She Professed Herself Pupil of Gandalf

She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man is a Winter 2022 Isekai Anime that I gave an 8 out of 10.  I’ve watched the entire show twice and some of it more than that, all Dubbed of course.

I’ve talked before about how Tolkien’s influence on the Fantasy Genre is generally more indirect in Japan and especially Anime adjacent media.  So this show beginning with a pretty explicit LOTR reference is in fact uncommon.  The main character clearly based their Gaming character on Gandalf.  But he winds up stuck in a Cute Anime Girl form by the end of the Pilot. 

Now one could view that as a pretty surface level reference, and indeed for the most part the show and its world is clearly based on the typical Dragon Quest inspired JRPG and Record of Lodoss War references the rest of the Isekai genre is, with a brief Magic Academy subplot.  But there is something else in the early part of the show I at least think Tolkien would have appreciated.  

This also fits into the Sub Genre of Isekai where this Fantasy was once a VRMMORPG Video Game that somehow became a real tangible physical material world like Log Horizon and Land of Leadale. 

So there is a question at first as to whether now that adventuring in this world is in fact dangerous if our protagonist will take the risks entailed to help deal with the Crisises it is facing. Or consider this world that began as a mere game worth taking such risks for. It’s not all that explicitly asked but the subtext was clearly there.

There is a scene in episode two where the protagonist stops to look at some flowers, observe how pretty they are and that they smell nice and decides that this beauty is what is worth protecting. It may be just a coincidence but to me that moment is very Tolkien.

Shun in Spider Isekai is NOT a Deconstruction

So I'm A Spider, So What! Is an Anime where I like all the characters, it has a great cast.  It’s currently the first time I’ve ever listed a show’s Title Character as one of my favorites on Anilist (the others I’ve considered are all Spin Offs, so main protagonists who started as supporting characters).  And it’s also now the first time I’ve ever listed any Male character as one of my favorites, much less the male lead.  Those are two different characters in this case. 

In my recent watching of YouTube videos covering this series I’ve seen at least two different people describe Shun as a Deconstruction of the Hero Archetype.  And this just shows how watered down the concept of Deconstruction is in modern Internet Discourse.

I don’t agree with people like Study of Swords that Genre Deconstruction doesn’t exist and can’t be a valid reading of any Anime. I oppose viewing Madoka Magica as a Deconstruction but I do think some Anime can be viewed that way, not this one however. 

It is not unusual at all for a Hero to make mistakes that have consequences, or for them to have spent much of the story unwittingly working for the real villains, or for other characters to chew them out for their Naive Stubbornness.  But in Anime especially, that Naive Stubbornness is often vindicated in the end, and now that I know all the spoilers for what this Anime hasn’t gotten to yet I can say with confidence that is where Shun’s story is headed. No one thinks Frieren is deconstructing Himel because of how the child Demon plot played out.

Kouki’s storyline in Arifureta especially in season 3 would be much more legitimate to describe as a Deconstruction of the typical JRPG Anime designated Hero.  But to me personally it doesn’t come off as an at all meaningful Deconstruction but more having the official Hero fail just to subvert expectations (even though it's exactly what I expected) and make the protagonists look better by comparison.  I enjoy much of Arifureta but I’m not gonna list it as a favorite. 

How inclined one is to read what happens with Shun in the Anime so far as a Deconstruction says more about the viewer than the story.  It tells me you're the kind of Nerd who thinks Batman’s No Kill rule is stupid and that Superman is boring and unrelatable. The kind who care a little too much about Aragorn’s “Tax Policy”. 

A lot of this obsession with reading Shun as a Deconstruction is tied to how a certain very vocal kind of Anime Fan simply doesn't like him as a character.  Indeed I maybe should have included him in my prior post about disliked Male Anime Protagonists but I’m glad I didn’t because I now have a more distinct perspective on him I want to share here. 

For what is right now still most of my life I saw myself as a Cis-Het Male, and even after I started seriously questioning my Gender Identity I remained only attracted to Women or at least very Femme Presenting individuals. But in the last couple of years I have come to realize that my orientation may be just as fluid as my identity, that I can be attracted to certain men in a very Androphilic way, or at least certain male Anime Characters. 

So any claim that it’s inexplicable or unbelievable how many girls like Shun will not fly with me because I am attracted to Shun, I like his personality and how he looks (in the Anime the LN art I’ve seen of him isn't the most flattering) and I specifically like him over any of the other Cis-Male characters in this series or most from other series more conventionally considered the Hot Guys of Anime. And I’m attracted to him in a very Feminine way, I don't fantasize about being a Seme bending him over I fantasize about being his Oneesan Mommy Dom (Which is conveniently a role none of the Girls in his canonical Harem fill).

Superman 2025 is a good movie

In terms of feeling like the Superman Comics I'm a fan of it's better then any prior Superman movie in Live Action or Animation for that matter. 

There are small nitpicks I could complain about.  I don't think saying this Superman has been active for only three years is enough time to explain how developed this world seems. 

It does bug me how often modern Superman depictions have Lex be a CEO to start only to get arrested and made into the Mad Scientist. If you want Lex and his role in this world to be an allegory for Elon Musk and the cult of personality surrounding him then he should NOT be an actual legit scientific genius. 

But all of that is more Meta issues then anything about this film as a a stand alone film, which it does work in-spite of also being the launch of a new Universe. 

I'm going to elaborate on some of my thoughts on the early Detective Conan movies.

The first movie, The Time Bombed Sky Scraper is a perfect Cinematic introduction for Conan because of two things.  It has a cold open depicting the end of the average Conan episode is like.  And it's about Shinichi Kudo more then any other film.

Shinichi Kudo is actually the same person as Conan Edogawa and is thus the main protagonist of all these films. But they are treated as separate characters in the credits for convenience in how to credit the Voice Ace actors involved.  But also when you look at these events from the perspective of the people who don't know everything the audience does, Shinichi seems more involved in some cases then others.

This movie features a flashback to a Shinichi case from before he was shrunken, a villain who is in part targeting Shinichi specifically, and the main villain is exposed in the end using Shinichi's voice, something we only see a few other times in the movies and each of those there is still more focus on other guest characters. 

The second movie The Fourteenth Target is the one currently on the TMS YouTube Channel and will be till the 13th.   It's one of my least favorite, it's especially underwhelming compared to the one before the three following it. 

My main issue is that I know in real life the shoot the hostage tactic is in fact not considered a good idea.  But other aspects of the plot do feel uniquely contrived.  

The third film The Last Wizard of The Century I have called the best of them all a number of times. I've considered walking that back slightly, it's definitely a 10/10 on the same level as the two movies following it. 

As someone who's read the classic Arsene Lupin Novels, this feels more like one of those then any Lupin III Anime does.

I also really love how it ends, by which I mean what leads into the credits not the post credits stinger. The way it weaves the remaining threads of the narrative together in a fairly intimate moment with beautiful music scoring it.  It's perhaps one of my favorite endings of any film.

The fourth movie Captured In Her Eyes is to start with one of the films I like to recommend as showing how you make something like a Film Noir without needing to be a period piece or use some fantastical excuse to pretend to be one. 

Now some may feel annoyed at the Amnesia plot rendering Ran not herself for much of the film.  But the pay off at the end is that we get to see her do something important to her character the prior films never got to include.

The fifth film Countdown to Heaven is the third film featuring Haibara Ai but the first that's really about her to any degree and as such makes a good introduction to her character.  But also if you want to slip it chronologically into your watch of the Black Organization collection on Netflix and Crunchyroll it happens between the Reunion with The Black Organization three parter and The Mysterious Passenger. 

So four of the first five films are still ones I consider the highest level of Detective Conan films.  But there are very few I dislike to any degree, they are pretty much all Fun movies.  

The next level would be movies 7-9 and 11, those would be the A Tier if I made a Tier ranking.