Category: anime

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(REVIEW) A Mage, a Barrel, and a BLAST OF TEMPEST

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

“We are merely Caliban.”

Full disclosure, we’ve got a bit of a frustrating one today.

I have rarely ever in my limited time as a commentator on anime as a medium written two full-length “reviews” for a single series. I’ve certainly never done it for a show I don’t much care for. Yet, here we are, and here is Blast of Tempest, staring me down like an evil twin in the mirror. Let’s get started.

Very loosely inspired by William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”, Blast of Tempest falls within the zeitgeist that was the late ’00s / early ’10s urban fantasy anime tradition, a world quite far from its inspiration. Like many such anime, it is a stew of proper nouns and half-sensical plot developments. Also like a lot of them, it is very silly.

Our premise is founded upon the murder of a girl, one Fuwa Aika, and her brother Mahiro’s quest to avenge her death. From this humble beginning sprawls out what quickly becomes a rather convoluted story. Which eventually comes to involve Yoshino, Mahiro’s friend and (unbenknownst to him) Aika’s boyfriend, a sorceress named Hakaze stranded on an island hundreds of miles away, the acting head of Hakaze’s family, a pair of god-like trees that embody creation and destruction called the trees of Genesis and Exodus respectively, and quite a few more things. Furthermore, Blast of Tempest loves its flashbacks, used to establish characterization post-hoc, especially in Aika’s case.

At its best, Blast of Tempest is content to show you dangerous, motivated people quoting Shakespeare at each other while they run rhetorical circles around, physically fight, or blast magic at each other. This mode, where Blast of Tempest manages to present a flashy, devil-may-care attitude about itself, is where we find the few places where it truly shines. The specific mixture of the flowery Shakespeare quotations, the magic technobabble involved in many of the show’s plot points, the wide swings and consequent misses at commentary on the nature of free will, and the wowee-zowee magic fights combine to make the best parts of the series a kind of low-stakes fun, even if one gets the sense even early on that it’s trying to be more than that.

Near the end of the first cour there is a stunning run of episodes (from about episode 9 to the middle of episode 12), where Blast of Tempest is reduced to three characters smugly proposing thought experiments to each other while the Japanese armed forces assault a mansion protected by a magic barrier. That this run then caps with Hakaze teleporting two years into the future while leaving her skeleton behind in order to avoid creating a time paradox, an action a friend of mine called “reverse-telefragging”, is the icing on the cake. It’s ridiculous on its face, but it’s entertaining, a maxim that describes most of Blast of Tempest‘s high points.

Unfortunate, then, that those high points are as scattershot as they are, and that the show’s first half has the lion’s share of them.

A theory I have about anime like this is that the twelve-episode format actually works wonders for them. It condenses all the stuff of the series–the proper noun soup, silly plot twists, oddball worldbuilding, in-over-its-head themes, etc.–down into a single cour, which is easily kept up with over the course of a season or binge-watched afterward in a few nights. At absolute worst, it’s at least digestible. Here is the problem with Blast of Tempest in this regard; it’s twice that length, at 24 episodes long.

On paper, that doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but Blast of Tempest is an unintentional study on the practical difference between about five hours of footage and about ten. After the end of episode 12, Blast of Tempest effectively runs short on plot, and its previously tight pacing starts to crumble. Half of its main conflict (that between Hakaze and her brother who is controlling her family in her stead) is resolved. Because there are still twelve more episodes to fill, the show must then stretch out the remaining mystery (who exactly killed Aika) for longer than it can reasonably sustain. One plot point must now do the work previously done by two.

Under this duress, its flaws transform from things that can be written off as inconsequential into damaging weaknesses that are fairly serious. The slow, ponderous pace the series adopts from roughly episode 13 to episode 18 is nearly unforgivable. Nothing working in the tonal space Blast of Tempest does survives at such a slow speed. Less because the question of who killed Aika isn’t interesting (it is!), but more because it takes quite a while to actually get to that. A good third of the show’s episodes are filled with narrative pillow stuffing like romance subplots and the non-arcs of characters like Megumu, whose defining trait is that a girl he likes dumped him.

Why does this guy exist?

It does eventually recover, regaining a decent bit of its flashy spirit in its final five or so episodes (things get even messier than before when time travel goes from a one-off and one-way plot device to a recurring element). And it’s not like this kind of middle-third slump is rare in anime like this, but this an uncommonly rough example.

There is another problem as well. Aika herself, as discussed at length elsewhere, stands head and shoulders above the rest of the cast in terms of character complexity, despite being dead for the whole series. Aika is established as a sharp thinker with a nonetheless carefree spirit, who subscribes to a peculiar sort of fatalism that doesn’t quite match her actual actions.

Her own musings are the only time Blast of Tempest‘s commentary on the nature of free will even approaches being thought-provoking, and in a better series Aika would be the main character. Ironically, pining for Aika’s full, developed character over the much simpler ones who make up the rest of the cast is, in a way, a reflection of Blast of Tempest‘s own plot. But even if this were intentional, it wouldn’t be to the show’s benefit. Writing an excellent character and then throwing them away isn’t impressive or deep, it’s just frustrating.

“Frustrating”, to go back to that opening sentence, is the operative word here in general. The closest Blast of Tempest gets to having any kind of real point is Mahiro’s declaration in the final episode that “in this crazy-ass world, there’s no point in playing the blame game.” A pithy chestnut that ducks the question of who is really ‘responsible’ for Aika’s death and is generally unsatisfying. It’s a decent enough idea when applied to the real world, but good advice does not necessarily make for good television.

In the final episode, in her second-to-last appearance in the series, Aika dismisses an unnamed book as “dull” and lacking in “inner light”. It’s cheap and honestly a little mean to say that the same could be said to apply to Blast of Tempest itself, but that doesn’t make it wrong. The series’ Shakespeare fixation is, in a meta sort of way, its own undoing. Anime can absolutely achieve the transcendence Aika alludes to in that conversation and that the series clearly strives for. It did so before Blast of Tempest, and would do so again after it. But Blast of Tempest itself just isn’t in that conversation.

I must, of course, turn the lens back on myself here. I have, even very recently, given anime much less ambitious than Blast of Tempest a pass for succeeding at the far more modest aim of simply being entertaining. Worse still, Blast of Tempest even is entertaining at times! But shooting for the moon is a double-edged sword. Blast of Tempest feels like it is trying so, so hard to shoulder an amount of thematic heft that it just cannot lift. I have a begrudging respect for its sheer effort, but the unfortunate fact of the matter is that enough of it is just straight-up dull that, a few specific aspects aside, I can’t muster up anything more than that. A flaw that is, admittedly, perhaps as much with myself as the show. But let no one ever accuse me of not giving it every chance I could think to.

And so Blast of Tempest remains. Unsatisfying, inconclusive, and trying way too hard. It reaches, but it knows not for what. In this way, perhaps Blast of Tempest, like the Caliban of Aika’s metaphor, is all of us.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

The Wizard was Dead Already – The Paradox of Aika in BLAST OF TEMPEST

This article contains spoilers.

Let’s start with some basic facts.

Blast of Tempest is a 2013 Studio Bones anime. It’s named after and very loosely inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. My own knowledge of Shakespeare is limited to what I was taught in my literature classes in high school. We never got around to The Tempest, though I am fond of the other play Blast of Tempest likes to toss out quotes from; Hamlet.

As I often do for an anime I have no particular expectations for, I queued Blast of Tempest up in my video player some two weeks ago, and watched it late at night over the course of several evenings. My intent, as it generally is, was to review it if I had anything of substance to say about it.

But, as you have likely already guessed by this post’s odd title, that did not exactly happen. The fact of the matter is that I don’t really like Blast of Tempest. If you’re looking for your pure-utility “good/bad” recommendation, I’d steer most people away from it. My entire reason for throwing out the first, more traditional proper review I wrote of the series, is that reading it back over to edit it, I just felt like I was being….well, mean, I suppose? I began to really question if this was the right approach, and I’ve placed the review back in my drafts folder. It will see the light of day before too long, after I cut the worst of the bile and re-structure it a bit. Until then, let’s engage in something both a bit more positive and a bit more specific.

Let’s talk about Fuwa Aika.

Aika is murdered before the series even begins. For the vast majority of it, who killed her is the driving question that motivates both of the actual protagonists; her step-brother Mahiro and his only friend (and, secretly, her boyfriend) Takigawa Yoshino. Very briefly; they enlist the help of Kusaribe Hakaze, a sorceress stranded on an island hundreds of miles away, to help find Aika’s killer and avenge her death against a backdrop of wider magical intrigue. Chiefly this involves two giant trees; Genesis and Exodus, one of which has the power to protect the world, and the other, to destroy it.

None of this is unusual, or at least not unusual for the late aughts / early ’10s urban fantasy zeitgeist that Blast of Tempest is part of. What is slightly unusual is how much more fully-realized Aika is as a character than the rest of the cast. It’s not that Blast of Tempest‘s other characters are flat, exactly, but Aika is markedly more complex than any of them, and this is true despite the fact that for the vast majority of the series, we only see her in flashbacks.

The other characters are fairly easy to figure out, even Hakaze, eventually, despite the fact that she’s away from the action for most of the show’s first half. Aika, meanwhile, is a riddle. We initially only see her interact with Mahiro and Yoshino. These interactions paint a picture of a difficult, strong-willed, and thoughtful young woman with a kind center that she only shows to some. But, the negative space created by the scenes she’s absent from–which is a majority of them, in spite of the frequent flashbacks–create a vastly more complex character by implication.

The latter half Blast of Tempest, textually, paints Aika as a fatalist obsessed with theatrical metaphor. She is the character who throws down the largest number of the show’s Shakespeare quotes. Late in the series she compares herself to an actress who can, at best, hope for “a beautiful exit” and who has no real control over her life. On its own, this is fairly interesting. I could devote this entire column to interpreting Aika as a “chained woman”, someone who is bound by the men in her life in a very real and immediate way, even if they don’t bind her deliberately. What’s even more interesting is that, in spite of everything, by the end of the series it seems as though Aika is the one who’s been pulling the strings the entire time.

Let’s get some major spoilers out of the way; Blast of Tempest involves time travel. Hakaze can leap through time and does so twice over the course of the series. The first instance isn’t relevant here, but the second, where she goes back to the night of Aika’s death to find out who killed her, very much is. Aika, as it turns out, is her own murderer. Not just that; she’s a powerful sorceress. Strong enough to defeat Hakaze, otherwise the most capable in the series, without much of a fight.

The specifics here aren’t super important. The fact that Aika willingly kills herself in order to facilitate a plan of her brother’s and her lover’s in the future directly contradicts her own statements about her life philosophy. She says one thing–that this is all inevitable, and comparing herself (and indeed the whole cast) to Caliban–and does another, seizing her fate with her own hands. She could, as is pointed out, easily avoid this outcome. If she were the blithe fatalist she paints herself as, the lack of an external murderer would make not killing herself the correct option. But she does anyway. Despite her insistence otherwise; she isn’t an actress playing a role. She’s a playwright all her own.

Which makes her absence from the rest of the anime all the more peculiar, doesn’t it? Why would you make a character like this and then kill her before the start of the story? I have to confess that I was hung up on this. You could argue that my own fixation on Aika as Blast of Tempest‘s most complex character mirrors the show’s actual narrative. I think, somewhat ironically, in trying to place Aika at the center of that narrative, Blast of Tempest frees her from it. Aika is the only one of the show’s characters who does not abide by the narrative logic it operates on–a principle that is called out nearly by name several times. She pretends to, but her compliance is false on its face.

What to make of all this? On some level, I’m aware that my reading of Aika specifically is likely the result of bias. I do just plain like the character a lot. On another, most of Blast of Tempest‘s other important characters either are male or are beholden to a male love interest. While it’s true that Aika and Yoshino dated while she was alive, she seems to revolve around him much less than, say, Hakaze, who eventually also develops feelings for Yoshino, does. And Yoshino and Mahiro’s actions for most of the series are almost entirely driven by their respective feelings for Aika. Later in the series, when the character of Megumu is introduced, he too is largely driven at first by unrequited love, in this case for a girl who dumped him. Of the main characters, Aika stands alone as a person who truly doesn’t seem to need anyone else, even if she does appreciate them. As someone who very much does feel reliant on other people, I can’t help but respect that, even if the endpoint she takes it to is pretty tragic.

Conversely, I’m not trying to make the argument that Blast of Tempest is some sort of feminist manifesto. (It would be fair to call such an idea a stretch.) Indeed, one might equally argue that the entire reason Aika is dead is because when writing within a certain framework, it is the only way she can exist in the story at all. A woman as smart and capable as Aika inherently disrupts the structure of a male-lead revenge story just by being there. The very nature of the genre requires her to only exist in the past tense.

But on the third hand, I would not simply condemn the series as sexist, either. Aika, as already mentioned, exits her “role”, and Blast of Tempest‘s backstory, of her own accord, through no one’s actions but her own. Violently, true, and one could write entire other articles about the lingering image of her, bled out, draped over a chair, that the series frequently returns to. However, I think it is helpful to consider all possible readings here. “Aika is a victim” is not an idea that, in my mind, holds up to the facts I’ve gone over here. I risk repeating myself, but perhaps it bears repeating; Aika is quite possibly the only character in Blast of Tempest who is truly the master of her own destiny.

And, despite the flaws and frustrations of her parent series, I think that all of this is why I find Aika so fascinating. Blast of Tempest ends like many anime of its ilk do; the dust settles and the cast go on with their lives. Only in this case, somewhere far beyond them, already long gone, is Aika. Never caught, she escapes like a thief in the night.

So it goes with those who can choose their own fate.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) Lowlifes in High Places in HIGH-RISE INVASION

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

“This realm is a facility to create God.”

High-Rise Invasion is a B Movie. Specifically, despite the Netflix logo that rings in each and every episode, I remain convinced that it was pulled off of a forgotten VHS tape somewhere. If that’s not the case, it should be. Like a lot of its action-seinen brethren, High-Rise Invasion is a jumble of proper nouns, invented terminology, gamey genre tropes, and capital P Problematic scenes leveraged for shock value. For a certain kind of viewer, it’s a particular kind of fun only half in spite of all this, the sort of thing the term “guilty pleasure” was made for.

Our story starts out simply enough. Highschooler Honjo Yuri ends up in a strange world composed wholly of high-rise buildings. She must evade masked people hellbent on killing her and find her brother Rika. From these humble beginnings things quickly get complicated, and it’s only a few episodes in before Yuri has a companion (Mayuko Nise), and the show dives headlong into its lore, something it assumes you care a great deal about, on its way to its actual themes, in as much as it has them.

This has its ups and downs. Invasion‘s real weak point is its wildly inconsistent writing. As often as it decently skewers petty authoritarians and absolutists like its main villain, it lapses into rote-ness in a lot of other areas. This is particularly noticeable when it comes to the characters developing new abilities, something that happens some half a dozen times across the series’ brief twelve episodes, and never manages to rise above feeling convenient. Yuri herself, while a fun character, is not a particularly deep one. A fact underscored by her tendency to yo-yo between action heroine hyper-competence and stereotypical schoolgirl ditziness at the drop of a hat.

On the other hand, it is capable of a decent amount of resonance when it actually has something to say. Aikawa, the aforementioned main villain, is an interesting example. A wannabe fascist power-tripping over being a big fish in a small pond is a surprisingly nuanced antagonist for this sort of thing. His grandiose speeches–generally given to tiny audiences–come across as bluster and empty thunder. And while he’s definitely a serious threat, the series itself never deigns to treat his ideas seriously. Even the camera itself seems to frame him as ridiculous; none of his powers are treated with the same visual flair and coolness that the other characters’ are. It renders him absurd and cartoonish on his face.

There are also a few genuinely interesting mysteries here. The nature of the “facility” that is the constructed world of the high-rises isn’t solved in the first season here, and the few encounters our characters get with the “maintenance masks” who seem to keep things running smoothly raise a lot of fun questions. These provide ample fodder for a second season, and indeed Invasion seems to have been produced with the assumption of one in mind, given that it ends on a cliffhanger.

The presentation is also solid, and there’s some cool, evocative imagery, especially toward the end of the season.

Less thoughtful is the show’s bounty of ridiculous nonsense. Whether these are a strength or a weakness will depend on the kind of viewer you are, but it’s hard to call, say, the Railgun that serves as a plot power, or Mayuko defragmenting her brain like a computer to make herself better at fighting, or the very use of the hilarious term “god candidate”, anything else. There is also the mountain of lesbian subtext between Yuri and Mayuko, which is frankly so blatant that even calling it “subtext” seems disingenuous. There’s a lot to like here, despite the often slapdash storytelling.

This image flashes in Mayuko’s mind as she’s focusing on what’s truly important to her. I think some things just speak for themselves.

But, the line between the trashy but fun and the simply gross is razor thin. High-Rise Invasion spends enough time on the right side of that line that the times when it’s not stick out all the more; a scene of only-barely-thwarted sexual assault that occurs in the first episode and a truly nauseating pan over a beheaded corpse in the eleventh are easily the most egregious of these. The fanservice that kicks up and down the series is, as far as attempts to titillate go, far tamer, which makes the occasional bizarre bouts of sexual violence all the worse. It’s a shame, because with a little more care it would be pretty easy to drop a lot of the “guilty” from the “guilty pleasure” here. But, High-Rise Invasion is what it is, and it wouldn’t be right to simply wave its mistakes off.

Really, a lack of care comes to define the worse parts series in general. It approaches irony that the main villain’s philosophy is bargain-basement eugenics nonsense. High-Rise Invasion itself would be unlikely to last in any “survival of the fittest”-style trial against others in its genre for very long. Certainly the same is true for 2021 anime in general, given how strong a year for the medium it’s been and continues to be. If that second season does get made, there’s a fair amount of room for improvement, to say the least. It gives Yuri’s eventual quest to destroy the high-rise world and replace it with something kinder and better an amusing, if unintentional, meta edge.

In the end, what does one make of High-Rise Invasion? It’s hard to deny that there’s better stuff out there. (There is certainly also worse, but that’s no endorsement on its own). And I do not feel entirely comfortable writing its uglier aspects off as a consequence of its genre. Consequently, it’s certainly the sort of thing I could entirely understand someone absolutely hating. But, sometimes, a woman is really just in the mood to watch a pair of lesbians thrash through a hostile world, guns blazing and knives glinting. For those times, High-Rise Invasion hits the spot like little else, warts and all.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime

Becoming The Battle Girl: How The 2010s Transformed The Magic in Magical Girl Anime

Genre. “A kind of story.” Something that separates one group of narratives from another. Genres are tricky, malleable, slippery things. Outside the focus of this blog, there are terms like lit fic, slipstream, neo noir, dungeonpunk, and dozens and dozens of others, broader or narrower, over the entire range of fiction and analysis of that fiction. Sometimes a marketing tool, sometimes a fandom in-group identifier, sometimes an after-the-fact grouping to tie together similarities in disparate stories.

Cure Moonlight, Heartcatch Precure

When I first became interested in anime as a medium I ran into the term “sekai-kei”, or “world story”. A style of anime in which the relationships between two people are tied directly to global or even universal-scale problems, and often directly equated. Nowadays, the term is widely decried as a nonsensical westernism (if you google it, the first two results are TVTropes, not exactly a reputable source, a clone site of the same, and an article decrying it as “horseshit”, in that order.) It’s yet another example of how hard defining genre in anime can be, especially from what is fundamentally an outsider’s point of view here in the Anglosphere.

Another genre that is often mixed up in heated debate is that of the Magical Girl, specifically because it is among the hardest to define concretely. Stories commonly accepted as being part of the Magical Girl genre; say foundational text Himitsu no Akko-chan, and something like Sailor Moon, are quite distinct from each other. Thematic ties are the main binder here, as are certain aesthetic choices. The trials that young girls face as they grow up are, broadly, the key element. There is also a degree of demographic assignment here. Most Magical Girl stories have historically been for young women.

Homura and Madoka, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Pt. III: Rebellion

But defining the genre even in the very loose terms I just did is controversial. (Sometimes extremely so.) Less because of what it includes and more because of what it excludes. Puella Magi Madoka Magica hangs like a grim specter over the genre’s modern form, the oft-decried “dark Magical Girl” style is frequently accused of missing “the point” of the entire thing. (As if whole genres ever have single “points”.) But fair enough; some of Madoka‘s least imitators are widely considered to be….well, not very good. And as someone who is on record as thinking Magical Girl Spec. Ops. Asuka is the worst TV anime made in recent memory, I can at least understand the viewpoint.

Things become even more complex the farther from the latter-day “magical warrior” model we venture, as we’ll get to. The broader a view we take, the clearer it becomes that there is a space of overlap between “proper” / “pure” / whatever term you care to use Magical Girls and….something else, something slightly different. Something that has, to my knowledge, so far existed without a name. But if we gave it a name, what would be a good choice?

As it often does in life, manga has the answer.
(Yuuko and Momo, The Demon Girl Next Door)

The panel above is from a fan translation of The Demon Girl Next Door. It’s not really an example of the genre as I’ll shortly attempt to define it, but the name is catchy and it’s indicative. They’re girls, they battle. “Just Battle Girl things” indeed.

Like all art, what I’ll be terming “battle girl anime” here comes from a fairly long tradition. In this case, I would say that it unites–not necessarily intentionally–two diffuse strains of anime that were originally only loosely related. With the important caveats that I am not a historian of the medium, and that I will only attempt to comment at length on anime I’ve actually seen at least some of, I think I can draw a line from the early 2000s, where I believe this genre’s origins lie, to the present day.

Cure Black and Cure White, Futari wa Precure promotional art

One half of the Battle Girl genre’s parentage is fairly clear. 2004 saw the premiere of Futari wa Precure, a Magical Girl series that synthesized thematic elements taken from more traditional stories in the genre with visual and aesthetic choices drawn from tokusatsu, including Toei’s own Super Sentai series. Precure has had a massively successful long run in its home country. New Precure series are still produced today, even into this very anime season, where they are often held up as the only “traditional” Magical Girl anime still airing. Precure has also been quite influential in a way that is frankly self-evident, almost any Japanese Magical Girl parody of the past 15 years goes to Pretty Cure before it touches on anything else. That alone speaks volumes. Precure is not the only series on this side of the battle girl genre’s heritage, but it’s by far the most important, and the most obvious.

Masane Amaha, Witchblade

On the other side, we have a tradition that is both more obscure and in the eyes of many, less respectable, that of the Battle Vixen genre. The slightly different name gives the key distinction away; while modern Battle Girl anime are certainly capable of having leery cameras or the like, a vast majority of Battle Vixen anime were ecchi series. Fanservice–“cheesecake” as it was often called back then–was a core part of the appeal. The anime Battle Vixens (or Ikki Tousen in its home country) that gives its name to the genre, aired just a year before Pretty Cure. It too has been fairly successful domestically, for an ecchi, at least, and got a fair amount of sequels. The most recent, the Western Wolves OVA, airing just two years ago in 2019.

Although the franchise lacks Precure‘s broad appeal for fairly obvious reasons, it is certainly something that left an impression on the otaku of the aughts, whether positive or negative.

This two-prong approach is a simplification; we are neglecting the fair amount of Magical Girl anime made for adults before this, including the seminal Cutie Honey. We’re neglecting the related “mecha musume” term, which refers to something more specific and not necessarily narrative (and also refers to a kind of model kit), and several other things. Nonetheless, the close chronological proximity of the two anime I mentioned above, and the general climate that surrounds them, makes me think that these are, if not “the catalysts”, at least some of the catalysts. The New ’10s saw several events that allowed these styles to mix together; it’s here where we bring up Puella Magi Madoka Magica again. While it was hardly the first magical girl series for adults (or indeed the first one to be “dark”), what it was was massively popular, carving out a new audience for people who wanted stories that featured girls in colorful costumes kicking ass but weren’t necessarily predisposed to seek out stories with the themes most Magical Girl anime traffic in. (Or even, indeed, necessarily Madoka‘s own themes.) Combined with anime’s resurgence in the Anglosphere in the age of streaming, and you have an audience that is eager for stories “like this”. Even if what “like this” is was not quite a definite thing yet.

That brings us to the third piece of the puzzle; Symphogear.

Hibiki Tachibana, Symphogear

The timeline hyper-compresses here, and I suspect that if one were to look at the actual movement of staff and so on, one would find many people influencing each other, rather than a simple case of cause and effect. Still, I would fairly confidently point to Symphogear as the first “true and proper” modern Battle Girl anime. Its protagonists function like Precure-style Magical Girls, but its writing gestures to themes that are somewhat broader than the Magical Girl genre’s usual concerns, flattening out the more specific bent of its parent genre to examine more general oppressive systems. And in the case of Symphogear specifically; propose that only full-hearted love and honest communication can save us. Something still very much rooted in the Magical Girl style. (This is a very inconsequential sidenote, but I’d argue this puts Symphogear among the “closest” to a traditional Magical Girl series, out of those we’re discussing here.)

Black Rock Shooter TV anime promotional art.

I cannot definitively prove that Symphogear‘s success inspired imitators–and indeed, there were other shows at the time working in broadly similar territory, such as the 2012 Black Rock Shooter anime–but the genre explodes from here. Not for nothing did the aforementioned Assault Lily Bouquet pick up the pre-air hype train nickname “SHAFTogear”. Anime fans can already recognize this genre, even if they don’t quite have a name for it yet.

So we can somewhat confidently identify where Battle Girl anime come from, but what are they? What separates a Battle Girl anime from a Magical Girl anime? What separates one from a show that simply has a female lead in an action-focused role? Knowing what we do about their lineage, we can make a few specific qualifying points. Things that separate a Battle Girl anime from its closest cousins.

  1. A Battle Girl anime must have an entirely female, or at least femme-presenting, core cast, consisting of at least two, roughly equally-important, characters.¹
  2. A Battle Girl anime must be primarily an action series, whose lead characters must possess some kind of special powers, exceptional weaponry, or both.
  3. A Battle Girl series cannot be an ecchi series. It may have such elements, but they cannot be the core appeal.
  4. Finally, as a more conditional fourth point: A Battle Girl series often features a theme related to breaking out of, subverting, repairing, or escaping an oppressive system.

Caveats abound, of course, and like any genre classification, much of this will come down to personal interpretation. (There is no objectivity in the arts, after all.) But I believe these four points are what separate Battle Girls from their closest relatives.

With all this in mind, it is perhaps best to define the Battle Girl genre as more of a super-genre–a broad storytelling space that more specific genres can exist within, or overlap with. It would be hard indeed to disqualify Precure itself, for example. And while the third point disqualifies some of the genre’s own ancestors, there are at least a few borderline cases. (I am thinking here of the uniquely frustrating VividRed Operation, mostly.) There is also room for a conversation about whether vehicles count as “special powers or exceptional weaponry”. If they do, we could possibly rope in series like The Magnificent Kotobuki and Warlords of Sigrdrifa as well.

AKB0048 Promotional art.

There is also plenty of overlap with other genres; Symphogear itself has some DNA from idol anime, and fellow Satelight Inc. production AKB0048 merges the two even more closely. I would also argue that say, Kill la Kill is either just barely or just barely not a Battle Girl series. It would have to come down to how much weight one wishes to place on both the ecchi elements and the male characters.

So, if the genre is so broad, and is nebulous at the edges, why impose it at all? Well, in part, I do genuinely think that all of these anime existing within the same roughly ten year span cannot be entirely coincidental. But more importantly I think it’s genuinely really important to spotlight anime that have all- or mostly-female casts². There is still a widely-held assumption in Anglophone anime fan spaces that women only watch certain kinds of anime. Certainly they don’t care for action anime with lots of punching and shouting.

The truth of the matter is that women love fantasy and sci-fi action as much as anyone else. It is no coincidence that both Precure specifically and the Battle Girl genre in general have a sizable following among female otaku. The genre is also not a marker of quality of course; none is. I’d call myself an easy mark for it, but upon reviewing what series I considered to be or not be Battle Girl anime, I certainly came up with some that I do not like. And quite a few more that I’m more mixed on.

Hiyori and Kanami, Katana Maidens promotional art

With all of the above in mind, I came up with a list of anime from the last ten or so years I’d consider to belong to the genre. It is not exhaustive, and this is not really a “recommended viewing” list, either, but I feel that simply lining the names up in a column speaks for itself.

  • AKB0048
  • Assault Lily Bouquet
  • BLACKFOX
  • Black Rock Shooter (2012)
  • Flip Flappers
  • Granbelm
  • Katana Maidens: Toji no Miko
  • Princess Principal
  • RELEASE THE SPYCE
  • Revue Starlight
  • Symphogear
  • The Girl in Twilight
  • Wonder Egg Priority

I think this is sizable evidence that this is, indeed, “a thing” on at least some level. And this grouping leaves out some series I am personally on the fence on some of which I’ve already discussed, such as the aforementioned Kill la Kill, as well as things like Day Break Illusion and any number of other “dark Magical Girl anime” that could conceivably be counted in the genre but which, if so, form a distinct enough subgroup that they are a topic worthy of more specific discussion. I’ve also left out some anime that I’m reasonably sure likely qualify but that I have not seen myself, such as Yuuki Yuuna is A Hero and Battle Girl High School (no relation). There is also The Rolling Girls, a series that is definitely speaking some of the same language as these anime, but whose rejection of traditional heroism and odd structure prevent me from feeling comfortable listing it here.

Ai, Wonder Egg Priority

And even within this group, there’s a noticeable sub-category consisting of Flip Flappers, Wonder Egg Priority, and arguably Revue Starlight. These three have a more surreal presentation and somewhat different themes than their compatriots. I am not sure I’d be comfortable calling this its own “lineage”, exactly, due to its small size, but it may be the budding seeds of one.

All these caveats to say; I am under no illusion that I have “solved” any kind of “problem” here. Artistic frameworks–very much including genre–are imposed, they do not naturally exist. This is as true for the Battle Girl genre as anything else. What I do think I’ve done, though, is hopefully given a new lens through which we can analyze and think about these stories. I think art should be understood based on what it is trying to do. And I do think, at least to some extent, that framing shows like Symphogear, or Wonder Egg Priority, or Granbelm or any number of others as “Magical Girl Anime” harms understanding them more than it helps. Not because the Magical Girl genre is some exclusive sacred club (or indeed something to be shunned or avoided), but because the aims of the works are different. Different things exist for different people. That is not just something to tolerate; it’s worth celebrating.

I acknowledge that this framework I’ve devised is an incomplete one; my own relative neophytism is surely depriving me of at least some knowledge that would further flesh it out. (I have not even mentioned Mai-HiME, because I’ve never seen it, but I am near-positive that it factors in here somehow.) But that, in of itself, is a beautiful thing. If I have done something even akin to laying a single brick in what will one day become a building, it’s been worth the time, the words, and the thought.

As for the future of this genre-space, who can say? Wonder Egg Priority remains excellent, but time alone will tell if these anime continue to be made or if they will end up as a hallmark of the still, in the grand scheme of things, only-just-over 2010s.

Personally? I know what I’m hoping for.

1: There is some flexibility here. Male characters are still allowed in the periphery; as antagonists or as supporting characters like love interests or mentors, but they cannot be the main focus, and they should not have strong relationships with other male characters. The clause that there must be at least two characters is to distinguish these series from a not-closely-related group that star a lone, often wandering heroine.

2: It’s inarguably even more important to spotlight those that have many female staff, but that is another conversation, and is outside the scope of this article.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) To The OTHERSIDE PICNIC and Back Again

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

What to make of Otherside Picnic? Named after a famous Russian novel to which it bears little resemblance, and drawing on a twenty year tradition of Japanese “net lore” for its inspiration, one might initially peg Otherside Picnic as a fairly heady, intellectual kind of horror story. But while it’s certainly creepy enough in its most unsettling moments to earn the genre tag, it’d be a mistake to box this one in as being solely for those with an SCP Foundation addiction.

A more proper indicator of where Otherside Picnic is coming from might actually be its opening theme. A rollicking, adventurous pop-rock tune with a romantic slant from accomplished anisongsters CHiCO with Honeyworks. Otherside isn’t not a horror series, but it’s important to consider what else it is; an adventure anime, and also a show with some pretty prolific lesbian subtext. It’s not at all dour, is what I’m getting at.

Instead, Otherside is a surprisingly breezy watch. It’s the story of Sorawo, a depressed college student who, through her vast knowledge of online urban legends, wanders through a gateway to another world; the titular otherside. When we meet her, she’s lying flat on her back in a puddle, pursued by a mind-invading monster known as a kunekune¹, and about to accept her imminent death. What, or rather who, saves her is a gun-toting Canadian-Japanese woman named Toriko, who she quite quickly develops a very obvious crush on.

Like, very obvious.

Otherside Picnic follows the two, as they grow closer, make trips to and from the Otherside, and contend with the many strange creatures that live there. Sorawo often gives a brief rundown of what these things are, which is helpful if you, like me, only have a pretty limited knowledge of Japanese creepypastas. The “net legend” angle is a big part of the setting’s appeal, so if the idea of even something as out there as the bizarre and disturbingly violent “monkey train dream” getting a nod appeals to you, the series is a must-watch.

Really, I was surprised at how much I liked Otherside Picnic in general. Horror isn’t really my genre, but Sorawo is just the right kind of relatable reserved nerd. (Although I will admit, the one thing the series is missing from the light novels is her delightfully gay inner monologues about how attractive she finds Toriko.) Her character arc over the course of the series is fairly simple, as she starts out as said reserved nerd and by the final episode, having along the way developed what are essentially magic powers, and having been through so much with Toriko is, well, decidedly no longer that.

On a less literal level, the series also hums a simple theme of the importance of finding people who you just vibe with. In the finale, this is all but stated outright, as Sorawo and Toriko both recount how the other saved them. It gives Otherside Picnic a point, adding some substance to its afternoon anime binge-friendly nature.

Much of the rest of the fun of the series comes from setting details or technical aspects. The monster design is quite strong, and combined with the often surprisingly good animation², this carries the series’ weaker episodes. There’s also quite a few running sub-plots tucked in to the show’s single cour. These range from fairly serious (a lost group of US Marines who the pair eventually rescue), to clear set-up for seasons yet to come (Sorawo’s apparent and only briefly touched-on ability to not-quite mind control people, the late-game introduction of minor character Akari), to the just plain odd (there’s an episode about cats who are ninjas) or funny (the pair accidentally buy a multi-purpose miniature harvester on a drunken spending binge at one point).

It’s hard to imagine that Otherside Picnic will exactly change anyone’s life, but like last year’s Dorohedoro, it’s strong genre fare in a genre that is under-represented in mainstream TV anime. That it is perhaps only the second-best anime of the Spring 2021 season to revolve around a heterochromiac who travels to an otherworld that also has a lot of queer subtext speaks more to the strength of the competition than it does any problems with Otherside. This is a series I could see getting sequel seasons for years, frankly, as there is a lot of unadapted material and a lot of mysteries left unexplored. Perhaps if we’re lucky, that will be the anime’s eventual fate. Either way, there’s a lot to love about a brief trip to the Otherside.

1: The subtitles somewhat astoundingly refer to these things as “wiggle-waggles”, which is pretty damn funny.

2: Surprising because this is a LIDENFILMS production. I’m not an expert on the company by any means, but what I’ve seen from them has traditionally had outright bad animation. While the CGI used for some distance shots won’t impress anyone anytime soon, I was pleasantly surprised by how good it looked at other times.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) Everywhere and Nowhere in SIMOUN

This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by S.F. Sorrow. Many thanks, as always.

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

The gender binary works for almost no person on Earth. The national war machines of the world, even fewer. In the abstract sense; Simoun is about this simple pair of facts, and how they relate to the broader systems that define our lives. Moreover, it is about how those systems can be dealt with; through adaption, rejection, self-sacrifice, self-love, and self-knowledge.

It’s possible I’m betraying a small reference pool here, but I find Simoun a true original. I’m guilty of overusing terms like “unusual” and I call enough anime “a bit of a weird one” that you could conceivably make a drinking game out of it while reading my blog. But qualifiers like “a bit” are unnecessary here. I don’t think I’ve seen much else even remotely like Simoun. Frankly, I struggle for reference points. “A shoujo-inflected political war drama with gender identity issues” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And indeed, Simoun is defined by some very unusual stylistic tentpoles.

We have here a deliberately slow and ponderous pace, sketchbook fantasy architecture, a decidedly odd setting with flying vehicles rendered in airbrushed mid-aughts CGI (the titular simouns themselves), and a surprisingly complex….well, complex of fantastic gender roles and associated dynamics. All this is soundtracked, naturally, with a combination of very of-its-time canned breaks and four-on-the-floor rhythms, and a shocking amount of violins. It’s a lot to take in.

At its heart, Simoun is both the story of its cast, all of whom are young girls in a military unit called the Chor Tempest, and how they are affected both by the social systems that they live in and each other. If that sounds a bit heady, that’s because Simoun itself often leans that way. This is a show with a lot on its mind, and it spends all twenty-six of its episodes pouring it out.

Getting into the nitty-gritty of what Simoun is about requires first explaining a facet of its worldbuilding. Though I called the show’s protagonists “young girls” in the previous paragraph, that’s not actually entirely correct. Simoun‘s cast consists mostly of young people belonging to a social caste of their country, The Theocracy of Simulacrum, called sibyllae (singular: sibylla) who are perhaps best thought of as being a kind of nonbinary, although even this is, admittedly, a simplification. Sibyllae pilot the titular simouns, both as ritual instruments in their role as priestesses and as weapons of war in an ongoing conflict with first one and then two other powers; the Archipelago of Argentum and The Plumbum Highlands. Two pilots occupy each simoun, in a bond called a “pair” that is both tactical and emotional. Sometimes merely friendly, other times romantic. On a few occasions it’s even adversarial.

Once they reach maturity, sibyllae (and indeed, all of Simulacrum’s citizens) are expected to retire from their role and visit a magic fountain, where they will choose to either become male or “remain” (the terminology is somewhat odd, but can probably be chalked up to the age of the series) female. Alternately, if they are uncommitted, they can have the fountain itself (via its representative, a priestess figure named Onashia) choose for them. Much ceremony surrounds this, and the reasons individual sibyllae give for their choice varies wildly; some want to remain with their simoun pair or some other romantic interest and thus choose to become male, others seek specific jobs more associated with one gender than another, and so on.

In the series’ second episode, a sibylla named Elly has the fountain choose her gender for her. We don’t see much, but we learn as she does that she is to become male. Almost immediately, she cries out in anguish and breaks down crying. A lack of commitment on the part of someone who is still essentially a child is punished by being forced into a role that does not fit her and that she is not happy with. To say it’s “hard to watch” is an understatement. It’s horrifying. And it’s one Simoun calls back to more than once over the course of its run. It is the first major indication that all of these invented systemics are buildup to a real core, not just aesthetics or aimless experimentation.

The sibyllae occupy a role that has no direct, obvious real-world counterpart, which has the benefit of halting any preconceived notions on the part of the viewer. Any notions that do form will be quickly picked apart by the characters themselves. Almost to a one, every character in the show has a distinct opinion of the syballae, none moreso than the pilots themselves. Some see the sibyllae primarily as priestesses and lament the combat role they’ve had to take up in wartime. For others, such as Mamina, it’s the entire point; a chance to prove oneself and rise above one’s station. Others still, such as Aeru, who is probably the closest thing Simoun has to a proper protagonist, primarily serve in order to avoid the inevitability of the fountain.

Some are just as lost as the audience; Neviril, around whom much of the series revolves, is engaged with a desperate search for purpose after the loss of her partner in the first episode. This is all without even mentioning the complex and thorny dynamic of having a bunch of children who are essentially miko pilot the simoun themselves. Given that the vehicles are, when deployed at their full strength, functionally magical nuclear bombers. These are just some of the many issues that Simoun picks at numerous times over the course of its run.

It’s unsurprising then that tonally, Simoun is iron and rain. The foggy atmosphere tints the deep regret, unrequited love, and crises of faith that permeate the series. As it progresses, conflicting ideals of religious and noble duty clash with those of militaristic nationalism, the individuals that espouse these ideas caught in between. Simoun is heavy as lead. This is not a show you watch for fun.

This means that the show does have a few, not weaknesses exactly, but quirks. The way it handles big emotional moments is almost more reminiscent of dramatic theater than anything else. But make no mistake, that stately sense of gravitas is absolutely capable of sending chills up the spines of the unprepared. It’s a trait the series shares with some other big-picture war dramas, your Gundams and such, making it the thing that most easily places Simoun within the obvious broader context of its medium.

As for actual weaknesses, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call Simoun something of a slog. It’s not pointless, which is what that term usually implies, but it is definitely not anyone’s idea of a breezy watch. There are very few moments of emotional catharsis or even many pleasant interludes during the entire run of the show, these only really coming to fruition in Simoun‘s final half dozen episodes. It works well with the series’ thematic core, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach on a moment to moment basis and I must confess my millennial ADHD brain found itself struggling to keep my attention focused on the screen at times. It’s almost impressive, given that Simoun is only a fairly short 26 episodes. Simoun also looks very much of its time. I grew to appreciate its mid-2000s charm over the course of watching it, but I would be unsurprised if others were less charitable.

So those are the ups and downs. It is fair then to ask where all of this goes, and the truth is that Simoun‘s greatest strength is that by spending all of that time on worldbuilding and similar details, it earns an incredible amount of leeway to take the entire thing wherever it pleases. Simoun‘s true core thesis then, is wonderful. The series broadly rejects all notion of heroic narrative; the ostensible main military conflict fizzles out with four episodes left to go. Its’ finale is not about any grand confrontation, but about how the sibyllae who remain deal with the end of the war, and consequently the end of their special relevance to the Theocracy.

All of this is broadly a metaphor for coming of age. A thematic line that many anime explore, but Simoun‘s closest compatriot, at least from my own pool of knowledge, is none other than Revolutionary Girl Utena. The two share something that looks like fatalism from a distance but is both more practical and more resonant up close. Unlike many other anime, Simoun offers no dramatic moment of breaking the system. The system, in a way, wins, in that it continues to exist even after the war. The sibyllae’s own choices are where the revolution lies; for many, to go to the fountain, for one, to replace Onashia as its keeper, and for two, something far stranger, and not unlike Utena and Anthy’s great escape at the end of their own series’ film. It is a revolution not of the world, but the self.

One could argue that this thesis is incomplete, maybe even irresponsible. I would counter that no single work of art is obligated to depict all aspects of the human condition on its own. We need lovers as much as fighters, and Simoun is decidedly for the former. This school of thematic material lives on in anime to this very day for that exact reason.

For the flaws it admittedly does have, Simoun‘s final catharsis is wonderfully well-earned. The hours of our lives tick on, and somewhere far beyond them spin two eternal maidens, in a land of hope and dance.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Other Posts

Where The Wicked Shadow Grows: Compassion in Online Anime Fan Spaces

How do we keep ending up here?

This past week, the mass of loosely Japanese animation-related Twitter accounts broadly known as “AniTwitter” worked itself into a tizzy over an admittedly somewhat surface-level but harmless article on gaming website Polygon. That article’s author, Kambole Campbell, came under fire from anglosphere magical girl genre fans after the column (admittedly incorrectly) implied that Wonder Egg Priority was innovating in the genre space by dealing with the traumas of growing up.

To briefly satisfy the bloodhounds, yes, this is wrong. One need only to have seen the fairly recent-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things HeartCatch Precure to know that’s not true, and beyond that specific show or even the Pretty Cure franchise in general, the genre has been tackling this subject matter basically since its inception. I would argue that if Wonder Egg Priority makes a real innovation it’s merging that thematic core with an approach centered around surrealistic psychological imagery. Even there, it has forefathers. (That article also mentions Puella Magi Madoka Magica. It’s an obvious comparison, but not an incorrect one. And Madoka too has its own stylistic ancestors, of course, but this should go without saying, nothing exists in a vacuum.) Innovation is often only truly noticeable in hindsight anyway.

But Campbell’s minor error, mostly one of tone, doesn’t really matter here. And beyond the previous paragraph I don’t intend to much discuss the article itself at all, because I don’t think its content is terribly important to this issue. What’s been laid bare by this entire incident, which culminated in Campbell locking his twitter account and thus cutting off a vital source of networking for himself, is the truly dire state of anime fandom on social media.

This isn’t really surprising, if we stop to think about it. Broadly, the more niche a geeky interest is, the more intense its fans are. To abandon anime completely for a moment, look at the MCU. The cinematic universe’s most intense fans are not casual moviegoers, they’re the diehard core of Marvel comic fans for whom the films mark a public acceptance of what was for some time a rather obscure set of narratives. You go back fifteen years and much of the public at large doesn’t know who Marvel’s Thor is, much less the Guardians of The Galaxy.

So with this principal in mind, let’s apply it here. Anime as an entire medium is already a niche interest in the anglosphere, despite a resurgence in popular awareness over the last decade. Outside of mainstream TV shonen; the likes of say, My Hero Academia and a few other such properties whose merch you can find at your local Target, it is even moreso. It is not a surprise then that one of the most intense corners of online anime fan space is what might loosely be termed “magical girl twitter”. People whose passion for the genre runs wide and deep, not just Pretty Cure mega-fans (although those certainly exist), but folks whose knowledge extends back to the birth of the genre. Farther than mine, certainly.

In of itself, passion is a wonderful thing. I started this blog in part out of a desire to share my own. The issue arises when fans who share a niche interest go from appreciative to exclusionary and, in this case, to actively antagonistic. A freelance journalist’s Twitter account being locked is not a minor inconvenience, it is an active, tangible negative impact on their life. “Magical girl twitter”, as I’m calling it here, has harmed a person’s livelihood. Here in retaliation–deliberate or not–for a perceived lack of respect toward the genre and its traditions.

We have to be careful here, because wanting a journalist to be qualified is not inherently a bad thing. In an ideal world, anyone who wanted to pen an article about some anime they liked would have infinite time and resource to do so, and would always produce the absolute best material possible. We, of course, do not live in an ideal world. The pool of writers a website can draw on is limited. The combined frames of reference of those writers is limited. The amount of money a website is willing to pay those writers is limited. And so on, and so forth.

The reality thus is this. Most likely, Campbell’s article came into being because he saw the show, thought it ruled (which it does), and wanted to use the platform that Polygon gave him to hopefully spread the word. I have seen a lot of malice ascribed to his motives, and I find the conclusions many were willing to jump to somewhere between upsetting and just plain confusing. (I cannot count how many times I’ve seen the word “clickbait” over the last two days. Sidebar here: all journalism written on the internet is clickbait. Clicks are how we pay for, y’know, groceries and such.)

In some ways though, this is the logical endpoint of the mindset that any commentator on the medium must be This Qualified to write their work. As the traditional western otaku gatekeeping structures have broken down, anime has become more accessible to anglophone audiences than ever before. Thus, pure, experiential knowledge–How Much Anime You’ve Watched–has become the last refuge of those who think that the broadening scope of who is watching and enjoying anime is a bad thing.

Part of this is just a failure to understand a basic truth of art. No two people experience the same works in the same order or in the same way. One’s “experience of art” is wholly unique. Seeing, just as a vaguely-relevant example, Madoka Magica before Sailor Moon is different from seeing them in the reverse order. Seeing any entry in the storied Cutie Honey franchise before you saw either would influence your perception of both, and the same is true in whatever order you care to put these three examples in. This is part of why people simply disagree on interpretation and even just the quality of a given work in the first place.

Artistic canons, then, eventually arise from broadly agreed-upon interpretations or at least points from which interpretations may emerge. It’s important to acknowledge that they are not objective truths, but rather groups of shared experiences. Niche knowledge becomes codified by those who have the most of it, and a consequence of this is that some opinions become an easy way to identify someone as not being “in the know”. In the case of magical girl anime, almost anything that positions Madoka Magica and its imitators as diametrical opposites to older works in the genre is one of these. Sadly, it is then all too easy to think of the “not in the know” person as an outsider here to besmirch the good name of magical girl anime. (Or whatever else you care to name.)

I don’t think those making these assumptions have bad motives, to be clear. I have been on the receiving end of enough nightmarishly dull conversations about how Madoka Magica was the first thing to “deconstruct” magical girl anime that I can absolutely understand finding such talk infuriating. I too understand the impulse to correct someone when they seem to be buying into (or worse, spreading!) a badly-informed talking point. What I do think is bad is the actions that this attitude leads to if taken to an extreme. One Twitter account being locked is one thing, but the exclusionary attitude underlying much of the discourse here is the same mentality that, combined with a noxious cocktail of reactionary politics that is also very much present in some parts of the anime fandom, fueled the GamerGate fiasco a decade ago. No one should want more of that.

The people behind this specific incident likely had only the best of intentions; defending the reputation of the magical girl genre which is often unfairly maligned. But we must be mindful of how this interacts with the internet at large. It would not be difficult at all for a reactionary group to co-opt this sort of outrage flareup for their own ends. I think I speak for every rational anime fan when I say that that is firmly not what we want the future of our medium’s fan spaces to look like.

I look again to what the likely origins of Campbell’s article were; a simple attempt to put more people on to a series he thought was worth watching. Even if we take it as a given that he made mistakes in the process, did he actually do anything wrong? I would say not. Intent matters here. It is obvious from any even remotely considerate reading of the article that there was no active attempt to deceive, discredit, or defame anyone or anything. At its absolute worst, the article is maybe slightly shallow. Certainly, it’s nothing that warrants the hugely disproportionate negative response Campbell got on social media. Which, as we’ve gone over, is both personally damaging to the journalist and just unproductive in general.

So what is the best way to counteract potential bad information in a piece like this without causing its author harm? Speaking generally, I advocate response articles (something of a lost art, honestly) for this kind of thing. They are better for the productive purpose of educating and expanding the horizons of anime neophytes. Twitter threads if carefully maintained can also be a solid tool, but especially for owners of larger accounts, this risks accidentally painting a target on the author’s back. Care must be taken in general, as the goal of artistic commentary, and indeed, commentary on that commentary, should always be to foster greater understanding between people. Social media outrage, by contrast, has the exact opposite effect. It turns both fans and the journalists themselves away from the medium and from each other, something nobody should want.

I’ve confessed before that I loathe writing articles like this. They’re not any fun, I always feel like I’m scolding people, and they’re not even remotely indicative of my broader work. Yet, I sometimes feel obligated to. If I can leave even one person just slightly more considerate and constructive at the end of this article than they were at the beginning, it’s well worth it. And to head off at the pass any accusations of self-righteousness; it’s not like I’m immune to this either. I’m definitely as guilty of occasionally jumping down folks’ throats as anyone else. I think it’s important to recognize that it’s at best a bad habit and at worst an active detriment to the medium I love.

So please, let’s all try to be just a little nicer, more charitable, more compassionate to each other? The artists, fans, and writers of generations to come will thank us for it.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

When The Rain Breaks in WONDER EGG PRIORITY

Note: This article contains discussion of suicide and other potentially upsetting subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.

They really just don’t make many like this.

When I first wrote about Wonder Egg Priority some six weeks ago, I said that the only real potentially bad thing about its first episode was how high it had set expectations. Five episodes later, the very notion seems quaint. Among a great majority of the people watching it, Wonder Egg Priority is a frontrunner for the coveted “anime of the season” badge. For a smaller, but still significant portion, it may well be much more than that.

But just gushing about the show’s quality would largely be relating things people already know. Likewise, critics smarter than myself have pointed out that despite definitely being unique in this season, Wonder Egg Priority does have several obvious ancestors. Most notably Kuniko Ikuhara‘s work and much of what it’s subsequently influenced (your Flip Flappers-es and your Revue Starlight-ses) on one hand, and on the other, the Kyoto Animation school of stylized life dramas. These two schools of creative work together inform both Wonder Egg‘s look and feel as well as its general ethos, which I think is where much of the interesting work remains to be done on our part as viewers.

With most anime–and indeed most serial fiction–you can generally “figure it out” fairly quickly. This isn’t a bad thing, a lot of fiction gets its very power from conveying resonant messages through combinations of classic tropes. (Which are, after all, classic for a reason.) What makes Wonder Egg Priority feel distinct is that it falls into a slightly different category that I am increasingly fond of; anime that can be treated like something of a thematic puzzle box. This has vexed some of the series’ own fans. When an in-series bit of gender essentialism by the shadowy Acca went immediately unchallenged, the viewer concern was enough that the show’s staff felt the need to address it on Twitter.

That kind of commitment to “getting things right” is commendable–and very rare–but I have to admit that a small part of me was a bit disappointed that they felt the need to do so. At the risk of coming across as something of an elitist; Wonder Egg Priority demands that you engage with it critically and intelligently. While it would be unfair to say that most anime don’t assume you’ll do that, Wonder Egg seems to be inclined to much less signposting than is the norm. Things as basic as character motivation are implied instead of outright stated, and much of the series operates on symbolic logic. This can make it hard to get your head around what exactly it’s trying to do, and lest I come across as thinking I’m smarter than everyone here, I will completely cop to the very real possibility that I also don’t understand the show. But, fittingly for its halfway point, I think Wonder Egg‘s sixth episode gives us some indication of where it will go next, and what it wants to accomplish by getting there. Some indication, but not a crystal clear one.

I’m sure, for instance, that someone out there has figured This out. Not me, though.

Wonder Egg Priority‘s subject matter has consistently been heavy. Suicide is baked into the series’ very premise, and its only through its absolutely wonderful visuals and sound that it avoids being a drag to watch. Along the way, abuse, familial conflict, sexual harassment, and a million other things have been dragged along for the ride. At the heart of this lies Ai Ohto, our protagonist. Her guilt over the suicide of her close friend Koito Nagase has driven much of her action throughout Wonder Egg Priority. So too has the repeated housecall visits of school teacher Shuichiro Sawaki. Sawaki is a figure it is very easy to read uncharitably.

He’s older than Ai but seems to have some kind of fixation on her, and several shots throughout the show frame him in a way that gives off a decidedly sinister air. In this very episode, he and Ai’s mother broach the subject of entering a relationship, and co-protagonist Rika openly speculates that he might be a sexual predator using that relationship to get closer to Ai. Neiru (another of the main four) meanwhile speculates that Ai’s frustrated feelings instead stem from the fact that she herself has feelings for Sawaki.

I don’t know what the “easy way out” of this particular knot of character relationships would be. What Wonder Egg puts forward is that Neiru is, if not right exactly, at least in the general ballpark. The episode, despite its sinister title, ends on a happy note, with literal clouds parting and sun shining down.

In any other series it would be quite easy to take this at face value, and that might well be what Wonder Egg is going for as well. Yet there remain lingering doubts simply due to the show’s nature, and I would not be surprised if they remain right up until the finale. For some (and I’m kind of including myself here), there will remain a suspicion, perhaps a fear, that the other shoe is about to drop, even if it never does. I’m sure, too, that others will forecast a worst-case scenario: “Oh god, they’re not going to have Ai hook up with her teacher, are they?”

I would love to refute “well no, of course they’re not. Have you seen this show? It’s too smart to do that.” And indeed, I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely. But, Wonder Egg Priority‘s very nature encourages these widely divergent readings, and I honestly think that’s part of what makes it so special.

In the opening minutes of the episode, there’s a title drop. It feels just a little tongue-in-cheek, but not so much so that it feels in any way insincere. What has me so enraptured with Wonder Egg Priority is that very sincerity. Despite its heavy themes and despite how it plays with audience expectations, nothing about it feels in any way false. Nothing feels contrived, overthought, or half-baked. It is what it wants to be. No more and no less.

What I will say, is that I tend to broadly divide all narrative art into two sweeping categories; the diagnostic and the idealistic. The former showcases and draws attention to the ills of the world. The latter presents a vision of the world as it should be. (Neither, it must be stressed, is any better than the other. Though I suspect the categories resonate more strongly with different people.) It’s usually not hard to drop an anime firmly in one bucket or the other despite many anime obviously doing at least a bit of both. With Wonder Egg Priority, I’ve been unable to place it firmly on either side. Certainly, it is keen to the problems of the world we live in, but the sheer sincerity of it all, and the weighty metaphors of eggshells and paint, seem to gesture at a brighter future.

Is this when the rain lets up, or merely a lull in the storm? Who, really, can say?

“Please let those kids find happiness.”

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Seasonal Impression Roundups

Seasonal First Impressions: You Really Need to See WONDER EGG PRIORITY

Note: This article contains discussion of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.

When Wonder Egg Priority was first announced last year, most attention went to its title, which undeniably is odd in a specific way that really catches the ear. Early trailers were sparse on much plot information. The (wholly incorrect) impression I got from the initial promotional materials was that this would be a youth drama of some kind, something in the vein of A Place Further Than The Universe or O Maidens In Your Savage Season. What Wonder Egg Priority actually is is still something of an open question, as we’ll get to. But its first episode “The Domain of Children” is perhaps the strongest original anime debut since Flip Flappers some five years ago. Wonder Egg is also similar to that series in some other ways, but we’ll get to that.

I normally like to kick off this sort of thing by explaining, broadly, what the series is about. That’s a bit hard for Wonder Egg Priority, so let’s instead tackle another aspect; the visuals. Wonder Egg Priority is the best-looking anime of the young year, and it has virtually no competition. CloverWorks make good-looking shows in general, but their collective talent pool has never done anything quite like this before.

The series’ backgrounds are rendered in hauntingly liminal laser-precision by what simply must be a crack CGI team. In the coming days you will probably see someone say that Wonder Egg Priority is denpa. There are a lot of reasons that this is true, but one is its recontextualization of a school building as a place of terror. Other anime have done this, but it’s been ages since I’ve seen it done so effectively. Every internal shot of the school looks like it’s had the air sucked out of it. Faceless figures stalk the hallways. When they attack, the windows are framed in paint-like blood.

Its characters are brought to vibrant life through gel-pen-esque digi-paint. Every single one shines. Main character Ai Ohto is the greatest triumph so far here; her oilslick hair, distinctive heterochromia (actually a plot point!), and yolk-yellow hoodie evoke the image of a cracked-open egg or a newborn chick depending on how she wears the hood. A cutesy nod to the show’s title and a nice bit of symbolism all in one.

May I offer you an egg in these trying times?

All this is a flowery way of saying Wonder Egg Priority looks amazing. I found myself absentmindedly tapping my “save frame as screenshot” key every few seconds. It is very rare that almost any given still from an episode could make a compelling screengrab, but it’s true here.

Four paragraphs about the looks and nary a hint of what the show’s actual subject matter is. As mentioned, explaining what happens in the first episode of Wonder Egg Priority is a bit difficult. The episode makes fairly heavy use of non-chronological order, and it becomes clear about a third of the way through that we’re dealing with a “real world / mental world” sort of divide. (Or at least something similar.)

The gist though is this; Ai is a hikkikimori. Why? It’s not directly spelled out for us, but we’re shown here that her only friend, a girl named Koito Nagase, threw herself from the rooftop of Ai’s high school. Which, yes, means you can add Wonder Egg Priority to the long list of anime that have a suicide in the first episode. A sad reflection of a despiriting reality.

Note also how the real world tends to be drawn in sepia and shadow. It’s not a happier place than the “Egg World”, but it is certainly more physical.

This heavy subject matter is contrasted by the series’ fantasy elements. Ai begins the show by coming into possession of a mysterious, titular “wonder egg”. The short version is that these allow her to enter….mental worlds? Afterlives? Other universes? It’s not totally clear, and rescue, or at least attempt to rescue, people from being pursued by mysterious, malevolent figures known as See-No-Evils. Ai’s only guidance here is offered by the apparent ghost of a beetle, a truly weird take on the “magical girl animal companion” trope if ever there was one. Towards the end of the episode, he implies but does not outright say that helping enough of these pursued people may somehow bring Nagase back.

He’s very trustworthy, I’m sure.

The details matter less than the emotional force. Ai is able to break through her own apathy (“pretending not to see”, as she, and others, phrase it) to help the person she needs to help, even before doing so to bring back her late companion enters the equation. The episode’s climactic emotional moment is hard to put into words. Basically; she goes full Pretty Cure on the See-No-Evils. It’s just, you know, much more violent and surreal. The lingering trauma of Ai losing her only friend, her own frustration with herself for failing to prevent it, her determination to never let it happen again, it all builds up to a single, powerful thwack. It’s the single most viscerally satisfying moment I’ve seen in an anime in ages.

And thus does the first episode of this denpa-action-mystery-fantasy-magical-girl??-thing come to a close.

Where does Wonder Egg Priority go from here? First episodes need to make a strong impression, and without a doubt this is the best I’ve seen so far this year. (With apologies to BACK ARROW, which must now settle for second place.) The simultaneous benefit and curse of having such a strong one is that now the expectations are sky-high.

Yet–and I of course could be wrong here–I just have a feeling about this one. While watching this episode I couldn’t help but tap on my desk excitedly, at the climactic scene above I whistled aloud, and my mind didn’t wander for even a second. Whether it will do all it strives to do is an open question, but we are unquestionably in for an absolutely wild twelve weeks. In the realm of anime, I can ask for nothing more.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Misc. Anime, Reviews

Ranking Every 2020 Anime (That I Actually Finished), From Worst to Best – Part 4

Before we get started, a brief reminder to check out the Introduction post and the previous 3 parts of the list before you read this one. Don’t wanna spoil yourself, y’know?

In any case; there were plenty of anime I liked in 2020, some of which I liked quite a lot. There were not nearly as many that I truly loved. But of those I did, they fall into one of two categories. Either they are sharp, questioning, and political. Or they are joyous reaffirmations of how art can affect us, and how it can carry us forward even through the darkest times of our lives. The two are dissimilar, but complimentary. The former is grounded in realism and the latter in escapism. They tend toward the pessimistic and optimistic, respectively. I think that reflects the character of the year–and I suppose, of myself–quite well. Hopefully you agree. On to the final five!

#5: DECA-DENCE

Not since Kill la Kill has a studio produced an original anime debut so immediately sharp and arresting. I have to admit, I turned that statement over in my head for literal days before committing to it, but it’s true. Nut Co. Ltd. have done TV anime before, but aside from an assist on the polarizing FLCL sequels, their most well-known work before Deca-Dence was The Saga of Tanya The Evil, which, whatever one may think about it, was a manga adaption that stuck fairly close to its origins.

Any flaws aside; Deca-Dence feels very much like a wholly-realized singular artistic vision, from start to finish. The sort that is fairly rare in commercial arts fields (which TV anime certainly is). What’s more, it is nakedly political, with a witheringly on-point cross-examination of the evils of capitalism and its dire endpoints as exemplified by its very setting; a post-apocalyptic world which is exploited as a “real life video game” by the ruling class. Which would maybe make it a slog if the show weren’t so damn fun. Visually, Deca-Dence pops with bright colors, steampunk-inspired machines, and a design sensibility for its robot characters that feels inherited from Kaiba, one of the all-time great anime of this sort. Narratively, there’s enough action and compelling character drama to keep things from getting stale or feeling preachy. Deca-Dence exists in solidarity, not on a pedestal.

The unified artistic vision that is largely a positive does, on the flipside, unfortunately mean that it has a few notable flaws. Its chief sin is a bait-and-switchy treatment of its two leads, which would be less of an issue if one were not a young girl and the other an older gruff man narratively empowered by her pain. It’s a mistake this kind of thing should be able to avoid, and that is primarily why it rounds out the bottom of the Top 5. So it goes.

Still, if Deca-Dence is any indication of what future Nut Co. productions, or those of director Yuzuru Tachikawa or writer Hiroshi Seko will be like, there’s a lot to look forward to.

#4: Kaguya-sama: Love is War?

For two years in a row; Kaguya-sama: Love is War! has been raising the bar for anime romcoms. What it may lack in innovation it more than makes up for in technique and heart, Love is War?, the confusingly-titled second season of the series, is top-to-bottom hilarious. Except of course, when it’s busy being surprisingly heavy instead.

It’s not entirely fair to put Love is War on a pedestal, but I really struggle to think of anything else in recent memory that works in this space so well. Original mangaka Aka Akasaka‘s technique of starting with a familiar archetype and then “filling them in” over the course of the story has kept Love is War‘s character writing consistently interesting. This holds true both when exploring the school-day trauma that Ishigami still suffers the aftershocks from and when breaking down the surprisingly complex character of the moralistic, blustery Miko.

But those are strengths equally attributable to the original manga. What puts Love is War the anime near the top of its bracket is the way the visuals elevate and enhance this storytelling. From a comedic perspective, the visuals breathe new life into jokes manga readers have heard before and really make them pop for newcomers. At times, new gags are even made up wholesale, often leaning on the visual element alone. Scenes like Kaguya randomly breaking into vogue, Hayasaka annoyedly bursting into Kaguya’s classroom, and even random visual asides referencing Dark Souls and Peanuts give the entire thing a wonderful, absurd edge.

On the more serious side, these techniques are instead turned toward invoking empathy. Faces have their visual features erased to signify disassociation, crowds coalesce into shadowy masses to project anxiety. Visual effect enthusiasts are given quite a bit to pour over in Love is War.

You might rightly ask why you should care about any of this, since at its core Love is War still is very much a “will they or won’t they” sort of love story. The sort that anime has seen many times before and will see many times again. To a point, that very question has kept it from an even higher spot on this list. But conversely, I would argue that resonant artistic depictions of the anxieties and absurdities of youth will never lose their place in the artistic canon. Not for anime, and not for anything.

#3: Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club

If this list were ranked solely by how much the anime on it made my heart sing, Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club would hold a comfortable #1 spot. Earlier this year I began an earnest dive into the girl group idol anime genre after only idly (haha) poking at it for most of my life. My opinion that 2011’s The Idolm@ster is the genre’s gold standard remains unchanged. But I did not expect it to receive an even close to worthy contender to the title this year. But here we are, and I do genuinely think that Nijigasaki High School Idol Club, the latest entry in the rival Love Live franchise, makes a damn good showing of it. Why? Because of the sheer effort the series go through to convey to you one simple fact; these girls are born entertainers, and they love it, through and through.

The ways in which they love it vary wildly, and if I had to pin a single weakness on Nijigasaki it would probably be that its gargantuan cast size (eleven main characters!) means that some of the girls do only get cursory development. The flipside though is that almost every single one who does get some focus is so magnetic that the passion they have for singing transfers almost directly to you. In its best moments, Nijigasaki feels like holding a live wire of artistic inspiration. Without a doubt; the anime is best experienced by checking any cynicism at the door and just throwing yourself in, arms wide open.

And part of the reason it succeeds is how easy it makes it to do that. Nijigasaki‘s great writing triumph is how quickly and snappily it establishes each character within each arc. Part of this is down to sharp visual design; things like Setsuna’s pyrotechnic stage setup, Rina’s iconic digital “faceboard”, Shizuku’s black and white dress, and so on. But the show’s laser focus when it comes to establishing why each girl wants to become an idol and how she goes about doing so is an incredibly convincing argument for this genre in this format, proving you don’t need two cours here. (Not to say an extra 13 episodes of this would’ve been in any way unwelcome.) The final arc, where group manager Yu and idol Ayumu have a near-falling out over the former’s desire to become a composer proves that the series can also work in more delicate emotional shades, which (as with many things this high on the list) makes me hope for a second season.

In a broader sense; from Setsuna’s matchstick strike of a guerrilla concert in episode three to the blazing monster of a festival that closes out the series, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club is a celebration of communal art and performance in a year where, to paraphrase music critic Todd Nathanson, the very idea may as well be science fiction. Being so fantastically escapist emphatically does not hurt Nijigasaki, it is the very core of its strength. What makes it wonderful is how it is borderline utopian; a vision of a place where everyone’s dreams come true.

#2: Tower of God

I try not to think about these kinds of things too much when I write, but I suspect if there’s a “controversial” pick this high up on the list, it’ll be this one. Tower of God stands as one of 2020’s most polarizing and, in my opinion, most misunderstood mainstream action anime. Tower of God is two primary things: for one, it is a kickass battle shonen set in a truly unique fantasy world inherited from its source material, a sprawling webcomic that effectively wrought the Webtoon movement from the ground with its bare hands. For another; it is an absolutely dialed critique of systems of arbitrary merit. If you’ve been waiting for me to bring up capitalism again, wait no longer. Frankly I don’t need to, Tower of God does it for me. It’s not like characters having to pay off their own medical expenses within the Tower is exactly a subtle analogy to real life.

Tower of God‘s attitude towards its source material–adapt the interesting or the relevant bits, skip everything else–can definitely leave it feeling a touch hard to follow at times. But Tower of God makes its intentions clear in its final few episodes, where deuteragonist Rachel does exactly as the Tower incentivizes her to, and betrays protagonist Twenty-fifth Bam. And why wouldn’t she? Every detail of the Tower’s worldbuilding portrays it as a ruthless meritocracy where only looking out for #1 at the expense of everyone else is rewarded. Bam never understands this because he never has to. His natural talents; his vast reservoirs of shinsu (mana, effectively) and propensity for making allies, are rewarded in a place he has been deposited into by what is more or less random chance. Essentially, he’s privileged. Rachel, who has no such talents, understands it intuitively, hence her betrayal.

But Tower of God‘s critique of these systems goes both wider and deeper. It’s foreshadowed much earlier by minor character Hoh betraying his team during the “Tag arc” that takes up the show’s middle third. Elsewhere, the series touches on misogyny (there is something truly–and intentionally!–offputting about how it’s spelled out to us that the King of Jahad ties the powers of his “princesses” to their virginity) and frame-ups (whatever happened with Khun and his sister). Through it all, its central point remains sharp; the Tower’s world is fantastical, but the principles it operates on are very much like our own.

It is true that the show’s setup basically begs for a second season, one that’s yet to be confirmed. But even if it were to end here, with Bam washed down to the bottom of the Tower, the show has made its point. All of us are climbing, and the Tower still waits.

So with how high my opinion of Tower of God clearly is, what could possibly be better than it? Well, if you know my tastes, or indeed if you’ve simply studied the banner closely, you can probably guess. Scroll down to find out, and raise a hand if you saw this one coming.

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#1: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Fundamentally, my taste in anime hasn’t changed much since I first discovered the medium over ten years ago. I have a hazy, sun-blurred memory of watching the dub of foundational school life comedy Azumanga Daioh chopped up into pieces and uploaded on Youtube. Azumanga Daioh and Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! are, very loosely, in the same genre, despite otherwise not being particularly similar. I bring the former up because I marvel at the many strange and wonderful shapes the school life comedy has taken over the past decade and a half. And Eizouken! certainly has the hallmarks of the genre. It is set primarily in a high school, centers around the activities of a small group of students, and uses the pitfalls of coming of age to set up relatable comedic skits. But it’s also more than that.

I place Eizouken! firmly in an emerging movement of anime that increasingly combine this genre with more serious and reflective elements, a logical step from its origins. (It’s not like AzuDaioh couldn’t be reflective when it wanted to be, after all.) I would happily shuttle it right up next to the post-apocalyptic melancholia of Girls’ Last Tour, or the contemporary but more adventure-oriented A Place Further Than The Universe, my own favorite anime of the 2010s, or the funny, wrenching dramedy of O’ Maidens In Your Savage Season! But its place within that movement is interesting, because while many of its genrefellows seek to perhaps evolve past the school life descriptor entirely, Eizouken! reestablishes why it matters in the first place. How it does this is pretty simple; it has perhaps the most well-considered thematic core of any TV anime to air this year.

History will probably peg Eizouken! as an “anime about anime”, but that’s looking at it narrowly. Eizouken! is an anime about the creative process in general, about what it means to be passionate about something, about turning that passion into reality, how that can be very hard, but how it is almost always worth it.

Our three leads correspond to an aspect of the inner world of art. Midori Asakusa, short, behatted, and kappa-like, is the pure ambition and the font of ideas. She spends the series half-adrift in a sea of drawings and daydreams, in love with flying machines and walking logos. Tsubame Mizusaki, of average height and with a sharp haircut, is the strive toward the perfection of technique, the desire to capture One Perfect Movement as cleanly as possible. (This is why it is she who expresses that she cares about animation, not anime. Contrast Midori who cares very much about anime-the-medium.) Finally, there is the tall, tombstone-toothed Sayaka Kanamori. The brains of the operation, someone for whom practical knowledge and the pursuit of money is a means to her and her friends’ collective happiness, a sort of person vanishingly rare in the real world. Alone, they’re incomplete. Together, they’re unstoppable. I’ve seen many anime whose casts compliment each other well, but Eizouken! might have one of the most well-oiled character dynamic machines in recent memory.

Eizouken!‘s beauty is in how it does not need to really explain itself at length. The series is an argument for itself. The skeptical may be inclined to ask the question back at Eizouken!; “what can sticking to your passions really accomplish?” And, well, the answer is Eizouken! Admittedly, as someone who writes for a living, I am predisposed to like themes in this general realm. But by the same token, pretending that Eizouken!‘s deep understanding of how the creative process functions, the diversity of motivation as to why people want to make art, and its celebration of the two didn’t move me would be disingenuous. I would simply not be doing my job as a commentator on the medium.

The show celebrates many kinds of people in general, really. Sometimes this is even surprisingly literal; Eizouken! stands as a still-rare anime that has a fairly racially diverse cast even though its leads are still Japanese. The series’ near-future setting seems to imply both a Japan and a larger world that is more heterogeneous (in every sense) than today, but this optimism shouldn’t be taken to be naivety. There is conflict in Eizouken!, the optimism comes from the resolution of that conflict. Short films are premiered, audiences are blown away. “We are all different, but truly great art can bring us together” seems to be the final message of the series. It’s a thesis that is so optimistic, almost utopian, that it can, to some, scan as corny. Whether Eizouken! “earns it” or not is where people are split on the series, but I think I’ve made damn well my case that it does.

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! premiered at the top of the year, in the Winter 2020 anime season that now feels a lifetime ago. Yet, throughout this long, dark, bizarre year, I found myself continually turning it over in my head. I think it’s likely that I will be for years to come. If I may make take back one thing from my original review that predates this blog, it’s this; Eizouken!, with the benefit of distance, feels like it’s not really from this, or any, specific year. It feels like it’s always been there. And from now on, it always will be.

And with that sign-off by way of what is in my estimation the first truly great anime of the ’20s, that concludes our little journey over these past few days. To both old friends and new readers, I wish you the best possible in the new year. Hold each other close, and in all things help one another. Magic Planet Anime will see you in 2021.

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.