Best TV Series:
5) Now it might surprise you the reader that Virtual-San Looking (2019) is on this list, but honestly, whilst I did not catch most of the humour and this is likely to be a title lost in time once it leaves Crunchyroll streaming, it was a fascinating piece of culture to have sat through. There is many shows about characters just talking - one which only had one mention for a negative, Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono (2013), managed to have three seasons which I covered but have faded in memory. Many are meant to just be for light humour to unwind with (and accidentally only cover the second season of like Anitore XX). Virtual-San, with the bigger danger that it was not a micro-series, but full twenty plus minute episodes, managed however to both sincere and charming even in its flaws, and also magnificently weird even without the pop culture managing to pass over my head. As a snapshot of a trend which has not crossed over into the West, as much of the entertainment was seeing both outsiders to the medium, virtual YouTubers, putting on a show but for series length television, and the idiosyncrasies of watching what was never meant to be a wide reaching show.
4) On a more logical choice, I feel however that I like to have all three potential candidates share the fourth spot for various reasons, all in my first proper steps into the giant robot genre, and all three deserving this spot. They also make a fascinating trio representing a time period where, over the Millennium, the giant robot genre had to change to keep as substantial genre. Dai Guard (1999-2000), an early digital animated production and before director Seiji Mizushima made his hit Full Metal Alchemist (2003), negates any concern to change the template on this long existing genre, instead creating a unique premise of what would happen in regular white collar employees in an office had to operate a giant robot. Treating the tropes as a disaster story, not a disaster film but how fire station staff or a rescue team at an actual disaster would have to intervene, through the lens of giant robots fighting giant monsters is a rewarding story to tell. It has its flaws (and a clip show episode) but succeeds with the premise.
Gravion and its sequel series Zwei (2002 and 2004) is a pure throwback to the old giant robot tropes from Masami Obari, a veteran mecha designer. This two series story has one significant issue that, to cater to a wider audience, it had to front load so much fan service (skimpy costumes, big busts, maids, some creepier content) that it can put viewers off. It also happens to still be a compelling giant robot show which, paradoxically, has a larger female cast because of that need for fan service, but all whilst still treating them all as competent and with dramas for themselves. So, as a result, in spite of itself, its the version of the giant robot show from the burning passion, Go Nagai era of the genre. The throwback with its bombastic JAM Project songs, of not being remotely scientifically realistic (unlike Dai Guard which tries to for great dramatic weight) but piling on the melodrama for the second season to win me over.
Finally, there is Gun X Sword (2005), from the era where I had gotten into anime but one of the many titles from the time, released over here in the United Kingdom, I never actually got around to until now. Fully invested in the new digitally assisted anime era, from a time still where (like the other two) twenty plus episode seasons were more common, and following how a lot of anime shows were genre cocktails by having all manner of pieces mashed together here. In this case, a sci-fi western where the revenging man with no name has a giant robot he can command from a satellite, but also because of the show being a comedy is a homeless vagrant who smears all the condiments on his meals. Yet this show, with its perfect balance, manages to make this still dramatically compelling and also fun, as it wisely uses its length to its advantage, a story of two halves between a romp searching for the villain who slighted him, with a variety of characters introduced, to the second where it pulls the rug out. When the road trip centres around a single spot in the second, a final conflict linking back to every character from the first half, it manages to succeed.
All three of the shows, flaws and all, were a perfect trio of obscurities which showed me how rich and diverse something of deceptively simple as a giant robot show, about giant robots fighting things, can still go on decades after its initial golden era for children's shows in the seventies. And considering how Gun X Sword had a cameo, with its cast and robots, in the videogame Super Robot Wars t alongside more famous titles, these shows have a rabid diehard fan base who remember them, so all three could (fingers cross) get re-releases on streaming and maybe even physical media again.
3) Sarazanmai (2019) marked the return of Kunihiko Ikuhara and a successful run in the 2010s. Beforehand, he had vanished from anime almost entirely after Adolescence of Utena in 1999, and it seems a wonderful experience for me, in terms of a time capsule, to have first learnt of him when he came back to the director's seat after a decade's absence. I learnt of him work, and admired it, when he came back with Mawaru Penguindrum (2011), grew further into my passion for anime by the time of Yurikuma Arashi (2015), and for Sarazanmai, still without a UK physical release sadly, the kind of eclectic anime viewer and purveyor of obscurities that could admire it fully. Both how, whilst the weakest of the three, this is still a gem from him, and that also the inherent oddness of the premise also wins me over. Who wouldn't want a musical fantasy action show which also has emotion and, tackling male protagonists for the first time in his career properly, has Ikuhara waving the LGBT whilst also getting into his fascinating ideas on modern life and communication. In an era where Masaaki Yuasa went from an obscure figure who was barely known in the West, but now has almost all his work available and is constantly directing output, I can see with hope that, unless Ikuhara likes to think of his projects, that whatever he does in the future, with co-director Nobuyuki Takeuchi here and studio MAPPA or not, still will be brimming with this level of creativity and be more likely to be funded.
2) Another figure came out of the 2010s as a king was Hiroyuki Imaishi, who really took advantage of the last ten years. Leaving studio Gainax, who have tragically faded into obscurity, founding Trigger who, for every title that has not necessarily hit it out of the park, is still a big studio, all whilst Imaishi himself has never really slouched. Even Space Patrol Lulico (2016), which I covered a long time ago, was just a victory lap which was for fun. Beginning the 2010s though, with what also feels like a last triumph for Gainax, he began his first productive year of the new decade with a bang, with the divisive but unique Panty & Stockings with Garterbelt (2010).
It is an acquired taste, both because it is openly a tribute to the type of American animation I myself was growing up with, the Cartoon Network animation of the late nineties and early 2000s, but is also openly profane, full of crude humour and a comical amount of English cursing. Wishing to push what was acceptable, Imaishi and the production however did something inspired in that a) their tribute to Western animation style led to them sacrificing detail for more fluid animation, drastically shifting the focus to some incredible sequences, and b) that everyone from the musicians composing the score to the animators who blow up hand sculpted versions of the ghosts never got predictable, having fun but pushing themselves. It is still such a fun, unpredictable and at times bizarre gem as a result.
1) But, fittingly it goes to a show that, when I first had gotten into anime, was a programme I initially did not like, only to track down on (once second hand and long out of print) DVDs and slowly grow fonder of. Serial Experiments Lain (1998) is an older title, over two decades old now, which is still available in the United Kingdom and it has grown for me considerably. Honestly, just go to the review, and it is explained what grew for me fully.
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Best Theatrical Feature:
Three honourable mentions come first. Knowing how deeply flawed it is, I cannot include X - The Movie (1996) but I have a love for the film in spite of this. Tekkonkinkreet (2006) is an obscurer gem, an important one knowing Michael Arias achieved a historically important moment in being the first gaijin (non-Japanese] anime director, making this colourful and idiosyncratic production with Studio 4°C. Also an entry you would find in the dictionary to define "idiosyncratic" would be The Burning Buddha Man (2013), with its distorted and strange world filled with paper cut out characters, bookmarked by live action sequences and using real liquids (fake blood, fake tears), already a compelling independent piece of animation, painstakingly put together and crafted with its director's distinct vision.
5) Beginning the list, and sadly not a title not really discussed a great deal until now, is Project A-Ko (1986), whose history including theatrical releases in Japan and France allows it on the list. Originally meant to be hentai, this became instead on a decision of the creators a playful, action packed approximation of eighties anime, both in its creativity and all the references to has. From its technical quality to its sense of fun, it is still highly regarded in the modern day for good reason, a rare case of indulgence which is artistically satisfying.
4) The Strange Case of Hana & Alice (2015) sits as a fascinating curiosity. A prequel to a live action film, Hana and Alice (2004), made by the same director Shunji Iwai but negotiating around the fact his returning leads Yū Aoi and Anne Suzuki, originally playing teenagers, would have aged over ten years adults by making the new movie a rotoscope animated production. And, without the original context, it is still a sweet and utterly enjoyable gem, a mystery story with unfolds and undercuts the mystery to reveal warmth, all whilst the art style itself is distinct and having justifiable weight rather than to have made this story as live action.
3) Pom Poko (1994) was the first Studio Ghibli title covered, and is obscurer even in their canon, entirely because Isao Takahata's work for the animation studio, in contrast to Hayao Miyazaki's, was already more esoteric and at times only possible to appreciate as an adult. Pom Poko is a fun film at times, but between its complex take on an environmental message, despite being obviously pro-environment, as well as a tribute to Japanese folklore, it always kept me enwrapped by where the story was going, never going for the obvious solution to this story. That the ending does not turn out how it usually does in Western storytelling adds a greater sense of weight, never going for an easy answer even in a film that is completely accessible.
2) Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985) has been talked of a lot in this series, and with good reason as an under seen and unique theatrical release that, whilst meant to be suitable for families, is also tackling death and existentialism with a depth that contrasts this. It was a film I had wanted to see for years, and finally able to, it did live up to the experience fully.
1) Also covered a great deal so far, and another film I have wanted to see for many years, the winner is Adolescence of Utena (1999). It was a film if you were just talking about the first two-thirds that would have not qualified as a great film; just a fascinating and surreal production instead trying to condense a narrative based on a thirty plus episode television series. The final third, including the unexpected change of pace for the ending, achieves so much in what is unexpected, what is symbolically and emotionally powerful, and how incredibly accomplished it is as animation that this became a special viewing experience to finally see.
And with that, so ends the second season, and roll forth reviews #151 to #200.
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