Sometimes a single Show gets Sole Credit for a Trend it's only the most well known example of.

The almsot over current Fall 2023 Season of Anime includes not one but two Fantasy shows where part of how the story starts is the idea of beginning at or after where a traditional Epic Fantasy story ends [Update: turns out it was three actually].  They are massively different from each other in almsot every other way from vibes to art-style to what subgenres they fit into to.

But the thing is nether is actually the first Anime that can be described that way, it also applies to Dead Mount Death Play earlier this year, to The Devil is a Part Timer several years ago, and I feel confident I recall one or two others in recent years who's names now escape me doing it [Update: Endro from 2019 is one of them].  And yet if this concept becomes even more popular in the coming years I suspect a narrative will develop that Frieren, one of the two currently airing, started the trend even though it didn't since it has a respectability or at least pop culture staying power that A Returner's Magic and those shows which came before it largely do not.

Because this has happened before.  It's like the Great Man Theory of History but applied to popular pieces of Media rather then people.

Take how Sword Art Online is blamed for the broader Anime trends that those above shows merely fit into Sub Genres of.  There were shows that actually qualify as Isekai airing during the same season and in preceding seasons.  Even if we distinguish what modern Isekai is like from what we usually got in the 90s and early 2000s then still War on Geminar from 2009-2010 largely fits the modern criteria, and in Japanese it even had the word Isekai in the title.  

But even if we go back to the era of SAO's original Web Novel publication a decade prior, 2002 had other fully immersive VR Video Game themed stories like .hack//Sign and all the way back in April that year's annual Detective Conan/Case Closed film The Phantom of Baker Street.

Sometimes many artists are coming up with similar ideas at the same time organically for reasons that can't be chopped up to one innovator who everyone else copied.  A common term for this kind of thing is a Zeitgeist.

Take for another example how throughout the 2010s every Incest Anime was viewed as part of a trend started by Oreimo.  Oreimo season 1 was again not even the only Incest show of it's season. Yosuga no Sora was also a pretty big deal at the time.  And earlier in the same year we had Kiss X Sis as both OVAs and a TV Anime.  But what bugs me about this is how people forget that Little Sisters being already a thing in Otaku culture is partly what Oreimo was about.  It's another trend that began in Classic Shoujo Celestial Legend Ceres and various Clamp works that Male Otaku started doing later.

Or we could talk about the narrative that Neon Genesis Evangelion "Altered Anime Eternally".  In that case it's not so much a specific trend or genre or trope that Eva is given sole credit for but the entire landscape of modern Anime.  I absolutely agree that 1995 was the beginning of an Era of Anime.  But Eva premiered in the last season of that year, the prior 6 months had already been filled with TV Anime and Movies and OVAs that were ground breaking and game changing in their own ways, and to a lesser extent so had the 6 months prior to that.  Eva was just one final Cherry on top of a very innovate Sundae.  (Also Metal Fight Miku was a completely original TV Anime in the Summer of 1994 that had no connection to any prior IP in any medium, and it was popular enough to get an English Dub.)

However It's not just in the world of Anime this happens.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a show I was once and kind of still am a fan of, it was my favorite TV show of all time before PLL and Anime entered my life.  But the narrative often presented by many of it's fans that it was not just the first Girl Power TV show but also the beginning of what I'll call Semi-Episodic Television in general, annoys me.

That narrative forgets that La Femme Nikkita started airing at almost the exact same time in January of 1997, and that Xena Warrior Princess had been on the air since September of 95.  "Neither of those is about a Blonde High School Girl with a superhero like double life" you may retort.  Well The Secret World of Alex Mack started in October of 1994 and lasted 4 seasons overlapping with Buffy.

And all of that is without even getting into the Girl Power Anime that was already officially available to American audiences.  Sailor Moon's DiC Dub debuted in Canada in late 95 and was on American TV by some point in 96.  The early episodes of Slayers were dubbed by the end of 95 as well, also Bubblegum Crisis had been released in the States in 91 and 92 and was Dubbed in 94.

But speaking of Sailor Moon perhaps it's hypocritical of me to say all this now when earlier this year I tired to defend the notion of Sailor Moon single handedly creating her genre (whatever you call it), well really Codename Sailor V in 1991.  The thing is 1990 had the first Devil Hunter Yohko OVA which technically fits all the requirements for being a Magical Girl Warrior but really doesn't fit in Aesthetically or Thematically.  And 92 also had the original video game debut of Galaxy Frauline Yuna. Then there's other niche things like Dream Hunter Rem.  And if just having a magical transformation of some kind works you could also add Majuu Senshi Luna Varga from 1991 to the conversation.

So I still agree with distinguishing the Magical Girl Warrior genre from the Sally the Witch style sitcoms or the Idol variation.  But Sailor Moon is merely the biggest not only piece of the puzzle of how that genre formed.

And all this is part of why even when a trend does seem to chronologically have a pretty undisputable singular starting point I still oppose dismissing everything that came after as mere copycats.  Yuki Yuna Is A Hero and Daybreak Illusion and Blue Reflection Ray each feel to me like shows their creators were trying to say something with, and that they would have tried to make in some form even without Madoka Magica coming first.

Re:Creators rejects Auteur Theory

Artists tend to be biased in favor of Auteur Theory since it serves their interests, they want to feel an absolute ownership over what they create.  So I did not expect to ever watch an epic Metatextual Fantasy story where rejecting Auteur Theory is explicitly the moral of the story.  But that's exactly what the Anime titled Re:Creators is.

Spoilers for Re;Creators will naturally follow.  But first here's it's spoiler free Synopsis on MyAnimeList for those who haven't heard of it before.

Humans have designed countless worlds—each one born from the unique imagination of its creator. Souta Mizushino is a high school student who aspires to be such a creator by writing and illustrating his own light novel. One day, while watching anime for inspiration, he is briefly transported into a fierce fight scene. When he returns to the real world, he realizes something is amiss: the anime's headstrong heroine, Selesia Yupitilia, has somehow returned with him.

Before long, other fictional characters appear in the world, carrying the hopes and scars of their home. A princely knight, a magical girl, a ruthless brawler, and many others now crowd the streets of Japan. However, the most mysterious one is a woman in full military regalia, dubbed "Gunpuku no Himegimi," who knows far more than she should about the creators' world. Despite this, no one knows her true name or the world she is from.

Meanwhile, Souta and Selesia work together with Meteora Österreich, a calm and composed librarian NPC, to uncover the meaning behind these unnatural events. With powerful forces at play, the once clear line between reality and imagination continues to blur, leading to a fateful meeting between creators and those they created.

Also here is Mother's Basement's video made when only 7 episodes out of 22 had aired.

https://youtu.be/kwS1mX_Clfw

Now my analysis begins, again beware of Spoilers.

 

First of all on a pure Symbolic level two of the relevant Creators in the story are literally dead when the story begins, both the creator of our Antagonist and the creator of who I feel is the real Protagonist of the show, it's Kuudere Gandalf.  It is quite literally about Characters living on beyond the deaths of their authors.

But more directly relevant, when various authors aware of what's going on start trying to write new retcons to power up our protagonists, they discover that something truly becomes Canon only when the audience accepts it.  So in the rules of this universe Han indeed Shot First.

This is one of those Anime where the Antagonist is much more who the story is about then the Protagonists.  And indeed the Antagonist is a character who's abilities mostly don't come from her original author.  She's basically an Internet Meme Character who gets new powers every time someone makes a viral YouTube Video about her.  Also she began as an AU Fan Fic version of another character.

I'm in the difficult position of being a Star Wars Prequel Trilogy fan who's not a supporter of Auteur Theory, Worley and Nerdonymous were all about Auteur Theory.  I don't defend the Prequels because I think George Lucas's artistic vision is the definition of good Star Wars, if that were the case I would also like the Original Trilogy.  In fact the only OT film Lucas directly created as much as he did the Prequels is the one I like the least, heck I even like most Disney Star Wars content more then I like A New Hope.

I love the Prequels because of the work countless artists put into making them and how the fans later expanded on the world they created.  Rick Worley's pious devotion to Auteur Theory is what lead him to becoming a full on J. K. Rowling Simp.

Auteur Theory was coined in the 50s or 60s by French Philosophers but before then it was basically the premise of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and why that work has a history of resonating with people who find her political world view repulsive like Zach Snyder and ColdCrashPictures.

However traditional Death of The Author isn't exactly what Re:Creators is arguing for either, rather it's arguing something far more Communist in nature.

1. Being rooted in Classical Liberalism the original Death of The Author Essay is focused on the validity of Individual Interpretations not Collective Fandom interpretation.

2. The original DoTA Thesis also still insists there has to be a basis in the text, the reader can't just make something up out of no where or based purely on Vibes.

Both those restrictions are defied by what Re:Creators depicts.  The collective Audience absolutely has the power to add something with no basis in the original.  And Collective Interpretation is the point.  It's a system where Fanon is the Canon.

A Certain Raildex Watch Order Post

My recommended watch order is a version of the "simplified chronological order" which is the term other people use for an order like this.

Unlike past posts where I've given my watch order for this franchise I want to really break down and explain my logic more. 

A Certain Scientific Railgun (Season 1)

A Certain Magical Index (Season 1)

A Certain Scientific Railgun S

A Certain Magical Index II

A Certain Scientific Railgun T

A Certain Magical Index III

I have chosen not to include A Certain Scientific Accelerator because I kind of don't recommend it at all.  It's not horrible, a true franchise completionist will probably be able to get something out of it.  But it doesn't appeal to me much.  It's chronological placement is between Index I and II but it aired between Index III and Railgun T.

I also didn't give the movie a placement simply because it's not really canon at all.  I do like the movie a fair bit, but I wouldn't prioritize when to watch it.  Index season 1 has everything you really need to know for it.

In the spirit of this watch order not being strictly chronological, I won't make my arguments in their chronological order either.  I'll start with why each season of Railgun should be watched before it's numerically corresponding season of Index.

Railgun Season 1 simply is a better entry point to this world.  I do recommend skipping episode 2 on your first watch since it's both filler is gives an unfortunate first impression of a certain character.  But other then that season 1 of Railgun is a fantastic fun little SciFi show that only ever seems under whelming in the context of the major heights achieved by it's sequels.

One YouTube video I watched defending the Broadcast order as ideal insinuated that Railgun leaves some things unexplained because it assumes you already watched Index.  But especially as far as their respective season 1s go I really don't see what they're talking about.  Railgun is far better at organically explaining how the Esper stuff and Academy City's technology works, and the Magic stuff isn't relevant to Railgun, not in any need to know way.  

Sometimes I think we Nerds assume anything that can be read as a reference to something you've already seen in the release order can only work that way when the truth is they can often work either way.  

Railgun also simply is the better show by a significant margin, so much so that I can imagine the existence of people who'd like Railgun a lot but not Index at all while I can't imagine the opposite.  The way less Fanservice (by my definition Railgun has no Fanservice but I know some might disagree) the better pacing, the usually more intelligent fight scenes, the fact that it could almost pass as a Shoujo, all give it a broader appeal.  

So while there are reasons the order I listed above is best if you do watch both, if you aren't able to get into Index don't worry, nothing in the Railgun sequels absolutely depends on having seen any of Index, it can all stand on it's own.

But the reason why Railgun S should be watched before Index II even beyond all those above reasons is mainly episodes 6 and 7 (or episodes 30 and 31 of Index as a whole as some sites might number them).  This two parter is Kuroko focused and it will hit harder if you have the increased knowledge of her perspective on the Sisters Arc that Railgun S provides.

The particular reason why it's better to watch Railgun T before Index III isn't even much because of either show's main cast.  Episodes 4-6 of Index III is The Battle Royal arc which in the release order (and even more so for Index onlies) introduces a lot of new characters a good deal of whom die in this same arc.  Now the Anime should have given this arc more then 3 episodes to begin with but even if it had I'd still say it works best with the prior investment in Item, Member and School that Railgun T provides.  (Scavenger isn't in Battle Royal however so you could say you've seen everything relevant by the end of episode 20 of T).

Now some will tell you you the later part of Railgun T requires having seen Accelerator first because of Scavenger but here's the thing, I had seen Accelerator first as it aired and I'd forgotten about Scavenger by the time their Railgun T episodes aired.  Railgun T on it's own makes a perfectly fine introduction to them and for me is entirely what endeared me to them, it refers to them having had a bad experience with Accelerator but it's not difficult to guess what that entailed, we don't need to have seen it just like we never needed to see the Kessel Run.

Now as I said if you do watch both there are benefits to watching at least some of Index before the second and third seasons of Railgun.

The reason Index season 1 should be watched before Railgun S is The Sisters Arc.  This arc is to a large extent the same story told from different POVs.  But it is Touma's POV that presumes the audience will be as uninformed as Touma is, while the S version does have some dramatic irony going on, not so much it can't be followed at all on it's own, but enough that it adds to the experience to have already seen the other version.

The reason to watch Index II before Railgun T is mainly again episodes 6 and 7 since they explain one key aspect of what's going on with Kuroko during the Daihasei Festival.    In fact if you are someone who generally hates Index and is a Railgun fan only these are the only two episodes of Index I'd remotely suggest a Railgun fan can't simply ignore.

There are also a few things that reference the events of Index's Daihasei Festival arc while the reverse never happens.

Thing is the Railgun T Daihasei Festival also via one character references a Railgun story still not animated at all, so there is no avoiding an Anime only feeling like they missed something.  

Sometimes the Second Episode is the Problem that the Three Episode Rule protects against.

Some attempts to deconstruct the Three Episode rule focus mostly on defending the first episodes.

But a main reason I consider it important is how often I consider the exact second episode of a show to be one of it's worst.  Maybe some of you are thinking "well you don't need a Rule to not give up that quickly".  The thing is it's very easy for me to imagine finding a story's initial set up to be the only part of it that's good.   With American LA TV shows it's definitely happened a few times where I found a first episode pretty fun but as soon as they settled into their regular weekly routine I got bored of it.

Now when it comes to Anime where the second episode can give a potentially harmful early impression.  There are fortunately some that are episodic enough where I'm very willing to just recommend skipping the second episode entirely, at least on your first watch.

That is most heavily the case with A Certain Scientific Railgun.  What is so frustrating about the second episode isn't exactly something never in other episodes, but that's the only one where it's the main plot of the episode, and goes further with it then the show ever will again.  And it's not even filler in the Monster of the Week sense, but it fortunately has no actual connection to the Level Upper Arc.

The second episode of the 90s Sailor Moon Anime actually was skipped by the original DiC localization, so we have documented proof that it wasn't actually needed (thing is other episodes DiC skipped were among my favorites).  With Sailor Moon I'm kinda willing to tell people to just watch the 3rd episode first.

But in less episodic shows this goes back to the structural reasons the three episode rule exists.  The firs 3 episodes are often like an extended first act of a movie.  The first and 3rd episodes contain the most vital things that establish the world and initiate the plot.  The second episode can often be mostly necessary but less engaging connective tissue between them.

I also want to acknowledge the early Pokémon Anime here. In that case I really like the second episode but I know not everyone considers it great because of Suede's Pokémon Journey's review of it.  The second episode is to me filled with lots of fun stuff and it's certainly important set up and world building.  But it is indeed not as "tightly" written as episodes 1 and 3.

Poly Anime needs to diversify

Back when I first defended In Another World With My Smartphone season 1's Poly plot twist as an inherently progressive step forward I also said that we need other types of Poly representation in Anime as well.  And now that we have two Polygamous Anime airing in the same season it's time for me to restate that.

I'm enjoying both Girlfriend, Girlfriend season 2 and 100-Girlfriends so far.  This is not me condemning either of them, I find Weeb Revolution's overly cynical analysis of them rather annoying.  This is simply me demanding more. A Harem that takes a Non Monogamous Resolution will always get points from me over the most that don't.  Cat Planet Cuties is a show I wish I'd known about sooner.

The first alternative likely to enter one's mind is Polyandry.  Post 2017 Anime already had an opportunity to drop some Polyandry rep and rejected it in how the 2019 Anime adapted the first Boogiepop and Others Light Novel.  But even that would have been among side characters to the main plot, Shoujos and Otomes deserve the same wish fulfilment fantasies that these Shounen and Seinen Anime are providing to their target audiences.

But more importantly then that I want scenarios where it's not just 1 person with multiple other binary gender partners.  One thing firmly baked into post Haruhi Anime culture is the idea of a show built around a core cast of 5 with 2 guys and 3 girls.  How about one of those where it's also a Pansexual Polycule, I recently watched Gamers from 2017 and it feels like it should have just gone there.  But also the mainstream Binary Genders shouldn't be the only ones in on the fun either.

But even going back to the topic of Heteronromative Harems that take the "marry them all" option, there are a lot of assumptions involved in assuming they can only appeal to someone projecting onto the one guy or girl and not the other gender involved.  In the world of online Erotica I've seen a lot of evidence that people of either Gender can be into the idea of sharing the object of their affection, and I don't just mean in the Cuckolding fetish type way either.  One old Meme is that written porn is for women, well I've read a lot of written Porn that is Polygynous.

It's frustrating how many criticisms of Non Monogamy as a concept still assume the alternative has to be Polygyny in it's worst most blatantly Patriarchal forms.  I watched one Youtube video recently where some guy felt it made sense to refute Gen Z Polyamory culture by talking about Bride Price and stuff going on in Africa.

But returning to the topic of recent Poly Anime I think about that Girlfriend, Girlfriend scene where Shino asks Naoya if he's thought about how he was gonna support two people, and how at no point did anyone think to question the assumption that it has to be the guy alone providing the financial support.  Because even in how to do Monogamy Japan is still fairly old fashioned in it's default way of thinking.  When Marriage is still being defined by a Patriarchal starting point actually doing Polygamy is a lot more viable for the wealthy.  But obviously a Communist Polycule is going to take a more Collectivist approach.  From each according to their ability to each according to their needs.

Light Novels should be adapted as Movies rather then TV Shows more often

I say this as someone who is in general biased for more serialized modes of storytelling and in fact that bias has played a role in why I like Anime so much to begin with.

But the Anime that embody the strengths of serialized story telling are usually Original TV Anime (and some OVAs and ONAs), and Manga adaptations.  And a lot of Visual Novel or Video Game adaptations work being adapted into a more serialized format because their structure is often like something serialized so that the player can be given convenient places to take a break.

LNs however are kind of the Japanese equivalent to YA novels or airport novels except shorter in length, their original narrative structure is usually much more similar to Movies then to a TV Series. And the Light part of term implies it's pretty rare for there to be too much for a single movie. 

My problem with the broadcast order of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is that it butchered the structure of the original LN which actually is a good stand alone work of art on it's own even if it had never gotten sequels.  The chronological first 6 episodes of Haruhi are the adaptation of that LN and I kind of wish someone would just fan edit them into a movie (both a Subbed version and a Dubbed version).

Sword Art Online was actually adapted similarly to Haruhi in this regard except in that case the inserted short stories written later to flesh out the original arc made the Anime more chronological then the source material rather then less.

The fact that some LNs are short story collections is perhaps the counter point to this thesis.  I suppose the short stories could be adapted as OVAs or ONAs.  But some movies are made as collections of shorter stories rather then one feature length story.

We've already seen success in adapting LNs as movies rather then TV shows.  The Live Action Boogiepop and Others movie, the Kara no Kyoukai films, the SAO Progressive movies of which only one I've gotten to see currently.  Aura: Koga Maryuin's Last War which I think is a pretty underrated entry in the Chunibyo genre.  And most successful of all The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya.

But I also think about the niche examples where the serialized format combined with wanting to make a lot of progress in one season has hurt a story structurally.  I'm The Villainess, So I'm Taming The Final Boss rushing to the end of the first novel in only the 4th episode killed my initial enthusiasm for that series.

There are exceptions, Fate/Zero and Fate/Apocrypha are LN adaptations and I don't see how they'd work as a string of movies.  Some LNs do seem to be written from the start with the idea of being adapted into a TV Anime.  However more often then not in Japan the Anime is glorified marketing for the source material not the other way around.  But sometimes whether it gets adapted or not a first novel can seem more like set up for future stories then a satisfying story on it's own.  Maybe it's mostly older LNs this is true for.

The point I'm making is perhaps most proven by the Raildex franchise and the popular discourse around it.  

A Certain Magical Index's first LN was also written to originally stand alone if no sequel was greenlit, that is the plot of the first 6 episodes and they too feel like they could've been a movie.  I enjoy the Index Anime just fine but I'm a notoriously easy person to please, and I can definitely see how every arc that is given only 3 episodes or less (Deep Blood, Tree Remnant, Crystal Fleet, all of season III) could have used more screen time to flesh everything out.

A Certain Scientific Railgun was serialized from it's inception and so the Anime is able to improve upon the Manga in the same way many past Anime based on Manga have from Sailor Moon to DBZ to the original FMA Anime by adding much needed episodic filler episodes and the occasional filler arc that is just as peak fiction as the Manga yet purists hate on them anyway.

Railgun works as a series because the source is also a serial, Index would have been better as movies.

It is true that sometimes even the LNs will split an arc across more then one LN.  SAO started doing this as early as Fairy Dance, and Boogiepop did it back in the 90s with Vs Imaginator, and Index has indeed done it a few times.

So those being adapted as a movie per LN can at first glance be mistaken for those misguided times Hollywood has split the last novel of a YA saga into two movies.  However Across The Spiderverse was pretty universally praised in-spite of ending on a Cliffhanger.  And in the world of Anime we have prior precedent for this with the Nanoha Reflection and Detonation movies being one story split across two films, and then the latest Prisma Illya movie also ended on a cliffhanger.

Maybe 20 years ago the idea of devoting a 20+ novel saga to movies rather then TV would have seemed unthinkable.  But now we live in a post MCU world where Cinema itself can be a little serialized.

Update November 2024: In the slightly over a year since I wrote this I've now finally seen Durarara! and Baccano!

Durarara! works surprisingly well as a TV series, I wouldn't change anything about it or recommend doing anything different if more season of the Anime are made.  It can be another lead counter example to my thesis.

Baccano! also worked very well as a miniseries, but I do think what Baccano! pulled off is likely to only work as a one season gimmick, I'm skeptical a second season could do the same thing with another 4 LNs.  It helped that the Flying Pussyfoot story was a two parter and that they could use Isaac and Miria as the main glue connecting the different stories.

If Baccano! gets more Anime, and I very much want it to, I would suggest just making movies out of as many of them as possible.

Perhaps some of you think too many individual Light Novels are not "Epic" or "Cinematic" enough to warrant a movie.  But I like plenty of small scale low stakes movies, from random Lifetime Original movies I've watched to old movies set in very isolated settings.  Not everything needs to be about the potential end of the world or destruction of an entire city to be film worthy.

Update September 20025: After reading up on what happens in the So I'm A Spider, So What LNs, I'd have the to say the first 5 volumes jumping around between time period would have made them more difficult then usual to work as films.  But that aspect of the story is done going forward and Volumes 6 and 7 which pick up where the Anime leaves off  but only on the earlier part of the time would each make very epic awesome and fairly stand alone movies. 

Railgun T has only one problem

 A Certain Scientific Railgun T is an Anime I'm loving more each time I rewatch it.  Railgun S as a complete work of Art is still the greatest Masterpiece of the Raildex franchise.  But Railgun T being a bit less intense and more episodic is perhaps proving to be more rewatchable for me personally.

The Daihasei Festival Arc was perfect, and most of the Dream Ranker Arc was very fun, lots of cool one offs that expand the universe, and for the most part even what it's main plot winds up being is very interesting.  

But I have one thing against it.

And that problem is a Spoiler so don't read ahead if you don't want to be spoiled.

The fact that the show does in fact declare the Doppleganger to not have a Soul really really bugs me.  And honestly it makes me wonder if anyone even knows what that word even means anymore.

The Soul is not actually something the existence of which is debatable, what's debatable is if it's immortal or not, yet it's clear many writers of modern fiction think it's definition is the thing certain religions say still lives when the Body dies, but it's not.  The Greek word translated Soul is Psyche.  Even the most Hyper-materialist ancient Greeks like the Epicureans did not dispute the Psyche existed, what they argued about was if it's immortal or not.

Anything that has a Psyche has a Soul, anything that has Self Awareness has a Soul.  Most important of all though, only a being with a Soul could ever be suicidal.  A life form running on pure animal instinct or AI programing could never develop a desire to end it's own existence.

The concept of an AI wanting to die but being unable to act on that directly because of it's self preservation programing is an interesting idea for Sci-Fi to explore.  But to then turn around and proclaim that entity doesn't have a Soul is absurd.

And to top it all off the Doppelganger's Psyche even proves to be immortal still existing after it's body dies.  So I honestly am baffled and have no idea what definition of the word Soul this Anime was possibly using.