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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

Anime that are more Christian then Frieren.

Christian Anime fans are becoming more visible on Antitube and other places online, but I can't help but find it odd how many are leading with Frieren as the natural Anime to be the face of that.  

I like Frieren, it's a good show, I gave season 1 a 9 out of 10 and season 2 an 8 out of 10, and I'm expecting to like season 3 more. But when it comes to Anime I would recommend to watch for a Christian reason it's nowhere near the top of my list. 

There is a certain type of Christian who still sees the Platonic Ideal of what Christendom should be as Medieval Western Europe. It doesn't surprise me that some Catholics, Anglicans and Episcopalians are like that, but what's become more visible in online Christianity are people more denominationally Low Church who are like that somehow. So these types for purely Aesthetic reasons want their ideal Christian Anime to be a Medieval European style Fantasy story, and Frieren is even by its secular fans praised as the contemporary Fantasy Anime most true to the Tolkienesque roots of the genre and free of modern Isekai and Light Novel Gamer trends. 

But even for that appeal there are better choices then Frieren in my opinion. Maquia, Grimoire of Zero and it's spin off Dawn of the Witch, various Tales of Anime (sometimes the Fantasy Anime that feel the least Gamey are the direct adaptations of Specific Games). Or watch a real classic like Record of Lodoss War or Slayers. And for something pretty recent The Witch and The Beast., and Zenshu showing something that is technically Isekai can still have this classic vibe. 

Frieren's most actually contentious element has also garnered it Christian apologists for misguided reasons.  

Let's not be misled by what the Demons in Frieren are called.  Because Demons in Freiren are not analogous to any theory about what Demons are Biblically.  They aren't fallen angels or disembodied spirits of "Nephilim" who died in the Flood. They are a natural species who seem to be the way they are for biologically determined reasons, but regardless are capable of human levels of intelligence as well as unique personalities. They have Souls based on what that word (both the Greek Psyche and Hebrew Nephesh) objectively means, I don't care if the in-universe world building ever says they don't. 

I like some others believe Frieren is eventually going to subvert what it's been doing with the Demons and that's why I'm not letting it bother me for now. But...

Of all the Fantasy Tropes associated with Tolkien, what the Orcs wound up being is something he regrated, he was himself uncomfortable with the implication, and I can sympathize with someone writing themselves into a corner as they basically help invent a genre. But those following in Tolkien's footsteps should learn from his mistakes.  From a Christian perspective, nothing capable of Human intelligence should ever be considered ontologically irreversibly evil from birth, Christians can have different views on the theoretical possibility of an individual becoming irredeemable based on their choices (I personally don't believe even that's possible), but no one should ever be irredeemable because of what they had no choice in. 

Now when a story does call a species Demons but depicts them unlike Biblical Demons in similar ways to Frieren's Demons and then does depict them as redeemable or even good actually, that will be called by some Anti-Christian at least on the grounds that they shouldn't have labeled these beings Demons.  But it makes sense to me that an intelligent species viewed as Evil by many others would be called Demons and maybe even internalize that label over time. There is in my view something very Christian in exploring that, certainly more Christian then just having evil things you can kill without consequence.

The Title of this post promises recommendations, so that's coming up. 

Talking about why I like these shows as a Christian while trying to be as broadly appealing as possible is a bit tricky. I believe these Anime can have Christian appeal even to Christians who disagree with me on certain things I disagree with other Christians on. But they do also speak to me in ways that connect to those disagreements too.  But to be clear none of my disagreements with the majority of American Christians are on anything any major denomination considers an essential doctrine of the faith, I'm Nicene and Trinitarian with a High View of Biblical Inerrancy. 

Rather then listing these in any order that ranks them on how good they are or how Christian they are, or chronologically.  I'm going to try and list them in an order that helps me lay out my logic, almost a narrative itself. 

This should be obvious, but again I'm not suggesting any of these were intended to be intentionally Christian.

SSSS.Gridman

The reason Gridman works for this will also be applicable to some of the other shows on the list, but might be more of a spoiler for them so I'll explain it here. One thing that really helps a Gospel reading of something to me is if one of the main Villains is also the person our Heroes specifically want to Save. The Good Shepherd came specifically to find the Lost Sheep. And Gridman is one of the purest examples of that. This isn't applicable to every time villains are redeemed (though that never hurts), it's about when Saving someone in-spite of what a bad person they've become is an explicit part of the heroes' core personal motivation.  These characters do tend to be Women, but I do not consider what gender they are a requirement. 

Robotics;Notes

This show is one of the best expressions of Collectivism in Anime. A Collectivism you don't have to agree with any particular Political or Socio-Economic ideology to appreciate.  The Robot Research Club is a Body and each member could be considered a different body part, like how the NT talks about the Body of Christ.  Add to that it's strong sense of optimism and themes it shares with others on this list, and it's one of the shows I most strongly recommend in general, to Christians or Secularists.

The Magical Girl Warrior genre in general has a lot of themes I see as very Christlike.  

But some in particular that I have thought about along these lines include Prertear which would be the one I'd list here if I limited myself to only one, I consider it in general the most underrated and overlooked classic entry in the genre.  Wedding Peach for something that more often has a coincidentally Christian Aesthetic going on, and Blue Reflection Ray for something more recent then most I'll be talking about.   Also Watch Symphogear, For the first few seasons at least it's the one Anime making Biblical References you could pretend is actually in continuity with a YEC view of history.

Higurashi When They Cry

Most specifically the original 2006 Studio Deen Anime adaptation and it's 2007 sequel Kai. It's lore is ultimately built around something I think makes a good analogy for Original Sin.

Steins;Gate

This one works for it's particular approach to the theme of self sacrifice, in ways that are a Spoiler but not the potential Spoiler I was talking about with Gridman. It's probably the most uncontroversial Visual Novel adaptation to consider good, I happen to like a lot of them though.

Re:Creators

This forgotten classic of 2017 has a lot going for it. 

For an example that I don't count as Anime but others would, Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind. It like others examples is a nice gender inversion where the Christ Figure is a Woman. 

My all time favorite Anime, Noir, I connect to my Faith in ways I don't think I can adequately explain.

I should try to mention something more contemporary, that is a major factor in why Frieren gets to be in so many thumbnails, it's the current most popular trending show. 

Shy is a show I've praised mainly in it's context as a Superhero Anime, but it also shares themes with these Anime. And it's first cour aired the same season as Freiren's. 

[Update August 8th: The Ribbon Hero. It's themes regarding Sacrifice are brilliantly executed.]

Tower of God as a lot going for it.

Here's a few that are specific episodes more so then the show as whole.

Detective Conan, The Mysterious Passenger, among the episodes currently on Netflix, mainly for one specific plot point.

Detective Conan's 12th movie The Full Score of Fear for it's use of Amazing Grace.

Sailor Moon R episode 24 Battle of The Flames of Love Mars Vs Koan, episode 70 of the show as starting from the original series, and episode 64 of the DiC Dub where it was named Enemies No More. 

Sailor Moon's first season episode 26 and 22 in the DiC Dub is also neat.

The six episode opening arc of Sailor Moon SailorStars also have some good material. 

Episode 18 of Corrector Yui. 

Below shall be examples I recommend in-spite of how they also contain content many Conservative Christians might have trouble tolerating.

If Anime were Mainstream then Anime that are adaptations would be allowed to stand on their own.

I guess this is part 5 of my “no Anime isn’t mainstream” series.  But each prior part I genuinely felt like now I’ve made the most important point and these should be read backwards. But in this case I'm not sure this point is actually more important than the last two, but it is more of a coherent point then the first two.  It does still stand on it's own however.  This post's thesis does also stand on it's own of course. 

Stephen Spielberg's Jurassic Park is a bad adaptation of Michael Crichton's book, it only even tried to adapt the last half of it and changes everything, who lives and who dies isn't even the same, the very moral of the story is arguably changed somewhat.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a bad adaptation of Stephen King’s book that King has vocally expressed his intense undying hatred for. 

James Whale’s Frankenstein movie is pretty much in name only (when it isn’t changing even some of the names). 

Each of these movies is near universally considered a Cinematic Masterpiece, why? Because Cinema is respected as an artform, if the movie is undeniably a good movie then how it's not like the source is fun academic trivia at best. Only if the movie is seen as a bad movie all on its own will its infidelity to the source material be then added on as another offense it committed and maybe by some book fans treated as if those changes are the reason it's bad. 

But when it comes to Anime that are adapted from a source material, especially Visual Novels, you will see a refusal to accept this, I've even literally seen people argue an Anime that seems good on it’s own is worse then one that is simply Bad because it gives people the wrong idea of what the source material is. 

This proves Anime isn’t mainstream, or to be consistent with this post’s predecessor is not currently any more mainstream than it was 20 years ago. What has increased in at least their existence being known to Westerners in those 20 years are Visual Novels. So now fans who do care about the Visual Novel at least in concept (even if they aren't actually going to read it) are a large enough percentage of those watching the Anime, especially the ones invested enough to make YouTube videos about them, that their perspective can dominate the discourse.

Visual Novels are themselves not a very mainstream artform, especially here in the west where they are inarguably even more niche then Anime is. And so the grudge fans have against Anime they feel misrepresents certain VNs comes in part from that place of resentment. 

If any of the artforms related to Otaku Media is mainstream at least in Japan it’s Manga.  Not all Manga, not Doujinshi by definition, but the ones serialized in popular weekly Magazines by the biggest publishers. So no surprise the rare Anime that are somewhat normal to be praised as equal to or even better than their source material are Manga Adaptations, not all or even most of them, but enough to be notable. It does kinda bug me how often this happens to be Shoujo Manga made by Women adapted to Anime primarily by Men.  But I will highlight an example of the opposite, the Manga for  K-On was made by a dude, but the Anime was written and directed mainly by two women with a woman as the character designer and a studio largely founded by women. and that Anime has been proclaimed by one highly respected Anime Scholar, The Ultimate Adaptation.  

I led with Jurassic Park because it’s the least contentious. Stephen King has his fanboys willing to defend his perspective on the film (I'm one of them sometimes honestly). And Frankenstein’s Novel has fans who keep wanting each new Frankenstein film to be the perfect adaptation and then complain when it isn’t (the 2004 version is the closest I think a dramatized adaptation theoretically can be). 

In the case of Jurassic Park however I find it telling that the film version’s popularity overshadows knowledge of the book’s very existence to such a degree that half of what people say when hating on the Jurassic Park sequels are unknowingly them becoming more like the original book. Chief example being every time someone gets so offended at the very concept of allowing a human to be able to kill or even momentarily harm a Dinosaur, that happened multiple times in the original novel.  

Back when most westerners didn’t even know what Visual Novels were, Higurashi When They Cry’s Studio Deen Anime was very popular and universally praised as the best Horror Anime.  It is in terms of the basic sequence of events less different from the source material than any of the three movies I mentioned up top, and certainly can't be accused of inverting the moral or the themes the way they do. But now popular opinion has been turning on it because of the influence of VN fans. 

Higurashi being the Anime I'm focusing on defending the most in this post is also a factor in why I choose the three Book to Film adaptations at the start that I did. Each of them is a story that is arguably a Horror story but also arguably not. But more specifically here the adaptation is arguably leaning into the Horror aspect more then the source material did, the percentage of the whole that is focused on being "scary" is larger in the film then it is in the book. And that is also the case with Higurashi, an Anime that is or was considered the best execution of the Horror Genre in it's medium, but the VN fans often seem to hate Higurashi even being classified as Horror in the first place even though Ryukishi07 said a major part of the goal was to make layers feel Terror the same way the Key VNs made people feel Sad. 

A lot of the time people critiquing an adaptation will accuse it of lacking an important theme or subtext that I absolutely got from the adaptation simply for not being conveyed in the exact same way. With Visual Novel adaptations that is especially potent. As someone who defends Voice Over Narration and Inner Monologues in Anime in general, I’m baffled at how determined VN fans are to think the pages of inner monologue cut from the Anime are the only way to convey a certain character has a certain psychological issue when simply watching how they act in the Anime makes it incredibly obvious. My past anti "Show don’t Tell" rants were about defending the artistic value of telling not denigrating the value of showing, but VN fans really do seem to think telling is the only way to convey information. 

Maybe it seems like I’ve rambled off topic.  The point is if most Anime were in fact being watched just as widely as Disney movies, there would be no shortage of people just enjoying the Anime as Anime and hopefully respecting the VN when they hear of it but not letting any complaints change how they feel about the Anime that got them into it in the first place. 

No one thinks Visual Novels are mainstream now, certainly not the ones actually made in Japan. What this observation proves is that Anime, especially Anime based on Visual Novels, are more mainstream then Visual Novels but only barely. 

The Best Year in the History of Anime?

This is a follow up to a post I made at the start of 2026 where I made the case for 2006 being the best year of Anime History while doing my usual, “look back on Anime that turn 20 this year” thing I started doing in 2024.

The thing about years in Japan however is that in every way but nominally Japanese society really functions as if years begin with Spring and end with Winter, the first month being April and the last being March. 

So the thought entered my mind that maybe an even better year could be created by swapping out Winter 2026 for Winter 2027? 

It so happens that would correspond to exactly the year that Nana was airing.  So we could call it the Year of Nana, or Nana Year or Year Nana. 

I already said in that first post that the Spring season is where the argument for 2006 really kicked off. Some of what was airing in Winter 2006 were multiple cour shows still airing in Spring. 

So the full shows we lose from dropping Winter 2006 are mainly Kashimashi Girl Meets Girl and Neirma Kaidun Brothers. Both shows I like a lot but wouldn't call either the best of its genre, Kashimashi is closer to being an essential viewing of its genre(s) but is also arguably surpassed by later 2006 shows. 

On the subject of Detective Conan we do lose what I consider perhaps the single best episode of that show in 425. But the trade off is getting Shadow of The Black Organization and The Unsmashable Snowman. We also switch out the 6th OVA for the 7th, they are all about equal in quality. 

What we gain by adding Winter 2007 includes Shattered Angels which I consider a very underrated Jem, Hidamari Sketch which is a show I haven’t seen yet but know is considered important to the Slice of Life/CGDCT genre, and Venus Versus Virus which I haven't finished and haven’t seen what I did see for awhile.  Plus the start of Yes! PreCure 5, a show that proved important to setting the tone for Pretty Cure going forward. 

Looking more at stuff I haven't seen there is a Shuffle sequel called Shuffle Memories I didn’t know about till recently. And the start of that Les Miserables Anime.  

And then there’s Loving Angel Angelique which I should look into as an early Otome Game Anime, and it was a sequel whose first part aired in Summer 2006 so is a show I should have known about back when making the first 2006 Anime post, it looks like it was the first TV Anime based on an Otome Game adding more to the argument for this being a particularly important year for VN Anime.

And for Shounen fans the start of Naruto Shippoden (it occurs to me that means the closing arc of the original Naruto Anime must have also aired during this year). I’m afraid I can’t bring myself to care about standard Battle Shonen enough to find out what was going on in the other two of the “big three”.  Maybe someone else trying to follow up my thesis could do that. 

The other major Four Cour show connected to 2006 was Blood+, it changes from three fourths airing during the year in question to just the second half, but that’s still enough to matter. 

And we also gain the second cours of a lot of Fall 2006 shows like Kanon and Le Chevalier D’Eon. There must have been some delays in the original broadcast of Code Geass because I expected it to end in late March but it was actually in late April, same with Death Note, I expected episode 26 to air in the first week of April at the latest but it didn’t.  Still for both those shows adding Winter 2007 adds a lot of why they are considered great. Same with early Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, episode 25 aired in Japan on March 29th

In the OVA department Winter 2007 had the Burst Angel OVA and the first episode of Murder Princess. And some Maria-Sama OVAs.

Something I should have mentioned in the original 2006 post is Summer Days from June.  It’s not on the Anime Database websites due to how it’s released being a Visual Novel but like School Days the prior year it was Animated, seemingly even more so. I, like many Americans, have only been able to play the censored version of its later remake titled Shiny Days, but it seems a lot of what I like was already there in the original, but there is a lot of Shiny Days content that wasn't there originally (not just the Inori routes).  It’s the Anime where my favorite Anime character gets to be the lead, so it’s important to me. 

The annual Lupin III TV Special during this year was Seven Days Rhapsody in September.  But I haven’t seen it or most 00s Lupin specials since they aren’t among those Dubbed, so I can’t say if it was even above average for the time. 

I considered looking at what source materials for future Anime came during this year, but there wasn't much.  2004 might be the better year for that, containing a number of source materials for what got animated during this year as well as some that came even later.  But I didn’t think to look into that back in 2024.

Four of what I’m currently listing as my top 23 Anime on Anilist are from this year, no other single year is that overrepresented. Those are three shows I consider the best of their genre, Nana, Kanon and Higurashi, and one that in the past I’d labeled my second favorite of all time, Code Geass.  Add to that the importance shows like Haruhi, Death Note and Gintama have, and a few other best or most important of their genre candidates like Strawberry Panic, and the case for this being the best year is pretty easy to make.  [Update: Black Lagoon is another pretty popular Anime from Fall 2006 I forgot to mention before.]

Talking about all the hidden gems adds some nice flavor to the argument but every year has those so they aren’t the crux of it. 

Of the 2006 shows I consider the best of their genre, Kanon is probably the most controversial. Yes they’re all gonna be disputed by someone, Strawberry Panic is hated by people with very different priorities for what they want in a Yuri Anime (some of them might like Simoun the best) and Higurhshi is hated by VN purists who don’t like it being classified as Horror in the first place and others who think no Anime has ever been good at Horror. But with Kanon it tends to be nearly universally viewed as surpassed by its own spiritual successor Clannad and Clannad After Story. 

I do love Clannad and place it just below Kanon.  Some of why I prefer Kanon is more my personal tastes then anything remotely objective, but I also think getting the entire story in one single Anime instead of across two counts for something. Clannad fans I’m sure at least respect the fact that Kanon made Clannad possible both as a VN and an Anime. And with Kanon it has been argued the KyoAni Anime is an improvement over the source material while Clannad is still viewed as falling short of the VN. Since as an Anime specifically is the point of comparison here, I think you can even argue Knaon is better animated with a better art style. 

Haruhi, Death Note and Code Geass are important to Anime culture as a whole in ways that transcend whether or not they are the best of their "genre" or not. Haruhi created her genre, making her important regardless of if you think something like Bunny Girl Senpai has surpassed her. Code Geass and Death Note can’t be considered the best of any Genre simply because they aren’t pure manifestations of any Genre you could slap onto them since they are Genre Mixes ultimately, they are compared to each other more often then they are the rest of their genres. If any Anime is as important to the 00s as Eva was to the 90s it’s one of these three.  Clearandsweet has a video on how Haruhi is singularly important to redefining what most modern Anime looks like.

Anime from 2001 turns 25 this year.

Given the 2000s are my favorite Decade of Anime, we’re entering a period when what turns 25 a given year might start interesting me more then what turns 20. But of course I might become more nostalgic for the late 00s and early 2010s as they turn 20.

For these 25 year anniversary posts I want to start including some discussion of material in other mediums that became source material for future Anime, or haven’t yet but should. But my knowledge on those subjects is not as deep as my knowledge of Anime, which is itself far from comprehensive or complete. 

Type-Moon’s first Visual Novel Tsukihime was initially released at Comiket at the very end of 2000 but I feel it’s safe to say 2001 is when it really spread. The proper founding of Type-Moon as a company is considered to be in 2001. And January 21st 2001 was the release of Tsukihime Plus-Disc which included the first four chapters of the Kara no Kyoukai LN series. 

For Detective Conan this year opens with an episode that was at the time celebrating the show’s 5th anniversary and is now one of the Episodes with a new English Dub on Netflix, the last episode of the Rivals collection. Episode 219 The Gathering of the Detectives! Shinichi Kudo vs Vaitou Kid.  The show during winter went on to have some Heiji appearance I might have seen, 226-227 The Battle Game Trap which introduced an important recurring character and 228-229 The Murderous Pottery Class which is one of the show’s Columbo Episodes and perhaps among the best of them.  

There is no TV Anime to start in Winter 2001 I’ve watched to completion yet. Arjuna I’ve seen a few episodes of and keep considering watching more of, my feelings on it are mixed. For notable stuff I haven’t seen there’s Tales of Eterinia The Animation which I should check out since I’ve liked other Tales Of series Anime but there seems to be no Dub. And Ojamajo Doreme, a notable Nakayoshii/Toei Magical Girl series airing in the future PreCure timeslot, switched from its 2nd to 3rd series. 

The Manga being serialized in the Nakyoshi magazine during 2001 were Mink, Ojamajo Doreme, Little Cute, Tokyo Mew Mew, Zodiac PI, Instant Teen: Just Add Nuts and Musume Monogatari.  Elsewhere the Manga for Nana was also running this year. 

February 2001 had the Light Novel Boogiepop Paradox: Heartless Red.  None of the Boogiepop Anime or other adaptations have gotten this far, I have no idea what happens in it. Later in December was Boogiepop Unbalance: Holy & Ghost. 

In the OVA department March had the last episode of FLCL which is probably my “I don’t care for The Godfather” Anime opinion. But also the first episode of Puni Puni Poemii which wasn’t as funny as I was hoping it’d be, it’s 2nd and last episode was in December. 

Spring 2001 has a number of great shows, starting with Noir, my absolute favorite Anime of all Time.  Also Pretear, which I consider one of the most underrated classic Magical Girl shows, it was directed by Junichi Sato who was the Series Director for the best era of Sailor Moon. Angelic Layer might be my favorite of every proper Clamp Anime I’ve seen.  Comic Party which I consider the Lucky Star of the early 00s.  Sister Princess is a great forgotten Gem and Galaxy Angel was also a fun comedy. For shows I haven’t completed, SoulTaker is a notable Akiyuki Shinbo Anime which looks neat.  And SuperGals is an underrated Shoujo Anime I intend to watch more of, it’s currently streaming for free on Nozomi Entertainment's YouTube Channel.  

The 5th Detective Conan movie, Countdown to Heaven, came out in April. I still consider it one of the 4 best movies, and I know some consider it the absolute best.  Metropolis came out in May, it’s a movie I have mixed feelings on but ultimately recommend people check out. 

Back to the Detective Conan TV Anime.  April has 230-231 The Mysterious Passenger which is the formal start of the Vermouth Arc and among the episodes you can watch both Dubbed and Subbed on Netflix. This is what I still consider the best era of the show, so much of 2001 has I'm confident pretty good episodes even though I haven’t seen most yet. Metropolitan Police Love Story 4 and The Man From Chicago are also from 2001. 

In June was Lupin III: Alcatraz Connection this year’s annual TV Special.  I haven’t seen this one since it doesn’t have a Dub and I’ve chosen to be strictly Dub only with Lupin. But I know from asking about the topic once that it’s the first of the specials to be Digital Animation rather than Cell Animation. So it’s an important artifact of this transitional period that people researching should check out.  The same studio, Toho, wouldn't fully switch to digital for Detective Conan till the following year. 

For Pokémon this year was deep into the Johto Era, which for the TV Show I don’t have as much nostalgia for as other eras.  But it was the US release of the 3rd movie Spell of the Unown which I still consider the best Pokémon movie, as well as Mewtwo Returns which is a personal favorite of mine..  In Japan this year’s movie was the Celebi movie known to the West as 4Ever which is flawed but still good, and the Legend of Thunder special which was neat. 

What was different for the Western Fandom is something I need to keep reminding myself to get into more when making these kinds of posts.  Pokémon was usually a year behind, but some shows we didn't get till five years later.  It was in 2001 that Toonami finished Dragonball Z and started Dragonball.  Sailor Moon was also still broadcasting its Cloverway Dub era material S and SuperS. Gundam fans got both the 08th MS Team and 0080 War in The Pocket. Also The Big O and more Tenchi Muyo. 

I literally haven’t even started any TV Anime from Summer 2001.  Something like this seems to happen most often with Winter and Summer.  I think back when multiple Cour shows were still more standard those were the seasons getting fewer new Shows because so many slots were filled by second cours. But one of those Spring shows I talked about was single Cour. It looks like the most popular Anime from Summer 2001 was Fruits Basket which is a Shoujo. 

In the VN department July had the full release of Air, the second Key Visual Novel. And in August Age’s Rumbling Hearts was released. Both produced some very good Anime later, but Rumbling Hearts I’d recommend more strongly.

In the OVA realm August had the preview episode of the upcoming TV Anime version of Clamp’s X which was interesting but I don’t think necessary. 

Also the first episode of the non Hentai OVA series for One Kagayaku Kisetsu e.  I found this 4 episode series garbled and confusing, the Hentai version is legitimately a better presentation of the story. It’s based on a 90s Visual Novel the Key founders made before they started Key. 

Another OVA from August was Jikuu Ihougin Kyoko: Chocola ni Omakase! (it has no official localization but that seems to translate to Time Stranger Kyoko: Leave it to Chocola).  It’s interesting, I checked it out once because it's the only other Anime based on a Manga from the same author as Kamikase Kaitou Jeanne. 

The two episodes of the Pure Mail Hentai OVA that I talked about before came out in September and December of 2001. They are in the same universe as School Days. 

And Fall 2001 has the TV Anime version of Clamp's X which I recall really liking but I can’t describe it right now. The original Hellsing Anime which I still prefer to Ultimate aesthetically.  Mahoromatic and Najica Blitz Tactics. I’m also just now realizing as I write this that I had neglected to add Kirby Right Bat At Ya to any of the database websites even though I have watched a few episodes of it. 

One of the last things to come out this year was the Overflow Bishoujo Game Snow Radish Vacation!  It’s the chronologically first game of the universe that School Days and Pure Mail take place in. 

Video Games and Anime that turn 30 this year

I’ve kind of already talked about the importance of 1996 to Video Games when I argued it’s the start of the Silver Age of Gaming.  

But to sum it up the original Pokémon Games in Japan, the Launch of the N64, Super Mario RPG, DKC3 and Kirby Superstar as a trio of swan songs for the SNES and in the world of Japanese Bishoujo Games the birth of the Visual Novel with Shizuka and Kizuato from Leaf alongside Welcome to Pia Carrot and Kakyusei and to end of the year Otaku Culture’s Princess of Mars turned John Carter in YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World. 

Remember that Commercial for Super Mario RPG about the Elderly man rambling about the plot of the game to his Grandchildren? I was 10 for most of 96 and I consider myself possibly on the younger end of people Nostalgic for this game.  So we’re now halfway to the point of that commercial becoming real.

For Anime that turns 30 this year, due to what my focus has been lately Detective Conan is what I’ve been hearing about and talking about the most. Netflix has some of the earliest important episodes streaming both Dubbed and Subbed, the two part pilot at the start of the Black Organization collection and then the first five episodes of the Rivals Collection are episodes that aired in 96.  But there are still many important 96 episodes not there like the Moonlite Sonotata Murder Case, Kogoro’s Class Reunion Murder Case, and the Mountain Bandaged Man Murder Case. They can all be watched Subbed on Crunchyroll, and they do have old English Dubs for those who know where to look. Episode 42 (or 43 of the international count) was the last to air in 96. 

It looks like that’s the only TV Anime to start in Winter 1996 I’ve even partially watched. Looking at what shows have their second or last cour during Winter of 96 could cement an argument for viewing Spring 95 as the start of the year that begins the Bronze Age of Anime. Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gundam Wing and Wedding Peach. 

For Sailor Moon this year ends SuperS in March and then airs most of SailorStars. 

For OVAs we have Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team, the Sonic The Hedgehog OVAs which became localized as Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie, Fire Emblem which I don’t remember the details of right now, it stars Marth and I think is the first time he was voiced by who still his voices him in Smash, but that’s the Japanese VA in the English Dub he’s Spike Spencer.

I like Inma Youjo enough to break my usual resistance to mentioning Hentai in these kinds of posts.  Its second and 3rd episodes came out in 96 and the 2nd in January is possibly the one I like most,  I have a sneaking suspicion Maya’s character design from the first two episodes influenced Utena. 

In Spring we got Escaflowne, Kodocha and Slayers Next and the first Shamanic Princess OVA on a date that’s technically Summer already, the birthday of John The Baptist, I can’t find dates for its other episodes.  That exact same day is also the release date of the 2nd of the Magical Girl Pretty Sammy OVAs which is the wildest one with its early Internet plot.

For movies we have Tenchi Muyo In Love which was good and Lupin III Dead or Alive which is probably fun but I don’t remember it as well as other lupin movies I’ve seen, Lupin’s TV Movies were better during the 90s, which we see in August with Lupin III: The Legend of The Twilight Gemini which I consider a personal favorite. The film version of Clamp’s X/1999 came out this year, but I’ve only seen the TV Anime version. 

Summer’s OVAs include the Maze OVA which is another fun hidden Gem of 90s Isekai.  But I’ve seen no TV Anime that started in Summer of 96, just continuations of prior shows. 

Fall had the Mahou Shoujo Pretty Sammy TV Anime once localized as Magical Project S which I do highly recommend. Another anime from Fall that’s notable but I haven’t seen yet is Martian Successor Nadesico. And Those who Hunt Elves also aired out this season. 

In the OVA department the year ends with Galaxy Fraulein Yuna and Wedding Peach DX and 08th MS Team reaching its halfway point.

For Western Weebs, this year is I’m pretty sure when Sailor Moon first aired in America after the DiC Dub initially broadcast in Canada in late 95. I’m pretty sure catching early Sunday morning broadcasts of Sailor Moon in 96 was my very first exposure to any Japanese Animation. 

Shirou Emiya is characterized just fine in the UFO Table Anime

Before I talk about anything else, I realize the main thing that vindicates the narrative that the Anime adaptations have butchered Shirou’s character are all the Anime only people who hate the character and make fun of him. 

You are giving those haters too much credit by charitably assuming they’d like or even get Shirou more if they read the VN.  The Anime community simply is filled with people who are going to hate that kind of character no matter what, they think the standard Anime Protagonist is boring and dumb, they are the Anime community counterpart to thinking Superman is unrelatable.  No amount of Fantranslated Inner Monologue Nasu Prose is going to change their minds.

But I’m not gonna say there are zero people for whom this would make a difference, because I already know that this minority of people are over-represented among the kinds of people who make Fate youtube videos, they keep saying they didn’t like Shirou in the Anime but got him when they played the VN. And that makes sense, that is exactly the kind of experience with Fate that would most motivate one to want to dedicate their lives to trying to advocate for the VN to Anime Onlies. 

But I’m pretty sure those people never hated Shirou as much as the people I was mainly referring to before. 

There is an impression to many that even the majority of people who like the UBW Anime as Anime onlies hate or dislike Shirou, but I feel this is just another product of the actual majority opinion among casual Anime watchers having no representation in online discourse. Clearly lots of people unironically enjoy Solo Leveling and Rent-A-Girlfriend, but they aren’t interested in trying to push back against the hate those shows receive on YT and Twitter and Bsky because they are the viewers who have lives.  

I watched the UFO Table TV Anime version of Unlimited Blade Works first of any Fate/Stay Night adaptation as well of any UFO Table Anime, I had no spoilers. But everything these VN fans keep saying the Anime failed to convey about Shirou’s character I got just fine.  I always liked the character.

I recently saw someone on Reddit say, and I’m paraphrasing, “Anime onlies think Shriou has some Batman level no kill rule which is clearly not in the VN” and I'm like, the Anime clearly showed Shirou being mad when Archer didn’t kill Caster.  Anyone who thinks Shirou is dead set against killing bad guys simply wasn’t engaging properly with the Anime.

The main thing however is Shirou’s survivor’s guilt, everyone insists this is something completely absent from the Anime versions of the character. To me this was an incredibly obvious aspect of his character in the Anime, it’s the last thing I even think of as even remotely benefiting from further elaboration. 

However, what I’ve noticed time and time again is that people who critique something only as an adaptation and not as a stand alone piece of art within its own medium/artform, they will repeatedly confuse not conveying something in the exact same way as the source material with not conveying it at all. They aren't even considering the ways this new medium has to convey information that the source material didn’t.

The main reason I consume mediums like Anime over mediums like Manga, LNs, and most VNs and even more so generally prefer Dubs to Subs, is because I appreciate Acting as a skill and a talent and an art. VNs sometimes have voice acting but I’m pretty sure Fate/Stay Night the VN didn’t originally and has still never had an English Voice Over track. It’s not impossible for me to get immersed in a performance done in a language I don't understand, but it is more difficult and with my ADD I prefer not to have to try. 

The difference between Voice Acting in a standard VN and Voice Acting in an Anime is that in an Anime the non vocal parts of an acting performance are provided by the animating of the character the voice is being projected onto. So what Anime specifically can add to Fate/Stay Night in place of all the lost prose is not just flashy Sakuga heavy fight scenes but actual Acting. It’s because of that acting that this artform can convey with how one line is delivered as much meaning as a page of prose.

So to me to claim that Shriou’s Survivor’s Guilt is flat out not in the UBW Anime is to disrespect and insult all the work done by those artists and animators and by Bryce Papenbroke, and I’m going to optimistically assume Sugiyama Noriaki did a good job as well. 

I don’t make these videos defending Anime Adaptations of Visual Novels because I don’t respect what Visual Novels are uniquely capable of as an artform.  But because of things like my ADD they are an artform I simply can’t engage in and appreciate as intended. But I do have endless respect for them and appreciate how they’re responsible for such Anime I love.