kizuato and Kakyuusei and Welcome to Pia Carrot and YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World. And then 97 had To Heart and Dosei and Moon followed in 98 by One.  Then 99 had Key’s Debut with Kanon and Overflow’s with Large Pon Pon, and the To Heart Anime being I would argue the first popular TV Anime with this style.

So yeah, it’s actually Anime that looks like those Games, not the other way around. 

Those Games however I believe were in turn influenced by Shoujo Manga trends in both subject matter and the Bishoujo/Bishounen style.

Anime that are more Communist then Hayao Miyazaki

For some reason, there is a narrative that Hayao Miyazaki is the most Leftist creator of Japanese Animation and Manga. The problem is even when Miyazaki was still identifying as a Marxist he was always a Malthusian and that’s mutually exclusive with Marxism. 

This list will still likely be incomplete as my own knowledge of Anime is itself still far from complete, for example I haven’t consumed much of anything from Leji Matsumoto or Osamu Tezuka and they were both known JCP members. 

This is not a ranked list of how good or how Communist they are.  I’m going to start with those that from what I’m aware of have the most external confirmation of the creators Leftist politics and then work down to ones that are arguably just my personal interpretation. I am a Death of the Author advocate so I believe some stories are Communist in spite of Authorial intent.

The Rose of Versailles.  The original Manga was written by Riyoko Ikeda who was a member of the Democratic Youth League of Japan, the youth wing of the Japanese Communist Party. It’s a shame only two of her Manga have ever been Animated.  And I consider it a personal shame that I still haven’t watched Dear Brother as both a Yuri Fan and a Communist.  But I suspect it’s a safe bet that the one about the French Revolution is more explicitly Political. The original 40 episode series is on Retro Crush and Prime Video but has no Dub, a new film version should drop on Netflix with a Dub the day before I post this, but I’m skeptical of the story’s ability to work as a single film.  

Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway’s Flash.  This is a film adaptation of the first novel of a trilogy written by original Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tommino who we have on record talking about how he and most Anime creators of his generation were Communists at least in their youth. While Malthusianism also seems like a theme in UC Gundam stories I don’t think Tommino is accepting it as uncritically as Miyazaki does, especially given the themes of Brain Powered.  Hathaway is what I’m putting on this list because for once the narrative is principally on the side of the Revolutionaries rather than the defenders of the Status Quo.  It’s on Netflix.  But it’s not the best entry point to Gundam, it’s best to have at least seen the Mobile Suit Gundam Trilogy and Char’s Counterattack for context, fortunately they’re also on Netflix though the Dub for the Trilogy isn’t on any official streaming site. [Update June 18th: So the Trilogy and CCA are leaving Netflix now.  The Trilogy is up on YT now and CCA is on Crunchyroll as "season 2" of the original series but this is still annoying, it was very convenient when I could recommend people to watch this whole saga on the same App.]

Mawaru Penguindrum.  Leftist readings are pretty common for all of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s works, but I think Penguindrum is the most about society as a whole and not more specific forms of oppression. 

Robotics;Notes is a show I’ve often defaulted to as an example of good Leftist Collectivism in Anime. 

Durarara!! Is also a story with a practically Anarchist sense of Community.  But it does at times undermine itself, I mostly wish they hadn’t backed out of how they first depicted the Cops.

Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine episode 7 Music and Revolution.

The Loudly Laundry episode of Princess Principal.

What I’ve seen of the .Hack franchise also lends itself well to Leftist readings, it’s a reminder of the Revolutionary potential the Internet once had, and could have again.

Hugtto Pretty Cure has a really interesting final arc. 

Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya.  No, I’m not joking.