It’s that time once again for me to list my favorite stuff from the year, and oh boy, what a year it has been. It sucked, okay, let’s just cut to the chase. The anime I watched the most this year was probably One Piece, like I discussed just the other day in my media binge reviews. If you wanna see my thoughts on some stuff that isn’t from 2021, check it out, if you don’t give a crap, and really who can blame you, just keep scrolling down. I am once again going to include sequels and long running animes in my ranking this year, and yeah, the list is just in alphabetical order so there isn’t really a number 1 to say, although if you ask me, it’s Muteking! Muteking is my favorite anime from 2021, that was the best show. Well, you can read why down below, but let’s get started.
Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside
You can tell this one is based off a light novel with that title, for simplicity sake let’s just call it Banished from here on out. Banished is a somewhat interesting concept, instead of being about the classic JRPG Yusha (Hero) character it instead focuses on a temporary party member. If you have played a decent amount of JRPGs I am sure you know what I am talking about, Red the main character isn’t a permanent party member, just someone that joins the group temporarily then leaves at some point. Red, being a former companion of the hero’s party, makes him worldly and interesting but he’s also down to earth and just wants to live a quiet life with his adventuring days behind him. When he meets Rit from his old adventuring days he is initially worried that his cover will be blown but she instead decides to settle down with him. What follows is pretty standard fantasy anime schlock but it’s held together really well because of the great chemistry between Red and Rit that make an adorable couple. It’s refreshing to have two adults actually openly dating with no “will they or won’t they?” antics.
Black Clover
Of all the things for 2021 to take, it had to be Clover! How cruel! I kid of course, and with the current state of anime I have no doubt it will one day return, hey even World Trigger did and I never would have believed that. For now though, Black Clover is over, and it ended pretty well for what it was. We got absolutely fantastic battles towards the end, Asta and Yami vs Dante is a true highlight of the entire series and really shows how much Asta has grown up now in the time skip and how important he has become to other people in his life. Hearing Yami finally call Asta by his name gave me goosebumps, it’s a beautiful moment. It hurts to have this one leave, it became a pinnacle of my Saturday nights on Toonami for some 4 years but Asta will return to save his friends again, I’m sure of it.
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
Last year Boruto began delving into manga content, both adapting story arcs from it directly and creating new content around it that further elaborated on material left vague in the manga. It was a great year for the series and it’s awesome to see that it pretty much kept that momentum for the entirety of 2021 as well, adapting almost the entire manga by this point. It was this year that finally revealed the secret behind Boruto’s curse mark and the cruel fate that awaits the youth as well as finally bringing the secondary protagonist into the series, Kawaki. Kawaki really shook up the status quo, a misunderstood youth that was being chased by a criminal organization, he had the same curse as Boruto and took crap from no one.
Over the following story arcs we watched both Boruto and Kawaki grow a lot and share a deep brotherly bond because of the dark fate they have been given. And the battles, holy crap, the fights were incredible. The Boruto staff truly outdid themselves, animating some incredible fights that went above and beyond spectacle into almost cinematic quality fights. And it was absolutely earned, as these fights were tied together nicely with some really great story telling. Overall, I know the following year will probably be a bit slower since the anime has more or less caught up, but I don’t even care, it was one hell of a great ride these past two years, and I can’t wait to see what comes in the future.
Cardfight!! Vanguard overDress
Last year the third series of Vanguard finished after a nearly two year long run and 2021 has seen the start of Overdress, the new fourth series that celebrates the ten year anniversary of the franchise. OD is both something new and a return to form, and it was kind of an odd start to me; much of the first season simply did not click for me like I hoped it would. And that is one of the big differences OD has over past entries as the series has shifted to a much older demographic and airs late at night and in single cours. Gone are seasons that last 50-65 episodes and instead in their place are beautifully animated 12 episode seasons. The series having such a smaller episode count however didn’t vibe well with the same old kind of slow pace storytelling Season 1 presented and often had to sacrifice the titular card fights of the series in order to tell plot. I’m watching a card battle anime because I want card battles, that shouldn’t be too complicated to understand, right?
Season 2 thankfully delivers in many ways and made me realize that a lot of the former season was all done for set up and finally getting this pay off felt great. Card fights become much more regular and said fights in general become really enjoyable with great strategy and wonderful animation. The story really picks up in this season and the cast finally feels like it all has fallen into place. Overdress was a rocky transition but I think Bushiroad has managed to bring a really great and well crafted card battle series to an older demographic. I’m looking forward to future seasons of the series now.
Dr. Stone: Stone Wars
Season 2 of Dr. Stone picks up right as the war between the two different factions of the stone world, Senku’s Kingdom of Science and Tsukasa’s Empire begin their war and it wastes no time in getting to the good stuff. Old characters return, Senku unleashes some great science on us, and most importantly the chemistry of the entire cast is top notch, even for the villain side. Every character is really well realized and written. It says a lot when the end of the season makes you empathize with the villain just as much as you did with the main characters. It’s sadly hard to talk a lot about Stone Wars since it is just one story arc of the series, going into details is pretty much just spoiling the story arc, but it’s a great continuation of a really fun and different Jump manga.
Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (2020)
Toei’s modern adaptation of Dai no Daibouken is a dream come true, and one I never thought I could get. It brings back the same feelings I had when Madhouse began a new Hunter x Hunter adaptation in 2011, and I simply love that so many beloved 90’s Jump series are finally getting their due. This year the anime finally surpassed where the original 1991 anime left off, and seeing these story arcs get animated is incredible. And the animation is top notch! The staff working on the series really bring a lot of talent and creativity that brings the fights from the series into new light. Most importantly, I’m just having so much fun watching this series every weekend like I’m a kid again. Dai no Daibouken at one time in my life I considered my favorite manga, and to this day it really holds up so strongly. The anime finally entering into the second half of the manga has been one of the most exciting things for me this year!
Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life!
For me it’s kind of hard to do a comedy isekai (another world) series nowadays. It’s probably just because of how dry the isekai well is in general but there’s also just some really great competition, like Konosuba kind of already did everything and did it so well it’s hard to find any more humor from this. But then Full Dive came along and oh boy, I usually don’t find mean spirited comedy that funny but this is gold. The series really takes the piss out of so many power fantasy series, making a VR fantasy world that is too realistic, meaning that if you are weak IRL you are weak in the game, and it’s such a one trick pony but it works just so incredibly well. Watching the main character constantly fall over and over again because doing even the simplest of things in a JRPG is herculean for real life people. Hell, I think one of the funniest jokes is that he doesn’t even leave the starter town until the very end of the season! The thing that usually happens in a couple of minutes in an actual JRPG.
Girlfriend, Girlfriend
Speaking of great comedies this year, Girlfriend, Girlfriend is another one. Instead of the usual “will they or won’t they” love triangle, the series protagonist Naoya is way too pure and doesn’t want to cheat on anyone so he somehow ends up in an utterly bizarre three way poly relationship with two other girls that is way too hard to explain to normal people and often leads to fairly funny outcomes. It’s just your regular high school romance between one dude and his two girlfriends. The humor is often really absurd, and the characters are sometimes too stupid to even function. The whole thing is held together by just how pure and sincere Naoya is in being the perfect two-timing boyfriend.
Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan
“Hey, that’s me!” is pretty much how I describe Uramichi-oniisan. Do you hate your job? Is life in your thirties depressing? Is your body starting to age and fall apart? Have you given up on ever achieving personal happiness? Are you going to be single forever? If you answered yes to all these questions then this is you too! We are all Uramichi-oniisan! The fact that this show aired on mondays too was way too perfect, I think it had to be intentional; vegging out to work time blues and your depressing 30s on the harshest day of the week really helped to get me through.
Muteking the Dancing Hero!
In what is probably the most creative and ingenious reimaging of a classic property I have ever seen, Muteking the Dancing Hero, takes an old cheesy early-80s Tatsunoko superhero show and transforms it into a modern spectacle that still pays homage to the era of origin. It’s such a clever idea that I can’t get over–poaching one of their many, many, dime-a-dozen Gatchaman clones and transforming it into … well pretty much an old school goofy rhythm game. Anyone familiar with the classics like Gitaroo Man, Rhythm Heaven, PaRappa, and the like, will know what I am talking about: Muteking the Dancing Hero is pretty much just one of those games if they were an anime. Gone are the mechs and the toyriffic gadgets, and in their place are epic dance battles against kaiju that seek to destroy the city.
The music is phenomenal in the series, naturally, the dance battle portion of every episode is just so much fun, and way too enjoyable, but the soundtrack brings a lot of weight to it outside of just those tracks and there are even some old school classics from the era of the original Muteking; I nearly lost my mind when the show played the legendary (or maybe infamous now) Plastic Love, and somehow made it work for one of the saddest scenes in the series. Then there is also Aurorathe most popular celebrity in the city and a dark idol that Muteking just can’t seem to beat for most of the series. Their dance clashes bring some of the best music in the series.
Besides the great idea to take a cheesy old property and reinvent it, and besides the great music that came with this new dance battle aspect of the series, besides all that, my favorite thing about Muteking the Dancing Hero is just that it’s loads of fun. The series is one of those rare shows that every episode feels insanely fun, the characters have fantastic chemistry with each other and no matter how small a role everyone gets something to do, the world is so well defined and cartoonish enough to seem magical, and 25 minutes just go away in a blink of an eye. This was the most fun I had watching anime all year, and easily my favorite show of the year, I will forever go up to bat for this weird, creative series. Two best buddies really can save the universe with the power of dance!
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
I originally watched this show because a lot of people were dunking on it for being super pervy and dumb, and hey, oh shit, a stupid perverted dumb isekai series, sign me up, bro. This wasn’t what I was led to believe, as it slowly became a really well written and heart wrenching series, I guess the twitter mobs never know what they are talking about, oh well, at least I watched a great show for once. Mushoku Tensei is a really interesting beast though and I can see why people might be grossed out at the start, it feels like the author probably played a lot of eroge back in the day before writing this series, and hey, me too, so it didn’t ruin the experience for me personally. Eroge, or erotic game in laymen, is probably the best comparison I can think of for Mushoku Tensei, as just like many famous eroge (think Yu-No or Fate/) the horny content is there but an incredibly deep and well articulated plot is just under the surface (and the boobs) too.
Remake Our Life!
This show I really felt on a lot of levels, being a burned out 30-something with a dead end job. There are a lot of fantasy titles in Japan now that seem to focus on escaping to another world or redoing a pivotal part of your life and it makes me imagine there’s a good chunk of the population there just as burned out as me. Remake really did a great job at not only making me extremely jealous of protagonist Kyouya for getting such a great opportunity to follow his creative dreams again in his youth, but also made me feel insanely inspired again every episode. Anybody struggling to become an artist in their adult life can relate to this series, and it really shows how the best of intentions sometimes can lead to the worst results. Nobody ever said second chances are perfect but I can’t help but to think how great it would have been to chase more of my dreams in my college years.
Tokyo Revengers
Tokyo Revengers feels like it might be the last big title from Crunchyroll and that made it extra special to me. We had this big 2-cour long mega popular show with a fantastic Crunchy commissioned dub in the vein of their other prior major gems like Jujutsu Kaisen before it. Now that they are owned by Funimation I had no clue going forward what will happen so this may really be the last of its kind. I can say though, it was a damn fun series to end on.
Just like Remake Our Life! Tokyo Revengers features the protagonist time traveling back into his middle school self, on a mission to save his childhood sweetheart from a cruel fate in the present. The time travel aspect originally threw me off a bit, as it is kind of poorly written but after a while I came to actually really appreciate it for what it is. This is not a hard sci-fi fantasy series, at its core this is a fun yankii battle manga: the time travel aspect is just a narrative device that helps set stakes and creatively gives you exposition. We know why Takemichi has to succeed so badly because we get glimpses into what will happen if he doesn’t.
TSUKIMICHI -Moonlit Fantasy-
This is a guilty pleasure of mine. Tsukimichi does nothing extraordinary nor is it really that well made but there is just something there that I can’t quite put my finger on that makes me enjoy it a lot. Perhaps it’s that the series has a somewhat older feel to it, the original novels it is based on do date back to about 2012. For whatever reason this show makes me nostalgic and I really don’t have any prior experience with it. Feels like something I would have watched in high school. If you told me it was from 2006 I would believe you, as it firmly feels like Zero no Tsukaima to me. Anyways, guilty pleasure, but I would be remiss not to mention it since I spammed my friends with screenshots from this one quite a bit over this year.
World Trigger (Season 2 and Season 3)
Seeing World Trigger return like it has is honestly something that still surprises me. I was there, eight years ago, I watched since episode 1 aired back in 2014, and never could I have imagined that we would get past that cliff hanger the original first season ended on way-back-when in 2016. Seeing the anime finally finish the story arc it left on is really satisfying in a lot of ways but seeing how much care and effort was put in these new seasons is even more satisfying. It’s no secret the original first season had a rocky start and was right at the peak of Toei being kind of a disaster so seeing them have such an amazing output recently is a true underdog story, Dai no Daibouken and World Trigger are some of the best animated series around right now. Beyond the stellar animation (seriously this is the best I’ve seen in so long) World Trigger always holds a special place in my heart as the best Jump series from the 2010s. To me World Trigger is just where it is at for that decade, and this isn’t some diss on the many other great Jump titles of that era, I just think this is my favorite one; it has the sharpest writing, uses real world combat tactics, a huge roster of amazing characters, and is just a fun sci-fi series all together.
The Vampire Dies in No Time
The Vampire Dies in No Time is a really great “buddy cop” kind of comedy, where world class Vampire Hunter Ronaldo somehow ends up partnering with the most fearsome and powerful vampire of them all, Draluc–except all that is total bull. Draluc’s legend is greatly exaggerated and despite his best efforts to be the stereotypical Dracula kind of vampire, he’s completely harmless, if anything he only hurts himself not humans. Pretty much even the smallest flick of your finger is enough to kill Draluc, who thankfully can revive endlessly but that’s about all he’s good for. Ronaldo and Draluc bicker constantly, are a terrible vampire hunter team, and each try to betray the other at every chance they can get–but somehow they are stuck together. It’s never a dull moment with these two idiots.
Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun (Season 2)
Iruma-kun is back and this newest season covers some of my favorite content in the series like the Evil Iruma story arc and the Walter Park arc. It’s nice to be able to settle down more into this series and see it continue, and knowing there is a season 3 in the upcoming future makes me hopeful we might get the entire series animated one day. Iruma-kun really fills in that void that Katekyo Hitman Reborn! Left in my heart after its ending. It’s funny, has some great small character moments, and can also handle battle manga material very competently. Watching young Iruma and his friends of demon misfits grow to rise above their misfit labels and become the most respected class of the titular Demon School is just too much fun.
I am sure I don’t have to exactly spell it out that 2020 was a different year, we all know the spiel now. It was in particular a bad year for me for a lot of personal reasons on top of the whole world wide pandemic thing killing millions and shutting down business and and all our hobbies–so I really was straight up not having a good time. It’s because of that I honestly didn’t really keep up with a lot of my hobbies this year so when it comes to choosing my favorite anime and games of 2020, I don’t have as much as I usually would.
So this year I decided to just say screw it, there are no rules. I usually try to impose some on myself every year for my lists: rules like no sequels, no long running shows, no shows that technically started last year, only new content from this year and not older stuff I watched/played this year but came out from a prior one. This time, there are no holds barred. I am just going to list my top whatever the hell I feel like listing. So starting with anime and in my usual alphabetical order; here we go.
The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?
Maybe a guilty pleasure? Maybe I just enjoy some trashier shows? It’s hard to say. There is nothing that great about 8th Son, it’s very bland and doesn’t stick out amongst the million other isekai(another world) power fantasy series that are all the rage now and yet there is a strange draw to it. Perhaps it’s because almost all the isekai elements in the series feel more forced than anything else, like they are just tacked on to appeal to modern audiences.
8th Son honestly feels more like a good old fashion fantasy series from the 90’s that just had to add isekai elements in it to appeal to kids today. I really enjoyed it for that aspect. The power fantasy isn’t too out of control (although the protagonist is quite strong), and there is no real end goal or attempt to return to your previous life. The protagonist Wendelin is more or less just cool with how things are now. Instead it focuses on his growth as a mage and how he tries to navigate the political intrigue of this feudal world being one of the youngest born in a noble family with no clear line of succession to take over yet being the most talented and magically gifted child of said family.
Ascendance of a Bookworm
Proving that not all isekai series have to be a power fantasy, Ascendance of a Bookworm plays out more like an educational take on medieval times, think something among the lines of Spice and Wolf, if you will. One day Motosu Urano wakes up in the body of the small child Myne in a fantasy world much like medieval Europe but with a few other elements like magic and sorcery. While at first that may sound like a high flying adventure it really isn’t. The series is more about following the average life of a peasant in this world and how far out of reach literature is to them, given the lack of printing press and the like. Urano now Myne tries her best to create books for the common people and spread literature, a herculean task considering the insane douchebaggery of the higher caste in this world. But armed with modern day knowledge of the 21st century Myne is able to create modern conveniences and wow most people around her.
Black Clover
So I am going to include long running shows now this year, get over it. Black Clover has been a favorite of mine in recent years. Out of the modern Jump battle series I find myself more and more drawn into Clover (and also my one true love, the ever underappreciated World Trigger) than the other more popular ones that seem to rule all the anime conversations today. Since I was following the series dubbed as it aired on Toonami this year brought me the end of the first part of the series; finally seeing the epic conclusion of Clover Kingdom’s long standing battle with the Eye of the Midnight Sun and revealing some pretty great and shocking twists behind the war of elves and humans along the way.
This finale was fantastic and honestly while I am glad to see the series continue on and grow from there, and look forward to seeing more of this new second part of Clover that focuses on a war with the Spade Kingdom, I absolutely would not have complained if the whole thing ended right here with this story arc. It wraps up so beautifully and is a compilation of three great years of episodes.
BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt so I’ll Max Out My Defense
Bofuri is not a series I thought I would enjoy as much as I did but it really won me over. Essentially just a ‘cute girls do cute things’ kind of show but with a twist of it being in an MMO game, there is something about it that made it so comfy and easy to watch. There’s always something enjoyable about watching the protagonist Maple, an absolutely clueless newbie at video games continue to be the bane of existence to the developers and admins of the game as she constantly breaks it and becomes insanely overpowered on a regular basis all from her own cluelessness.
As the title suggests she is the only person in the world to get scared of taking damage in a video game and puts all her stats into defense and literally nothing else entirely. After so much grinding the girl is such a tank she can just walk through enemies to kill them. It’s fun little things like this that make the show always worth a chuckle as her legendary player status continues to rise while in reality she just has no clue how to play RPGs whatsoever.
Boruto: Naruto Next Generations
If you think Black Clover had a great run of episodes this year in 2020 just wait until you see what Boruto had to offer. While not a perfect year, the series did take off for about 2 months thanks to a pandemic hiatus, once it came back it was stronger than ever. We came out of the gates running and kicked off the return of Boruto with a fantastic 20+ episode long story arc centered on introducing the main group of villains in the series, the Kara. The world of Boruto became much bigger and much darker, and the series in the last year has started to bring in a lot more manga content and moving at a brisker and faster pace, changing the status quo up quite a lot. Watching the New Team 7 grow so much and rise to these challenges was rewarding and I am so excited for the vessel story arc teased at the latest Jump Festa this December.
Ultimately though their first encounter, crushing defeat, and subsequent rematch with Deepa; a new anime only member of Kara meant to introduce the organization to anime viewers was an insane show de force of animation and one of the best battles in 2020 anime, dare I say. These kids are growing into great warriors and the stakes have been raised so much.
Cardfight!! Vanguard Gaiden IF
The 2018 reboot of the Vanguard series saw not only the card game get refreshed but the television anime as well. Dubbed the V Series by fans thanks to all the new card serial numbers starting with a V post reboot, these last two years have been fun and full of fan service for long time viewers of the anime. Gaiden IF is the final season of this reboot before the fourth entry of the franchise Overdress begins in 2021, and was a very strange and experimental one at that. Gaiden IF holding true to its name was a gaiden, or spinoff of the series that wasn’t necessary in the same canon as the regular show and more fascinating had zero card fights during the entire show–instead being one huge parody of card game animes in general and the beloved cast of characters the series has built over its ten year run.
It’s quite hilarious and a great round of fun, especially since there isn’t a main character in sight. Gaiden IF is carried entirely by a cast of side characters and former villains now taking over the role of protagonist. I’ve never seen a show go for an entire season with such minor characters playing such a huge role and that is one of the best aspects of it. Every week watching Ibuki Kouji, one of the most feared and powerful villains in the series being tormented and kicked around as a would-be hero now honestly carries the entire show.
But really, this was one of the first anime to air post pandemic hiatus and it was so refreshing to have Vanguard back. Every week it reminded me how much I loved the franchise and anime in general, it was such a delight to finally have something enjoyable back in my life after such a grueling pandemic hiatus of nothing.
Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (2020)
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think there would be a modern adaptation of Dai no Daibouken, or The Adventures of Dai as it is being called in English now. This was one of my all time favorite Jump manga growing up and I always thought the original unfinished 1991 anime was the best we were ever going to get as far as animation goes, so to see this beautiful new series with its fantastic storyboarding and animation, great use of CG mixed in with hand drawn, and what seems like an outright declaration from the series itself that it will adapt the series in its entirety this time, it’s all too much.
This new Dai adaptation is like a dream anime that was made just for me. Every Saturday morning I giddily log on to watch the new episode just like being a kid again with Saturday morning cartoons. If you are sleeping on this show, don’t! You won’t regret watching it, Dai was one of the all time great Shonen Jump properties of the 90’s and is ready to show kids today what that era has to offer!
Gundam Build Divers Re:rise Season 2
Rerise was hands down one of my favorite shows last year when the first cour aired, and this year is no different either, dare I say once again this was probably my favorite show of the whole year. It’s hard to really go into what made this second cour so good without flat out spoiling all the best parts, and all the character development, and all the amazing battles, but suffice to say, this may be one of the best Gundam shows of the entire decade, Build series or not. Hell I ain’t afraid to say this kicked G-Tekketsu (Iron Blooded Orphans) ass this way to Sunday, I don’t care that this is a toy commercial for a much younger audience. Basically, watch Rerise, it’s going to be a great time.
If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die
This was another series that I expected very little from but ended up really enjoying each week. The basic premise is pretty simple, a super fan obsessed with an idol (singer) goes to insane lengths to support her and thinks her love will never be reciprocated but maybe it just might be. It’s kinda strange and an unusual romance series that isn’t really all that big on romance. In fact it seems to be much bigger on being informative about idol fan culture and nerd culture in general and poking fun at that while never being too mean spirited.
I think that’s the charm of this one. These are by all extent weird kinda creepy people that are obsessed over young girl singers but it never demonizes its cast for that nor does it ever go too far in the power fantasy of them ‘getting the girl’. It’s about the struggle of fan life and the tightknit and utterly bizarre groups of friends you can make in a fandom–and also maybe some love might happen along the way.
Jujutsu Kaisen
Another big modern shonen jump battle manga got its chance to be animated this year, and this time courtesy of studio Mappa who are the real stars of this party. Everything about Jujutsu Kaisen feels like Mappa throwing down the gauntlet and trying to one-up the highly praised and beloved Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba from last year that wowed everyone with UFOtable’s signature beautiful animation. It’s very fascinating to see the insane levels of gorgeous jaw dropping action set pieces between these two series, both raising the bar to ridiculous levels in their own ways. On top of the animation front though are some very easily lovable characters, a much darker feeling supernatural story than one may expect, and probably Crunchyroll’s best dub produced in 2020.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is another series from beloved auteur Masaaki Yuasa. Bringing with it his signature style and wonderful animation, his hardworking compatriots at studio Science Saro deliver something truly special, an anime about why anime is great and just how the heck it is made to begin with. I think one of my favorite aspects of Yuasa’s work is just how sincere almost his entire output is, and how you can really feel a certain kind of emotion and vision behind each work that is unique to it. For Eizouken it is definitely the joy of creation and what it means to pursue something creative. Easily one of the best watches of 2020 for both its visuals, sound design, characters with great chemistry that have to deliver very heavy and technical dialogue but do so in a really natural and enjoyable way–and hey the shows within the show that the girls make are also usually pretty interesting and good too.
MAJOR 2nd Season 2
I think my favorite aspect of this new middle school arc of MAJOR 2nd was seeing just how much Daigo has changed over the years since we last saw him in elementary school in the first season. No longer in little league and now trying to save his school’s baseball club, Daigo has grown into a strong leader and really feels natural with everyone he talks to. It’s a huge departure from the bullied and reclusive selfish kid he was in the first season. Seeing the kid grow up into somebody reliable and caring like this almost brings a tear to my eye.
It’s an old cliché but saving the falling apart club in your school is a classic underdog story and the fact that Daigo built his own team from the ground up really sells it. The team is largely made up of girls too which brings a really great girl power aspect to it as well. With just 3 boys and the rest of the positions being filled with females, the haphazard team Daigo put together not only has to show that nobodies can make it but that girls are just as good as the boys.
Rent-a-Girlfriend
I love trashy romcom harem anime, I will be the first to admit it. I am not even their target audience, in fact I am probably the exact opposite of their target audience yet I can’t get enough of this kind of garbage, and Rent-a-Girlfriend brings in the garbagest of garbage it can! The name says it all right there, our hero is literally so pathetic he has to pay girls money to go on dates with him. And he just continues to ruin everything around him with his constant lying and all around patheticness. He is like a blackhole of suck that will drag down any and all that go near him. What more can you even want?!
I am half facetious here of course, but to an extent what I said about Kazuya isn’t wrong. He’s the biggest loser around, and I love him. It’s fun to watch him squirm, and it’s nice to learn more about him and see he has a good side deep down too. In a lot of ways he’s probably one of the more relatable leads in these kinds of shows as he’s just as pathetic as all the rest of us who watch these kinds of shows are. But besides Kazuya there are plenty of nice leading ladies too and probably most surprisingly a fairly well fleshed out circle of friends that he hangs out with. Usually these kinds of shows will sideline the male friends of the leads and only focus on time between the lead and the girls, so it’s refreshing to see so much time spent with other boys in the show too.
Also as an addendum to anyone who watches the series dubbed, Aleks Le‘s performance as the lead role is maybe some of the best casting in modern anime dubbing I have ever heard. He kills it in this show. It’s a performance that carries the entire show.
Shadowverse
You might say, I saved the best for last, but honestly this was a coincidence. Shadowverse is a by-the-numbers card game anime. It starts very slow and very bland, and offers nothing new to the genre instead sticking entirely to the classic tropes and clichés of sports anime and Yu-Gi-Oh clones alike. That is for the first 12 episodes or so. It begins to evolve and gets a little more interesting from there, then something happens. Something I cannot explain. Something that makes no sense. Something that the production committee probably should not have allowed to occur. The show just goes absolutely, positively, certifiably, fucking insane.
Out of nowhere, the plot suddenly turns into a straight Neon Genesis Evangelion knock-off, complete with plugsuits, random nonsense mysticism from exotic religions, and soul crushing nightmarishly harsh treatment of the child protagonists. Suddenly time freezes for everyone but the main characters, and the totally original not Kabbalah, Tree of Woe, begins to end the world. Now armed with their new psychic powers (that they just have now out of nowhere!) the kids have to fight brain washed former enemies and loved ones alike that seek to destroy the world via assimilation into the darkness.
Suddenly we have moments like the above where Luca, the coldhearted and cool Shadowverse player who only ever began fighting in tournaments to earn money for his younger sick sister’s treatment has to face off against a possessed evil version of his sister who bemoans all the isolation he put her through, never being there with her, always away trying to earn money. She berates and destroys the young man’s heart for his well intentions. Luca with no other options has to put her down for the good of the world.
You know, for the 12 year old kids in the audience that signed up for a show about a cellphone app.
I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet, the show isn’t over! There’s still 12 episodes left in the series and do you wanna know the best part?! The heroes already failed! The world blew up and everyone got sucked into a blackhole and died! That’s not a joke. The bad guys won. And there’s still another season worth of episodes to go! I am not kidding, this is how the show ended the year 2020! This is legendary, no fucks given status if I ever saw it. The best way to end 2020 if ever there was one:
Every week I anxiously log on to watch Shadowverse after it jumped the shark just to see what insanity happens next. This is Tommy Wiseau The Room energy levels of pure insane dribble. Shadowverse might be the biggest disaster of a card game anime of all time, and I simply cannot get enough of it now.
BONUS THOUGHTS For 2020
Random Anime Collecting: This year saw Discotek release three Case Closed/Detective Conan movies on blu-ray. Detective Conan is a series near and dear to my heart, and one I spent a lot of my college days obsessed over. This is a franchise I really went to great lengths to collect after Funimation reprinted many of the long time out of print volumes of the series back in 2013, and I bought them all back then. Buying new Detective Conan movies in 2020 felt super surreal, and also wonderful. I really hope I can keep buying more in 2021.
Hidive for these hard times: I didn’t include anything really from Sentai, I am not sure why, maybe none of what I watched this year would count as a favorite of mine, maybe I was just lazy and didn’t want to add to my list anymore. Honestly though I watched a lot of series this year on Hidive. I think my favorite has been the new dub of Pet Girl of Sakurasou.
A Lost Classic: Nobody is talking about God Mazinger finally getting released in English from Discotek and that kind of bums me out. The series was one I obsessed over when younger, especially because it was rare to find even raw footage of it lead alone subtitled. It was never subtitled in fact, so Discotek’s release is the first time it has ever been in English.
Tomorrow marks the release of Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age for the North American and European markets. To help celebrate this launch I decided I should write a little something Dragon Quest related on my blog. It’s no secret to those that know me that I am a huge fan of the franchise, and that Dragon Quest XI is easily one of my most anticipated game releases in years—after all we have not had a chance to sit down with a new entry in this franchise since Dragon Quest IX back in 2010. That eight year wait was thoroughly killing me inside but I persevered and made it this far! So let’s talk some Dragon Quest.
Now Dragon Quest is an monumental franchise that helped to establish not just role-playing games in Japan but around the whole world. The original release was a game that many thought simply could not be done, as at the time role-playing games were only ever released for a very dedicated niche PC market. Taking an RPG from a computer with complex command prompts and a full keyboard and mouse interface and converting it for a video game console with a controller that just had an A and B button, start and select, and a directional-pad was thought to be ludicrous, but then came Dragon Quest.
The early NES (or Famicom if that’s more your style) Dragon Quest games are far from perfect in their game design, but they mark the first real RPG video game experience a casual audience could enjoy, and soon other RPGs would follow in their footsteps and the genre became a mainstay for gaming everywhere and not just stuck on the PC. A large part of this had to do with a strong marketing push, using popular magazine publications to essentially hold the hands of the newly introduced whom had no idea how to navigate an RPG; very much akin to the role Nintendo Power would play for us in America during the late-80’s and early 90’s. It’s because of this (among other reasons) that the series has always had a very strong media presence in its home country and Dragon Quest enjoys dipping its fingers into everything from comics, to toys, to cartoons. Which leads us to what I really wanted to talk about today, the 1996 animated film: Dragon Quest Saga: The Emblem of Roto.
Emblem of Roto started life as a manga created by Chiaki Kawamata, Junji Koyanagi, and Kamui Fujiwara in 1991 running for 21 volumes until its completion in 1997. It is among the many, many, many other Dragon Quest manga out there. It’s not a very well known manga series in English speaking circles and unlike Dai no Daibouken it isn’t fully translated into English either. I first encountered Emblem of Roto a little over a decade ago when I was in my Dragon Quest frenzy stage and could not get enough of the series (I still can’t, really!). Back then I would buy up anything on eBay even remotely close to Dragon Quest and ended up owning a lot of Dragon Quest related crap. In my huge pile of Dragon Quest books in Japanese that I can’t even read laid a couple manga volumes and even an art book for this series. I remember flipping through these pages and being fascinated by it, hoping to one day find some stuff for Emblem of Roto in English. That turned out to be very hard to do.
I really love the art work for Emblem of Roto too, if I can just talk about that for a minute. It has a very 90’s-esque anime style to it that I am quite fond of, but also has a hint of Akira Toriyama’s unique style mixed in too. Series that have had Toriyama as lead artist always have a very fascinating art evolution to me as he developed a super distinct and identifiable style of his own over his 15 years as a manga artist in Shonen Jump writing Dr Slump and Dragon Ball. So when I see how anime studios and other artists have to take that style of his and adapt as well as change it for works like Beet the Vandel Buster,Blue Dragon, and Emblem of Roto, it’s always fun. Where does Toriyama end and these many other artists begin, so to say.
Getting back on track, however, it wasn’t until recently I learned of this Emblem of Roto movie, and it wasn’t until a few days ago that I actually got around to watching it! Imagine my surprise that there was a movie adaptation all this time and that somebody actually went and fansubbed it to boot! However, adaptation may be a pretty forgiving word, as far as I can tell skimming the few scans that exist online, and flipping through the volumes I have, this film more or less does its own thing and only takes the characters very loosely from the manga. So then just what is this movie even about? We should probably be getting to the meat and potatoes by this point now after all.
Well the gist of its short 45 minute run time is that Arus, our protagonist, happens to be the village crybaby. The boy is known for being a coward and doesn’t seem to get along with the other kids his age nor able to stand up for himself. The other kids bully him, and he doesn’t seem to have friends. Arus is terrible at fighting and can’t keep up with the others training his swordsmanship or his magic. The elders of the village all seem quite worried over how weak and sensitive he is, especially in this uncertain time with monsters roaming everywhere outside the village.
After some mischief with the town bully, Kira, Arus is dared into adventuring into the forest at night to prove his manhood. The two boys, Arus and Kira, stumble their way through the monster populated forest trying to find an old shrine, that the village used to worship at but can no longer go to because of the monsters. The shrine is the only location that the lily of the valley blooms in. First boy to bring back one of these lilies as proof that they entered the shrine is the winner. Arus fumbles around like a klutz and just when he’s about to break down and cry he ends up falling into a den where fairies live. The fairies are initially terrified that a human has invaded their home but soon turn amazed that Arus can actually understand their sacred language and decide to instead ask him for help. Arus agrees to help them kill a monstrous flower that started to bloom near the shrine. The flower gives off deadly poison that is killing all living things plant and animal alike near it. However the flower slumbers at night giving Arus an easy chance to cut it down before the sun rises thus becoming a hero.
After heading back home to procure a sword and chomping the flower down just in time before sunrise Arus explores the shrine only to find that the monster is not dead—in fact its roots have taken over the entire shrine acting as creepy tentacle like tendons that capture everything that moves within. After some temple running (literately) and dodging the deadly roots in a chase scene, it’s round 2 of fighting, and this time Arus is able to muster all his strength and kills the evil plant for good—even saving Kira in the process whom was captured by the tentacle roots earlier in the film. It’s then in the heart of the shrine that Arus learns of his origins as a descendant of the legendary hero Roto (or Erdirk) and the two boys go home as friends as the credits roll.
The movie is a pretty straight forward affair, given its shorter run time that is to be expected—but you’d assume it would move pretty briskly like most 45 minute anime films do, however, it’s actually somewhat slow at the beginning. The movie really takes its time to establish Arus as a weak and bullied kid before finally having the “call to action” occur at about 20 minutes in—almost half way through. Once the movie does start going though it’s quite fun and chock-full of some really impressive animated sequences that I did not expect for such a humble and overlooked kid’s film. This was never brought to blu-ray, hell it was never even brought to DVD. The copy I was watching is an old VHS recording. So it’s somewhat heart breaking in the end seeing how gorgeous this little feature ended up being.
It’s all the little things that make Emblem of Roto a wonderful looking film. I love the gorgeous hand painted backgrounds with birds and other animals always flying around. There’s constant movement in this film actually. The way the wind blows during scenes outside in nature; how clothes move; how there’s always something moving in the background—it’s fantastic. I love that the character designs are super flexible and move smoothly, and that characters have fully developed faces that show lots of emotions. I love that Arus’ sword is almost twice the size of his body. That was something I especially loved actually. Arus is just a kid after all, and the way the animators handled him sheathing and unsheathing this unwieldy adult sized sword just made for some fantastic little animated moments. The whole thing is over in less than an hour, and all these small things really add up to make the short run time go by even faster. Honestly the animation alone can really sell a movie like this.
And just like that Emblem of Roto was over before I knew it. It is kind of fitting in a way when I think about it. Emblem of Roto is probably not gonna get any more attention in English speaking circles any time soon. It’s very easy to overlook and though dedicated as the English DQ fan community is, there probably isn’t enough interest in a lot of these multimedia tie-ins to get translated. Hell, thanks to the MMO nature of Dragon Quest X we’re back to not even having every mainline Dragon Quest game released outside of Japan again—so we don’t even have all the games released any more, I’d say the chances that an older manga getting released are even slimmer. But what we do have of Emblem of Roto in English is fun, easy to watch, and great to boot. I really recommend checking it out for yourself if any of my rambling sounded interesting to you. And I hope tomorrow’s release of Dragon Quest XI will be a great day for all of you.
Hey everyone, this blog isn’t dead! I’ve decided to try my hand at writing fanfiction for “Dragon Quest: Adventure of Dai” recently. This fanfic started off as a series of humorous thoughts to myself, then grew until I had the basics of a plot. It’s a college AU Hyunckel x Popp fic, in which Popp is an idiot that hates Hyunckel until they actually get to know each other, and oh no, what is this odd feeling in Popp’s chest? And why do they keep finding themselves in situations where they hug?
It’s rated T, and it has a 5 + 1 theme. More information in the link. Hope you enjoy!
