I wish BangZoom would Dub more of the old Lupin III TV Specials.

Now that the Koike Petnology is all Dubbed and no new Lupin projects seem to be in development. 

Most of my personal favorite Lupin III adventures were among these specials.  But there are many I still haven’t seen because I’ve chosen to remain strictly Dub only with Lupin. 

First priority should perhaps go to the Dezaki directed specials not yet dubbed, the first and last of them are Dubbed but not the ones in between. Hemingway Papers sounds like the most interesting premise to me personally. 

According to an old article by Ben Ettinger which I know about thanks to Caribou-kun, Dezaki was only nominally involved in Napoleon’s Dictionary. That one tends to be considered by those who have seen it one of the worst.  I often like what others don’t but for franchises like Lupin on how things rank at least my opinions often line up mostly with common opinion. So yeah this one can remain at the bottom of the priority list.

From Siberia With Love should be a solid outing though. Dezaki plays an important role in how I define Anime. 

Next the 2001 Special Alcatraz Connection was the first Lupin Anime to be Animated Digitally, the transition from Cel to Digital is an interesting topic to Anime historians so this landmark in one of Anime’s oldest and most consistent franchises is important.  And it turns 25 years old this August. 

But the special that turns 20 this year is Seven Days Rhapsody in September.  I’m developing a thesis that April 2006-March 2007 was the best year in Anime. So it’d be nice to see if that year’s Lupin special can live up to the hype. 

The Last Job from February 2010 is famous for how it was the send off of 3 long time members of the Japanese voice cast.  You can’t really translate that meta significance into a Dub unless maybe you saved it for when the current BangZoom cast eventually retires?  I doubt they’re thinking that far ahead though. 

Q is Chekhov’s Gunman

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

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

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

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

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

So Bond style movies without a designated Q character still have a scene or two that like Q serve the purpose of introducing something in the protagonist's arsenal that will be important later. Maybe the protagonist themselves invented whatever gadgets they’re going to use, like many non Nolan versions of Batman. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The distinction between Best and Favorite.

Is something I believe I've talked about on this blog before.  What I actually consider the best of a series is not always the same as my personal favorite. That's not a denial that what I consider the best is still itself an ultimately subjective opinion, but often what I personally enjoy rewatching the most isn't what I consider the most flawless.

When it comes to long running Anime franchises with a lot of movies like Lupin III, Detective Conan aka Case Closed or Pokémon, what I consider the Best is a more consistent opinion as my personal favorite may fluctuate. 

And a third distinction I like to make with those is what movie makes the most ideal entry point to the franchise.  For each of these (almost) every movie can be a perfectly fine entry point, none of them are bogged down by continuity (the most recent Conan films kind of are, but not too much). But I'm still able to consider some better at that specifically then others. There is a bad entry for Lupin III actually, never under any circumstances let your first impression of Lupin III be Castle of Cagliostro, it is antithetical to everything Lupin stands for.

With Lupin The Third the Best and the most ideal entry point are the same, the film known as both The Secret of Mamo and The Mystery of Mamo. But my personal favorites tend to be among the TV Movies.  Missed by A Dollar is the one I've been calling my favorite lately. Blood Seal of The Eternal Mermaid is of those Lupin III stories where he's going after something we're told the original Arsene Lupin also went after the one with the best understanding of the original Arsene's character.  But The Secret of The Twilight Gemini is the best at drawing on a specific classic Arsene Lupin story (Teeth of The Tiger).  The Columbus Files is one I'm maybe biased for because it happens to be the first one I ever watched early in my Anime fandom, but it did hold up on my recent rewatch.  

For Detective Conan the ideal entry point is the first movie, The Time Bombed Skyscraper.  The best is the third The Last Wizard of The Century, and in this case the best may also be my favorite.  However three other candidates for my personal favorite do exist, movie 4 Captured In Her Eyes, movie 5 Countdown to Heaven and movie 11 Jolly Roger in The Deep Azure.

With Pokémon I am hard pressed to consider any a better entry point then the others.  The best is definitely the third movie Spell of The Unown. But I often feel most compelled to rewatch either Pokémon Heroes Latios and Latias or Mewtwo Returns. 

Top Femme Fatale Anime Girls

The reason for that title and not “Femme Fatales of Anime” or "Anime Femme Fatales” is because I’m not actually limiting this to Animation, it can include Manga, Doujinshi, Visual Novels and other “Anime Style” Games.  I’m writing this intro before I’ve fully finalized the list so don’t take that as a guarantee all of those will be represented.

I’m not including Fujiko Mine because she’s so synonymous with the concept of Femme Fatales in Anime that her inclusion would be a distraction. I'd unavoidably get comments either complaining that anyone but her is number 1, or that making her number 1 was a lazy spineless choice.  Plus I have nothing to say about her that hasn’t already been said.  I’d rather use this list to draw attention to more Niche characters. 

My standards for what makes a Femme Fatale can be at the same time more rigid and more fluid than others.  First of all the meaning I mean here is a literary synonym for a Seductress/Temptress, not women who kill. Noir is my favorite Anime but I don’t consider anyone in it a Femme Fatale.

I also disagree with TVTropes separation of the Femme Fatale from The Vamp (and on the topic of Anime specifically a good chunk of who they call Fille Fatales rather than Femme Fatales) they are the same in my view. Also unlike TVTropes I’m not acknowledging any “rare male example”, I do think it’s theoretically possible but on TVTropes it’s more often just a male character being a Player in a typically male way.   I have already talked about Kaito Ace from the Sailor V Manga but I only considered calling him one in a specific context.  An Otokonoko might make the list, but I doubt it, most Otokonoko characters I’m familiar with are pretty Wholesome. 

But there are still a variety of kinds of characters who fit my definition of a Femme Fatale.  Fujiko is the Catwoman type, but there’s also the Poison Ivy type, the 40s Film Noir type, the classical Biblical Epic type, the literal Succubus type.  You can also be a Heroic Femme Fatale in my view, many certainly are morally ambiguous and sympathetic, so me giving this Label to a character isn’t innately a moral condemnation.  And maybe even some types I would perhaps deem truly unique to Otaku/Shoujo media with no good analogues in Normie media.  

For example an Anime Femme Fatale could theoretically not be offering anything Sexual or Romantic at all.  Moe is in part about understanding that men don’t necessarily need to expect anything from a Pretty Girl to be convinced to do what she wants.  Most Anime Girls use this power for Good rather than Evil though, so I can’t guarantee anyone like that will be on the list.

And that’s enough talking about who’s not on the list. Let’s get started. 

I’m going to put an Asterix on my inclusion of Gigi Andelucia from Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway since in Anime form that story is still incomplete.  People have read the Novels even in English and thus have an idea of how off the mark or spot on I am about this, but I haven’t.  For now though this film gives me mild 40s Film Noir vibes, not aesthetically but in how it’s written.  And so Gigi’s unique place on this list would be as the Anime character most like a Classic 40s Film Noir Femme Fatale.  Again not every character designated the Femme Fatale of a given Film Noir is an entirely bad person. [Update September 2nd 2026: I've seen the second Hathaway movie now and yeah she definitely qualifies to some extent.] 

Nana Hiragi from Talentless Nana.  Really just the first episode where she is a good example about it not being necessary to be Sexual or Romantic at all.

Akane Minegawa from Scum’s Wish. She’s a character who likes Reverse NTRing people just because she can, she's quite fun. 

Riko Mine Arsene Lupin IV from Aria of the Scarlet Ammo and its spin off Aria of The Scarlet Ammo AA.  She’s my favorite character from these shows and a large part of why I watched them to begin with, voiced excellently by Luci Christian. I believe I've talked about this character on this blog before in other contexts.  In the spin off she has a younger protege, I’m not giving her her own entry though. 

Mami Nanami from Rent-A-Girlfriend.  I suppose I have as little to say that hasn’t been said already for her as I do for Fujiko.  But as an unironic Rent-A-Girlfriend enjoyer I wanted to express my solidarity.

Kaede Sakura from Kampfer.  Some might consider it a spoiler for me to list her here, but I don’t care.  She’s great, once she shows her true colors she is very seductive.

Maya Kamiwazumi from Fault!! Service: Aratanaru Rival. She's the best example I can think of right now of being both a Kuudere and a Femme Fatale.  She also fits into the trope of a spurned Lesbian going after the boyfriend of the girl who spurned her, which is a problematic trope but can be done well in my opinion.  I'm optimistic that in the source material for this you can get a true Threesome resolution to this triangle, but I can't know for certain since the game probably isn't available in English.

Sempai from Your Fault a Yuri NTR Doujin by Kazushiro also known as 115990.  She’s a great example of the kind of Femme Fatale that is most commonly found in Yuri.  A compelling combination of traditionally Masculine Assertiveness and Feminine Allure.

Kaori Nanahoshi from another Doujin with a longer more inconsistently translated name, 516668.  Unlike most Reverse NTR doujins this one truly is a gender reversal of what usually happens in a regular NTR in that the villainess Rapes her male target.  Now you may think “if it’s Noncon where does the Seductress stuff come in”, well what’s really devious is she uses those Seduction techniques after she’s already Violated him in order to emotionally confuse and manipulate him. 

Flay Allster from Mobile Suit Gundam Seed has quickly become my number one. This character has an Arc and really isn’t a Femme Fatale yet during the first 10 episodes  She’s a Femme Fatale in a distinctly Shoujo feeling way as a result of a Woman being the lead writer of Gundam Seed giving it a number of Shoujo qualities.  It’s one thing to watch a woman pretend to love a man she’s indifferent to.  But what’s really Toxic and unnerving here is that Flay actually Hates Kira when she starts emotionally seducing him.   One could also make a whole Video Essay about how the Electra Complex is in play. 

Extra Anime Update

I didn’t think I’d be making the next update this quickly, but a lot of developments happened pretty fast after I posted the last one.

But first let me mention some things I should have mentioned last time.  On the subject of watching older Anime I’d watched Scrapped Princess, Fuuka and the Wiseman’s Pupil Isekai, and all of the Danganronpa Anime.  And the subject of things I waited for the Dubs I should have included Lupin III vs Cat’s Eye and Lupin Zero

Lupin III vs Cat’s Eye has dropped and I was a bit disappointed, this CG Animation style didn’t work with these character designs, and many aspects of the plot I found frustrating.  But it has increased my interest in eventually trying to watch the original Cat’s Eye, but I’m getting too busy with current Anime right now.

I decided to finish the first season of Fruit of Evolution and start season 2, it’s a fun show.

Then the Dub for Gundam Witch From Mercury started with no warning, I was caught completely off guard.  It started with episode 0 so the show proper won’t begin till the first Sunday of February, the same day the new PreCure should start.

At any rate for the time being I’ll have at least one new Anime to watch every day or the week.

Lupin The Third and Detective Conan Crossovers

I've now seen both of them.

The 2009 TV Special is structured like the annual Lupin III TV Specials while the 2013 Theatrical Film is structured like the annual Detective Conan movies, and that overall makes it better.  Lupin III's cast are inherently travelers and pretty fundamentally flexible in the kinds of stories you can tell with them and so I feel any Crossover with Lupin III will always work better if it's more throwing them into the other franchise's world.

In fact some fans think the biggest problem with most Lupin movies and TV specials is how they kinda follow the same formula, chiefly the Castle of Cagilostro formula.

Meanwhile Detective Conan is a surprisingly rigid franchise for something that has gone on this long and most content produced is technically filler.  So even in the movie the Detective Conan characters feel off sometimes.  For me personally the movie served as a fun introduction to Detective Conan going into it as a Lupin fan, but once I re-watched it as a seasoned Conan fan how the characters were off became more noticeable.

The Special is still sometimes enjoyable however, but it certainly feels off to watch a Crossover story and find the most compelling part to be the completely original characters.  Christina Vee does a great job as Ran's Princess Doppelganger.

Basically Detective Conan is not a franchise that lends itself well to crossovers, even it's connections to other franchises from the same creator are often questionable to the few actually versed in both lores.

Lupin The Third however is tailor made for Crossover potential and it's a shame it doesn't happen more often.  In the late 2010s DC Animation gave us a Batman meets Scooby Doo movie and a Batman meets the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie.  I got the impression these kinds of crossover movies for Batman with not even DC stuff would become a regular thing, but it wound up being just those two.  I already commented on the Lupin III influence in Catwoman: Hunted, so since people at DC see the relation why not try and work with TMS to actually make a Lupin III meets Batman movie?

Scooby Doo seems to do crossover stuff more regularly, and given how many of their bad guys plans are kind of heists it too could suit a Lupin The Third Crossover well.

But chances are doing it with another Japan based franchise will always be easier to arrange.  What other Anime franchises are basically in the contemporary real world and are reasonably Episodic with pulp inspired elements?  That's actually a rarer combination then you'd at first expect.  Maybe Sailor Moon could work?

The Detective Conan Crossovers happened because they're both TMS, there really doesn't seem to be a third TMS franchise on their level.  But TMS is under the TOHO umbrella which opens the possibility of Godzilla.

Update: So the Lupin III project for 2023 is going to be Lupin III vs Cat's Eye an Anime about Classy Cat Burglars from the early 80s, which is a natural crossover choice.  But the image we have implies it'll be a return of Pink Jacket Lupin which is interesting.

That makes me think again about the prospect of Lupin III crossing over with Batman, as both Lupin and Batman have had different tones over the years.  

The Pink Jacket Incarnation of Lupin The Third is who I'd have show up in Batman The Brave and The Bold the same animated version of Batman used for the Scooby Doo crossover I mentioned above.  

I'd have Red Jacket Crossover with the DCAU/Timmverse Batman voiced by Kevin Conroy and other still working BTAS veterans.  

Green Jacket I'd have crossover with the Batman of The New Frontier Animated film as a late 60s/early70s period piece, preferably written and directed and drawn by the same staff as The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

And Blue Jacket (Parts 4 and 5) with the up coming Caped Crusader show or the Tomorrow verse films being the most modern incarnations.  [Update: Turns out Caped Crusader went all in the Period Piece stuff to where he can't be contemporary with Lupin III, more like Lupin II.]

Update June 2025: I made a BlueSky thread on the Topic of Lupin III crossing over with Batman recently.

https://bsky.app/profile/kuuderekun.bsky.social/post/3lqxfzk6x3k2o

Catwoman: Hunted

I mentioned this movie in my last post rambling about Western Cartoons alleged to be Inspired by Anime even though I hadn't seen it yet.  Was any of my brief assessment presumptuous?

Frankly I might have been too generous in assuming it would at least succeed in looking like an Anime Artstyle.  It definitely looks like it's going for that, but still drawn by people not used to drawing that way.

As far as everything else, from it's OP it was clearly trying to go for a Lupin III OP vibe, which is what I should have expected,  naturally that's the genre of Anime one would reference for Catwoman, Fujiko Mine is basically Japan's Catwoman.  But as I said in the prior post what I'd like to see from Western Animation writers taking inspiration form Anime is them trying some of the very genres or Sub-Genres that pretty much exist only in Anime and it's source materials so far.  For Catwoman as a Lupin III film I'd rather WB/DC just let people in Japan who've made actual Lupin III Anime give it try, ideally the staff behind The Woman Called Fujoko Mine definitely deserve a shot at doing Catwoman.

But let's go back to that OP, it and other music in the movie is trying to be evocative of Lupin III, but the Composer is still not actually Yuji Ohno, so it's like one of those rare Bee Train Anime without Yuki Kajiura, the Music is trying to sound like her, but it's still off.  Now the composer for this movie is Japanese and has done some Anime, but not exactly a lot and usually not Lupin style stuff.  Yoko Kanno is someone I could also see working for a film like this.

I also could have accepted the movie as Anime Adjacent better if it at least had Voice Actors I recognized hearing from Anime Dubs instead of the same kind of casting most of these DC animated movies go for.  Kelly Hu as Cheshire is perfect, and Elizabeth Gillies as Catwoman was pretty good (on a meta-level I'd love to see her Catwoman interact with a Poison Ivy played by Ariana Grande).  But everyone else ranged from fine to to bland, Kate Kane sounded flat and dull.

If they wanted to sell this movie as also a quasi Lupin III movie, why not cast a Fujiko veteran as Catwoman, there are quite a few to choose from, since this is part of a trend of modern depictions wanting Catwoman to also come off as vaguely Latina, Christina Vee could have been a perfect choice.  And since they seemingly wanted Kate to come off as Butch rather then Femme, just hire Erica Mendez to do her Haruka voice.  

If you just want to watch the film like any other DC animated film, the fact that the Artstyle was clearly trying and not quite succeeding to have an Anime vibe might still annoy you.  Other then that it's pretty good, about what you'd expect from a Catwoman solo project at first, but then starts bringing in fantastical stuff that really wasn't necessary.

I appreciated the incorporation of the Classic Purple Dress costume for the ball at the beginning, but when she changed to the main costume of the movie the actual line about "keeping up up with the times" I found odd considering this is the costume primarily popularized by Hush 20 years ago, have the comics really not introduced any new Catwoman Costume since?

As much as I ragged on the the DCAMU films, I certainly preferred their take on the Kate Kane/Batwoman.

I also wish they'd revived Red Claw instead of making the main antagonist of this Batman spin off film be the most overused Wonder Woman villain.  She could have fit the Anime inspiration because I've for awhile felt like she was a little bit Panther Claw inspired.

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.

I've been thinking about my French Pulp Fiction interests again.

I did a post recently on how Anime still isn't Mainstream, but the thing is Anime isn't even the most Niche thing I'm into.  Anime at least has enough of an active online fandom presence that I can Tweet about it and find lots of interesting YouTube videos and Tumblr posts and Fan Fiction.

What I'm talking about in this post I'm not even sure what to call it, it's way more specific then what most people who'd call themselves a Francophile mean.  I often use Shadowmen as a short hand after the anthology series Tales of The Shadowmen or the nonfiction book Shadowmen: Heroes and Villains of French Pulp Fiction.  

The main fan-site is CoolFrenchComics.com and the main modern publisher of relevant content is Black Coat Press.  They publish lots of English Translations of 19th and early 20th Century Pulp Fiction, but also some books that contain new stories using these characters or related themes.  The Editors who run BCP are Jean-Marc & Randy Loffcier and some of the books they Translate themselves.  However a lot of their flagship books are translated by Brian Stableford.  A number of them, including some that may benefit from a Female perspective were translated by Nina Cooper.  It seems everything that's a Stage Play rather then Prose is translated by Frank Morlock.  Another notable contributor is Rick Lai who I'll talk more about later.

BlackCoatPress has made some marketing decisions I consider unfortunate.  Starting with their decision to say "Adapted by" rather then "Translated by" on the covers of all their translations. Now they have an explanation for this on their website on a page called Adapted vs Translated, where it's basically because they're trying to distinguish themselves from old Public Domain translations that are little better then what we in the Anime Community would call Machine Generated Translations, they want to give their translators credit for the skill they provide in making their translations actually pleasing to read, it's not because they are actually changing or rewriting anything.

The problem is that explanation isn't on the back of the every book.  And so for example when I'm trying to convince fellow Anime fans to try one of them out, a Translation openly branding itself as an "Adaptation" is going to make them think of 90s Hack Dubs where the names are all Americanized, and Croissants are called Jelly Donuts, and Death is euphemized as "leaving this world", and Eugenie Danglars & Louis d'Armilly are referred to as "cousins".

Rest assured BCP's Translations are the opposite of that, preserving the French cultural characteristics in ways modern Anime Dubs and even Subs still struggle with, like keeping rather then translating French nicknames and Honorifics.  I watched a YouTube video once where someone talking more about Manga translations actually said that Honorifics should be translated or dropped entirely, that they simply don't work in English and only pretentious Weaboos want to keep them.  And I've come to realize that's just plain Racist, only when talking about East Asian media is it at all controversial to preserve their Honorifics, no modern respectable translation of Les Misérables for example would dare change Monsieur to Mister or Mademoiselle to Miss, some of those old PD translation that BCP wants to distinguish themselves from so badly did, but everyone today agrees that's stupid.  No one considers it jarring in the Musical when these French honorifics are spoken by the Cockney accented Thenardiers, it actually works just fine.  Japanese honorifics are way more different from English honorifics then French ones are, what they communicate about the culture is even more important to preserve and any attempted 1 to 1 equivocation of them to English words will be way less accurate in their connotations.

Another marketing mistake is that a few books will on their back cover blurbs describe aspects of what happens in ways that might feel a bit like a bait and switch once you've read them.  So for example don't read The Wandering Jew's Daughter expecting The Wandering Jew to be Superman.  The Wandering Jew's Daughter is itself not one of the best of Paul Feval's novels, but the BCP translation is worth buying just for the information Stableford provides in the Introduction for cultural context, so much history of how the Wandering Jew legend was used in French literature and melodrama that you won't find on Wikipedia.

Stableford's translations always have very in-depth educational Introductions, extensive Footnotes, and more often then not an insightful Afterward as well.  With both John Devil and The Vampire and The Devil's Son I definitely agree with Stableford's Afterward provided interpretations of what actually happened in the story. Companions of The Treasure is another one where Stbaleford's interpretation is basically Canon to me.

The Phantom of The Opera is such a classic of literature and pop culture in general not just in France that you would probably think surely a good faithful and complete English Translation existed before Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier published theirs in the 2000s, but you'd be wrong.  Multiple reviews of their translation affirm that no one before even kept the basic format of how the story is told.  But because theirs came so late and most people assume that "certainly a Penguin Classics edition can be trusted" their English version remains rarely read even by younger readers.  Half the Phantom of The Opera content on YouTube is from Lindsay Elis, and one thing you learn in those is how pervasive is the opinion that Andrew Lyod Webber's musical is better then the original novel, and I can't help but blame the fact that most of these Musical Theater Kids have never read the real novel.

Speaking of Lindsay Ellis she did a video on The Persian, lamenting the constant either White Washing or Demonizing of that character.  So it's a shame she never read Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera, in that series The Persian is not exactly a main character but they are from what I recall faithfully preserved as both a Persian and a good person.

Speaking of which, now is a good time to mention that there is some relevant material published by other publishers.  A number of Frank Molock's stage play translations were published by Borgo Press, and the first volume of Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera was from Wild Cat Books, but BlackCoatPress took over for the follow ups.  BCP hasn't published any Rocmabole stuff besides two Stage Plays in one volume, Basil Balian has made a very abridged translation of the entire Rocambole saga, and Jean De Ponson du Terrail has made complete translations of the first two volumes.

I did mention above my desire to sell this stuff specifically to fellow Anime fans.  Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera and Sisters of The Shadows series is a good place to start.  It began with Rick Lai making a female version of The Shadow, and then things get increasingly implausible with how nearly all the major players in this epic saga are female.  It's a series waiting to be made into an Anime. 

But as interesting as I find Rick Lai's work, some of the characters he uses I really don't want his takes on to be people's introductions to them.  Chiefly Paul Feval's The Blackcoats saga and Maurice Leblanc's The Countess Cagliostro, both have been translated by BlackCoatPress.

The Countess Cagliostro is however the Prequel of the Arsene Lupin saga, and not the only book of that saga to take place before some books already published when it was written.  So is the Lupin Saga one where it's appropriate to read in Chronological rather then Publication order?  Well I still haven't read all of them, but for the essentials of what I have I'd say go ahead.  Basically the essential Arsene Lupin works are the ones translated by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier and the original short stories included in Arsene Lupin: Gentleman Burglar which basically all take place between Countess Cagliostro and The Blond Lady aka The Blond Phantom.

Paul Feval's works are the most interesting to me.  My introduction to him began as part of my prior Vampire phase, it was The Vampire Countess and Vampire City which caught my attention first and which I read in that order.  Both are great and so are Knightshade and Revanants.  Countess and Revanants are from an earlier phase of Feval's career when he hadn't gotten as ultra Meta yet.  

There is something said in a few reviews of Vampire City I consider misguided, and that's making it sound like Polly Bird is in any way Trans representation, she was simply the subject of supernatural gender bending and it isn't even emphasized all that much, and in the end it would certainly be problematic to read her as Trans representation.

John Devil is the best of Feval's novels, but also the longest at least of what BCP has translated.  I think the best entry point to The Blackcoats saga would be either Salem Street or The Invisible Weapon, but 6 out of 7 of them are worth reading and fairly capable of standing on their own, The Cadet Gang is the one that he clearly was forcing himself to write after losing all passion for the topic so I'd say don't bother with it.  

Thing is while a good deal of the Prose content relevant to this interest is available in English now (there are some still untranslated I want to see get translated), most of the French Movies and TV shows about these characters have no English Subtitled release I can watch.  It's in this area where fans of Japanese entertainment media are lucky, even the most obscure stuff can usually be found Subbed in some capacity.  But for French stuff I wanna watch, the 60s Fantomas trilogy, the 63 Judex, the 96/97 film version of Paul Feval's Le Bossu titled on Amazon as On Gaurd, and the 2004 Arsene Lupin have Subs I can watch, but that's it.  However I also wanna see some of the films based on Eugene Sue's The Mysteries of Paris, or Rocambole, or all of the other Le Bossu adaptations (it seems one gets made about once a decade), or the TV adaptations of Les Habits Noirs and Le Loup Blanc.

Update: I forgot to talk about something important.

If I have piqued anyone's interest in buying stuff from BlackCoarPress, I know from talking with them that buying the book using their website directly gives a larger percentage of what you spend to the Author or Translator then they would get when using a site like Amazon as the middle man.  However that also costs the consumer more on shipping and handling.  And more often then not I get the book faster when I use Amazon, but that's because of the same circumstances that force their delivery drivers to piss in bottles.

It's another unfortunate symptom of Capitalism that what's more affordable for the consumer results in less of the money spent going to who actually deserves that money.  I am in a financially difficult situation right now.  But anyone who is in a fairly comfortable situation financially I would ask to be willing to spend the extra money necessary to support BlackCoatPress directly.

Well, I'm hooked on Detective Conan now

The people following me on Twitter are aware of this already, but I figure I should mention it on my Blog.

How much I like the Mystery Genre itself seems to fluctuate.  But I now think Conan really is the modern Sherlock Holmes.  

I have been aware of this show for awhile, I knew it was one of those Anime super Popular in Japan but has been very limited in it's ablity to catch on in the States.  The show wasn't what I expected, I was expecting the Anime version of something like Nancey Drew, and indeed some of the one off episodes have that vibe.  But the show can get pretty serious and "dark", it also involves duel identities and a super secret international crime syndicate that keeps making me think of Paul Feval's Les Habits Noirs/The Blackcoats.  But most importantly has fun likeable characters.

Thus far I have still only seen a small percentage of episodes, at the moment all Dubbed content but that includes some Fandubed episodes.  That range of what I've seen is a lot of stuff from the earliest years including the first 6 movies dubbed by Funimation, and the most recent movies which have been Dubbed by BangZoom.  I am willing to try watching episodes Subbed, but suspect this genre is going to be difficult to watch Subbed, it demands since one has to pay close to all the little things.  Speaking of which especially when Dubbed this franchise often goes under the altname name Case Closed.

My very first introduction was watching the theatrical crossover with Lupin The Third, and I would have to say that is a pretty ideal crossover movie.  It deliveries plenty of the kinds of fun interactions someone already a fan of both would want to see, but can also serve as a good entry point to either franchise for fans of the other.

But also for fans of Lupin The Third and the genre he represents any Kaitou Kid/Kid The Phantom Thief story should be worth checking out.  Of course in many key ways Kid is more like the original Arsene Lupin then Lupin III.

I might do a follow up post on my Detective Conan experience in the future, for now just know it's a show I recommend.

Looking back 25 years at the Anime of 1995

I decided it’d be interesting to make a post taking a look back at Anime that was airing 25 years ago.  My past posts like this have just focused on the corresponding season, but 2020 madness had me forgetting to even think of this till now.  95 wound up being a pretty game changing year for Anime, and for Japan in general.

This is not going to be a massive project of trying to watch absolutely everything from 95 like Kor’s project for 89 which recently ended and might be followed up by a 92 project.  This is just my skimming over MAL and noting the stuff I’ve seen and/or heard of before, and the stuff I hadn’t that interests me.

First, what was continuing from prior seasons when the year started?

Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon S nearing its end, that basketball Anime called Slam Dunk which has a lot of members on MAL even though I never see it talked about, G Gundam, Magic Knight Rayearth, Marmalade Boy in the future PreCure time slot which is pretty good from what I’ve seen so far, and Macross 7.  And on a more obscure note Akazukin Chacha interests me.  In the OVA market Legend of The Galactic Heroes was still releasing stuff.

Which was fortunate because the Winter of 95 didn’t have any new premiering shows that I recognize the name of, though for OVAs there was Armitage III.  I’ve noticed there are some forgotten Toei shonen shows during this era with MCs whose hair looks like it’s transitioning from Goku to Yugioh.

Sailor Moon SuperS technically started in late winter, but MAL classifies all March premieres as Spring, and SuperS is really just a new season of the same show.  Like in my view there is more consistency between the arcs of Sailor Moon then there is between the Arcs of DBZ, yet that show gets to be all one entry on MAL while SM gets broken up.  

SuperS is often considered the weakest season of Sailor Moon, but fortunately the Spring of 95 provided us with another Magical Girl Warrior show that would last a full year in Wedding Peach, which is the most underrated Mahou Shoujo as I’ve discussed on this blog before [it's also historically important in the role it played establishing OLM the studio that will go on to animate Pokemon, Berserk, To Heart and more].

April of 95 also saw the premieres of Gundam Wing, Fushigi Yuugi, Slayers, Tenchi Universe, Magic Knight Rayearth II, and a lot of other mostly forgotten TV Anime, and then in May the first El Hazard OVA dropped.  I don’t think I’ve seen that many now considered to be classics debut so close to each other anywhere else.

For theatrically released movies Lupin III had Farewell to Nostradamus in April. I used to be confused by how the mid 90s theatrical Lupin movies felt below the quality of the contemporary TV specials, but now I know part of it is that the first several TV specials were directed by Osamu Dezaki, while this movie had a director I never heard of before.

A more obscure OVA from May that interests me is Princess Minerva.

Summer had even less than Winter for new TV Anime, which is expected because most of what started in Spring was 2 Cour at least.

Down in the OVA department there was a Ranma ½ OVA, the first Pretty Sammy OVA, Dirty Pair Flash, Ruin Explorers Fam & Ihrie, Sailor Victory and Megami Paradise which I’ve actually seen the first episode of, it’s an interesting premise.

For theatrically released movies there was Whisper of The Heart which I happened to watch recently first because it’s the only Anime with Ashley Tisdale.  But I fell in love with it because of it’s usage of Country Roads which made me cry because of how I associate that song with my mother.  Also the first Slayers movie and the 13th DBZ movie.  And there was also an Anime film adaptation of the Diary of Anne Frank.

Then in August was the Lupin III tv special The Pursuit of Harmios Treasure which was the last of them to be directed by Dezaki, it’s also one of the ones Funimation dubbed, the Funimation voices take some getting used to but I enjoyed it.  The theatrical Lupin movie is fine too, don’t read too much into my smack talking before.

Late summer and the first half of fall is also when the first 65 episodes of the DiC Dub of Sailor Moon first broadcast on Canadian television.

The Fall of 95 for TV Anime had Kaitou Saint Tail, El Hazzard: The Wanders, and Gokinjo Monogatari aka Neighborhood Stories which took over the future PreCure time-slot from Marmalade Boy. Oh, also something called Neon Genesis Evangelion which started out pretty good.

And for OVAs this Fall had the original two episode Galaxy Fraulein Yuna OVA which I’ve talked about before.

And for the big screen there was the movie edition of Macross 7, Ghost In The Shell, and the Sailor Moon SuperS movie Black Dream Hole accompanied by the Ami’s First Love short.  (Also there was a Madhouse project called Memories.)

Some of what I consider the most interesting Hentai of all time also came out in 95, but I’ve decided not to talk about that here.

This year was originally supposed to be the release of the first movie of the Crystal redo of the SuperS arc, it really would have fit being 25 years later, it’s a shame.

But that’s not the only way in which the foundations of contemporary Anime were laid in 95.  The kind of Isekai that has been popular for a decade now kind of begins with El Hazzard. And I think it’s also interesting how much the Shoujo of the 90s has influenced the Seinen of the 21st Century.  Meanwhile Galaxy Fraulein Yuna anticipated stuff like Nanoha and Symphogear.

My 2019 Anime Experience has been looking back more then at the present

What I currently consider the most important 2019 Anime is the one where I was shocked to learn how old the source material was.  YU-NO has in general made me want to learn more about the history of Visual Novels.

The most satisfying Adult Swim based experience I had was watching the Lupin III show that aired last year.  And that is only the tip of the iceberg of how much I've increased my Lupin cred.  It might be accurate to say I've doubled the amount of Lupin III I've seen this year.  I can currently say for certain that the only Lupin III Anime which has been Dubbed I haven't seen is most of Part II.

The Magical Girl Warrior genre was always a favorite of mine, but this year I've set out to see enough of it that I now feel I'm as much of an expert as I can be without it being the only Genre I significantly care about.  Much of that was concentrated around MahouShouJune, but some happened both before and after then.

I've also increased my Mecha knowledge by getting started on Macross, and my Isekai knowledge by watching the first season of the El-hazzard OVAs.  My Vampire Anime knowledge by watching Serpah of The End when it was on SonyCrackle, and my non magical Shoujo knowledge by checking out some Marmalade Boy and the first two episodes of Goldfish Warning!.  I'm watching Flying Witch via AnimeNetwork on demand.  And going back to stuff from just last year I really liked SSSS.Gridman.  I had also watched a few 2017 shows before making that top ten of 2017 post.

I'm pretty sure it was also this year I watched Slayers, and made some progress on the Lodoss War franchise.  And I watched the first Tenchi movie.

And I've been inspired to do a research project on 90s Hentai. I'm not sure when or if I'll actually post it, but right now the three center piece examples for it are stuff I watched in 2019.

In addition to all that I've also devoted some time to re-watching what I'd seen before.  Pokemon movies still help cheer me up when I'm down.  I finally did a full re-watch of Stiens:Gate when it was on SonyCrackle.  And most of Railgun I can say I've watched twice this year.

I have gained some enjoyment from what's new this year.  Given how fall started I'm suprised how many shows I'm currently following.  Isekai Cheat magician also proved pretty cool.

Outside of Anime, it's weird how the hot mess surrounding Rise of Skywalker has actually made me want to watch Star Wars content more then I had for awhile, expect posts about The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars early 2020.  And I'm very amused by the new Harley Quinn cartoon.  Also I loved the first three episodes of the CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths.  And I already posted on why I think this was a great year for movies.

The saddest news of course is that my Mom passed away on November 26th.  That's mainly why I posted so little in November.  I'm handling it pretty well though, I have Faith in the coming Resurrection.

April 1989 was also perhaps the beginning of an Era in Anime.

I spent some of June making interesting observations about times when two or more vitally important Anime debuted very close to each other.  Those posts usually have the year or years in question in the title.  All of those posts were about examples where at least one of the Anime in question was in some way related to the Magical Girl genre, since I was celebrating MahouShouJune.  Today however I can talk about an example that isn't directly or mainly Magical Girl relevant.

Kor Reviews just released his video about the Spring 1989 Anime season, in collaboration with two other AniTubers.  I won't here be talking about every Anime mentioned in that video, they also talk about a number of interesting forgotten gems that I suggest you watch the video for.

What I didn't know before watching this was that both Dragonball Z and Ranma 1/2 started in the same season.  That's two Iconic genre defining shows.  DBZ wasn't even the start of it's franchise technically, but it definitely has become what people mainly care about when it comes to Dragonball, in the West at least.

I have some nostalgic memories of watching DBZ on Toonami back in the day, but Shonen in general I'm not very into.  Ranma is something I should check out eventually.

Meanwhile the premiere of Lupin II: Bye Bye Lady Liberty was the beginning of a new era for that important Anime franchise, the era of it being being kept alive by annual TV specials.  For awhile most of what I'd seen of the franchise were a handful of the 90s specials that got dubbed in the 2000s, it's cool that Lupin has returned to getting TV Anime and interesting theatrical films, but I feel this era of Lupin shouldn't be forgotten, they kept the spirit of Red Jacket alive but with continually more modern Animation and plots.

Bye Bye Lady Liberty also has an English Dub but different from most other Dubs, it was dubbed by the same cast as one of the Dubs of Mystery of Mamo, specifically the UK produced Dub, and like it was made in 96 so one of the earliest English Language exposures of the franchise.  I watched it recently and found it pretty fun, I recommend it.

So I don't have a lot to say about these examples, but they're interesting.  And knowing what super important Anime started this season makes the more obscure stuff most of that Video is devoted to even more interesting.

Update: As I just learned this was only a few months into the Heisei Period of official Japanese History, same era that ended in April of this year.  So like 90-99% of Anime that Millennials care about is Heisei Anime.

The Seventh Episode factor

I'm really annoyed that TVTropes has changed the name of the Seventh Episode Twist trope to Mid-Season Twist and thus changed most of the examples so now even most Buffy ones are not the actual Seventh Episode.  The importance the Seventh Episode often has on Buffy and many other shows is a totally separate kind of importance from why the halfway point of a 20-26 episode show is important.  Calling it a "twist" was always misleading I suppose as they aren't usually twists per se, though neither frankly are most midway point episodes.

Since I've had Buffy on the brain lately for the first time in a awhile, let me break it down.

Now the Seventh Episode is often not vital to the "plot", most Buffy examples actually don't feature the Big Bad, they're usually introduced in episodes 3-5 and may reappear in episode 8, but their plot-line mainly kicks off in the second half.  Rather it's important to the emotional Story, the Character Development and the Themes.  Often I've noticed it having a tendency to be important to that season's romantic story-line(s).  Sometimes episode 14 has a similar Romantic significance, which could be because it's a multiple of 7 or maybe a reference to Valentines Day.

Season 1 Episode 7 was the episode titled Angel.

This episode features the Big Bad, but it's importance is still more like what I just laid out above, indeed it's named after the Love Interest.

Season 2 Episode 7, Lie To Me.

This one again features the Big Bads, but that's because Spike and Dru are more directly linked to the Romantic Story-line then most future ones will be.  In the way the show is interpreted by The Passion of The Nerd's Episode Guide, this episode contains a vital mission statement to the show's moral philosophy (which in my current opinion is very toxic).

Season 3 Episode 7, Revelations.

This episode is again a vital escalation in the Angel story-line of the season.  But it's also vital to Faith's story-line, her trust issues in general and putting her for the first time in conflict with Buffy.  Perhaps the Faith importance is consistent with the romantic importance, depending on how you interpret things.

Season 4 Episode 7, The Initiative.

This one is important to the Big Badish story-line but mainly because season 4 was inherently different from most seasons in that regard.  It is still the real beginning of season 4's romantic story-line.  And the introduction of Spike's new status-quo, who has been and will be important to romantic story-lines.

Angels Season 1: Bachelor Party.

It's the first Doyle centric episode.  And it ends with the set up for the first full crossover story-line.

Buffy Season 5: Fool For Love.

The beginning of the end of Buffy's current relationship and a vital stage setter for what will dominate her love life for the rest of the show.

Angel Season 2: Darla.

The romantic story-lines of this season are all about Darla.

Buffy Season 6: Once More With Feeling.

The Musical Episode, while the romantic story-lines come up, this is perhaps the least directly about those so far.  It makes itself a turning point for every story-line, but chiefly is where the Scoobies finally learn how Buffy really feels about being brought back to life.

Angel Season 3: Offspring.

Darla shows up pregnant, do I need to say anything else?

Buffy Season 7: Conversations With Dead People.

This more then any other is the real beginning of the final season's arc.  It's romantic importance is there, we learn something about what's going on with Spike.  Like the Musical it tried to make itself important to every plot, though it's strangely the only episode of the entire series Xander isn't in.

Angel Season 4: Apocalypse, Nowish.

The introduction of the sorta Big Bad.  And it's a turning point in the romantic story-lines as well.

Angel Season 5: Lineage.

Important to Wesley's romantic story-line, since it's mainly a Wesley episode over all.  Given earlier patterns I kinda wish episode 8 had been this season's episode 7.  Both Angel Season 5 and Smallville season 2 named their 7th episode Lineage, this one aired a year after that one.

So, that is the list of episodes that TVTropes page used to talk about for Buffy and Angel, though what I said about them is kind of different.  To what extent this happens outside the Buffyverse is hard for me to objectively determine.  For example the extent to which I used to see it on Smallville I think may have mostly been my looking for it.

But I think a factor in why Noir so quickly sucked me in as the first not a kid's show Anime I watched was in how the way it was structured happened to echo Buffy(Like how Episode 5 was the formal introduction to the antagonist force.), though having 4 more episodes to it's total length kind of made the 16/17 significance happen twice, the other being 20/21 which was the same number of episodes from the end as 16/17 would be in a 22 episode show. 

Episode 7 of Noir was The Black Thread of Fate.  The Soldats were to my recollection not relevant at all.  The most important thing about this episode is how it's the first time we see definitive evidence our protagonists have come to actually care about each other.  A brief throw away scene is also when we see Chloe for the first time, it feels like an after credits scene yet that's not where they put it.  Also the title of the episode echoes the title of the show itself, Noir being the French word for Black.

On Madlax episode 7 was the first part of a two parter and the point at which the seemingly two different shows we were watching begin to come together.  I feel like episode 7 of El Cazador de la Bruja can also fit this pattern.

Witch Hunter Robin would have fit if only they switched episodes 7 and 9.

Episode 7 of Code Geass begins with our first flashback and ends with Zero's first defeat, episode 7 of R2 was Lelouch's Achilles in his Tent moment.

Lupin III Part IV has two episode 7s due to two intended episodes becoming OVAs in Japan but being added back to the series for the Adult Swim airing.   It's the order without the OVAs that makes it kinda fit.

In Katana Maidens episode 7 is where the Avengers are finally assembled.  I think episode 7 of Darling in The FranXX's significance is self evident.   Episode 7 of Doki Doki Precure inspired something I did on Tumblr once.
http://jaredmithrandir.tumblr.com/post/139417960233/magicalgirlconfessions-doki-doki-precure-won
I love you Glitter Force but I hate how you screwed up the episode order symmetry here.

But let's take a look at Anime that is too old to be accused of doing this because Buffy did it.

If you view Misty as a love interest on Pokémon, then episode 7 was the real establishment of her character even though she'd been there from the start.  I also wonder if episode 5 being Ash's first Gym Battle could be compared to the significance I read into Buffy's episode 5s?

The fact that the classic Sailor Moon Anime fits this pattern more in it's DiC episode order I find really interesting. In that version episode 5 introduces Ami, episode 7 introduced Rei and episode 10 was the defeat of Jadite, all three things that could be compared to how Buffy seasons would be structured with episode 10s usually being semi-finales before a hiatus.  The Anime version connects Rei to the romantic story-line since she was dating Mamoru/Darrien briefly.  These episodes aired in English in 95, is it possible Joss had watched them?

The statement Joss once made about originally not wanting Angel to be a fighter makes me wonder if in general his role in the story was partly inspired by Tuxedo Mask (and the other part by The Vampire Diaries).  I've been thinking of doing a separate post on if Buffy could be considered a Magical Girl Warrior.

In the live action Sailor Moon series episode 7 is made an important development in the Tuxedo Mask/Sailor Moon relationship.  In Sailor Moon Crystal which more directly follows the Manga episodes 6 and 7 both are major Tuxedo Mask developments, and the end of 7 is when Sailor Venus first appears.

All I'll say about episode 7 of Utena is that when production issues delayed the intended episode 6 it was swapped with episode 8, another Nanami "filler" episode.  Which tells me Ikuhara or Enokido for some reason saw it as important that Unfulfilled Juri be the seventh episode not any other number.

Feel free to leave comments about what Episode 7s of various TV Shows or Cartoons you think are interesting.

Update 2022: The Seventh episode of Detective Conan was the first episode where Ran almsot figures out the truth, and it's pretty good.

An update on my Black Coat Press and Tales of The Shadowmen interests

Been a while since I said much specifically on that subject.  It'll be awhile before I can contribute to the Tales of The Shadowmen anthology series since the story ideas I've been having lately haven't been on that subject, Anime has taken over my imagination.  And of course I always have trouble getting my stories actually written down anyway, having an explicit deadline helped motivate me when I was writing TOTS stories.

I also feel bad that I still haven't finished The Companions of Silence, I bought the book early this year and started it, I like it as much as I do most Paul Feval stuff, but my mind has been fixating on other things.  This February The White Wolf is being released, it has had English versions before but they're rare and hard to find.  I hope they follow that up with The She Wolf.

I spent a good deal of time last year recommending Princess Principal to fellow Shadowmen fans.  It's set in an alternate Steam Punk version of Victorian England, but a lot of it's themes feel more appropriate for post-Revolutionary France.  But regardless plenty of the French novels we like used Britain as a setting, from The Mysteries of London to the last three Rocambole novels to John Devil.

I bring it up again now because it's Dub has finally dropped.  Now I haven't watched said Dub yet, I know from the trailer they actually went with British Accents which is a decision I'm actually rather skeptical of.  Noir's Dub worked great without any accents, I love Anime dub VAs but accents aren't their strong suite.  Still I will give a shot eventually.

The show is legally streaming on both HIDIVE and Amazon Prime, I think only HIDIVE has the Dub but I'm unsure, it may be you need to buy the DVDs for the full Dub.  Either way neither can be streamed for free, they are not making it easy for me to show this show to outsiders.

Something else about Princess Principal is I feel the episodes should be watched in Chronological order.
2, 3, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12

A lot happens in Anime that reminds me of my Francophilic tendencies.  This coming Fall Season will have yet another Anime version of Jeanne d'Arc in a show that's also about Alchemy.  We also had more Lupin III Anime this year, I won't be watching Part V till it's Dub airs however, which based on the time-frame for Part IV I suspect will be next year.  All the main Lupin III shows are on Crunchyroll Subbed right now, but suddenly The Woman Called Fujiko Mine isn't streaming anywhere.

Thanks to Hulu dropping most of what it had, Rose of Versailles and Revolutionary Girl Utena can't be legally streamed anywhere now either. That's really frustrating.

Lastly I want to talk about an observation I made about Pokemon Heroes: Latios & Latias, the Fifth Pokemon movie.  This observation can only be fully understood by others who have read Knightshade (Brian Stableford's translation of Paul Feval's Le Chevalier Ténèbre), including it's introduction and afterward material.

I feel that Annie and Oakley can be thematically compared to the Ténèbre Brothers.  They are called sisters in material I've read though I don't recall that being explicitly stated in the Dub.  Oakley is definitely Avarice.  Calling Annie "Lust" may be a bit more of a stretch since it's a kid's movie and all, but she is very vain and likes pretty shiny things, and is officially described as the prettier one.  This parallel is most likely a coincidence, but I enjoy making parallels between the works of this semi forgotten author and modern Nerd media.

Michelle Ruff is the best English Voice Actress for Fujiko Mine

The role of Fujiko Mine has had eight different English Voice actors in the various Dubs that have been recorded.  Michelle Ruff is I think the best by a pretty large margin.

Of course she arguably has an unfair advantage in having had most of the best material to work with for the character in question.  The FUNimation/Adult Swim Dub of Red Jacket, the best of the four Dubs of The Secret of Mamo/Mystery of Mamo.  The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and most recently Blue Jacket.

Basically she gets the role when FUNimation does the Dub.  And in general I think FUNimation's are the best Lupin Dubs, and with the other characters it's not easy to say only FUNimation got the best material.  It baffles me that FUNimation didn't get Jigen's Gravestone, which is supposed to at least thematically bridge the gap between TWcFM and Blue Jacket.  I hope they get to do Italian Game and the upcoming series about Lupin returning to France the homeland of his grandfather (I would advice FUNimation and whatever studio in Japan owns the rights to consider hiring Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier as consultants for that project, they are the best at translating the original Lupin from French into English).

Ruff hasn't gotten to do a Dub of Castle of Cagliostro.  Thing is as popular as it is to call that the best Lupin movie, I can't particularly recommend it to people watching Lupin mainly for Fujiko.  Fujiko is good in the movie, I like that she has no jealously towards Clarisse, but her role isn't that major.  Still just for the sake of the other characters I'd like to see this cast get to make their own Dub of Castle of Cagliostro someday.  And perhaps do the Miyazaki written and/or directed episodes of Green Jacket and Red Jacket (which the old FUNimation dub didn't get to) as Blue Ray bonus features.

[[Apparently there is contradictory information out there about whether or not FUNimation did the Dubs that feature Michelle Ruff as Fujiko.]]

Still, in general I feel Mystery of Mamo is a better movie to introduce one to the Lupin mythos.  Cagliostro is a great film, but it's a Miyazaki film more then it is a Lupin film.

I can't really call any of the other English Fujko actresses bad.  I've only watched Ruff's dub of Mamo all the way through, but from YouTube clips I've seen comparing the four Dubs,  Fujiko is the one character who sounds acceptable in all four of the them.  The Fuma Conspiracy has the worst Lupin dub cast (it's like they tried to repeat what was hated about it in Japan), but even there Fujiko sounds the least horrible.  I've watched half the projects where Meredith McCoy voiced Fujiko, she's very good but the only one where Fujiko gets a spotlight is the one where she had amnesia for most of it, still I enjoyed that one for the Yuri subtext.

Perhaps I'm just such a big fan of the Femme Fatale archetype in general, that I'm easily impressed by any actress doing that routine, I'm simply an easy man to seduce.

So that's why it's worth noting that I'm a pretty big fan of Michelle Ruff doing completely different roles as well.  Tsukasa in Lucky Star and Yuki Nagato in Haru Suzumiya.  And Shinon is also probably my favorite character in Sword Art Online, another show I've only watched Dubbed.  She's good as the Viz voice of Luna too, though I'm personally nostalgic for Luna sounding British.  In Code Geass she's Euphemia, Lelouch as a kid, and Arthur the cat.  And probably the first role I ever heard her play was Doujima in Witch Hunter Robin, another where her character was my favorite.

Fall 2017 Simuldub Three Episode Test

There are five shows I decided to give the three episode test to via their Funimation simuldubs.  I'm afraid I don't feel like I have any super extreme opinions on any of them yet.  I may of course try more shows later.

Code:Realize

A Reverse Harem Visual Novel adaptation that also appeals to my Tales of The Shadowmen related interests.  It was the one I was most guaranteed to check out.

The show is not possible to imagine as compatible with the original literary canons of the characters.  But it has been fun so far, and so I will definitely watch episode 4 tomorrow.

Kino's Journey: The Beautiful World

My knowledge of the original Kino's Journey Anime is mostly only via watching SFDebris reviews of it.  I learned about the Gender Ambiguity of Kino's character when I read Vrai's piece on the pilot back when only it's Sub was available, so I knew the plot of episode 1 going in.

I have enjoyed all three episodes, and it may please Vrai to know that the Dub has not used any Gendered pronouns for Kino so far.  Still, I generally don't think this is my kind of show, so I have my doubts I'll stick with it.

Anime Gataris.

This is the least likely show I'll drop, it's not on par with Lucky Star but it's still a pretty fun Anime about talking about Anime show.  If Lucky Star and Yuru Yuri are the main kind of Anime you like, this is your show for this season.

A Sister's All You Need

Now if my blog has any followers, you may recall me explicitly telling people NOT to watch this show in my post titled It's Americans who don't know what real Teenagers look like.  That was advice for normies, I'm not a normie, I watched all of Eromanga-Sensei and found some value in it, though I couldn't make it three episodes into Oreimo.  So I did decide to give this show three episodes to see what I think.

So far, I'm still unsure about much of it.  Nothing has been on par with the opening fantasy in over the top creepiness.  I like the MC's two females friends and their interactions.  What really confuses me is the MC's younger sibling.  The plot description says they're female, they have a female voice actor.  But all the MC's friends seem to think they're a boy.  If all this dodging is leading to is a generic "Samus is a Girl" moment, I'll be fairly annoyed.  But I can't help but suspect it's that rather then any attempt to really explore Gender Identity with the character.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie

This show is interesting, I have no particular thoughts yet.

Off Topic Post Script

I want to make new Anime Fans

And that is why I can't agree with Pedantic Romantic's opinion that Netflix is worse then Amazon.  Netflix's treatment of it's exclusives may not be the most convenient for those of us already into Anime.  But lots of people have Netflix for other reasons, so it can help grow the Anime community when I can just tell someone they already have access to a bunch of Anime.  I don't want to recommend a show to a Normie till it has at least a full season anyway.  And a newbie is going to watch them Dubbed so Digi's complaints about Netflix's subtitles aren't relevant to that either.

Meanwhile Amazon's exclusives are not only stuck behind a double pay wall, but it seems like they don't get Dubbed.  And this season they have at least one show that I think could be a good show to get people into Anime with, (I won't know for sure till it's done).

Now some people might disagree with my desire to bring in new fans.  Digibro has expressed a few times the mentality that it hurts a Niche property for it to become more mainstream, it dilutes the purity of it.  There are lots of things I could say to counter that, like how new fans are needed for something to survive at all.  But mainly the reason I can't see it that way is this.

I was incredibly late in getting into Anime.  I'm about 5 years older then Digibro, but based on when I finally got full time into Anime I might as well be 10 years younger.  That means there are at least 15 years of being an Otaku I missed out on.  Yet lots of things about me show I was an Otaku at heart all along.  I was definitely a Yuri shipper before I knew that word.

Now some Anime I was familiar with during that time.  Pokemon, Sailor Moon and DBZ were part of my childhood to varying degrees.  Then I fell in love with Noir and it's sister serieses, plus Witch Hunter Robin during the period of my life that mostly revolved around waiting for The Dark Knight.  Then after that I randomly got into Code Geass, Gundam 00 and Death Note.  Thing is, those mostly don't reflect well what my current taste in Anime is, half of them I probably only still like because of Nostalgia.  Lucky Star is now my second favorite Anime, yet I didn't watch it till the summer of 2016, when it was nearly a decade old already.

The lack of easy accessibility to Anime is the reason I missed out on it so much.  (Noir is a show I've still never watched streaming online, I found it via Digital Cable's On Demand service, and then bought the DVD.)  So I want to expand the reach of Anime so more people don't miss out like I did.  If someone gives Anime a chance and they don't like it, that's cool.  But I want to get more people to give it a chance.

The one thing Netflix needs to do to help it serve this purpose is increase it's selection.  Though I'd prefer it not make anymore exclusive.  For this season their exclusives aren't the best entry points anyway.  Fate/Apocrypha is for people already into Fate/, (but fortunately they have UFOtable's Fate/Zero and Unlimited Blade Works), and that gambling show is not exactly going to refute negative perceptions of Anime.  Doesn't mean those shows aren't good, they just aren't good places to start.

But Little Witch Academia can work, it's like Harry Potter meets My Little Pony.

Since a lot of what Netflix currently has seems to be Aniplex stuff, I feel like recommending they work with them to dub the Kara no Kyoukai films.  But I haven't seen those yet and so don't know how good of an entry point Anime they would make.

SFdebris is good proof that Madoka can make a good first impression for Anime.  It seems the only people who have a problem with Madoka are old fashioned Magical Girl fans.

For others who want to make new fans.  I'd recommenced trying to stick to legal streaming sites (like HIDIVE) to introduce people to Anime.  People who are entrenched in the community seem to underestimate just how much outsiders are not likely to be comfortable using a technically illegal site.

So for the rest of this post I want to help explain which Anime are better for introducing new people to Anime.  These "rules" aren't universal however, sometimes what I think is the worst Anime to make a first impression with may for some weirdo be exactly what gets them into it.  So keep what you personally know about a person in mind.

Try to avoid ones that engage in Anime Style Fanservice.  Doesn't mean excluding shows that are Sexy, just try to avoid ones that feel creepy.

It's also important to understand that many Americans who aren't in High School anymore don't wanna watch fiction set in High School.  (Though someone who still enjoys Spiderman or Buffy or Smallville may be an exception to that.)  That is part of why Fate/Zero is the best way to introduce someone to Fate/.

Steins;Gate is a good show to recommend to SciFi fans, as is Gundam 00.  For a Fantasy fan have them start with Nausica of The Valley of The Wind.   The original Gundam film trilogy is a good recommendation for people into Space Operas.  I wish I knew more about what Anime to recommend to people into Westerns and Neo-Westerns, the only thing in that category I've seen much of is El Cazador, and I love it but it may not be the best to get someone started with.

Noir is something good to recommend to people who are into Film Noirs, or are in general Francophiles.  Especially the kind of Francophile who buys BlackCoatPress books.  If you happen to know someone specifically into Paul Feval's The Blackcoats (Les Habits Noirs) series, recommend Noir to them and tell them that I have a fan theory that the Bouquets are related to the Bozzo-Corona clan of Corsica.

Related to that, let's talk about Lupin III for a minute.  My first exposure to Lupin III was The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, for most people I don't think that'd be the best impression to lead with, but for the kind of person who loves Noir like me it might be.  In General the two 70s Lupin movies make great introductions. So could some of the TV specials that got dubbed, of which I've seen five.  Blue Jacket, who's Dub is currently airing on Adult Swim can also be a decent enough place to start, though you may have to warn people that some key characters are unique to it.  But absolutely do NOT use any 80s Lupin work as an introduction, the 80s was the worst era for Lupin.

If you know any Pretty Little Liars fans, recommend them good Magical Girl shows like Sailor Moon, Pretty Cure, Madoka and Yuki Yuna.  Or shows like K-On.  If they are specifically a BooRadleyVanCullen type of PLL fan, then you have a potential Yuri Fanatic on your hands.  Meanwhile from what I can tell so far Princess Principal could be a very good show for PLL fans, but unfortunately it's trapped by Amazon.

Any Feminist who hasn't seen Utena yet needs to fix that immediately.

Likewise, anyone who's into Slash and/or Femslash fan fiction, is a potential Yaoi and/or Yuri fan.

Yuri is one genre where I'm not sure where to start, so much Yuri Anime has never been Dubbed. But I know you should NOT ever start with Kannazuki no Miko.  Yaoi actually has a pretty definitive entry point now with Yuri on Ice.

This October I will be a making a Halloween themed recommendations post.

I would not recommend someone start with Sword Art Online.  Which is ironic because it has already been the first for many.  I think the SAO haters wouldn't be nearly so upset by it's rather standard Anime flaws if it hadn't become one of the most mainstream Animes ever.

The thing in general about the really mainstream shows of the last 10 or 15 years, (SAO, Attack on Titan, Death Note and One Punch Man), is they have probably already brought in all the new fans they're going to, so there isn't much point to recommending them now.  If you know someone who's watched those shows and nothing else yet, perhaps you can use their opinions on those to get an idea of what to recommend them next.

Evangelion is not something to recommend to newbies, someone has to be very into Anime already to in 2017 tolerate it's many many many many many flaws.

My review of two Lupin The Third movies

Below is from a project I was going to do, possibly as a YouTube video, called "Top 5 Anime Films according to someone who hasn't seen many".  I've canceled that project for a few reasons.  One being I've seen more Anime movies now, enough to totally re-calibrate what that list would have been.

The section on two Lupin III films was all I ever actually wrote before abandoning it, and I want to preserve those thoughts somewhere (The top 4 would have been the Gundam 00 movie, The K-On movie, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Pokemon The 3rd Movie Spell of The Unown.)  The fact that I consider those two the best Lupin movies is possibly still dependent on me having not seen many, I recently saw Gold of Babylon which came no where near surpassing these, I may comment on it more in the future.  The biggest out of date detail is saying it's the only Miyazaki film I'd seen.  As you'd know if you're following this blog, I saw Nausuca and The Valley of the Wind at the start of June.

So, enjoy.

Number five is…. A tie between two Lupin III films, The Mystery of Mamo and The Castle of Cagliostro.  This will be the only tie on the list, but still it means I’m technically discussing 6 movies.  These are also the only Lupin films on the list, so they are also the best Lupin movies in my opinion.

My interest in Lupin III overlaps with my interest in the original Arsene Lupin and in French Pulp Fiction in general.  And now I shall reveal that these are not traditional objective consumer reviews, but my being analytical about why these films appeal to me.  

Both are perfectly stand alone stories.  But Mystery of Mamo may make a better entry point into the Lupin III mythos, since it was the first Lupin III movie and so definitely felt designed to be an entry point on many levels.  And Castle of Cagliostro has odd qualities that resulted in a fan theory that it may be the chronologically last Lupin III story.  

If you’re into the Lupin III saga mainly for Fujiko Mine then that would also make Mamo the preferred choice for you, she is very important to that story.  She is in Castle of Cagliostro, but is not the main love interest.  I do however quite like the fact that she never shows any jealousy towards Clarisse.

Mystery of Mamo’s other big advantage is having a more interesting main villain.  I can’t help but compare him to the character of Colonel Bozzo-Corona from Paul Feval’s Les Habits Noirs (The Blackcoats) series.  But that is probably just me.

Castle of Cagliostro is also currently the only Hayao Miyazaki film I’ve seen.  I have several of them on DVD but haven’t gotten around to watching them yet.

Castle of Cagliostro draws on specific classic Lupin stories more than most Lupin III stories do, a fact probably owed to how well read Miyazaki is.  The connections to La Comtesse de Cagliostro (available in English from BlackCoatPress as Arsene Lupin Vs Countess Cagliostro) are largely in name only.  The Lupin novel that fans of this movie really need to read, is unfortunately not easy to find legally in English.  It’s original French title which I’ll probably mispronounce is La Demoiselle aux yeux verts, the literal English translation of that title would be “The Damsel with The Green Eyes”, but the existing English translation is a volume titled Arsene Lupin Super Sleuth.  If you know Japanese or Korean it’s interestingly easier to find in those languages, if you know French it shouldn’t be a problem at all, everything LeBlanc directly wrote is Public Domain now.  The Clarisse of this film may be named after the Clarisse of the Cagliostro novel, but her personality and situation is more like the title character of the latter novel.  And there are other parallels too.

There is good reason this is often considered the best Lupin film, I might be the only person who thinks the Mamo film is equal to it.  It is a very well directed and beautifully drawn film.  It’s also been very influential in both Japan and the west.  The climactic final confrontation inside the top of a Clock Tower would be homaged in Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective, and in the first Clock King episode of Batman: The Animated Series.  I could have mentioned this in my The Mysteries of Gotham blog post, where I talked about how the roots of Batman directly or indirectly often go back to French Pulp Fiction.