vanilla-blessing

[vanilla-blessing]

“The Unofficial History of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Video Game World Championships" Website Launch

Critics rave: “I can see why this took so long!” “Big job!”

A deep dive into the history of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Video Game World Championships, a love letter to the events and their participants, and a reminder about the importance of internet preservation.

https://www.ygovghistory.com/

This has been written with the intention that even someone who isn’t familiar with Yu-Gi-Oh! can enjoy the stories and appreciate the history, so I hope you all will give it a read.

An introductory video for the website is available here:

[vanilla-blessing]

qb's top 10 seasonal anime of 2022

2022 in anime was a year of many known quantities, but what really ended up sticking out were the shows few saw coming before they took the world by storm, and before we knew it, everyone was watching a guitar-playing pink blob with severe anxiety while drawing her band on every album cover ever made. 2022 was the year I watched a new Gundam for the first time, I experienced unforgettable trash gems like Pride of Orange, ESTAB-LIFE, and Extreme Hearts, and I was let down more by the wasted potential of the Biscuit Hammer anime than any anime I've ever watched, easily. All considered, this year was unusually good on average for the shows I finished, so I ended up with a glut of series I wanted to put on this list that I had to cut down for time. I would make this list longer, but you know, then it might come out in 2024.

Top 10 in order:

Cyberpunk Edgerunners - Studio TRIGGER's take on the world of Cyberpunk 2077 was an unexpected contender - it was announced so long ago I sort of forgot about it, I wasn't expecting much from the batch release of a Netflix-Trigger anime after BNA's messy release, I underestimated the potential of Cyberpunk 2077 as a setting after the very public trash fire of the video game, and it should have been overshadowed by the next thing after a quick Netflix dump in the middle of a season. Should have had its lunch eaten by the similarly edgy violent action of Chainsawman, should have been yet another failed videogame anime, but none of this stopped Cyberpunk Edgerunners from being the anime I enjoyed the most from 2022.

Bocchi the Rock - the breakout hit school band anime of 2022 was also relatively unexpected, although I at least knew it was stacked with talented animators going in, I didn't predict the sheer memetic power of the result. This series shatters the fourth wall over its knee and livens up an already pretty funny manga with demented, free-flowing gags in a particular way that wouldn't work at all without detailed and well planned sequences which come off so naturally it's hard to believe this was originally a (lightly subversive but still) 4 panel strip. The album cover redraws were the best thing to come out of Bocchi and I hope they never end.

Pop Team Epic 2 - some kind of fucked up comic strip but aoi shouta is there? I thought they promised they wouldn't make this

Mob Psycho 100 III - everything I said about the second season of the popular shonen manga adaptation but moreso, it finishes out the series in exactly the way I hoped it would. Third OP is just mad flexing. look how many hands we can draw. Episode 8 changed my life forever. knowing they nailed the landing retroactively improves the whole series for me.

Do It Yourself - original anime by studio PINE JAM, DIY is pure aesthetic hobby-ani with a mildly entertaining cast of extremely animated characters. very enjoyable but may not have enough momentum or things happening for some. soundtrack is another standout by y0c1e but at a noticeably different speed from Gleipnir and Spyce.

Kaguya-sama Love is War: Ultra Romantic - everything I said about the second season of the popular romcom manga adaptation but moreso, it reaches the climactic peak of the series in exactly the way I hoped it would. I'm still reeling from the entire rap battle episode (sub and dub), and can't believe the Starship Troopers ED was real.

My Dress Up Darling (Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru) - excellent manga adaptation, effectively gets across the dangerously horny but strangely wholesome vibe of the series.

The Demon Girl Next Door Season 2 - everything I said about the first season of the popular magical girl romcom manga adaptation but moreso, it reaches an inflection point in the manga with exactly the same manic pacing and blatant disregard for breathing room I hoped it would. out of everything else on my list I hope the most this one gets another season, because it kind of needs it.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury - original anime in the long-running GUNDAM series which is sort of like Robot Jox for kids. This is definitely the first time I've watched anything from Gundam before it was completed and I immediately regretted not having more to watch as a direct consequence. Half of my enjoyment right now is coming from experiencing it in tandem with the rest of the internet, but it's sure to hold up in retrospect as one of the best modern Gundam seasons. Look forward to a future very annoying post by me claiming g-witch ripped off Granbelm.

Call of the Night - another above and beyond manga adaptation, probably the anime OP of the year. It strongly intensified my longing for studio SHAFT to not be dead anymore.

Assorted Shoutouts

Going by rating number scale rules, Chainsawman and Spy X Family should be here, but I'm not going by rating, I'm going by what I feel deserves more attention. those anime already have too much recognition.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life (Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road) - If you asked me what the most hidden gem is from 2022, this is what I would answer immediately. Irresponsibly complicated and unusual take on the hated isekai genre in the most disrespectful way possible, twisting anything familiar about that tired setting into an unrecognizable pretzel shape. Recommending this is a challenge, because the less I explain the better it is, but nobody would want to watch this on its face. Everyone should watch it though.

Ya Boy Kongming - banger soundtrack and some eye-popping color choice elevates this manga adaptation from average to a certified Cool Time.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: STONE OCEAN - My favorite (not best) Jojo part, the anime greatly improves the readability of the last third from the manga. Tokyo Mew Mew New - It's almost comforting how little they tried to update the love triangle of incredibly shit boyfriends in this remarkably normal magical girl anime reboot. I pleaded for someone to make a normal regular magical girl anime reboot and they delivered something totally acceptable.

Reiwa Di Gi Charat - Dejiko drags society kicking and screaming into the Reiwa era. This is the anime of all time of 1999, 2022 and 2023.

qb - friend of the no show (@queuebae on twitter still, unfortunately)

#2022 anime list #vanilla blessing #puraore #reiwadigicharat #bocchi za rokku #mob psycho 100 #dejiko

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qb's Top 5 Anime Movies from 2022

Inu Oh - Yuasa Rock Opera Yuasa Rock Opera YUASA ROCK OPERA

Tatami Time Machine Blues - sort of the same format as muppet treasure island but with time machine blues and the tatami galaxy cast, and therefore excellent

ODDTAXI In the Woods - More Oddtaxi, framing device was clever and economical

One Piece Film RED - music videos are good, rest of it is avg

Bubble - empty, transitory, but pretty to look at. moms dead parkour

These are in order of how much I liked them. 2022 Anime list tomorrow or I will delete my account (not this account)

-qb still on twitter @queuebae

#youreallydontneedtowatchBubble #2022 anime movies #tatamitimemachineblues #inu oh #one piece film redder #odd taxi #odd taxi in the woods

[vanilla-blessing]

Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth -: Legacies

Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth - is an action role-playing game developed by Team Ladybug and released in 2021. Based on the Record of Lodoss War franchise and written by series creator Ryo Mizuno, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is a prequel to 2019’s Diadem of the Covenant, the first new Record of Lodoss War novel released in over a decade. The game tells the story of Deedlit, a high elf who finds herself lost in a mysterious labyrinth, forced to relive her past adventures as she tries to uncover the truth behind her predicament. Despite its place in the greater arc of the Record of Lodoss War franchise, many reviews dismissed its plot, describing it as an inessential part of the game due to its brevity and self-referential nature. However, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth explicitly calls back to earlier Record of Lodoss War stories in order to speak to the nature of legacy. Ryo Mizuno uses Deedlit’s nostalgic journey in order to tell a personal narrative about how stories and people affect others, and how they carry that influence with them throughout the rest of their lives. It also allows Mizuno to reflect on how Record of Lodoss War has influenced the landscape of Japanese fantasy media through its characters and tropes for over three decades. Although its writing is sparse, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth has something beautiful to say within its narrative about the nature of life and remembrance, and to ignore the story does a disservice to the work as a whole.

“So it was just me who didn’t want to know. The end of the tale of Parn, Knight of Lodoss…”

As the story begins, Deedlit wakes up trapped inside a strange labyrinth, with no memory of how she arrived. As she begins to explore the new environment, she catches a glimpse of Parn, one of her old adventuring partners and her one true love. Deedlit chases after him, carefully navigating through twisting and dangerous areas within the winding maze but seemingly unable to catch up to him. During her journey, Deedlit encounters the rest of her old adventuring party, along with many of their former enemies. Though initially shocked to find herself facing off against familiar foes, Deedlit decides not to question the situation, instead appreciating the opportunity to once again relive her previous journeys alongside her friends.

However, as the story escalates and Deedlit closes in on the heart of the labyrinth, she recovers a repressed memory and begins to piece together the true nature of her imprisonment. As a high elf, her connection to the spirit world grants her immortality, but it comes at a cost as her friends begin to slowly pass away around her. After Parn, her last remaining companion, dies, Deedlit is overcome with loneliness and grief. In that moment, she wishes that she could forget the pain of losing Parn and travel with him one last time. Deedlit realizes now that the world before her is a projection of her memories, and that her wish has trapped her in the past to stop her from remembering the truth. She finally catches up to Parn at the center of the maze, who tells her they can now be together forever in her world. Deedlit is forced to decide whether she will surrender her soul and continue to live inside her memories alongside Parn and the rest of her friends, or if she will return to the real world and face the future on her own. Ultimately, she comes to the understanding that death is not the end for her companions, and she must let go of the past in order to move forward. Although her friends may no longer be with her in body, they continue to live on in spirit through her memories, and she will carry them forever in her heart. With this new resolve, Deedlit kills the projection of Parn and makes peace with his death, freeing herself from the labyrinth and her grief.

Deedlit reawakens back in her home, unsure if her journey has simply been a dream or something more tangible. As she steps out of her house, she is greeted by Leaf, another elf and friend from her village. Many years have passed since Deedlit entered isolation following Parn’s death, and she has come to check in on her. As Deedlit begins to recount her experiences in the labyrinth, she is cut short by Leaf, who believes she is simply retelling the stories of her original adventures. Leaf notes that no one has forgotten the tale of Parn and Deedlit, or the effect that they had on the world. Thinking further on their legacy, she then suggests Deedlit make a song about her journeys, so that people can pass it on through the generations and keep their story alive forever. Deedlit thinks this is a good idea, and Leaf runs off to fetch ink and parchment. Alone once again, Deedlit considers what Leaf said, and wonders if she was the only one afraid to see Parn’s story come to a close. With this in mind, she prepares to start the next chapter in her life, bidding a final farewell to Parn with the promise to sing his song.

“People do not live in the past. Knowing this, she can walk forward.”

Death in media is so often portrayed as a tragedy, but Ryo Mizuno is able to find a positive sentiment in it through Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. By setting the game 100 years after the original Record of Lodoss War novels, Mizuno creates a version of Lodoss steeped in legacy, and one that Deedlit must learn to make peace with. Her journey through the Wonder Labyrinth is a projection of her memories, where she must tackle the fear of being alone. But by navigating through the complex emotions surrounding death, Deedlit comes to realize that her friends’ lives do not truly end when they pass away, and continue to live on within her. While it is sad to lose her companions, their passing does not change how much they have touched her life. The world around her has changed as well thanks to their adventures, and the result of their efforts can be seen throughout Lodoss in the longstanding peace the island has enjoyed. This new understanding of her friends’ legacies inspires Deedlit to find new ways to share her memories with the world and show how much her companions have given her. The same is true of everyone; the moments that people share with those they meet throughout life, both big and small, can have an effect on how they see the world. Everyone carries within themselves pieces of those who have had an impact on their lives, and that will not change even as those people pass away. They create their own personal legacies that are continued on through those close to them, who then inspire others to repeat this process. Deedlit’s tale is tied up in complicated feelings about grief and loss, and delivers an ultimately hopeful message about life and how people honor the memories of those they hold dear.

Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth’s story is not just a personal narrative, but also a way for Ryo Mizuno to reflect upon Record of Lodoss War’s legacy as a piece of media. Much how Parn and Deedlit’s adventures shaped the world of Lodoss, Record of Lodoss War has defined the high fantasy genre in Japan. While the franchise originated as a collection of Dungeons & Dragons campaign transcripts in a computer magazine, its popularity inspired Mizuno to turn the party’s adventures into a collection of light novels. Record of Lodoss War was one of the earliest pieces of Japanese pop culture to take such heavy inspiration from Western high fantasy like Lord of the Rings, and quickly became the template for the genre at large. Popular fantasy series that followed Record of Lodoss War, such as Fire Emblem and Slayers, would take inspiration from its general character and setting designs. But many of the franchise’s individual characters had a specific impact on the genre as well. In a 2018 interview with Japanese website DenFamiNicoGamer, Yutaka Izubuchi, illustrator for many of the original Record of Lodoss War novels, and Shigenori Soejima, character designer and art director for the Persona series, sat down to discuss the art of the fantasy genre. Soejima notes that many people of his generation, when asked about fantasy races like elves or dwarves, immediately think of the Record of Lodoss War cast as a reference. In particular, Izubuchi’s use of exaggeratedly elongated ears has been a constant reference for elven characters throughout Japanese media, and specific details of Deedlit’s appearance such as her green armor and blonde hair have informed numerous elf designs across anime and manga history. Record of Lodoss War is a franchise that has shaped Japanese high fantasy for over 30 years, and while it may no longer be the specific point of reference for modern authors, the series’ impact on the genre is apparent. Much like how Deedlit learns to look back fondly on the time she spent adventuring with her friends and the ways the world has changed since, Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth reads like a nostalgic reflection on the history of the Record of Lodoss War franchise, an opportunity for one more journey with the original cast before beginning a new story in Lodoss.

Center: Deedlit from Record of Lodoss War Left side, from top to bottom: Arshes Nei from Bastard!!, Puck from Berserk, Mare Bello Fiore from Overlord Right side, from top to bottom: Maricelle from Delicious in Dungeon, Leafa from Sword Art Online, Lapis from Detatoko Princess

“The tale of Parn, knight of Lodoss, and the Lady Deedlit… Nobody has forgotten that.”

Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth feels like Ryo Mizuno’s way of communicating why he felt inspired to write a new Record of Lodoss War novel. The narrative speaks to the lasting influence of its franchise, and explores this by placing Deedlit far into the future, where her adventures with Parn are now history. She struggles to accept Parn’s death and the changing world around her, but comes to understand the magnitude of his impact on both herself and the rest of the world. Parn’s unwavering resolve in the face of adversity provides him a second life, inspiring others to follow in his footsteps and share his goodness with those close to them. This sentiment goes beyond the narrative and speaks to the way in which people communicate with each other. The choices people make when engaging with others will last far longer than they will, and it is important to leave behind something positive for others to remember and carry with them. Mizuno also uses his story to examine the continued relevance of his work, and how it fits into a larger canon of media history. As Deedlit sees the effects her adventures have had on the world at large, so too does Mizuno reflect on the impression his stories have left on other franchises over 30 years. Record of Lodoss War started humbly as a feature column in a computer magazine, but its characters and worldbuilding continue to define Japanese fantasy tropes to this day. Each level of Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth’s narrative speaks to the way in which legacies manifest, and culminates in a very human story that stands on its own.

“This tale shall continue to be spun…”

-ChorpSaway

#record of lodoss war #deedlit in wonder labyrinth #review #analysis

[vanilla-blessing]

qb 2021 best anime top ten

When I think of anime in 2021 I think of a lot of raised hopes and a few letdowns and some surprises rising from the ashes like the legendary phoenix, but then I think about the weeks Pretty Series’ timeslot was re-runs, and I’d say that withdrawal period is honestly what gave me the most mental damage out of everything else this year. - friend of the show qb

All the bad gifs are tumblrs fault not mine

1: ODD TAXI

The most unique aspect of ODD TAXI (among a great deal of unique aspects) is how it pulls off the full potential of transmedia, as in multiple types of media, like never successfully pulled off before, unthinkably telling a serial long-form mystery while nailing the precise calculus of spoilers and social media and varying levels of unraveling the trail of clues and collaboration among viewers. The anime ties into the audio dramas which ties into specifically timed twitter posts planted in December 2020, clues were left in the concurrent manga chapters, novel version, short stories published in webzines during specific episodes, even inconspicuous drops of blood on the backside of an album cover, all timed to release into the world of modern scrutiny at precisely the right moments to advance the collective mystery in myriad ways. Capping this magic act off, ODD TAXI successfully leaves its biggest and most mysterious trick unsolved until the exact second it’s intended to be revealed in the finale, which is the threadingest needling of the year. 

ODD TAXI’s vibe is so perpendicular to the course of anime in 2021 that it may as well be live-action (the music video is literally live action, and was directed by the anime director, who is also one of the character designers, who also storyboarded every episode by himself), and seems to have taken this philosophy to heart, because half the voice cast has never stepped foot in anime; the credits are populated with performers and comedians who bring a practiced and fresh take to dialogue. This is further enhanced by ODD TAXI being on the extremely short list of anime that were animated after recording voices, intentionally to preserve the conversational flow of their bespoke cast. I have no idea how they’re going to do justice dubbing this show in English, but I’m optimistic, as the second layer of voice actors have ample material to study and take inspiration from the one-of-a-kind performance each character in ODD TAXI consistently delivers. 

Ideally, you should go into ODD TAXI cold, but if you need something to put on the back of the box, ODD TAXI captures the chaos within everyday interactions inherent with living in a major city, following an ensemble cast of anthropomorphic animals in what is definitely Tokyo in the year 2020, and how their lives are affected by the suspicious disappearance of a teenage girl. It owes less to anime’s fantasy worlds or struggling country prefectures, and more to distinctly metropolitan cinema by the likes of Martin Scorsese or the Safdie brothers. It’s going for grungy and sardonic and chaotic and singularly driven from the ground up, in a way only rarely seen in anime-by-committee. ODD TAXI is the opposite of what the rest of 2021 anime wound up being, it’s a compact and passionate team’s modestly animated project with ample scheduling, has no expectations of a further franchise, mobile game, or seemingly any ambition for sales figures at all, given by how shocked they were with the Blu-ray’s crowdfunding campaign making 20 times its expected goal. The bottom line is ODD TAXI is dense and weird and experimental and a risky swing for the fences but pays off in all the best ways and you should watch it now before everything else on this list, and also the audio dramas too.

2: SSSS.Dynazenon

Excellent follow-up to SSSS.Gridman, heavily paying homage to that season while also building out into its own weird-ass pseudo-tokusatsu fake-mecha franchise. Exploring and building on the concepts of what a SSSS cinematic universe means while upending boundaries like the basic idea of a monster of the week, or really even having enemies at all. It perfectly captures what I wanted a Max Heart precure-style “new SSSS.Gridman” to be to properly set up a “franchise” and it “does it really good”.

https://twitter.com/topherflorence/status/1380677266733211648?s=21

I don’t have much to add here because the show is so meticulous when telling its own story and justifying its own case for existing, and it’s not possible to discuss it in full without bringing up my thoughts on SSSS.Gridman, and have too many of those for the scope of this listicle, so let’s just move on. 

3: Uma Musume: Pretty Derby S2

The perfect sports anime, distilled into its perfect form, we now know is actually an anthropomorphic representation of a real world racehorse. Imagine the Golden Rectangle graph over a horse dressed like a luchador and that’s basically this show. It takes the considerable chaff of the previous season and burns all that bullshit in a furnace as fuel for the Uma Musumes’ journey. Another very similar anime came out in 2021 called Pride of Orange about hockey and it’s really funny, to me especially, to compare the two, because all of the girls in Uma Musume are believably horses and none of the hockey players in Pride of Orange are believable as humans. That’s probably its own article. I could also compare Uma Musume S2 to Sk8 the Infinity and I don’t have a good excuse for why I’m putting this over that one besides consistency (every single minute of every episode of this was a banger), doing the same sorta thing but more refined, or recency bias based on when I watched them. Watch both? They’re both about going fast and crying and teammates-who-are-more-than-friends and they both hit that sports anime sweetspot dead on.

4: Tropical Rouge Precure - (only up to episode 42 cuz thats what aired in 2021)

I like a good Precure and this is a good season of Precure. It’s fun to watch the cast do basically anything, they bounce off each other naturally, the fun energy stays up during the transformations and fights and the theme of tropicality hasn’t gotten old. It’s been allowed some truly insane freedom with episode ideas and continues to throw surprising things into the mix. 

Episode 29 was a standout with every one of these strengths firing off at max power, like Cure Papaya firing her lasers directly into Kururun, killing the seal mascot instantly.

5: Kiratto PriChan S3 

The first season of Kiratto PriChan was a slight sendup of Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream, starting as a vague notion then flat out introducing the original protagonist Aira’s identical variant. Then they did this again in season 2 with Pretty Rhythm Dear My Future and Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live, in strokes so broad you wouldn’t even notice unless you zoom out and see the core of the whole season is a pun on the titles of the first installments of the franchise, and also Naru the protagonist from Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live is just there as an adult (same height) with a different last name. Season 3 continues the trend in the most insane way possible portended by what is clearly Yui YumeGekikawa arriving from across the sea on a crude raft and establishes a rice plantation in the upper area of the new brand idol theme park, which is another lateral sendup of PriPara (short for Prism Paradise - but PriPara forgot this theme park idea like one season in), then all their brand mascots become sentient AI that evolve from eggs like pokemon, which retroactively includes the existing sentient AI characters from Season 2, then Yui’s bear mascot sheds her outer shell permanently and evolves into Laala the PriPara protagonist, some cats end the world then save it, eventually PriChan moonbase princess egg army revolt, look it’s more Pretty Series I don’t know why we briefly thought they weren’t going to make this season another stream-of-consciousness self-referential asset-reusing shitpost bong rip of an idol anime but we were all wrong and I’m truly glad that it finishes out its 3-year run even more demented and prone to tossing in former protagonists than ever.

6: Sk8 the Infinity 

Incredibly fun sports anime showcasing an activity that took serious ambition to animate in tyool 2021, full of flash skateboarding and flashier characters that stick with you for a long time, but ends up showing the seams outside of the animation highlights later on, just barely nails the ending and skids over the finish line before shattering into a billion pieces. Make sure to watch the blu-ray due to the circumstances of producing anime in 2021. Gets some extra points for having a great English dub track. You should vote for Reki’s English voice actor in the CR awards, its the only time I’ve believed dub slang.

https://www.sakugabooru.com/post/show/141723

7: Thunderbolt Fantasy S3 

I love Thunderbolt Fantasy and this gave me more of everything I wanted from more Thunderbolt Fantasy, like Aoi Yuuki voicing a demon sword princess and the Enigmatic Gale tricking every single member of the cast and Làng visiting Hell to yell at his absent demon father. go watch it already

8: Sonny Boy 

I cannot talk about Sonny Boy in a way that would accurately describe what one would get out of watching it, because it defenestrates all traditional narrative and traditionally accepted shit like ‘coherence’ or ‘trying to give the audience anything to go on at all ever’, in favor of a bombastically weird theme/mood piece that thinks answers to mysteries are lame and demands you take it or leave it on its own terms. Characters, places, colors, words, all of these usually concrete footholds are vague suggestions in Sonny Boy and I honestly can’t consciously recommend this to anyone because it sadistically forces you to watch it with your brain stem. Episode 8 is the one I remember the most, maybe because it’s arguably the only story with a beginning, middle, and end in the entire thing, and it’s presumably about a big dog, instead of subjecting you to a thick mist of ideas before deleting the ground like Sonny Boy usually does. If these words in this arrangement sound to you like you’d enjoy it, maybe you should give it a shot. I’m still unpacking the question of if I actually watched anything at all during the time Sonny Boy was presumably playing video at me. 

9: Fruits Basket Final Season

I waited two decades for this adaptation which I didn’t know I needed, of one of my favorite manga, and it continued not to disappoint even into my favorite section of my favorite shoujo manga. Parts of Fruits Basket are just as objectively bad as when they were written and they faithfully adapted those parts too. The only major changes are removing a lot of comedic relief from the last part to 1. Fit in the episode count they had 2. It was sort of distracting overall. On the scale of shoujo anime in tyool 2021 Fruits Basket has consistently stayed at least better-looking than average, which still isn’t a very high bar, but it’s impressive it didn’t ‘plode with this many episodes in this timeframe. Copy paste what I said for the other seasons in my previous lists you remember those right, this year adapts when the manga really hits its stride and the anime does too. They notably skipped the flashback with Tohru’s parents but that’s announced to be a special episode later. I hope we get some sort of adaptation of Fruits Basket Another. Maybe live action though I don’t want to wait twenty plus years again. 

10: Horimiya

Another standout adaptation of a beloved romantic drama manga classic, makes judicious cuts and jumps like Fruits Basket but to an even more extreme degree, there are mountains of skipped material here, it may as well be a greatest hits album. However, it is about the best one-cour anime you could make out of Horimiya. My only major complaint is that there isn’t more of it, and that ED.

goodnight 

Some Honorable Mentions:

Godzilla Singular Point - big physics nerd writing combined with big Godzilla nerd writing that was exactly up my alley, but the most impossible concept it tried to deliver was that Jet Jaguar could ever be cool

PUI PUI MOLCAR - exactly what it says in the title, cars are hamsters, only they are also other things 

Pretty boy detective club - shallow in a satisfying* way, nisio isin primer for middle schooler reading levels, the MC is twice as interesting as anyone else in the cast *ymmv

VLAD LOVE - probably too juvenile for what people expected from it, but if you’re into that, VLAD LOVE is delivering a unique comedy that nobody else is doing

Shadows House - the rare solid horror anime, although it doesn’t surpass the already excellent (and full color) manga, it’s worth watching for the stellar OP and ED, looking forward to S2

Zombieland Saga S2 - completely full on experimental after the sorta-half measure approach taken by the first season, which is both a strength and weakness, but every episode felt unique

Muteking The Dancing Hero - this would have made by top ten if they didn’t ceremoniously kill the most beloved character in the last episode

qb @queuebae on twitter “the best anime related event in 2021 was PriMagi on HIDIVE”

#oddtaxi #gridman #dynazenon #sk8 #tokai teio #tropical rouge precure #kiratto prichan s3 #sonny boy #fruits basket #horimiya

[vanilla-blessing]

Stray; or, The Paradise and The Palisades

A personal essay about Wolf’s Rain by Karin Malady (@SweetNAwful)

Rewatching a series has always spoken to my sense of time. Most of the time it seemed pointless - why watch something again when I could experience something new. To me, it was more exciting that way than going through the same emotional loop. Repeating a series over and over was the same as being trapped in the past. But, over time, I lightened up on that. I watched some of my favorite series a second time, often with a friend who hadn’t seen it before. Not only did having a fresh pair of eyes expand my view of the work but so did my accumulated experiences. After years had gone by, I’d realized I was a different person than when I first saw it. I had more of a grounding point for my experiences and knowledge. So, I was getting to see something I loved in new ways, which was important to me in itself. Last year, one of my girlfriends and I were trying to think of things to do to spend time together, as we were separated from each other by distance and a pandemic. This led to a weekly anime night of ours where we started by making our way through some of the Adult Swim sci-fi and cyberpunk shows. We started with Ghost in the Shell and moved on from there. A lot of these shows I only remembered in flashes - glimpses of random episodes fluttering through my childhood memories. I didn’t really understand how much of a connection I had with Wolf’s Rain until we got to it.

There was always something mysterious about the Adult Swim anime block. The promotion of these shows often involved cryptic phrases and stylish clips. When I was around ten, I would watch random episodes of things with my dad. I would see bits of Fooly Cooly, Inuyasha, Wolf’s Rain, Cowboy Bebop, and so many others out of context. I was deeply drawn in by the style of it all. The sense of space and action. The skeletal remains of Toga, Inuyasha’s father, loomed over the landscape much like mine did over me - giant. He was very important to me at that time in my life, even though he was someone who often scared me. My mom had just been in an accident and came back different. Something - maybe the result of an injury - changed and she didn’t seem like the same person anymore. It scared me, I felt like I lost her. So my dad got a lot of my attention - he was a jolly, funny, talkative. But he could also take things seriously and talk about deeper subjects. Not that it was all good times with him but he was more familiar. It didn’t make me sad in the same way. When my brother and I were allowed to stay up late, we watched Wolf’s Rain with him.

This is basically my father.

There was something about Wolf’s Rain that drew my dad into it. His eyes lit up so much more when he was explaining the story compared to Inuyasha or other anime. A pack of wolves wandering a desolate future, searching for Paradise - a place foretold in myth where all wolves will be free. I honestly don’t know why that idea appealed to him so much. Was he also a wounded wolf looking for Paradise? His life was told to me through a series of bar fights and near arrests. His actual arrest, his childhood, these are huge blanks in the story he told about himself. All I can really be certain is that he hurt a lot and that he never learned what to do with it. When Wolf’s Rain ended, he was disappointed with it. I don’t think he wanted the finality of death from the show. It could be because that hurt he carried was a threat to his life. I can never really know at this point in time. As I got older, our relationship got worse and recognized his abuse. I stopped talking to him after my parents got divorced and long before I started transitioning. Sometimes, however, I think back on the strange and mysterious feeling of watching Wolf’s Rain with him. There was something about the glow of the screen late at night, my dad sitting in his La-Z-Boy as a giant, lit by the blue of the TV screen.

Naturally, this means that revisiting something you’ve already seen is a form of time travel. Just thinking about the first time I experienced this anime has pulled me back into the past. But it also creates a bridge to the present as well. On my second watch, I was struck by the ways the anime could also relate to queerness. The way they form a pack and have to pass as humans to survive gave me a sense of found family and transness. And obviously Tsume is a leather daddy. We don’t see this directly in the story, of course. But, there is a possibility space where I can allow these characters to become queer. The way they are rejected can become my rejection and the way their search for safety, for a world that accepts them, can become my very same search.

Nothing will ever convince me he is straight.

Quent Yaiden stumbles around a broken world drunk and hateful. He is a bastard carried by sentimentality alone. This is a man who hunts wolves for revenge, after he believed a pack of wolves set his home town on fire and killed his family. A fire that was actually caused by the Noble’s soldiers. He spends his days wallowing in his pain, ignorant to the truth. However, he isn’t entirely alone as his trusty pet dog, Blue, guides him. It is because of him, people like him, that even brief visitations to the past become scary. If I linger here too long, I might become him. Of course, most people don’t want to become their parents. I see through Quent the ways my father had been swallowed by the world and how he could be a person who hurt me as much as he did. The truth of Quent’s tragedy isn’t the only thing obscured from him - Blue herself is half wolf. She gets scared he might find out and hid a precious part of herself from someone she cared deeply for, out of the fear that he would reject her if discovered. And he does - but this rejection is replaced by acceptance on his deathbed. I don’t know if it’s possible for me to forgive my father. Again and again, we’re told Paradise is for wolves. And Quent isn’t a wolf.

He is much better at drinking than he is hunting.

What does Paradise mean for me? Would it be a happy family, to correct my past? Or would it be something I built for myself? What Paradise was my father looking for? I’m glad that I can acknowledge his pain better, and see who he was a little clearer, even if I don’t like that person. Yet, at the same time, I don’t feel any closer to any answers. Maybe if I replayed the events again and again I could come to some new conclusion? Perhaps - and I say this treading the fear of revelation - perhaps he has already been trapped in his past, behind a palisade, and inventing a Paradise was simply the way he could escape from that. I’m not sure I will ever know. The most I can do is try to imagine a world in which people can heal and in which I can heal, and then hope to find my True Paradise. 

#Wolf's Rain #Essay

[vanilla-blessing]

qb’s 2020 Anime List

[Representation of making my brain recall anything from last year]

As usual, these are ordered by whatever arbitrary mood I was in when I constructed the list. Do not cross reference this ordering with any other evaluations I may have done. 

0. kiratto prichan but only after it lost all pretense of being grounded in reality

I don't want to explain why I watch this anime, but I will do it for the fans. It's the franchise people, by all rights, should make fun of me for watching instead of Precure, which is harmless; the Pretty Rhythm series is ill-advised subculture shitpost brainrot which has at least halved my IQ. PriChan had been very boring for at least a year since its premiere, but during 2020 went off the deep end in way that rekindled the unique flavor the decade-long series has traditionally had of doing the most dumbass thing every week and not letting any sort of television authority or good ideas stop it. I had fun every week once it got in the groove and remembered its roots as a dumbass crossover franchise with nothing to prove and nothing holding its stupid, fantastic ideas back. It’s always the most insane thing on TV and it never even has to try. 

Also following the twitter cult that formed around a rare plushie from this show with a wide face. That was the most entertaining thing of 2020 for me. 

1. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Creatively inspiring in a year without many sources of creative inspiration, the airing of this anime mirrored my unwilling dive into learning too much about anime production than I ever meant to. Eizouken takes the sketchbook ideas of the manga and fully realizes its world into animation in a way that only Masaki Yuasa and Science Saru could pull off, while simultaneously giving rising stars in the industry their first chance at directing episodes. It's a very satisfying show to watch and if there's anything on this list that inspired me to finally just slam words on paper and get this out it was thanks to watching Eizouken at some point in my life. 

The season is split into three distinct “projects” and each of these end in a such a strong climax that I have to recommend watching it 4 episodes at a time, if you are able to. Here’s an endcard by tkmiz

2. Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Gaiden

3. DECA-DENCE

I like a nice contained science fiction and this one's episode 2 hook was so shocking that I was glued to my screen until the very end. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as perfect as you could reasonably expect to get from the year 2020. The less you know going in the better so I’ll shut up but it’s a much more ambitious sci-fi than you think it is at first. It might have been a had-to-be-there serial experience, so it could be impossible to really get the hype that was around this show at the time, but I think there’s enough there to stand on its own, and just having a definitive, satisfying ending in one season is an anime rarity worth recommending by itself. 

4. Toilet-bound Hanako-kun

I love looking at pictures of cryptids and Lerche paneling and this gave me both in abundance. It rides the line between telling Shonen and Shoujo stories, like many Seinen that defy easy categorization do, and I’ve always been a sucker for that. Along with the anime being drop dead gorgeous on a weekly basis, I enjoyed the lovable cast of various SUPERNATURAL DANGER BOYS and also Yashiro who provides the funniest faces and widest ankles of the whole show, despite stiff competition. 

5. Talentless Nana

Came outta nowhere and exceeded expectations for a frankly kind of mediocre thriller manga by absolutely nailing the strong first episode/chapter hook, then continuing to nail it every week with smart directing. I’m obligated to pay attention to this team in the future if they're capable of making something this compelling on a limited drawing budget. (the core staff were all Heybot regulars, which either means something or doesn’t)

6. Extra Olympia Kyklos

The one-person studio that made this did not have a high bar to clear to be the best Olympic tie-in anime (the only other one I can recall is the rare media Eagle Sam which sucks complete ass) but despite the Olympics not even happening in 2020, it soldiered on, and was easily the most I laughed at anime in that year. Kyklos takes serious source material and just spices it up beyond recognition with bizarre jokes, perfect timing, and hilariously cheap original music videos at the end of every episode that wouldn’t be out of place on adult swim bumpers. Overall it’s very surprising that this was funded at all once anyone saw what it was, but I’m so glad the creator got away with it. In a way, it’s the perfect monument to this psychotic year. 

7. Kakushigoto

I just think the author is funny and this is a good anime adaptation that outpaces the original, by the author's own admission/intention. 61-sensei is the best girl

All Hail The Daia Bread All Hail The Daia Bread

these were all enjoyable too:

Gal and dino 

Hit in the right spot at the time, when we all needed a roommate who couldn’t catch covid

Star twinkle precure movie

I'd show this to people to introduce them to precure if not for the song and dance number at the end being kinda lame

Mewkledreamy

it’s not going to end precure but it has incredible faces

BOFURI: I don’t want to get hurt so I maxed out my defense

gamer has logged on

- qb kiranichiwa 

#daiapan

[vanilla-blessing]

Fall 2020 Anime Previews (Unprecedented Times Edition) 

qb here. This is a particularly temporally challenged season, so, unsure when anything is coming out, prone to more delays, follow anything at your own peril. 

TOP QB PICKS

Tokyo Gambo - The second anime from Harajuku Otaku Fashion Store PARK after the best anime ever created URAHARA, so I have pretty high expectations going in. I know next to nothing about it, other than the characters look cute and they claim to be airing it in November. https://www.tokyogambo.com/

Assault Lily: Bouquet - This got delayed from last season, a Shaft magical girl anime based on a series of dolls? Looks like the animation will be unexpectedly good? Wild guess; Funimation will get this? The inundation of Madoka Magica ripoff accusations and comparisons feels inevitable but I will weather them unless the obvious thigh obsession goes too far. 

Higurashi: When They Cry (2020) - Another delayed show, I don't actually know anything about Higurashi so this reboot will be blind for me. It’ll be near impossible to avoid people sharing their opinions on this adaptation, but I haven’t decided if I care enough to do so. People say the staff is crazy though so I'll give it a shot. 

Yashahime - I like an Inuyasha so this sequel could be good. Rin had better have a good explanation for the Sesshoumaru kids. I hope demons can reproduce through budding. Rumiko Takahashi by all accounts, has still got it, so I expect this could be a solid pick. It’s going to be on Crunchyroll.

Tonikaku Kawaii - Cute newlywed manga becomes an anime, from that Hayate the Combat Butler author. I read this for a while and it's a solid wholesome comedy about newlyweds, not much more to say about it, it’s gonna be on Crunchyroll too. 

SUS PICKS, ONLY WATCHING A FEW UNLESS THEY’RE LIKE GOOD OR FUNNY OR SOMETHING

Adachi to Shimamura - This one’s a big unknown, adaptations of this novel series seem very similar so I don’t expect any surprises, but it could ‘wow’ us in other ways. However the studio looks mad sus. High chance of being disappointing so I'll only give it a few episodes

Is the Order A Rabbit? BLOOM (Season 3) - HIDIVE got this one, the previous season reviewed very poorly on Cocoadisaster the podcast, but I still think this show is at least pretty good despite its obvious flaws, and it has been on a trajectory of getting better. The new season is the same director but NOT Kinema Citrus, it’s a studio that only makes Rice Boys and bad isekai, so I’m not optimistic.

Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle - Rhyme Anima - Dumb-looking otome anime of the season, my guilty pleasure, so there’s close to zero chance it'll be good. 

Dragon Quest/Warrior - Toei seems to have gone all out with this series and it looks ridiculously good so I'm expecting it to be somewhat watchable, and get on Crunchyroll because all Toei stuff goes there, may drop it if its too boring so I'll give it like, 3 episodes. My nostalgia for all of the Dragon Warrior Monsters is immense so that may drive me to watch it. 

Seizei Ganbare Mahou Shoujo Kurumi 3 - don’t call it a comeback kurumi's been here for years

D4DJ - Dig Delight Direct Drive DJ: First Mix, High School DJ Girls  - comes out later on October 30th, I’m required to watch all DJ anime in the hopes one lives up to Tonkatsu DJ Agetarou, this one seems like some sort of a multimedia rhythm game with girls? It’s picked up by Sentai who’s throwing it on both Crunchyroll and HIDIVE. I don’t expect it to be good at all. 

LEFTOVERS 

Fire Force Season 2, Healin’ Good PreCure, Kiratto Prichan Season 3 , Mewkledreamy, Gal & Dino (maybe?), Extra Olympia Kyklos

QB HAS TO WATCH ONE EPISODE FOR THE MAGICAL GIRL DEATH PACT

Majo no Tabitabi - This looks inoffensive, has witches, gonna drop it and watch The Owl House instead probably. Man, The Owl House is so good. Hooty hoot hoot hooty hoot hoot hoot 

#tokyo gambo #assault lily: bouqet #Yashahime #Watch precure #Watch precure on crunchyroll #healin good precure on crunchyroll #Fall 2020 anime previews #hooty hoot

[vanilla-blessing]

sentai at home livepost

qb here - decided to watch this \/ because quarantine 

spirits are high minus 5 hours to the beginning of the stream

a single engagement from an account with with 0 followers

they seem really focused on having enough popcorn despite the panel not starting for 3 hours

hold up this is prerecorded lmao

this is going to be 2 hours of dubs 

so far its looking like two hours of dubs and amvs and commercials for box sets

surprisingly the youtube chat is hype for dubs 

i think all of this is AMvs

the host has changed shirts every shot which I assume is the joke

Shoutout to the one person in chat asking for revue starlight box sets

sentayikes

the crowd is getting mad about there not being made in abyss on screen

they just threw on a fifteen minute interview with Kenji Kamiyama

HIDIVE isnt even modded in Sentai’s channel what a simp

chat is eating itself from being really bored and being mad at people who are complaining about being bored

they told the people interviewing for this it was a film and its over 2 hours so that seems correct

demon girl next door clips of the dub look really good 

i went to make food

i couldnt get a better screenshot because the window crashed

hidive continues to simp

the crowd saw a racy anime and now is debating the rights situation of interspecies reviewers

thrilling interviews continue with the marketing manager of a borderline hentai 

they threw this man to the wolves

bunch of ads for their box sets, revue starlight person got their wish

fragtime’s pretty good. If it were less problematic i’d rave more about it. its fascinating from a technical perspective and passable yuri is still uncommon. glad its available after the mess with the animators not getting paid. 

“in select theaters soon” yall still doing that huh,

a pretty good point made in chat

and nothing else redacted was shown in the stream and it just ended 15 minutes early 

some of the interviews were interesting, the SNAFU interview with Watari in particular, but not worth over two hours of my time you can watch it here

#hidive #wave of the future

[vanilla-blessing]

qb top 2019 anime list

this year what I took notice of the most were uncompromisingly ambitious series that care very little for the opinions of haters. I couldn’t come up with an order for them, so pick your own on your scorecards at home.  - qb

Hulaing Babies

Five minute anime about a Hula club that nobody watched except me, blurry kaleidoscopic fountain of pastels and homestarrunner-esque morphing at bizarre angles and judiciously excessive mouth flapping, outrageously blunt visual metaphors for emotions and a finale where everyone floats into the sky with no logical justification needed or wanted. 

I learned absolutely nothing about hula or okinawa or dancing but I loved every second.

GRANBELM (while it was airing) 

Ultimately forgettable, but a fun cross-genre experiment that was very enjoyable to unpack week by week, takes a blender to normally very structured genres for better and worse. It’s obviously obsessed with both mecha and magical girl and sincerely rams the gundam and the madoka tropes together until it appears they are kissing and one of the arms has flown off. In retrospect, it was completely impossible to predict because it seemed to rewrite its lore every week and may have been making it up as it went along. I had a completely different idea of where the show was going nearly every week, so that was pretty exciting for me. I still can’t believe that the main character was actually a magical girl tulpa who had an arc where she dealt with the existential problem of not being real. All of these questionable ingredients were surprisingly hella fun to watch while GRANBELM was airing, and reacting to this bizarre roller coaster week by week through all its twists and turns was probably my favorite discrete experience this year, even though the show itself probably doesn’t hold up. But that’s okay too, it’s alright to forget things sometimes.

I just wish I could remember the name of this girl with the pink hair and the dumb face from all my screenshots? I could have sworn she was important.

KoP:SSS / Pri⭐Chan S2 

Pretty rhythm has had a really excellent year and its dumb to lump these together but I’ll do it anyway. You can’t stop me from putting this on here

Pretty Rhythm had an amazing year with the first English license in its history, Pri⭐Chan threw off the yoke of the last season’s tendency to play it safe and got immediately weird as balls. Nijinosaki Daia is a brilliant character and is essentially Jem but good. 

The franchise has always blatantly reused remixed components like plot themes, entire characters, and full cg sequences, and Pri⭐Chan has lightest version of this, by simply copy and pasting characters from other series and having them exist with a barely different last name and an identical design and voice actress. 

However, King of Prism: Shiny Seven Stars is the ultimate, nauseatingly over the top version, imagining a disembodied council of identifiable veteran voice actors that control the idols, and by extension the pretty rhythm universe, inadvisably connecting every franchise (and some shows that aren’t even in the franchise) in a veritable corkboard of meta-cosmic nonsense that made even dedicated fans throw up their hands and go along for the ride.

Fruits Basket (2019)

The Fruits Basket 2019 reboot was a solid and consistent fixture of my year, as a diehard fan of the manga it’s simultaneously the uncompromised vision of the author and the transformative modern take I didn't know I wanted. I don’t have a lot else to say about it, Fruits Basket is one of the best shoujo ever written if not the best one, and this is a best case scenario for an adaptation. Highly recommend watching this if you’re an old fan since middle school or even if you’ve never seen it before. Second season comes out at some point in 2020. https://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/184168814234/why-you-should-check-out-that-fruits-basket-reboot

Kemurikusa

 lol they called an anime smokeleaf 

In the wake of Kemono Friends 2 being a shallow cash grab from a company that decided slaughtering their golden goose and burning the corpse was a good idea, Kemurikusa is that goose rising from the ashes like the powerful phoenix to create another awkward but weirdly competent CG anime that’s oddly endearing despite resembling nothing else in the current anime industry. It writes a lot of lore checks in the first 10 episodes and actually nails the ending without overexplaining or getting lost in the weeds of its sometimes convoluted lore. RINA GANG https://vanilla-blessing.tumblr.com/post/184018114459/why-you-should-check-out-kemurikusa

Honorable mention to: Kappa

This was a great year for cryptids, especially Kappa, between Cure Cryptid-hunter hikaru hoshina repping all UMA’s, Kappard reclaiming his less handsome brother Pissard’s naming scheme and becoming the fan favorite bad guy of Star Twinkle Precure, and Everything in Sarazanmai, 2019 was the year that brought Kappa back, unless you would argue that they never left. It’s hard to tell with yokai. Also Mob Psycho 100 s2 was the most technically impressive anime i’ve ever seen in my life but I felt it was more important to honor this caboose.

- qb ask me anything about UMA

#kappa #hulaing babies #granbelm #dia nijinosaki #king of prism #kappard #fruits basket #kemurikusa #smokeleaf

[vanilla-blessing]

qbottom 3 anime of 2019

I did not edit this lets get into QB’S THREE WORST ANIME OF 2019 contrary to my eventual best anime list this is about quality instead of how much I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Pastel Memories a great deal and everybody should watch it, except for episode 4. Don’t watch episode 4 - qb 

3. Pastel Memories

I honestly love the idea of pastel memories, but it could not have been done more embarrassingly or had been more of a hot mess that you could call hit or miss except it never got a hit

Daikon IV extended to a full tv show even with a famously horny animator doing 90 seconds of it could have been a slam dunk for a more prestige studio that hasn’t produced exclusively unfortunate moldy garbage

In many ways reality was what kept pastel memories from reaching its potential, not just of what properties they would be legally allowed to rip off but the creative limits project no 9 is capable of; as this year has shown the only page in their playbook is very bad (average isekai and choyoyu are both indefensible) 

its a great remembrance/10

2. Bermuda Triangle Colorful Pastrale

so many cineorbs

BTCP has a hecked up connection to the cardfight vanguard universe that is never, ever explored to even the smallest degree

this makes it technically canon with milky Holmes

The character designs are probably my biggest problem with it since everything about the mermaids and how they live bothers me

Their massive dead eyes are off-putting and the fish tails that they only use as an excuse to never have to animate movement are so lazy, they even have it rain underwater ala spongebob squarepants

The one episode they go on land and have legs is immediately lead into a panty shot which was functionally impossible in every previous episode

The last minute of the last episode shows them about to sing an idol song, in this show presumably about idols that constantly promises idols only none of them are idols or perform or sing anything, then it cuts unceremoniously to credits so that they dont have to record another song

1. Kanadagawa Jet Girls 

Absolute shameless trash intended to sell a 74 dollar ps4 game to perverts, checks off the entire laundry list of pervert demands and teases lesbian couples without allowing them to actually go beyond flirting unless its incestuous, sets back the genres of sports and yuri about ten years, camera is a constant presence leering over anime girl ass in every single shot and is so intentionally voyeuristic the storyboarder should be arrested

I’m not even going to link the gif of their dumbass stripper racing butt cam but this anime advertises only its uncensored version for a reason, DM me for it if you’re that interested. (please do not actually do this) 

-qb the last person left in the CD⭐VB office over the holidays

#cineorbs #pastel memories #bermuda triangle colorful pastrale #im not going to tag jet girls either

[vanilla-blessing]

hTe Unbareable Liteness off beign Super Sonico

The V~B editor-in-chief will burn this blog to the ground if I write another Twin Angel BREAK article, but a dubbed HIDIVE anime I finished this weekend has stuck my brain on a similar topic of niche adult-oriented companies making self-aggrandizing mainstream anime series with their own mascots and I felt like documenting the rabbit hole I went down here because it was too long for twitter. - qb 

In the vein of Komugi-chan R with Tatsunoko Pictures, or Twin Angel BREAK with Sammy Corporation, Super Sonico the Animation with Nitroplus is a labor-of-love commercial for Nitroplus’ music festival’s mascot. It’s a particularly weird move in Nitroplus’ case since they’re known for adult visual novels and Sonico is best known as a plastic figure for perverts, so a twelve episode anime series about a marine biology student with a giant rack and minor dyslexia who takes care of her five cats and visits her grandma, with about 5% the Horny Level of their usual output, is unlikely to be popular with anyone outside of their own marketing department. 

Whether it comes from a niche company having the bright idea to pivot to something they can put on mainstream TV, or if it was originally the 18+ show that everyone in the forum threads thought it would be and it was sterilized into something that could be put on mainstream TV, the result is bizarrely sincere. Super Sonico the Animation has fanservice, but most of the time is seriously trying to show you the fictional life of a college student majoring in marine biology doing odd jobs and playing guitar in her band and taking care of her five cats. It’s just that she also physically cannot take off her headphones and is legally named Super Sonico. There’s an entire episode where all she does is hike through the mountains in order to visit her relatives. 

Since Super Sonico the Animation appears to be grounded in our world, and the events contained are relatively mundane, there isn’t a lot of speculation we can make on the lore of the world itself. The cats that live in Super Sonico’s house (Porky, Tasty, Roasty, Fishcake, and Noodles) behave like normal cats, not even speaking Cat-Japanese, and even the zombie episode could semi-realistically happen. For all intents and purposes this series tries to sell the viewer on Super Sonico being a real person. However, trying to establish a corporate logo believably as a real person is plenty terrifying already. 

Take this photoshoot from the anime for example. The cross-promotional in-universe positioning of Hatsune Miku and Goodsmile puts Sonico as more real than these brands in the canon of the show, although she herself is a brand, and that car actually exists. If Nico (shortened nickname of Super Sonico) is a metaphor for the life of the Nitroplus’ music festival as a brand, does dressing her in the clothes of another brand turn her into a pale cg representation of the music-producing vocaloid? Are we viewing a shadow on the cave wall only made recognizable by her distinct headphones? If Sonico is living in a commercial, what is she supposed to be selling? Cat food, meat buns, the impressive amount of unique music videos that ended each episode, that one week where Sonico danced with spliced FMV footage of prefectural mascots? Was that subsidized by local governments? Is this a prequel to the story mode of Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel? Like the origins of Super Sonico the Animation, the answers to these questions are only known to Nitroplus’ marketing division and nobody else. 

I’ll take this opportunity, during the only time in my life I will discuss Super Sonico, to officially call her out as that rumored Smash Ultimate DLC leak; she’s already been in a fighting game, has mechanical elements in her design (headphones never come off), and she will disappoint everyone (super sonico).

#firstnamesuper #lastnamesonico #super-sonico #super sonico

[vanilla-blessing]

Why you should check out summer 2019 anime despite my previous blog post

I was mostly wrong about this season here’s qb’s revised

Hype rankings for Summer 2019

Cop Craft (Funimation)

COP CRAFT DRAGNET MIRAGE RELOADED is the biggest surprise of the season for me. Coming from Millepensee, the studio and director team known for such Art as Teekyuu seasons 4-9 and Berserk 2016, this extremely sincere and wildly stupid Americanized take on anime fantasy adventure colliding with a hard-boiled cop drama is surprisingly highly enjoyable to watch for both intended and unintended reasons. 

The intended appeal of COP CRAFT DRAGNET MIRAGE RELOADED hinges on a well-realized mashup of genres from a long running novel series, the buddy-cop teamup of an anime girl with a magical sword and a gruff but kind-hearted cop, and the dramatic thrill of one of the weirder spinoffs of law&order. The show promises an interesting setting where a magical portal ring to the fairy forest where anime-chans are real has naturally slotted into the organized crime of a New Yorkish city, resulting in a fresh take on well-trodden ground, and it actually kind of succeeds at this. In practice, watching loose cannon cops shoot guns at wizards while busting a drug ring who sling fairy dust is maybe the dumbest thing I’ve seen in years, but the story is so overly detailed, thought out, and delivered without an ounce of irony, unlike the recent terrible movie from Netflix that also attempted to do this premise almost word for word, that it wraps around to legitimately compelling. It also helps that this anime adaptation is being scripted by the novel’s author.

The unintended benefit of watching COP CRAFT DRAGNET MIRAGE RELOADED is partly how completely absurd the words they are saying appear in English, producing some of the funniest out of context screenshots imaginable, the animation in execution ratchets between cool, frenetic action that contains distinct shades of a certain tennis club, and the hysterically awful cg that you’ve come to expect and love from the only team capable of producing Berserk 2016. When it’s good, it’s good, and when it’s bad, it’s incredible. 

In short, COP CRAFT DRAGNET MIRAGE RELOADED is a two-for-one deal of the best of both bad and good anime. It’s also getting an English dub by Funimation and I can’t even imagine how good literally any line read from that will be.

The Demon Girl Next Door (Hidive, VRV) 

Despite my earlier protests, this is actually totally fine, good even. It avoids the fanservice problem I predicted completely and instead sets a relaxed comedic tone that quietly highlights small gags in a way that feels natural, which sounds impossible but they found the only director who could pull it off (Hiroaki Sakurai, known for some quite good comedies like Cromartie High School and Majokko Tsukune-chan). The content is actually pretty funny when delivered in a non-hyperactive way, since a story about a girl who is bullied into making friends after her family circumstances tell her to murderize a magical girl, told naturally, hits that level of low surrealism that works. Her friends also take this in stride, encouraging her to use this as an opportunity to go out more, open up socially, and suffer for their amusement. The magical girl in question, after heroically saving Yuko from being run over by a truck, also encourages her to defeat her and drain all of her blood, because Shadow Mistress Yuko is so much of a non-threat that Momo takes advantage of their impending ultimate confrontation to trick her into being her gym buddy. It takes place in a post-season magical girl anime landscape where the world has already been saved, normal people are used to weird episodic junk, and hitting demon puberty just another thing your friends will tease you over. 

It still probably shouldn’t be full episode length, but it actually does something with that length, and is definitely the least painful iteration of this kind of slower, long-form comedy that you don’t usually see in anime because it’s usually a terrible idea. Predicting this would end up like other entries in the incredibly cursed magical girl parody genre was a safe bet, but this anime is the rare exception and it’s actually worth checking out. 

Given (Crunchyroll, VRV) is on the noitamina block and it’s about boys in a rock band who might become more than friends. You’ve probably tuned out at this point and you’d be right because you know exactly the tone and style of this from that description but it’s executed well and written well and directed okay, so if you’d like this sort of thing try it out. There’s an interesting range of ages (the band has members in high school, college, and graduate school), a fun sense of humor, and the music is a standout in a season that has Carole and Tuesday in it, so that’s something.  

I forgot to mention Fruits Basket (Crunchyroll, VRV, Funimation) in my last post because i didn’t know it was continuing. It’s hitting its “stride” in being massively depressing so check that out still. It’s tragic and great. 

Granbelm (Crunchyroll, VRV) is a magical girl show I watched on a whim and turns out it’s actually a magical mecha battle royale. The color scheme is overly bright and the mechs look squashed, but it has girls snarling and yelling their heads off summoning beam swords so it’s different from what I expected. It’s got a G-Gundam energy with the multiregional cast and how the mecha fights are playing out, so if you’re fans of that, and magical girl, this is both at once. The second episode introduced a unique motivation for the main character, that piloting the mech helped her get over crushing nihilism, and I want to see where that goes, if at all. Combining the sometimes bleak and fun-sucking writing of overly dark and philosophical magical girl with what I can only describe as Domon Kasshu energy is a choice and I would like to see where Granbelm is going with that.

Misc variable hype list

O Maidens in Your Savage Season (Hidive) 

This looks gorgeous and it may be the most Mari Okada thing ever written, move over Dragon Pilot, but the manga has some uncomfortable elements that would translate poorly to anime, in terms of keeping me watching it.

Crunchyroll actually did pick up Symphogear AXZ and XV, against my pessimistic attitude. 

Ensemble Stars (Funimation) is okay.

Fire Force’s animation is fire af but the girl who lives in her own hellish fanservice series is about to be introduced and this part of the series is kind of slow so it would take a lot of effort to elevate the material until it gets to the “good stuff”. David production seems willing to give it their best shot though, so we’ll see.

Vinland Saga started slow, quiet, chronological and ultimately strong, but it took multiple episodes to get there, which is why they aired 3 episodes in the first week. I think I still prefer the high octane opening chapter of the manga, but they’ll get there soon enough so it’ll be a non-issue in a few months anyway. I recommended this before and I still do. WIT studio is clearly playing for the longer game, setting themes that encompass the whole series first rather than the fleeting themes of watch the bad ass viking slice the mans, but it is currently missing the energy people associated with that opening volume or two. It will probably pay off though.

#COP CRAFT DRAGNET MIRAGE RELOADED #sentai subs are a gift from heaven #this hand of mine burns with an unfulfilled and nihilistic attitude #bus p*rn

[vanilla-blessing]

qb anime-watching list for Summer 2019

Hey I know how much all you folks love uninformed digest predictions off limited information so here are some - qb

Definitely Watching:

Vinland Saga

You know what this is and who the author is since the manga’s been going forever, the animation looks pretty alright and this portion of the story they could cover is tightly paced, strong seinen. Even if they mess that up, there’s no way they could mess up the first chapter, so at a minimum I expect the pilot to be memorable and for a hundred gifs of Vikings to grace my twitter feed. Not much else to say about it, people might be expecting too much from the production, but it could also live up to those expectations. 

Carole & Tuesday (continuing)

Carole and Tuesday’s great, has had some of the best musical performances of any anime already, and all the singing being in English makes it very easy to listen to. The parts that aren’t explicitly a musical performance are less memorable, but those are also pretty good sometimes. I’m not dropping this anytime soon. 

Star☆Twinkle PreCure (continuing)

Star☆Twinkle PreCure is a more or less normal season of modern Precure, which is fine. It's not lighting the rulebook on fire and hurling it out the window like Hugtto Precure, but it is taking some risks, like acknowledging Japan's problems with accepting interracial couples and emphasizing that integrating with other cultures is not only good but desperately needed in all levels of a functional contemporary society. The way it’s tackling these complex issues is sometimes a bit too simplistic and indirect, but the diversity of the planets, people, and themes in this season is refreshing in its own way, and probably was only possible because Hugtto blew open the doors first. It’s also one of the funniest seasons and that’s what we all probably need right now. 

Kiratto Pri☆Chan (continuing)

Pretty Rhythm’s second major reboot spent a year being relatively grounded for the franchise, but has slowly loosened its grip on reality and now it’s almost fully back in weird, self-referential madcap pseudo-idol garbage. Characters from other seasons are just showing up now on the regular and the iconic bizarre inhuman pupils have come back stronger than ever (see above and below). It’s a lot more like an unrestrained cartoon now, which is where Pretty Rhythm is most entertaining, because it wasn’t cutting it by normal means. 

Maybe Watching list:

Symphogear XV

Symphogear’s generally watchable but I wasn’t too hot on the last season, and watching it on any regular schedule has been made problematic by the sudden unexplained lack of licensing overseas. I don’t have faith that Crunchyroll will skip or pick up AXZ and license this one out of order, so it may be more prudent to wait to marathon this season all at once at a later date, which I feel is the best way to experience a season with as much raw momentum as this series. 

Whatever Lerche’s Music anime is

Frankly, it’s been a long time since Scum’s Wish and School-Live, and every season I feel less hype for Lerche’s mediocre-sounding output. This one also sounds mediocre. 

Ensemble Stars!

David Production anime adaptation of an idol raising game only this one is boys. It has the same director as the current anime of King of Prism and they might have hinted at a connection between the two shows so I’m gonna watch it for Lore Reasons. If there’s no Lore I’ll probably drop it. 

Trash List

That Mom Isekai

Also known as Tsuujou Kougeki ga Zentai Kougeki de Nikai Kougeki no Okaasan wa Suki desu ka. I was gonna trash-watch this one out of curiosity and an expectation that it would reach new depths of anime garbage but the first volume of the manga I saw in a bookstore was enough to turn me off of this series permanently even as a joke. I will admit the central conceit of “you can’t leave the virtual world until you get along with your mommy” is kind of funny but in practice the author couldn’t make it 5 minutes without crossing the line of utilizing the mother for harem fanservice and that gets exactly as weird as you’re thinking. 

The official twitter is called “https://twitter.com/okaasan_online” which is hysterical so I will give props to whatever PA managed to get that @. 

Machikado Mazoku

It’s an adult-oriented gag magical girl parody anime. The last one went so good they just had to make another. It gives off a selling hug pillows energy and every single entry in this subgenre is cursed so that’s why I put it here. I have to watch one episode because of my death pact but I don’t expect much.

Re:Stage! Dream Days♪

This has a strong chance of being the worst anime of the season. the phone game’s twitter was nothing but middle schoolers in wedding dresses as an event for an idol raising rhythm game and its all red flags. Most likely don’t watch this 

#summer 2019 anime #forecasting #there's really not much #no surprises all isekai

[vanilla-blessing]

Why you should check out Persia, the Magic Fairy, a Magical Girl You’ve Never Heard Of

In the early 80’s, Studio Pierrot (now known for all the naruto) decided the magical girl genre needed more entries that were both bland and extremely long, which resulted in Creamy Mami (1983), Persia, the Magic Fairy (1984), Magical Emi, the Magic Star (1985), Pastel Yumi (1986), and Fancy Lala (1986), along with several very strange crossovers episodes. That’s Persia with the blue hair. No, not that one, I mean the one on the bottom left.

They’re all kind of terrible for various reasons, but of them, Persia is the least outright offensive and probably the only one you should consider watching, even if it shows its age in a couple ways. I’m not going to go into exactly why the other Pierrot magical girl series aren’t good, but from my experience I’d rank them Persia>Emi=Mami=Lala>Yumi. Pastel Yumi is outright awful, and the other ones range from uninteresting to slightly creepy. Fancy Lala has a bizarre spinoff movie called Fashion Lala which turns into some sort of more violent Footloose? I don’t know if that one counts.  

Persia is an 11-year old girl who was raised by lions in Africa along with her brother, named Simba, who’s obviously a lion. She ends up in the magical Lovely Dream while on an international flight to Japan and is tasked with saving all dreams with a magic headband and baton she can use to turn older or younger and there are three kappa that tell her to do things and it doesn’t really matter and the show doesn’t take it too seriously either. Simba comes to live with her but because he’s a fully grown lion she uses magic to shrink him to mascot size. There are also some teenagers she hangs around with because I don’t think anyone at Pierrot was actually willing to write more than one kid into these anime, but notably unlike the other Pierrot magical girl series Persia’s not crushing on either of the guys, and they’re much too busy trying to get with other teenagers. 

Persia reading a handheld personal computer manual 

From the scant subbed episodes of Persia that haven’t been lost, I get the impression that Persia is more comedic than the other series. This works well with the dated look and content of the show, since it (mostly) comes off as nostalgic and quaint instead of backwards and embarrassing. Persia as a magical girl is fun-loving, independent, strong, and learns contemporary things quickly, especially for being literally raised by lions on the Serengenti.

Persia strong

In the few episodes that are translated, there are a few wild ideas by magical girl standards like episode 5, which focuses on a pair of female wrestlers named Oscar and Andre, and gets ridiculously close to having them kiss before one of them suddenly gets married offscreen because it’s the 80s in Japan. There’s a couple of these blemishes on Persia, the Magic Fairy which are probably more endemic of Japanese values at the time, but generally it’s a cute, inoffensive show with low stakes and silly faces. 

Persia runs into a train door and her face gets stuck like this for a full minute

At the moment, English subs are hard to find for the show so you’ll have to use more nefarious means to watch them, or just click this youtube playlist which nobody has ever bothered to flag, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLco2EJsto8t66anOmmrRtPQubAuIyPlDh. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find subs past episode 8 myself, but I hope one day these totally legal torrents of the raw sub files will catch something. Of the generally bad Pierrot magical girls, it’s the only one I give half a flip about, and the only one I’d recommend if you wanted to experience the least unwatchable show from a very boring period of magical girl history.

- only qb queuebae on twitter would write this

#persia the magic fairy #vanillablessing #blessing of vanilla #blue hair #gotta have blue hair #her brothers a lion thats wacky

[vanilla-blessing]

Why you should check out  Penguindrum

qb - I just finished watching through Penguindrum on hidive dot com and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys their anime very stylized, or has a taste for nontraditional shoujo drama, or just wants their dang shows to last 24 episodes. It was bursting with the specific kinds of flair I like, such as evocative, dramatic posing and long, colorful transformation sequences. It’s the kind of show that I could post jiffs of forever without getting tired of them.

Ikuhara’s famously individualistic directing and Nishii Terumi’s powerful character designs https://www.patreon.com/NISHII_Terumi, along with many other animators, are all recognizable if you’re into that sort of thing. All together, they produce a unique and memorable anime that’s virtually always ramming the style-dial up to 11. I’m aware of my strong bias for style over substance, and I refuse to change those priorities, so I love Penguindrum.  

The narrative of Penguindrum is what I’d call shoujo style drama tragedy comedy, even though including Ikuhara in the definition of shoujo has at this point dragged the entire genre several yards past traditional. This series takes inspiration from many different kinds of shoujo-ish media, maybe even more than Utena, so already being familiar with the genre helped me understand some of the more obtuse narrative language. However, the show itself is usually cohesive within its own distinct style, so it shouldn’t preclude someone unfamiliar with shoujo from enjoying it. The part that might prevent absolutely everyone from enjoying Penguindrum is how dangerous it can tend to get, so knowing beforehand that shoujo is always a baseline amount of f*ck*d up is also recommended.

Other writers have surely pulled apart and skewered Penguindrum’s specific symbolism and themes and references to terrorist attacks that happened in Japan in 1995 involving trains better than I could have within the last 48 hours, but I know that I liked it, understood it better than Utena (which I watched spread out over several years so this isn’t a fair comparison in the slightest), wasn’t as skeeved out as with Yuri Bear Storm, and enjoyed the longer span of episodes than what my favorite shows are getting in 2019. The part that will stay with me the most from Penguindrum is its ability to set an evocative scene and a single, outrageously distinctive shot that sticks in your craw and remains there for an uncomfortably long time.

At any rate, Penguindrum has more penguins per minute than any other television anime series until Penguin Highway gets syndicated, so if you find yourself wishing this season that the very shonen Sarazanmai were at the other end of the spectrum, you could check out the very shoujo Penguindrum. Also donate to https://www.patreon.com/NISHII_Terumi she’s probably my favorite character designer right now. destiny 

Fake ikuhara fan qb queuebae on twitter

#penguins #club penguin #pittsburgh penguins #penguinbooks #penguin random house #penguindrum #mawaru penguindrum #penguingum #penguinpangolin #penguinblingees #ikuharablingees #isikuharablingeestaken #utenablingeesdefinitelyis #blingee

[vanilla-blessing]

Why you should check out the episode of Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart that is just 4 minutes of improv over footage of goats

Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart (Nora, Princess, and Stray Cat) was a weird, frequently raunchy, flash-animated aesthetic short gag comedy anime about a cursed cat and a necromancer that I watched in the the Summer 2017 anime season because it said magic in the description. Apparently it’s based on an adult visual novel and I had no idea until today. It was slightly above the bar for short gag anime that aren’t Teekyuu and made me laugh a couple of times and got weirdly emotional once I don’t really remember. All I can recall are surreal gags, physical comedy, some boob jokes, and the animation looked weird. However there was one episode that was notable for having no animation whatsoever because all they did was talk over stock footage of goats at a farm for the entire duration. 

When it comes to improv anime, the undisputed masters of the craft are Bouncy, the studio notoriously known for tesagure bakatsumono, gdgd fairies, straight title robot anime, himote house, naria girls, ect. Vanilla Blessing Exclusive-Featured Mahou Shoujo Naria Girls. Bouncy may be the last remaining bastion of experimental low budget gag crap that isn’t made by Trigger. The line between a good and bad improv anime seems to be, ironically, how much effort was put into producing it. V-tubers in general have teams contributing to their, art, I guess, but Virtual-san Looking sucked because it repeated the same segments and jokes over and over. This arguably made it wrap around to good again but that’s beside the point. Mahou Shoujo Naria Girls had barely any preparation, was totally lost 100% of the time, and was awful at connecting anything they’re doing with what’s on screen, and the only possible humor to be gleaned came from the atrocious models T-posing into one another. Himote House was comparatively much more scripted, and because of this was able to maintain a semblance of a theme of what the jokes would be about in a given episode, and a series game plan of the characters trying unsuccessfully to get dates (relatable), before returning to true improv segments at the end of each episode that didn’t even try to fit in to these stories and just let the actresses have fun. All of these changes lead to Himote House having direction for the comedy instead of just filming inexperienced actresses flailing their arms, and somehow resulted in what is inarguably the single greatest short episode of anime ever made.

Nora to Oujo to Noraneko Heart distilled this strategy of sticking to a topic, improvising over it, and never, ever relenting from the bit in one similarly perfect episode, where they talk over goats eating the entire broadcast time including the credits and next episode preview.

Unfortunately episode 6 of Nora, Princess, and Stray Cat is not available on crunchyroll anymore for some reason. https://www.crunchyroll.com/nora-princess-and-stray-cat You can check it’s just empty now. Because licensors were too cowardly to pick up this masterpiece I’ll have to link the youtube mirror which has stayed up for over a year so you can all check it out and experience the goats eating for yourselves. 

- GMKGoat (GMKGoat on twitter) (actually ghost written by qb queuebae on twitter)

#goats #goat #nora princess and stray cat