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I’m late as usual but here’s my lineup for AB! I’ll be Hinata on Friday and Mighty Thor on Saturday ⚡️

Ten years ago, Code Geass season 2 ended with, in my opinion, a very satisfying ending to one of my favorite anime series. So when it was announced that, ten years later, a Code Geass sequel movie would be coming out, I had a fair amount of trepidation. Funimation decided to bring the new movie, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection, to Anime Boston for its east coast premiere, so I leaped at the opportunity to see if it’s a worthy revival. Short version? Yes.

Before showing the film, Funimation had a panel with Johnny Yong Bosch, voice actor for Lelouch, and Yuri Lowenthal, voice actor for Suzaku. Turns out they shared my trepidation. When asked his thoughts about revisiting the franchise, Bosch said he was “a little divided,” expressing satisfaction with the previous conclusion, but he said that “Coming back is exciting.” They also didn’t know if the show would still matter, with Bosch commenting “Ten years later, maybe nobody cares anymore.” Well based on the packed auditorium the premiere drew, it’s clear that Code Geass still has a strong fanbase. As for what to expect from the movie, without any spoilers, Lowenthal said “There’s fan service in this movie.”

Boy is Lowenthal right. This movie is full of fan service, though I’m not using that term in the usual titilating way (though there is some of that). I’m talking fan service in terms of giving the fans what they expect from the characters. Lelouch is scheming and arrogant. Suzaku is courageous and gets into multiple Knightmare Frame battles. Basically, if a character survived the end of season 2, they showed up in Re;surrection.

But fan service doesn’t make a great movie. At the heart of Code Geass is a battle of wits between schemers played out on a grand scale. I wasn’t sure the movie would deliver that, as the first 60 minutes or so didn’t really have any of that. But then the twist dropped, and the movie became incredibly compelling. There are still some parts that don’t really make sense, but it’s not enough to detract from an otherwise compelling battle of wits.

If you’re completely satisfied with the ending of season 2, I can’t say that this is necessary viewing. But if you enjoyed Code Geass and want some more, this movie should satisfy you. And more Code Geass is what you can expect, since Funimation rep Tara McKinney said that the producers of the movie have a ten year plan to continue the Code Geass franchise. If this is where it starts, I’m curious to see where things go next.

If you’re interested  Also, Funimation is donating a movie poster which has been signed by Bosch and Lowenthal for the Anime Boston charity auction. If you’re interested, stop by Panel A tomorrow at 10:00 AM and you may take it home with you.

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger

When most people hear the title JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, they think of something like the image above: muscular, manly men doing masculine, testosterone-soaked things. There is a fair amount of that, but that’s not what JoJo really is. For all of its obvious masculinity, JoJo is also a show that runs deep with femininity, and it’s fascinating how those two aspects balance each other. That’s the thesis of the panel “Lipstick and Superpowers: The Femininity of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure” presented by Shinyzack, IdolRinny, and Craig.

To start, they define femininity in this context as “beauty, intellect, and emotional availability”. Femininity does not mean weakness. Strength can go hand in hand with beauty and emotional availability. Just look at how beautiful Giorno is:

One hallmark of JoJo is characters solving problems using intellect. Multiple examples of this occur in Stardust Crusaders, where the enemies aren’t as strong as the protagonists, but they use intellect to negate that strength, forcing the protagonists to use their own intellect to solve the problem, rather than just being stronger or tougher than the enemy.

There’s also emotional availability. The characters are tough, but they’re also generally in touch with their emotions and able to express them to others. There are many examples of manly men shedding manly tears in JoJo.

Another example of this femininity is the motivations of the main characters. Many shonen protagonists want to gain something for themselves. Naruto wants to become the next Hokage, Luffy wants to become King of Pirates, and so on. The JoJos all have selfless motivations. Jonathan wants to protect his family and supernatural entity from destroying the world. Same with Joseph. Jotaro wants to save his mother’s life. These are people trying to protect the weaker people around them, not trying to gain for themselves.

But this isn’t to say that JoJo is a feminine show. No, their thesis is that JoJois a show about balancing masculinity and femininity, and how doing so makes the characters more well rounded and compelling. And it’s that willingness to incorporate elements from both sides of the traditional gender binary that gives what’s otherwise a silly show about superpowers and poses the depth that many shows lack.

Also, seriously, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is awesome.

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger

Keeping up with all the anime that comes out is impossible. In Spring 2019, there are 33 full length anime series airing, plus 13 short series. In this endless cavalcade of new anime, it’s easy for a high quality show to fall through the cracks. That’s why The Toddfather has revised his longrunning panel “Anime You Might Have Missed” to include anime from the last few years which fell through the cracks. While you may have heard of or seen these series, they’re shows that didn’t get the recognition they deserve. Shows like:

Blood Blockade Battlefront - Imagine if New York City and a supernatural New York City from another dimension got fused together, leaving NYC as a bizarre gateway between our world and another. This show follows the adventures of a group of people from both worlds who aim to preserve peace in the city. Based on a manga by Yasuhiro Nightow, who also created Trigun and Gungrave. Streaming on FunimationandCrackle.

Land of the Lustrous - LotL focuses on a group of gem people, known as the Lustrous, who have to defend themselves from invaders from another world, but it focuses on the youngest Lustrous who is unable to fight. It’s also the rare CGI anime series that actually looks good. Unfortunately, it was released on Amazon’s short lived Anime Strike service and was ignored. Now it’s just streaming on basic Amazon Prime.

Run With The Wind - A group of college students get roped by one of their friends into becoming a running team and aiming to run the most physically challenging team marathon in Japan, the Hakone Ekiden. It’s a sports anime, but it’s not hot blooded youths yelling and getting pumped up. Instead its intelligent, mature adults working to find motivation and improve. Streaming on Crunchyroll.

Skull-face Book Seller Honda-san - This is a short series about a skull faced worker in a book store. It’s a joke a minute commentary on low wage retail work and Japanese pop culture, complete with the bashful main character having to help a foreigner find a particular kind of yaoi. Streaming on Crunchyroll.

SSSS.Gridman - Think Ultraman with over-the-top action, but with a twist: whoever gets killed by attacking kaiju is forgotten by everyone except for the main character. This show is proof that, even after Darling in the FranXX, Studio Trigger can still make quality anime. Streaming on CrunchyrollandFunimation.

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku - Wotakoi is the story of a boy who reunites with his childhood friend and they start dating, except instead of high schoolers, they’re adults who work together. Also, they’re both massive otakus, which complicates things. This is a show that finds comedy in adult otaku conversations, like whether it’s okay for someone to “ship” her boyfriend with her friend’s boyfriend. Another victim of Anime Strike, this is now streaming on basic Amazon Prime.

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger

Closing ceremonies and the feedback panel are over. The staff is packing up and the doors are closed. Anime Boston 2019 has officially ended. I know, I’m sad too.

But what a year 2019 was. Concerts by MIYAVIandYoko Shimomura, premieres of new movies from Code GeassandCity Hunter, a visit from the New England Patriots’ anime club, and those are just the head lines. That doesn’t include the panels, the events like dances, the videos, and the time spent in between with old friends, or friends you’ve just met.

These past three days have been a blur in the best way possible, and it’s all been thanks to you attendees. As Con Chair Kristen Leiding said at closing ceremonies, “Thank you all for the passion and energy that you bring.” We hope you’ll bring that same passion and energy back next year for Anime Boston 2020, from April 10th thru 12th.

On a side note, 2019 marks the 10th year of the Anime Boston blog. Thank you to all of you who have read, liked, and shared our posts. Getting to work for the Anime Boston blog is the sweetest gig ever, and we get to keep doing it because of you. So from all of us here at the Anime Boston blog, thank you, deeply and truly.

So until next time…

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger

Thank you to everyone who donated the prizes for the auction, and thank you to everyone who bid. Thanks to your incredible generosity, we were able to raise $25,264 for the Greater New England Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. That’s more than the $23,222 we raised last year to help in the fight for a future free of MS. Thank you all, and we hope you’ll support the charity auction again next year!

Edit: Total earned amount has been updated. Sorry for the confusion!

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger

There is a very important distinction to be drawn between an anime being good and an anime being fun. An anime can be of incredible quality, with top notch animation, art style, characters, and pacing, and yet not be fun. Anyone who has watched Grave of the Fireflies knows what I’m talking about. On the other hand, a show can be terribly designed, with bad design, poor pacing, and miserable characters, and still be very fun to watch. For example, the Central Park Media dub of Garzey’s Wing.

As a contrast to his earlier panel, The Toddfather’s panel “Anime You Must Miss” is about that second category of anime. It’s about garbage anime for people who enjoy watching terrible media. Here are a few of the series he mentioned:

Darling in the Franxx-DitFis not a good anime. It starts out with an interesting concept, has a strong first half, but then it loses its way and completely melts down. This is a 24 episode case study in wasted potential, but once it goes off rails it becomes a true train wreck, worthy of watching but only from a distance.

Hand Shakers: Anime with an incomprehensible plot is fairly common. Hand Shakers stands out by pairing a nonsense plot with an overly fluid animation style that is legitimately nausea inducing.

My Sister My Writer:IfDarling in the FranXX is a show with potential melting down, then My Sister My Writer is a show that had no chance from the start, with the people making it realizing that in the middle of making it. This is a show where the animation quality deteriorated so badly that one animator was credited with a pseudonym that roughly translates into “Honestly, I’m screwed.”

My Wife is the Student Council President: Here’s a show that had no chance due to its structure. A harem anime can be good if the show allows the characters to develop and establish connections with the target of their affections. My Wife is the Student Council President is a harem series made up of 13 episodes, each 7 minutes in length. The result is a show that consists only of the insufferable hijinks of harem animes, with none of the substance.

It may seem odd to intentionally watch a bad anime, but I firmly believe that watching bad anime can make you a better media connoisseur. It helps you calibrate your taste for what is or isn’t good, and see what does and doesn’t work. After all, there are only a few ways to do something correctly, but there’s no shortage of ways to fail. Just make sure it’s entertainingly bad anime, and not unwatchably bad anime (sup, Disgaea).

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger

What do you think of when you think of magical girl anime? Maybe you think of a lighthearted classic magical girl, like Sailor Moon. Maybe you think of something more modern or darker, like Madoka Magica. But no matter who you think of, odd are they share the following characteristics: light skinned, slim, and come from a typical background.

But the magical girl genre can be more than that. It’s a genre about people who use magic or hyper-advanced technology to become so much more than they typically are. That doesn’t have to be limited to just your typical anime pretty girl. Fortunately, there are anime that have expanded their reach and shown a more diverse vision of what the magical girl genre can be. That was the subject of Ninapedia’s panel “Diversity in the Magical Girl Genre”. Here are some of the anime she listed which embraces a more inclusive vision of magical girls:

PreCure: This is a long running magical girl franchise with, through its various iterations, has included a very diverse cast. There are characters which are LGBT, characters with a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds, including a biracial magical girl, characters with atypical family backgrounds, such as divorced or interracial parents, and characters which mental health issues, such as PTSD. Even the boys get in the act, with one of them, who identifies as a boy, publicly wearing a dress because he thinks it look pretty.

PriPara: This is a magical idol show with an impressive variety of body types. This show features a magical girl who is fat, but she isn’t shamed or excluded. It features adult magical girls, which is daring given Japanese cultural attitudes towards older women (look up the term “Christmas cake” if you’re unfamiliar). It also features a trans characters and a boy and a girl who cross-dress.

Revolutionary Girl Utena & YuriKuma Arashi: Ah, Kunihiko Ikuhara. If there’s a go-to person for works that deconstruct the magical girl genre, it’s Ikuhara. And as you would expect, that means lots of diversity. Both UtenaandYuriKumaare full of queer characters (heck, YuriKuma’sname translated to English is “Lesbian Bear Storm”), and rampant subversion of gender norms. Also, the character Anthy in Utena is a rare example of a magical girl whose skin is a truly dark color, without it just being a lighter skinned person with a tan.

But these are just a few of the series Ninapedia mentioned, and she went well beyond just anime. There is a large amount of non-anime magical girl projects with diverse casts (such as Emara: Emirates Hero & Steven Universe), as well as numerous indie media projects. So look around and you’ll be rewarded by the wide variety of viewpoints you can find in this one genre.

- Andrew, AB Staff Blogger