Dark Elves in Anime are nothing like The Drow

I find it interesting how whenever the Moriquendi come up in something I'm reading or watching about Arda Lore the author needs to stop and explain how “Dark Elves” in Tolkien have nothing to do with the almost Demonic qualities Dark Elves have in modern Fantasy.  Because it’s really mainly DnD Dark Elves they have in mind, perhaps also the second Thor movie.

I watch a lot of Anime, and while on the one hand the influence of Tolkien is way less direct on Fantasy Anime that feature Elves and Dwarves and Goblins then he is in The West, so is DnD, in Japan other Tabletop Role Playing Games were always more popular than DnD.  And I can’t help but wonder if almost by sheer coincidence the Dark Elves you see in Anime are not too dissimilar to the Avari?

These Anime definitely still use the term differently.  Moriquendi in Tolkien’s writings refers neither to a moral assessment or anything about how they looked, it simply meant neither they or their ancestors ever saw the Light of the Trees.  I think most casual film only Tolkien fans would be most shocked to learn that Legolas and the other Mirkwood Elves are Moriquendi not Calaquendi.  So I feel like mentioning here that the standard Elves you see in Anime and JRPGs even if they are called “Light Elves” or their home is called Alfheim are if I compared them to any of Tolkien’s Elves really Wood Elves, perhaps even more specifically the Sylvan Elves before the Sindar royal families took them over.  The thing that might most disappoint a Tolkien fan watching Fantasy Anime is that there are no High Elves, no one who seems at all like the Vanyar, Noldor or even the Teleri of Beleriand.  The Anime or JRPG races that do give off Calaquendi vibes to me are not actually called Elves at all but rather are the Cetra of Final Fantasy VII and the Iorph of Maquia.

Tolkien devotes surprisingly little time to describing what any of his Elves looked like, especially in terms of Skin, Eye or Hair color.  The Sylvan Elves are often assumed to all be Golden haired because only one of them ever had their hair color described at all.  It is possible those Avari tribes who stayed in the East or South even into the Third Age may have developed darker skin tones just like the humans living in those parts of the world, but either way that’s not why they’re called Dark Elves.

There is a lot of talk about how Dragon Quest is the key Ur Text of a lot of aspects of modern “Generic” Fantasy Anime (like how Orcs in Isekai are usually Humanoid Pig creatures rather than another word for Goblin as it is in Tolkien).  However it seems the Anime Dark Elf trend is an exception to this, I have never played any Dragon Quest game but from skimming the Wiki they seem to have no Dark Elves.

So the archetypal basis for the Anime Dark Elves I’m talking about seems to come from Record of Lodoss War, principally the character of Pirotess who’s also important in the spin off Legend of Crystania.  Likewise the Blond Haired Green Clad Archer Elf Maidens of modern Anime largely descend from Deedlit.  Record of Lodoss began literally as a Tabletop Roleplaying Game campaign, but again whenever someone talking about it says it simply was DnD they are assuming, it seems they mostly made up their own rules that drew more on Tunnels & Trolls and RuneQuest.  And I’d say the greatest evidence of that is how Pirotess is nothing like the Drow of DnD.  Modern Anime Dark Elves clearly based on her in part include Aura Shurifon in War On Geminar and Yao Ha Ducy in Gate.

The look of these Dark Elves tends to be Silver Hair and a fairly Dark Skin tone but not like you see in Africa.  The Japanese have a fairly decent variety of Skin Complexions among themselves, there are a number of darker skinned Anime characters in shows set in Japan who the western audience tends to at first assume must be some type of Gaijin but usually no it really just represents coming from certain regions of Japan.  And I think that may be largely what they are going for with these Dark Elves, because they are at the end of the day not all that fundamentally different from the Vanilla Elves.

If you brought back the old Norse terminology you could have both types of Dark Elves in the same story, with Drow style Elves as the Svartalfar and these RoLW style Anime Dark Elves as the Dokkalfar.

Ten year anniversaries to 2014 Anime

 Perhaps it’s odd that these weren’t the first 2024 anniversaries I thought of talking about since 2014 is when I started this blog, and using Blogspot in general.

I don’t think 2014 can be considered a turning point or pivotal year for Anime the way 2004 and 2017 can.  But what it is important to is my personal history with Anime.

That I still consider 2014 in some sense the beginning of my Anime journey is difficult to explain, I was definitely already familiar with a number of Anime, even some niche ones you wouldn’t expect to be among the few a Western Comic Book Nerd has seen, educated enough on Yuri specifically to recognize the Class S allusion in Mariko/Yukio in The Wolverine in 2013.  Yet it wasn’t till 2016 that it truly took over and I became willing to call myself an Otaku.

Sailor Moon Crystal and the 90s Anime going up on Hulu got my attention as I’d always had some interest in Sailor Moon but had not truly completed any series of it yet.  And then from that Hulu recommendations at the time lead me to Madoka Magica and then Utena and then Rose of Versallies.

SMC was the first time I even kinda watched something as it originally aired in Japan.  But there were at least 2 other 2014 shows I had seen before 2015 was over, Engaged to The Unidentified and Yuki Yuna Is A Hero.

YuYuYu and Wixoss together make 2014 perhaps the year that “Madoka Clones”, became cemented as its own Sub Genre.  Season 2 of Chunibyo airing that year is an interesting coincidence.  As well as the second season of Prisma Illya.

No Game No Life was a show I watched early on in my taking an interest in Isekai.

Other fun shows of 2014 include D-Frag which could have been the new School Rumble if it’d gotten more seasons, Aldnoah Zero and Terror in Resonance are both shows I consider underrated.  Akuma No Riddle and Is The Order A Rabbit were also notable.  The Coffin Princess is a show I have On Hold.  Akame Ga Kill and SAO II are also from 2014.  Amagi Brilliant Park, Psycho-Pass 2, Unlimited Blade Works and Magic Kaito 1412 ended the year strong.

Sakura Trick is a show I was surprised to see was that recent, it is perhaps the last show that could be mistaken for a Bronze Age show.

The Detective Conan movie of that year was The Dimensional Sniper the last film written by the guy who wrote most of the prior ones and first to feature Sera Masumi or the FBI characters.  It's one of the better movies, probably the best of it's decade.

Anime Terms need to be defined based on Vibes rather than Technicalities

For most Anime terms the idea is to explain the appeal of a certain genre or trope or character archetype.  That way of defining something can be more subjective so I will agree the line is not always easy to spot.  But it will steer us wrong far less often than a strictly technical definition.

More often than not the technical definitions I'm referring to wind up being more broad rather than more strict, but there are notable exceptions to that.

Yuri is the one where I have the least problem with the more broad technical definition.  Using the word casually for all wlw content in Anime/Manga/LNs/VNs and Bishoujo Games is something I do myself and it’s become far too pervasive for anyone to stop it even if they wanted to. That said, few would deny there are certain Vibes associated with the term that make a more specific explanation necessary.

Erica Friednam also uses the word of all wlw content in Anime but also has a more specific definition she likes to use being “Lesbian content without Lesbian identity”.  My problem with that definition is the kind of judgmental vibe it has in the context of how she often talks about what characters she does and doesn’t consider a “Real Lesbian”.  It feels intentionally or not related to concepts like Political Lesbianism and other relics of Second Wave Feminism. 

Yuri Scholars like Erica Freidman will also talk about the concept in Japanese Culture of Class S, the notion that adolescent girls are expected to have quasi romantic friendships that they will grow out of when they become adults.  

My contention is that Yuri as a Genre essentially is the Class S set up, a given work may play it completely straight, it may explicitly reject the notion that they will grow out of it, or it may refuse to address that final question, either way the initial Class S set up is the core of what Yuri is.

And because parallel ideas to Class S did exist in Western Society in the past, I consider it appropriate to let our use of Yuri language drift into how we talk about Western Media only where a Class S parallel is arguably present.  So for example many of those old Lesbian Pulp Fiction novels of the 50s and 60s can fit in with the Yuri genre, as can Nancy Garden novels like Annie On My Mind and Good Moon Rising, as well as Emily Fields’s complicated love life on Pretty Little Liars.  However, using it to describe Harley/Ivy feels wrong.

However the concept of calling Lesbians "The Lily Tribe" goes back to the 70s in the Barazoku magazine.

Bifauxnen is a term that can easily at face value seem like just an Anime word for Butch, but I feel it’s definitely more specific than that.  Butch can refer to women who have no aesthetic femininity left in them at all, Bifauxnen definitely does not.  When you look at some of the standard Archetypal Bifauxnen from Haruka Tennoh/Sailor Uranus to Amane in Strawberry Panic to most recently Manaria Sousse from I’m In Love With The Villainess it’s clear that the concept is in fact a particular blend of Masculine and Feminine, (I’d love to see a Bifauxnen character who was Assigned Male At Birth but I’m not holding my breath for it).  They are Masculine in a Princely or Knightly way but not in a muscular hairy barbarian warrior way.

The Fire Witch in the Boogiepop LNs is described as Bifauxnen but in adaptations I feel only the 2000 Live Action Movie where she’s played by Maya Kurosu succeeds in conveying that, however I may just have an irrational bias against seeing it in any long haired character design.  Similarly in the recent Willow TV Series Kit Tanthalos played by Ruby Cruz proves a Western Character can qualify, it really pisses me off that Disney buried that show.  

Returning to 2D characters Cure Sword/Spade in Doki Doki PreCure/Glitter Force is a good example, one of my favorite Yuri Doujins involved her and the Blue called Jealous Jealousy 238622. So short hair tends to help but it’s not all there is to it, Ami Mizuno for example has short hair but doesn’t at all come off as androgynous because of it.

The Yandere is where my takes on things may start getting controversial.  

First is that you will sometimes see a Male character described as a Yandere and this to me misses the point.  A Male being obsessive and overprotective and controlling and unwilling to take no for an answer is unfortunately in real life far from uncommon, it’s a real concern Girls and Women have to worry about every time one even looks at them.  The Yandere is supposed to be Absurd, it’s supposed to be the unlikely Absurdity of a Girl taking on those conventionally Masculine characteristics but still being Hyper Feminine in every other way.  Treating it like a Gender Neutral term that just happens to be associated with Cute Anime Girls because that’s all Otaku care about ignores the deeper commentary at the heart of it all.  At best a Femboy/Otokonoko could be a Yandere but in that situation I’d immediately be afraid of the potentially Transphobic implications.

A second tendency I’ve noticed among Yandere that is not in the textbook definition is that they tend to be pretty conservative sexually, almost like that’s another comedic duality, being so nonchalant about killing but then incredibly Chaste.  It’s not just because they like to call the girls they see as a romantic threat to them Sluts, lots of female characters might do that in the heat of the moment regardless of their actual feelings on sex.  It’s that they’ll hold the object of their affection captive for days or weeks and never try anything, and they’ll get all shy about their Bra coming off in the Pool like any other Anime Girl.  Kotonoha in School Days is willing to have Sex with Makoto but only once she feels that’s her only option.

The big possible exceptions to that are people who are controversial to classify as a Yandere for more reasons than just this.  Sekai in School Days I refuse to classify as a Yandere first and foremost because in the original version of the VN she only gets homicidal under very specific circumstances that include her being pregnant and feeling abandoned and she only kills Makoto not the other woman. Sonozaki in Higurashi arguably predates the formation of the Yandere and her mental breakdown happens when she thinks Satoshi is long dead, and it also wouldn't have happened without the *Spoiler*.

The closest thing to a Western Analogue for the Yandere are the Female Stalker characters you see in a lot of Lifetime Movies.  However they are the opposite on the conservative sexuality point, they are usually a Femme Fatale at the same time.  Because their target audience are traditional stay at home housewives who regardless of how they vote can be assumed to be at least a little socially conservative, so they are made to appeal to the anxieties such women have about the kinds of Girls they fear might steal their Sons or Husbands from them.  The Anime Yandere is designed to appeal to Otaku who have a complicated relationship with Japan’s Purity Culture.

Netorare is a term that has multiple disputable aspects to how to define it.  But to start with the problem with simply treating it as an Anime synonym for Cuckolding is that Cuckolding in western live action Porn is almost exclusively a subgenre of Femdom, they involve women who never intended to be faithful.  And that even extends into more G rated allusions to the Feitsh like the Kesha song Bad Girl's Lament.

In an NTR Hentai or Doujin, even in the rare cases where it is even remotely reasonable to argue the girl consented, it still wasn’t premeditated on her part, she was Seduced or Tricked or Manipulated.  Hentai that rather does the above will get mistakenly tagged as NTR but they clearly have a different vibe.

There are other mistakes in how English Language websites apply the Tag.  If the Protagonist is the one taking someone else’s Girl or Boyfriend that’s Netori which some sites fail to recognize as a separate thing. And if the Girl is technically cheating but her husband or boyfriend isn’t a character in the story then he doesn’t actually matter.

However Netorare is a broad term in that it’s about the Emotional Feeling it creates and has nothing to do with there being a formal relationship, it can be about the protagonist’s Crush they never confessed to, or a close relative.  The VN You and Me and Her literally uses the word in reference to the prospect of your love interest dating someone else and not you.  However the way Wseterners currently used "Cucked" is also the same in that case.

Another psychological factor in what makes NTR distinct is how it often is essentially eroticizing the feeling of failing to protect your girlfriend.  And this is why Reverse NTR is a thing but attempts to gender flip Normie Cuckoling fail.  In Nomrie Cuckold porn it's just about the Cuck's failure to please his girlfriend while the notion that a male could ever be difficult to please is pretty hard for most people to buy.  The Boyfriend as an innocent who needs to protected is also a bit of a subversion of gender norms, but not completely incomprehensible.

Last but not least is in fact the term Anime itself.  

The common assertion that in Japan that word is used of all Animation is in fact an oversimplification of its complex history, Cynic Clinic and STEVEM and Carbioo-kun have done videos on that nuance.  It begins with how Osamu Tezuka himself in one conversation at least distinguished Anime from Animation.  In that context however it treats as innate to the definition certain tendencies of TV Anime that some Western Anime fans see as a Bug rather than a Feature, and excluding Ghibli from qualifying as Anime is something few would be happy with.  So that isn’t a debate I want to settle here.

But I do want to express that if Country of Origin is going to be treated as an important part of it we classify something as Anime or not, it’s kind of Racist to count Chinese and Korean Cartoons but not sufficiently Anime Inspired Western Cartoons.  It is an inherently White perspective of the world that assumes other East Asian countries are probably more similar to Japan than anyone else.  Japan lived in massive isolation from even the rest of East Asia for Centuries until contact with the West broke it.  Modern Japan is heavily Westernized and the origins of its approach to Animation are a part of that with some being influenced by Disney but Tezuka more by the Fleischers. So China and Korea and everyone else in the Far East’s Animation industries may be very adjacent to all of that in their origin stories, but they are still not the same thing.

And if you think they count because of how clearly Anime Inspired they are, then so does a lot of American Cartoons that don't have MAL pages.

Retro Rewatching of 2004 Anime

My stated intention to devote a lot of 2023 to helping start the Nostalgia Boom early 2000s Anime was not as successful as I’d have liked it to be.  But some fruit was borne.

One thing I noticed is a lot of what I devoted time to wound up being specifically from 2004, shows that will be having their 20th Anniversary this year.

2004 was an important year for the Magical Girl Genre with the original Futari wa Pretty Cure, much of PGSM airing that year, and the first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.  But also Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch and its sequel Pure which I still have On Hold even though I think about it a lot.  Tweeny Witches is another obscure show from 2004 I may return to.

Madlax is an enjoyable Hot Mess of a show that I like to consider a good example of the kind of Anime you can only find in the 2000s, along with Burst Angel which was a fun Anime NeoWestern.

Monster also started in 2004. I still haven’t finished that one but what I’ve seen I agree is good television.  And it’s not an Otaku show at all, Normies can get into it.

Most controversially of course was my passionate defense of Elfen Lied.

My preferring the original Fullmetal Alchemist to Brotherhood is also moderately controversial.

Specifically the Winter of 2004 had another show I still haven’t finished called Gilgamesh, that show has a lot going for its premise but its vibes don’t gel with me as much as I want them to.

From late in the year Mai Hime and To Heart Remember My Memories are two other shows I have On Hold I’ve been meaning to return to.  While Gankutsou and School Rumble are two more Classics of 2000s Anime.

I also enjoyed Rozen Maiden and Howl’s Moving Castle.  But we don’t talk about Kanazuki no Miko.

On the subject of Detective Conan aka Case Closed the first episode of 2004 was 345 the climax of the Vermouth Arc, and the very next episode opens with some aftermath to all that, but then it's two years before the main storyline picks up again.  In Spring was 356 the Kaito Kid episode of the year and the same month also had the 8th Movie Magician of The Silver Sky which I still rank among the best.  Episodes 371-372 I’ve noted as being one of the Columbo Style cases which I always have a fondness for.  Then 2004 ended with 383 a two hour special Heiji episode about Baseball that I wound up enjoying.  I still haven’t seen most 2004 episodes so I’m sure there are other Gems.

On the subject of Pokémon, some of the Pokémon Chronicles Episodes aired this year in Japan, while the main series was still in the Advanced generation.  And the movie for this year was Destiny Deoxys which I rank up in the upper tier generally preferring the Odd Number movies during the early Gens.

So I want to devote some time this year to revisiting some of the above and maybe watching more, but I won't be limiting myself to 2004.  Some 2002 and 2003 or even earlier stuff will be having the 20th anniversary of their English Localizations this year, but it’s not always easy to find out exactly when such localizations were made.

Septimal Anniversaries of 2017 Anime (Winter Focus)

I'm pretty sure I've still seen more Anime from 2017 then any other single year.  It was in late 2016 I started following Seasonal Anime.  So even 2017 shows I actually didn't watch till last year I still usually did in part because of the impact 2017 left on my memory.

The various Anime of 2017 will be having their Seventh Anniversaries this year which makes this a good time to revisit stuff from that year.  Both what objectively stood the test of time and what seemingly only I still think about.

You don't need at least a full Decade to start becoming Nostalgic for something, I started feeling oddly Nostalgic for 2017 during 2020.  And in 2022 we started getting unexpected sequels to seemingly forgotten 2017 shows suggesting it wasn't just me.

The first time I devoted a post on this blog to talking about how I'd seen so much of 2017 was in 2019 where I talked about ranking Anime from that year with presumably less of a recency bias then the usually trend of talking the immediate prior year.  In hindsight that year still had a bit of a recency bias at least in my mind.  Now we are truly in a time when 2017 can be considered too old to be current but not old enough to be Retro.

But I've also realized I don't like ranking things, most things I like I like about the same and/or for different reasons which makes me not like comparing them.  I'm also way to easy to please for my assessment on whether something is worth watching or not to be considered all that credible to anyone who even slightly agrees with the sentiment that most seasonal Anime is forgettable mediocrity at best.  There is rarely anything I Completed I will not consider wroth recommending in some way, or even much of anything I dropped I can't see redeeming qualities in.

So instead I want to comment on shows from 2017 I watched with more of a focus on what kind of appeal they have so readers can try to guess if it'd appeal to them or not.

I'm also torn between trying to cover all of 2017 in this post or just focusing on the Winter Season and saving the rest for future posts.  I decided to compromise, the last section of this post will try to cover everything from Winter 2017 I've seen, but first I'll comment on a couple from later seasons at the top of my mind right now, with the option to revisit them in a post more properly about their season later.

Unless said otherwise everything should be on Crunchyroll (except the movie they're rarely streaming anywhere).  Also there is probably an English Dub unless I say there isn't or it's a PreCure.

First of all the last post I made in 2023 included a comment on the second season of In Another World With My Smartphone, which I found mildly disappointing for perhaps unfair reasons, but I still stand by season 1 as a perfectly fun show that doesn't deserve how often it gets dismissed as the posterchild for generic disposable Isekai.  If you're one of those people who've become more tolerant of Isekai over the last few years rather then less you should maybe give it a second chance.  Land of Leadale had the same director so if you enjoyed it you'll probably have some fun with Smartphone.  If in general you like more Slice of Life Isekai that are not even pretending to be about some Epic adventure then Smartphone might be for you.  And it was the first Isekai to openly take a Poly resolution to it's Harem long before even that became a trend.

Re:Creators has been on my mind a lot since I finally watched it.  It's most remembered among followers of AniTube for Mother's Basement declaring it an "Instant Classic", and I now agree that it should have been.  I blame the fact that it was behind Amazon's double Pay Wall at the time and also how it still doesn't have a Dub, the later is the reason I didn't watch it till last year.  I've already talked about it on this Blog in the context of Kuudere being Stoics and Auteur Theory, and I added it to one older post where it's be a spoiler for me even say it was relevant to that.  If you are at all into Meta Anime, Anime about Anime, it's one of the best of the last Decade.  If you are a fan of the Magical Girl Genre is has a character who should definitely check out.  I as a DC Nerd also compare it to Crisis on Infinite Earths in a few ways.  It's still only legally on Amazon PrimeVideo but fortunately now it's included in the standard subscription, same one that gives you free shipping and a bunch of other shows.

Classroom of The Elite is perhaps worth commenting on now since it's season 3 is airing this season, I mentioned that show already in my first post of 2024.  I plan on waiting to Binge season 3 till all of it is Dubbed and may rewatch seasons 1 and 2 right before then.   If you like shows that more revolve around characters trying to outsmart each other then action it's a decent entry in that genre, I think it holds up better then say Talentless Nana.

And now to breaking down the Winter of 2017.

There is one carry over from Fall 2016, Trickster, which I Dropped after 16 episodes, so I saw at least some from 2017, but yeah the middle of the show bugged me.  But I clearly enjoyed something if I got that far.  It's a Detective Show with some ambiguous Yaoi and at least one supernatural element.

Akiba's Trip is one of the shows I didn't watch till last year, and shockingly I don't think I even recall hearing about it at the time.  It was perhaps the last time doing an Anime about being set in Akiba could work, in some ways it feels like a product of an older era.  It should NOT be considered a Vampire show though a couple weird details of the Pilot might trick some into thinking it is.  It's a fun show I think anyone who self identifies as an Otaku should watch.

Masamune-Kun's Revenge is a show I'd watched some of at the time but didn't finish till years later and still haven't watched it's recent second season.  It's a RomCom who's MAL plot description is pretty accurate.  It sticks in my memory mainly because a few scenes setting up the Female Lead in the Pilot I find actually quite Sexy in a way this genre of Anime rarely is, however if you too start to like her because of your Femdom Fetish you will be disappointed by the rest of it.

The Saga of Tanya The Evil gets grouped in with Isekai on a technicality but it's vibes and appeal are very different.  If you are into Fantasy or Sci-Fi with a WWI inspired setting you should check it out.  The main protagonist is someone a Leftist should not ideologically agree with but is fun to watch anyway.

Fuuka is definitely an underrated hidden gem of this season.  It's a good Romance Anime about characters starting a Band.  The issue is the first 2 and a half episodes contain some Fanservice the likes of which the rest of the show will not have, I ask people interested in the premise to trust me on this, most of the show will not be like that.

Little Witch Academia is one of the two 10/10s in the Winter season.  It's Harry Potter but good actually, but in truth more comparable to some of the Magic School stories that predate Harry Potter being an All Girls School.  I also recommend it to people who like My Little Pony Friendship is Magic or TumblrCore Western Animation.  I do kinda recommend seeing the OVAs first even though they are a different continuity.  This one is a Netflix Exclusive.

Gabriel Dropout doesn't have an English Dub but that's fine, it's the kind of show that is easier for me to watch Subbed then something like Re;Creators so I watched it pretty close to when it aired.  It is a comedic Slice of Life show that produced a lot of funny Memes at the time.

ACCA: 13 Territory Inspection Dept. is a show a lot of people found boring at the time but I enjoyed it.  It's a show about Bureaucracy but has some interesting world building and politics.  However it will never be an action show.

ChaoS;Child is the other 10/10, it's a SciADV show that does get Dark but is also worth it.  Now on CR the first episode will look like it's hour long because they crammed into the same video file Episode 0 which is really a recap of ChaoslHEad, I've always skipped that part on the rewatch.  I've talked about Chaos; shows on this Blog before.

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid was a very funny well animated Yuri show that doesn't need me to explain it's appeal.  I wasn't able to enjoy season 2 but season 1 regardless is still a classic.

Scum's Wish is a fun sexy show about people being emotionally messy, not unlike why I like Rumbling Hearts.  This one is on HIDIVE.

Monster Girl Quest doesn't have a Dub and isn't on CR since it's a Hentai, a rare Femdom Hentai which I recommend even though I found the ending disappointing.  It's not the only Hentai I've seen from the Winter of 2017 but the others aren't worth mentioning.

I've seen only a few episodes of KiraKira PreCure (I only list one on MAL since I add only what I've seen consecutively from the beginning there), it's one of the PreCures I struggle to get into even though I do like it's HaruMi inspired couple.  I did also see the Dream Stars movie but don't remember much about it besides Red Haired Haruka flirting with some Go Princess background characters.  The series is on CR now but the movies aren't.  Also not on CR is Mahoutsukai Precure which ended during this season and which I did see more of, it's gimmick was kind of Precure Harry Potter.

Speaking of movies, I enjoyed SAO Ordinal Scale but wouldn't recommend it to anyone not already into SAO as a series. Lupin III Geomon Ishikawas' Blood Spray is a very cool movie just like the other films in the Koike Trilogy. 

And the Washio Sumi movies are probably the better way to watch the Washio Sumi story of the Yuki Yuna Is A Hero franchise, but they aren't Dubbed.

Napping Princess is a very good stand alone movie I watched Dubbed on Tubi.TV but it's not there anymore, it isn't on any Streaming App now but can be digitally purchased on PrimeVideo, VUDU or Apple.  I'm not sure how to describe this kind of Anime film, if you enjoyed The Girl Who Lept Through Time or the last three Makoto Shinkai films you should probably check it out.

Update January 6th: Since I first wrote this I just watched Tales of Zestiria The X the second season or cour of which aired in Winter 2017, though the last episode was in late April for some reason.  It's a pretty good show, Fantasy and not even quasi Isekai, some may complain about how it uses CGI but it's nothing compared Luminaria or Chainsawman.  My favorite character is Princess Alisha who's one of those Anime Princesses that is basically Padme Amidala but better.

The Light Novel Age of Anime

In my post about the Ages of Anime last year I suggested that 2011 was the start of our current Age and then that maybe we could call this Age of Anime the Light Novel Age because even though plenty of Anime based on LNs happened before it feels like only in this era have LNs truly rivaled Manga as a Source Material for Anime.  While at the same time trends we associate with LNs have become prevalent even in shows that didn't start there, based on how it was structured I was genuinely shocked to learn that Dress Up Darling was a Manga not a Light Novel.

I decided to take a slightly closer look at the Winter 2011 season on MyAnimeList referred to as MAL for short going forward.  

The first show that comes up that season both when organizing by most members and when organizing by highest scored in Puella Magi Madoka Magica which was not a Light Novel adaption however it's writer Gen Urobochi was already notorious as an author of both LNs and Visual Novels. I'm not making this post to argue Madoka is in addition to everything else it's infamous for secretly a partial cause of the LN take over.  But if I didn't acknowledge the biggest show of that season someone might accuse me of deliberately ignoring it.

The second, third and fifth shows of that season ranked by most members were each LN adaptations.  (Winter 2010 did have at least as many LN Anime but not as congregated towards the top of this list.)  Those 3 are IS: Infinite Stratos, Is This A Zombie and Gossik with Gossik being the second when ranked by score.

But Infinite Stratos is perhaps the most important for my argument.  In one of my Isekai posts I suggested that In Another World With My Smartphone is no where near the first modern Isekai but is arguably the first to fully fit what we typically mean by a generic disposable Isekai.  Well Infinite Stratos I think has a similar role in the history of the Magic Academy genre.  The show Mother's Basement keeps calling the first of this genre of Anime doesn't in my view have the right Vibes to really qualify at all.  Infinite Stratos has the right visual look, basic set up and tone to clearly feel like part of this genre, only that it's technically Mecha rather then Magic is an issue, but they're all Newtypes which is basically Magic.

Spring 2011 had Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl who's Japanese title is slightly misleading since it does not have the vibes that Visual Novel YouTubers are thinking of when they talk about Denpa.

The thing about the history of Light Novels and Anime adapted from them is that what kinds of stories we most stereotypically associate with the medium also changed.  Stuff like Twelve Kingdoms, Slayers, Boogiepop and Others, Kara no Kyoukai, Kino's Journey, Baccano!, Strawberry Panic and Legend of The Legendary Heroes seem like very different beasts.  While the genres we associates with LNs today are still fairly varied, they are connected to each other by how they tend to be Otaku Media at it's most Meta Self Indulgent, and that largely started with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya in 2003.

So basically among all the LN based Anime made prior to Winter 2011 only three maybe four franchises I'm familiar with at all feel like the modern LN vibe.  The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, A Certain Magical Index and OreImo, the maybe Zero no Tsukaima, and all of them got animated during the last 5 years of what I call the Bronze Age of Anime.  And there are no shows that weren't LN based I would mistake for one, rather the opposite most LN based Anime were ones that seemed not much different from the Manga based ones.

Manga has by no means ceased to be important if for no other reason then that these Light Novels always get a Manga Adaption first before the Anime, I'm not currently aware of any exceptions to that.  Even Sword Art Online had a Manga as early as 2010 yet no one ever talks about it, all that discourse surrounding that franchise including changes between versions yet no one seems to even be aware of the Manga.

Seasonal Anime strategizing

 I keep going back and forth in my mind on whether or not I want to start consistently waiting till a season of Anime is over to watch it.

I feel like any show that isn’t Episodically structured is ultimately more enjoyable to binge watch.  I often feel like I forget a lot of what has happened while waiting a week.

One of the things that keeps luring me back into weekly viewing is wanting to be part of the online conversation which often is part of the fun.  Problem is I also watch the Dubs which are for most shows a few weeks behind anyway.

Same Day Simuldubs have started being a thing for some shows.  But it’s not always a guarantee any of the one or two shows with that treatment will be among the shows I’m interested in watching.

Most of 2023 had shows with no Dub at all I took an interest in.  But it tends to be a few weeks before I even know which shows to give up on hoping for a Simuldub for.

There is one other factor, if a show interests me enough I may just be too impatient to wait. Right now I don’t know if anything from Winter 2024 will interest me that much.

Classroom of The Elite is a show I like and even defend against its haters. But it’s not one of my top tier fandoms right now, and I know from experience it’s a show best watched binged so waiting for season 3 to finish shouldn’t be difficult.  Unless it gets a same day Simuldub but I doubt it since season 2 didn’t.

The other sequel I have an eye on is Tsukimichi, I loved season 1 and am glad we’re getting more.  It too however I may be able to be patient for.

So basically right now I'm planning for Winter 2024 to try waiting for most or all shows I watch.  But I may abandon that plan, I have no way of knowing how I’ll be thinking weeks from now.

Update January 3rd: I quickly decided it's safe to assume Gushing Over Magical Girls won't be Simuldubbed since it's both HIDIVE and crosses a certain line of problematic Lewdness.  But I am intrigued to see where it goes.