2025 has been a good year for Anime.

I’ve spent much of the last few years wondering if we’re entering a period when I won’t be all that into currently airing Anime anymore.  And yet 2025 provided a good number of shows I like quite a bit.

I am definitely watching to completion less shows than I did during 2017-2023. But the year has still provided some shows I think are instant classics and others I’ve enjoyed as much as I enjoyed the average Anime during those prior years. 

The year started out with Zenshu which has quickly earned the status of a must watch for every fan of Animation as a Medium. Ameku M.D. and Magic Maker and Guild Receptionist were also quite fun. And while I didn’t watch it at the time I’ve come to be an unironic appreciator of Solo Leveling. And it finished off the third seasons of Re:Zero and Arifureta. 

I feel the Online Anime Community was uniquely fun to be a part of when GQuuuuuuX was airing during the Spring, I also think Lazarus was unfairly hated and Your Forma is a hidden gem. Also Moonrise was a decent Netflix original and the 2025 Detective Conan film held up to expectations. Speaking of Detective Conan it was in June we got out the most recent major new development in the Rum arc. 

And then Summer brought us a new era of Detective Conan being localized in the West, most importantly a new Dub on Netflix that is the best Dub cast yet. In seasonal Anime we got a Clevetass, a Fantasy Anime that feels like something out of the 2000s and not another quasi Isekai. A few fun new Slice of Life and/or RomComs in Renta-A-Girlfreind season 4, Watari Kun and Cultural Exchange with the Game Center Girl. Plus Rascal does not Dream or Santa Clause lived up to the hype. Oh and Gigguk’s movie Baan was alright. 

For Fall we got more Star Wars Visions, that Assassin Isekai which was above average for an Isekai, more Watari Kun and Spy x Family.  And more shows I may return to later. 

There is non Anime stuff I’ve enjoyed too, Andor was still good but not what I want from Star Wars. Fallout season 2 is just starting. Peacemaker season 2 was great, I still like James Gunn's Superman but the more time passes the more my small issues with it crawl around in my brain. And season 3 of Foundation was phenomenal. 

I may be forgetting something, I don’t have an Anilist counterpart for the American stuff I watch. I know such things technically exist but just keeping my Anilist up to date every time I watch something new is stressful enough. 

Detective Conan and Magic Kaito 1412 Watch order post.

Since I’m pretty sure only two new episodes are going up on the 19th it’s time to update the Chronological Order of the Detective Conan episodes on Netflix in preparation. If a surprise happens I’ll update this post. 

Watch the first two episodes of Conan Vs The Black Organization.

Then watch the Rivals of the Great Detective Collection up through The Case of The Blackmailed Pro Soccer Player.

Then watch the Karaoke Box Murder Case in the Winter Episode Showcase.

Then watch The Conan Edogawa Abduction Case in the Rivals Collection.

Then watch Alpine Hunt in the Snow Mountain Murder Case in the Winter Showcase.

Then finish what’s currently in the Rivals collection, which at this time still ends with Conan vs. Kid the Phantom Thief. 

Then finish Conan vs The Black Organization. 

The movie currently on TMS's YouTube Channel, Captured In Her Eyes, originally came out between Reunion with The Black Organization and The Mysterious Passenger.  The movie going up this Saturday, Strategy Above The Depths, came out between the last two episodes of The Black Organization Collection.

[Update: There was a surprise, and it's that these won't be on Netlfix and won't be Dubbed, they're on YouTube. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIGYpfXP3Uw

So as far as watching just what's on Netflix goes the prior Chronological Order works till January 1st.] 

We’ve also learned that an English Dub for Magic Kaito 1412 is now on Amasian TV. And I’ve noticed that Anime has it's episodes in a different order then the original Manga, which is most notable when observing the Detective Conan crossovers.

So here is a Manga accurate Watch Order for that show (some Manga chapters still aren’t covered by this Anime at all though).

Episode 1: The Revived Phantom Thief Kid

Episode 15:The Princess and The Thief's Improve

Episode 7: Kaito Kuroba’s Busy Day

Episode 5: A Temptation in Scarlet

Episode 13:Stay Away From Him

Episode 8: The Adult’s Charm

Episode 3: Hustler vs Magician

Episode 12:Christmas Eve - Two Kaitou Kids

Episode 4: The Great Detective Steps Into the Light

Episode 2: Blue Birthday

Episode 17:Green Dream

Episode 14:Crystal Mother

Episode 22:Red Tear

Episode 6: Black Star 

Episode 16:Kid Vs Conan, Miraculous Midair Walk

Episode 18:Golden Eye (Part 1)

Episode 19:Golden Eye (Part 2)

Episode 20:Dark Knight

Episode 21:Kid Vs Conan: Teleportation Under The Moonlight

Episode 9: The Phantom Lady Appears 

Episode 10:The Phantom Lady and Ryoma’s Treasure

Episode 11:Kid and Conan’s Ryoma Treasure Illusion

Episode 23:Midnight Crow (Part 1): The Name is Corbeau The Phantom Thief!

Episode 24:Midnight Crow (Part 2) Clash! White or Black!?

The Detective Conan episode Conan vs. Kid the Phantom Thief happens right after Black Star.  Miraculous Midair Walk takes place between the last two episodes in the Black Organization Collection and before Strategy Above The Depths.

Fantasy and Science Fiction

I’ve made a few posts on this blog before the line between Fantasy and Science Fiction and stores that straddle that line.

But I’ve recently come to a final conclusion about how to define these genres that is important.

Science Fiction is defined by what can’t happen in it far more than Fantasy is.  Because the point of Science Fiction is to try and stay theoretically scientifically possible no matter how out there it gets. The supernatural can never unambiguously happen in Sci-Fi. But it goes beyond just what literal things can and can’t exist in the universe, there are certain kinds of stories that at their core are Fantasy stories no matter how Futuristic or Scientific you try to make the setting. A Sci-FI story would never begin with “Once Upon a Time” or something analogous to that. 

Fantasy meanwhile is defined by its lack of limits, anything you can fantasize about can be Fantasy. That’s why I once argued that Sci-Fi can be in its entirety viewed as a subgenre of Fantasy, from a certain point of view. 

However nothing that is at its core a Fantasy story can become Sci-Fi by draping itself in cosmetically Sci-Fi elements like space ships and lasers. 

And that once again brings us to Star Wars, the most contentious franchise in this debate. 

The Midichlorenes do not make The Force scientific enough to qualify as Sci-Fi, they tie this fundamentally mystical concept to Nature in a way no different then how The Lifestream works in Final Fantasy VII.

But what’s really funny is when the Prequel Haters who hate the Midichlorenes for allegedly demystifying The Force also want Star Wars to be allowed to qualify as Sci-Fi.  They fail to see how their interests conflict. 

The people who really want to be allowed to classify Star Wars as Science Fiction are basically insulting Fantasy as a genre, because it’s clear however much they don’t want to outright say it, that this comes from a palace of viewing Sci-Fi as more respectable. 

And it says something about the modern world that in this unique case the younger Genre is viewed as the more respectable one, by some people at least.  Science Fiction as a distinct genre begins with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein at the absolute earliest. Fantasy meanwhile is the oldest genre there is, The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Mahabharata and Ramayana, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Beowulf and the Mabinogion.  All of them are Fantasy stories in a modern genre classification context. 

Andor is the one piece of Star Wars media that feels like it could count as Sci-Fi if only it weren’t in the same Universe as all that Force stuff. And sadly I think that’s a factor in why it’s the closest to universally praised any Disney Era Star Wars project has been. I liked Andor well enough but do consider it overrated, I’d rather have more stuff like Ahsoka and The Acolyte which actually delve into Force Lore. 

Charred Corpses in a Galaxy Far Far Away

A common trend in YouTube videos about Star Wars during the past Decade or so has been to cheekily dismiss the idea that the original Star Wars was “for kids” by showing Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru’s burned corpses.

Funny thing about this is as someone who’d been a watcher of these movies since sometime before 1997, I didn’t notice that their bodies were actually visible onscreen in that scene till these very modern video essays. I thought we were just being shown that the farm was burned down and the actual bodies were offscreen or maybe completely disintegrated. 

And that shouldn’t be surprising, they were not zoomed in on, there was smoke everywhere, and I was originally watching these on VHS on CRT TVs sitting on the other side of a living room. These modern BluRay rips the YouTubers are using are not what the experiences of this scene was like for most of its existence. 

I’m not saying they were impossible to see before if you were looking for them, but the kids these people keep trying to prove Star Wars was never for would not have been looking for them. Heck at first I didn’t really notice them in these modern YouTube videos trying to draw my attention to it.

Not understanding something doesn’t make you stupid.

When there is a Movie or Anime I like that is hated on by people who say they couldn't follow it or understand what was happening in it, and then I talk about how I found it pretty easy to understand actually.  It’s difficult for that not to be taken as me claiming to be smarter then the people who didn’t understand it. It doesn't help that I usually lack the ability to explain what I understand about it. 

The thing is I understand that intelligence isn't linear, I’ve partly based my entire ideology on understanding that. Herman Cain was a brain surgeon, something you cannot do without being very very intelligent in very specific ways.  But that didn’t stop him from sounding like a dimtwit when he discussed politics while trying to run for President. 

There are in fact Anime and Movies I don’t understand, I don’t see the deeper meaning that other people do. But instead of insisting they’re seeing something that isn't there in order to feel smart, I simply trust that they saw something I can’t. A prominent example of that is Shoujo Kageki Revenue Starlight from 2018. I feel like I'm the only person in its hypothetical target audience who didn’t enjoy it or get it, and that’s fine.  

Part of the reason why it’s so easy for me to understand why some people when it comes to this is because others do believe those who didn’t understand something they did objectively are stupider than they are. 

I unsubscribed from Rick Worley’s YouTube channel when he made his big J.K. Rowling simp fest. But the other day I decided out of morbid curiosity to see what he’d talked about since and the one that most caught my attention was a video on Megalopolis.  I like Megalopolis, I think it’s a neat, fun, smart movie and I understood the Becket reference. But to Rick Worley people who found that movie difficult or "impenetrable" are just dumb or intellectually lazy. And also to him unironically liking a movie like this is obviously mutually exclusive with unironically liking Ghostbusters Frozen Empire, well I unironically like both.

Worley has built his whole personality on a belief that big corporate movies like Superhero movies can’t be real Art, and to me gate keeping what qualifies as Art is fundamentally reactionary thinking.  Even the most corporate mandated micro managed films are still made by people who are putting some of themselves into what they are making. 

And the thing is a movie like Megalopolis is no less a Corporate Product, it’s just that the Brand they are milking is Francis Ford Coppola rather than a Comic Book. 

I firmly reject the notion that Bad Art exists, all Art is Good, you just aren’t going to like all of it. 

The notion that most movies or Anime or anything else are bad and the good ones are rare Jems you have to fish out from all the slop and trash is a symptom of the justifying ideology of Capitalism.

Q is Chekhov’s Gunman

I’ve currently only seen three James Bond films in their entirety, the first two Daniel Craig movies and most recently earlier this year The Man With The Golden Gun.  But I’ve seen clips of over movies before and I watched a bunch of Bond relevant Video Essays on YouTube this year because they simply were what was trending a few times.

Bond has been a very influential franchise,  so I can see Bond’s fingerprints on plenty of other media I’ve consumed.  Lupin III has been called the James Bond of Japan, a few of the 60s and 70s Godzilla films are referred to as being James Bond influenced.  There are direct James Bond references in the Anime Moriarty The Patriot. 

What’s interesting though is how one of the key signs that something is really leaning into the Bond influence structurally is if there is a Q analogue. When Batman Begins was being hyped up Nolan was very open about the James Bond influence, and a key factor always pointed out is Lucius Fox as played by Morgan Freeman being Bruce’s Q.  Nolan's love of drawing on Bond continued with Inception and Tenet which also both have their Q analogues. 

And a thing I’m sure I’m not the first to notice about Q is how his role is essentially to provide Chekhov’s Guns.  Professor Agasa has been referred to as Detective Conan’s Q, and it's in several of the movies that is really on the nose, just like Q he introduces some new invention early on which then plays a key role in the climax. 

The wording of Chekhov’s Gun is that because something is seen early on it should be used.  But no sane person is really going around criticizing every time some innocuous detail from act one doesn’t come up later. No it’s considered good writing advice for the opposite angle, anything that plays an important role in the resolution should be set up earlier, that’s how you avoid a Deus Ex Machina accusation. 

So Bond style movies without a designated Q character still have a scene or two that like Q serve the purpose of introducing something that will be important later. Maybe the protagonist themselves invented whatever gadgets they’re going to use. 

And this is why I struggle at being an actually interesting blogger. I make lots of observations like this I want to share, but they don’t always lead me to any profound revelation or theory.  Rather than continuing this Chekhov’s Gun train of thought I kind of want to share other random Bond related thoughts I’ve had this year. 

Ya know the Obi-Wan Kenobi parts of Attack of The Clones could be compared to a Bond movie just as much as they can to Film Noir Detective films. Ewen McGregor has a similarly dry sense of humor to Roger Moore and Christopher Lee is the villain.

I watched a Book YouTube video that separated all the Bond Novels both by which they felt were the good ones and which ones’ namesake films are a reasonably faithful adaptation of at least the same basic sequence of events. And the only novel that was both good and doesn’t have a close enough adaptation is Moonraker, which is interesting for having a villain who is a surviving Nazi War Criminal, not the most original idea for a Pulp Villain but they annoyingly keep staying relevant. 

When it comes to the various pitches Bond fans keep saying they want for the next movie, I kind of hope the Period Piece idea is the one Amazon doesn’t do.  Because when the Bond Novels (except maybe Thunderball) enter the Public Domain pretty much everywhere but the United States in a decade, period piece films that directly adapt those novels distinctly unlike how the Movies have typically been are exactly what people independent of Amazon will be able to make without Amazon shutting it down.  

So I say an old fashioned Black and White mid 50s set Moonraker adaptation is exactly what some independent filmmakers should right now begin preparing to make. In fact you can already do it in Canada. Maybe give it a different name since Pop Culture so much associates that name with something distinctly NOT in the book. 

My other advice for people planning to make their own PD James Bond projects in a decade is if you want to avoid Spectre because of the question mark that might still hang over Thunderball, just use Paul Feval’s Les Habits Noirs translated The Blackcoats as your international criminal secret society. Their English branch is sometimes called The Gentleman of The Night and their leader The Lord of The Night is sometimes plotting to liberate Ireland from British rule which I mention because another Bond video I saw talked about the lack of Ireland in the Bond movies.

In some small ways certain writers have always gotten away with treating Bond like he’s quasi PD.  Like incorporating the Mycroft Holmes was the original M fan theory.  Is there any fictional character from the same era whose name happens to begin with the letter Q who was also a scientist/inventor?