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 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.

Death Note’s Near & Mello Arc is important

Tolkien’s distinction between applicability and allegory is a controversial topic on the Internet because in modern usage what he means by applicability also counts as allegory.  But I tend to agree with Tolkien on this because of how calling something an Allegory leads to obsession with making things very 1 to 1 in a way that both oversimplifies and overcomplicates.

And this is reflected in Anime discourse in the narrative that Bakuman is allegorical about it's authors' prior experience making Death Note.  That inference is definitely applicable to a lot of it I'm sure.  But many other things clearly don’t line up, the Manga being made in Bakuman is a much more conventional Battle Shonen.

The big problem is people then citing what happens in Bakuman as proof that they never wanted to write the Near Arc but were forced to artificially drag out the story so the Manga can still be published alongside airing of the Anime adaptation.  Which is refuted by the simple fact that the Death Note Manga including the Near Arc wasn’t still ongoing when the Anime started, the Manga ended on May 15th 2006 and the Anime started on October 4th 2006 over 4 and a half months later, an entire season of Anime started and ended in between.

Anime Onliers have a low view of the Near Arc largely because it was adapted differently, in the Manga L’s death is the halfway point not two thirds, the introduction of Near and Mello is the Ten in it's KiShoTenKetsu structure, so the Near Arc in the Anime is much more rushed and less fleshed out.  

That said I enjoyed it even in the Anime just as much, and the first 25 episodes were not exactly flawless either, I’ve never liked Death Note because I thought it was brilliantly written.

However the principal logic behind rejecting the Near Arc is that a lot of people mistakenly got the Vibe during the first half that the story was about L equally as much as it was Light and therefore the point of the story is gone without L.  But if that were true then L would have been in the first episode.  The story is about Light/Kira and everyone else exists because of how they relate to Light, that’s why it’s a rare Anime that doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test.

Light is not a morally ambiguous character, he is pure Evil, there is no slow descent into madness, he went full God Complex during the first episode’s time jump between his second kill and meeting Ryuk.

There is no point to having him win the struggle with L if we don’t see what he does with that victory, but morally it would feel off to not see him face consequences eventually.  

But even if L wins it would still be incomplete to not progress the story to that point, that’s the problem with the first Live Action Death Note Adaptation.

It suits the values I like to see in Anime in general that what truly defeats Light is a team effort not simply a rival Great Man.

I like when a Cool Intimidating Villain is Metaphorically Castrated in a sequel, adaptation, reboot or remake.

In the original 1997 TV Anime Revolutionary Girl Utena the character of Akio aka End Of The World is a very cool and charismatic villain, he needs to be for that original version of the Utena story to work the way it does.

But then Ikahara made a movie called Adolescence of Utena that was a reimagining of the entire premise of Utena but also maybe ambiguously a Sequel somehow???  Either way this more than any other Anime Film borne from a TV Anime it is not a stand alone work of art, every detail is wrapped up in the Symbolism codified by the original show.

In the movie Akio is no longer cool or charismatic, his first scene makes a Joke out of him and then later he’s presented as absolutely Pathetic.  And this was a deliberate artistic choice with deliberate meaning behind it.  VraiKaiser in their discussions of the movie breaks it down way better than I can.  

https://vraikaiser.com/2014/01/20/i-know-why-she-turns-into-a-car/

https://vraikaiser.com/2015/07/04/the-adolescence-of-utena/

Originally of course a good chunk of the fanbase had a negative reaction to this decision,
"how dare you take the coolness away from the cool character I liked". This sentiment was in Jacob Chapman’s review of the movie back when he was known as JesuOtaku.  However in this case continuing to feel that way has become more rare, WhiningAboutYuri on Tumblr was very critical of the movie but supported this specific choice.  And it wouldn’t surprise me if even Jacob himself has repented of that old bad take.

However The Joker is a different story, that character most people still want to see treated with respect.  JackSaint’s video on Suicide Squad’s take on The Joker argues that Leto’s Joker is supposed to be an uncool cringey edge lord, which is also independently hinted at in Josh McNamee’s Sixteen Attempts to talk to you about "Suicide Squad".  

It is a good idea to remind people that the real life Jokers of the world aren’t cool or charismatic but pathetic losers, and the same is true of Adult Men in positions of Authority who take advantage of teenagers.  That doesn’t actually make them not dangerous, but it does make them less glamorous.

However there is a certain kind of fan who identifies with such characters even if they would never approve of their actions in real life. And there is a not insignificant overlap between these fans and the kind who become Internet Neo-Reactionaries.

I’m not arguing the “cool” takes on these characters shouldn't exist, I do believe most people can separate fantasy from reality and those who can’t have deeper problems than how they read fiction.  I’m simply defending the innate value in taking that coolness away from them.  The intended message behind having a Pathetic villain is more potent when done with one previously seen as cool then it would be with one who was always depicted as pathetic.

Now for both of those examples I’ve already demonstrated that I’m far from the first to make this defense of them.  However as far as I’m aware I’m still the only person to read the Netflix Cowboy Bebop’s take on Vicious this way.  And even if I find out others have, I'm still confident I can claim to be among the first since I was reading him this way the day of the show's release. Largely because I was already familiar with the two above discourses, so I was prepared.  But if you’ve seen someone else talk about Vicious this way please link me to it because I would want read or watch it.

Netflix Vicious is entirely driven by how insecure he is in his masculinity, a problem that began with his daddy issues.  He is all through the show exposed to be a manchild who wants to be seen as intimidating far more than he actually is intimidating.  And the people who have that problem in real life who also watch Anime want to be like the Vicious of the original Cowboy Bebop or some other similar kind of Anime villain.  I’m not saying everyone who had a knee jerk negative reaction to this reinterpretation of Vicious did so because they are that kind of person, but I am saying this is why they should reconsider the value of this artistic choice.

Now it’s only with Ikuhara that I’m confident this reading was intentional.  Ayer and Leto have both said things that lead me to suspect that this isn’t what they intended.  With Netflix Bebop it does seem to be stated outright quite a bit that's what the message is, but you can never be certain with Netflix  But it doesn’t matter because the Author is Dead, this is a valid reading of the text whether those who wrote it like it or not.

And I want to see this done more.  As someone who’s devoted a chunk of their online identity to being a Star Wars Prequel Apologist I should show I’m not a hypocrite by saying I’d support Palpatine being given this treatment.  Of course I’m already Free from hypocrisy here, Batman is my oldest fandom and before I went full Weeb I considered The Dark Knight the greatest movie ever made. During the late 2000s and early 2010s I loved quoting Heath Ledger’s Joker to seem cool as much as anyone else did.  Yet I didn’t have a knee jerk negative reaction to Leto’s Joker, I didn’t in 2016 understand yet why I liked it, but I do think on some level this was always why.

In the context of Anime however I think the problematically Idolized Villain who needs to be taken down a peg the most is Light Yagami. And maybe to the fans of Netflix Death Note that’s why that movie works.  But the thing is there are lots of reasons I don’t like that movie, all three movies or shows I praised above have a lot more to like about them then just doing the thing I named this post after.

More importantly though the way in which Light Turner is Pathetic for most of the film functionally exonerates him of being fully culpable for most of his sins, his psycho girlfriend is the real monster and she is cool and charismatic (or at least the movie wants her to be).  The way the three villains above are Pathetic highlights how morally horrible they are.

But also the three examples I praised are not at their core entirely different characters from the prior versions that so many people found cool, we’re simply seeing them now from different angles, in different contexts.  They do act differently in ways that would make them hard to see as in the same continuity, but the most basic character description is the same, or at least can be.  Light Turner lacks any actual similarities to Light Yagami. I don't see him as a different interpretation of the same character, he simply is a different character.

Genealogies of Public Domain Fictional Characters

I have been imagining my own framework for a shared continuity between various Public Domain fictional sags and characters for the purpose of stories I may write in the future.  It is influenced by the Wold Newton Universe but ultimately different, starting with my disinterest in the very plot device it is named after.  But it is particularly influenced by the French WNU work on CoolFrenchComics.com.

One idea constantly floating around in WNU circles I particularly don't like is Captian Nemo being the same person as Professor Moriarty.  First of all it contributes to the White Washing of Nemo, Nemo should be Indian which is one of the few things I give Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman credit for.  But also it just doesn't fit personality wise or archetypically, Nemo like Robur opposes the British Empire from without not from within.  I'm all for the idea of Moriarty actually being a nationalist rebel against Britannia, but based on him and Moran having Irish surnames and The Valley of Fear it would be Irish nationalism carrying on the mission of Fergue O'Breane (Of Feval's The Mysteries of London) and Sarah O'Neil (Of Feval's John Devil) through The Gentlemen of The Night.  (The recent Anime Moriarty The Patriot is a pretty decent exploration of the idea of Moriarty as a Revolutionary, I haven't seen season 2 since it's not Dubbed yet but I suspect it will be.)

While Public Domain characters are the focus, plausible connections to non PD characters for the purposes of Fan Fiction will come up occasionally.

My unique combination of interests makes me an Otaku looking to strengthen the ties between the lore of Lupin III and and the original Arsene Lupin.  The CoolFrenchComics Lupin Genealogy has connections I like and would keep and others I would discard or adjust.  I think their Arsene Lupin Timeline is pretty solid except that I would probably at least not directly mention any stories not written by Maurice Leblanc.  I won't be able to comment on the Borostyria=Montenegro theory till I read The Woman with Two Smiles for myself.  Now the only versions of Lupin III that can really fit a shared universe like this, at least with the "Third" part being literal, are period pieces set in the 60s and 70s, of which my starting point would always be The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.  Maybe some stuff set in the 80s or early 90s could still work if you're willing to imagine the characters actually now look older then they're at face value being drawn, after all the original Arsene Lupin had a career the spanned over 30 years.

The mother of the Arsene Lupin The 2nd who's the father of Lupin The Third I have decided should be Florence Lavasseur.  I have also decided that Albert d'Andresy descends from Hortense Daniel, that of course probably conflicts with the Nestor Burma theory CFC endorses, but I imagine that theory had problems on it's own.  It's a decision that is symbolic of my viewing Albert d'Andresy as the heir of the 813 form of Arsene Lupin (Jean-Marc & Randy Loffcier's analysis of 813 in the introduction to their translation is spot on).

[Update June 2025: I've been considering changing my mind are arguing Lupin II's mother is Raymonde from The Hollow Needle who died in 1909, but I'm unsure there is room in the timeline of their relationship for a pregnancy, been awhile since I read the book.]

As far as the ancestry of the original Arsene Lupin goes.  For those who don't know Theophraste Lupin comes from Maurice Leblanc himself.  C .Auguste Dupin actually being a Lupin and Theo's father with Poe simply changing the first letter for some reason I like, however I feel the generation between Dupin and Balzac's Bibi-Lupin (who I think could be the same person as Alexandre Dumas' Monsieur Jackal in The Mohicans of Paris) is unneeded, Bibi could easily have sired Dupin directly.  And their lineage going back to the protagonists of Paul Feval's The She Wolf and The White Wolf I also like.

Next is the question of the Lecoq line.  Farmer created Albert Lecoq to be the grandfather of Gaboriau's Lecoq with probably no idea a candidate for the in-between generation already existed, in fact I bet Farmer only knew of Gaboriau's Lecoq because he was mentioned in A Study in Scarlet.  

I am going to keep Feval's Lecoq as the father of Gaboriau's Lecoq in-spite of it's problems because of how it fits on a Meta-Level with Feval having been Gaboriau's Sensei, and Gaboriau contradicted himself on Lecoq's backstory anyway.  I also keep the Ballmeyer-Rouletabille connection and the Lecoq children who kept the last name in the Fan Fiction of Fortuné de Boisgobey, William Busnach & Henri Chabrillat and the 1908 La Fée au Vitriol memoir of Lucien, and I'd like to somehow add Beautrelet of The Hollow Needle. [Note: I'd missed or forgotten that Beautrelet was already on CFC's Lecoq family tree, still I think I may want to change where, I think I like Beautrelet as a younger brother of Rouletabille.]

However my imagination extends the genealogy even further to make Lecoq the real meaning of the L designation in Death Note, Lawliet can still be his forename, he wouldn't be the first Lecoq named alliteratively.

Albert Lecoq is rendered unnecessary by no longer keeping Wold Newton itself.  Albert as the forename of Toulonnais L'Amitie's father certainly isn't a problem, but what Wold Newton writers familiar with Feval and The Blackcoats like Rick Lai and Win Scott Eckert tend to do with Albert doesn't actually fit Feval's lore.  A Normandy family like the Lecoqs would not have become affiliated with The Colonel or the Veste Nere until they first set up shop in Paris in 1818.  In fact I'm pretty sure The Colonel didn't actually use the title of Colonel or even set foot outside of Corsica till then either.

But there is an even bigger issue I have with the CFC's Lecoq tree, and that's making Marguerite Sadoulus the mother of Monsieur Lecoq and Albert's wife a descendent of Milady De Winter.  

First of all in Heart of Steel it's pretty clear to me that Marguerite's relationship with Lecoq doesn't begin till 1832 so it exists 100% contemporary with her marriage to Joulou and her formally holding the title of La Comtesse DeClare, so any son she bore then would be presumed to be Joulu's and raised as a potential DeClare Heir and thus not have had the Lecoq name even if Lecoq was the real biological father, so Inspector Lecoq must have had a different mother, maybe a secret marriage Toulonnias had in his native Normandy.

But also, given how often there are Meta symbolic reasons for these Wold Newton style genealogical connections.  Why make Marguerite's boyfriend an heir of Milady De Winter rather then Marguerite herself?  

Usefulcharts did a series of videos on hidden European Matrilineal family trees starting with the House of Garsenda, in order to try breaking away from how patrilineal by default the study of genealogies has long been.  Well the writing of fictional genealogies has mirrored reality in this regard.  So I've been working on constructing a Matrilineal family tree of fictional French Femme Fatales with Marguerite Sadoulus being the focal point.  I shall post here what I have so far but it is subject to change.

Update; I'm already half regretting some aspects of that, but the gist of that is still my starting premise.

The 2000s were Anime's most Revolutionary Decade

I don't think Anime has changed more in any single decade then it did in the 2000s.

At the start it looks a lot like the late 90s and by the end it looks almost like what 2010s Anime has been.  That's normal of course.  My point lies more in how radically different the 90s are from the 2010s.  In a lot of ways the early 90s only looks a couple upgrades different from the late 70s.  However comparing what was airing in December of 1999 to January of 2010, it can be hard to believe that took only 1 decade.  

The 2010s meanwhile as much as I've loved the Volume of Anime they've given me (about half of everything I've watched), do feel like they've mostly been defined by a handful of trends.

The 2000s were the most experimental decade, a decade where seeds planted in the 90s were nurtured and cultivated to eventually fully blossom into what we see now.

How did the Magical Girl genre go from Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura to Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna?  Well stuff like Magical Girl Lyricla Nanoha fills in the gaps.  But in the world of Magical Girl shows that stayed strictly kids' shows, the first 6 years of Pretty Cure laid the foundations of everything that franchise has been doing since.

When it comes to the really out there trippy stuff, yeah everything in the 2000s may be standing on the shoulders of Eva, Utena and Lain, but that just helps them reach greater heights.

Is Mecha dead?  That's a question that's been haunting Anime discourse for awhile now, and I'm not interested in answering what most people mean by that question.  What I miss about the late 90s and 2000s was how Mecha just sorta popped up in shows that weren't mainly Mecha shows.  Like oh you're gonna do Futuristic Space Opera Anime Count of Monte-Cristo, of course the duel is gonna be with giant robots instead of swords or guns.  And even among stuff that Mecha could be considered the main genre classification, today they are usually one of three things, trying to be Eva, trying to be Gundam, or very rarely trying to be Mazinger Z.  It's only in the 2000s that we had a lot of Mecha shows that don't easily fit into any of those.

The nature of these transitions were complicated.  Partly in how often Anime is behind it's source material.  A lot of the trends that have defined mid to late 2010s Anime were already flourishing in these more niche mediums in the late 90s and early 2000s.  Remember when the Sword Art Online Anime debuted it's source material's original publication was already a full decade old, older then some well known franchises that got animated a lot sooner.

Light Novels have existed and been an occasional source material for Anime longer then Visual Novels have.  But in the 90s and very early 2000s the kinds of stories an Anime fan would associate with the term "Light Novel" were completely different.

You could conceivably take any year from the 2000s and argue it to be a key transitional year.  But for the rest of this post I shall focus on arguing for 2006, simply because some shows from that year have been on my mind.

Prior to 2006 no Visual Novels got any 2 cour Anime adaptations, AniDB may list some but I'm pretty sure those are based on games that don't properly count as VNs under the strictest definition.  But in 1 year 2006 saw the debuts of three 2 cour Visual Novel Anime, Higurashi, Fate/Stay Night and KyoAni's Kanon.  Two were instant hits that were in some way followed up immediately.  The one that didn't quite take off as immediately eventually dwarfed the rest to become one of the most all consuming brands in all of Anime.

And in the world of Anime adapted from Light Novels, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya single handedly changed everything.  Though The Familiar of Zero also got it's Anime that year.

In addition to shows that were seemingly giving birth to the 2010s in that year, there were also shows that were in some ways send offs to trends of prior eras.  Nerima Daikun Brothers isn't technically the last Nabeshin Anime, but I feel it was mostly the last gasp of the style of Anime comedy popularized by Excel Saga.  Meanwhile Strawberry Panic felt like the Magnum Opus of everything the Yuri Genre had been for the prior half century.

And Pokémon quite literally transitioned from Advance Generation to Diamond and Pearl.  At the same time it's English localizers made some production transitions.

There was also plenty of stuff that feels just as related to what came before as to what came since, but still while being innovative.  Code Geass, Death Note, La Chevlair D'Eon, Kashimashi: Girl Meets Girl.  And then there was a show that wound up making a good case study in Anime obscurity.

Update: On my Twitter thread promoting this post I wound up talking about an interesting 2007 show.

https://twitter.com/KuudereKun888/status/1459123983417229338

Why do I even want Hollywood Live Action adaptations of Anime?

I've talked about issues related to this already, how I feel LA adaptations of Anime can be done and what I think hinders the most failed attempts that have been made so far.

However I'm also someone who's said I consider Animation an inherently superior art-form to Live Action films, with Anime specifically providing most of the examples of why.  And I consider more serialized mediums better for fleshing out stories and character then theatrical films.  So why then do I even want stories that are already in their most ideal form to get Hollywood Live Action adaptations?

It's because I'm a fan in principle of seeing the same basic story get retold in different ways.  Sometimes even in the same medium, we have two Sailor Moon Anime now and I love comparing them, appreciating the strengths of each version even when it sometimes seems like I'm being more harsh to one of them.

So for every TV Anime I'd like to see remade as a Hollywood movie there are more Hollywood movies I'd like to see remade as TV Anime.  For every story set in modern Japan I'm a defender of seeing re-imagined as set in modern America, there are more stories traditionally set in modern America I'd like to see re-imagined as being set in modern Japan.  I have a High School Anime version of Jesus Christ Superstar worked out in my head, and I've begun contemplating how I'd reboot the Superman mythos with Kal-El's rocket landing in Kansai rather then Kansas.

And there is also the fact that some people simply aren't gonna take an interest in a franchise till it has a Hollywood Blockbuster version, but then once that gets them interested they hopefully will check out other versions.

I do tend to enjoy Hollywood movies, something not typical of a person who blogs about niche Nerdy interests on the Internet.  I'm a fan of many that have been popularly considered to be bad and mostly enjoy the popular ones I sometimes call overrated.  Though interestingly I still haven't even tried the most notoriously bad Anime adaptations yet.  I've currently seen 4 arguably 5 live action movies based on Anime that were made in The West, they are Speed Racer, Lady Oscar, Death Note, Battle Angel Alita and Detective Pikachu.  The two I like the least are actually the two that are not Hollywood blockbusters.

Death Note and Social Commentary

What bugs me about the utter failure of the Netflix Death Note movie is that it's gonna be seen as a vindication of those who felt it was wrong to make an American set adaptation in the first place.  I stand by my conviction that a Western re-imagining of Death Note is necessary, as well as that in a Western setting Light should be White because being privileged is vital to his character.  What the Netflix movie screwed up is that it ignored his privilege.

You see, I'm gonna suggest something really controversial. I think the greatest logical weakness of the original story of Death Note is that it's set in Japan.  Japan's crime rate is actually way to low to make sense as a place for Light's particular frustrations to fester.

I know that is potentially a very offensive thing for a Western Anime fan who's never been to Japan and can't speak Japanese to say.  But maybe we should view it as problematic how often Western Anime critics want to view every single detail of every Anime in the context of what's inherently Japanese about it, when really I'm pretty sure every country has lots of writers who would like for their writing to resonate universally and transcend their native cultural context. 

Noir is my favorite Anime, and as such one I've often pointed to as one that could make a good Live Action adaptation (though I've also come to feel it might be pointless to adapt since there is nothing I'm willing to change).  But at least one time I expressed that, someone responded with "Noir could only be done in Live Action well if it's made in Japan".  This confused me since Noir ISN'T EVEN SET IN JAPAN.  It sets foot in Japan only in the very first episode.  If you want to express some frustration at Americans messing with Anime in the context of this show then say France should make it, because it's mostly set in France and is inspired by French films like La Femme Nikita and Leon.  And a French Dub already exists, so if it's as good as the English one then you already have the dialogue written for you.  Kirika is ethnically Japanese, but due to her amnesia plot point nothing about her ever reflects being a product of Japan.  But make no mistake I would never tolerate her being white washed in an adaptation, that's because it's precisely Asians living in the west who need more representation.

With Your Name (which J. J. Abrams expressed a desire to adapt) I understand the arguments for it being inherently Japanese when it comes to how it uses Shinto.  But I once read someone saying it's "about the cultural divide between Urban and Rural Japan", as if there is no way that could be recreated in an American version.  I shouldn't need to explain why that sentiment expresses an utter ignorance of America.

Back on topic.  The first thing Death Note's existence reflects about modern Japan is how influenced it's become by western media.  When you get right down to it, it's basically another literary descendant of Holmes vs Moriarty and Gregory Temple vs John Devil, but with a supernatural twist, and even that aspect is by no means a proper representation of the Shinto view of death and the afterlife, the word Shinigami may be Japanese but the concept is a foreign import.

Mother's Basement described Death Note as being about Japan's harsh stance on crime.  The thing is, that only works if Light is an allegory for Japan itself, and really he isn't written like an allegorical character at all.  Light makes most sense as a deconstruction of American characters like The Punisher and Charles Bronson in Death Wish, characters who appeal to an American attitude that we have so much crime because we're not being harsh enough on it.  An attitude that at first seems inherently Conservative, but it manifests on the Left in things like calls for Hate Crime legislation.

And of course these American characters tend to be White, because Americans who feel that way tend to be White.  Because when they get their way it's minority communities who suffer, they know full well the police are hardly playing with kid gloves.  And that is why Light as an ethnic Minority in America would never make sense to me.

Heck the show itself seems aware of how unlikely Japan is as a setting for all of this since everyone was shocked at the Law Enforcement gathering when L said he thinks Kira is in Japan.  You can argue that shock is mostly him narrowing it down to one country at all and not picking the most obvious one, America, but that still backs up my point.  (In an American's setting you can create that same shocking narrow down to knowing which State.)

I've seen people say you couldn't set the Near and Mello arc in America because then the CIA's involvement wouldn't be a political controversy.  Do these people not know that the CIA isn't supposed to operate domestically? 

Now lots of Anime feature literary archetypes and conventions that are western in origin in-spite of being set in Japan.  But few are as easy for me to imagine being moved to another country as Death Note.  So little time is actually spent at Light's school life that the particulars of why Japanese High School is different never show up.  Nothing annoys me more then when people act like Misa can only work in Japan, celebrity worship is absolutely a thing in America.

Frankly the only thing that would be difficult to keep word for word in an American setting is Chief Yagami refusing to carry a gun when he's no longer officially a Cop due to it being illegal.  But even then you could explain it by saying he's a Democrat.

Yes I said Word for Word, I genuinely feel that the English Dub Script of the Death Note anime shares Shakespeare's ability to work word for word in multiple settings.

Light never once even at an early transitional phase says he's interested in cleaning up Japan.  It was always The World.

You can Westernize Anime adaptations without actually Westernizing them.

What I mean by that is, you can change the setting of one that was originally set in Japan to America or Canada or Europe or wherever, without changing the storytelling sensibilities from Japanese ones to American ones.

For one thing lots of Anime are set outside Japan, or at least include lots of Non-Japanese characters, to begin with.  As I've said before I wish those would get the priority in terms of making Hollywood or other Western adaptations of Anime.

But I am also all for re-imagining stories, and retelling them in different settings.  I like when Anime gives a distinctly Japanese twist on a popular story of the Western Tradition.  And so I think it's valid to also do the reverse.

The basic themes and questions dealt with by Death Note were perfectly universal in my opinion, so I felt you could retell that story in America without needing to change it's social commentary to something more American.  Mother's Basement in his video on the Netflix Death Note movie says the original Death Note Manga and Anime was a commentary on "Japan's harsh stance on Crime".  As if the attitude of being harsh on crime is somehow uniquely Japanese.  Even California still has the Death Penalty.

Death Note is a story that had a pretty broad reach in America because it is frankly an ideological critique of the very impulses that Death Wish appeals to, and that makes my parents cheer on Rorschach when he says "you're trapped in here with me".

If they wanted to use an Anime adaptation to talk about American interventionism, plenty of Anime is already at least partly about that.  They could have done Canaan for example.

Basically I'm saying a lot of Anime is as naturally adaptable and culturally universal as Shakespeare, where many adaptations change the period and setting often without even changing the script or dialogue at all.  But even an adaptation that isn't going to be retelling the exact same story, even more so needs to keep in mind why people like Anime to start with.  Taking that away won't make it more appealing to broader audiences, what we've learned with Comic Book Superhero movies is that if the target audience doesn't like an adaptation, the general public won't even care.

And even plenty of Otaku Centric Anime are among those in my view.  American Otaku call themselves that because of how much they identify with that Japanese subculture.  Because we feel just as out of place in our society as they do in Japan.  The American version of Lucky Star has been in my head for awhile now, I just need to get myself in a position to pitch it.

The Wachoskis are the most notable when it comes to being Hollywood directors influenced by Anime.  The specific Anime they draw on is rather out of date compared to what the current generation of Otaku would like to see brought to American Cinemas.  But still they are an example of making things thought to only work in Anime work in Hollywood.

I think their best movie is Speed Racer, the only one adapted from a specific Anime.  Speed Racer keeps getting overlooked when people act like there are no good Live Action Anime adaptations.  The movie flopped when it came out but has become the very definition of vindicated by History.  But it was also an adaptation of Speed Racer's Dub.  But even that Dub was still distinctly Anime, and this movie arguably is even more Anime.  The way it's non-linear at times, the way the tone shifts, the way the visuals go all out.  The way it'd bold and unapologetic about what it is.

It failed at the time it came out because it was ahead of it's time.  If it came out now when the MCU rather then Nolan is dominating the Superhero film market, the story may have been different.

Digibro has expressed support for Abrams doing Your Name. I haven't seen Your Name, and my opinions on Abrams films are complicated.  His main argument is Abrams is a more accomplished director then most making Anime adaptations.  That reminds me of my suggesting Zach Snyder for making some Anime adaptations.  Digi had also compared Zach Snyder to the director of Death Note and Attack on Titan, I think Attack on Titan would be more Snyder's style.

Now for objections to Westernizing Your Name, I can understand being concerned with the Shintoism in it, though plenty of similar ideas exist in other religious traditions.  However what annoys me is when people say you can't westernize Your Name because Your Name is about "the cultural divide between Rural and Urban Japan".  That is literally the most universal cultural divide there is, it's certainly here in America, it's a divide that pops up in my life constantly.  And it sure as hell effects our elections every four years.

The Netflix Death Note Movie

There were things good about the movie, DeFoe as Ryuk was a treat, and at some points it felt like maybe Mia has more agency then any previous woman in a Death Note story.  All the actors did well with what they were given.

The first thing that annoys me is that the point of my defense of Light being White, the reason I still think Light can only be White in any future attempt at another American set Death Note.  Was completely undermined by having him be this obvious potential school shooter.  Light is supposed to be privileged.

I had also already talked about how Death Note should be done as a series, Netfix is specializing in TV serises right now, so that makes it doubly annoying.

The first scene between Light and his Dad just had me thinking "setting it in America shouldn't mean shoehorning in American cliches".

All the characters and dynamics felt different.  Again they made Light too sympathetic.

It bugs me even that they never included a defaulting to death by Heart Attack.  Clearly these people were more interested in the excuse to do Omen/Final Destination style death scenes.

The thing is, I can forgive a lot of liberties if I feel like in some weird way it still captures the spirit or the gist of what Death Note's real appeal was.  I've even said that all things considered the Super Mario Bros movie is a good Mario movie.  It's not by the book faithful, but it's a fun wacky goofy colorful self parody with some heart to it.  That's what the best story driven Mario games are like.

The number one thing that I wanted from Death Note was a battle of wits, I wanted it to feel like two characters constantly trying to out think and out smart each others.  I wanted the tension of Light and L trying to read each other.  This movie was ultimately too rushed to ever pull that off, or seem like it was trying to.

At the very end we a get the typical "here's how he did it all" sequence.  The Death Note Anime also did that revealing it latter thing, but it still felt consistent with the character we had been following.  I felt the 2015 Light Yagami was being too stupid early on, but at least there was some build up there.

One final little thing.  Does the Death Note Anime exist in this movie's universe???  There are several reasons why it clearly doesn't.  But why else would Light Turner expect Mia to be able to see Ryuk from just touching the Death Note?  There is really no logical reason to assume that, Light in the Anime had not at all suspected that could happen before Ryuk warned him.  That scene is clearly just there to tell the audience "hey we changed this rule, for no plot relevant reason".  This is why I hate the "Show don't tell rule" because we get scenes like this that look stupid and awkward instead of just simple exposition.

Live Action adaptations of Anime should be Serialized

My love of Anime greatly overlaps with my love of serialized fiction.  And since people are looking for a common denominator to why Live Action adaptations of Anime, particularly Western/Hollywood ones (PGSM is pretty well received), tend to fail.  I think it may be a good idea to look at how they tend to be based on Anime that was serialized originally, but abandon that structure for being a simple 90 minute to 2 Hour film, or hopefully a series of them.

Death Note is the current hot topic on the subject of Anime being adapted into live action.  I don't know if the Netflix Death Note is going to be a series like the Marvel Defenders shows or just a movie, I've heard it called both.

There have been two Live Action adaptations of Death Note in Japan, a fact I've mentioned before.  A Pair of movies, and then more recently a TV series in 2015.  Both have their strengths and weaknesses in how the adapted the story and cast the characters.  But the 2015 series edges out as the better one for me precisely because it was a TV series and was somewhat able to capture the original story structure better, and had more time.

Anime itself is often adapted from other source material.  If it's Manga it's definitely best serialized.  Some feel the weaknesses of the Akira movie come from needing to cut a lot by condensing the story to just a film.

Meanwhile Gankutsuou is in my view the absolute best adaptation of The Count of Monte-Cristo I've seen, in-spite of how much it changes including dropping my personal favorite story-line by dropping Louise d'Armilly, because it is Serialized like Dumas original novel was.

On the other hand it may be that most of these much decried Light Novel adaptations would have been better off if they'd been movies instead of TV Series-es.  Both Sword Art Online and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya changed the structure to fit the format by having the short stories of their second novel pad out the plot of the first.  I happen to like how the first Arc of SAO was structured in the Anime, and I don't hate Haruhi's, but The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya does feel like a much more satisfying Anime.  And I love that it was an animated movie willing to be nearly a full three hours.

Meanwhile the light novel Washio Sumi wa Yuusha de Aru is being split into three less then 50 minute movies, when perhaps it would have worked better to just be one big movie.

But an adaptation of Noir, or Witch Hunter Robin that left out the case/mission of the week format of the first part of the story I don't think could work.  Likewise with the Monster of the Week format of most of the Magical Girl genre.

I could maybe see Code Geass or Gundam 00 working as films if you made three movies of three hours each for each season, but that would be a huge investment.

There is still a bias to seeing a Big Screen movie as the ultimate goal of any franchise.  I do love the Big Screen and wish I could watch something more serialized on it.  But is it worth how it changes the nature of a story since we can't really be serialized on it?

Back in the day Movie Theater serials were a thing, but the advent of TV caused them to die out.  A lot of serialized Anime is kind of more like what the old serials were then your average Western TV show.  Like Code Geass, Gundam, Eva and other Mecha shows, and perhaps to an extent Death Game animes like Future Diary and Fate/Zero or Unlimited Blade Works.  And also Dragonball Z with the whole 20 episodes for one fight meme.  And Attack on Titan. I could maybe add Madlax.  I'm still not too familiar with Space Opera animes like Legends of the Galactic Heroes.

A lot of DC fans feel DC on Television is satisfying them more then the movies right now.  And the people who had the rights to George R. R. Martin's Saga of Fire and Ice knew that TV would suite that story better, and that decision paid off.

When you adapt a serialized story to a movie format two things happen.  You will probably have less screen time to work with.  And the very structure of the story changes.  Either one of those could result in lovable minor characters being dropped, and similar loss of nuance.  Together it's pretty much guaranteed.

Caprica was a TV show that it really saddens me failed.  It appealed to me for some of the same reasons SAO does.

I've already said I feel Hellsing could be a good fit for the BBC.

Slice of Life shows could make good Sit-Coms, particularly Dragon-Maid, though I'd hate the thought of Lucky Star or K-On with a laugh tract or studio audience.

And I'd like it if ABC Fam.... excuse me FreeForm, could replace the soon ending Pretty Little Liars with a live action Pretty Cure.

Live Action adaptations of Anime should be Colorful

I've already made a few posts on the issues of Westernizing and White Washing Anime.  I want to talk about other issues now.

The Anime Man did a video on why he feels adapting Anime into Live Action simply can't work.  I think he's completely wrong.  What's really amusing is when he suggests Western Superheroes Comics are more grounded in reality then Anime and Manga and that is why they can work in Live Action more.  Well as someone who is a Nerd of both, I can tell you that no, in fact Anime is generally far more grounded in reality then DC or Marvel comics.

For comparing to Western Superhero Comics, I like to remind people it took 40 years to get Superman The Movie, almost that for Spider-Man to get his first good film.  But not till 2008 we got TDK and the MCU.   Anime has arguably been around as long as Superman, but few of the franchises people want to adapt have been just yet.  There were plenty of bad adaptations of all those Superheroes before we got the good ones.

Gigguk did a video where, among other things, he said we should focus on ones that can work in Live Action.  I agree that plenty work better then others, and for the time being I wouldn't bother with Utena or Madoka.  But focus more on ones like Noir, Madlax, Evangelion, Lupin III, Haruhi, Pretty Cure, Gundam or Code Geass.  Or remove the Fantasy/SciFi altogether and just do Lucky Star and Strawberry Panic.

But we can do a lot with Live Action movies now, so there is no reason to inherently leave out the really visionary stuff.  While we've yet to have an exactly great LA Anime adaptation, plenty of Live Action films have been Anime like while being great or at least pretty good.  Pretty much everything from the Wachowscis (see Digi's video on Speed Racer), Edge of Tomorrow, Pacific Rim, The Wolverine, Suicide Squad (I could argue that all Joker's henchmen were Weebs), Sucker Punch, and the Star Wars Prequels.  And on TV Pretty Little Liars.

I agree that it is okay to change certain things to fit the medium.  But the last thing I'm inclined to agree needs to be changed is how Colorful Anime is.  Plenty of Live Action movies have been bright and colorful, yet everyone thinks a Movie version of an Anime or comic means a grittier more monochrome version.  Hence we get an annoying colorless Power Rangers film.  Comic Book fans want our movies to be as colorful as the Comics and that's why many were annoyed by Man of Steel and embraced the MCU, Deadpool and Suicide Squad.

In particular I mean the issue of Hair Colors.  People love to make fun of Anime Hair "Guess who's the main character" memes are endless.  But people in real life do sometimes dye their hair colors like that, so this idea that "no Hair naturally looks like that so you have to abandon it in the LA version" is nonsense to me.

I mentioned Noir first up above as one I'd like to see in Live Action, but I kinda only trust myself to do it. There the main two have plausible hair colors for their ethnicities (Blonds may be rare in Corsica but not unheard of).  But Chloe, Lady Silvana, and the Poisonous Insect all have Anime hair, and for Chloe especially I will not be able to accept anyone claiming to be that character with normal looking hair.

And that sometimes it just being an unusual hair color for Japan causes it's rejection annoys me even more.  I tolerated two Japanese actresses not dying their hair Blonde to play Misa Amane because I assumed the inevitable Western version would give us a blonde Misa.  And now Netflix has spit right in my face with a Misa who looks like Bella Swan.  I've seen lots of pictures of real Asian women with Blonde hair, I'm assuming they're all dyed but that's besides the point, they all look beautiful, there is no reason to assume a Blonde Asian in a movie will inherently look awkward.  Back to Misa, she needs to be Blonde or Japanese, you can change one of those and still work but you can't change both.

Often the hair color has symbolic meaning.  I was actually quite annoyed in JesuOtaku's video with KyleKallgrenBHH about the Utena movie when Kyle attempts to speculate on what the Pink hair means and JesuOtaku just shoots Kyle down with "that's just Anime".  In Utena the use of Color everywhere including in hair is meaningful.  VraiKassier broke it down in their Anyalsis series on the first ReCap episode (you shouldn't skip the ReCaps in Utena).

Color Coding: You may have noticed that the students of Ohtori are a veritable rainbow of the color palette, and that I’ve been alluding to that fact quite frequently over the past few weeks. Well, it’s not (just) because ridiculous rainbow hair is a hallmark of shoujo. Our common thematic color palette:
Green: Envy and loyalty (a great many of the colors have dual meanings or applications throughout the series). Saionji’s color, tied to the young man fixated on his own weak inadequacies and desperate to possess that which others consider important – but also almost blindly devoted to those he’s considered ‘essential’ (this latter reading also ties into Akio’s fiancée).
Blue: Intellect and distance. Miki and Kozue’s color, the characters who might be at once called the most clear headed and rational and yet also the most divorced from their true desires by the complexity of their schemes.
Orange: Miracles and delusion. Flip sides of the same coin, reflected by inner strength of conviction versus fear and an inability to acknowledge one’s own desires.
Yellow: Innocence and childishness. Through both Tsuwabuki and Nanami, strong emotions for others can be either selfish or selfless (and are always heartfelt but rarely circumspect or self aware)
Red: Power, used either to aid or subjugate others. A color Touga possesses but Akio clothes himself in, revealing his far more advanced ability to manipulate power to suit his image and his ends (also the color of the Rose Bride, nodding to Anthy’s immense power even if control of it has been taken from her)
Brown: The mundane – the most frequent hair color of the ‘normal’ students, from Wakaba’s grounded support to the overshadowed members of Nanami’s gang.
White: Purity and potential. The prince’s color, which also dominates the color scheme of Ohtori’s uniforms – while other colors might make their way in, beginning to have sway, we mustn’t forget that our cast is still very young, and that they have the potential to learn and change even still. You’ll notice that Mikage and Utena, the two closest to ‘graduating,’ have almost no white on their outfits).
Purple: Corruption and loss. Anthy’s signature color, signifying the pain she’s suffered through her sacrifice. Purple also figures heavily into moments that’ve been influenced by the siblings in the name of the dueling game, and Mikage sees Ohtori through purple-tinted glasses.
Pink: Harmony between power and ideals, a self-conviction mixed with compassion for others (Utena and Mikage both have pink hair, and Anthy’s final outfit is predominantly pink).

So no, the Color isn't meaningless.  Other Anime may use the same Colors differently.  But I suspect only the most bottom of the barrel are being completely meaningless.

Speaking of KyleKallgrenBHH, after watching his video on Kurosawa's RAN.  I thought about what he said on Kurosawa's use of Color in his later films, and wondered if that might have influenced the way Anime would go on to use Color?  And I was reminded of this recently in The Last Jedi's teaser trailer, where we had the weird contrast between the barren desert like planet but the bright Red Smoke/Sand/Dust whatever it is behind the ships.  It's a good sign if this means Star Wars directors are still drawing on Kurosawa.

P.S./Postscript:  Evangelion.

I mentioned Eva as one that could work in Live Action better then others and that might be the most controversial claim in that list.  People have come to remember Eva for how confusing and existential it got.  But the original appeal was that it was a more grounded and gritty approach to the Mecha vs Kaiju genre.  Pacific Rim drew on Eva specifically, but is ultimately far more cartoony.  And much of the trippy stuff in later episodes happened because the Budget ran low.

I know Anno himself has said Eva inherently only works in Animation.  But Anno himself seems to have forgotten what Eva's original appeal was from looking at the history of Eva movies, both old and ReBuild.  The more they become something harder to conceivably do in Live Action, the more the fans think they suck.

But the first ReBuild could just as easily have been a Live Action film.  Though more directly remaking those episodes would be better.  First change I'd make is not shortening it. The idea that he had to cut stuff to make it fit a film length when it's only based on 6 episodes is insulting to me.  To me a film that has less run-time then 6 episodes of a TV Anime series is inherently not worth the price of admission, even without the issue of comparing to source material.  That's a topic I already covered.

Anime Mash Up Trailers on YouTube

I talked about Fan Trailers last year.  Mash Up Trailers are something different, basically the Audio of a movie Trailer put over different visuals, usually from an Anime giving it a Pseudo Fan Dub quality.

I first discovered them years ago via some Mash Ups of The Dark Knight to Code Geass.  Then last year I found that Dual of The Fates Utena AMV, which was done to the Music Video giving it a trailer like quality.

The only one not to Animation I've really enjoyed is the Pretty Little Liars Suicide Squad one done by one of the BrosWatchPLLToo people.

Then I started seeking them out more regularly and found quite a few.  I watched some of Code Geass to The Dark Knight Rises, some Death Note to the Dark Knight films.  Some Code Geass to the Star Wars Prequels ones, as well as Evangelion to Star Wars.  And Some Mean Girls ones, mainly one to Lucky Star.  They are included on my Anime Playlist.

So I want to mention some Mash Up trailer ideas I'd like to see that haven't been done yet.  And that I'm not talented enough to do myself.

Smile Pretty Cure/Glitter Force to The Dark Knight.  With Joker as The Joker, that's obvious, that's where this idea starts.  Reika as Batman, since she's the one with a one on one confrontation with Joker.  Pop as Alfred, and Nao as Rachel Dawes since she's who Reika is usually shipped with, (according to TVTRopes anyway).

Returning to the subject of Code Geass and Star Wars, I'd like to see that Padme focused Phantom Menace trailer that has already been done to Code Geass once, done to Akito of the Exiled, with Leila as Padme.  And I'd love to see some Gundam/Star Wars mash ups, if they exist already I'm having trouble finding them.

Related to that would be doing Gundam to Star Wars, for me the most meaningful would be 00.  But it's an overdue idea since Gundam is called Japan's Star Wars.

And another Anime that could be fun to see done to Mean Girls would be Yuru Yuri.

And as I said before I'd like to see some using Noir and Madlax.

Update:  I’d really like to see Yuki Yuna is a Hero done to some Star Wars trailers, specially The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.  Those scenes of Karin practicing on the beast with her wooden swords particularly feel made for John Williams music to me.

An American Light not being White would be Alt-Right propaganda

This is a follow up of sorts to my earlier post I'm Fine with a Westernized Adaptation of Death Note.

But there is a second layer to the issue of White Washing Light, which is saying "why does American Light have to be White? not all Americans are White?".

I read a LadyGeekGirl article.  The author seems to think that because Japan isn't as "Racially" diverse as America that it has no concept of some people being more Privileged then others. And I find that offensive.  It doesn't matter how much you think everyone there looks the same, every society has some classes or demographics who are more privileged then others.

Light Yagami is absolutely a privileged person in all Japanese set versions of Death Note.  He's a Police Cheif's son, he's an honor student, he's someone women seem to throw themselves at.  And he absolutely flies under the radar of the police because of that.

So if any Anime character has to be White in an American setting it's Light Yagami.

In fact I will go so far as to say it would be White Nationalist propaganda to have an American Light be a minority.  It will play into their desire to deny White Privilege while delusionally claiming political correctness is allowing minorities to get away with things, to have an Asian American, African American, Latino American or Muslim fly under the police radar the way Light Yagami does.

Light should be an irredeemable villain with no sympathetic qualities.  If he's not that I'll consider it a failure no matter what he looks like, that's my issue with the 2015 series, trying to make Light more sympathetic. So it'd actually be much more problematic for such a character to be a POC.

Some other claims from this article I want to address.

"However, (spoilers for a decade-old manga) L dies. Light outmaneuvers him"

1. We don't know the adaptation will end that way, the first Live Action adaptation in Japan had L win.

2. Light is eventually defeated by Near and Mello, who interestingly were White men in the Manga/Anime but played by a Japanese actress in the 2015 series.  So if this version carries the story to include them, we'll have to wait and see how they're cast.

Aside from the phrasing of “Justice of Kira” not sounding like fluent English, the original Japanese used Kira as Light’s serial killer identity because “kira” (キラー) is how the word “killer” is written/pronounced in Japanese. Why on earth is this white boy from Seattle calling himself that?

Light is not the one who coined the name Kira in the Anime.  Also what country Light is from being known was itself a product of L's deductions.  So we have to wait and see how the name comes about here.

Watari is made Japanese in this even though he was British in the source material.  I'm curious how they're going to make sense of that.

I am fine with a Westernized adaptation of Death Note

There is nothing wrong with retelling a story in a different cultural context.  We've seen Anime based on stories of Western origin, and I'd like to see more.  I'd like to see Annie on My Mind re-imagined as a Yuri Anime or Manga, replace the role played by the Egyptian section of the Museum with a Shinto Shrine.

My problem with White Washing in Anime adaptations is when that seems likely to be the only Live Action version that property will have since Japan's film industry can't afford to do justice to many of these stories.

Death Note however has had two Live Action adaptations made in Japan with mostly Japanese casts.  Including characters who were heavily implied to be White in the Anime, like the clearly British Watari, or Near and Mello who seemed to be Germanic.  L himself is more controversial as some think he may have been part Japanese, but the name usually revealed to be his real name is a European one.

This Death Note adaptation has some diversity to it, with L being African American.

So I really don't have a problem with the ultimate privileged entitled misogynist douche who thinks he deserves to decide who lives and dies being White.

And I frankly would have liked Misa to be able to Blonde in live action for once, but instead we're still not getting that.

There are other issues I may have this show.  Mainly I'm really annoyed it's going be on Netflix.  But I'll have to wait till I know more. 

Westernizing Anime in Live Action Hollywood adabtations

Is a touchy subject.  I'm not as universally adverse to it as many of my fellow SJWs.  I believe re-imagining stories in a different setting is a powerful tool.  Both in terms of time and culture.

It's more a problem I feel when the Hollywood version is the first and possibly only Live Action take something will get.  Which is common since the most ambitious Anime are simply not doable on the budget limitations the Japanese film industry has.

But with Death Note there was a live action version made in Japan that did pretty well.  So I have no problem with Hollywood setting it's film in America.

I do tend to agree that Westernizing Ghost in The Shell isn't a good idea (and it gets worse) (But there is an opposing view) (and another).  As far as Pokemon which there has been buzz of a Live Action version recently, my thoughts on that are pretty complicated.  Four of the 6 (is it 7 already) regions are based on Japan, but one is also New York and Kalos is France.  What's amusing is seeing people refer to the character of Ash Kethum as inherently Japanese when they're not even calling him by his Japanese name.

The most offensive thing about doing a Western Re-imagining to many is the White-Washing.  We want more diversity in Nerdy Hollywood movies in general, even when the source material isn't foreign.

Hollywood has made a lot of progress in being willing to cast more diverse films. The Force Awakens shows that a diverse cast certainly won't hurt an established Brand.

The issue with Adapting Anime is a paranoia that America can't handle something with no White Men.  (Even TFA had Han and British villains to fall back on, and most of the female characters are still White.)  So they cast a bunch of white characters until at some point they notice there are no roles for Asians left.

Why not focus on adapting some of the Anime that are diverse already in the original source material?

Code Geass absolutely allows you to have a lot of young white leads and stereotypical British Villains. But because condemning Racism and Imperialism are largely what it's all about none of us SJWs would complain, as long as Suzaku and the other "11s" are Japanese actors, and Kallen is still mixed.

Attack on Titan is so overwhelmingly White it would probably be called Racist if it weren't a foreign work. In fact the Western equivalent of it would be a dystopic future where there are no White people left but one half Breed who happens to be the most awesome character in the story.  I could see David Duke writing that actually.

But I think the best choice would be Gundam 00.  It is still the only Gundam series I'm familiar with, maybe others are equally diverse, I don't know.

The main Messianic Archetype lead, Setsuna, is a thinly veiled Kurd, one of the most obscure and minor minorities of all.  And surrounding his story-line are other Middle Easterners like Persians and Arabs.

Saji and his sister were the Japanese entry point characters.  And it has two Chinese characters who are siblings too.

Graham Acker is a character that was meant to be a sort of parody of a typical American action hero, but American fans wound up loving him.  So cast a typical Hollywood action hero lead as him (same choices you'd consider for Steve Rogers) and feature him prominently in at least one trailer and you should be set.  And one of his comrades was African American.

The show has lots of Europeans, and Russians like Soma Peirez.  Ali Al Sachez is either Spanish or Latin American.  Aeolia Shenberg I think we can assume is an Ashkenazi Jew.  And Louise Halevy is a Shephardic Jew, whom Hollywood often forgets exist.

Most of the Crew of the Ptolemaios is hard to tell since they go by code names and animation can be tricky to decipher ethnic features from,  Alleluia I would also cast a Latin American actor for, to avoid any implications Sachez being the only Latin would have.  The Lockon brothers are Irish.  Sumeragi I think is also Japanese, or mixed.

I've still only scratched the surface.  The story and cast is so massive I think you'd need at least 2 movies just to get the gist of season 1.