An old man is diagnosed with cancer with 3 months to live. He sits in a park depressed until an alien spaceship passing through collides with him and a nearby teenager. The aliens frantically rebuild the old man and teenager as cyborgs before leaving. The old man uses his newfound cyborg powers for good, while the teenager uses them for evil.
#C6: Sports anime for people who prefer bildungsromans* to sports
Two childhood friends who play competitive after school ping pong find their friendship and dedication to the sport tested when their sense of their relative skill in the game is challenged. A character focused-exploration of why we pursue sports, and what we have to commit to succeed.
*a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood, in which character change is important.
Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!
#C3: Inuyashiki: Last Hero
youtube
Propaganda:
This show is nowadays remembered for referencing One Piece and its obvious CGI, but it’s so much more than that. Inuyashiki is a beautiful, dark, dramatic exploration of humanity, showcasing the brightest good that humans are capable of and the most horrific evil. It seriously explores both extremes, and it forces the audience to solemnly watch every step of the way.
It also has an AMAZINGLY badass OP and a beautifully sad ED, perfectly encapsulating the duality of the show itself.
An experimental director (Masaaki Yuasa) adapting a work from a very stylized and emotionally-focused shonen mangaka (Taiyo Matsumoto). This is an anime that feels more like watching an indie arthouse movie than a shonen anime. Featuring characters and arcs that subvert standard anime tropes, it gives an incisive picture into youths on the verge of growing up and learning responsibility. If you want to watch a short anime (one 11-episode season!) which will include cool sports action (and that’s coming from someone who is not generally into sports animes) the matches given weight by the primary use of them in narrative being as checkpoint in the characters’ growths.
I tend to prefer shojo over shonen for being more introspective, with the emotional arcs developed slower and more subtly, but for me this shonen hits a sweet middle ground of having that more internal feel, while getting to do the shonen things of having cooler, action-focused animation and character relationships which are about friendship rather than romance, and character arcs that are about trying to strive hard to achieve a dream. The show is quite well critically regarded, but a lot of anime fans get turned off by the unusual art style, and there isn’t really a fandom for it, so I think it counts as underrated anyways! Anyways, I think it delivers a really impactful and complete story-arc in a short time, and it leaves you feeling like you’ve grown alongside the characters, no matter how old you are (no seriously, my 50-year-old mother walked away saying she didn’t know anime was such a profound genre when I made her watch this).
Trigger Warnings: None.
If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.
Today's AniAnimal are this mother and child cats from "INUYASHIKI LAST HERO". In this scene, the titular Inuyashiki uses his powers to revive a dying cat.
今日のアニアニマルは『いぬやしき』のこの親子猫です。このシーンでは、名高い犬屋敷が自分の力を使って瀕死の猫を生き返らせます。
#C7: Comedy with high school girls with unique personalities
#C3: Old man turns into robot superhero
Details and poll under the cut!
#C7: Wasteful Days of High School Girls (Joshikousei no Mudazukai)
youtube
Summary:
As she heads off to her entrance ceremony at Sainotama Girls' High School, Akane Kikuchi muses over her grade school dream of becoming a manga artist and the lack of progress that she has made. When she finally arrives at school, she is surprised to learn that she is once again in the same class as her two best friends: the deadpan and emotionless Shiori Saginomiya and the hyperactive and ridiculous Nozomu Tanaka. Tanaka then comes to the obvious realization that she can't achieve her grade school dream of being popular with the boys and getting a boyfriend by going to an all-girls high school.
In desperation, she begins asking the girls in her class to introduce her to their guy friends. Her classmates, however, are anything but ordinary. From a grandmother-loving loli to a reclusive chuunibyou to an overly analytical stalker, each one is given a fitting nickname by Tanaka to accentuate their weirdness. And so begin the wasteful days of these high school girls, each day kicked off with a simple question: "Hey, wanna hear something amazing?"
Propaganda:
Wasteful Days of High School Girls is fast-paced and genre-savvy, subverting a lot of high school anime tropes in ways that are really delightful even if you yourself aren't that familiar with high school animes. But most of all it is cool in a way that only awkward, weird, realistic teenagers can be. It probably won't make you long for your own high school days (if they are in the past), but that is a good thing, because sometimes only a good comedy can really lay bare what life is really like when you're a teenager.
The thing that makes this show so amazing is the characters. These are anime characters with some real Character with a capital C. Everyone is such a real and unique human personality; not just the main trio but all their classmates too AND the teacher and even the nurse that only appears in like one episode!
This is a show with the lowest of stakes and it still manages to feel like something incredibly significant has happened when you get to the end of it. And something incredibly significant has happened! Life happened! An entire year of it!
Trigger Warnings: Unknown.
#C3: Inuyashiki: Last Hero
youtube
Summary:
Ichirou Inuyashiki is a 58-year-old family man who is going through a difficult time in his life. Though his frequent back problems are painful, nothing hurts quite as much as the indifference and distaste that his wife and children have for him. Despite this, Ichirou still manages to find solace in Hanako, an abandoned Shiba Inu that he adopts into his home. However, his life takes a turn for the worse when a follow-up physical examination reveals that Ichirou has stomach cancer and only three months to live; though he tries to be strong, his family's disinterest causes an emotional breakdown. Running off into a nearby field, Ichirou embraces his dog and weeps—until he notices a strange figure standing before him.
Suddenly, a bright light appears and Ichirou is enveloped by smoke and dust. When he comes to, he discovers something is amiss—he has been reborn as a mechanized weapon wearing the skin of his former self. Though initially shocked, the compassionate Ichirou immediately uses his newfound powers to save a life, an act of kindness that fills him with happiness and newfound hope.
However, the origins of these strange powers remain unclear. Who was the mysterious figure at the site of the explosion, and are they as kind as Ichirou when it comes to using this dangerous gift?
Propaganda:
This show is nowadays remembered for referencing One Piece and its obvious CGI, but it’s so much more than that. Inuyashiki is a beautiful, dark, dramatic exploration of humanity, showcasing the brightest good that humans are capable of and the most horrific evil. It seriously explores both extremes, and it forces the audience to solemnly watch every step of the way.
It also has an AMAZINGLY badass OP and a beautifully sad ED, perfectly encapsulating the duality of the show itself.
When reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.
If you want to criticize one of the shows above to give the one you’re rooting for an advantage, then do so constructively. I do not tolerate groundless hate or slander on this blog. If I catch you doing such a thing in the notes, be it in the tags or reblogs, I will block you.
Know one of the shows above and not satisfied with how they’re presented in this tournament? Just fill up this form, where you can submit revisions for taglines, propaganda, trigger warnings, and/or video.