Question:
With the passage of time and changing circumstances, do you believe certain disliked anime have been vindicated?

Answer:
Less than two generations ago anime was such an unknown and unheard of medium in the United States that fans who were aware of it called it “Japanimation,” as a means of straightforwardly defining what it was. Since the foundation of US Renditions in early 1987 and AnimeEigo in 1988, American viewers have been exposed to a steadily and rapidly increasing amount of Japanese animation, resulting in the perspectives and tastes of American fans evolving and maturing with experience. I don’t think I can say that any anime title has ever undergone a complete reversal of reputation among American otaku. But in a few cases, opinions do seem to have come around.

In 2005 AD Vision was charged with the production of an English-friendly release of Studio Pierrot’s 2000 anime series Gakko no Kaidan, known in English as “Ghost Stories.” According to English dub producer Steven Foster, ADV Films made the “business decision,” “It’s a little show from a studio, kinda didn’t do very well, what if we just give it to Steven and say ‘knock yourself out, just go crazy.’” So, “We made it up as we went along and it was so wonderful; it was great that we got Best Dub of the Year from Anime Insider.” Despite the fact that the 2000 Gakko no Kaiden anime was part of longer and larger franchise of novels, live-action movies, and video games all based on the same traditional Japanese mythology that underpinned anime including High School Mystery Gakuen Nanafushigi, Haunted Junction, and various iterations of Toile no Hanako-san, the anime wasn’t respected enough to be considered deserving of a faithful dub translation. Granted, licensor Fuji TV reportedly gave ADV few restrictions on its translation and allowed the studio to “go wild with it.” However, in January 2024 the liberal English dub of Gakko no Kaiden became one of the primary illustrations (in addition to Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon) in a fan backlash against loose and “Americanized” script translations. Granted, interest in the Gakko no Kaiden anime series among American viewers hasn’t increased, and the perception of the original show hasn’t changed much. But the show, which was once considered so insignificant that it didn’t even merit serious treatment, has become a rallying point for the respectful and diligent treatment of imported art.

If my memory is accurate, at least one of the English voice actors behind AD Vision’s translation of 1998’s Nankai Kio Neoranga stated publicly that the show sucked. Furthermore, reportedly the official subtitle translation is inaccurate and periodically omits lines of the Japanese dialogue. As a result, throughout the early 2000s Neoranga had a poor reputation, primarily among Americans who hadn’t actually watched the show and instead mindlessly parroted the common criticism. However, in more recent years the American fan community has seemingly forgotten its old disregard for the show, resulting in more viewers watching the series with fresh eyes and discovering that the show is flawed yet ambitious and admirable for its rich characterizations, complex mythology, complicated storyline, and tendency to alternate between cheerful, playful comedy and dark, brutal, unpredictable drama. After all, the series was created by Sho Aikawa, the screenwriter behind Nadesico, Rahxephon, Oh! Edo Rocket, Un-Go, and Eureka Seven, among other titles.

For probably twenty years the 1986 OVA Souheiki M.D. Geist was a punching bag for American otaku. And thanks to John O’Donnell affectionately making the titular character the mascot of the Central Park Media licensing company, most of the anime licensed and distributed by CPM gained a reputation as third-rate productions. But in the years following the shuttering of CPM in 2009, absence has seemingly made the heart grow fonder, and the American fan community has re-evaluated M.D. Geist as a sort of “so bad it’s good” treasure.

Similarly, despite initially airing on Japanese television in 1974, Knack Production’s sci-fi action series Chargeman Ken went mostly overlooked and forgotten, even in Japan, until being rediscovered by Japanese otaku when the series hit Japanese DVD in 2007. The show was re-aired on Japanese television in 2008 and again in 2011. The ironic fame and infamy of the cheap, flawed, carelessly produced Japanese show became a viral sensation and meme among otaku in Japan, eventually bringing the show to the attention of Americans and leading to an American home video release in 2017. Chargeman Ken can only be called “good” in the sense of “so bad that it’s good,” so saying that the American attitude toward the show has evolved isn’t precisely correct. Rather, the show went from completely unknown and unheard of even among the most hardcore of American anime fans to getting an American DVD then Blu-ray release strictly inspired by the viral popularity of the show as a goofy meme.

While the selection of all of these titles is my own subjectivity, I’ll conclude by escalating my personal sentiment. AN Entertainment licensed, localized, and distributed the 2000 television series Miami Guns because I pushed for the acquisition. No one else at AnimeNation had ever heard of the title. I shared my “raw” VHS copies of the 13 episodes and emphasized the serendipity of being a Florida-based company distributing an anime set in a fictional Miami. While some proponents including Anime News Network (ANN) critic Bamboo Dong and Glass City Con organizer Chris Zasada expressed positivity and praise for the show upon its American release, other critics including ANN’s Mike Toole severely criticized it. Twenty years after the American DVD release, I now feel gratified to see the show earning a respectable 6.9 IMDB score, a reddit thread titled “Miami Guns: The best cop show parody you’ve never heard of!” and viewer reactions including, “I have to defend this anime after a lot of people were telling me how crappy it was… Miami Guns manages to hit far more than it misses.”

Question:
In light of the recent losses of influential manga artists such as Kentaro Miura, Kazuki Takahashi, Buichi Terasawa, Takao Saito, Kazuhiko Kato, and Kazuo Koike, which current artists do believe will influence the anime medium in the future? This is prominent as pioneers such as Hayao Miyazaki, Rumiko Takahashi, Goh Nagai, and Yoshiyuki Okumura approach retirement.

Answer:
Given my age, I don’t even know what a “hot take” actually is, but this may be one. Artists and creators had more opportunity to influence the development of the anime industry during the youthful and developmental ages of the industry. I’m not implying that the anime industry has reached a stagnancy; however, the industry now has a maturity that it didn’t yet have fifty or more years ago. Mitsuteru Yokoyama practically invented both the magical girl and robot anime genres because his Mahoutsukai Sally and Tetsujin 28 were among the earliest examples of their genres. Go Nagai revolutionized the industry by creating a magical girl for male viewers. He also practically launched the “super robot” genre. Leiji Matsumoto introduced the space opera to manga and anime. Yoshiyuki Tomino and Ryosuke Takahashi founded the “real robot” sub-genre. Although not as well remembered now, Yoshitake Suzuki introduced the first transforming robot. Rumiko Takahashi introduced the harem romantic comedy sub-genre. Functionally Masami Kurumada and Buronson practically co-established the modern shounen action genre.

In terms of animators, Isao Takahata is respected for depicting anime characters as believable, living people with daily lives and concerns rather than just characters used to advance a plot. Ichiro Itano is beloved as the creator of the “Itano Circus.” Hayao Miyazaki, following the lead of Isao Takahata, has become arguably history’s second most beloved animator following only behind Walter E. Disney. Osamu Dezaki not only gave anime his distinctive dramatic directorial style, he’s also responsible for the first use of computer-generated graphics in anime.

All of these firsts were inevitable advancements. Had not these specific creators contributed, someone else eventually would have. But now that anime has existed for 66 years, the probable majority of “firsts” for the industry have all happened. Moreover, prior to the digital era fewer opportunities and means existed for individuals to share their creations and artistic talent. For a manga to become widely known, it had to be professionally published and distributed. With very rare exceptions, for an anime to reach a large audience, it had to be professionally produced. The digital era has both shattered and changed those limitations. Individual independent creators in the modern era have more opportunity than ever before, by a wide margin, to influence their peers. Moreover, the existence of self-published pop-culture light novels, video games, web blogs, and software programs such as Yamaha’s “Vocaloid” synthesizer that didn’t exist fifty years ago now offer so many more creators more opportunity to influence the anime medium. Historically manga artists have arguably been the biggest influence on the anime industry. Contemporary history seems to confirm the fact that in the digital era manga artists are no longer the most prominent influences in the development of the anime production industry.

Hayao Miyazaki is globally beloved as the world’s greatest living animator. He began animating professionally in 1963 and directed his first feature film in 1979. Video game animator Makoto Shinkai released his first solo-created anime short in 1996. As of this writing, both men are responsible for three of the ten highest grossing in Japan anime movies ever. In less than 30 years, Makoto Shinkai has created and directed a third of the highest grossing anime films of all time, placing his box-office record equal to that of Miyazaki. Put another way, a self-taught independent artist who started out animating in his own apartment with his girlfriend doing voice acting has risen in just 28 years to being one of the two most successful anime creators in history. Even if Makoto Shinkai’s distinctive visual style and heartfelt storytelling isn’t alone influential, his life story should be for future generations of aspiring artists.

Masaaki Yuasa isn’t a newcomer to the anime industry. However, he is arguably the industry’s highest profile eclectic, esoteric, “indie” anime director. Including Nekojiru-sou (2001), Mind Game (2004), Kaiba (2008), Yojouhan Shinwa Taikei (2010), Yoaketsugeru Lu no Uta (2017), Devilman Crybaby (2018), and Inu-Oh (2021) just to name a few, no other professional Japanese animator has been so devoted to developing so many unusual, expressionistic and experimental mainstream anime releases. He’s also directed an episode of the French animated series Wakfu and the American series Adventure Time. Any and every contemporary student of animation has to be aware of Yuasa’s work and likely can’t escape some sort of reaction to and influence from that work. If nothing else, Yuasa’s output demonstrates what sort of creative and artistic flexibility is possible within mainstream commercial animation in Japan and abroad.

Regardless of one’s fondness for his writing, Gen Urobuchi might be called contemporary Japan’s Philip K. Dick or Robert Heinlein despite Urobuchi seemingly taking prominent inspiration from Philip Dick, in particular. His Puella Magi Madoka Magica launched an entire sub-genre of deconstructive, existential magical girl anime. His Godzilla anime movie trilogy introduced a shockingly unique perspective on the aged franchise. His Fate/Zero has arguably overshadowed even Kinoko Nasu’s originating Fate/stay night series. Urobuchi’s Psycho-Pass franchise might not exist without the prior work of Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov, but the Psycho-Pass franchise has been undeniably massively successful as well as influential, particularly in blending speculative science fiction with political speculation.

One manga creator whose influence may still become prominent is Eiichiro Oda. The One Piece manga is now 27 years old, the anime series 25 years old, meaning that right now fresh Japanese young adults entering the entry levels of Japanese anime production studios have spent their entire lives growing up alongside One Piece. Some of these new, young professional animators may draw inspiration from the characteristics of One Piece. Others may deliberately try to evolve their styles in opposition to Oda’s.

The number of new anime series made for Japanese television broadcast has steadily increased year over year since the dawn of modern television anime sixty years ago. However, 2023 being one of the most prolific years of broadcast anime ever did not make it one of history’s best years of new anime. By my rough count, 2017 and 2018 both produced 249 new television and web anime. 2023 saw the release of 232 new series and specials, by my estimate. Excluding continuing seasons with continuing episode numbering, and excluding re-releases including the episodic television broadcasts of the Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai and Kidou Senshi Gundam: Senkou no Hathaway feature films, I was fortunate enough to watch at least one episode of 230 of this year’s new titles. The two I skipped were Shingeki no Kyojin: The Final Season Kanketsu-hen and Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen -Ketsubetsu-tan-.

For minor technical reference, I considered the Tokyo Revengers: Tenjiku-hen special to be part of the “Seiya Kessen-hen” second season. And according to the official Japanese homepage, Arknights: Reimei Zensou and Arknights: Fuyukomori Kaerimichi are one collective series.

Furthermore, technically every year that has more than five shows has a “top five,” but singling-out shows just because they rank by default isn’t a very useful measure of quality. In my admittedly subjective opinion, only three “new” broadcast anime series that premiered in 2023 rise to the level of noteworthy excellence. Then a number of titles deserve recognition as strong contenders.

In the contemporary era so many of the light novels and manga that receive anime adaptations feel as though they were created as footholds: opportunities for new writers to break into the profession or works to keep professional creators relevant. Stories are rare that feel like they exist because the author was compelled to share a unique vision. Writer Kanehito Yamada’s manga Sousou no Frieren can be called just another sword & sorcery tale, but such disregard ignores the story’s charming uniqueness. Madhouse’s currently ongoing TV adaptation is lovely looking and well animated, but so are many other anime series. “World building” has come into vogue as a primary criteria for literary criticism, but the criteria is frequently mishandled. Apart from biographies and documentaries, all fictional stories world build because all stories need some sort of setting. The Sousou no Frieren anime depicts a world that not only refers to its history but actually feels like it has history. Crumbling ancient ruins are merely set dressing, not world building. The Sousou no Frieren story contains numerous small details and references that evoke the sense of a world that has lived, grown, developed, and changed over a millennium. Its world doesn’t feel like a convenient fantasy setting; it feels like a living world. More importantly, the characters within the world feel dynamic. While especially episodes 8-10 are filled with breathtaking suspenseful action, the show is at heart a character study concentrating on the subtle ways experiences and companionship affect and change the characters’ personalities. Unlike so many contemporary anime series that feel arbitrary and spontaneous, Sousou no Frieren is deliberative and deliberately planned. Every moment, every event serves a purpose. The anime feels like a refreshing breath of fresh air because it feels like a story that wants to be told rather than feeling like a story that exists for the sake of popularizing itself and selling merchandise.

Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is comparable to Sousou no Frieren in several ways. Also an ongoing series as of the end of 2023, the first half of the show alone promises enough integrity to make it worth notice. Set in a fictional ancient China, this royal palace drama occurs within a society of manners, dignity, and formality. The protagonist survives by her wit and intelligence. Likewise, the show itself assumes the audience’s intelligence. The show’s exposition frequently lies in what’s not said aloud. The characters, and by extension the viewing audience, interpret the show’s plot developments by examining the characters’ actions and expressions, by interpreting what they say and what they keep silent. The series has a playful cynicism that doesn’t appear in anime very often, so paying attention to the show, its characterizations, and its relationships makes the viewing experience more rewarding. The show’s editing is periodically a bit jerky, sometimes forcing viewers to fill in narrative gaps themselves, but the little lapses almost seem deliberate, in order to remind viewers to be as astute as the protagonist is.

Recognizing the Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen season while excluding the comparable second season of Jujutsu Kaisen may seem peculiar, but the Demon Slayer official site recognizes the “Swordsmith Village arc” as a self-contained series while the Jujutsu Kaisen homepage identifies the TV anime as one continuing series. Moreover, narratively Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen is a stronger narrative package than the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen is. Granted, both series during 2023 introduced plot developments that feel artificial and manipulated in order to preface further drama in the stories. But “Swordsmith Village arc” delivers a more sincere, more emotional, less manipulative action-packed story than Jujutsu Kaisen season two, which feels like it exists solely for the purposes of shock value and laying the groundwork for future story arcs. When one wants to demonstrate the peaks of contemporary shounen fantasy anime, the Demon Slayer: Swordsmith Village mini-series is an ideal example.

I think that a handful of additional 2023 anime deserve some recognition and admiration.

The first season of Hikari no Ou, co-adapted by Mamoru Oshii, directed by veteran animator Junji Nishimura, with character design by Blood: The Last Vampire animation director Kazuchika Kise, and score composed by Kenji Kawai, has a luminous production staff. Moreover, despite being animated by relatively mainstream studio Signal.MD, arguably no other new broadcast anime this year looks and feels more esoteric and independent, including even Ikimono-san. However, despite a great pedigree and promise, the first season of Hikari no Ou is foremost nearly incomprehensible. The story reveals itself slowly. Moreover, the exposition is so heavily steeped in the show’s own mythology and lore that frequently it’s difficult to fully understand what characters are talking about. The show is noteworthy for being so unique, but that esoteric uniqueness is also just as much a weakness.

Dead Mount Death Play is likewise near unbelievably complicated. However, to its great credit, mostly the show actually manages to keep its juggling plot threads coherent. The show’s bizarre mysteries and large cast of even more bizarre characters keep the show unpredictable and exciting. However, inevitably with a story this complicated, several of the lesser plot threads go unexplained.

Oshi no Ko begins as one story. Then it reaches a shocking climax that promises a compelling mystery. Then the subsequent ten episodes struggle to fulfill that initial promise. Episode 6 gained some notoriety for its ruthless cynicism, but the episode is merely a variation of the earlier motion picture Perfect Blue, and despite the strength of the episode, it’s tangential to the primary storyline. Oshi no Ko throughout is vibrant looking. And it periodically remembers to develop its central conceit, but regrettably the show mostly fails to live up to its potential.

Similarly, Watashi no Shiawase na Kekkon is absolutely lovely looking, and the show has a very immersive atmosphere. But regrettably the characterizations and especially the story development in the show’s second half are so stilted and artificial that the series never feels convincing or satisfying.

The short Uma Musume: Road to the Top web mini-series and the TV series third season are both very satisfying, but following on the heels of the stellar and heartbreaking second season, virtually anything would have trouble measuring up.

I hope I may be forgiven for lumping together a final few titles. Lv1 Maou to One Room Yuusha is a very fun sly satire that pays homage to the tone of anime from twenty or more years ago. Jigokuraku is practically the runner-up version of Kimetsu no Yaiba: Katanakaji no Sato-hen. The show is visually inventive. It’s also gratuitously violent; however, it ends up feeling rather unfulfilling. Skip to Loafer rivals many of the past’s better shoujo anime but by design doesn’t try to surpass them in emotional resonance or story depth. The ongoing Shangri-la Frontier is energetic and fun, but it also feels like it frequently just revs in place, not progressing the story when it could and should.

Answer:
Considering the facts that artificial intelligence (AI) has already been tentatively utilized in anime production and the fact that Japan is one of the world’s foremost first adopters of advancing technology, the participation of AI in anime production is already reality. The only speculation remaining is the extent to which AI technology will integrate into anime production in the future. I suspect that extent will be limited and will depend heavily upon how far AI technology develops. I envision AI technology integrating into manga development even less.

WIT Studio produced the short “Inu to Shounen” anime for Netflix. The January 2023 release was an animation experiment utilizing AI to generate its background imagery. WIT Studio explained that the short was created to test methods of overcoming worker shortages in the animation industry. Ironically, Japanese amateur pundits criticized the production as an attempt to circumvent paying human animators. In 2020 Tezuka Productions published the original Black Jack manga story “Paidon,” which was initially created by a rudimentary AI then revised by human artists. Tezuka Pro has announced plans to return to the well by releasing a fully AI generated Black Jack manga story in fall 2023. According to the studio, the publication is intended as an experiment to see how AI can inspire and assist human creators rather than an experiment in replacing human creators. In 2016 revered director Hayao Miyazaki reacted to an early AI animation demonstration with revulsion, saying, “I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all,” and “We humans are losing faith in ourselves.”

In contrast, however, in 2023 Tezuka Productions director Makoto Tezuka stated, “I know Osamu Tezuka would have definitely used AI if he were alive.” The Tezuka Productions press conference announcing the fully AI generated Black Jack manga “showed a few illustrations created using AI that could never have been drawn by Osamu Tezuka, who died in 1989, including ‘Black Jack’ holding a smartphone,” stated the Japan Times.

In the late 1990s anime production shifted from coloring by hand-painting acetate cels to digital coloring. The transition was necessitated by a decreasing availability of clear plastic sheets and also by the emergence of advancing technology. The inclusion of computer generated graphics in anime began in earnest in 1983 and slowly increased, reaching the 1998 release of Visitor, the first fully CG animated anime. However, since then CG technology has not supplanted hand-drawn animation frames.

Despite the commercial intentions and requirements of publishing companies and distributors, anime and manga remain artistic endeavors. The fact that a majority of anime production is based on pre-existing material suggests not only that anime is a publicity tool but also that the appeal and popularity of anime lies in human creativity, human-generated stories. In the same way that CG animation has become an industry standard used mostly to save time and effort, AI may become increasingly used as a production shortcut. But I don’t envision AI becoming as extensively or prominently used as even CG in anime in the foreseeable future. Presently, even CG animation must still be designed and programmed by human artists. Although rendered in digital shapes, character and prop designs are still human inventions, human ideas. In the future, AI may be able to design characters, vehicles, and locations that rival human creativity and imagination, but they will never be human creativity. Human artists and animators will always have a desire to bring to life their own imagination.

In manga development, which involves far fewer artistic contributors than anime production, AI may certainly arise among amateur creators realizing the ability of AI to create stories and illustrations on their behalf, but talented artists will doubtlessly want to create their own work through their own efforts. AI may be implemented in limited substitution of assistants, adding in screen tones, background effects, or even costume designs, but manga artists extensively using AI outsources the artist’s own job and creativity. In the case of an AI generated Black Jack manga, the original creator, Osamu Tezuka, is no longer alive to produce his own new stories.

Inevitably AI technology will increasingly be used in anime production. However, I expect that it will never extend beyond use as a supplemental production technology. Consumers will certainly see more fan-generated and amateur-generated AI manga and anime, but ideally audiences won’t notice AI contributions within professional productions both because the contributions will be small and because the purpose of their inclusion is to reduce workloads and patch over spots rather than replace human artistic input.

Question:
What makes Sailor Moon such an iconic global franchise among anime fans, despite other magical girl anime sharing similar traits such as action-oriented plots, drama, in-depth world-building and characterization, romance, and an elegant aesthetic? In other words, what sets Sailor Moon apart from other anime in the genre?

Answer:
The reason for the immediate and lasting success of the Sailor Moon franchise is rather simple. Creator Naoko Takeuchi introduced some of the core concepts of Sailor Moon in her 1991 manga series Codename: Sailor V. The Codename: Sailor V manga introduced Minako Aino, her magical companion cat Artemis, and the moon symbology. Yet the series rested comfortably within the tropes and expectations of the traditional magical girl fighter genre that had existed for the prior twenty years. Most prominently, Sailor V descended from Go Nagai’s Cutey Honey (1973) and Takeshi Shudo’s Magical Princess Minky Momo (1982). These two earlier series helped introduce the scenario of a young girl fighting to defend the world from a diabolical evil.

Just four months after debuting Codename: Sailor V, creator Naoko Takeuchi was struck by the inspiration to remake the story with a different influence. Takeuchi rebooted Sailor V as Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon by turning the new series into a shoujo version of Tatsuo Yoshida & Tatsunoko Production’s 1972 anime series Kagaku Ninja-tai Gatchaman. Color-coordinated hero teams based around a unifying theme had been popular for twenty years. Unexpectedly, Masami Kurumada’s 1986 manga and anime series St. Seiya had developed a massive Japanese fan following among women. Despite the graphic violence of St. Seiya, young Japanese women were drawn to the series’ effeminate character designs and flowery aesthetic. Naoko Takeuchi realized that no one had seized the opportunity to transform the girlish-looking boys of St. Seiya into literal girls. The bronze saints’ “cloths” armor was revamped into the familiar Japanese sailor-fuku worn by countless Japanese school girls. St. Seiya’s zodiac constellation theme was marginally revised into a lunar theme, and thus the tremendously successful St. Seiya franchise, which itself was a variation on the concept introduced by Gatchaman, evolved into Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon.

Yet Naoko Takeuchi deserves further credit for creating an ideal formula with Sailor Moon. Not only was the core concept of pretty color-coordinated fighters in themed armor already a proven successful trope, Takeuchi applied the traditional conventions of shoujo manga, drawing the characters as wispy, doe-eyed lasses and injecting a prominent dose of romantic angst that would give readers and viewers an additional dramatic angle to chew on.

The predictable immediate success of the Sailor Moon franchise quickly spawned imitators including Ai Tenshi Densetsu Wedding Peach (1994) and Tokyo Mew Mew (2000). But while successful in their own rights, neither Wedding Peach nor Tokyo Mew Mew did what Sailor Moon had done. Although both Wedding Peach & Tokyo Mew Mew were shoujo manga stories, neither emphasized a romantic sub-plot to the extent that Sailor Moon did.

In retrospect, the breakthrough success of Sailor Moon was obvious. Sailor Moon was fundamentally a gender-swapped relaunch of a genre trope that had already proven massively successful multiple times before. Moreover, creator Naoko Takeuchi didn’t just re-tread previous concepts. She wholeheartedly transitioned an established shounen manga scenario into the shoujo manga vein. No one had so boldly created a hybrid of that sort before Naoko Takeuchi, so the combination of novelty and inspired creativity turned Sailor Moon into something simultaneously familiar and popular and also fresh and strikingly unique. Takeuchi did such a good job of exploiting and hybridizing influences that the original 1991 Sailor Moon franchise has supported both live-action and next-generation animated remakes that still rely on the characterizations, scenarios, and combination of themes that Takeuchi perfectly incorporated into her original manga.

On a side note, a similar hybridization of established concepts didn’t occur again until 2004 when Ojamajo Doremi creator Izumi Todo, Dragon Ball Z director Daisuke Nishio, and Toei Animation transitioned the tropes of the live-action Super Sentai franchise into the shoujo genre by creating the Pretty Cure franchise which has now dwarfed even the popularity of Sailor Moon largely due to its conceptual flexibility of allowing for rotating casts.

While Sailor Moon touched a nerve with Japanese viewers by mining two established, popular, and successful concepts – the costumed hero team and the emotionally conflicted shoujo drama, the Sailor Moon franchise also quickly garnered international recognition and cult following because the story was so uniquely novel and distinctly Japanese. Western viewers, particularly those in Europe and America, had never seen anything like Sailor Moon. The girls in sailor suits felt very familiar to Westerners. After all, the Japanese sailor fuku was originally a Western import. But the visual aesthetic of pretty girls in mini-skirts shooting magic blasts and fighting monsters was so drastically different from any cartoon that European or American audiences had ever seen that Sailor Moon immediately became a unique fascination for otaku outside of Japan.

Ask John:
One of the reasons anime is popular is how relatable the characters and narratives are. We are empathetic and sympathetic due to them drawing upon real-world parallels. However, is there a limitation to this relation? No matter how fantastic, live-action entertainment features real people. Animation has an extra barrier to overcome, as no human looks like an anime character. I will use the horror genre as an example. Horror appeals to us because of our instinctual mortality. However, anime characters are voiced drawings. So it has two barriers to overcoming our suspension of disbelief. While live-action only has one. So is there a limitation to our empathy?

Answer:
As the question asserts, anime does have an ability to create empathy and suspension of disbelief. Anime isn’t popular strictly because it looks vibrant and stylish. Anime uses characters that feel believable and situations that resonate with viewers’ experiences. So the audience empathizes with the story on screen, cares about the characters and events. However, viewers who are old enough to comprehend abstraction and understand the difference between fiction and reality will always have a limit to their suspension of disbelief. Our critical acumen will distinguish a difference between fiction and reality, between newsreel footage and manufactured cinema. And the rational mind will always recognize the artificiality of two-dimensional drawings compared to three-dimensional photography. But the relative ceilings of suspension of disbelief between animation and live-action cinema might not be as wide apart as one may assume.

Humans instinctively recognize other humans. Even a person raised in total isolation will still recognize another human being as a creature of the same species. So humans instinctively feel a degree of empathic similarity. All humans breath, eat, think, move, feel. Two-dimensional drawings are not alive. They don’t breath or eat or think or feel. A rational human viewer instantly recognizes these distinctions. But in terms of storytelling, how many anime productions affect our emotions more deeply and powerfully than countless live-action films do? No one can convince me that Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind is less emotionally impactful than Ed Wood’s Plan Nine from Outer Space. Graveyard of Fireflies is one of the most heartbreaking films ever made regardless of its medium of 2D animation because its characterizations and relatable conflicts connect with our fundamental human compassion and experience. The most visceral and grueling action films like Gareth Evans’ Raid movies deliver an equal amount of white-knuckle suspenseful terror as Tanjiro Kamado’s battle against Daki and Gyutaro in Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc because the anime uses its unique cinematic characteristics to its best advantage to enthrall viewers’ interest. Viewers grimace over the violence in The Raid because we can comprehend the immediacy and physicality of that on-screen pain. While Demon Slayer doesn’t even attempt to look realistic, its use of exaggerated color, its stylized speed, the characters’ intense expressions of desperation, and the editing that immerses viewers into the scenario all pierce directly to the viewer’s core sense of experience. We empathize because the anime forces us to. The deliberate artistic creativity of the anime speaks not to our superficial visual sense of recognition but to our psychological experience and understanding.

The horror genre seems to be an exception; however, I’ll propose the argument that the shortcoming lies in the execution of anime anime rather than in the potential of anime. The reason live-action horror is impactful is because viewers can immediately and easily envision themselves in the position of the characters. The victims in horror films are humans. The audience also consists of humans. Psychologically interchanging one human for another isn’t difficult. But the viewers’ rational mind recognizes that 2D animation isn’t real. The hand-drawn characters can’t actually feel pain or die because they’re not alive in the first place. However, the examples of Demon Slayer and Grave of the Fireflies demonstrate that 2D art can overcome and subvert the rational recognition that illustration is fiction. Typically horror anime doesn’t feel truly horrifying because it rarely tries to be truly horrifying. The 2014 body horror anime Pupa absolutely has the narrative capacity to burrow underneath the viewers’ skin, but it doesn’t because the show deliberately uses a highly abstract aesthetic design. The grisly Corpse Party anime has the potential be be chilling, yet its initial release was so heavily censored that it came across as an ironic joke instead of as a horror. However, consider Satoshi Kon’s film Perfect Blue. When Mima is stabbed with an umbrella, the audience feels and reacts to that attack because it’s depicted in a way the audience can personally relate to and understand. It’s not an abstraction or a stylized depiction. The murder of Murano by icepick in the middle of the movie is brutally horrifying because it’s not intended to be escapist entertainment or exaggerated cinematic style. That grotesque 2D sequence is deliberately intended to make viewers feel the horrific brutality of the event. Typically horror anime simply doesn’t attempt to be so harshly cynical. Typically horror anime either gravitates toward indulgent atmospheric style, like Vampire Hunter D, Supernatural Beast City, or Demon Slayer, or grand guignol absurdist ultra-violence like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Corpse Party, and Kakugo no Susume.

The contrasting genre of romance and particularly sex, however, demonstrates a contrasting result. An argument may be made that idealized, abstracted, literally two-dimensional depictions of falling in love and lovemaking can be more visually and emotionally impactful than live-action renditions. Hand-drawn depictions of romance necessarily emphasize emotional resonance because they can’t effectively depict the nearly invisible subtleties of human expression. Humans naturally pick up on “chemistry” between people. Viewers can instinctively tell when affection feels real or artificial. Yet in anime, viewers are obligated to believe what they’re given. The struggles of conscience and pangs of heartbreak are unhindered by the nuances of reality. What we see on screen is an idealized version of romance that shoots straight to our hearts without as much interference from our rational brains. Moreover, the physical act of sex is always idealized in animation. Characters are always exactly what they’re dreamed of. Fictional sex has none of the fumbling with adjusting to a comfortable position, or delays in action, or the unexpected challenges of the physics of human weight and bodies, or slight changes in emotion or expression that can break a mood. Sex in animation is also capable of depicting intimacy not actually possible in real life. So animated sex can satisfy primal desires and instincts that real life cannot. One can argue that fictional animated sex can be sexier and more emotionally and imaginatively stimulating than looking at real sex.

For rational viewers, people past the age of young children who can rationally distinguish between fictional characters and real people, hand-drawn animation will never have the capacity to be as visually and immediately immersive or convincing as live-action film. But two-dimensional animation has its own means of being just as affecting. Prose fiction and oral storytelling have no visual component at all yet are still able to excite, enthrall, and terrify us. If pictures are truly worth a thousand words, and words alone have such power and capability, surely animation has a capacity to stir an audience’s emotions on a deep and heartfelt level.

Having watched a lot of anime, I prefer to define any given year’s best works by recognizing the most creative, interesting, unique, and new titles. So I particularly try to de-prioritize sequels and new seasons of older shows. Fan favorite series including Chainsaw Man, Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai -Ultra Romantic-, Mob Psycho 100 season three, and SPYxFAMILY are overly obvious contenders for best of the year, and for various reasons I’m inclined to look beyond them. I counted 221 “new” broadcast and streaming anime released in 2022. My count excludes new seasons that continued episode numbering. And I’m sure that a few obscure premieres slipped past my notice. Out of those 221 new anime, I had the fortune of watching at least one full episode of each excepting Ohiru no Shocker-san and Madtoy Chatty.

Contrary to claims from corporate reflections published by Escapist, Polygon, GameRant, and Crunchyroll proclaiming 2022 “one of the best years for the medium in modern history,” and “an exceptional year for anime,” I don’t think that 2022 was a great year for new anime. 2020, 2017, and 2015 were great years for new anime. 2022 was an average year compared to most.

In the same way Edward Hopper’s iconic 1942 painting Nighthawks captures the simultaneous existential loneliness and latent possibility of the urban nightscape, Yofukashi no Uta vividly applied that sensation to adolescence. “Call of the Night” brilliantly captured the magical juvenile fascination with the night. A city at night is not merely a darkened familiar neighborhood. A city in the depth of night is an alternate witching-hour world of anonymity, freedom, mystery, and the potential for capital-r Romance. Denizens of the nighttime world aren’t just everyday people; they’re creatures of the night – enigmatic thrill-seekers, dangerous risk-takers, uninhibited adventurers, Gothic romantics. Yofukashi no Uta doesn’t merely depict its protagonist’s adventure. The show ensnares viewers and wraps them up into the exhilarating alienness of a personal twilight world. Every aspect of the show is tremendously evocative, from the mystical art and color design to complex, existential characterizations, unpredictable plot turns, lovely animation quality, and dynamic music. Every aspect of Yofukashi no Uta suggested a show that had the full creative investment of its staff to create a work of art that’s engrossing, fascinating, and intimately personal.

Lycoris Recoil is certainly the most kinetic girls with guns anime production since 2009’s Canaan and before that 2000’s Mezzo Forte. For better and worse, Lycoris Recoil is the epitome of grounded contemporary urban fantasy. The show’s scenario and series-spanning conflict feel very modern yet are abjectly silly if any common-sense logic is applied to them. The show’s action scenes are thrilling yet also based on a near complete lack of understanding of real-life firearm characteristics. An observant viewer should be able to tell rather quickly that the Lycoris Recoil animators have never fired a real handgun before. The show’s characters aren’t especially deep or complicated, yet they are distinct and believable, and they do progress through personal development. In the sense that Lycoris Recoil delivers every ounce of the seemingly intelligent, adult, provocative escapist entertainment promised by the very nature of contemporary anime, the show has to be considered a resounding success.

Akiba Maid Sensou achieves the same success by exponentially betting on the same characteristics that made Lycoris Recoil work. A pure fan-service production, Akiba Maid Sensou embeds itself in Japanese pop culture reference, hybridizing the classic yakuza stalwart ethic story with Akihabara’s maid café sub-culture while sprinkling in homages to classic anime including Ashita no Joe, Kyojin no Hoshi, and Flanders no Inu. By rights the mash-up of noirish nostalgia with ultra-kawaii shouldn’t work at all, yet somehow it does within Akiba Maid War, and it nearly even feels natural. Traditionally anime has been appealing because it offers a style of heartfelt, provocative, fascinating literary entertainment that absolutely no other medium can replicate. Akiba Maid Sensou succeeds wildly at being a literal wildly crazy mix-up of everything that viewers come to anime in search of.

Continuing the theme, BIRDIE WING -Golf Girls’ Story- similarly develops from an absurdist cross-over of inspirations. Numerous golf anime have starred male characters: Pro Golfer Saru, Ashita Tenki ni Naare, Dandoh. Far fewer have starred female characters. In fact, 1991’s Sweet Spot and 2021’s Sorairo Utility were both single-episode productions. So Birdie Wing earns the commemoration of first golf anime series starring female characters. But golfing alone isn’t unique in anime. Taking a cues from One Outs and Kaiji, turning golf into an underground fight club in which golfing is used as a negation between mobsters is a novel approach. Moreover, applying traditional shounen manga tropes to ladies golfing, and even going further to apply some bizarre sci-fi twists, makes Birdie Wing even more unpredictable and jaw-droppingly absurd. Beautiful art design and strong characterizations round out the excellent package. Unfortunately, mid-way through the show’s narrative turns toward a far more conventional course. While still highly entertaining, the later half of the series’ first season lacks much of the unpredictable zaniness of the earliest episodes.

Netflix and Liden Film’s ten-episode Kotarou wa Hitorigurashi is a little masterpiece. Unlike comparable anime including Oya-san wa Shishunki and Wakaokami wa Shougakusei that mostly concentrate on comedy, “Kotarou Lives Alone” juggles comedy, social satire, and highly affecting pathos. Ultimately the story is a satire of Japanese social conventions including politeness, self-responsibility, and civility. The show demonstrates that the Japanese social sensibility of trusting every citizen with autonomy and social responsibility creates considerate, dependable, independent citizens but also allows for emotional and physical abuse, abandonment, alienation, and loneliness. Since this show keeps its cast fairly small, and most of the characters are adults, the characterizations are unique and multi-faceted. The show has ample opportunity to reveal different aspects of its cast’s personalities, and the show’s situations are very relatable because they’re grounded in reality.

For one reason or another, several other 2022 premieres don’t occupy the same orbit as the forementioned titles however still deserve mention.

Director Hiroyuki Imaishi’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Studio 4°C’s Yurei Deco both come from acclaimed artisans. And both shows are strikingly comparable although the lesser known one is arguably the superior one. Both shows depict a cynical, satirical, dystopic exaggerated future based on today’s reality; however, Yurei Deco applies much more creativity and thought to its speculative prognostication. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners takes an easier, more obvious and cliché approach. In a comparable yet broader scope, Yurei Deco swings for the outfield yet comes up short while Cyberpunk: Edgerunners seems complacent to settle for base hits. The characterizations of Yurei Deco are unique and varied while the characterizations of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners are mostly flat and unengaging. The visceral impact of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is akin to a figurative slap in the face. Yurei Deco appears far more simplistic, yet the show approaches a greater variety of more complex themes with more delicacy and sophistication, even if the show doesn’t quite give its various aspects enough development to make them fully successful.

Creator Mitsuo Iso’s 2007 series Dennou Coil is one of anime’s lesser discussed masterpieces. His 2022 mini-series Chikyuugai Shounen Shoujo is quite good. Although a bit reminiscent of Mugen no Ryvius, “Orbital Children” tells its own unique story. The series’ underlying philosophical conflict isn’t unique or new, and the show doesn’t become as philosophical as it could have been. But the show does strike an effective balance between immersive adventure and intellectual, moral debate. Moreover, the show’s speculative concept design is wonderfully realized, visually and rationally. In effect, the series comes across much like a more grounded and also more effective sibling to Koji Masunari & Masaaki Yuasa’s 2010 feature Welcome to the Space Show.

Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru is a well-produced, affectively written shoujo romcom on par with Ao Haru Ride, Kimi ni Todoke, and Bokura ga Ita. In other words, the show is highly entertaining but not exceptional. It stands out a bit this year only because it had little competition from other similar series.

Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku had the misfortune of premiering with its weakest episode. The show would have been far better served if its first episode had been inserted as a flashback mid-way through the series. Narratively Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku is an almost remarkably simple narrative about a cheery, optimistic girl making friends at her new high school. The show functions as a pleasant palate-cleanser, and iyashi-kei “healing” anime. Although its stylized character designs take some getting used to, the subtle highlight of the show is its soothing color design and exceptional animation quality that highlights fluidly detailed animation of mundane realistic actions and movements. Akebi-chan no Sailor Fuku absolutely won’t appeal to everyone, but viewers that perceive and appreciate its skillful technical nuances will be impressed.

The criticism that good time-travel stories are difficult to write is as commonplace as time-travel stories themselves. As the third anime production based in Tomihiko Morimi’s “Tatami Galaxy” universe, Yojouhan Time Machine Blues arguably isn’t a “new” 2022 premiere as much as it’s a new season of an existing franchise. The first and last episodes of the short six-episode series are largely unnecessary bookends. The core of the story told in episodes 2-5 is a thoughtful, narrowly focused, deliberative time-travel story that also advances the franchise’s relationship between the protagonist and Akashi. The core story earns credit for the density of its narrative. Absolutely every detail and reference has significance. Moreover, the story deliberatively explains the dynamics of its time-travel mechanics. The show’s simplified, rubbery aesthetic doesn’t look visually impressive, but the design style allows for especially expressive animation.

Made in Abyss: Retsujitsu no Ougonkyo demands attention in large part because it’s such a wildly inventive and unusual story. While viewers can mostly understand the story and empathize with its characters, the story is entirely otherworldly and bizarrely foreign. In this tragic story, characters willingly make massive personal sacrifices in exchange for the sensation of absolute freedom and escape. They literally abandon not only their previous lives but even their previous forms in order to gain “adventure.” But then they became complacent, satisfied with their Faustian bargain until they’re forced to recognize that their twisted gains still have an ever-increasing terrible cost yet to be paid in the form of Wazukyan who is frustrated that his compatriots have ceased seeking further experience and Faputa who believes the high price the villagers have paid still isn’t enough. And all of this terrible, horrifying situation is merely the setting that surrounds the series’ primary characters. The series’ storytelling is arguably too opaque, leaving the story arc confusing and not fully explained even at its end. But the visceral experience of witnessing the story unfold is unnerving, riveting, and fascinating.

The 2022 remake of Urusei Yatsura almost criminally excludes the iconic “Ventura, Ventura, Space People” chant and the iconic sound of Lum flying. But in exchange, the show has the benefit of forty years of retrospect that allows it to concentrate the most beloved aspects of Rumiko Takahashi’s creation. The 2022 version of Urusei Yatsura feels almost like a greatest hits remake that subtly emphasizes all of the characteristics of the 1981 series that fans have grown to love while abandoning the weaknesses and flaws that compromised the original adaptation.

Princess Connect! Re:Dive Season 2 deserves brief mention for doubling down on everything that made the first season enjoyable. Additional entertaining characters, laughable situations now complemented by answers to the first season’s back-story questions, and even more jaw-dropping spectacular animation and eye-popping visually detailed action scenes demand respect and praise.

Question:
Do you know why there are so few serious anime that focuses on the Yakuza and Burakumin?

Answer:
As a foreign observer, I can only speculate, so guess I shall. Although never as common in anime as within Japanese live-action, yakuza have appeared prominently, albeit occasionally, in anime since the early 80s. Even in recent years yakuza have been prominent in the Kumichou Musume to Sewagakari, Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai, Chuukan Kanriroku Tonegawa, and Hinamatsuri anime. Although not so prominent, yakuza also are a primary theme in the Gokushufudou & Gokudolls anime. And yakuza will play a prominent role in next year’s My Home Hero anime series. The primary reason for the limited appearance of yakuza within anime may be attributed to the nature of anime itself. To a large degree, anime is intended for children. Organized crime is a relatively mature concept. Particularly the modern yakuza theme lends itself to hardboiled crime drama and thrillers, but such genres are a minority in anime. Programs targeted at children and adolescent viewers skew toward using action, adventure, comedy, sports, hobby, horror, and romance genres that are more appealing to younger viewers.

A similar reasoning applies to the absence of “burakumin” within anime, but the omission of Japan’s “untouchables” in pop-culture media is likely a bit more complicated. Traditionally, dating back to the feudal era, Japan’s burakumin have been primarily those associated with “unclean” professions including slaughtering and butchering animals, and handling human corpses. However, during the past thirty or forty years a greater degree of burakumin stigma seems to have been directed toward lower economic class ethnic Koreans residing in Japan, in other words, immigrants and native Japanese of Korean descent. Since 98% of permanent residents in Japan are ethnically Japanese, Japanese citizens or residents who are not “full-blooded” Japanese are relatively scarce. So their small minority status leaves them nearly irrelevant and insignificant in the scope of Japanese pop-culture subject matter. Moreover, since anime is primarily targeted at young Japanese viewers, anime tends to revolve around young Japanese characters.

Moreover, burakumin is one of Japanese culture’s dirty little secrets. Ethnic discrimination has existed in Japan for centuries, hence the existence of the potentially pejorative term “gaijin,” but the discrimination is particularly virulently when directed toward Japan’s ethnic Koreans. Japan’s discrimination against the burakumin caste seems to be a persistent cultural racism that most Japanese people don’t want to talk about. Racial discrimination is a subject that average Japanese people have little reason to be concerned with and thus consider distasteful to discuss. In anime intended for adolescent and children viewers, fear of foreigners is far more often depicted as a social anxiety based on differences in language or, as in the 2022 C-Danchi anime series, a provincal and antiquated discrimination rather than something that’s contemporary and still present in mainstream Japanese society. The only anime that I can recollect which vaguely implies a reference to burakumin is 1998’s Gasaraki in which an elderly politician expresses an abject hatred for immigrants and lower-class non-contributing citizens. The 2015 Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru anime revolves around an osteologist. But the co-protagonist’s expertise with bones is treated within the show more as creepy and morbid than a reason for discrimination.

However, discrimination against the burakumin class is also a cultural and ethnic trend that’s been steadily diminishing in Japan over recent decades. Because this discrimination isn’t frequently discussed or considered, it’s gradually fading out of existence and is sustained today primarily by only small, fringe minorities of Japanese extremists.

Question:
What exactly is it about anime that delves into the mythical that engages viewers on a global scale? Why has this form of storytelling persisted to the modern day? What separates the exceptional like the Fate franchise or Guin Saga from mediocre or poor quality anime that attempt to convey the same thing?

Answer:
This question is essentially two related questions: why are epic fantasy stories appealing, and what distinguishes a good epic fantasy story from a bad one. The first question is more concisely answered. Human beings are the creatures of highest intellect on the planet Earth, yet even humans don’t know the answers to fundamental philosophical and existential questions including whether or not living beings have souls, whether or not an afterlife exists, and whether humanity has a divine purpose for existence or is merely an evolutionary coincidence. So for as long as human intellect has existed, humans have created religions, myths, fairy tales, legends, traditions, and stories to comfort our fear of the unknown. From the dawn of mankind, stories have guided the principles of human existence. So no one should be surprised to see that contemporary humans still find comfort in myths and legends. Whether the myths are awe-inspiring or terrifying, they give us something to believe, and any reason – even one as terrifying as monsters under the bed – is still preferable to no explanation whatsoever, no sense of existence or purpose at all.

By their nature as fundamental philosophical stories, creation mythologies, epic myths, legends, and religions are the foundation of our lives and societies. While their details vary, all epic myths are universal. Therefore readers deeply entrenched in native mythology often find novelty in myths and stories that are familiar yet different. The story of Christ, who suffers and sacrifices for the greater good, is interesting when the Christ figure is paralleled by a female sun goddess or a furry-toed hobbit or the last survivor of a dying alien planet. Regardless of the details, the core principles of these myths are familiar to us and resonate with the morals we’re indoctrinated with from birth. Epic fantasies, from any era, culture, and language, whether the story is as ancient as Gilgamesh, Saiyuki, or Genji Monogatari, or as contemporary as Star Wars is universally accessible because the story is based on the primal curiosities and aspirations of human nature.

The distinction between good and bad myth making, especially in the field of anime and manga, lies in considerations far less grandiose and iconic. Example suggests that the ultimate distinction between good and bad fantasy in the anime and manga realm is determined by creativity. And let me emphasize a distinction between creativity and originality. Disregarding sub-genre classifications including space opera, historical fiction, isekai, high fantasy, dark fantasy, and so forth, fantasy manga stories can be simply divided very broadly into those which prioritize literary integrity and those that don’t. Quite simply, the best, most convincing, most satisfying, most engrossing epic fantasy manga stories are the ones that don’t cull their story structure from role-playing games. The finest manga and anime stories that evoke their own mythologies and seek to tell epic fantasy stories, titles including Guin Saga, Mushishi, Evangelion (although inspired by Christian myth, Evangelion is not a Biblical adaptation), Fate/stay night, Shingeki no Kyojin, Seirei no Moribito, Berserk, explicate lengthy and nuanced stories. These stories involve growth, sacrifice, hardship, experience and success gained through trial and error. On the other hand, far more typical and conventional manga fantasy stories adhere to a standardized formula. A character will commit to a quest, perhaps one as simple as developing a skill or securing food or slaying a monster. When the character succeeds, the character receives a reward, perhaps money or self-satisfaction or even just the ability to continue living. But the storytelling fundamentally is a repetitious cycle of performing an action to receive a reward. Such stories, notably among them Rayearth, DanMachi, KonoSuba, Shield Hero, Mushoku Tensei, and practically every isekai story, may certainly still be fun and enjoyable. But these stories with their redundant, derivative narrative structures, never ascend into the literary realm of myth making. They may have world building – in other words, setting details – but they don’t feel as though they’re introducing readers to entirely new cultural belief systems or depicting new foundational ways of living that the readers themselves can extract from and apply to their own lives. Excellent fantasy stories are a window into other living worlds that have their own cultures, traditions, and histories. Typical fantasy stories present fictional environments for readers to imagine themselves within: the world building and narrative structure are just deep enough to make the story satisfying for the reader. The author’s goal is to entertain the reader rather than to create a complete figuratively living alternate world with all of its complexities.

While higher production values typically accompany stronger epic fantasy stories, it’s the narrative structure itself rather than animation quality and art design that distinguish a satisfying epic fantasy story. As example, anime series including Slayers and Violinist of Hameln present satisfying, compelling fantasy stories that don’t feel derivative and bluntly cyclical despite having mediocre animation. All fantasy stories involve the same core components; that’s why they’re all classified as fantasy stories. The difference between them lies in how much effort the author invests into making the story feel like a window into another time and culture versus making the story feel like a repeating series of similar story arcs or scenarios.

Answer:
This question has two answers, and both are rather complicated. If the discussion is limited strictly to manga and anime, the answer is a bit clearer. At least in the modern era, the Japanese publishing industry and Japanese audiences have been receptive to the practice of revising literature post-release. Particularly because anime and manga are often created on tight schedules, Japanese audiences typically look favorably upon artists that clean up, correct, or revise their work after the fact. For example, the first collected volume of Yasuhiro Kano’s manga Kiruru Kill Me, published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, includes addendum pages that show how one character’s dialogue in the original Shounen Jump+ online serialization was drastically rewritten for the print publication. The character Aijima’s personality was completely reversed from the original digital publication to the print publication.

A particularly famous example from anime derives from director Masahiko Ohta’s 2006 Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na television series. In episode 3 a cabbage was illustrated as an unblemished green sphere. The cabbage was redrawn to look more realistic and identifiable as a vegetable for the series’ home video release. The “quality cabbage” became such a widely known joke, that nine years later director Tatsuya Yoshihara comically homaged the spherical cabbage in Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou episode 12.

To provide another egregious example, studio Arms fell so far behind on its production schedule for the 2014 Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil television series that a dramatic scene from episode 11 was originally broadcast with most of its scene cuts missing. The animation was completed for the series’ home video release.

Typically, in the case of manga, the ultimate ownership and publication rights are the possession of the series’ creator. Frequently creators may wish to revise their own work, or creators will agree to requests for revision from their publisher. Instances in which a publisher alters a manga reprinting are rare. For example, in 2010 Gunnm (“Battle Angel”) manga author Yukito Kishiro publicly expressed frustration over publisher Shueisha demanding that he change three lines of dialogue that originally appeared years earlier in the first, third, and fourth collected volumes of his Gunnm manga.

In western society, revision of published work is often a bit more tricky and complicated. Traditionally the literary field has loosely maintained the precept that a work should only be released publicly in its finalized form, and once finalized, a work remains in that form and status. Typically authors don’t continue to release repeated updates or revisions of the same novel. For better or worse, writers move on to the next work. However, revised editions of novels do exist. Revisions of films are much less common, yet one example is among the best-known examples to ever exist. Creator and director George Lucas explained his 1997 special editions of the original Star Wars films, “There were a lot of things in [A New Hope] I just wasn’t happy with and when the film came out everyone said, ‘Oh, looks great. You love it.’ I said, ‘Well, you know it’s only about 60 percent of what I wanted it to be’… This was an opportunity for me to really fix the film up and make it be what I wanted it to be. And get it to be at least 80 percent of what I’d hope it would be. And get rid of these little thorns that were stuck in there.”

Particularly since 1997 the commonplace fan sentiment has proposed that Lucas’ Star Wars films were immediately so popular and beloved that they transcended from being Lucas’ own artistic creation into an element of communal social culture. While George Lucas technically and legally owned the films and thus had a right to do with them as he chose, practically and philosophically the trilogy had become part of everyone’s lives and identities, so one individual changing the films for everyone, regardless of who that individual was, felt irresponsible and unjust. Time has salved some of the wounded feelings over the Star Wars Special Editions, and more recent developments from the Disney era of Star Wars output has further distracted attention away from resentment over Lucas revising his originally released films.

From a personal perspective, I’m highly conflicted. I composed my first notes and drafts for my own original concept Bloody Angel in 1994. I continued revising and rewriting the story until finally self-publishing the novel in 2017, twenty-three-and-a-half years after I started writing it. And for the past five years since releasing Bloody Angel, I’ve wondered nearly every day whether I should have written the novel with more accessible prose. I naturally speak and write in long sentences. I composed my novel to specifically have the audible rhythm I wanted. I chose the words that described exactly what I wanted to express. But would the book be more successful if it were easier to read? Would more readers actually read it if I’d written it with shorter sentences? To this day I’m still conflicted over whether I should respect literary tradition and my own original intentions by leaving the novel alone or whether I should re-write it in prose that’s more digestible.

Since I’ve consciously driven this analysis into concluding personal reflection, I’ll indulge just a bit further to selfishly mention that any reader curious about my anime-inspired fiction novel Bloody Angel may request a free digital copy from me by emailing: oppligerfj at Gmail. Securing readers has always been one of the most challenging aspects of composition, so I’d be tremendously happy to receive reader critique of my novel, both positive and negative.

Question:
Do you think that the commercialization of anime has hindered its artistic integrity?

Answer:
The art form now recognized as anime has always been a commercial product. Modern anime began with Toei’s 1958 theatrical film Hakujaden. Granted, productions including 1935’s Chagama Ondo and 1943’s Momotaro no Umiwashi existed before Hakujaden, but such productions are typically deemed anime only in a historical, academic sense. Modern anime developed not as experimental art or political propaganda but rather as mainstream populist commercial entertainment. But that’s not to say that anime didn’t also exhibit artistic credibility from its earliest days. Particularly anime productions as early as Osamu Tezuka’s 1962 short film Story of A Certain Street Corner (Aru Machikado no Monogatari) and Toei’s 1963 film The Prince and the Eight Headed Dragon (Wanpaku Oji no Orochi Taiji) exhibited prominent unique artistic characteristics. Early television anime series including 1967’s Boken Gabotenjima and Skyers 5 were action/adventure cartoons intended for mainstream viewers, yet the shows incorporated highly stylized camera angles and use of lighting and shadows. Particularly the golden age of anime, roughly 1979 through 1988, coincided with Japan’s economic bubble era. Because wealthy Japanese investors and corporations were so flush with funds during that period, producers greenlit the production of bizarre, esoteric, artistic anime just because they could. As a result, the golden age produced landmark arthouse style anime including Angel’s Egg, Manie Manie Meikyu Monogatari, Twilight Q, Machikado Meruhen, Birth, Greed, Samy Missing 99, Robot Carnival, California Crisis, TO-Y, and Heart Cocktail. Moreover, the creativity flexibility of the golden age allowed individual animators to tremendously influence the entire medium of animation itself. Skilled pencilers including Hayao Miyazaki, Yoshinori Kanada, and Ichiro Itano rose to prominence and influence in the 1980s. And the design aesthetic of golden age anime is still beloved today because that design aesthetic frequently emphasized meticulous hand-drawn detail. Look at the landscape impact effects in Birth (1984), the tremendous texture of the Macross cruiser in the 1984 Macross motion picture, the climactic destruction of Tokyo in Megazone 23 Part II (1986) for examples of the extraordinary visual detail commonplace in 80’s anime.

In the current 2020 decade, a single quarterly Japanese broadcast season carries more anime television series than all of the anime releases from any given year of the 1980s or even 90s. Moreover, hand painted animation and frames of animation assembled by analog photography are now extinct practices. The corporate and commercial aspects of anime are stronger now than ever before. The priority on profit potential has fundamentally altered the predominant structure of anime. Too see an obvious example, select a handful of random anime from the 1990s or earlier. On average, count how many seconds or how many shots pass in the beginning of a given episode before a prominent character appears on screen. Countless anime from the 1990s and earlier began with a montage of establishing shots to introduce the setting and tone before focusing on a specific character. Most 2000’s era anime prioritize getting a character on screen as rapidly as possible. While an 80’s anime may go 30 seconds before showing a character, 2020 era anime may cut to a primary character within three seconds of the episode beginning. (Non Non Biyori is one of the few contemporary exceptions that still uses lengthy establishing montages to begin episodes.) Moreover, as characters open more doors to character merchandising, the size of anime series casts has rapidly blossomed during the 2000s. Select anime have long featured large casts, including Urusei Yatsura, Gundam, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes. But today even small titles and series focused on a solitary protagonist still end up jam packing in as many side and supporting characters as possible. An egregious example is Fate/stay night’s Illya von Einzbern’s two maids Leysritt & Sella becoming popular enough to support their own spin-off video game.

Saying that commercialization and hyper commodification hasn’t compromised the artistic integrity of anime would be incorrect. Yes, evolution in production methods, the need for speedy production, producer and publisher demands for commercially opportune works, and even the tastes and desires of audiences have influenced the typical aesthetic and style of contemporary anime. But the very reason anime is more popular globally today than ever before is largely because anime does still express an appreciable amount of artistic credibility. That artistic credibility falls into two categories.

Even the most cliché and derivative contemporary anime still find avid viewers because these shows copy what works. Arguing that all isekai anime are similar is a valid assertion, but even the weakest, most unoriginal isekai anime still default to tried & true working literary tropes. They still have consistent characterizations; they remember to (mostly) utilize themes; they understand that the audience craves action, development, spectacle, immersion. Even the weakest contemporary anime remember that their raison d’être is to deliver fictional creative entertainment to the audience. Moreover, anime still has plenty of art within its art. Occasionally very mainstream and popular productions such as Boruto, the Fate series, Kimetsu no Yaiba, and Pretty Cure will include an exceptionally fluidly animated action sequence that clearly received extra time and effort to produce. Even occasionally unexpected productions surprise viewers. For example, Princess Connect Re:Dive 2nd season features breathtaking scenes of spectacular visuals combined with lush, epic animation quality. And the fifth daily episode of Onipan features its (somewhat) famous parkour sequence.

Furthermore, the anime production industry continues to regularly turn out especially unique arthouse style fare, for example from recent years: Wonder Egg Priority, Artiswitch, Heike Monogatari, Pop Team Epic, and Totsukuni no Shoujo. And 2020 decade productions including Mars Red, Joran: Princess of Snow and Blood, Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi, Deji Meets Girl, Eizouken ni wa Te wo Dasuna, Hulaing Babies, and Akudama Drive don’t register as arthouse style productions yet still exhibit enough stylistic individuality to quality as legitimately artistic productions.

Saying that the current anime era lacks the expressive artistic credibility of previous decades is probably an overstatement. Indubitably commercialization has impacted and compromised the artistic opportunity of modern anime. But that compromise is also attributable to other factors including changes in the Japanese national economy and the changing viewership for anime. Also, it’s easy to argue that the 1980s or 90s produced a more concentrated number of highly artistic anime. But one should remember that productions including Angel’s Egg, Robot Carnival, Chocolate Panic Picture Show, and Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai from the 1980s; Ryokunohara Meikyuu, Serial Experiments Lain, Shoujo Tsubaki, and 1.001 Nights from the 1990s; and Nekojiru-sou, Mind Game, Tamala 2010, Yonimo Osoroshii Nihon Mukashibanashi, and Kuuchuu Buranko from the 2000s were released over a span of a decade. So far we’re only two-and-a-half years into the 2020 decade.

Question:
As they say, “Imitation is the highest level of flattery” so what exactly is it about Japanese culture that compels foreigners to emulate it? What qualities does it possess that make it unique to other cultures around the world? What exactly is it about Japanese entertainment that has such universal appeal yet has a distinct appeal at the same time? From anime to video games to comics to live-action to collecting various collectibles to engrossing oneself in the culture wholeheartedly via learning the language. What is it about Japan that enchants us? And how is it something that can not be replicated?

Answer:
In its 2021 “Overall Best Countries Ranking,” U.S. News & World Report placed Japan second out of 73 major nations, following only Canada. Yet Canada doesn’t receive global admiration nor respect. The world has countless “Japanophiles” yet no “Canadaphiles.” Small European nations including Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland dominate U.S. News & World Report’s list of countries offering the best quality of life. On that criteria, Japan ranks only 13th while Canada still tops the list, and the United States ranks 20th. So Japan certainly deserves respect and praise for its national civic responsibility. But since an even higher ranking country doesn’t inspire anywhere near the same global fascination, interest in Japan and its national culture must have other unique roots. A number of potential attributes present themselves. Japanese architecture, cuisine, performing arts, martial arts, technology, geography, and religion all inspire international interest. However, countless other countries also exhibit unique architecture, food, art, and natural scenery. Moreover, global fascination with Japan is very diversified. For example, many people who appreciate Japanese architecture or food have little or no awareness of Japanese religion or history. So no single medium seems to explain the global fascination. Ultimately the single cultural characteristic that may make Japan so intriguing to the surrounding world is Japan’s deliberately cultivated valuation of respect.

Regardless of culture, language, religion, ethnicity, or gender, human beings innately desire respect. Human beings want to be treated well and wish to live comfortably. Due to the fallibility of human nature, no country will ever achieve perfect harmony. But in the modern era, Japan seems to be the country that comes closest to representing a national regard for universal respect. A traditional Japanese precept is that anything worth doing is worth doing properly. That emphasis on striving for excellence surfaces within Japanese thoughtfulness. Partially due to necessity brought on by geographic, natural resource, and population considerations, Japanese technology and innovation have long emphasized convenience, functionality, efficiency. From doors that slide sideways instead of swinging outward to curved swords that deliver more cutting surface by length used to the microchip to sleek bullet trains, Japanese technology has advanced to simultaneously prize both form and function rather than one or the other.

Japanese culture can be criticized for its social opacity, but under the surface the culture’s tolerance and permissiveness is legendary. Since the earliest days of traditional kabuki performing art, fluidity in gender identity has been tolerated within Japanese society. Homosexuality isn’t openly affirmed, but largely it also isn’t discriminated against. No religion has been widely persecuted in Japan since the 1600s. People’s personal hobbies and interests aren’t heavily criticized, no matter how weird, fetishistic, or juvenile, so long as they don’t disturb the public peace. Even in the highly technologized modern era, nature still receives great respect within Japanese culture. Even Tokyo, the world’s most populated city in 2022, still contains a remarkable number of trees and natural green spaces.

No country, no human environment anywhere at any time will ever be a utopia. Yet even people having the barest minimum of familiarity with Japanese culture can instinctively perceive that Japan is a country where people have respect for each other, for other people, other things, and other ideas. Japan is a nation where any person could feel safe, well-regarded, and comfortable with one’s own identity and personality. While a Canadian or northern European culture may promote a live and let live attitude, Japan seems to exude a cultural attitude of live and let thrive. Ironically, unlike countries such as America that encourage immigration, Japan is a very small nation that narrowly restricts its residential immigration. Thus the sense of exclusivity related to the sense of respect enhances the country’s global reputation for aspirational perfection. Whether an individual is North or South American, European, Russian, Middle Eastern, or Asian, whether an individual is intrigued by Japanese architecture, religion, dance, music, food, or animation, the sense that Japan embraces, encourages, and excels at it inspires affection. Canada may be objectively the world’s pinnacle for comfortable living, but Canada isn’t acclaimed for its arts or unique culture. Norwegian countries may be safe and comfortable, but they also aren’t recognized for inspiring dynamic creativity and artistic expressiveness. Middle Eastern and Chinese cultures may be older than Japanese culture, but they don’t exhibit Japan’s cultural hybridization of tradition and modernization. Although Japan certainly has its share of cultural and social challenges and problems, contemporary Japan, a country of polite, intelligent, peace-loving people who respect personal autonomy combined with social responsibility and who simultaneously respect tranquil wisdom and energetic juvenilia, stands as a global icon of what every human society respects and aspires toward.

Question:
In your opinion, when does an anime crossover from using sexuality as a narrative tool such as in Kiss x Sis, Aki Sora, School Days, Kodomo no Jikan, Kite, Mezzo Forte, Shadow, Megazone 23, Fight Icer One!, to pure pornographic material? Since anime like Bible Black, Cream Lemon, and Urotsukidoji blur that line quite distinctively. Or are the examples listed above actual porn?

Answer:
The distinction between an anime that contains sex and a pornographic anime can be especially difficult to make due, partially, to differences in the Japanese and American approach to sexuality and varying cultural interpretations of the Japanese word “hentai.” Moreover, distinction can be challenging due to individual subjective perceptions. As US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart stated in 1964 regarding what is and isn’t pornography, “I know it when I see it.” Ultimately, the division between “ecchi” and “pornographic” anime lies within perceived intent and an arbitrary yet common perception of degree.

In Japanese language the term “ecchi” may be translated as “risqué” or “lewd.” Because of the Japanese pronunciation of the word, it’s often abbreviated as just “H.” Foreigners often mistakenly presume that the Japanese abbreviation “H” refers to the word “hentai,” which means “weird” or “perverted,” not necessarily limited to sexual connotation. For example, a person who regularly eats rotten meat might be called “hentai” or “weird.” Foreigners, though, have practically universally interpreted the word “hentai” to strictly mean “pornographic.” Largely because Japan isn’t predominantly Christian and therefore isn’t steeped in the Christian morality of sexuality, sex is typically treated a bit more liberally within Japanese culture. So even children’s cartoons such as Ranpou and Maichingu Machiko-sensei contain a emphasis on sexuality that would be taboo within similar American children’s cartoons. Typically most viewers can easily distinguish a difference in extremity and intention between an anime that prominently references sex, such as KISSxSIS or School Days, and a deliberately pornographic anime like Injuh Gakuen ~ La Blue Girl or Cream Lemon. Whether consciously or not, most viewers can perceive whether the intention of the program is to include sex for the purpose of depicting an entertaining story or to depict sex for the purpose of evoking sexual gratification. Similarly, most viewers can quickly and accurately sense a difference between Risky Business and Debbie Does Dallas. The difference becomes a bit more difficult in the case of Urotsukidoji. Arguably the intention of the story is to convey an apocalyptic horror story in which sex is prominent as a graphic metaphor for the interconnectedness and intimacy of violent destruction and creation. The sheer explicitness of the sex within the Urotsukidoji franchise necessitates a classification as adults-only material. Distinction becomes most challenging with cases including A-Kite Kage ~ Shadow, and Maryu Senki (specifically the first OVA). Most accurately, these productions are unquestionably for adult viewers only, but the reason for the exclusivity is as much because of the programs’ moral ambiguity and narrative intensity as because of the inclusion of graphic sex. A-Kite and Mezzo Forte, for example, unlike Urotsukidoji, are not even thematically about sex. The shows are simply depictions of a harsh, seedy, adult universe that happens to include harsh, graphic sexuality. Unquestionably Kite, the Mezzo Forte OVA, and Kage ~ Shadow are adult material; however, whether they’re pornographic may be a determination that only individual viewers can individually decide.

Another complication to the issue of distinguishing risque anime from pornographic anime arises from artistically-oriented productions including Cleopatra (1970) and Kanashimi no Belladonna. Cleopatra was co-directed by Osamu Tezuka, an animator widely recognized as a Japanese parallel to Walter E. Disney. Both films were animated by Tezuka’s Mushi Productions, the same studio responsible for acclaimed children’s programs including Tetsuwan Atom, Jungle Taitei, Moomin, and Ribbon no Kishi. Cleopatra, when distributed theatrically in America in 1972, was titled “Cleopatra: Queen of Sex” and screened with a self-applied X-rating. While rather abstractly and symbolically rendered, Kanashimi no Belladonna nevertheless contains rather graphic sexuality, and the film is now regarded as one of the earliest erotic anime. But just as one may debate Robert Mapplethorpe photography as art or pornography, the same debate can be applied to these anime films.

The 1984 Cream Lemon video series may serve as a great baseline for discussion. Numerous episodes of the series have legitimate narrative substance yet still contain explicit sexuality. In fact, the very first episode of Cream Lemon eventually evolved into the theatrical Tabidachi: Ami Shuushou motion picture that’s strictly a romantic drama. The “Ami” movie was even theatrically screened as a double-bill with the Project A-Ko movie, which has never been legitimately called pornographic despite also having its roots in Fairy Dust’s Cream Lemon writing rooms. Although the Cream Lemon episodes typically emphasize story over graphic sex, the episodes frequently revolve around sexuality and consistently contain enough graphic sex to be universally considered pornography. No strict percentage of sex within a production serves as a dividing line between “ecchi” and “adult.” Rather, the distinction is typically made by a collective agreement. When something “feels” pornographic, it’s usually categorized as porn. When something merely feels risqué, regardless of how provocative it gets, such as Ishuzoku Reviewers or Peter Grill to Kenja no Jikan, it’s typically still widely considered “ecchi” rather than full-blown pornography. Often, although equally arbitrary, producers and distributors help clarify classifications for the public audience. Famously, studio Sai Enterprises (Superdimensional Romanesque Samy Missing 99, Twinkle Heart) released the first Dream Hunter Rem OVA in June 1985 as a 22-minute-long adults-only video. Six months later the episode was re-released in December 1985 as an extensively re-animated and re-edited 46-minute “all ages” cut. In April 2017 ComicFesta began distributing anime television series released in all-ages broadcast versions and parallel adults-only web-streaming versions. The first title was Shoryo to Majiwaru Shikiyoku no Yoru ni.

In January 2020 FUNimation abruptly ceased streaming the then current “Interspecies Reviewers” anime television series although the Wakanim streaming service continued simulcasting the series in Europe while AnimeLab continued simulcasting the show in Australia and New Zealand. Even the home video version of Ishizoku Reviewers doesn’t contain any “hardcore” graphic sex and the show has never widely been deemed pornographic, yet it was still considered provocative enough for both FUNimation and even Japan’s TOKYO MX broadcast network pulling the title from delivery. To provide another example, the sex scene in Megazone 23 part 2 is quite intense. Yet the presence of one scene in the feature-length film has never qualified Megazone 23 Part 2 as a pornographic anime or even as an ecchi anime. So determining exactly what constitutes “ecchi” versus “hentai” has long been a difficult and complicated challenge without clear delineations or answers. Ultimately, while animators, producers, and distributors may exert some influence and control, primarily the decision is consistently made by the viewing audience at large that “knows it when it sees it.”

Strictly because I’m fascinated by the medium of anime, every year I try my hardest to watch a sampling of every new anime title. By my count, excluding non-Japanese productions and ongoing series that continued episode numbering, there were 228 new TV broadcast and streaming series and specials in 2021. Of those, I was able to watch at least one complete episode of 222 of them. (The titles I wasn’t able to sample were Aka-chan Honbuchou, Chickip Dancers, Kimi to Fit Boxing, the Kanashiki Debu Neko-chan TV special, Kintamani Dog, and Utau Soccer Panda Mifanda second season). In my opinion, as a viewer that’s been diligently watching Japanese language anime for 40 years, a half-dozen of 2021’s new series elevated above the rest.

Odd Taxi ostensibly rises on the novelty concept of an anthropomorphic society. However, prior anime including BNA and Beaststars have also used the same scenario. BNA and Beastars even creatively exploited their settings to introduce unique layers of storytelling depth. The masterful aspect of Odd Taxi is that the story not only makes creative and purposeful use of its scenario, the show is furthermore a thoughtfully complex, deliberately plotted mystery narrative that keeps viewers on their toes and rewards intuitive, observant viewers. In the current era when so many anime stories feel arbitrary or cliché, Odd Taxi is a carefully crafted tale filled with foreshadowing, symbolism, and careful plotting. Like a clockwork machine, every aspect of Odd Taxi has a purpose and interacts with every other aspect to create an intricate larger working machine. Nothing about the production feels out of place, wasted, or pointless. Every aspect of the production fits like a puzzle piece to reveal a complex, rewarding, artful viewing experience.

In the same way that certain motion pictures are described as “Oscar bait,” anime productions involving handicapped characters and anime productions set in historical European settings are nearly always chum for Western critical praise. Ousama Ranking taps into the handicapped character trope but thankfully doesn’t use it as a crutch. Comparable in one sense to Odd Taxi, Ousama Ranking, based on the web manga by Sousuke Touka, is likewise a very deliberately and methodically constructed story. Episodes continually reveal surprising revelations and plot twists, yet none of them ever feel random, arbitrary, or artificial. Like layers of an onion, the plot depth was always there. The show forces viewers to repeatedly reconsider their impressions as it presents alternate sides to characters and reveals previously unknown information. The show that at first seems simple and even childish continually reveals layers of nuance and complexity that make viewers reconsider their assumptions and predictions. The show’s charmingly simple art design also allows for especially fluid and dynamic animation quality that enhances the story and viewer’s immersion in the action. As of the end of 2021 the show hasn’t yet finished. But the eleven episodes that have aired so far are already strong enough to secure the show a place among 2021’s best.

Anime based on classic historical literature seem like an over-obvious pick for praise. But Studio 4° °C and director Naoko Yamada’s adaptation of Heike Monogatari independently earns respect. The story and its character design may be a bit opaque for Western viewers at first. The complicated names, titles, and relationships of the medieval Japanese noble class are rather byzantine, especially for foreigners. But sticking with the show reveals a wealth of rich characterizations and a tragic tale of pride and greed turning the wheels of fortune. Viewers come to care about the characters and agonize over their fates as inextricable pieces in a human chess match. The show’s directing and art design, evocative of traditional Japanese cinema, immerses the viewer in a delicate, deliberative, wholly beautiful atmosphere of regret, responsibility, inevitability, spirituality, and the constant struggle of human instincts and desires opposed to higher ideals of respect, dignity, and compassion. This version of Heike Monogatari may not be an exhaustive, complete adaptation of the collectively composed epic, but the anime is a Japanese version of a Shakespearean drama for modern audiences.

Nominating the second season of a show, particularly one that overtly seems like a hybrid of fan service and blatant commercialism, seems incredulous. But Uma Musume: Pretty Derby season 2 deserves and earns its place among the finest anime stories of the year. Although a direct continuation of the 2018 first season, the second season is largely presented as an independent story, mostly because it concentrates heavily on different characters than the first season. The series concentrates on characterizations and the mental and emotional development of its characters, and it doesn’t play favorites with its plot progression. Characters presumed to easily win competitions lose. Characters suffer misfortune and unlucky breaks. Characters that devote their entire lives to a single effort suffer heartbreaking agony. While the first season was surprisingly good, the second season elevates exponentially. The show may be superficially dismissed as mere fan service, but viewers that watch the series will find it far more emotive, dramatic, and unpredictable than expected. Every moment of the show serves a purpose. The series’ art design and animation quality are gorgeous and moreover very thoughtfully deliberate. Furthermore, observant viewers are frequently rewarded with evolving sight gags and visual cues that enhance the story development.

Shows set in girls’ schools are far from uncommon. What makes Kageki Shoujo particularly commendable is it consistent production excellence. The show is lovely looking and nicely animated. Moreover, its character writing is very strong. Instead of relying on common tropes and archetypes, all of the teen girl characters in the show are dynamic, intelligent, unique individuals. They resolve their challenges and differences rationally without resorting to fighting or magic. The girls also learn from their experiences and mistakes, accepting and implementing advice and guidance from their peers and instructors. So the characters subtly change and mature as the series unfolds. The singular weakness of the series is its unresolved ending. Since the manga is ongoing, the anime lacks a definitive climax.

Megaton-kyuu Musashi is largely a hybridization of robot anime tropes and a stylistic update of the early 90’s Eldran series anime. The show also borrows ideas and inspirations from earlier anime including Getter Robo, Giant Robo, Megazone 23, Evangelion, and Pacific Rim, but uses these tropes to tell its own story rather than just ape what’s come before. Moreover, what seems at first glance like a harmless shounen robot anime quickly surprises with a vast amount of mature themes. Megaton-kyuu Musashi contains an unexpected frequency of emotional scenes. And the show also frequently surprises by being darker and more mature than expected from a seeming kids’ anime. The show doesn’t shy from death, even killing major characters, or from acknowledging that sex is a normal human activity. Moreover, the frequent action scenes, especially the series’ early ones, are energetic and creative. Megaton-kyuu Musashi is not deconstructive or highly philosophical, yet in many other respects it does feel exciting and surprising in the same way Evangelion did in 1995. The show delivers exactly the degree of excitement and surprise that transforms viewers into anime fans.

I also want to give special mention to the second half of Jujutsu Kaisen that aired in early 2021. The series’ first half was quite good, earning a runner-up recommendation on my best of 2020 ranking. The show’s back half is even stronger than its good initial story arc.

Answer:
As is the case with all ethnic cultures, certain stories resonate with a timeless significance because they reference the historical and mythological self-identify of their audience. For example, the United States was founded by colonialism and manifest destiny. America wasn’t founded on a spirit of religious faith, hunting and gathering, or collective security but rather by a sense of adventure, opportunity, and entitlement. Thus the imagery of the cowboy and the gunslinger are ingrained into the American self-identity, and now even artifacts of pop culture including Call of Duty and John Wick resonate with Americans despite not literally featuring cowboys. Yet these franchises still channel the independent gunslinger motif. So the exact same principle underlies the evergreen popularity of certain manga and anime franchises in Japan.

To address the specific examples named, titles including Dragon Ball, Golgo 13, and Lupin III tap into the Japanese mythology and tradition of bushido. Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball is a fundamentally a hybridization of the 16th century Chinese fable Journey to the West and the spirit of the romanticized samurai era, which was at its height around the same time. The Z warriors, Duke Togo, and Arsene Lupin III are men who strive for martial perfection. They seek to be perfect soldiers in their self-selected wars. And part of their sense of warrior pride is their code of honor. The Z warriors defend the weak, never bully a weakened or defeated opponent, and always seek victory through their own abilities. Golgo 13 works under a strict set of personal rules. Lupin always announces his thefts in advance, in part, to give his opponents a fighting chance against him. These warriors don’t carry swords (apart from Trunks) or wear hakama, yet they still exhibit the same mental fortitude and dignity that Japanese people respect and revere.

A modern parallel explains the perpetual popularity of franchises including Doraemon, Gundam, and Evangelion. Mechanical technological innovation literally invaded Japan when Commodore Matthew Perry landed in Satsuma in 1852. In the modern era, the Japanese psyche was permanently scarred when American military technology, the atomic bomb, once again invaded Japan and forced the country into a new era. Since the restoration following WWII, Japan has embraced technology more than any other country on earth. Anime including Doraemon, Evangelion, and Gundam are fundamentally about Japanese children learning to adapt to and live with robotic technology. In Doraemon the robot is a supportive and guiding best friend. In Gundam the robot is a means to power and exerting one’s will. In Evangelion the robot is literally a parent, a means of self-expression, and a means of gaining parental approval. In America mechanical technology, from the firearm to the cell phone, has always been a tool to extend human capacity. In Japan mechanical technology has traditionally been intertwined with culture itself. Evangelion’s concept of the Human Instrumentality Project is also deeply entwined with Japanese psychology of alienation anxiety, but close examination of that aspect of Evangelion is limited strictly to itself and not representative of a larger relevance to other anime.

And in the same way that Americans accept The Simpsons as a reflection of fictionalized typical Americana, Japan sees family programs including Sazae-san, Crayon Shin-chan, and Pokemon in the same light. For five decades and counting, Sazae-san has served as the defining image of the stereotypical Japanese family. Sazae-san is comforting because it’s familiar, ultimately reinforcing the fundamental family values of its people. Pocket Monster taps into the same spiritual philosophy that Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa, Totoro, and Spirited Away do: a childlike respect for nature. Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri avidly collected insects as a child. Countless modern anime depict characters catching beetles. Even Japan’s most urban environments still have a remarkable amount of green nature within. Pokemon represents the Japanese spirit of communing with nature, being a partner with nature – using nature and animals to human advantage but not desecrating or exploiting nature. In Nausicaa, Totoro, and Pokemon, children “catch” wild creatures yet respect them as equals, partners, or even elders. Once again, Pokemon depicts an idealized image of the cultural and moral identity that Japanese natives aspire to. So not only is it entertaining, it’s also reassuring and reinforcing of Japanese social and psychological values. Shigeru Mizuki’s Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro is similarly an iconic Japanese franchise because the story encourages and values the Japanese sense of family, and its emphasis on youkai isolate and respect the uniquely Japanese cultural identity of Japanese ghosts.

Certainly plenty of other anime tap into these psychological aspects of Japanese culture. But certain titles do so first or more accessibly to a larger number of viewers, thereby becoming iconic. It’s these titles that cross-over into the awareness of the nation’s populace and become part of the country’s self-identity. In the same way that Steamboat Willie whistling to himself while cheerily steering down a river epitomizes American freedom and self-determination, Son Goku and Duke Togo represent the Japanese spirit of honorable diligence and self-responsibility.