When Anime are linked to each other because they aired together.

You may have noticed that when thinking about recent Anime that some shows are compared to each other a lot simply because they were airing at the same time, premiered during the same season. 

It's expected that this would happen while a show is currently airing, we'll often be watching one show right after another pretty consistently, and the desire to make comparisons whether positive, negative or neutrally when talking about a show will to some extent favor other current shows. 

For Western Ainme fans I feel like noting how this has always been happening in-spite of the fact that we aren't usually using regular TV, we aren't watching two shows side my side because one comes after the other on the same channel, or thinking of a show we don't watch alongside one we do because it's airing at the same time on a different channel. We still watch shows that drop weekly on the same day close to each other, and still hear about current shows we aren't watching in proximity to ones we are. 

But because our Brains are often particular in how it organizes our memories, the tendency to associate those shows with each other remains even after neither is still currently airing. I for example still find myself associating Lycoris Recoil and Engage Kiss with each other even though there is nothing about the content of either show to justify that. 

But maybe you're thinking that will eventually wear off once enough time has passed?

For me the first season I was at all following currently airing Anime was Fall 2016, as I mentioned earlier this year, and interesting we now during the 10 year Anniversary of when those shows were starting. And I still default to associating those shows with each, most shows from that season I don't have to look to remember they were from that season. Flip Flappers, Izetta The Last Witch, Yuri on Ice, Keijo, Magical Girl Raising Project, Occultic;Nine, the second season of Hibiki Euphonium. Even ones I didn't watch at the time or still haven't' watched my memory recalls those shows being contemporary. 

Maybe that season is special because it's my first, but this remains in effect for all of 2017. For 2018 I've never forgotten that Citrus and Katana Maidens aired at the same time, as well as two Isekai that aren't easy for me to remember their name but that they were airing at the same time I do remember. 

The question is, given how complicated memory can be, will people sometimes eventually keep associating two shows each other after forgetting why?

Comparing Death Note and Code Geass happens so often it's a Meme, a YouTube Channel I follow is currently videos about those two shows and nothing else. They aired along side each other in Fall 2006 into early 2007, meaning both are turning 20 now. Officially the Western Fandom wasn't able to watch Anime as they currently air yet, but clearly many were already, and/or just how the Japanese buzz talked about them alongside each other influenced us. Or I could look it up and learn both also aired on Adult Swim at the same time for at least some of their their runs. 

There are natural reasons to compare these shows to each other independent of that, both involve protagonists who can be described as Anti-Heroes who are often trying to outthink their opponents and who start the show in High School, and the ways they do those things differently is what makes comparing them interesting. But they can't be the only two Anime that share those qualities can they?  I am having trouble thinking of a third off the top of my head, but there is also still a lot of Anime I haven't seen. 

Of shows from Fall 2006, they seem to be pretty solidly the most popular, especially in terms of long term cultural impact. So being currently compared to other Fall 2006 less may be because the others are remembered less in general.  I've seen other shows this season and generally like them more then Death Note, but I'm weird, I also like Kanon more then Clannad.

Nana has it's own reasons to be compared to Death Note being another show whose Dub was by Ocean Productions so I assume they share some VAs though I can't say noticed any voicing sounding similar instantly. 

I wonder how many common seemingly inexplicable Anime pairing are because of this but even I haven't noticed yet? 

Everyone is a Normie and no one is only a Normie.

Normie is a relative term, Gamers talking among other Gamers will use the word Normie of people who aren't particularly into Video Games, while others might perceive gaming itself to be a pretty Normie interest to have. 

Lately Anime is the fandom I’ve been most into and so past uses of Normie on this blog are in that context. In fact it was in the Anime fandom I first heard the word and so it’s among a list of terms I at one time mistook for terms the Anime community coined. So it was jarring for a part of my brain while watching a YT not too long ago I saw someone in the context of what they’re talking about refer to Anime as being for Normies. 

I'm talking about this because recently I realized some people use the word Normie thinking it has a more objective non relative meaning, that there is a class of people only into the most Mainstream things with no Niche hobbies at all. I don’t think such a hypothetical person exists, everyone is a fan of something that most people haven’t heard of. 

And even when we're talking about the most Mainstream interests one could theoretically have, being a hardcore fan of that thing is still not actually normal. Star Wars movies and now Disney+ shows are normal to have seen but having read any of the books is not.  DC and Marvel Superhero movies are watched by everyone but very few actually read the Comics. Even the most theoretically mainstream interest you can have in American culture, Sports, do you really think the Sports fan who can tell you at the drop of hat what happened in Games played before they were born and don’t even involve their favorite team aren’t using the exact same brain energy we Comic Book nerds are? 

The reason I felt I needed to make this point is because of a video I recently watched about the Fascist adjacent thinking that has always been present in Sci-Fi fandoms even going back to its early days. 

Indeed some will argue that using the word Normie at all is a Fascist adjacent practice.  I would disagree, I think a group having a catch all term for everyone outside their group simply is objectively linguistically useful. In fact it’s Nazis who love to claim Jews are committing some sin against all Goyim by simply having the word Goyim. 

What matters is how you perceive the outsiders that term refers to. I see them as fellow humans with different interests. 

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha EXCEEDS Gun Blaze Vengeance is finished airing now

It's a good show, but does it justify being a Nanoha show?

When it comes to making a show that is both a sequel to prior shows and stars new characters, there is a delicate balance to be struck between making the Legacy characters feel like they are there for more then just justifying the branding but also not completely overshadowing the new leads. 

EXCEEDS kind of feels like a show that's a Nanoha show only to get Nanoha fans to watch it. The trade off for connecting your new show with a new premise and new characters to an established franchise for the marketing shortcut is the people who may choose not to watch it because they assume they need to have seen all the prior Nanoha stuff to follow it.  In the case of EXCEEDS you certainly don't, not all prior Nanoha stories are even in this continuity and the ones that are aren't really mentioned beyond the fact that the Nanoha characters exist. It's in the Movie continuity and only the first two movies (which remake the first two seasons of the TV Anime) even remotely feel like they would add anything. 

That's the irony, the Nanoha franchise has done this before, Strikers is also largely about Nanoha and Fate mentoring new trainees some of whom we meet before being reintroduced to Nanoha and Fate. That show I also think can work being watched on it's own without the prior Nanoha shows, but while still justifying being a Nanoha sequel far more then EXCEEDS does.  It might be simply the advantage of having two Cours to work with. 

EXCEEDS is certainly thematically consistent with the Nanoha franchise, but so are lots of Anime, you could tell me Symphogear was in the Nanoha universe and I'd believe it. 

Nanoha and Fate and Hayate are in the show a decent amount, but their roles could have easily been replaced by original characters without losing anything.

The Dawn of The Witch is a 2022 Anime that is classified as a Spin-Off of the 2017 Anime Grimoire of Zero. But it honestly could have been classified as a sequel.  The two main protagonists of GoZ are supporting characters in DOTW but very important ones, they can't' be easily replaced or written out and their story in this show does meaningfully continue their story from the first show. 

Infinite Crisis and it’s tie-ins

Almost every DC Comic Book writer I consider myself a fan of comes with some catch, a part of their body of work I hate just as much as I love the stuff I like. 

Geoff Johns is someone I'm a fan of because I love his Teen Titans run and Infinite Crisis and a few other things. But I hate his contributions to Green Lantern and The Flash’s histories and most of his impact on Superman.  

The irony is Infinite Crisis is great in part because it’s a critique of Toxic Nostalgia, and yet what I don’t like about Johns work is when his own weirdly Toxic Nostalgia for the Silver Age comes in. And 2005 is the year he made Hal Jordan the main Green Lantern again, pandering to Silver Age nostalgia at the same time he’s vilifying Golden Age nostalgia, maybe that’s actually perfectly consistent from a certain POV?

The thing about Infinite Crisis is it’s one of those Events that is viewed as needing all its tie-ins to work, but in my opinion they don’t, certainly not all of them. But the tie-ins can add to the experience.  Some of my favorite scenes from the DC Comics come from unnecessary but awesome Infinite Crisis tie-ins. 

It’s a sequel to Crisis on Infinite Earths, but not in a way where you need to have actually read that to follow what’s going on. 

The build up to Infinite Crisis arguably begins with Identify Crisis or more directly things that happened in the aftermath of Identity Crisis. Identity Crisis itself stands alone perfectly, it’s informed by when in the then current continuity it takes place, but everything you need to know it explains on its own. 

Identity Crisis shares the theme about Nostalgia.  And while CoIIE isn't as a whole about Nostalgia it's eventual sequel being a story with that theme is foreshadowed by it's very last page. 

There were four concurrent miniseries that DC promoted as being the Countdown to Infinite Crisis. 

The OMAC Project written by Greg Rucka.

Villains United written by Gail Simone

Day of Vengeance written by Bill Willingham

Rann-Thanagar War written by Dave Gibbons

But in my view the only one even close to qualifying as necessary, as being the main story of what’s going on in the DC Universe at this time, is the first of those. For one thing the bottom two I still to this day haven’t read and don't feel like I’m missing anything. Villains United is great. I absolutely highly recommend it on its own merits, but the main protagonists it’s following don’t even appear in Infinite Crisis. 

The OMAC Project is the only one featuring DC’s Big Three as prominent characters, it provides what serves as the equivalent to the Red Skies during Infinite Crisis. But most importantly it bridges the gap between Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis while building on their shared theme of Toxic Nostalgia. It is a great story on its own in my view, and also the second most important storyline to Infinite Crisis after Infinite Crisis itself. 

The Infinite Crisis Companion Trade Paperback collects DC Specials that were epilogues to those stories going on during the events of Infinite Crisis. They were needed precisely because Infinite Crisis itself did not tie up all of those storylines loose ends. But the one for OMAC Project is needed mainly just to cap off Sasha Boredeaux’s storyline. 

An Auteurist would suggest other stuff written by Johns this year are what should be considered most important.  I haven’t read his JSA run or his Green Lantern stuff (but it's safe to say Green Lantern Rebirth happens before any of the Countdown storylines start). His Powergirl story from the first four issues of JSA Classified included in the Powergirl Trade Paperback do set up where she is when Infinite Crisis starts and does also add to that theme. JLA Crisis of Conscience is similar, dealing with the aftermath of Identity Crisis in its own way and ending right before Infinite Crisis starts. 

His Teen Titans run’s main tie to what happens in Infinite Crisis is Connor Kent/Superboy’s importance since that’s where his character arc played out which had been his arc since the start of the run in 2003. 

The Future Is Now Trade Paperback first collects a Time Travel arc Teen Titans Vol 3 16-19 which takes place before Identity Crisis (these are as far as I can tell the only comics featuring Time Drake that seem to take place between the deaths of Stephanie Brown and Jack Drake), but it then finished with issues 20-23 an Arc that takes place after Identity Crisis and I would argue is the first real direct Aftermath of Identity Crisis as well as our chronologically first glimpse of the Secret Society of Super Villains. After that comes Teen Titans/Outsiders: Insiders, then The Return of Donna Troy then the framing device of Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files and Origins 2005 and then Teen Titans: Life and Death is events happening concurrent with Infinite Crisis. 

Superman is the main lead character of the DC Universe. So here are the main Superman Trades to recommend. 

Superman: The Healing Touch by Greg Rucka

Superman: In The Name of Gog by Chuck Austen and J.D. Finn

Are the Superman books from right after Identity Crisis. The Day of Vengeance Trade Paperback includes some Superman issues that take place about here as well. 

Superman: Sacrifice ties directly into the biggest climatic event of OMAC Project, and thus much is written by Greg Rucka.

Also regardless of how the cover dates may confuse you, Supergirl:Power the first 5 issues of Supergirl Vol 5 written by Jeph Loeb ends before Infinite Crisis starts.

Superman: Ruin Revealed By Greg Rucka and others.

Superman: Strange Attractors by Gail Simone

Superman: The Journey by Mark Verheiden

Are the Superman books that lead into and were concurrent with Infinite Crisis. 

Superman: Infinite Crisis collects the last Superman comics before the One Year Later leap forward. 

For Wonder Woman this is all happening during Greg Rucka’s run and the concurrent period is collected in Eyes of The Gorgon, Land of The Dead and Mission’s End. 

JLA: World Without a Justice League collects the JLA books during Infinite Crisis which were the end of JLA Vol 1.

The Batman books don’t feel as relevant, references happen but Batman’s mostly in his own little world. Under The Red Hood and War Crimes were the key Batman events this year.  Detective Comics mostly was doing City of Crime, a story that seems like it has to be set before War Games to make sense. Gotham Knights was doing Hush stuff which is best ignored. 

For Tim Drake/Robin the Robin/Batgirl:Fresh Blood, To Kill A Bird and Days of Fire and Madness Trades cover this period, and for Cassandra Cain/Batgirl also Fresh Blood then Kicking Assassins and Destruction’s Daughter. 

Someone Nerdier than I will have to deduce the ideal reading order for all the Comics I mentioned here. 

No most modern Jokers are not bad rip offs of Heath Ledger's.

At most I would say maybe The Joker we got briefly in The Batman and it's deleted scene can be criticized that way.  But given how little we have to go off there I'm reserving judgment. 

The high profile Joker we've gotten most egregious criticized this way in Jared Leto's in Suicide Squad.  I've already talked about how Jared Leto's Joker is supposed to be Cringe, and pointed people to both Jack Saint's video on the topic and 16 Attempts to Talk to You about Suicide Squad. 

But as far accusing the performance on ripping off Ledger's goes, i really don't see it, he doesn't o that thing his tonge. At most the fact that both sometimes annunciate certain words weirdly could be seen as similar. 

The perception that so many post Ledger Jokers are just pale imitations on Ledger's Joker is really just people saying quietly that they're upset the Joker hasn't gone back to being more of the same they usually got before Ledger's Joker. 

Caesar Romero's Joker, Jack Nicholson's Joker and Mark Hamil's in Batman The Animated Series, as different form each other as they may seem in execution are each in my view the same basic kind of Joker.  For each of them the Clown/Comedy gimmick antics are a means to an end of conventional criminal goals.  And The Joker's has been written like that in The Comics sometimes, he was like that in A Death in The Family much to my personal disappointment when I first read it. 

And those three were the only particularly mainstream popular takes on The Joker well known to most non Comic Readers before 2008. The Dark Knight was the first time we got a Joker for whom the Madness was the ends and the conventional criminal activity was the means. 

But The Comics had introduced takes on The Joker who didn't have conventional criminal goals at least by the 80s with The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke.  These stories were quite philosophically different from each other, Miller and Moore allegedly had an argument about The Joker with Moore saying The Joker is Insane and Miller saying The Joker is Evil. There's also Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum A Serious House on Serious Earth.

But even non Comic Readers had gotten a few tastes of this kind of Joker, just off the beaten path of the mainstream. Kerry Shale's performance in the 90s BBC Radio Drama adaptation of Knightfall. Andrew Koenig in the 2003 fan film Batman: Dead End. Even Mark Hamil arguably got his first shot at becoming a better class of criminal in Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker. It is Koenig's performance in particular that I suspect people would be calling a Ledger's Joker knock off if it came after 2008 rather then before. 

The irony is Jared Leto's Joker in terms of what we can see of what he usually does is arguably back to being the regular Criminal with a gimmick take on The Joker that dominated what we got before 2008. But with the added flavor that he's a cringey edgelord who likes to think of himself as something grander then he actually is. 

My point is every time people talk about the history of The Joker in a way that implies Ledger's take is the sole source of every remotely "Edgy" Joker to come since, they are demonstrating their ignorance of how "Edgy" The Joker already was. 

That includes when some makes a deep philosophical video essays founded on this premise treating the Crigeyness of Leto's Joker as a failure rather then the intention. 

DC Stuff I watched in August 2026

I've now watched Batman Nightfall Part 1.

I've never read the original Knightfall comics, the prior version I'm comparing this to is the BBC Radio Drama from the 90s. 

I'll start with the main positive, it was great finally seeing Tim Drake in animation. The DCAU's Tim was in name only and the Tim in the Unlimited movies was forgettable. 

What made Tim special among the Robins back when he was being written by Marv Wolfman and Chuck Dixon and Geoff Johns and Bill Wilingham (I haven't really read much from the Jon Lewis run yet or Peter David's Young Justice) is that he was being set up to be the Bat Sidekick destined to one day surpass Bruce as the World's Greatest Detective. Looking back on that now results in my making Shinichi Kudo comparisons. And in that area this Knightfall film didn't disappoint.

Now for my criticisms.

First of all they cut Film Freak.  Cowards.

Secondly I have mixed feelings on the Artstyle, why not actually try to evoke the arstyle of 90s DC Comics? 

To amend what I said earlier i have read something Knightfall adjacent, the Robin Flying Solo Trade.  This is not that Artstyle. Is Red River can successfully look like a 90s Anime, why can't this look like a 90s Comic come to life?

Third, I'm amazed by how structurally disappointing it felt.

This end about where Hour 1 of the 3 Hour Radio Rama ended, but it felt like less happened not more. In that both the set up of Jean Paul Valley and Bruce's deterioration felt way more successfully fleshed out.

The Caped Crusader season 2 failed to engage at all, couldn't finish one episode.

I've also watched the new Supergirl movie now.  It's a good movie, it's entertaining, but it's not the kind of movie I want for Supergirl.

It felt more like a Star Wars movie much of the time.

I like the bronze Age Supergirl. 

I've also been watching Lanterns since my family currently temporarily has HBO for free. It's good so far.

Maybe an Adaptation is never too late after all?

A number of years ago I wrote a post on this Blog titled When An Adaptation is Made too Late. Where I singled out Magic Kaito, YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World and Boogiepop and Others as examples of 90s source materials that didn't get a proper Anime adaptation till the 2010s where I felt it had become impossibly for them to aesthetically feel true to their source material because Modern Anime simply can't look enough like Classic Anime because of how much the very stuff it's made out of has changed. 

But 2026 has released some Anime with Artstyles that feel surprisingly true to older classic art styles.

Red River is based on a 90s Shoujo Manga older even then Inyuasha, somehow this Summer 2026 Anime has captured that vibe. 

Goodbye, Lara is a current Original Anime but also feel like a very Classic Anime style. 

The Spring season had The Klutzy Class Monitor and The Girl with the Short Skirt which a very a Pastel Color Pallet, like that kind I'd just recently seen an AniTube video say has not really been possible in the Digital Era. 

Petals of Reincarnation doesn't particularly remind me of anything old, but it was different form the standard in the Color Pallet in a way I found interesting, but I had to drop it because the story just felt like discount Fate/. 

There was also this Japanese Commercial this year that seemingly perfectly recreated 1979 Gundam Animation. And speaking of Gundam two episodes GQuuuuuuX last year also recreated the feel of Classic Gundam in a similar way but while still feeling polished in a way the retro style commercial doesn't. 

Fall 2025's My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds The Hero's was also described by other as looking stylistically like a 90s Fantasy Anime, though I didn't quite see what they were talking about.

This makes me really want to see new attempts at both Boogiepop and YU-NO.  I doubt they'd do this with Magic Kaito since that franchise when it does new Anime likes to remain consistent with Detective Conan.

But also what other old Otaku media is long overdue for an Anime?

Shizuka and Kizuato are the original Visual Novels should be on the list.  Tsui no Sora and Cross Channel as well. I'd also love to see early Overflow Games get Anime made like these, even if they are Censored a bit. 

Or heck, go back even further to some of the 70s Classic Manga of the Year 24 Group. 

I'm late to talking about Watanare.

Full name There's no freaking way I'll be your Lover! Unless...

This was somewhat hyped in 2025, but that it was going for an actual Poly resolution was not something I recalled coming up. As much as I am a long time Yuri fan I have spent the last few years feeling less obligated to watch every Yuri, especially when so many are still not even being Dubbed. 

I have talked on this blog before about by enthusiasm for Polly Anime of all forms but also wanting them to come in more forms then just some variation of one guy and multiple girls. Even the excellent Dusk Beyond the End of The World as much as it wants it's world building to be about more then that the main trio we're following is still one guy and two girls. 

So a Yuri Anime with a true Threesome resolution is something I wish I'd heard about sooner. 

This is still only the start.  I want more Yuri Polycules but I also want Yaoi Threesomes and Polyandry and a Polycule form of Anime's common 3 girls and 2 boys School Club dynamic. And also some with Non Binary characters. 

I would like to see an Anime adaptation of the Light Novel/Manga Kono△Love Comedy wa Shiawase ni Naru Gimu ga Aru by Chihiro Haruna, it is a 1 guy and 2 girls Threesome in the end but the girls are explicitly unambiguously also in love with each other (there is some slander going around right now that this is a Homophobic story turning the girls' straight, that is not what happens).  It is a good story, you can argue the Threesome nature of the resolution felt abrupt, but I think it worked. 

Getting back to Watanare. Besides having this satisfying ending it's also a good build up, lots of Comedy and Drama and all the characters are fun. Where the Anime currently ends it's just a Threesome but it seems like it could expand to a full 5 person Polycule. 

So this is now tied with In Another World With My Smartphone for being the best Poly Anime. 

Lucky Star is set in 2006

I find it interesting how many YouTube videos about Lucky Star the 2007 TV Anime as being a time capsule depicting what Otaku Culture was like in 2007.

But the show isn't set in 2007, it's clearly set in 2006.

The first season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is clearly currently airing, one scene depicting Konota's reaction to the episode Someday in The Rain which aired May 28th 2006, neither she or the people she talked to online had seen it before.

Another show presented as current is Code Geass.

Full Metal Panic is presented as no current but still pretty big.

The only 2007 show I recall being mentioned in any capacity was El Cazador de la Bruja but that was only a promotional poster, it aired in spring 2007 and was hyped as a spiritual follow up to Noir and Madlax so it could have had prominent posters already in 2006.

To be honest I don't think there is a coherent timeline if you overmilitarized everything. But this show is also a Spring 2007 show so it likely entered production before 2006 was over.  it's a product of vaguely 2006 Anime culture. 

The Ribbon Hero is a Masterpiece

It more then lived up the Hype.  It made me Cry more then once. 

I don't have the ability to judge it as an adaptation, I don't think adaptation is the best word anymore, more like Reimagining. It does justice to the legacy of the original in exactly the metatextual way I was hoping.

There is no exposition about Saphir having a Heart of Both a Boy and a Girl, but she is still called a Knight, from my perspective the original Androgyny is still there. It's just a lot of the traits that were inherently masculine for a Anime Girl in the 60s have been more commonly Anime Girl traits since. 

I love the line that's an Attack of The Clones reference. 

There are also parts of this film that look like what an Anime adaptation of The Fall of Gondolin could look like. 

I gave a 10/10 and am currently listing it as a Faveorite on my Anilist. 

The Ninth Jedi is what the Sequel Trilogy could have been.

It manages to do much better the seeds of compelling new ideas The Sequel Trilogy introduced and squandered, but without all the falling back onto wanting to also be an OT Remake. 

The sequel trilogy wanted us to believe that Kylo Ren wasn't a Sith but something different, but no meaningful distinction was ever made.

Nawaan in The Ninth Jedi is the opposite of a Sith, while the Sith are all about indulging in your emotions Nawaan's ideology is about trying to empty yourself of Emotions.

And that context finally provides a new meaning to Balance. The Jedi are not the opposite of The Sith but the Balance between these two opposite approaches to Emotion. The Jedi's flaws in the Prequel Trilogy are a result of being a little too much like Nawaan. Nawaan is what most people wrongly think Stoicism is, The Jedi are at their best true Stoics. 

Now explaining why Kara makes a better Star Wars protagonist then Rey is going to be difficult to explain because of the sentiments I don't want to be mistaken for endorsing.  I don't agree with calling anyone a "Mary Sue", I don't even think having a protagonist be perfect from the start never making mistakes is an inherently bad thing in general, but it doesn't work for Star Wars. Kara makes mistakes and has to grow and learn in exactly the way Rey didn't. 

There are even other smaller ways in which this comparison is fascinating.

We have a story where one of our Mentors' has a valid reason to feel responsible for the villain's fall. But if this scenario or something close to it was done with Luke it would not have felt like a complete reversing of his core ROTJ characterization the way TLJ's twist does.  

There's also a character whose role resembles what Leia's could have been. 

Even the Kaiber Canon somehow does this,  Functionally it's the same as Starkiller Base, how it's an ever bigger superweapon then the Death Star is exactly the same.  But the context around it manages to make it more interesting. 

Also of course the fact that it isn't aesthetically repeating the Rebels vs Empire, or even prequel Aesthetics, it is mostly all new Stuff, lots of compelling Seeds for a new Expanded Universe.

It introduced what are essentially Star Wars Dwarves but without feeling cheap and unimaginative. 

The confrontation between kara and Nawaan in episode 4 felt evocative of Luke vs Vader in Empire Strikes Back but without feeling like it was simply copying. 

As an Anime it also satisfying what you would want from an Anime. Kara even turns a Bounty Hunter to her side by defeating him like a Battle Shonen. 

Update August 18th: Once again something about the Sequel Trilogy has made me act like the kind of Internet reviews I hate. I always get annoyed when other people base their praise of something on trashing something else. 

I bet to their fans how much The Ninth Jedi echoes the Sequels in it's decision making is a vindication of them.  They are now a part of Star Wars for new Star Wars stories to include among their inspirations. 

But The Ninth Jedi also deserves better then this.  It's a great show period, it doesn't need to be compared against something worse to look good. 

Code Geass and Genre

When discussing why I feel April 2006 through March 2007 can be considered the best year of Anime I referred to Code Geass as an important Anime that transcends Genre rather than as one of the shows I consider the best of its Genre. And I felt like elaborating on that.

As an Anime with a consistent spot in my top 10 since I first got into it, I feel I can safely call it my favorite Anime that can be classified as a Mecha Anime. And yet defining it as my favorite Mecha Anime when I talk about why I love it so much feels wrong. 

As a Sunrise show it is in conversation with other major Real Robots Mecha Anime in a way that makes it not something I can dismiss as merely a show that has Mecha in it like I can so many other 00s Anime. 

And yet it does not feel close to being a Platonic Ideal of what Real Robots Mecha should be. A Gundam or a Macross is probably the Anime that should be defined that way.

When we look at how the Mecha function in the show Real Robots is indeed the subgenre of Mecha it should fit into.  Except that when combined with so many other elements it feels less “Real” then any other Real Robot Mecha. All the Geass Lore makes the show feel more Fantasy then Sci-Fi. 

There was a time when I was contemplating writing a story set in an alternate timeline whose point of divergence was during the reign of Commodus and thus Rome never Fell or even became Christianized, Christianity remained a Minority Religion.  Many aspects of what I actually wanted to do in the present narrative were so heavily Code Geass inspired that I honestly suspect it could have been accused of Plagiarism. Except that the Mecha Element was removed, how I wanted to make cool fight scenes was instead going to rip off Star Wars.

I know there is a thing among Mecha fans on YT and Twitter about saying no Mecha show is actually about the Giant Robots, and I feel sad that they think saying that is necessary to defend the respectability of the shows they like. But objectively most Gundams and Macross and Evangelions are about the Giant Robots in a way that Code Geass is not. Code Geass is much more about the Geass powers being its defining fantastical element. 

Detective Conan Dubbed episodes for August.

 My prediction of what episodes would be included in the second half of the FBI collection were partly correct but not entirely.

Ayu's Tumblr Post hasn't updated the Watch order yet but I'm sure she will.

https://matchaandmayhem.tumblr.com/post/799001080524570624/detco-dub-order

[Update: It's updated now.]

If I have any criticism it's the decision to pronounce Yaiba as Yaiber. 

Now that I'm 40 I have to side with Yukiko about her being called old.

The Gunma detective makes i think his first apperence in this Dub.  And while we had heard Sato before this drop contains contains one she plays a prominent role in finally.  Once again the Nano casting is perfect.

The episode it chose to end on is a good episode, it's a Columbo case and a rare example of one where Conan doesn't tranquilize anyone but simply nudged Kogoro in the right direction.

But given the theme of this collection it felt incredibly random. They really should have included The Convivence Store Trap.

Code Geass, Nina and Racism

Nina Einstein is by the end of the R2 not at all Racist anymore. Which is not unique to her, the show is filled with Britannian characters who were being quite racist to the Japanese early in the show and aren’t at all anymore by the end. None of them have a particular moment where they repent of their past racism and denounce it, it simply becomes apparent that they clearly aren’t racist anymore.

Her primary sin is creating and then at first consenting to use of the Fleija. But she’s far from the only person complicit in that, we’re introduced to the plotline via Lyod learning about it and encouraging her. But more so it is Sechenizal's manipulation of her that really drives that plotline.

But let’s return to the topic of racism.  Why is it in a show filled with people who are racist at the start and not by the end is it Nina alone whose early racism is treated as a defining character trait and an unforgivable sin? 

Racism seems to have been a more passive character trait in a lot of other characters.  But they are also people in real positions of power. It is how casual they are about it that in my opinion makes it worse. Characters like season 1 Cornelia and Jeremiah whose use of Racist rhetoric is more a means to an end in their political power playing are not materially speaking less racist because of that, they’re Herman Goring. 

Nina at the start of the show is a teenage girl with severe social anxiety in a highly systemically racist society, and also a repressed Homosexual in a pretty systemically homophobic society. She didn’t choose to be living in a colony rather than the homeland, that was her parents decision. By the time she actually does anything significant in the plot her Racism is no longer a primary motivating factor in her actions but at most a filter in how she’s directing them. Finding out Zero isn’t Japanese wouldn’t make her not want to kill him anymore. 

I’ve seen people say they wish there was more of an explanation for why Nina is this way, a specific thing to happen to her to cause it. But I feel that misses the point of viewing Racism as a systemic issue. Nina is Racist for the same reason everyone else is, but innate issues with who she is as a person makes it harder both for to change when presented evidence contradicting that world view, and to hide it.

There are a number of YouTube videos I started watching but didn’t finish because they open with a rant about how “most” Gay Representation in Anime isn’t great, such sentiments annoy me since I feel exactly the opposite. One uses footage of Nina among its visual B roll for this which I found interesting. With Nina it is definitely backwards, to me Homophobia and Misogyny is clearly a huge factor in why she is such an irrationally hated character. 

This is not about making excuses for anything, it’s about having coherent standards in how we judge people. If some former Racists can be forgiven for their past Racism while others can't, that's fine. But Nina’s circumstances should clearly make her the easiest to forgive not the most unforgivable. 

The many John Carters of Anime.

John Carter is the name of a 2012 film adapted from a 1912 Pulp Sci-Fi series originally titled A Princess of Mars but it and it's sequels are often called the Barsoom series. 

The way this movie was seen as so generic despite how it's source material predates everything it was seen as derivative of has made it a euphemism in my mind for all similar scenarios, something highly influential that later fell into obscurity and become overshadowed by it's literary children which got high profile mainstream adaptations way sooner.

For Otaku Media the comparable situations on my mind are mainly source material from the 90s or early 00s that didn't get a full TV Anime adaption till the 2010s or 2020s. 

The big one I've already talked about is YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound of This World. It's 2019 Anime was dismissed by casuals as just another Isekai but with a drawn out Steins;Gate/Re:Zero set up thrown in.  There were not zero Isekai prior to the 1996 release of the YU-NO game, but it still long predates the main formative texts of modern Seinen LN Isekai. 

But those kinds of Anime aren't the only ones I feel YU-NO influenced in some way. When I was watching it not even knowing how old the source material was yet, the talk about being "outside the four great Ancient Civilizations" reminded me of exposition from Madlax a now largely forgotten 2004 Anime. Mio Shimazu I feel is a very formative early Tsundere and Kanna Hatano likewise is an early formative Kuudere. I also feel like Shimazu was a very direct inspiration for the main girl of the third episode of the 2002 Hentai OVA series titled Unbalance directed by Akiyuki Shibo. 

John Carter the film you can argue doesn't do itself any favors in avoiding the generic accusations in how it presented itself.  And YU-NO is similar, as much I love the 2019 Anime I do lament that it used the modern character design revamps of the game's then recent remake. In 2026 we have Anime like Red River showing us a modern Anime can still feel faithful to it's source's original 90s Character Designs. 

Red River can indeed be added to this list, as a classic Shoujo Time Isekai it's Manga predates Inyuasha. 

But another big Visual Novel example is Muv-Luv.  It's original release was 2003 and the first version adding Alternative to the title was 2006. There was no proper adaptation of a version of it's main story till 2021-2022, but it has spin off Anime in 2021 and 2016. 

The pilot of the 2021 Anime is one that I'm sure people watching with out knowing the history of Muv-Luv would have been comparing to the pilot of Attack on Titan, but AoT's Manga didn't start till 2009. It also shares a lot of vibes with many modern Gacha game based Anime. 

There are of course some major important early Visual Novels that still have no TV Anime. Shizuka, Kizuato, Silver, Cross Channel, Tsui no Sora. 

Was 1990-2004 the Peak era for Fantasy?

I made a prior post inspired by a BookTuber named EverymanReads where he argued for that.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2026/02/booktuber-overing-classic-fantasy-novels.html

There we were talking just in the context of Prose Novels. Looking beyond that the case becomes even stronger.

For movies we have Hook, Army of Darkness, Peter Jacksons' LOTR Adaptations and the first two Star Wars Prequels to name just the first that easily pop into head.  For TV we had Hercules and Xena, that Sam Neill Merlin miniseries. And Urban Fantasy was largely defined by shows like Forever Knight and the Buffyverse and Charmed and Anime like Witch Hunter Robin. 

Speaking of Anime and Manga, this era had classics like Berserk and Escaflone and forgotten classics like Maze, and adaptations of some of those LNs I talked about, and most of the most defining entries of the Magical Girl Warrior subgenre as well as Battle Shonen.

But Video Games is where things were even more genre defining. It'd almost be easier to name what Video Games aren't either Fantasy or Sci-Fi in some ways, the defining franchises of the medium like Mario and Sonic and Kirby and Pokémon are distinct Fantasy settings that only Gaming as a medium could come up with. 

But even if we limit ourselves to Games that feel more inline with conventional Fantasy there is still a lot.  For Zelda this period includes A Link To The Past, Link's Awakening, Ancient Stone Tablets, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Oracle Games, The Winder Waker, Four Swords, Four Swords Adventures and The Minish Cap. All those genre defining JRPGs of the SNES and PlayStation that were important to prior post of this blog are this era, as well as much of the PS2 and Game Cube era. Then there's Castlevania and lots of classic Star Wars Games. 

And spinning off from that are Visual Novels like YU-NO: The Girl Who Chants Love At The Bound Of This World, Higurashi, Tsukihime and it's sequels and Fate/Stay Night. 

For Otaku media I almost want to shift it a year to be 1991-2005. I don't even know much what I'd be loosing dropping 1990, but I know I'd be gaining Fate/Hallow Ataraxia, Mai Otome, the second seasons of Nanoha and PreCure, most of the Shuffle Anime Adaptation.  Or heck maybe even 1992-2006.

Even EverymanRead's reading list doesn't include all English language fantasy novels form this era, it for examples includes no Star Wars EU novels. This era includes all the Bantam books and the first 5 years of Del Rey which includes the New Jedi Order series containing the Yuuzhan Vong War and the earliest Prequel Era novels. Maybe for Star Wars we could move the era up a year since nothing notable came out in 1990 but 2005 has Revenge of The Sith and a number of EU novels tying into it directly including the Dark Nest trilogy in the Post-Endor saga. Or with an April 91 through March 2006 timeframe we could include Timothy Zahn's Outbound Flight. 

The late 90s also includes the three Willow novels by Chris Claremont. 

Why limit myself to 15 years per era? Because it feels like that's the average for the pretty agreed upon language for talking about eras of American Superhero Comic Books.

And speaking of which the 90s and early 00s is when most of my favorite DC Comics came out as well, most of which have some degree of Fantasy in them. The Triangle Era of Post-Crisis Superman Comics begins in November of 1990. And related to the other timeframes I've mentioned, 1992-2006 is also the timeframe of the DCAU. In the Comics the first half of 2006 was Infinite Crisis, so more or less the end of the era of DC Comics I'm most Nostalgic for. 

Otome VIllainess Anime defy a certain common narrative.

I’ve done a post on why I technically have beef with the starting premise of the genre, and another where I explain why I do enjoy some of these shows regardless of that. 

But today I want to discuss how the history of this sub-sub genre goes against certain common narratives about the relationship between trend setters and trend followers. It’s a conventional wisdom I often personally disagree with, but I can usually still see why the OG is viewed as above the rest.

Once one big hit is followed up by a bunch of shows doing something similar, it's common to see a lot of talk about how most if not all of the imitators missed the real point of why the original worked. With the implication being that what makes them different from the original makes them more generic or less artistically interesting or "deep".  I'm often a contrarian on that, but I can still generally see why it can seem that way.

The Otome VIllainess genre started with My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! Sometimes called HameFura for short. I liked it, well I liked season 1 and never finished season 2. But it’s hard for me to imagine even people who love it much more than I do, who may personally still like it the most of them, being able to argue in all seriousness that it has a depth its imitators have hollowed out, that by default they are more shallow. No matter how much you love it, HameFura is objectively the most shallow take on this premise.

I stand by my conviction that it was never common for Otome Games or Shoujo Manga to treat an OjouSama character as a completely unsympathetic one dimensional villain. But there is still legitimate social commentary that could be made by exploring this hypothetical archetype. Or even without touching on the politics, just many interesting ways to play around with it. 

HameFura is the show least interested in doing that. When Katerina’s memories of her Japanese life awaken her “villainess” personality is just completely overwritten, there is no engagement with asking the question of why that person became a “villainess” or if she were really as one note as she seemed.  The story is solely about the Japanese High School Girl who unintentionally stole her life with no acknowledgment of how existentially terrifying that is. 

The strictest definition of this genre is it being the Villainess who the reincarnator reincarnates as. Of those, the one I like the most is definitely I’ll Become A Villainess Who Goes Down in History, commonly shortened to Rekiaku from Fall 2024. 

I’m The Villainess, so I’m Taming the Final Boss aka Akulas from Fall 2022 is a show where I liked the first three episodes, but then episode 4 felt liked it rushed to the end of the first LN when this arc should have had six episodes like the adaptations of the first LNs for Haruhi and Index. 

Both those shows have in common how in different ways the MC embraces the Villainess role becoming a sort of Antiheroine rather than just being comedically the opposite of who she was supposed to be. 

Then there's The Heretical Last Boss Queen where the protagonist is morally unlike the original Villainess characters but has a fear she could become like her anyway. 

The other two of my personal big three for this trend are adjacent examples where the villainess isn’t the person who's a reincarnation of a player of the Game but completely still herself. 

I’m in Love with The Villainess shortened to WataOshi from Fall 2023 (it seems like the gems kept dropping in Fall, yet I didn’t catch any in 2025). It’s a Yuri and is great, it’s the one I most hope gets a season 2. 

The third is MobuSeka which I talked about in one of those prior posts. Its second season is about to come out and I know enough spoilers to know things are getting pretty interesting.

Why I'm excited for The Ribbon Hero.

I'm very conceptually a fan of the concept of taking something once big but since overshowed by what it's influenced and reimagining it in a way that draws on those more well known works it influenced.

This is what I would like to do with adaptation of various Paul Feval works.

The Ribbon Hero is looking to be a wonderful version of that concept.

Osamu Tezuka's Ribbon no Kisha/Princess Knight was a precursor of The Rose of Versailles and the entire Magical Girl Genre and Revolutionary Girl Utena and via them Steven Universe.

This movie coming to Netflix this August is looking to indeed in conversation all of that, and I'm thrilled. 

The best year of future Anime.

I have a couple posts on this blog made this year arguing the best year in Anime history is either Gregorian 2006 or April 2006-March 2007. 

So I decided ask the question, what about other Mediums of Otaku Entertainment from that timeframe?

I already talked about one 2006 Visual Novel in those posts, but that's because Summer Days also counts as an Anime. And in my Yandere post I talked about how the Future Diary Manga started in January 2006.

Thing is I've come to think the best era of Visual Novels, and the broader Bishoujo Game category into which they are a part, as being 1991-2005.  Summer Days may be one 2006 VN I prefer to the most comparable VN from 2005, it's predecessor School Days, but that has a lot to do with my personal biases where that franchise is concerned, School Days is more fleshed out and coherent in what it's trying to say. 

And that Yandere post is also about how Future Diary's most defining character is an archetype built by prior works. And to some extent so are the other core features of Future Diary. 

2004 may be for the source materials of future Anime what 2006 is for Anime. Death Note started at the tail end of 2003 and continued into early 2006, similar with Higurashi and Pluto and Baccano! and Lucky Star and Nana.  Fate/Stay Night and Clannad both dropped in 2004 as did the first LNs for A Certain Magical Index and Durarara!! and The Familiar of Zero.  And then the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya LN as well as Endless Eight. 

When you add to that how 2004 was perhaps a better year for Original Anime then 2006, and it could be considered a pretty peak year for Otaku Culture. 

A Response to Zero Woolfe about the Star Wars Prequels.

This is a response to this YT Video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cInoOeFNt0

Zero Woolfe is a Leftist YouTuber but one who adheres to the same reactionary dogmatic belief in the existence of Objectively Quality that Mauler and the Critical Drinker do. It's difficult to think of them that way because they have difference specific views on Objective Qualify and what media does and does not pass it, and they also make their videos in a very different style. But they do in fact adhere to that same basic philosophy. Which is why in my opinion they fail at being a Leftist.

Their thesis about the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy and their reevaluation is in large part debunked by my existence. I was 13 when The Phantom Menace came out, and I saw all three in Theaters the day of release and loved each one immediately.  I had already seen the original Trilogy and mostly liked them but have never loved them nearly as much.  So no 10 isn't too old.  I was also never that big a fan of the Clone Wars and consider it overrated, so they add no context to why I like them, if anything I enjoy The Clone Wars as much as I do because the episodes I like remind me of the Prequels, not the other way around. 

I know I wasn't alone, I was never a popular kid but I know others my age liked them. So no the fact that Zero recalls negative things being said about The Prequels by people who would have been 10 in 1999 doesn't prove anything about the generation as a whole. In fact I didn't even encounter evidence of the hate existing till Episode II had been out for awhile. 

In fact my personal belief is that the Prequel Haters were always a Loud Minority even among their Gen X-Late Boomer Age group, it's just that Negativity in general was what online culture encouraged back then. But even if that's not true, I think something about the nature of Millennials and Zoomers made positive media opinions more welcome online once we started taking over.  And yet Prequel fans always had some presence online, you just had to know where to find them. 

My relationship with Disney Star Wars has also been complex. I liked each Sequel film initially but soured on them pretty soon similar to how I reacted to Superman Returns.  Only The Last Jedi would I ever say I actively hated, and I currently regret having engaged with that hatedom, but I was never much a fan of any of them and I still don't care for them.  I haven't given a second viewing to either The Last Jedi or Rise of Skywalker, someday I might. 

However I have liked ALL of the Live Action Disney+ Star Wars Content, unironically, every single one.  I still haven't gotten to see The Mandalorian and Grogu since going to the Theaters isn't an option for me right now. But I also equally love both Anime seasons of Star Wars Visions, didn't watch season 2. Right now I see all of them having a better chance at future reevaluation then the Sequels. 

If future Sequel Trilogy reevaluation depends solely on younger people liking them from the start getting older, then it isn't going to happen on nearly the same scale as the Prequels. Disney has refused to make Sequel era EU content and more or less accepted their failure.  At best we'll see the view that The Last Jedi alone was worthwhile become more popular. Right now you don't have to be as old as you used  to be to make your opinions known online. 

And the reason why they think so many Romance Novel plots are based on Kylo Ren is because Kylo was already based on Romance Novel Style knock offs of Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. 

I almost wish it were true that Prequel fans were still only people who always liked them like me, but I know they aren't.  I'd seen positive Prequel videos begin with the person confessing how they used to hate them. I've seen notable online people change their minds in real time. And some people absolutely give the impression of Posers, that they want to be seen as someone who always knew the truth, but didn't. 

Sequel Trilogy Reevaluation will depend on that even more then the Prequels did because the evidence is showing the Sequels failed to engage the current youth the way the Prequels did precisely because they always cared too much about catering to Prequel Haters. They failed to create anything New for a New Generation of fans in their obsession with pandering to the people who'd been fans since 1977.  And that is what I predicated before The Force Awakens came out. 

I'm not predicting the unlikeliness of the Sequels being reevaluated because I want that to happen.  I'm not offended by people liking movies I don't, I'd like to live in a world where we can just be positive about Star Wars.  I'm sick of most pro Prequel videos nowadays being half about how they're better then the Sequels. 

I don't have a problem with Anime LARPers.

I can absolutely relate to being conceptually a fan of something I can't engage with directly whether it's Video Game franchises with an interesting Lore but the actual Gameplay is unplayable for me personally like Mega Man and many RPGs and most Visual Novels.  Or foreign media that still lacks any kind of English Language localization like some Paul Feval novels, most adaptations of Feval Novels and similar French Pulpy Novels, La Seine no Hoshi or the Pre-School Days Overflow Games. 

However beyond that strict definition of a Fandom LARPer (someone literally presenting as a fan of media they haven't engaged with directly), LARPer as an insult in the Anime community is also becoming functionally synonymous with terms like Tourist. It's about what it means to say you like Anime as a concept. 

I should be clear that on the subject of terminology to me Anime Fan and Otaku and Weeb are not perfect synonyms. Though in the context of specifically Western Fandom discourse for the purpose of this discussion the nuanced distinction between Otaku and Weeb doesn't matter. An Anime Fan is anyone who is a fan of at least 5 distinctly different Anime and identifies as liking Anime. However an Otaku is someone who even when they don't like certain trends of Anime will never view them as things that should be gotten rid of, there is no room for Antishippers in Otakudom. 

I want new Anime Fans, or even long time ones who've remained very limited in what they've seen, to watch more and expand their horizons. But in my opinion talking down to those people, calling them culturally illiterate or tourists or LARPers is counterproductive, you're just making them hate the culture and pushing them away.  Politely recommend them shows similar to what they already like, or from the same creators, and/or what your personal favorites are, but let them take their time. 

I've currently completed over a thousand Anime and partially watched nearly 300 more. But there was a long time, from like 2005 to 2014, when I'd seen less then 50 and still referred to myself as liking Anime, not using the words Otaku or Weeb only because I hadn't heard them yet. Looking back on that now I know there is a lot I used to be wrong about, but I do not view that younger version of myself as lying about liking Anime. 

What's changed about Tourist discourse in the last like year is a massive increase in even the perceived Left Wing of the Anime Fandom doing it.  What's interesting there is how it's the Left Wing who is truly putting it's emphasis on wanting more people to watch more older Anime, while the shows the Neo-Reactionaries are mad at you for not watching are recent seasonals. Like definitionally you would expect the opposite. 

Thing is as a Leftist Anime fan who has seen more older Anime then most of these Reactionary Vlogers. Most of the Anime I like are part of Genres and Trends that took off in the 90s and 2000s so only a very small percentage of stuff from the 60s and 70s or even 80s feels significantly relevant to my tastes. 

There are two Genres of Anime in particular whose fandoms have a tendency to get really angry about anyone saying anything about them if what they've seen is still only a few of the most well known shows.  Mecha and Magical Girls. As someone who is an enjoyer of both genres, with more then mere entry level familiarity with both, I also find this troubling.

Yes it's annoying when people talk like experts on something they have a small sample size of. But being factually mistaken on on the history of a genre of fiction is not the worst thing in the world.

And some of the opinions these people think can only exist among people who've seen very little I think they are massively underestimating the validity of.

On the subject Mecha, I only feel more vindicated in calling Evangelion a Deconstruction the more of the genre I watch, not less. A lot of disagreement on what Anime can and cannot qualify as a Deconstruction is more predicated on disagreement on what a Deconstruction is then a given Genre's history. 

I still hold the view that no Magical Girl show qualifies as a Deconstruction. However not every Video on Madoka's role in the history of the genre that makes fans mad is at all appealing to that term specifically. 

I would agree that Pretty Cure monopolizing the market has more to do with the lack of Shoujo Manga based Magical Girl shows in the last 15-20 years then Madoka. But the basic opinion that Madoka disrespected the prior history of the genre is not going to go away simply from knowing the prior precedent for darker takes exist. 

I also disagree with the claim that Anime is more mainstream now then it used to be.  But that's another string of topics. 

I'm gonna link to two nuanced yet opposing YouTube Videos.

Carbio-kun's I Have no Taste and I must Larp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ9ynYK7qTI

It's Blythe's Gatekept Fandoms ar ethe Worst.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Fx0rM2GDU&t

Update: Here's a 3rd one.

Framing The Narrative The Truth about Anime Tourists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5mHu3UsFwY

Twist Pilots are my least favorite Anime Pilots

I’m referring to cases where the first episode of an Anime ends on a twist revealing even the genre of the show wasn’t exactly what it was precented as for most of the pilot.

They are often pretty entertaining the first time you watch them, but when I rewatch a show I find myself wanting to just skip it and start the show with the first episode that actually represents what the show is. 

The more I like the rest of the show the more the fact that they start with these kinds of pilots annoys me. Because in an online culture obsessed with treating not spoiling something as a moral value, these become shows you are supposed to recommend to people without even accurately telling them what genre they are getting into. 

School-Live! is the ultimate example of this, its mere inclusion in my posts recommending Horror Anime to watch during Halloween month is technically a spoiler, but it shouldn’t be.

The impact of watching the School-Live! Pilot blind without knowing you are actually watching a Zombie Apocalypse show works only if you like both Cute Girls Doing Cute Things and Zombie Apocalypses as genres (which I do), someone who only likes the former will be upset you got them into that show only to take it away, and someone who only likes the latter will be annoyed they had to sit through a Moe show for 20 minutes.

Maybe some will argue it's good to filter out the Slice of Life haters in the pilot because it is still structurally largely a CGDCT show even after the Zombie shoe drops. But as someone who is an enjoyer of vanilla Cute Girls Doing Cute Things shows I think it’s perfectly valid that some people can enjoy those antics with a Genre element mixed in but not on their own, I have no desire to Gate Keep the joy of School-Live! from people who can’t also enjoy Lucky Star and K-On. 

A more recent show where this applies is Quality Assurance in Another World. I haven't rewatched this one yet at the time I’ve started writing this but I’ve been planning to, and I keep wondering whether or not I should just skip the pilot and start with episode 2.

In both cases there is an artistic/narrative reason for starting the show this way beyond just shock value,  that it’s important to sell a certain character’s perspective. But that really doesn't take away its lack of rewatchability. A single 20 minute episode of Anime doesn't have a lot of time to do anything that truly feels interesting to rewatch knowing the twist. The twists in Anime that have a good set up and pay off are the ones that span multiple episodes.

I said the more I like the rest of the show overall the more I dislike it starting this way, so let’s look at a reverse example.

Talentless Nana’s twist pilot works pretty well. But my excitement for the show early on did not maintain itself. 

This was hyped by some of its fans early on as being an example of “Death Note but better” because Death Note has a certain type of hater, people who want an Anime with its basic appeal but where the female cast is treated better. I’m no Death Note fanatic, I’ve never called it one of my personal favorites and I too prefer Anime that are more feminine at their core. But in the case of Talentless Nana watching it while comparing it to Death Note does not do it any favors. 

Some people complain about Misa in Death Note being a Chaos Factor that made Light’s defeat unfair.  But she does not show up as early as people are making it sound when they say that.  Light had already made the key mistakes that made his downfall inevitable, L was already treating Light as effectively his only suspect. A Chaos factor is kind of what the show needed at that point to keep it from getting boring. Seriously everyone who says they wish Misa wasn’t in the show, what do you think it could have actually done without her?  

Talentless Nana actually does what people falsely accuse Death Note of in this regard. It introduces way too many not remotely foreseeable factors way too early. I think the show would have been better if it took two cours to cover what it wound up covering in only 1.  (And I’m saying that as someone constantly annoyed at how often people online are saying that about every single cour show lately.) Or even just did a few more simpler scenarios before starting all the mini arcs. 

The Executioner and Her Way of Life is a debatable show to include here because the equivalent twist happens more like half way through the Pilot. I feel like this show I might have convinced myself I liked more than I really did originally out of some obligation to it being a Yuri. But the truth is I kind of want more Yuri Isekai that are the same as regular Het Isekai in how the Romance is integrated instead of always having some other quasi subversive element to it. 

A Future Delivery crew is Transported to Another World Created by the Imagination of their Malfunctioning Alcoholic Foul Mouthed Robot.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Bender’s Game, one of the sorta movies that makes up season 5 of Futurama. [Update: so Futurama is one of those annoying situations where different places number the seasons differently, I said season 5 based on Wikipedia but on Hulu they are season 6.]

It can be described as an Isekai, but not just in the way that the Pylea arc of Angel can be. By using a Game, Dungeons and Dragons, as one of its main jumping off points, by being a parody set in what can be thought of as a very generic Fantasy setting. It truly is the only work of western media I can think of that’s almost like modern Isekai Anime. 

It draws on the iconography of DnD and Lord of The Rings the same way all these modern Isekai draw on Dragon Quest and Record of Lodoss War. 

I find that fascinating since it’s from 2008, five years before this kind of Anime really starts becoming a thing. 

Maybe it says something about me that I always even back then kind of enjoyed this the most of the 4 movies while others I suspect found it the least interesting, a filler arc comparatively. And now I’m a Weeb who is one of modern Isekai’s few vocal apologists. 

I’m writing this without having yet rewatched it. I haven’t watched the whole thing since before I got full time into Anime around the same time this modern Isekai trend was taking off. I am concerned I won’t like it as much now in the context of how some of my tastes have changed and how a lot of what these “adult” cartoons were doing in the 00s hasn’t aged well. So I kind of wanted to document my thoughts here before a rewatch changes them. 

And I do also want to comment on something unrelated to the Isekai comparison. The Titanious Anglesmith persona. 

When this personality takes over Bender while they are still in the regular Futurama setting he seems very different in personality from Bender. The Comedy for long time Futurama viewers is Bender not acting like himself. But once they are in the fantasy world Titanious now is just Bender in a fantasy world and that becomes the joke. 

I could see someone else drawing attention to this making a criticism out of it, “why isn’t Titanious written consistently” DING. But Futurama is first and foremost a comedy and so this contrast is probably intentional and not an oversight, it is itself part of the joke. But given how Futurama does go for more than just comedy, I sometimes wonder if there is something philosophical in this choice?

Since I titled this post with my humorous guess at what a long LN style title for Bender's Game would be. I'll end with what Google Translates says that would be in Japanese. 

ある配送チームが、故障した酒浸りで口の悪いロボットの想像力によって生み出された、別世界へと転送されてしまう。

Aru haisō chīmu ga, koshō shita sakebitari de kuchi no warui robotto no sōzō-ryoku ni yotte umidasa reta, bessekai e to tensō sa rete shimau.

Batman has never been The World’s Greatest Detective on The Big Screen.

I know I’ve said this before, but I want to make this point the focus for a change.

The reason it so annoys me when part of the hype for Matt Reeves’ The Batman is it supposedly being the first Batman movie to really showcase Batman as a detective is that the same promise was made by The Dark Knight back in 2008 and as much as I love that film having for a long time called it the greatest movie ever made, it failed to deliver on that promise and so did The Batman. 

I don’t care that these two films have scenes that carry the aesthetic of an Investigation.  Batman doesn’t deduce anything until it’s too late, in one the villain never had a secret identity and in the other that identity was never uncovered prior to him being arrested exactly when he planned to be arrested. 

The pseudo Detective Film qualities of The Batman are because of what it inherited from what pre 2010 Fan Trailers thought Nolan’s take on The Riddler would be, a cringe awkward mashing together of Se7ev, Zodiac and Saw.

These kinds of Batman stories give you the edging of a detective story, but not the happy ending where the Great Detective actually outsmarts the criminal or exposes their perfect crime they thought was unsolvable. These are stories that make a point out of Batman’s victory being hollow or pyrrhic so much that in-spite of the nominal stopping of the villain’s plan it still feels firmly like the Hero was the one outsmarted every step of the way. 

I know some will be like "that's because they're Film Noir style detective stories not Holmes style Detective".  The Batman films being like a Film Noir when it adds an overblown actions sequence after the point when a Film Noir would end, The Dark Knight is better at that by saving it's bitter pill for after the triumphant action sequence. Batman earl yon even the Golden Age was a Holmes style detective not a Film Noir style since genre hadn't even fully formed yet. Batman is frequently a Holmes style detective in the Comics and that's what I want to see on screen. 

I’ve been thoroughly spoiled what for a Detective Story that also works as a satisfying Action film can be by the fact that I’ve seen all the Detective Conan films (well not the most recent since it’s still in Theaters in Japan).

I am the kind of Conan fan who sometimes complains about how the Conan films have become more Action oriented over time.  But make no mistake, I think even the most overly action bloated, explosion heavy and dumb Detective Conan film (Movie 16 The Eleventh Striker) is still a more satisfying Detective story then any live action Batman movie has ever been. 

And at their best the Detective Conan films are better Detective movie/Action movie hybrids then even the RDJr Sherlock Holmes movies. The top tier of Conan movies I view as movies 1, 3, 4 and 5, the next tier just below them are 7-9 and 11-12.  I also think movie 14 Lost Ship in The Sky makes a better Die Hard sequel than any actual Die Hard sequels and movie 18 The Dimensional Sniper was a great Swan Song for the guy who wrote 14 of the first 18 movies. 

If I had to pick an absolute favorite from that top tier of films, I’ve gone back and forth between picking the third movie The Last Wizard of The Century and the fifth movie Countdown to Heaven. 

The fourth movie Captured In Her Eyes is one I know some would criticize for not giving the audience a fair shot at figuring it out themselves, but as I’ve said many times that’s not what I care about in a Detective Story. What matters here is it does it feel like the villain was outsmarted in the end and not beaten ONLY by brute force. This movie is also the most like a Film Noir of any Detective Conan movies, it pulls that off without it conflicting with making it's protagonist a Holmes style Great Detective. 

The first film, The Time Bombed Skyscraper, you could argue has the opposite problem, I don’t see anyone guessing wrong about who the villain is. But that goes to show that you can have a satisfying Detective Film in the way I’m talking about even if the villain is an established member of Batman’s Rogues gallery. It doesn’t matter to me if it’s obvious to the audience who the villain if because he shares a name with a villain from the Comics, or the film was promoted partially on seeing this A List Actor play this Iconic villain, what matters is does Batman figure out who they are on his own or does the villain just reveal himself after jerking Batman around all film.

None of the ones I just singled out are the most accessible to watch legally in the United States right now, and I recently learned I can’t even count on the BangZoom dubbed movies I paid for to stay on Amazon PrimeVideo. The first 6 movies were dubbed by Funimation but aren't legally streaming anywhere, they all had DVD releases but they are out of print and so might be pretty expensive now.  Movies 7-18 have never had an English Dub release and have only ever been legally Subbed in the US when they were each temporarily on YouTube for a week last year. 

But perhaps none of the theatrically released Detective Conan films are the purest of detective films. Perhaps what people really want from a movie length detective story is something more like the 2 hour special episodes of the series, some of which are now part of the collections of episodes on Netflix.  

But also the 2014 feature length TV Special The Disappearance of Conan Edogawa is pretty great. It’s not afraid to move slowly at first, or be minimalist in its use of music.  And it contains one of my favorite Ran moments, which since we’re comparing them to Batman movies here I will say feels very Denny O’Niel.

Are animated Batman movies better Detective stories?  Some of them by a little bit, when the villain isn’t a standard rogue but someone special for that film. Mask of The Phantasm, Under The Red Hood, kind of Batman Beyond Return of The Joker and Mystery of The Batwoman.  But just like The Dark Knight and The Batman they are often too fixated on making Batman’s Victory not very victorious. Batman The Brave and The Bold’s Scooby Doo Crossover film is somehow actually the best Batman movie at being a Detective movie.  

The Downside of Physical Media that no one wants to talk about.

Mass producing Physical Media means also mass producing plastic which has an environmental impact. But this is the one thing Internet Leftists don’t want to think about the Environmental impact of right now.

How much the 2020s have been defined by concerns about Cryptocurrencies and NFTs and Generative AI has put a lot of focus on how doing things digitally can have an environmental impact. But that Environmental Impact is entirely a symptom of Fossil Fuels being our primary energy source. Cryptocurrencies and NFTs and Generative AI have reasons to be opposed that have nothing do with the Environment, but storing data digitally in general will have no adverse effects on the Environment once Fossil Fuel industries are destroyed and all energy is Clean Energy, which is what needs to happen to save the planet regardless.

The concerns that digital and streaming replacing physical media are bad for Art Preservation is also a symptom of Capitalism and Copyright Law. Intellectual Property Laws need to be abolished or at least massively reformed and there should be laws mandating all even minimally culturally significant Art and Entertainment Media be archived by as many Public Libraries as possible. 

Art Preservation is an ongoing process even when it's physical media, your physical copies will be ravaged by time even when not used. It's never going to be as simple a matter as "there are physical copies in a vault somewhere so now they are preserved".  It requires the Archived Copies being taken care of, and new copies being regularly made because no single copy will last forever no matter how well taken care of it is. The copies sitting on the book shelves of a random consumer or even a collector who never opened the box or removed the plastic wrapping are not how media is preserved. 

Plastic Production is an environmental concern that exists independent of those issues. And it’s very messed up how when something related to that issue trends it’s usually something like Plastic Straws which many people with disabilities need.

I understand the impulse behind wanting Physical Media, I have an emotional attachment to every VHS and DVD and Blu Ray and CD and Game Cartridge or Disc I already own. And destroying what already exists will not solve the problem, it could make things worse (never burn plastic, that's the worst thing you can do), so go ahead keep what you have.

There was a time early in the streaming era when some people were talking about how unhealthy the obsession with collecting Physical Media is. Owning stuff for the sake of owning it used to be included in what people critiqued when they critiqued “consumerism”.

The Profit Seeking Corporations have made streaming less convenient than it was supposed to be, but that should not discredit the concept itself, it should discredit Capitalism. Instead people started romanticizing Physical Media again.

You don’t want to support the Corporations that own the official Streaming Sites and Digital Purchase platforms, good, but guess what most Piracy is digital nowadays too. Buying bootlegged physical media requires having connections you are probably better off not having. 

I have very recently felt the frustration of something I bought a digital copy of being removed from PrimeVideo when there never was a Physical Release meaning I now have to resort to piracy if I want to watch it again. But the way to prevent that should be first and foremost laws banning such practices. 

Worldbuilding doesn't and shouldn't matter.

I’ve increasingly come to feel there is nothing people should care about as an “objective criticism” less than “Bad Worldbuilding”. 

When the Worldbuilding in something is genuinely well thought out and holds up under scrutiny that’s a neat bonus, I love watching YT videos about the hidden depths of the lore in ASOIAF as much as anyone else who only watched the TV shows. But it should not be a requirement and certainly not an end in and of itself, and I kinda feel like what’s happened to that very franchise proves my point. 

Tolkien was a worldbuilder like none before him because he spent 20 years writing about this fantasy world just for himself before he actually published anything set in it. And even then he still had to partially rewrite The Hobbit later when he fully integrated it into Arda’s overarching history. Chances are you have not read the book that was published in 1937. 

I don’t care whether or not the world of a story makes sense, I care whether the characters are people I like spending time with and then if the story being told with them is compelling. And if anything related to worldbuilding as a concept affects my ability to enjoy a story, it’s not how detailed the history is, or how unique or unlike other fantasy worlds it is, or whether its internal logic really makes that much sense. As I explained in my post on why I couldn’t get into Magic Knight Rayearth it’s whether or not the world actually feels alive and lived in, like the people playing specific roles in the story are not the only real people in it. 

I saw someone say how a particular Urban Fantasy Pet Peeve of theirs is when the Economy doesn't make sense, and then went on about all the math they did regarding some story's Economy. The fact that you put more thought into this silly thing to even care about in the first place than the author did doesn’t make you a better writer than them. 

Update June 3rd 2026: Premise

So I watched a Video Essay titled How this Cabbage almost DESTROYRD Anime by I don't mind rotting (UOYKAHNTON). And their plot description of the 2005 Visual Novel Yoake Mae Yori Ruri Iro Na shortened Yoakena and translated Brighter Than the Dawning Blue, got me to thinking. 

The setting is centuries in the Future where a catastrophic war between The Earth and The Moon caused technological development to revert back to 2005, or as this video theorizes it originally plunged society back further and the present narrative is just when they caught back up to 2005.

Like a number of VN premises, it's a transparently contrived premise, the worldbuilding is only there to create the setting the writers want. It's a way to get a setting that they can in large part write as if it's set in the present but still have some Sci-Fi stuff going on.  And it's that kind of worldbuilding that critics of "Bad Worldbuilding" so often call lazy worldbuilding. Because no you realistically you can't get almost the exact cultural conditions of 2005 Tokyo from a different history leading up to it just like you wouldn't get something resembling 2017 Los Angelus with a point of divergence that starts 2000 years ago.

Yes I'm really defending Bright right now, I haven't seen the movie itself yet, but I feel bad about having ever passively agreed with Lindsay Ellis's video on it.

The people who made that movie wanted to make a movie that's a modern LA Buddy Cop Movie but with Orcs and Elves, I think the correct thing to do when criticizing this movie whether you like it or not is to simply accept that premise instead of being mad that they didn't create a completely different alternate history.  It is indeed not a premise I would make, but that's mainly because of the Buddy Cop part.