A total of eleven anime caught my eye from this season. I would not be surprised if I dropped four or five of them before the end. Usually, three or four shows rise to the top of what I most look forward to, and then the others are quickly wrapped up in a few binge watches.
The experiment your humble blogger will make for this season is to swear off subtitles. This has been an avenue I’ve pursued for a while now. Subtitles are a crutch a language learner should attempt to do without. One cannot get off the crutch as long as one uses it. I’m often able to associate correct meanings to Japanese words if they are translated under the screen, but it becomes harder when no such translations are there. Not having the translations as the characters speak will force my brain to become better at attaching meaning to the sounds reaching my ears. At times, this can make me feel lost, but it is better to crawl and learn to walk than to go on crutches for one’s entire life. If what happens in an episode completely eludes me, I can always look up an episode summary.
The List
1) A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
You might call this a reverse isekai: fantasy characters flee to Japan in order to escape certain death in their home world. The princess and her retainer are very amusing people. The former acclimating herself to life in Japan easily, while the latter spends her days as a homeless person. This is shaping up to be a very good anime for a laugh.
The thought came to my mind while watching Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Anyone else annoyed by the lack of the article “the” before “Journey’s”?) that moderns are too desensitized to violence. I can hear some of you thinking sarcastically to yourselves, “Wow, who would have thought of that, Medieval?” But, really, we are! I suppose that my sensitivity towards violence has increased as I have aged, which makes me remark on that fact. Frieren itself is a rather clean anime, so maybe the clash between how civilized everyone is most of the time highlighted the violence for me.
One scene gave me pause: Frieren wins a magical joust against the mazoku Aura over who had more magical power. Through the use of the Scales of Balance which mediated this contest, Frieren gained control over Aura and had her behead herself. The actual moment of decapitation is off-screen, but we see Aura’s face contort with tears as the blade begins to bite into her neck before the fatal moment.
It has been far too long since I rated a season like this. The spring season of anime has only just begun, so I hope that I’m not too late to the party. I stalled in watching Doctor Elise and Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. In the case of the latter, I have been trying to catch back up and have reached episode ten. Maybe by the end of the spring season, you’ll hear my thoughts on Frieren and the unique way I decided to watch it. Three anime below have not yet finished their runs, so I will eschew rating as of yet. Five of them will received a rating on a scale of one to five stars. Five stars indicates a masterpiece. Unfortunately, this season included no masterpieces. The most recent anime I gave such high marks to were Dororo, Promare, and Karakuri Circus–all from 2019. So, that means it’s been five years since an anime has risen to that level of perfection for me. Feel free to tell me if you think that there’s something deserving which I have not seen between then and now!
The anime from this season were enjoyable but average. I can only see myself going back to watch four of them again. Other than one slice of life and one science fiction anime, the anime below all fall in the fantasy genre.
1) Bottom Tier Character Tomosaki
Stories where a character has checked out of really living always grab my attention. Tomosaki finds joy in playing a certain video game called Attack Families, in which he ranks #1 in Japan. But, he drifts through school and does not make many friends. However, he learns that the class president, Aoi Hinami, is the #2 player in Japan, and she resolves to teach him how to enjoy living and to put him on the road to being satisfied with life. To this end, she arranges several goals for Tomosaki, which leads to him becoming more active in his school and developing various relationships with his classmates.
This scenario reminds me of the movie, My Fair Lady, which itself is based on a play of George Bernard Shaw titled Pygmalion. However, with Bottom Tier Character Tomosaki, the sexes of the protagonists are reversed such that we have a woman tutoring a man on social etiquette. The characters are all quite likable, despite Aoi Hinami reminding me strongly of Hillary Clinton. Not in regard to espousing political positions, but in her personality type–the type willing to use all available means for success in this world. For me, this serves as a reminder that everyone has some good in them no matter how much this good becomes effaced over time.
Here I was hoping to have reached this point a couple of months ago, but I just finished Spriggan moments ago. It is amazing how little delays add up to becoming one great delay. Tomorrow is the twelfth anniversary of this blog, and there will be something to show for it–I guarantee! Meanwhile, permit me to offer some quick takes on six movies plus a bonus TV anime.
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Darkside Blues counts as a decent anime from the pen of Hideyuki Kikuchi, who is more famous for Vampire Hunter D. Vampire Hunter D is the better anime movie for sure–even Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is better. Darkside Blues conveys similar vibes to the other series, but it has a futuristic political conflict between the monopolistic Persona Century Corporation and freedom fighters who wish to live without its control. The main part of the story begins when a gang leader in Kabuki-cho, one of the last areas free of this corporation’s control, saves a freedom fighter from assassination and agrees to become his bodyguard.
Ever want to watch a ninja anime which includes an epic journey to the United States of America where the hero meets Mark Twain before returning to Japan to avenge his murdered family? If that desire has ever filled your heart, studio MADHOUSE has you covered in their epic ninja adventure movie The Dagger of Kamui. The animation is quite dated, and yours truly had the misfortune of sitting through an English dub which could have been produced by him and his friends. (N.B. None of us are actors.) The first half an hour was torture to sit through. And, I asked myself just what I had gotten into, and whether I could really watch the anime until the end.
The last time I did a series of posts like this was back in 2018 when I hit 500 anime. That time I put up a poll to have my dear readers select the anime, but time constraints don’t permit me to accomplish this now. That is to say, I’ll fly over 700 anime when sufficient time has passed to take a proper vote. This will be a series of seven posts on seven movies. The choices below contain movies I wanted to watch when I first became a fan of anime way back in 2003. How time flies! You know that I am a lover of old anime and these films are all pretty old:
The beauty within The Eminence in the Shadow struck me: elegant backgrounds, stylish fights, and gorgeous women are found throughout the anime. I took great pleasure in just looking at the backgrounds and cityscapes, which corresponds to turn of the 20th century Europe. Maybe The Eminence in the Shadow did not require any plot to be enjoyed: just images of photogenic persons traipsing across old cities such as one might find in the parts of Europe not decimated by the Second World War.
The hero, Cid Kagenou, never appealed to me. We human beings are weak, and an overpowered character defies identification. There are other isekai heroes who act as a deus ex machina, but most of them lack the same off-putting personality Cid has. His manner of manipulating events on the sly and dressing like a villain made him seem more like that kind of character. His overweening pride, which never failed to surface while in his true form as the Eminence, counted as another point against him.
The last episode of In/Spectre S2 unveiled a fascinating moral problem. The episode stands outside of the other story arcs, so all the spoilers below only relate to the last episode. Should this article lead you to start watching In/Spectre, you might even forget the plot of this story by the time you get around to it. Wishful thinking–but perhaps the dear reader is like me in caring more about the execution of the plot than in being surprised by it. At any rate, I am eager to discuss what this episode reveals about human nature and what it highlights: the need for a divine Savior.
Two friends meet at an unagi restaurant. Their conversation covers the mysterious and doll-like Kotoko, the unfortunate death of Kajio’s wife, a certain buddha, and points on the preparation of eel. The discussion of Kajio’s wife takes the surprising turn of Jujoji accusing Kajio of being the murder. Jujoji claims that his friend staged a serious of muggings in a certain area prior to the murder in order to throw the police off the scent. When Kajio finally kills his wife, the police assume it to be a mugging gone bad. His wife had been looking to divorce Kajio, and Jujoji deduces that Kajio could not bear the thought of another man having her. Kajio shrugs off the accusation, making Jujoji think that his theory is off-base after all. (He figures that Kajio would have reacted differently if he were trying to avoid detection.) They then finish their meal, and Kajio pays the bill.
I just finished watching Claymore again–this time in the English dub. The voice actors and actresses did a great job. The way they translated “Yowasa ga tsumi” (Weakness is a sin) to “Helplessness is a sin” struck me as an interesting interpretation. Neither one counts as a sin, save to the extent that the yowasa comes about through one’s deliberate neglect. In context, the King of the North, Isley, uses this line to encourage Raki to become a better swordsman.
Weakness in itself is not culpable: our weaknesses and insufficiency ought to bring out others to supply what we lack. Society in the MIddle Ages was divided into those who work, those who fight, and those who pray. The knight’s boast is “I protect all.” The peasant says, “I feed all.” Clerics claim, “I pray for all.” The kind of strength referred to by Isley refers to the warrior class, but human society cannot flourish without work and prayer. Without the farmer, there’s precious little to eat. Without priests and religious, one fears lest the just punishment due to our sins should come upon society all to soon. As Padre Pio said, “The Earth can more easily exist without the sun than the Holy Mass.” Materially speaking, this line is hyperbolic; however, the world is much better for the grace shed upon it by the sacrifice of the Mass.
Watching familiar, old anime is a delight in which far too few fans indulge. These days, everyone talks about a season’s best two or three anime, which will be forgotten three weeks into the next season. We used to have a canon of anime including things like Cowboy Bebop, Berserk, Slayers, Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and other works which everyone who wanted to call himself an enthusiast needed to watch. This list offered the crème de la crème of anime for new fans to enjoy before moving onto less spectacular works which often owed some inspiration to them. We have more anime than we know what to do with these days, but often spend so much time watching average or trashy shows. Quel dommage! One wishes anime fans could unite over a canon of enduring works these days.
An anime sure to make such a list is Claymore (2007), which I rate 9/10. The battles keep you on the edge of your seat, and you feel like no one except the protagonist is safe. The likability of most of the characters makes that last fact even more awful. The animation compares favorably with anime made these days–especially if you’re watching it in high definition, as I am. Having now seen some of the dub, I can confirm that the English voice actors almost perform as well the ones in the Japanese original. (Luci Christian as the psychopathic Ophelia rather impressed me.) The story follows a Claymore (the name for a human genetically modified in order to fight yōma, the monsters in this fantasy world) named Clare in her quest for revenge. This journey brings her in contact with a young man named Raki, who becomes her companion after he loses his brother to a yōma. The very first episode makes the vileness and power of these monsters plain to see!
The premise of I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World seems completely fantastical and worthy of its genre, where each series tries a new gimmick to grab viewers’ attention. (The anime has a longer title, but I refuse to write the whole thing out.) But, there is a certain truth in the idea of striving for good things eventually leading to the attainment of good things. This need not even be in the gradual and reasonable manner everyone expects: God makes poor and makes rich. He can accomplish this in an instant: bringing fabulous riches on the poor or cruel poverty on the rich. While everyone wants riches, they are not necessarily good for us. We can always trust God to provide for all of our daily necessities.
Isekai de Cheat Skill begins with our hero being dealt a cruel fate: an unattractive physical appearance leads to his rejection by his family and his peers. Only his grandfather has a soft spot for him. Much to Yuuya’s good fortune, his grandfather leaves Yuuya his house and effects when he passes away. Despite his new wealth, Yuuya’s existence is still barren of friends, and his family, vexed over receiving none of the inheritance, cuts themselves off from him completely. Yuuya reaches a new low after saving a young woman from some thugs. The immediate results of his good deed are him getting beaten and bruised before getting fired from his job for tardiness.
Watching the first two episodes of Magical Destroyers stood as a unique experience for me because of the clarity with which I saw the wares they tried to sell. The anime displays the Spirit of Revolution as presented by the American Catholic scholar E. Michael Jones in neon lights for all to see. Jones had a front row seat to the eruption of the cultural revolution in the ’60s and has written many books on the topic of moral subversion, such as Libido Dominandi (2nd edition coming soon), Monsters from the Id, and the Degenerate Moderns series. His best book is Logos Rising, which covers humanity’s consciousness of the divine order of the universe from the earliest civilizations up through the rise of philosophy and Christianity. Every educated man worth his salt should read Logos Rising–that’s how excellent a work it is.
So, while I would have felt that Magical Destroyers was morally subversive from the first episode, reading Jones’s works allows me to explain why it is so. The last time an anime to bring about a similar reaction was Concrete Revolutio. The opening song of Concrete Revolutio seemed to project a morally relativistic framework, and I get more than enough of that from reading the news.
An anime came out in 2019 called Babylon. I don’t remember Babylon receiving too much discussion at the time. I attempted to watch the first episode, and it did not grab me them for some reason. Am I glad that I decided to give it another shot recently! The plot offers a really philosophical discussion of good and evil but in terms people who lack B.A.’s in philosophy can grasp. I myself felt frustrated for a while that the characters were not able to form good arguments against suicide for most of the anime. That, I’ve come to realize, is actually part of the anime’s charm. It would not be so well done if our hero, the prosecutor Zen, were a Japanese St. Thomas Aquinas.
The root of the problems with the debate on suicide in Babylon lie in no one understanding what man is. They don’t understand what man is, because they do not know what man is for. In order to understand anything, one needs to know the purpose of that thing. No character in the anime appears to realize that man is for God. As the Baltimore Catechism explains it: “God made me to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next.” The fact that God is the Lord of Creation and that Man was created for His Glory means that human beings cannot destroy themselves at will. The time of their demise rests in God’s hands–not theirs. The exceptions to this rule only come in the forms of self-sacrifice: sacrificing oneself to save another person or to avoid sin, e.g. accepting martyrdom rather than renounce God.
Suzume is a good anime movie to watch. Fans of animation are sure to be pleased with it, and even the English voice actors performed well. Suzume fits nicely alongside Makoto Shinkai’s other blockbusters, Your Name and Weathering with You. Some bloggers have said that the movie is lacking in comparison to the other two, but I didn’t think so. The film is quite beautiful and the characters compelling, so I can only reiterate that fans of animation will enjoy it.
Yet, the movie itself did not impress me as much as something which struck me by its absence: fathers. We do get to meet the hero’s, Souta’s, grandfather and the father of Chika, a young girl whom Suzume befriends on her heroine’s journey; but, these have very little screen time and centrality in the plot. Souta’s grandfather gives some vital information to the heroine, entrusts her to the care of a guardian deity, and leaves the story for good. At the same time as fathers make very little impression in the story, family connections form a big part of the story–whether it’s Suzume and her aunt, the various families Suzume encounters, or even the familial duty handed down to Souta.
So, that leaves me the question of why this father shaped hole is here? And, I’d love to hear comments from my dear readers, since I can only speculate. One option lies in Makoto Shinkai in particular lacking a father figure while he grew up. However, my research into the state of fatherhood in Japan leads me to the conclusion that this might be a more general problem. Japanese fathers appear to often play a minor role in the actual upbringing of their children, spending forty-one minutes a day doing housework or childcare on average.
While providing material necessities for their families is one of the primary roles of a father, which might even necessitate long absences from home in particular circumstances, Japanese culture seems to have made it the father’s only role. Japanese companies expect their male employees to be devoted to them both during working hours and even socializing after the end of office hours. This likely leads to many Japanese having a rather distant relationship to their fathers or maybe only getting to know them later in life.
The Japanese government appears to want to change this way of living and allows for both parents to have up to 52 weeks of parental leave, retaining at least 60% of their salaries. However, many men fear their company taking a poor view of them taking advantage of this leave and will often not even be present even at the birth of their children! So, the government is trying to change minds by an ikumen propaganda campaign. Ikumen is formed by combining the words for childcare (ikuji) and hunk (ikemen) and conveys the image of a strong, sexy dad who loves spending time with his young children. You see, they think that the birth rate can be increased if women believe that becoming mothers won’t be the end of their careers because their husbands will take part of the load in childcare. (Many Japanese women quit their jobs after becoming mothers in order to care for their children full time.)
I fully support this idea of a dad able to have a work/family balance, and its success might very well lead to Japanese families having more children. However, it’s not for the reason they state: women developing their own careers instead of being devoted to care of the home always leads to smaller families! The reproductive cost of women has always been higher than that of men, and often means that women must choose between a career or children. The real benefit to having men take more involvement in the care of their children is twofold: 1) the children gain in their education by receiving more formation from their fathers and 2) the fathers themselves will love and value their families more through spending more direct time with them. The latter will likely encourage fathers to have more children, and the former benefit will probably create young men who will want to replicate that kind of family life. At any rate, any change which makes fathers less like cogs in the machine of the Japanese economy will be a good thing. Who wants to be just a cog? If one must be a cog, it should at least serve a good purpose for one’s own life.
But, I have a sense that some of my readers have a better understanding of how Japanese culture works, especially as it relates to fathers working white-collar jobs. Please let me know what you think about this issue in the comments. Also, what did you think of the movie Suzume?
Having watched Your Name and Weathering with You, I am eager to see and support Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume by paying a visit to the theater tomorrow. I have already read that its quality does not match the other two films, but that it still makes for a good movie. The main plot revolves around a young girl trying to stop a series of earthquakes which have resulted from her helping a stranger find a peculiar door. Well, one can’t write much about what one does not know, so I’ll stop while I’m ahead.
Has anyone seen Suzume or have plans to see it in the near future?
The most important thing for any film adaptation is to recreate the feel of the original work. Slavishly adhering to the original plot is not necessary as long as the main features of the story are retained and its essence is transferred from the page to the screen. The 1978 Urusei Yatsura accomplished the task of retaining the essence of the manga in spades. One wonders why the new 2022 version was ever made. Many people are put off by older styles of animation, and I suppose that the animators thought that they could render the story palatable to new audiences. The 2022 version changes the veneer of the tale without replicating the soul of it. The result is that people are still better off watching the 1978 version of Urusei Yatsura–if they can’t stand the animation, tough!
You know, there were too many anime worth watching during the spring season. Only one ranked as high as four stars in my opinion, but the ten anime I watched were quite enjoyable. Conversely, only three anime struck me as worth watching the Summer 2022 season: When Will Ayumu Make his Move, Call of the Night and Lycoris Recoil. Maybe I’ll add Cyberpunk: Edgerunner and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth to that short list. I love most of what Trigger has done. The first Utawarerumono is still one of my all time favorites. Even though Utawarerumono: The False Faces was a complete disaster, I still feel compelled to try out their most recent attempt to craft a tale within this world. Feel free to recommend some new titles to me below.
At any rate, Vivaldi’s La Stravaganza plays in the background. Let me get on with rating last season!
The Executioner and Her Way of Life ★★★1/2
Fantasy anime are a dime a dozen, and only rarely does the setting really stand out for me. The Executioner and Her Way of Life sets itself apart by containing a setting where…well…I don’t want to say it, even though it’s not actually a spoiler. You just won’t be shocked and appalled the way I was during episode one. The unique conceit with this isekai is that Japanese people are immediately slaughtered as soon as this world’s church discovers them. Otherworlders all carry special powers, which have gotten out of control in the past and have caused mass destruction, e.g. one entire continent being turned to salt. At the same time, the people of this world have adopted some Japanese technology (enough to give the world an early 19th century feel) and the Japanese language for its common tongue.
Our heroine, the priestess and assassin Menou, a.k.a. Flarette, discovers that some royals have summoned a Japanese high school girl named Akari inside one of their castles. Having infiltrated the castle, Menou claims to Akari that she wants to rescue her–only to assassinate her in the middle of the “rescue.” However, Akari has the power to turn back time, which leads to her reviving moments later. Menou realizes that she needs special help to liquidate Akari. So, she continues their pretend friendship as she takes Akari on a journey to her death.
There’s a dark setting for you! However, the characters tend to be very amusing to watch. There are some great fight scenes. I can promise you a unique fantasy anime experience with this show.
Let me wish you all a much belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! If I was a proper blogger, you’d have heard from me twice ere now and November (NaBloPoMo) would have been filled to the brim with posts–instead of just the last one. My New Year’s resolutions include writing a post once a week–here or on another blog. The causes for me slipping in regard to post output were a greater workload and too much concern for prosaic matters (money, work, health, etc.).
Another cause lay in me suffering from acedia, which is defined as sorrow in regard to spiritual goods. Prayer, the Holy Mass, and reading Catholic books became so difficult that I started cutting corners, which of course only increased my spiritual sloth. This spirit of acedia oppressed me such that I prayed a deliverance prayer found in Fr. Chad Ripperger’s book Deliverance Prayers: For Use by the Laity. You know what? All of the spiritual works above became easier and produced more joy afterwards. Having been delivered from acedia, I hope to engage myself more in writing and other things I have neglected.
This blog’s eighth anniversary came and went on April 5th without comment. Oops! Hopefully, I blog a little more regularly next month. May these quick takes in some way make up for my lack of posting!
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Finally, Joe says what’s all been on our minds.
I have finally made progress in Ashita no Joe II. Joe Yabuki is almost in position to fight his greatest rival to date: Bantamweight World Champion Jose Mendoza. (It’s funny to consider that most of the strong and tough boxers in this anime weigh 118 pounds or less!) The buildup to this fight has been even more intense than the one between Rikiishi Touru and our hero.
Medieval Otaku 