Fear_the_Reefer's Blog

Anime Relations: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso

Note: Spoilers for Your Lie in April.

Follows the Pitch meeting format from the Screen Rant youtube channel. Contains spoilers.

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Pitch Meeting: Your Lie in April!

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Person 1: So, do you have an anime for me?

Person 2: Yes sir I do, it’s called Your Lie in April.

1: Ooh, I like that name. April is tight.

2: It is a great month, provided people aren’t stuck in their houses the entire time.

1: That would certainly suck, but tell me about this anime.

2: So it’s about this boy who was physically abused as a child, and gave up on a life time passion as a result, leaving him in a deep pit of depression that all his friends hate to see him in.

1: Oh wow.

2: But then he meets this girl with a mysterious illness that’ll eventually become fatal, and he inspires her to pursue the performing arts, and she inspires him to find a new lease on life in return.

1: Oh cool, so you’re remaking Clannad?

2: What? We’re not doing that, why would you say that?

1: No, it’s a good thing. Clannad was awful, and enough time has passed for a better remake to come out.

2: No, it’s not Clannad, see, the boy had an abusive childhood,but the girl’s parents are super loving and supportive.

1: Do they own a pastry shop?

2: Yeah, why?

1: Do they live there, too?

2: Yeah, why?

1: Do they display their love for each other in loud, over-dramatic fashion right in public?

2: Have you seen this show before?

1: I sure have, back when it was called Clannad.

2: Did Clannad have a violin?

1: Yup.

2: Well did Clannad have a piano?

1: Nope, got me there. Clannad did not have a piano.

2: It certainly did not.

1: Okay, but does the main character have a male friend who’s more overtly girl-crazy than he is?

2: Yeah, but I’d argue most male main characters have that friend.

1: Then does he have several female friends who are obsessively thirsty for his dick, and would rather die alone than pork anyone else?

2: No, he only has one of those.

1: Aww, poor guy.

2: Poor guy indeed, that’s why I gave him two other love interests.

1: Ooh, what are they like?

2: Well the first one is one of his music rivals, who was one of the people inspired by his performance when he was a kid, and her feelings for him are conflicted between competition and hormones.

1: Okay, she actually sounds kind of interesting.

2: Yeah, so I’m making her a minor character, and only giving her a small amount of screen time.

1: Probably for the best.

2: And his other love interest is a child.

1: What was that?

2: His other love interest is a child.

1: Say that again?

2: His other love interest is a child.

1: One more time?

2: I feel like you should have heard me by now.

1: Oh I heard you the first time, I’m just trying to help YOU hear what you’re saying.

2: Oh, okay. I see what you did there.

1: So this child. She’s not his little sister, is she?

2: No, of course not.

1: Is she his best friend’s little sister, and he’s okay with her dating him because the main character is just such a gosh darn cool guy?

2: No, of course not.

1: Oh thank god.

2: I told you already, it’s not Clannad.

1: Not that part, at least. But okay, tell me more about the main character.

2: So, he’s a prodigy on the piano, but his dying mother forced him to play in serious competitions for the sake of his financial future and beat him when he messed up. Now he’s become scarred and traumatized, so he can’t hear the notes when he’s playing.

1: So what he literally can’t hear the notes? Did he suffer partial deafness from all the beatings?

2: It’s like half psychological, half metaphorical.

1: Oh, okay, that actually sounds super interesting.

2: Right, and his friends care about him, so they try to help him overcome his trauma and find his passion for music again.

1: Oh wow, well, after his dying mom forced him to use his music in a way he didn’t want to and used physical violence as a motivator because she thought she knew what was best for him, how is he going to overcome that?

2: Well you see, his dying love interest is going to force him to use his music in a way he doesn’t want to and use physical violence as a motivator because she thinks she knows what’s best for him.

1: Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow. Those two scenarios sound exactly the same.

2: They’re totally different sir.

1: And how is that?

2: Well, when his mom injures his head and makes him bleed, it’s going to be framed as serious. When his friends injure his head and make him bleed, it’s going to be framed as comedic.

1: You’re going to use slapstick for this?

2: Yes sir, we are.

1: And not only is the slapstick violence disturbingly similar to the serious violence, it’s going to happen to the exact same character?

2: That’s what we’re going with.

1: So an injury doesn’t hurt if you’re making a joke?

2: Precisely.

1: Then when his mother was beating him, couldn’t he have just nullified the pain by saying Knock Knock?

2: Well, no, you see, he was a child when his mother beat him.

1: Oh okay, how old is he now?

2: 14.

1: And how old was he then?

2: 12

1: That does not sound like much of a difference.

2: No, see, he was really little back then. When he sat on a piano bench, his feet didn’t even touch the ground.

1: I feel like most twelve year olds wouldn’t have that problem.

2: This one does.

1: Well all right then. I hadn’t considered that this particular twelve year old just happened to look like a six year old.

2: Oh, no, they all do.

1: Then why don’t you just abandon that whole confusing character design concept and just say they were six at the time?

2: Because.

1: Oh okay, fair enough.

2: Besides, the child abuse will look more tragic if he looks younger when it happens.

1: I’ve gotta be honest, this seems like this would be a really difficult show to market.

2: Actually, it’s going to be super easy. Barely an inconvenience.

1: Really? How’s that?

2: I’m gonna make people cry.

1: That’s it?

2: Uh-huh.

1: That’s all you’re gonna do?

2: Anime fans are suckers for the feels. As long as an anime makes them cry, they’ll ignore all of it’s flaws and practically spam it with 10/10 reviews, no matter how mediocre or even downright shitty it actually is.

1: Wow, that’s really cynical of you. You can’t actually believe that.

2: What about Angel Beats?

1: That show wasn’t terrible, though...

2: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0?

1: Nobody really remembers that one.

2: Say I Love You?

1: Ugh.

2: Do I really need to bring up Clannad again?

1: No you do not. Whore out the audience’s tear ducts, and we’ll be making money hand over foot.

2: Oh, you bet we will. We’ll even be able to sell it on DVD for 300 dollars!

1: What?

2: Oh yeah, people will totally fork over top dollar for this show.

1: Would this be like a special edition DVD with a bunch of cool bonuses?

2: Nope, just the DVD.

1: Not like bluray, or something?

2: Nope, just the DVD.

1: And you’ll charge 300 for it.

2: Well, 160 for each half.

1: Ah! That’s more than 300.

2: Whoopsie!

1: You’re gonna sell each 13 episode half of the series for 160 dollars?

2: No, of course not.

1: Oh thank god.

2: Each half will only be 11 episodes!

1: Okay, so not only are you going to release a Clannad rip-off that badly fumbles serious subject matter, cover up it’s flaws through blatant emotional manipulation, grossly overcharge people for physical copies, AND you’re going to short-change them what they’d usually get in terms of episode count?

2: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

1: Well, I like your confidence at least. We’ll release it and rake in the profits for the short term, but I seriously doubt it’s going to make a good impression on critics or withstand the test of time.

*Dramatic music sting, show image of the series being one of the top ten most popular anime of all time on MAL*

Anime Relations: Super Milk-chan

A while back, I posted a sort of experimental project called A Series of Tubes, where I went over the many different ways a certain anime... Azumanga Daioh, for that one... Had been represented outside of the official release. I promised that I’d do another installment at some point over then ext year, but unfortunately, this has never happened, as whenever I’d feel some sort of inspiration to start putting a list together, something else would come up, be it other projects or real life issues. Not gonna lie, the low number of views has also put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm for a follow-up.

I did, however, have one planned The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and while I might jump on that idea somewhere in the future... The list of videos is floating around SOMEWHERE in my stockpile... I was able to form a much more interesting idea out of the material I’d collected, and I started piecing together a much simpler and far more interesting idea for an alternative series: Instead of waiting for an anime’s assortment of AMV’s to entice me the way that Azumanga Daioh’s did, I could instead take a much more focused look at the weird little oddities that different animes have attached to them!

And thus, Anime Analogues was conceived, and for the first installment, we’re going to be looking at something I’ve always had a particular fascination with, live action content! now, to clarify, I’m not talking about J Drama adaptations, although I might look at a few of them in the future. I’m also not talking about interviews or studio tours. And no, because there’s a God and I generally like myself and my life, we’re not looking at American movies like Dragonball Evolution or Netflix’s Deathnote movie. Specifically, we’re looking about scripted live action content produced and directed by dubbing companies to supplement their dubbed DVD releases!

Are they all bad? Is there some good in them? Let’s take a look at a few of my favorite examples... Not that there are a lot to choose from!



1: Bento Brawl, from Bento

Ah yes, the anime about starving teenagers battling it out Mortal Kombat style for marked down bento boxes. I like this show, despite it’s noteworthy flaws, but I just don’t feel like there were enough Bento fight scenes in it. Well, funimation must have heard my cries, because on the special features section of disk 2, we get tosee a bunch of real life actors... Including one legit voice actor, Joel Mcdonald. The other named fighter? Justin Rojas, a Funimation employee. My research says “Director of social strategy & Development, and I have not the faintest clue what that means, but hey, he’s our other featured fighter.

This three minute clip begins as a bunch of Funimation employees(I’m assuming, I can’t get any names aside from the two) standing around an empty area of the office... Or who knows where... With half of them interacting with a couple of magazine racks and lazily-put-together merchandise shelves, all while a VERY American looking interpretation of a Bento box sits on a pedestal. They were clearly trrying to make this food look like Japanese food, but does any of it look appetizing? Those hot dog octopi look about as faithfully adapted as Yugioh was. Anyway, some random guy comes out with a $1 sticker from either the stationary or hardware department, depending what Walmart they went to for supplies for their last garage sale, and the fight commences!

Right off the bat, I’d just like to say how confused I am over what the hell they thought they were making with this. Based on the attitudes of the actors, it clearly had the relaxed, low standards, ‘criticism is inherently negative’ approach that their writing’s been under lately, but they clearly wanted to shoot and edit it with some sense of quality. The action is terrible, and while the editor used constant cuts to make the central fight between Justin and Joel look barely watchable, the action going on behind them looks so fake that it makes WWE look like UFC. The kind of fighting happening in the background keeps changing from shot to shot, and I swear to God there’s a part in it where two of the female actors are just standing around laughing at the main fighters. Call me crazy, I don’t think that was planned.

They clearly had ideas for this fight, but whether it was budget restrictions or safety concerns, some factor led to it constantly looking like they were never able to reproduce those ideas, and just said “Fuck it,” trying to get as close as possible to their vision. This is perhaps the most clear when the chopsticks come out as a weapon. The way they’re used is just kinda dumb and confusing looking, like they wanted to add special anime-style effects to the footage, but wasn’t able to, or they just didn’t bother.

There are bloopers, too, which is how they were able to stretch this concept to 3 minutes, but honestly, the whole video just feels like a blooper. All I’m saying is, if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right... So this thing clearly wasn’t worth doing.



2: The Adventures of the ASOS Brigade! From the Haruhi Suzumiya. franchise.

I won’t say there’s no cringe factor in this item, but at least it’s easier to watch than the Bento Brawl. In 2007, which was ten long years ago... Trust me, you’ll feel the years with every Myspace reference they make... A live action spin-off of the Haruhi concept was released to promote DVD sales in the US. I don’t know anything about that, as I didn’t see any of this until I started watching the DVDs, so I can’t say whether or not they were a hit, or if they helped DVD sales, but I can talk about whether these sequences were garbage or not. I... Well, maybe I can’t, because even at it’s worst, I can still find something to laugh at in this thing, and I genuinely can’t tell whether or not the unintentional comedy was intentional or not.

For starters, let’s talk about the cast. The eponymous Haruhi is played by Patricia Ja Lee, former pink Space ranger(As she’s quick to tell us) and occasional voice actor. Maybe it’s just me, but she doesn’t come off as a very strong actor. I got kind of a subtle vibe that she didn’t want to be there, she felt really awkward on camera, and there were a lot of moments where it sounded like she was trying to remember her lines one word at a time, and playing around with pitch and enunciation to cover it up. I don’t want to be too mean, but there were elements of William Shatner in her performance. Her costar, the rosy cheeked Haruka Inoue, felt a lot more comfortable and natural in front of the camera, even if she didn’t have as many lines, although having them both speak their natiuvel anguages while ignoring the barrier did feel quite jarring.

Yuki Nagato was played by two actors, the first of which wore the weirdest looking purple bob wig to try and utterly fail to mimmick Yuki’s hair from the show(Hint: It’s disturbingly similar to Kyon’s, color aside), and this must have upset a lot of fans, because she was replaced by someone else in the third episode. That, or she quit over the fact that she had to do a send-up to the even THEN outdated “ORLY? YA RLY!” Meme. WAI. The first girl played the role exactly as a robot would, and the second one slightly improved upon this by just sounding bored. Honestly, Patricia Lee’s ability to sound both wooden and hammy in the same sentence doesn’t sound so bad now.

They stuck to original scripts at first... They did some classroom/clubroom stuff, which benefited hugely from the precedent the series set about Haruhi being a terrible director, so all the production issues... At least some of which were likely on purpose... Didn’t feel so bad. They announced their intentions, who they were, and then they took theirm essage to the world! They visited the Bandai HQ building, usurped someone’s office(His reaction was comically awful, like he was about to do the underpaid office equivalent of hulking out), and then Haruhi stumbled through a passive aggressive speech about anime pirates paying for the DVDs to support the show. The message must not have gotten through, because Geneon USA would famously file for bankruptcy and go under later that same year. following this, they’d visit the Bang Zoom offices for a reveal of the cast(which anyone watching on DVD would already know about), and a studio tour. What’s noteworthy about this? Eric Sherman’s an even worse actor than Patty.

Then we get a much more interesting scenario, as the girls visit a mysterious warehouse called “Area 42...” Even the most hardcore Douglass Adams fans will be rolling their eyes at that one... and they investigate it looking for Aliens! They explore for a while, actually taking some time to have fun with the concept, like having an alien machine that changes your clothes. Haruka winds up wearing a sexy bunnygirl outfit, as if she wasn’t already the bright spot in the show. I also love how she has to pretend to be as shy as Mikuru when she is so clearly not. Anyway, they meet a costumed monster, and after battling it, they realize they’re on a movie set... No, they’re on a green screen... No, it was all a dream! This was all meant to sell the volume 1 Limited Edition series box, by the way. I have it, and it was totally worth buying.

One of my favorite moments in this series is when they visit the Bang Zoom recording studio to walk in on Crispin Freeman recording for Kyon, and they have some fun in the booth, and you know what? If Crispin Freeman wasn’t improvising his lines, then he was taking the lines they gave him and actuallym aking them sound natural. It HAS to be one of the two, because everything he said sounded genuine, but Sherman still sounded like he was reading off of cue cards. I don’t think they out the line Patty read into the show, but she did get a line in one of the later episodes, and it sounds like a precursor to her performance as Patricia Martin. Yeah, it’s that bad. The visit with Crispin turns into an interview, which was their attempt at evolving the show into english cast interviews, which I’m not going to talk about too much, but Crispin’s interview is hilarious, and seeing two former power rangers unite in Johnny Yong Bosch’s interview is also kinda cool.

Finally, after a bunch of interviews with the shows original apanese seiyuu, Haruhi takes Mikuru to a Japanese maid cafe to learn more about her own job, as well as to interview the maid there, and along with the Crispin Freeman one, I actually reccomend you check this one out. It’s really informative about how maid cafes work, they show you the fact that each maid wqorking there getsrepresented by a cute chibi plaque that was drawn by a famous manga artist, and it’s a pretty pleasant little visit. This is capped off with one final video where the girls dance the Hare Hare Yukai, and just like every single attempt at it that I’ve ever seen, it looks way too restrained and poorly rehearsed. Paricia looks likeshe’s doing her own thing for most of it, but atl east her footwork is fun to watch.

Oh, wait, did I say finally? Because there’s a second season of this. There’s not much to it, as only four episodes were placed on the Season 2 DVDs, and even then, one of the episodes was just repeated with slight alterations(Yeah, yeah, funny. Remind us of endless 8). The characters have been recast, with Christina Vee taking the role of Haruhi. Not only is she a much more prolific voice actor than her predescessor, but she’s a much better actor on camera as well. It’s a shame to not see Haruka Inoue, as Mikuru and Yuki are played by English speaking actors, which is a pretty jarring change, if I’m being honest.

Outside of the first episode, where we get to see the three of them being scouted by the Haruhi producer fortheir respective roles(He has the stage presence of a fucking log, by the way), we get to see them visit the Bang Zoom studio again, where they had a pretty clever idea of using Christina Vee’s desire to audition for a part as a lead-in to the announcement oif the orignal cast returning, and then she interviews Eric Sherman, and... That’s about it. We’re told about Asosbrigade.com as the place to go for more of their antics, but that turns out to be a dead website, and a search on the Wayback Machine doesn’t really bring up anything noteworthy or impressive. You can scour it yourself if you like, let me knoe if anything worth mentioning pops up. I was able to find a youtube video of the new cast dancing the Hare Yukai, and it’s slightly better than the original, but not by much. It’s a hard dance to get right, I know.

And that, as far as I’m aware, is it. Despite the step up from Patricia Ja Lee to Christina Vee, I actually like the first season better, just for purely so-bad-it‘s-good novelty. There was also clearly a lot more effort and imagination behind it, while the second season just felt kind of like an obligation.

Onto the final item!



An Entire Behind the Scenes Story Arc, from Super Milk Chan!

Throughout our exploration of live action anime sketches, we’ve seen something bad, we’ve seen something good-bad, so now, how about we take a look at something genuinely good?

I guess I can’t blame you if Super Milk Chan’s not your cup of tea. It was a really weird, unique anime that didn’t really fit into any estalished mold, it was abrasive and was populated by unlikeable characters, and that’s BEFORE it got dubbed by Steven Foster, a historically bad writer and ADR director. But to a voice chaser, the live action segments that were woven inbetween the animations are worth their weight in gold.

Yes, for this anime, the ADV studios team filmed a series of vignettes and short interconnected stories set in their offices, and featuring several big names from their voice acting talent pool. This includes the actual actors from the show, like Hilary Haag, Shelley Calene-Black, newcomer Taylor Hannah, the legendary Marcy Bannor, and the company’s three comedian talents, Rob Mungle, Tommy Drake and Mike MacCrae. It also featured appearances from other fan favorites like Monica Rial, Luci Christian and Christine Auten, who, like Hilary Haag, were all playing parts that fell in line with their real-life duties behind the scenes.

The first disk plays out like a normal day at the office, obviously exaggerated, with many interactions between characters that were meant to flesh out both their actual and fictionalized personalities, as well as offering an introcudtion to who they are for people who normally never look such things up. The second disk has an actual plot, with a power outage randomly happening while the new security system is testing it’s emergency feature, sending the offices into lock-down, and the actors being stuck in confined spaces together. The third disk features one single set that the actors have to keep walking in front of, having their interactions in front of it, with the gimmick being that one of the engineers lost the sound effect footage, and they all have to personally recreate the sound effects for the series with their own voices.

Some of these sound effects include Hilary Haag voicing eggs being whisked and fried, Rob Mungle doing a door being opened and closed, Taylor Hannah doing a gas stove, and pretty much the entire cast doing cat impressions. The best part about it is that when the sound effects happen in the animation portion, their faces actually appear in the corner of the screen as they perform the effect. They aren’t all great... Ben Pronsky’s helicopter blades effect noticably didn’t hold out all the way through the helicopter’s appearance... But for the most part, I was surprised at just how much these talented people could do with their voices. Monkey and bird calls, sure, but a car crash? I know this all happened in 2003, when the minimum wage was a lot lower than it is now(Believe me, I would know), but still, these people were not getting paid enough. Luci Christian has to put on an act of freaking out from claustrophobia at one point, and it’s pretty sick how convincing she is.

Some of my favorite interactions from these sketches include David Matranga being stalked by three fans on a studio tour(played by Greg Ayres, Chris Patton and Mandy Clark), Hilary Haag’s grandmother being offended at the language she’s using in the booth, Christine Auten just generally being a troublemaker(at one point sherandomly opens a door where you can hear Princess Tutu being recorded, which I thought was awesome), Tommy Drake wearing a dress and blonde wig for nearly the entire shoot(At his suggestion, according to the commentary), Hilary Haag hating on Taylor Hannah to the point that she had to hire a bodyguard, Taylor exploiting this for monetary gain to get back at her, Mike MacCrae accidentily flirting with a fifteen year old model, Marcy coming in hungover, Christine Auten hooking up with the security engineer, and so on, and so forth.

Also, don’t ask what’s hidden in Christine Auten’s desk.

Sentai Filmworks, or ADV Films as it was known back then, has always had a menchant for hiring actors who have experience in live theater, coming from stage backgrounds, and it really shows here. The camerawork isn’t always great, it can get pretty shakey at times, but all of the actors do fine jobs, looking perfectly confortable and natural on film. These vignettes are a great way to familiarize yourself with a bunch of amaqzing actors, even though quite a few of them aren’t active in the industry anymore. Seriously, Taylor Hannah’s been gone for so long that she doesn’t even have a wikipedia page anymore. In spite of this, I really hope you find a way to check this series and it’s live action content out, even if you have to go a little out of your way to find it.

Oh, and speaking of which, i’ll bet you’d like to know what happens in the fourth disk, dont you? Well, join the club, I couldn’t find a copy that didn’t require me to buy the entire set for more than 100 dollars. It’s hinted at the end of the third disk that trhey’re going to be visiting a convention overseas, and that does sound interesting, so hopefully I’ll find a way to watch it someday. For now, i’m glad you stuck around with me for this unorthodox post, I had a lot of fun writing it, and I’ve already started prepping for the next one.

Anime Relations: Fullmetal Alchemist

25: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid

Kicking off this list is the latest addition to it, and an anime that I actually watched very recently. I didn’t really know what to expect from it, as I’m not really big on watching seasonal anime, and this is one of the few series that I wound up checking out due to all the word of mouth surrounding it. I expected wacky, stupid hijinks, but I was honestly surprised by how relatable Miss Kobayashi is, how lovable Tohru is, and just how darn cute Kanna is. but most of all, I couldn’t believe how smart and clever the writing is. If I had to find a nit worth picking, it would be that i’m not the biggest fan of sexually aggressive characters who won’t take no for an answer, and while Tohru’s crush on Kobayashi is mostly harmless(outside of the OVA), there was a sequence of scenes involving a little boy(who’s literally named Shota) that gets under my skin, but it was thankfully brief, so that I could enjoy more hilarious hijinks with my dead-fish-eyes waifu and her cavalcade of crazy roommates.

24: Welcome to the NHK

I really need to watch this shiow again. It’s been years, but everythingI love about it still sticks in my memory with a vengeance. At first glance, this probably wouldn’t appeal to most people, especially in Western society... It’s a story about a college dropout in his twenties who rarely ever leaves the apartment his parents are paying for, is terrified of social interactions, and believes the NHK... Japan’s local TV service... Is unrolling a vast conspiracy against him and those of his kind. He’s also a complete sleazeball who’s plagued by toxic thoughts about others and himself, and just when you thought there was no hope for someone like him, his life is turned upside down when a mysterious teenage girl approaches him out of nowhere and attempts to rehabilitate him. What unfolds through her project is one of the most honest and unflinching shows about damaged people and social anxiety that I’ve ever seen, offering both hope and utter bleakness in a character driven story so complex that I feel it’s a crime to see it slip into obscurity with time the way it has. I really do need to watch it again, and while i’m on the subject, you should watch it too.

23: Mysterious Girlfriend X

I’ve often said that, with good enough writing, there’s no concept that can’t work in a story. This is especially true in the medium of anime, because there are some substantially weird concepts floating around in Japan, and animation can sometimes be the only way to explore them. One of the best examples of this is Mysterious Girlfriend X, a show about two high school love birds who were brought together by the strangest of circumstances, which i’m not going to reveal here, but trust me, when you see it for yourself, you’re apt to do a spit-take over it. But honestly, if the weirdness was all it had going for it, I probably wouldn’t love it as much as I do. In the midst of all this bizarreness is a surprisingly sweet, surprisingly tender romance between two individuals who are taunted by their hormones, but awkwardly unsure of how to take the next step. And I mean any step, as things like holding hands and touching each other come as major steps forward, but I’m pretty sure they don’t even kiss by the end of the series. I came for the gimmick, but I stayed for the characters and the story, and that... saliva... Ver needed.

22: Kino’s Journey

This is a weird one, as it’s a really difficult series to describe to people. It’s about a girl... Boy? Well, somewhat gender-neutral character riding from country to country on the back of a telepathic sentient motorcycle, and each of those countries... Well... I guess I could boil it down to them each having their own gimmick, but that would be seriously underselling it. Some of the situations that our hero comes across on his/her journey are nothing short of profound. They all have something to say, normally about humanity or society, but none of it is ever preachy. It asks you questions that you’d never consider important otherwise, and yet they still have the power to keep you up at night. As gently paced as it may be, and as beautiful as it can be, this is not a comfortable series, nor does it want to be. An old friend of mine once referred to it as a ‘rabbit hole’ anime, and while I dont think that’s entirely accurate, I do get what he meant by it... This is a show that gewts weird, and it sticks in your memory for all the right reasons.

21: Strike Witches

And with that, we go from profound ruminations on the human condition to a bunch of half-naked teenage girls with jet engines on their legs. I’m not going to make up excuses for this one, Strike Witches is pure cheesecake for me. It’s probably my biggest guilty pleasure in the medium, and although I do have some serious gripes with it, I still enjoy watching it. It’s true that the fanservice can get way out of control... Through some strange coincidence, each season jumps the shark into cringeworthy territory in it’s seventh episode, to say the least... But the animation is top notch, the characters are almost all awesome, the action is exciting, the English dub is superb, and it inspired what I still consider to be my best fanfiction ever. I’ve been hesitant to review it for the longest time, mostly because I can’t think of a good way to justify some of it’s more problematic aspects, but if I ever do a top ten guilty pleasures, i’ll probably review it then for it’s place at the number one slot. Until then, long live the 501’st Joint Fighter Wing.

20: Key the Metal Idol

So, there used to be three separate FYE stores in my relative area, and one of them had a massive used DVD section, which had a ton of obscure and disarmingly cheap anime items, and I’m not ashamed to say more than a few items on this very list were exposed to me through random single volume discs that I scrounged up there. This is where I originally found the first DVD for a curious title named Key the Metal Idol, and while I was only really interested in seeing boobs(Give me a break I was still a teenager), I quickly became so immersed in the story, characters and gritty aesthetic that I set out to find copies of all three disks, even going out of my way to find possibly the only copy of disk three in all of upstate New york for a whopping thirty dollars. It’s a lot easier to obtain in today’s market, which is great, because I love recommending it to people. One of my proudest moments as a reviewer was when someone on MAL sent me a message saying that she checked it out because of my review, and it was now her all time favorite. So, after that dip into my history, do you want to know why I love it so much? Well, I already wrote the review, and it’s a pretty good one, so go read that to get my complete thoughts on it.

19: Azumanga Daioh

As this list goes on, you’re going to see more and more titles that I’ve already reviewed, so i’m going to try to say new things about them, but you’ll have to forgive me if I repeat myself. Azumanga Daioh is a special anime for me, as it’s one of the first titles I was exposed to when I made the jump from anime that was airing on American TV to less accessible fare. And yeah, in the mid 2000’s, accessibility was more of an issue than it was now. I read the original manga at my town library, and found it so refreshingly funny, and so different from anything I’d read up until that point, that I wound up watching the anime on youtube(remember when you could do that?) before ordering the DVD set from Bestbuy. Interesting note, the first set didn’t arrive, and all I got was a torn open empty package, so I had to wait two more weeks for delivery. As for the show itself, it’s one that I keep coming back to. It’s a hugely influential title, and it’s humor is a lot more innocent and creative than the titles that ripped it off, and while I don’t love all of the jokes, I love almost all of the characters, which is great, because they’re the backbone of the series. What more can I say other than Go Team Sea Sluig.

18: The Twelve Kingdoms

Here’s another show that I’ve already reviewed, and if I remember correctly, the only problem hampering it from getting a near perfect score was it’s lack of an ending, and I don’t mean the Berserk lack of an ending, I mean the story just stopped abruptly in it’s tracks. I loved pretty much everything else about it. Like, stop me if you’ve heard this one; A teenage girl gets sucked into another world by the one of that world’s conflicts, and she has to try and find her way back through the technologically primitive world that she’s gotten stuck in. This is by no means an uncommon set-up, it’s been used over and over again on the Shoujo market, and for my money, Twelve Kingdoms is the best one, with the most well written characters, the most serious stories, and the most well executed world-building. The entire reason I dropped Fushigi Yugi is because I couldn’t stop thinking “Man, I’d rather be watching Twelve Kingdoms right now.” I know that sounds kinda vague, but it’s a story you really have to experience for yourself, so i’ll let you get to it.

17: Negima?! Magister Negi Magi

I’ve always been a fan of Ken Akamatsu’s work, with his brand of cheeky yet mosre-or-less innocent and harmless harem shenanigans often carrying some surprisingly fun action, well paced story-telling and depth of characterization that you could hardly be blamed for glossing over the more problematic elements of his titles. Unfortunately, his work has been notoriously hard to adapt, with Love Hina being a complete failure, AI Love You floating around in obscurity, and the first Negima series proving to be a dull and soulless train wreck. Thankfully, there is at least one that I can whole-heartedly enjoy, and lo and behold, it’s the one that didn’t even bother trying to represent the source material. The second Negima anime takes the characters and ideas of the manga and goes in an entirely different direction, which frees it up from the source’s reliance on potentially problematic fanservice, and unlike the first anime, it doesn’t have to bother to try and represent volumes upon volumes of interconnnected and strongly continuous stories. It does it’s own thing, which ironically allows it to showcase just as much inspiration and imagination as the manga. It’s dumb, but it’s the best Negima we’re gonna get, so I’ll take it.

16: Revolutionary Girl Utena

Ah, one of the highly praised titles that every serious critic, be they genuinely high brow or just as pretentious as all hell, has to have on their list. Yeah, the irony of me saying that despite having it on my own list is not lost on me, but I’d like to think my love for it is a bit different than others. It’s a fun show to pick apart, as every new watch uncovers another layer of depth to be explored, and it’s incredibly smart and well written, but for me, it’s more than that. I love Revolutionary Girl Utena because it brings me back to my theater days in high school, back when I was just one dumb teenager in a room full of dumb teenagers over-acting and trying to convey someone else’s message. I said in my review that the acting in the dub reminds me of charmingly bad stage actors, but what I didn’t mention was that the actual story feels like the product of a repressed visionary trying to write his opus for a strict, anal school board(which I guess is a decent metaphor for Japan at the time), and finding a million clever ways to sneak his ideas and commentary past the censors, and for my money, that’s a pretty juicy joke to be in on.

15: Kill La Kill

Then again, you could go another way entirely with your message: How about sneaking your ideas and commentary into something that’s outwardly designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator? Using boobs, action, blood, gross-out and yuri teasing to sneak unsuspecting audiences with a female subversion of Gainax’s constant phallic imagery and male coming-of-age narratives? How about a clever allegory about Japanese traditional society? It may seem like sacrilege to put this above Utena, but while the former may be a lot smarter and carry more pround weight, Kill La Kill isn’t exactly dumb either, and it’s so much more fun and satisfying to watch. I don’t think I mentioned this in my review a few years ago, but guess how I managed to get the series on DVD? I found someone who was selling the DVD portions of his DVD/Bluray combo packs from the first five volumes in a lot for fifty bucks, so I ordered that, and then I bought the fifth volume DVD from that year’s rightstuf anime sale for thirty, and I swapped all of it into an empty five disk case. I don’t put that much money and effort into every series, but this one was worth it.

14: Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad

I’ve never reviewed this title, but I did give it the glorious top spot for my list of the top ten best anime English dubs, which I can’t begin to reiterate how much it deserves. Beck is probably the most realistic representation of growing up and coming of age that I’ve ever seen from anime, with the only moments I really had to suspend disbelief for being a certain story arc involving a swimming competition. There are a ton of stories out there about ordinary people being granted abrupt opportunities to become more, but it’s rare that a story comes along where one such individual is inspired to pursue a certain dream, but starts with no talent or experience, and has to earn their way up every step of the ladder, with young Yukio(AKA Koyuki) only having one advantage handed to him, being that of an older friend and mentor to give him direction. It’s not just music that Yukio grows into, as he works his way through bullying, finding out who his friends are, and making sense out of a relationship that gives “It’s complicated” a whole new meaning. On top of that, I can blast the awesome dub soundtrack without anyone knowing any of it was from an anime.

13: Battle Athletes Victory

I’ve written a lot of reviews that never really set the world on fire, a few of which have shamefully failed to bring in even 20 views apiece, and one of the ones i’m most disappointed by is this one. Victory is a wonderful series, and I actually think I did quite a good job dissecting it. Having said that, the effect this series had on my life is more than enough to compensate for any time I may have sunk into writing about it. I was at a point in my life where I was in a rut, I was in denial, and I’m fairly certain I was right on the verge of losing a pretty good job when, on thinking about this series(having already watched it about three times through), one of it’s more important messages just struck me out of the blue, made me realize what I was doing to myself in my own head, and quite literally saved my job. Like Key, this is another title that I found at the huge FYE, and while I wound up buying all eight disks for about 15 dollars apiece, I would easily shell out even more than that if the series was ever released proper. If you want to know why, you know the drill. Check out my review.

12: Great Teacher Onizuka

When I reviewed Dog and Scissors, I made a crack about how it was a completely safe title to judge the cover of. Well, guys, the exact opposite is true of GTO. I got the rereleased DVD set from amazon a few years ago, and it sat in my collection for a few years before I actually sat down and watched it(give me a break, long shows scare me), and I couldn’t have been less disappointed if I’d tried. For all of it’s low brow humor and overly sexualized teenage characters, this show isn’t just good, it’s smart. Onizuka should be the most annoying and unlikeable character in existence, but he’s almost zen-like in his role as a teacher, showing the over-worked and under-valued kids at his school how to be good people without ever getting too preachy about it, teaching them selflessness, humility, and over-all, to have faith in other people. The english dub is also funny as hell, with Wendee Lee and Steve Blum more than eaqrning their reputations, and my favorite anime voice actor Michelle ruff even managing to outdo herself. I’m glad I finally saw this, and I know i’ll be watching it again.

11: Cardcaptor Sakura

While Battle Athletes Victory may have affected my life as an adult, I was at a much earlier time in my life when my otaku identity and love for writing was officially sparked by Cardcaptor Salura... Well, Cardcaptors, actually. Am I the only one who thinks that wasn’t a terrible dub? I mean, it was bad, but it wasn’t 4Kids bad. Anyway, I had already dabbled in a few titles on Cartoon Network and gone apeshit over pokemon by the time this series hit the states, but this was the first series that really got me interested in pursuing anime on a somewhat serious level. As some of you may know, it’s also the first series I ever started writing fanfics about, and while my old fics are the definition of cringeworthy, I wouldn’t be as into writing as I am today if this show hadn’t come into my life. Of course, it’s more than just an important part of my past, it’s still a cool show to watch today, otherwise I wouldn’t have spent over 100 dollars on the blurays last year. I haven’t watched the new Clear Card series yet, but when I do... Well, let’s hope it’s better than Tsubasa was.

10: Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

If you’ve never heard of the original story of The Count of monte Cristo... Which is unlikely, as they pretty much force some form of it on you in school... It’s the story of a wrongly accused man who escapes prison, concocts a bunch of new identities, and gets revenge on the people who wronged him. If you want to know my hot take on this classic French novel, it’s that the first half drags a bit and gets boring more often than not, and the second half is a fucking blast. Well, guess what? This series is based on the second half, with allusions to the first half thrown in as part of the mystery, which I feel was the perfect way for a 26 episode series to tell the story. There were a lot of changes made to the material... Beyond the setting and the design, they removed one of the most important characters, which may piss off some purists... But I honestly feel like it transceneds the novel in a lot of ways, and is my preferred version of the story, for reasons I mentioned in my review. The art style may be a base breaker for you, so your mileage may vary.

9: Higurashi no Naku Koroni

There aren’t very many anime out there that are able to go viral just based on the way the characters laugh, but that’s exactly how I heard about this legendary horror franchise. Before I had any idea of what the plot was, I was seeing people share videos of several creepy-ass laughing scenes from the Japanese dub, and before long, I was looking up the episodes online, getting sucked in really quickly thanks to the bone-chilling backstory and unnervingly fast pace of the first story arc... And then getting confused as fuck when the world reset itself for the first time. Yeah, I seriously wondered if the Great Will of the Macrocosm from Excel Saga was going to make a cameo. With the one story done and a bunch more on the horizon, the story exploded, and having so many alternate timelines meant I was able to get ot know all of it’s awesome characters in a far more fleshed out way than most other shows can provide. I’ll be saying more about it when I review it for Otakutober this year(I promise), but until then, just know that it’s entirely worth revisiting.

Also, the manga version of the Eye Opening chapter is fucking insane.

8: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an anime as technically perfect as this one. It was a huge deal when it was released, even though it would eventually lead to a million rip-offs and some pretty unfair backlash. About a year after it was released, I checked it out after seeing a few rave reviews that heaped critical praise onto it, and what I found in it was an engaging, masterfully told story full of intense emotion and heart-breaking twists, and as a testament to the execution of it’s story, I still find all of those big moments just as effective after countless rewatches. This is the kind of show that sticks with me after I watch it, and I’ve spent literally hours at a time talking about it and speculating about the world and it’s characters. Seriously, get me started on a conversation about the ethics and morals of Kyuubey, and I’ll be occupied with it all day. I didn’t really care for the movies, they don’t really factor into my fanhood at all, and even if the third one is considered canon, it can’t ruin what’s already so perfect.

7: Spice and Wolf

Spice and Wolf i the tale of a spice trader, and a... Well, a wolf. To be more specific, though, it’s the tale on a lonely man who crosses paths with a sexy supernatural goddes who promises to share her life with him, and while that may sound like the cringiest kind of magical girlfriend premise ever, the truth is that it’s incredibly smart and welcoming, Lawrence and Holo are both extremely well written characters, and while their developing relationship is the main attraction, the story surrounding them is exciting, full of intrigue, and will have you on the edge of your seat more than once by the time it’s done. The subject matter, as well, shouldn’t work, as the plot revolves largely around the unnamed fantasy country that the story takes place in, and they take their time explaining it’s political and economic workings to us, but the dialogue between Holo and Lawrence is so hauntingly natural and charming that it never once feels like exposition. I love this series, and I’vve never met anyone who didn’t at least like it. I reviewed it, but I don’t think I did a great job on it... Well, maybe if I review the second season someday, it’ll turn out better.

6: Berserk

This might be the greatest gateway anime there is. With it’s duel appeal as both a solid action gorefest and a deep, complex story, I’ve converted my fair share of anime fans by lending out my rare thinpack copy. I didn’t read too much of the manga, so I don’t really know firsthand where the story goes after the anime’s abrupt end, but from what I’ve seen from the third Golden Age movie, it looks like Griffith’s rape of Casca made her regress mentally to her childhood... Yeah, no thank you, i’m good. I’m happy with what I have, a wrap-around ending that doesn’t explain shit about how Guts escaped or what happened to Casca. Much like with Bunny Drop, it’s an ending that I’d like to know as little about as possible, so I’ll count my blessings that this version of the story made the right decision. I love the memorable characters, I love the awesome music, I even love the crummy animation and incomplete story... And now that the new adaptations are out, I’m not alone in that. Check it out, if you’ve got the Guts!

5: Cowboy Bebop

I’ll be honest, it wasn’t love at first sight with this title. I first watched it around a decade ago, and I was actually kinda bored by it. Why couldn’t it be more fun like my favorite anime at the time, This Ugly Yet Beautiful World(Don’t judge me, we’ve all got bones tio hide in our closets)? A few years down the road, with my tastes having developed beyond such intense cringe, I gave it a secondchance and absolutely fell in love with it. I often like bringing it up when people claim that anime is made of continuous stories while american cartoons are episodic, because Bebop is the perfect exception to that rule... It’s the episodic tale of four strange, lonely individuals going about their lives in a family that never really happens, despite there being numerous opportunities. There is a continuous story involving the main character and his arch-nemesis, but you can’t exactly skip the standalone episodes, because so many of them wind up supplementing and infirming that main story that you’d definitely miss them. If you’re looking for a deeper explanation of my love for it, well, I hate to sound like a broken record, but check out my review.

4: Princess Tutu

I’m pretty sure that this series makes one of the bet first impressions in anime history. If you weren’t already intrigued by the backstory of the man who died and his story living on from beyond the grave, then you’ll have your socks knocked off by the charming tragedy of a duck trying to live as a human girl in a world of weird, wacky and wonderful anthropomorphic animals and living fables. Sporting what may be one of the tightest narratives I’ve ever seen, this is a story that never stops developing, and it has me hooked through every bizrare twist, turn and reveal that it can throw at me. I rented the first disk from a library once(and not my local one this time, but one a few towns over), and those five episodes were enough to base a forty-five dollar purchase of the entire series on when the opportunity came around, Honestly, though, I’d shell out a lot more if the series ever finally got a proper Blu-Ray release. It’s not easy to make things like magic, ballet and talking animals badass, but God help me, Princess Tutu proved it possible.

3: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Yes, that’s right, Haruhi Suzumiya is my third favorite anime of all time, and I’m not ashamed of that. While it’s true that the series has aged about as well as a block of cheese, and it’s been churning out spin-offs in order to desperately try to stay relevant, although it’s already relevant n the worst way possible thanks to all of the trash anime that are still being influenced by it 12 years later, but what can I say? I love it. It was so fresh, weird and wonderful when it was new that it just had to take the market by storm, and while I didn’t jump on the bandwagon until a year later when the American DVDs came out, it still hit me at just the right time in my otaku development to lodge itself a permanent spot in my heart. Speaking of DVDs, I was able to avoid the story structure issues a lot of people have with it, because I was exposed to it through the FYE used section that I mentioned earlier. I’d already fallen i love with the first two DVDs and watched them about 6 times before the other disks came out, so I always just saw the later half of the series just as some supplemental material featuring the characters I’d fallen in love with. Other than that, it’s a giant party for nerds, and I’m not leaving it any time soon.

2: Toradora

While Toradora may only be hitting the number 2 spot on my list, it’s still my favorite show to recommend to people, especially if they’re looking for a quality romance story full of generous portions of comedy and drama, and more subverted tropes than you can fill a bento box with. Aside from the occasionally shoddy animation, there’s nothing about this series that isn’t wonderful... The story, while predictable in the vaguest possible sense, still takes you on a rollercoaster full of glorious highs and tear-jerking lows, and a level of character depth that’s so immersive, even the characters you rarely see are still able to give you the impression that they’re closer to fleshed out people than just stock background models. It’s the only anime I’ve ever seen that just... I don’t know, it just has this aura about it, like it just radiates with energy, passion, confidence and a perfect sense of synergy between all of it’s elements. It’s my number two pick, but the truth is, it’s the only show for over ten years to actually threaten my number one pick.

Speaking of which...

1: Fullmetal Alchemist

Yeah, I know, this result was predictable. It doesn’t take a very long look into my work to know that I absolutely love the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist, and consider it the best iteration of the franchise. That’s not to say Brotherhood’s bad, or anything, but ‘03 is a hard act to follow, as a series with a humongous cast of characters that gives each and every one of them the right amount of attention(Except for Archer, but the less said about him the better). I initially came across this series when I rented a few volumes of the manga from the library, and while they didn’t really hook me(they did spoil the Nina reveal for me, though), I did wind up spending about 100 dollars on the DVD sets that were available at the time... This was circa 2007, so that would be the four part release... And it wound up awakening me to just how good a story could be. I learned so much about writing from this series, from how to keep your themes consistent without becoming repetitive to the fact that even the main villain’s henchmen need their own unique motivations, to the fact that a happy ending isn’t always the best ending.

Yeah, I know, there were nazis, but the nazis were foreshadowed pretty freaking well, all things considered. There are areas where Brotherhood might have done a thing or two better... I did an entire post on this a few years ago... And hey, incidentally, I also wrote a really long post about FMA’s themes, which is a post that a lot of people seem to have either loved or hated. I might review the series proper at some point... It would be a good excuse to break in my new bluray collection, at any rate... But whether I write about it or not, my fanhood for this series has been imprinted deeply in my life. My first cosplay was Maes Hughes. Okay, it was a Roy Mustang costume with the gloves removed, but only one or two people pointed that out. I haven’t seen the live action movie yet, but hey, give me a break, I haven’t even seen the live action Death Note yet.

Anime Relations: Azumanga Daiou The Animation

A year ago this month, I posted a review of a popular series called Azumanga Daioh, and it while it hasn’t been a huge hit in terms of blog traffic, it did get a few nice comments, and I feel fairly proud of it over-all. It wasn’t the easiest review to write, due to the subjective nature of comedy, but I am glad that I wrote it, and can happily say that it’s an important prestigious title that I was able to add to my list.

Having said that, I feel as though there’s another side to the series that I haven’t really touched on yet, and I’m not talking about it’s contributions to meme culture... Although you really should be thanking it for starting the whole “My Waifu” thing. No, the side I’m referring to is the creativity that it’s inspired in it’s viewers, as even in an environment where almost any anime gets a ton of AMVs and parodies, Azumanga Daioh really has taken on a life of it’s own. Hmm, how best to celebrate this show’s history of insane, internet videos and memes?

With that out of the way, I’d like to introduce a brand new feature on this blog, A Series of Tubes! This is the feature I’ll be using every nice in a while to explore the multitude of ways that an animated franchise has been represented on youtube, from intentional promo videos made by the official owners to less official fan videos made by you people. We’ll be looking at AMVs, parodies, reviews, abridged series... Well, maybe not that last one today, because no Azumanga related abridged shows have found any real notoriety or success... And more!

Keep in mind, I’m not only doing this for anime. I might also do My Little Pony and RWBY at some point in the future, should I decide that I feel like it.

1: Azumanga Web Daioh

Before the TV anime ever came out, two short films were released online by JC Staff to see if the series would be worth a full investment. It was due to their overwhelmingly positive reception that the show was green-lit, and the first one was Web Daioh. This first film features a plot that’s entirely unique to the series and manga, as well as a much more high-budget animation style compared to what was officially released.

After a catchy opening that features the cast on their way to school, this short features Chiyo-chan, the child prodigy, bringing a video camera into class to film her friends and leave the tape... A VHS tape, ask your parents what that is if you’re too young to know... and Tomo, the class clown, is immediately taken with the opportunity to goof around with it. She steals it from Chiyo, pans around the classroom(getting a hilarious shot of class space cadet Osaka in the meantime) and plays with the zoom settings, leading to some shockingly good visual effects for it’s time. She puts the athlete Kagura on the spot, and gets roundhouse-kicked for her efforts. She then runs away and films the two teachers of the series(thankfully leaving Kimura out of it), including her own teacher Miss Yukari, who’s asleep on her desk. Her response to being woken up is the third big laugh of the episode.

Finally, the episode leaves off on a fourth big laugh that I’m not going to spoil here, and that’s Web Daioh, the pilot episode of the series. I fucking love it. The animation is creative and way ahead of it’s time, the shaky cam has an actual purpose(and it disappears in the final moments, which was a nice touch) and despite it’s short length, it’s really funny. It manages to feature the entire main cast in some way or another, and while two or three of them might not have featured heavily, they still feel like they were acting naturally and playing their roles.

There’s no music, as the scenario calls for realism more than for a BGM, but you do hear the camera’s noises throughout, and the voice acting is on point. With a pilot like this, showing off the full potential of the material, it’s no wonder the show got picked up.

2: Azumanga Daioh The Very Short movie

So, here’s my confession; I didn’t know this existed until after I already decided to go ahead with this project. Even more alarming, I didn’t know it had a dub until a few minutes ago. How crazy is that?

Anyway, this is the second short pilot film that JC Staff released, this one a lot closer(but still not quitem atching) the animation style and budget of the TV release. It’s a bit longer than Web Daioh, and while it’s not quite as funny, it does put forth a more accurate representation of what the series would eventually be. Rather than a traditional intro, like Web Daioh had, this film opens with a shot of Chiyo riding on her dog, Mr. Tadakichi, introducing herself and nearly getting thrown off of him. The opening features some of the show’s iconic background music, which is always nice.

Splitting it into two halves, the first half is probably the weaker one. It features a couple of minutes of Yukari’s class, squeezing several of the running gags and staples of the series into two minutes. This includes Yukari being a dick, Chiyo getting good grades, the Bonklers(which I’ll always call them because it sounds better than knuckleheads) acting out, Chiyo trying not to be cute, Tomo standing outside, Kaorin being in love, Sakaki musing over a cat bite, and keep in mind, this all takes place in the span of two minutes... Including the opening.

The second half, in contrast, plays out one joke on it’s own... Osaka and her pigtail dreams. If you’ve seen the anime or read the manga, you know what I’m talking about, and this goes on for almost 3 minutes. Unlike the first half, this one doesn’t stick to the established material, instead taking full advantage of the surreal situation to try some new jokes, like Chiyo slowly turning her head like an owl(creepy) and the entire class thinking she’s a lost child that doesn’t belong there. I’m not going to give away how this part ends, you kind of just have to experience it for yourselves. It’s weird.

The short ends with a thirty second credits, marking the second appearance of Chiyodaddy, and if I’m being honest, I don’t feel as though this one’s as strong as Web Daioh. It suffers in terms of pacing, with so many jokes and in-show references thrown at you in such a short time that it’s hard to process what you’re watching. The Osaka dream is at least new and interesting, especially the way it breaks away from the script.

There’s actual music in it, which I definitely like, especially since upon reflection, this is the pilot for the show’s iconic score, too. The dub is phenomenal, and the actors are on point... Save for Mandy Clark and Nancy Novotny, big surprise there... But I’d especially like to give a shout out to Jessica Boone and Kira Vincent Davis, as they play the most prominent characters in the short and absolutely slaughter their roles.

All in all, not quite as good as Web Daioh, in terms of story, but a small improvement in the area of production values.

AMV1: Little Girls

Our first AMV, edited by blindniggasamura1, was the winner of Best comedy at a con called Nekocon X, and yeah, it’s pretty damn funny, even though it attacks the show from the most obvious possible angle. There was a lot of clever editing in this video, so it occasionally looks like the central character, the ephobophile teacher Mr. Kimura, is actually singing during certain parts of the song. This unfortunately results in the video freezing into a still frame at certain times, but the visual direction is still fun and energetic, and doesn’t get stale despite relying on pretty much one joke. I highly recommend checking this one out, if the idea of statutory rape being taken lightly doesn’t trigger you.

Although I completely understand if it does.

AMV2: 1985

The origins of this video are somewhat cloudy, but it was originally uploaded on AMV.com over ten years ago, and made it’s way to youtube soon after. It’s credited in the video to Suberunker Studiosh, as if that helps. It’s a take on the song 1985 by bowling for soup, casting Miss Yukari in the lead role, and unlike the simple Little girls, this one uses slightly more stylized editing that’s a bit... Dated. There isn’t much cohesion between the music and the actual anime’s footage, but here’s where things get interesting... The chorus uses stills from several other anime in quite humorous fashion.

That’s really the only thing that makes this video worth mentioning here... The fact that it’s so obviously a product of it’s time does give it a quirky sense of novelty, but dat chorus do. I don’t know what’s funnier... Evangelion being used for Nirvana(excuse me, NERVana), Mewtwo being used for U2, or Edward Elric as blondie. The mention of MTV does feature a clever little nod to Sakaki’s cat dilemma, with a reference to the song “In the End, too. That Aerith joke, too.

The references do get a bit tired towards the middle, culminating in a forced edit of some of her students in Survivor, but overall, it’s a pretty interesting video to look back on after all these years.

AMV3: Lord of the Yen

Coming only 8 years ago, we have a different kind of AMV... One that pairs footage of Azumanga Daioh with three Lord of the Rings trailers, and this video is fucking insane. Each character is cast as a different Rings character, with Osaka as Frodo and her lucky ten yen piece as the One Yen. Each character is cast appropriately in accordance with how much they actually appear in the show, from major characters like miss Yukari playing Sauron to little kitty Maya playing the dwarf Gimli. The casting also mirrors several jokes from the show, like Kaorin playing Arwen as a complement to Sakaki playing Aragorn and Nyamo playing the Gandalf to Yukari’s dark lord.

Even more impressive, though, is how the music matches the footage used and even certain events from the movies. This video was clearly very thoroughly thought out before it was made, and the perfect lip-flapping is only the icing on the cake. I can’t imagine how long it must have taken to complete it, but it must have taken months, like last summer’s Smash God video. The editing, while using all the same techniques as the 1985 video, holds up much better in spite of that fact.

Some of the most iconic Azumanga Daioh moments are represented here, and of course there are also the inbetween segments, and the whole experience is bookended by Osaka telling her friends a horror story at Chiyo’s summer home. If this video doesn’t give you chills, then there’s something wrong with you.

AMV4: OH MY GAH! Sparta Remix.

Hey, remember when Chiyodaddy burst into Osaka’s dream and started talking in heavily accented English, and Osaka responds in such a way that was lame in the dub but epic and totally memorable in the Sub? There are remixed version that are flipping priceless. Check them out.

AMV5: Shut Up Tomo!!

Kind of a late entry, but Azugirl Productions created a video that presents a pretty smart take on the relationship between Yomi and Tomo, and as the title implies, it’s pretty much the two of them fighting, getting along and yelling at each other to just shut up already. It came out in 2007, a lot more recently than the other videos on this list, and it shows in how well polished the synchronization is, even if the lip flaps are off a bit. It doesn’t sound like much on the surface, but it’s high energy, charming, and a lot of fun to watch.

With Chiyo’s cute antics and Osaka’s weird dreams dominating most AMVs and the vast majority of the show’s AMV Hell representation, it’s nice to see someone give just as much attention to the dynamic between Yomi and Tomo, as their childhood friendship is one of the most important elements of the series. It’s also worth mentioning that the creator of this AMV has done a bunch of other Azumanga Daioh videos that somehow escaped my attention until this project was already half-complete, so do yourself a favor and check out her work.

Openings

Azumanga Daioh has one of the most memorable and unique opening videos in anime history, and there are tons of versions of it on youtube, from different languages to altered artwork that replaces the characters with faces from other franchises, to a really weird one that features a link to a flu conspiracy website on the chalkboard. No, I didn’t make that up, but we’ll be focusing on the second thing I mentioned.

There are tons of character-swapped versions of the opening, with a few examples being a vocaloid where both the artwork and music are redone, to a Persona 4 version that doesn’t, although it looks quite a bit better. I know very little about vocaloid, so I can’t really comment on how well it works, but the Persona one is full of jokes from the show, like how Chiyo in the Panda suit is swapped with Nanako in the Teddie outfit, or the three cross-dressing dudes taking the place of the Bonklers, are pretty freaking funny.

There’s a CG animated version called Azumadden Daieu, which uses a male robot voice for the song and replaces everyone with animated astronauts, if you’re in the mood for something really weird.

Those are about all the noteworthy openings, although there’s also a jawdropping Mario Paint rendition of the ending some Raspberry Heaven that I can’t recommend enough. I really meant it when I said earlier that Azumanga Daioh can inspire some amazing things from people.

AMV Hell Contributions!

And of course, it wouldn’t be an Azumanga Daioh video if we didn’t also look at the impact it had on AMV Hell. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I called it one of the core AMV Hell titles, and the undisputed backbone of the third one. I’ll be skipping a few and only focusing on the interesting or noteworthy entries, so let’s get started.

AMV Hell 1: Azumanga Daioh appears a few times here, including a Kill Bill reference in it’s first appearance, as the long awkward silence after the Penguin drops the bucket is filled with colored filters changing in tune to some tense musical stings. It’s second appearance, which would later become insanely important to the series, was Osaka talking in front of a screen of Panda spots for a parody of a Mac commercial. Bleepbleepbleepbleep! This clip was so memorable it made people care about the commercial over a decade later. Finally, it would appear in a clip that’s very similar to the Little girls, as it plays on Kimura’s loli love.

AMV Hell 2: Azumanga Daioh features heavily in the cold open, where a bunch of anime characters are gathered for a Battle Royale parody, that shows Chiyo being brutally murdered. Kimura sings Happy birthday to Yukari creepily(like he does everything else), and finally, Osaka opens the trailer for AMV Hell 3.

AMV Hell 0: Skipping it, not because it’s porn but because it sucks. As far as Azumanga goes, there’s like, an Adam Sandler reference or something.

AMV Hell 3: There’s no gentle way to say this; Azumanga Daioh was the bitch of this video. If you don’t count the numerous “Bleepbleepbleep” variant clips that played throughout it ad nauseum, Azuamanga appeared in around 25 clips... A feat comparable only to Excel Saga, which came close. I wont be getting into all of them, because all I can say for a lot of them is “This happened, and the audio was so-and-so,” but luckily for us, there’s more than a few interesting highlights.

Like the first AMV Hell, the first Azumanga clip we see is one of the show’s dark comedy bits set to a Kill Bill tune... This time, it’s Osaka waking Miss Yukari up with a knife while Twisted Nerve plays to accompany her. This isn’t the only clip that seems like a match made in heaven, either. Soon after, the gag of Osaka and Chiyo-chan riding their bike into a light post is used as part of a fake commercial, with audio from a classic Chappelle Show parody. Chappelle would show up again much later in the video as Chiyo getting punched in the stomach from the hiccup storyline was matched up with audio from a Rick James sketch.

Getting into some of the bigger material, there’s a lengthy clip where several still images of characters in somewhat suspicious poses are used in what appears to ber a Nazi propaganda video. Yukari looking fired up at her podium, Sakaki wielding a rifle, Osaka giving a Nazi salute... Which she’d give again while shouting “Heil Hitler” in the next clip... It really is both impressive and alarming that someone managed to conceive of this and put it together. Several equally impressive editing jobs would soon follow, such as a romantic tribute to Osaka and CXhiyo in their McDonalds uniforms, Chiyo falling and dying during the opening theme, and I shit you not, the snowball fight from the series being turned into an honest to God Pokemon battle, with Osaka as Bulbasaur and Chiyo as Pikachu. She’d also pose as The Cheat later on.

One of my favorite clips, from a creator who’s sadly passed on, is one where the over-the-top expressions from the series are matched with the Doug song Shout Your Lungs Out, which is one of the few clips that I’m halfway convinced the animators had in mind during production. It just fits so perfectly. Comparing Chiyo’s head to a Bananaphone with that exact Raffi song was also a stroke of genius, but much less obvious. In any case, there weren’t as many Azumanga clips in the second half as there were in the first half, but it did start off with what was probably the best one, and the only one that was allowed to exceed a minute in length... Clips of Osaka sleeping and Dreaming were used in a parody of a celebrated Rahxephon AMV set to the haunting tune of “Must Be Dreaming” by Frou Frou, and since you can find it outside of AMV Hell, I highly recommend looking it up solo. There are a few more clips between this and the ending, including an Airplane reference that’s kind of brilliant, but they could have easily ended on this.

AMV Hell 4: While it doesn’t appear as often this time around, AMV Hell does manage to pay tribute to Azumanga Daioh by using Osaka in the second of it’s three introductory clips, going over what AMV stands for. It’s cute, but not on par with the previous onslaught of Beepbeepbeep clips. The first official clip compares Osaka and Chiyo at various Sports Fest episodes to the Special Olympics, a theme that would be revisited in later AMV Minis clips with Monty Python audio, but the first clip of note... And one of the most memorable... Is a Guitar Hero parody of Osaka waking Miss Yukari up by banging a pan. The song used is Fear the Reaper by blue Oyster Cult, which is really just an excuse to call the video Cowbell Hero, but it all works together so well. Themes from AMV Hell 3 are revisited, such as Kimura’s perversion, Yukari’s driving and a chorus of acapella cats.

A new theme is opened up, however, with a couple of videos highlighting Kaorin’s flanderized crush on Sakaki... The first one uses Centerfold by the J Geil’s Band, and it deals with Kaorin’s shock at seeing a photograph of Sakaki in a bathing suit. The use of the Knuckleheads as back-up singers was a pretty lit touch. Speaking of ‘touch,’ the second clip of this nature takes a bit more of a sexual edge to her crush, with Everytime We touch by Cascada. The highlights of the Azumanga Daioh set, however, would have to be the creatively edited Bark at the Moon segment, which combines the dreamy aspect of the series with Mr. Tadakichi, and an inspired appearance by bodies from Drowning Pool, which centers around Osaka telling a tale of her friends being offed by a serial killer.

There’s less to offer here than there was in the first AMV Hell, but sadly, each entry would go on to feature it less than the previous ones.

AMV Hell 5-7: Yeah, appearances here are so few that I’m grouping them together. The fifth Hell only featured 8 Azumanga Daioh clips, although it started off really nice with a nod towards Sakaki’s height set to the song and notorious dick joke Big in Japan. It’s after this that several old ideas are recycled, and while some of them are nice... The new Osaka Dream clip is set to a catchy Beatles tune, and the new Kaorin gag fits nicely into the motif of Always by Erasure... The only clip of any note is the final one, Holy Diver, which bookends this video’s heartfelt tribute to Ronnie James Dio.

In Amv Hell 6.66, the official release and NOT the original cut, there are two Azumanga Daioh clips, both based on gags that were popular at the time... The first one is of Tomo being FUS-ROH-DA’d by Yomi, and the second is Osaka’s creepy knife scene set to audio from the My Little Pony parody video Shed.mov. Things were a bit bleaker in 7, where Sakaki’s desire to pet a kitty got her compared to a Hey Arnold character, and... I gotta be honest, I have no idea what Franker-Z is, but apparently Chiyo-chan looks like him. It’s kind of a callback to the Bananaphone clip, but with a dog’s head.

So yeah, usage of this series sorta tapered off as the AMV Hell movies neared their conclusion, but thankfully, there’s...

AMV Minis!

Season 1: Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Azumanga Daioh does pop up again here, but it’s mostly in the first two episodes. In the first episode, refreshingly enough, we get a few new ideas in play... Osaka and Chiyo eating fish-shaped takoyaki at the culture fest gets paired with a bizarre Fish Heads song, which is... Interesting... And it’s soon followed up by a pretty funny Homestar Runner gag, and finally, Sakaki’s desire to connect with nature is cleverly sent up to the song Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas. The second episode does some really obvious Monty Python references, and makes fun of Yomi’s singing.

The rate of appearances drops off at this point, and while it does appear a few times... Including a really bad clip that takes audio from an equally bad movie... The next noteworthy clip doesn’t come until episode 10, where Kaorin’s love for Sakaki gets it’s funniest parody of all, set to my favorite part of the song Jizz in my Pants.

Season 2: Azumanga Daioh appears six times in the season premiere, which had a strict rule that it would only allow musical clips with a maximum length of 7 seconds. This means there were a very large amount of clips to get lost in, and unfortunately, get lost is what about half of them do. The noteworthy clips include the first one, which openly acknowledges Mr. Kimura being the progenitor of the Waifu meme, and Lose It, a hilarious take on Tomo throwing Chiyo’s summer home key into the woods.

Azumanga Daioh disappears from episodes 2 and 3, but oddly enough, every episode from 4 to 9 has exactly one. This stream starts off in a good way, because episode 4 contains one of my favorite appearances thus far... Sakaki’s drive to step up her game during the relay race is converted into a Mentos commercial, and it fits the music perfectly. Apparently I’m the only one who loves it so much, because it opens the episode, and a common comment is that it only gets started with clip 2. Whatever, we all have different tastes. Tomo getting paired with an ADHD song is lazy, but effective, and the trippy nature of the ending theme is paired with Lucy in the Sky from The Beatles in episode 7. Tomo also does a song of Charlie Sheen’s Winning, which Dr. Stein did better in 6.66.

Challenges... Honestly, the challenge was getting through this season. There are 32 episodes, and the only two that I skipped were 2013 and 2014, which I knew beforehand that Azumanga Daioh came out over a decade too early to be a part of. There are about ten appearances of it throughout all 32 episodes, give or take a few, with only about five worth mentioning. In fact, I can kill three of them in one mention. Tomo asks Nyamo what The Fox Says, in an episode that gets apologized for in another clip as Chiyo acts as a stand-in for South Park’s BP parody, which itself was parodied in a late episode where she apologized again for, of all things, the quality of the challenge series.

As far as the actual funny stuff, there’s a pretty decent Animaniacs parody, and a Dora the Explorer Cake-Baking clip that takes a much funnier shot at the series itself... Towards the end, when the critique is a little too late.

I’d like to apologize to the creators of The Lost Episodes, because I fully intended to include them in this project as well... They did their own AMV Hell style project, consisting entirely of Azumanga Daioh content, and what little I saw was actually kind of good. The problem is that this post will be uploaded in two days, and after sitting through the entire AMV minis collection in the space of 24 hours, I can’t. I just can’t. Check them out, at least.

However, since I want to end this article on a positive note, there’s a certain minis video I’ve been saving. See, there’s a reason season 1 was devoid of Azumanga Daioh clips; Because the series was given it’s own special clip. It was the first theme video of the first season, and it’s 7 minutes of pure Daioh goodness. Saving it for last does kinda wreck the timeline I was originally shooting for, but that idea bit the dust long before this. honestly, this video is so funny that I hesitate to spoil it, but I’d be undermining this entire concept if I didn’t give a FEW highlights, so here they are... There’s a Lord of the Rings clip and a When Harry Met Sally clip, they both had me laughing my Neko-Conekos off, and they both involved the teachers. That’s not all the best material by a long shot, but I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.

And that’s it for the first installment of A Series of Tubes! Did what you read about here sound interesting to you? I’d include links, but most of these videos are easy enough to find through a simple title search on youtube. A few of the AMV Hell related videos might be difficult to find, as some of them have been taken down or muted from youtube, but if that’s the case, you can find them through the AMVhell.com website, which includes links to the youtube and Vimeo uploads.

In addition, are there any franchises that I should do future installmetns on? Anything that’s taken youtube by storm? I eventually plan to do similar articles on RWBY and MLP;FIM, but it’s gonna be a while before I visit them, so any suggestions inbetween(and that extends to prospective videos as well) are highly encouraged.

Anime Relations: Cowboy Bebop

As you may have noticed from the years of my life that I’ve wasted on this blog, I’m a huge fan of Anime. But what you might not know that is that I’m also a huge fan of western animation, and have been ever since my parents raised me on Disney films as a child. Some of the cartoons I grew up on and remember the most fondly are Batman the Animated Series, Tiny Toon Adventures, The Looney Toons, Sonic Sat Am, and the entire Disney Afternoon line-up. Add to that assorted titles from Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and you’ve got a long, rich history with the medium. On a more recent note, I’ve gotten into Daria, Star vs. The Forces of Evil, Gravity Falls and Roughneck: Starship Troopers, I was a Brony from 2011 to 2013, and I’m planning to watch Over the Garden Wall sometime very soon.

So yes, i’ve enjoyed healthy amounts of both western and eastern animation, but I’ve always considered my self an Anime fan first, and a cartoon fan second. I may binge watch an old cartoon if I have the time to do so, but my primary love is Anime, and cartoons will always take a back seat to it. Unfortunately, there seems to be a very vocal minority among the Anime fanbase that takes great offense to that separation. See, if you’re a fan of both Anime and western cartoons long enough, you’re bound to run into a very sensitive topic that, at the wrong move, can turn into a lengthy, heated debate. Should western animation be considered Anime, and if so, what criteria should be used in choosing? Now if you’ve spent more than five minutes in this debate, you’ll know just how intricate and complicated it can get, as there are many arguments both for and against this topic. Well, today, i’ve decided to figure out once and for all what the correct answer is, if there even is one to figure out. So sit back, prepare your angry comments, and take a journey with me through a topic that I wouldn’t even bother with if I had a girlfriend!

To start, I should probably explain how I’m going to approach this topic... On the side of calling cartoons Anime, there are two kinds of arguments; First, there are the practical arguments that one might make when defending an individual series, and to be fair, these actually do make a little bit of sense, so I’m going to be fair to these. But after that, we have the impractical arguments, which will pop up either as an ultimate last defense when all other points have been taken down, or for the more passionate debaters out there, they’re usually the first lines thrown out, and preached about as hard as Biblical canon. For this analysis, i’m going to start by going over some of the more practical arguments, and for an example of each one, i’ll be calling upon three specific cartoons that have become notorious for blurring cultural lines. We’ll get to the muckier arguments afterwards, and by that point, i’ll probably have my boxing gloves out.

I’m not sure when the debate over the definition of the word “Anime” first started, but you can make a definite case for Teen Titans being one of the earliest examples. There have been subtle Anime influences on American cartoons throughout time, but Teen Titans was the first to regularly use(and overuse) cliched Anime facial expressions, like upturned eyes, sweatdrops, headache lines, snot bubbles, etc. There was some nuance to this, as it became one of the major criticisms of the series, but it also brought up our first argument... Should a cartoon be called an Anime if it uses anime-like expressions? Anime fans are used to these expressions, and to see them used on a stateside property does give it a familiar feel for us. Well, to answer that question, let me ask another one...

If a white man were to wear a sombrero and drink taquila, would you consider him Mexican? No, you wouldn’t. Underneath that sombrero and the litres of chalk-tasting Jose Cuervo, he’s still a white man, who’s simply chosen to adorn himself in the barest essentials that are stereotypically associated with Mexican people. The same kind of idea applies to Teen titans, who took what can arguably be called not Anime cliches, but full on Anime stereotypes, to try and look like something that it barely tries to mimic in any other way. I don’t personally believe in the idea of misappropriation, as I believe that anything one culture creates should be attempted and possibly even improved upon by any other culture that’s willing to put in the effort, but I also believe that you can’t just throw on a few items collected haphazardly off of the tip of the iceberg and call yourself the entire iceberg. So no, this argument doesn’t really hold up. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but attempting to become someone/something you admire just based on a shallow understanding of them is pretty pathetic.

The next cartoon I’d like to bring up is Avatar: The Last Airbender. I haven’t seen very much of the sequel Korra, so we’ll be sticking to the OG bald breeze bender today. Avatar was almost instantly set upon as an American made Anime for it’s eastern influences, but what tend to point out even more is that it doesn’t stick to the common formula of western animation... That being, the episodic format. Avatar features a continuous story with overarching plot and story arcs, an admitted rarity this side of the ocean, rather than the fifteen to thirty minute mini stories that most American cartoons have used for decades. But you know what medium DOES execute their stories the way Avatar does? That’s right, Anime. Shows like Fullmetal Alchemist, Dragonball Z, Bleach, and even the goofy-as-fuck One Piece tell their stories in long chunks rather than in short segments, so is it fair to call Avatar an Anime on those grounds?

Well, first of all, cartoons that are executed this way are rare, but they’re not as hard to pick out as you might think. Old cartoons like Pirates of Dark Water and Conan the Adventurer used this kind of format, as did the CG animated Starship Troopers cartoon, Titan Maximum... Daria, if you want to go by Slice of Life standards... So yes, they’re rare, but there are examples. What you’ll find even more examples of, and where this argument really breaks down, is episodic Anime. There are tons of Japanese animations that have just as much progression between episodes as The Rugrats. This includes several of the longest running children’s shows, like Doraemon, and Detective Conan, a show about a man trapped in a child’s body who should have grown to the age of thirty anyway by now. Sound familiar? Like, say, The Simpsons? There are also several adult Anime like this, like Panty and Stocking, and even some heavily respected Anime, like Cowboy Bebop, so no, having a series be of a non-episodic nature is NOT enough to qualify something as an Anime.

For our final practical argument, let’s jump forward to only three years in the past, with the Rooster Teeth web-series RWBY. Fans of this show will defend it’s Anime status tooth and nail, and hell, even I relented enough to offer it honorary status(albeit for different reasons). In particular, they use the argument that it’s made in an Anime style. Considering the fact that it’s very american creators were explicitly intending to make an Anime with this series, and they poured a lot of effort into making it look as much like an Anime as possible, should we grant them their wish? Well, that depends on what you consider an ‘Anime style.’ If you’re referring to the characters having huge expressive eyes that take up half the space on their face, with noses reduced to near non-existence to accommodate them, then I hate to inform you that Disney did it first, In fact, Disney was the main inspiration for that style. But that’s not the REASON this argument fails.

Anime is not an individual style. There are numerous different styles attached to numerous different Anime, from those very big-eyed characters to much more realistic characters with believable proportions in more adult-oriented shows. Clannad does not look like Lupin. Pokemon does not look like Cowboy Bebop. Gankutsuou does not look like Shin-chan. I would actually go out on a limb and say that there are more styles in Anime than there are in western animation, so to look at a few certain facial features and say “This looks like Anime” is an insult to the medium. Besides, RWBY is CG. While 3D animation is a style in Japan, it’s also an incredibly rare one, and I can count the ones that I’ve actually seen on one hand... Examples include Oblivion Island and Knights of Sidonia, both of which were fairly cringe worthy, and neither of which looked like RWBY.

The practical arguments don’t really hold up, so what about the impractical arguments? Fair warning, these can be kind of infuriating, especially the one i’m going to throw out first... A cartoon becomes an Anime when it’s good enough. Let that sink in a little bit. I can recall a specific instance where I was asking Gaia’s AMC forum for some insight into why people wanted to call cartoons Anime, and one of the ballsiest responses I got was “It’s not about calling cartoons Anime, it’s about not calling Anime cartoons.” The direct implication, of course, being that to call a show a cartoon was an insult, and in some cases a grave social injustice. As if Anime, in general, is just so much better than cartoons. If a show reaches a certain level of quality, “That’s an Anime, don’t you DARE call it a cartoon!”

I mean, look, I’ve been around the block with this shit, and I’ve seen Anime so bad that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. I’m currently hesitating to review an Anime that is, without competition, the worst thing I’ve ever seen while awake and conscious. Anime follows the same spectrum of quality that American animation does, for better and worse alike. Avatar the Last Airbender, for example, is better than eighty percent of the Anime i’ve ever seen, and do I call it an Anime? No. Avatar is a cartoon. It’s a cartoon that craps all over a sizeable portion of the ‘superior’ medium, and that’s something we, as a culture, can be proud of. It’s not an Anime, it’s an American cartoon, and it’s proof of just how good our side of the pond is able to get when we take our shit seriously. You wouldn’t tell a woman that she’s accomplished too much to be considered female, would you? You wouldn’t tell a black guy that he’s done so well for himself that he’s officially white. So why would you say a cartoon is good enough to be considered an Anime? Boku no Pico is an Anime, people!

And besides, if you’re going to say that the word Anime is a measure of quality, then you have to deal with the unfortunate issue of personal taste. Who’s to say Spongebob isn’t good enough to be an Anime? Or Teen Titans Go? It’s all a matter of perspective. Some people hate RWBY, Avatar and Steven Universe, but love Da Boom Crew, so in their eyes, wouldn’t Da Boom Crew be an Anime? If you’re to follow this line of logic, you’d have to go straight to the next argument, which... Well, it’s a doozy. to be fair, most people throwing out the quality argument haven’t thought it through, and only say “My favorite show is good enough to be an Anime,” without paying much thought to the implications they’re making. Most people. But this final argument is the fail-safe, it’s what they always fall back on when they’ve been pushed against the wall, it kills me a little inside every time I hear it...

In Japan, the word Anime is the word they use for everything that’s animated. That’s the trump card they use, and really, what can you say to that? Well, for one, you can tell them what Zac Bertschy told me when I posed these questions to a Anime News Network podcast last year; In summary, he said that ‘Anime’ was a borrowed word, like ‘a la mode,’ and that it meant something different in English than it does in Japanese. Of course, if you use this argument, you’ll probably get fired back at with “That’s just because Americans have some ignorant need to categorize and segregate everything. Japan is more enlightened.” I’m not even joking about that. But okay, let’s follow that line of logic... Are the Japanese really more enlightened when it comes to this subject?

I recently watched a video of a Japanese woman watching the first RWBY trailer, the one for the semi-titular character Ruby. You can find the link HERE(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrYQYqO37Ts). At the end of the video, Fujikko expressed confusion over what to call what she’d just seen. She guessed she was supposed to call it ‘animation,’ because it was 3D and made in America, but even more striking is the fact that she used the English word Animation, instead of her own language’s word Anime, which implies that no matter what the definition of the word may be, the Japanese are at least aware that there’s a distinct difference between western and eastern animation, and they know something isn’t Anime when they see it. Admittedly, this is just one person’s reaction that I’ve seen, but it’s still really ironic that they’ve borrowed our word “Animation” to refer to western animation, just like we’ve borrowed their word “Anime” to describe Japanese offerings.

Of course, there is ANOTHER way to counter the definition argument. Agree with it. Say that we’ve been committing a grave injustice by not calling every animated entity ‘Anime.’ I can’t believe how far you can stretch this. Spongebob? Anime. Gollum from Lord of the Rings? Anime. The T Rex in Jurassic Park? Anime. The spinning beach ball that makes me want to break my computer over my knee? Anime. This can get a little out of control, especially for people who only really want to watch animation from Japan, but now that the word ‘Anime’ has been redefined, there’s no shorthand term that’s easy to say and catchy to boot. So come up with this compromise; We’ll call general animation ‘Anime,’ and we’ll call anything from Japan ‘Japanime.’ There, that solves the definition problem while still leaving enough distinction for specific fans.

But even if you bring these issues up, you’ll still have people saying that there’s no point in segregating the two animated mediums, but guess what? You can troll this argument just as hard. Because yes, you can consider all animation to fall under the same unifying word. It’s not impossible. But here’s the catch... If you’re going to use a single word for unification’s sake, why would you use another language’s word? I mean, if Anime is a Japanese word, and you don’t speak Japanese, wouldn’t it make more sense to call all animation ‘cartoons?’ Cowboy Bebop would be a cartoon. Trigun would be a cartoon. Attack on Titan would be a cartoon. Regardless of where they take the conversation from here, this is where it ends, because they’ll just go full circle to the first impractical argument... That Anime is intrinsically better than cartoons, and the label of Anime is a prestigious one, despite all evidence to the contrary. They don't care about the true definition, that's just semantic bullshit meant to defend the insecurity of believing that your favorite cartoon is too good to be called a cartoon.

So in conclusion, should western animation be considered Anime? No, it shouldn’t. That’s not to say one is any better or worse than the other, but it’s the only solution that makes sense. Anime is Anime. It’s from Japan, although I guess you could make an argument for certain other countries... Other Asian countries, whose works also appear as listed on Myanimelist.com, and France, who, believe it or not, also use the word ‘Anime’ as their language’s word for animation. Go figure. Aside from these few exceptions, the only real argument for calling cartoons Anime that I can’t find any reason to dispute is the argument of “live and let live.” If other people want to call cartoons Anime, just mind your own business and leave them alone... At least, as much as you can help it.

Anime Relations: Clannad, Clannad: After Story

Before we begin, let me just say that this post is meant to be taken as a companion post to the last one I put out, my review of Clannad Afterstory. I went through the story very thoroughly in that post, so this is basically the spoiler post where I talk more specifically about the stuff I didn’t talk about before. We have to get through that stuff before we get to the changes I’d make to the series, so bear with me.

So the way Afterstory ends: Ushio inherets the town’s curse, and dies at the age that Nagisa was originally supposed to die. Her father, Tomoya, dies alongside her, having stopped taking care of himself properly a while before. Their souls are revealed to be represented respectively by the girl and her robot in the other world. Tomoya is granted a wish thanks to all the happiness he’d spread throughout the town, so he gives himself a happy ending, going back in time to Ushio’s birth. Nagisa survives, and I’m assuming the curse was lifted from Ushio, but I don’t believe it was specified.

So why doesn’t this work? Well, first of all, it basically erases all of the lessons Tomoya learned about overcoming loss and putting his own selfish needs aside for his kid’s sake. Yeah, he’s going to be a good father NOW, because Nagisa’s alive, but what does that say about his kid? He only loves her as an extension of his wife? There are a lot of people who are bothered by that, and think he should have been brought back to right after she died, with the warning that he shouldn’t abandon his daughter this time around… That he should get a second chance at fatherhood, but Nagisa should stay dead so those lessons would mean something, giving the show a sense of genuine depth that it SORELY needed.

Personally? That change would be okay with me, but I’d like to bite off a little more than that. I’d like to give the whole second season an overhaul… And just the second season, because I don’t think there’s much you could reasonably do to save the first season.

First of all, keep the baseball episode. It was awesome. After that, delete the next six or seven episodes, as they’re largely pointless, and jump right into the end of the school year, with Nagisa getting sick and Tomoya graduating. Leave Tomoya’s development as it is, but this time around, use the extra space afforded by the shortened first half to give Nagisa a few solo episodes detailing her life in school without him.

I’m thinking something like this; She learns after a little time that her one-woman performance from the year before has inspired a group of first year students to start up the drama club again, and they somehow rope her into being their club president. now, she finds herself in charge of all the important duties that she took for granted when others did them for her before, showing a more assertive side of her. Hell, you could tie Tomoya’s story into this, and say that the time he showed up late for the founder’s Festival, he wound up missing the play she’d put together.

Also, add Kotomi to the play, to justify her continued existence, and also throw in some more stuff with the choir club, so it’ll make some actual sense when they show up for her graduation. Anyway, she graduates, they get married, she dies in childbirth… And from this point on, we turn Kyou into the major character she deserves to be.

During Ushio’s first year of kindergarden, her teacher, Kyou, exersizes her home visitation rights to enter Tomoya’s apartment and try to get him back into his kid’s life. She takes a soft approach at first, but becomes more aggressive over time, getting to the point of telling him that he’s not the kind, caring boy she once knew… He’s a deadbeat, an absentee father, and that Nagisa would hate him for the way he’s acting. He finally snaps when she says he’s turned into his father… Granted, she hasn’t met his father, but she knows it’s a trigger for him, so she takes a gamble on bringing it up.

They have a war of words, which Kyou utterly destroys him on, and he finally relents… He’ll go on a trip with his kid, specially arranged by Akio and Sanae, if in exchange she’ll leave him the hell alone about it. She goes along with them to observe and mediate, offering advice at times and watching Ushio when Tomoya runs off to meet his grandma. Oh, and also, Ushio needs a hobby. Let’s go with… Soccer. She plays soccer.

Tomoya accepts Ushio back into his life, while also becoming closer to Kyou, eventually developing feelings for her. (I’d just like to pause here and point out that I’m not trying to put out a fan pairing here… If I was, i’d be putting in Tomoyo, who’s least awful girl. I just want Tomoya to remarry, and since Kyou is already involved in the Ushio story arc, she’s the most practical choice.) They begin to date, which embarasses Ushio, and she acts out, because real kids don’t always behave. Hear that, Clannad?

She eventually gets over it, and accepts the idea of her Dad dating her teacher, until Tomoya proposes, at which point Ushio becomes ill soon afterward. Tomoya believes the two events to be connected, and while he denies it for a while because he doesn’t want to lose access to Ryou as a convenient nurse, but as her care yield’s little to no result, he eventually admits his superstition to Kyou, and breaks off the engagement.

Ushio’s condition worsens, and the two of them die in the snow. They go to the dream world, where things play out the way they originally did, except that Tomoya is offered a choice… To save either Ushio or Nagisa, because one of them has to die for the town. He picks Nagisa at first, but after he hugs her out of her shoes, she tells him he has to go back and change his mind. She’s at peace in the afterlife, with no more illness or suffering, and she knows that if he brings her back, she’ll just die anyway if they have a second child. She tells him to go back, be a good father, and patch things up with Kyou so he can remarry for his and Ushio’s sake. She tells him she loves him, that she always will, but it’s time for him to let her go. Tearfully, he accepts, and chooses Ushio.

Tomoya wakes up in a hospital bed, where the attending nurse (Ryou) tells him Ushio’s making a full recovery in the children’s ward. Actually, through some miracle, his body protected hers from the brunt of the cold, meaning he was in far worse condition than she had been. After a time lapse, Kyou enters the room with Ushio, and Tomoya breaks down crying, apologizing to both of them over and over for the kind of person he’s been to them. He can never take back abandoning Ushio or blaming Kyou for her illness, but he wants to spend the rest of his life trying. They’re all reunited, the engagement is back on, and we get a happy ending that doesn’t feel like complete horse shit.

How was that? I’m not a professional writer, but when I start working on ways to fix shows I didn’t like, my fantasies can get alarmingly extensive and specific. Like, seriously, I once had an entire final story arc for the Pokemon anime planned out. Anyway, this is how I wish Afterstory had ended, and I’d love to hear what you think they could have done, so let me know in the comments section.

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