We’re well into the fall anime season and it’s full of lovely things. The second season of Haikyuu!! is here, for a start, and it’s exactly as wonderful as season one. Noragami Aragoto is kicking into high gear with the start of a widely-anticipated arc for its return to TV, and the Monogatari juggernaut is rolling again with Owarimonogatari. We’re also getting a solid dose of wacky, weird, and just plain strange, from a manic 1960s revival in Osomatsu-san to the time-jumping mishmash of Concrete Revolutio. And then there’s the (not one, but two) anime featuring boys breaking into impromptu musical numbers, and the (not one, but two—really, you can’t make this up) harem anime featuring pink-haired girls with flame powers. I watched all of these and more, dear readers, in order to pick the best of the best for your 2D consumption. With simulcasts a click away, there’s no reason to wait. Settle down with your pumpkin spice latte and check out these three top picks for fall season.

One Punch Man

In a modern Japan plagued by monsters, super villains, and aliens that appear suddenly and cause huge amounts of destruction, Saitama (voiced by an excellent Makoto Furukawa) was just an everyday guy who dreamt of being a hero. Determined to overcome his own limitations, he put himself through grueling training to achieve his dream—and unfortunately, it was a little too effective. Saitama can take even the most powerful enemy out with only one punch, and that makes hero work, well…pretty boring. Overcome with superhero ennui, Saitama spends his days sitting around his tiny apartment, clipping coupons for supermarket sales, and waiting for an opponent strong enough to break up the painful monotony of his existence. Along the way he meets new allies like the cyborg Genos (Kaito Ishikawa), who begs to be taken as his disciple, and a slew of colorful and comical enemies.

This action comedy was undoubtedly the most hyped show of the season, and from what I’ve seen in the first three episodes, justifiably so. One Punch Man began life as a webcomic drawn by the artist ONE in what is presumably the Japanese equivalent of MS Paint. When the series took off, mangaka Yusuke Murata (Eyeshield 21) proposed a collaboration, redrawing ONE’s series for publication in Young Jump Web Comics, where, being no slouch himself, Murata made the series notorious for detailed art and flip book-style panels like this. Luckily for old fans and new viewers alike, director Shingo Natsume (Space Dandy) and Madhouse (Hunter x Hunter 2011, Death Parade) are pulling out all the stops for this adaptation, treating us to plenty of gorgeously animated and creatively choreographed fight scenes in between absurd episodes from Saitama’s comically mundane existence. If a hilarious take on superhero tropes mixed with bouts of all-out sakuga battles sounds like your thing, One Punch Man is a must-watch this season.

For fans of: Gintama, Tiger & Bunny, My Hero Academia, Samurai Flamenco

Watch it now on Hulu and Daisuki

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

Three hundred years after a disastrous conflict between Earth and Mars called the Calamity War, Mars has been colonized and terraformed, but suffers poverty and unrest under Earth’s rule. Mikazuki Augus (Kengo Kawanishi), our protagonist, is a member of a company of orphans that have found employment operating mobile workers for the private security firm Chryse Guard Security (CGS). When CGS is hired to provide bodyguards for Kudelia Aina Bernstein (Yuka Terasaki), the daughter of a prominent Martian politician and advocate for independence, Mikazuki’s squad is picked to accompany the young lady on a diplomatic mission to Earth. Before they can set off, CGS is attacked by forces that want to stop Kudelia and suppress the Martian revolutionaries. Abandoned by their commanders, Orga Itsuka (Yoshimasa Hosoya), the leader of the orphans’ squadron, struggles to hold their attackers back as Mikazuki fires up their last resort: a Calamity-War era mobile suit that just happens to be—you guessed it—a Gundam.

Iron-Blooded Orphans is, of course, yet another entry in the venerable science fiction/mecha Gundam franchise—but don’t worry, no knowledge of Gundam is required to enjoy this standalone series. In fact, while Iron-Blooded Orphans may walk and talk like your run-of-the-mill Gundam series, there’s a somewhat unusual creative team lurking behind this one: director Tatsuyuki Nagai (Toradora!, Ano Natsu de Matteru) and writer Mari Okada (Aquarion Evol, Nagi no Asukara), who are probably best known for their collaboration on the tearjerker drama AnoHana. How this will affect the course of the series remains to be seen, and they’ve got a full two cour (24 episodes) in which to make their mark on the franchise. In the meantime, Iron-Blooded Orphans is hewing close to the usual Gundam formula—space politics, child soldiers, a princess advocating peace, and the all important giant robots—and doing it pretty darn well. The first three episodes have introduced a cast of intriguing characters and a plot that feels fresh despite the familiar trappings. I’m guessing this will be a fun one to follow weekly as events unfold, so whether you’re a Gundam veteran or you’re not sure if Ramba Ral is a person or a location, now’s the time to jump in.

For fans of: Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack, Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team, After War Gundam X, Turn A Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, Gundam Reconguista in G, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin, Aldnoah.Zero

Watch it now on Crunchyroll and Daisuki

Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider

Moe Nishinosono (Atsumi Tanezaki) is a spoilt heiress and college student that spends her days hanging around the office of Souhei Saikawa (Yasuyuki Kase), an associate professor who was her father’s student and mentee. Saikawa is fascinated by the work of genius programmer Shiki Magata (Ibuki Kido), a twenty-nine-year-old recluse who has been isolated on a remote island research facility since she was accused of murdering her parents at the age of fourteen. Knowing about Saikawa’s interest in Magata, Nishinosono proposes a group trip to the island with other students from the university in hope of meeting Magata in person. Once there, Saikawa and Nishinosono get caught up in a series of mysterious and dangerous events.

This atmospheric mystery is based on a 1996 novel of the same name by Hiroshi Mori, and has seen several adaptations in the last decade and a half, which I suppose must speak to the quality of the material. This particular iteration is helmed by Mamoru Kanbe (Elfen Lied, Sound of the Sky) at A-1 Pictures (Sword Art Online, Your Lie in April), and sports original character designs by the acclaimed mangaka Inio Asano (Oyasumi Punpun, Solanin). So far The Perfect Insider has all the moody intellectualism I would expect from a classic Noitamina entry, a timeslot that in its heyday produced such shows as Paradise Kiss, Eden of the East, and The Tatami Galaxy. Still, I can’t say I’m quite sold on it yet—Nishinosono is a difficult character to like, and much of the first episode was spent sitting around talking in dimly lit rooms—but I’m willing to give The Perfect Insider, with its muted colors and subtle character interactions, a long leash here. This is your pick of the season for those looking for something a bit esoteric and artsy with a side of murder mystery.

For fans of: Zankyou no Terror/Terror in Resonance, Steins;Gate, Un-Go, Shiki

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Nothing here catching your eye? Check out the full fall roster here, and be sure to let us know what you’re watching this season in the comments!

Kelly Quinn is trying really hard to get the new Gundam opening out of her head. Tell her how bad her taste is on Twitter.

Have you ever been walking along and felt the creepy, unsettling feeling that something was watching you? You met Betobeto-san, an invisible yōkai, or folklore creature, who follows along behind people on paths and roads, especially at night. To get rid of the creepy feeling, simply step aside and say, “Betobeto-san, please, go on ahead,” and he will politely go on his way.

What we know of Betobeto-san and hundreds of other fantastic creatures of Japan’s folklore tradition, we know largely thanks to the anthropological efforts of historian, biographer and folklorist, Shigeru Mizuki, one of the pillars of Japan’s post-WWII manga boom, who passed away yesterday at the age of 93. A magnificent storyteller, Mizuki recorded, for the first time, hundreds of tales of ghosts and demons from Japan’s endangered rural folklore tradition, and with them one very special tale: his own experience of growing up in Japan in the 1920s through 1940s, when parades of water sprites and sparkling fox spirits gave way to parades of tanks and warships.

Shigeru Mizuki’s illustration of Betobeto-san, “Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms” 講談社, 1985

Trickster-fox Kitsune, dangerous water-dwelling Kappa, playful raccoon-like Tanuki, and savage horned Oni are only the most famous of Japan’s vast menagerie of folklore monsters, whose more obscure characters range from the beautiful tentacle-haired Futakuchi Onna, to Tsukumogami, household objects like umbrellas and sandals that come alive on their 100^th birthdays, and tease their owners by hopping away in time of need. Such yōkai stories have their roots in Japan’s unique religious background, whose hybrid of Buddhism with Shinto animism adds a unique moral and storytelling logic to these tales, present in no other folklore tradition, whose twists and turns—unexpected within Western horror conventions—are much of why fans of the weird, creepy and horrific find such extraordinary power in the creations of Japan. Most accounts of yōkai and Japanese ghosts are regional tales passed down at festivals and storytelling events in rural parts of Japan—and, like many oral traditions, they dwindled substantially over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with the rise of cities, and of centralized and city-dominated entertainments provided by cheap printing, radio, film and television.

Shigeru Misuki spent decades collecting these stories from all corners of Japan, and setting them down in comic book form, so they could be shared and enjoyed by children and parents across Japan and around the world, as he had enjoyed them in his childhood. While most of Japan’s 20^th century manga masters had urban roots, Mizuki grew up in the small, coastal town of Sakaiminato, delighting in local legends told to him by a woman he describes in the memoir he titled after her, Nononba (the first Japanese work ever to win grand prize at the world famous Angoulême International Comics Festival.) Mizuki’s father was deeply interested in international culture, especially film, and even acquired the town’s first movie projector, hoping to connect his family and neighbors to the new arena of the silver screen. This childhood exposure to both local and global storytelling cultures combined to make him eager to present the wealth of Japan’s folklore on the world stage.

“Umibozu” illustration by Shigeru Mizuki, “Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms” 講談社, 1985.

Mizuki’s most beloved work Hakaba Kitaro (Graveyard Kitaro, also called GeGeGe no Kitaro) debuted in 1960, and follows the morbid but adorable zombie-like Kitaro, last survivor of a race of undead beings, who travels Japan accompanied by yōkai friends and the talking eyeball of his dead father. In different towns and villages, Kitaro meets humans who have run-ins with Japan’s spirits, ghosts and underworld creatures. Sometimes Kitaro helps the humans, but he often helps the spirits, or just sits back to watch and mock the humans’ ignorance of the netherworld with his signature creepy laugh “Ge… ge… ge…” Kitaro’s adventures also chronicle the social history of 20^th century Japan, as the yōkai themselves struggle to adapt to cultural changes and economic doldrums, which lead to the closing of shrines, dwindling of offerings, and destruction of supernatural habitat. Adapted into dozens of animated series, movies and games, the popularity of Kitaro made yōkai tales a major genre, but Shigeru Mizuki’s signature remained his commitment to chronicling the rarest and most obscure stories of Japan’s remote villages, from the Oboroguruma, a living ox-cart with a monstrous face, reported in the town of Kamo near Kyoto, to the thundering Hizama spirit of the remote island of Okinoerabu. In fact, when a new animated movie of Kitaro was released in 2008, it screened in six different versions to feature the local folklore creatures of different regions of Japan. In addition to Hakaba Kitaro, Mizuki wrote books on folklore, and encyclopedias of Japanese ghosts and yōkai.

Young Shigeru Mizuki visiting a shrine, fom “Nononba”, Drawn & Quarterly edition.

Mixuki was also one of the most vivid chroniclers—and fiery critics—of the great trauma of Japan’s 20^th century, the Second World War. Drafted into the imperial army in 1942, Mizuki experienced the worst of the Pacific front. His memoir Onward Toward Our Noble Deaths (whose English translation won a 2012 Eisner award) describes his experience: unwilling soldiers, starving and disease-ridden, sent on suicide runs by officers who punished even slight reluctance with vicious beatings. In fact Mizuki’s entire squad was ordered on a suicide march with explicitly no purpose except honorable death. Mizuki alone survived, but lost his arm, gaining in return a lifelong commitment to further the cause of peace and international cooperation. In earlier works—published when criticism of war was still unwelcome and dangerous in Japan—Mizuki voiced his critique obliquely, through depictions of Japan’s economic degeneration, and through his folklore creatures, which, in his tales, are only visible in times of peace, and are driven out and starved by war and violent hearts. Later he wrote more freely, battling historical revisionism and attempts to valorize the war, through works like his biography Adolph Hitler (now in English), and the unforgettable War and Japan, published in 1991 in the educational youth magazine The Sixth Grader, which confronted its young readers the realities of atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese army in China and Korea.

“Gegege no Kitaro” vol. 1, Japanese edition.

Mizuki’s magnificent 1988-9 history Showa (recently released in English translation) is a meticulous chronicle of Japanese culture and politics in the decades leading to and through the war. It shows the baby steps of a nation’s self-betrayal, how nationalism, cultural anxiety, partisan interests, and crisis-based fear-mongering caused Japan to make a hundred tiny decisions, each reasonable-seeming in the moment, which added up over time to a poisonous militarism which saturated the culture from the highest political circles all the way down to children’s schoolyard games. Its release in English is absolutely timely. If the dystopias which have so dominated recent media are tools for discussing the bad sides of our present, doomsday ‘what if’ scenarios where our social evils are cranked up to a hundred, Showa is the birth process of a real dystopia, the meticulously-researched step-by-step of how social evils did crank up to a hundred in real life, and the how the consequences wracked the world. Phrases like “slippery slope” are easy to apply in retrospect, but Showa paints the on-the-ground experience of being in the middle of the process of a nation going mad, making it possible to look with new, informed eyes at our present crisis and the small steps our peoples and governments are taking.

Shigeru Mizuki’s contributions to art, culture and humanitarianism have been recognized around the world, by the Kodansha Manga Award and Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, the Eisner Award and Angoulême festival, the Japanese Minister of Education award, Person of Cultural Merit award, and a special exhibit of his work for the 1995 Annual Tokyo Peace Day. His works have long been available in French, Italian and many other languages, but, despite Mizuki’s eager engagement with English-speaking fans and his eagerness to share his message with the world’s vast English-reading audiences, his works were slow to come out in English because his old-fashioned “cartoony” art style—much like that of his peer and fellow peace advocate “God of Comics” Osamu Tezuka—does not fit the tastes of American fans, accustomed to the later, flashier styles of contemporary anime. In Mizuki’s last years, thanks to the dedicated efforts of Montreal-based publisher Drawn and Quarterly, he finally oversaw the long-awaited English language release of his memoirs and histories, along with the Kitaro series (more volumes still coming out), which Drawn and Quarterly aptly describes as “the single most important manga you’ve never heard of, even if you happen to be a manga fan.”

Shigeru Mizuki, with his Eisner Award (2012)

One of Japan’s most delightful folklore traditions is Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, a gathering of one hundred supernatural stories. A hundred candles are lit, and participants stay up all night telling tales of ghosts and spirits, extinguishing one candle at the end of each tale, so the room grows darker and darker, and the spirits—attracted by the invocation of their stories—draw near. A Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai is rarely finished, since few gatherings can supply a full hundred stories, and, as the dark draws in, most participants grow too frightened to snuff the last candle. But the millions touched by works of Shigeru Mizuki are well prepared to finish, armed with well over 100 stories, and with a powerful sense of the vigilance and hard work necessary if we want to welcome peaceful yōkai back to a more peaceful world.

“Graphic World of Japanese Phantoms” 講談社, 1985.

It’s that time of year again, when the shops are awash in holiday garland, the houses draped with festive lights, and the blogs festooned with “Best of 2015” lists. Looking back through this year at the good, the bad, the ultimately disappointing, and the thankfully forgettable (goodbye forever, Chaos Dragon), it was surprisingly hard to narrow this list down to ten shows, and I’ve certainly left out some worthy contenders. Yet, for the sake of the season, it must be done. Without further ado then, the best ten TV anime of 2015.

The Seven Deadly Sins / Nanatsu no Taizai

The tenth spot on the list this year goes to The Seven Deadly Sins for sheer entertainment value. Set in a vaguely medieval swords and sorcery world reminiscent of retro classics like Slayers, this shounen fantasy adventure follows the exploits of Princess Elizabeth and Meliodas, the leader of an infamous group of warriors called the Seven Deadly Sins. Although this show doesn’t bring anything especially new to the table, using many existing fantasy tropes and plot staples, the execution, not the premise, is where The Seven Deadly Sins shines. It’s hard not to get attached to the the colorful characters, especially the Sins themselves, and flashy action set pieces and brisk pacing keeps this show humming along towards its high-stakes climax. I’ll be looking forward to the second season for this one in 2016.

Missed it? Watch it now on Netflix

Yurikuma Arashi

If The Seven Deadly Sins makes the list as a high-spirited crowd pleaser, Yurikuma Arashi represents basically its exact opposite. The latest entry from auteur director and endless staircase expert Kunihiko Ikuhara (Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mawaru Penguindrum), Yurikuma Arashi is, at heart, a rather simple tale about finding love and defending it in the face of disapproval, hate, and prejudice. Of course, Ikuhara being Ikuhara, this “simple” story is densely packed with social commentary, multivalent symbolism, and references to historical events, literature, and even films such as Suspiria and Psycho. While the short length seemed at times to pose some difficulty for the creators, with certain events lacking sufficient set up and characters feeling a bit thin for large parts of the story, the concise twelve-episode format ultimately worked in the show’s favor, making Yurikuma Arashi possibly Ikuhara’s most comprehensible and straightforward show to date. Combining Ikuhara’s signature artistry with surprising emotional force in the last third of the show, Yurikuma Arashi was one of the most interesting—and satisfying—shows of the year.

Missed it? Watch it now on Hulu

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma

Shokugeki no Soma happens to combine two things I dearly love: battle shounen and gourmet cooking. Following the journey of Soma Yukihira, a student at the highly competitive Totsuki Culinary Academy, this show never failed to entertain with its lively cast, Iron Chef-like epicurean competition, and, of course, its infamous reaction scenes. Shokugeki knows how to make the most of its ridiculous premise but also takes itself seriously when it counts—a quality that leads you to giggle over world-renowned chefs transforming into magical girls one minute, and to worry very earnestly about a character’s fate in the next. And, a particular win in my book, it nails the culinary details, from techniques to food trends. Although J.C. Staff’s adaptation was merely competent and didn’t add a tremendous amount of value to the source material, the staff got it right where it mattered and made Shokugeki no Soma one of the most purely fun shows I watched this year—hopefully, the second season continues to deliver in 2016.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll or Hulu

My Love Story! / Ore Monogatari

My Love Story! makes it onto this list by virtue of being sweet, fluffy, and endlessly heartwarming. While shoujo romance adaptations seem to get a bit thinner every year, My Love Story! (as well as shows like the lovely Akagami no Shirayukihime—which, before you ask, doesn’t qualify this year) remind us how good they can be in the right hands. My Love Story!, which distinguishes itself with a distinctly un-shoujo protagonist in the beefy Gouda Takeo, quickly eschews the typical will-they-won’t-they rollercoaster in favor of a story about how relationships (and friendships) grow over time. The story was matched with a fitting team at Madhouse (many of whom worked on the excellent Chihayafuru), which brought the manga source material to life with soft colors and enough shoujo sparkles to deck out the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Though the copious pastel bubbles and sweeter-than-sweet antics of Takeo and Rinko might plausibly make this show too saccharine for some tastes, My Love Story!’s slow romance and earnest optimism made it a treat for me this year.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll or Hulu

Blood Blockade Battlefront / Kekkai Sensen

With a setting that combines the grungy bustle of Manhattan with the alien squalor of the Mos Eisley Cantina and characters that range from vampires and magic wielders to diner waitresses and mushroom-shaped aliens, Blood Blockade Battlefront is a wonderful—but only semi-penetrable—spectacle. Revolving around the adventures of Leonardo Watch, a young man who has acquired a great power in rather unfortunate circumstances, Blood Blockade Battlefront showcases the amazing visual creativity of young director Matsumoto Rie, not to mention an incredible staff and cast. Like Matsumoto’s previous directorial effort, Kyousougiga, Blood Blockade Battlefront suffered from somewhat convoluted storytelling, and was further bogged down by scheduling issues that delayed the final episode for several months. Despite it all, however, this show was still one of the most imaginative airing this year, and certainly earned its spot here in the top ten.

Missed it? Watch it now on Hulu

Death Parade

That Death Parade exists at all feels like a small piece of good fortune, as I don’t think anyone quite expected to see the artsy Anime Mirai short Death Billiards expanded into a full length TV show. Set in a moody, atmospheric bar where hapless mortals come to be judged after death, Death Parade made good on the promise of the OVA, fleshing out its intriguing setting and equally intriguing cast through a series of tense encounters with the human souls passing through each week. Given the episodic nature of the show, dramatic payoff varied from story to story, and some were more effective than others. Yet this variety was also one of the strengths of Death Parade, allowing it to tell stories that ranged in tone from humorous and sweet to deeply dark and troubling. Death Parade represents the kind of evocative psychological drama that we aren’t treated to terribly often, and, in addition to exploring some interesting (and possibly quite pessimistic) ideas about the afterlife, contained some of the most lovely and poignant moments in anime this year.

Missed it? Watch it now on Hulu

Parasyte -the maxim-

For various reasons, including a lapsed Hollywood film option, the TV anime adaption of 90s sci-fi manga Parasyte was a long time coming—and when we finally got it this year, it was pretty darn good. Parasyte’s primary strengths lie in its story, which mixes the anxieties of young adulthood with the threat of a sinister alien invasion (and some healthy rumination about the nature of humanity), but most especially in its characters: the strange but touching relationship between Shinichi and Migi, host and parasite. Although the adaption certainly had its pitfalls—visuals were not always the most polished, the soundtrack never worked well for me, and the pace seemed to slow to a crawl every time Shinichi’s love interest got extended screen time—Parasyte has a certain timeless quality that makes it quite a compelling story in any format, as effective in 2015 as it was in 1995.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll or Hulu

Yona of the Dawn / Akatsuki no Yona

In comparison to the shows that bracket Yona of the Dawn on this list, I realize that Yona seems the odd one out—certainly it didn’t make as much of a splash as either Parasyte or One Punch Man. Nevertheless, this historical fantasy, following an exiled princess in a pseudo-historical Korea, was handily one of my favorite shows this year. Yona’s well-developed cast supports a thrilling and nuanced plot of political intrigue, action, and romance…also did I mention there are dragons? Director Kazuhiro Yoneda and Studio Pierrot’s polished and deliberately paced adaptation of Mizuho Kusanagi’s manga is about as faithful as any fan could ask for, and while the anime only makes it through what amounts to a prologue for the larger story, Yona of the Dawn is still very much worth the watch for those that haven’t discovered it yet.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll or Hulu

One Punch Man

This superhero gag comedy was one of the most anticipated shows this fall, and boy did it deliver. Following the exploits of the unflappable Saitama, a “hero for fun,” as well as his loyal student Genos and a slew of other eccentric heroes and villains, One Punch Man finds a winning formula in its mix of humorous absurdity with adrenaline-fueled action sequences that make your inner twelve year old cheer. In many ways, One Punch Man succeeds almost entirely on the strength of the love poured into it from everyone involved, from Yusuke Murata’s painstakingly detailed art in the manga to director Natsume Shingo and the rest of the staff’s amazing and passionate work bringing that art to life (more on this here). The only thing I have to complain about is that we only got twelve episodes—one can only hope that we’ll see another season of this incredibly fun show.

Missed it? Watch it now on Daisuki or Hulu

Shirobako

I’d like to say I had a difficult time deciding to put Shirobako at the top of my list this year, but the truth is that it wasn’t hard at all. This show could have been the most forgettable piece of fluff about cute girls making cute anime, but instead we got a surprisingly realistic show about the nitty gritty details of anime production. There are so many things to like about Shirobako: the lovable, large (but somehow never unwieldy) cast that made you want to cheer for their successes and cry at their failures; the winking references to real industry companies and people; the buoyant tone that kept things from getting melodramatic even when the going got tough for our heroes; the lively pacing that kept the show moving along rather too swiftly through its two cours. Plainly put, Shirobako is an anime that makes you love anime—and I don’t think I could do any better than that for my top anime of 2015.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll or Hulu

Didn’t see your favorite show from 2015 on here? Tell us your favorites from the year in the comments—or better yet, what you’re looking forward to in 2016!

NB: To qualify for this list, the titles were required to:

• End in 2015 (split-cour shows were counted as one season)
• Be legally available in English
• Not be a movie
• Not be a sequel

Kelly Quinn is sorry your favorite anime isn’t on this list. You can tell her how bad her taste is on Twitter.

In this ongoing series, we ask SF/F authors to describe a specialty in their lives that has nothing (or very little) to do with writing. Join us as we discover what draws authors to their various hobbies, how they fit into their daily lives, and how and they inform the author’s literary identity!

It’s shocking how easily perfectly innocent hobbies turn into rabbit holes.

So it was with me and anime. I’d been dabbling in it for years, watching the well-known classics, picking up anything that Studio Ghibli put out of course, keeping an eye open for any new Oshii movies. There’d been a time when I’d watched series, but eventually the effort of figuring out what was worth the effort had proven too great. In short, I’d become a casual fan, devoted to the medium in theory but in practice paddling around its edges.

Then—I don’t entirely know what happened.

I mean, I have a few ideas. At the end of 2013 I gave up my day job to concentrate on my writing, with the side effect that I suddenly had a little free time, a novelty I’d just about forgotten. I realized that my video rental service of choice had a good percentage of the series released over the last two decades, even some obscure titles I’d missed the last time through. I found myself a little disheartened with the mainstream western narratives I was seeing time and again, and feeling ready to broaden horizons that lack of time and energy had been narrowing over the years. In fact, I suppose that there were no end of reasons for me to get back into anime, which after all I’d never stopped feeling passionately about.

No, the point where it got weird and inexplicable was when I drifted into nineties anime.

And this time, I really don’t know how it happened. Suddenly, for no good reason, I found myself on a quest, where the goal was to lay my hands on every anime film or OVA (Original Video Animation. Generally a one-off special or a miniseries, with somewhat higher production values then you’d expect from an ongoing series.) produced between the end of the eighties and the start of the noughties, and within the considerable limitations of what had been released in the UK, a nation that never seems to have embraced anime to the same degree as America or the rest of Europe. The worst of it was, I had a holy grail in mind, and it was one I soon began to realize might be unattainable: I was hunting for lost classics.

Suddenly my casual interest was a rabbit hole and I was falling down into it. Because lost classics, it turns out, are rarer than you’d think, and yet that doesn’t make the temptation to hunt for them any the less strong. On the contrary: the more I discovered that a great deal of nineties anime had been uninspired, crudely animated, commercial and derivative, the surer I became that I was just looking in the wrong places, or perhaps looking in the right places but not seeing what I should be seeing.

A few months on and I’m viewing the entire experiment through somewhat more jaded eyes. But oh, the sights those eyes have witnessed! Ghost sweepers and mechanized pensioners, tentacle demons, half-dragon girls, combat archaeologists and giant robots of every conceivable shape, manner and form. I have no regrets. I’ve watched some things that could kindly be described as terrible, many that were profoundly silly, a few that were genuinely great, but I wouldn’t take any of it back.

Well, except for Dangaioh. That was pretty much dreadful.

Now, unless I really have been looking in the wrong places—and I’m not for a moment denying that possibility—there were not a lot of truly great anime movies and miniseries produced between the years 1990 and 2000. There’s a reason that the acknowledged masterpieces have become acknowledged masterpieces, and a reason they aren’t particularly great in number. On the other hand, though a great deal of nineties anime is less than perfect it’s also rarely less than entertaining. Sure, it’s full of tropes, but there are reasons that tropes become tropes. Frankly, if you hate watching giant robots punching each other then you probably also hate kittens and ice cream. Or kittens punching ice cream. Or giant robot kittens punching…

Wait, I had some sensible points to make here. Okay, here’s one: without vast amounts of study and specialist knowledge, it’s risky to make categorical statements about a subject as vast as anime—a term, in itself, so broad as to be meaningless—but even with that caveat, I think it’s fair to say that the nineties was a period of phenomenal transition for the medium. To pick one obvious but significant example, you can see the rise of computer-assisted animation, which made the representation of certain objects—vehicles, say, and buildings—both massively easier and more suited to complex representation. Some of the early incorporations of CG objects are painfully crude, but by the turn of the millennium it was being used all but invisibly, and allowing shots of a complexity that would have been unimaginable ten years earlier. Or, another obvious example, we’re looking at the decade that brought anime in a meaningful way to the West, and—surely not entirely a coincidence—the decade when Studio Ghibli and others, Production IG and Gainax amongst them, dared to suppose that the medium could produce works of genuine, lasting meaning and artistry.

Yet, as I read over the above paragraph, I find myself drawn back to my earlier point: a lot of this stuff was tremendously silly, rushed, cheap and about a thousand miles away from a Princess Mononoke or a Ghost in the Shell. Yet even at its worst it’s also full of energy and moments of genuine creativity, in a way that so much less-than-perfect art just isn’t. Yet…

It’s been a confusing experience, I suppose is my point.

Have I learned anything concrete? Hell, I don’t know. Maybe that sometimes just letting yourself obsess over something is a lot of fun in itself. Or—no, here goes—that when you employ artists to create something, then, however commercially minded the project, however low the budget, however strict the resources, those artists will sneak in moments of beauty and greatness: a gesture here, a lovely background there, a frame or two that’s a stunning example of the animator’s trade. And if you can train your mind to look for those flourishes, those moments of considered artistry, then there’s a huge amount of pleasure to be found in works that are not necessarily, objectively, what you might consider as good.

With all of that said, it seems mean not to end with a few recommendations—because while I may not have unearthed any lost classics, I did manage to stumble over a few that I’d personally been unaware of. I would advocate without hesitation for Orguss 02, Spriggan, Macross Plus: The Movie, Roujin Z and both Patlabor movies. I’d hesitantly suggest that Landlock and The Dark Myth are better than they generally get credit for. And anyone with a sense of humor should seek out Dragon Half immediately; it’s the most phenomenally silly thing you’ll ever witness.

And if you find yourself liking all of those, I’d suggest that there are worse ways to spend the better part of a year than watching all the nineties anime you can lay your hands on…

David Tallerman is the author of the Tales of Easie Damasco fantasy trilogy, the graphic novel Endangered Weapon B, and around a hundred short stories, comics, and film scripts. His novella Patchwerk comes out from Tor.com on January 19th.

I know we’re still exploring the “Old West”of Mistborn with the upcoming release of The Bands of Mourning (which sounds like it may be bananas) but first I have a couple of really important questions. 1.) Where are the allomantic/feruchemical mecha? and 2.) Give them to me.

The Wax & Wayne quadrilogy is beginning to raise a lot of questions about Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn universe, as well as his Cosmere at large. Why does Scadrial’s “new” god Harmony seem kind of negligent? What’s going on in the southern hemisphere, if anything? Why does it seem like no one on Scadrial ever takes a shower? And when will allomantic and feruchemical technology emerge?

It’s this last question that interests me as a Mistborn fan, not only because I think it eventually leads to faster-than-light travel, but because it’s just plain fun to think of modern day technology and how it could be improved or altered if people were able to imbue objects with allomantic or feruchemical abilities that could be used by normal folks. Steel hoverboards! Zinc-plated speaker systems at dance clubs! Temporal metal computer systems! Hell… combine this with hemalurgy and you would have a whole new field of medicine.

These are all fun ideas, according to my therapist, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed like being able to invest technology with allo/feru/hema abilities would be a societal tipping point for the world of Scadrial. Once access to these powers was so widely opened, once they stopped being “special” and became widespread foundational knowledge, then some really weird stuff would get developed. The only barrier would be the maker’s imagination.

So while I would really love to see how allo/feru/hema tech gets figured out in the first place, part of me also just wants to skip ahead to the really batty stuff. Give me allomantic mecha!*

*Why? Not important. Having a giant mecha is its own reason!

How would the allomantic powers be utilized in a mecha? Or a giant jaeger? Let’s go through the allomantic table and speculate madly.

PHYSICAL

Steel – This is perhaps the most important metal to consider when thinking about allomantic mecha, as this is the material a mecha would be constructed from. Steel is what makes skyscrapers possible, as it maintains its load-bearing strength without sacrificing flexibility. It is also extremely handy as a conduit material, allowing designers to channel vibrational forces into other materials, like concrete, that can safely absorb and negate them. Iron and carbon are abundant in the crust of rocky planets, and thanks to the discovery of the Bessemer process, steel is also easy to mass-produce with limited technology. (It also LOVES to rust and its pliable properties make it susceptible to forced resonance, but we’ll get to that.)

If the world of Scadrial figures out how to imbue allomantic abilities into technology, then the mere presence of a giant steel mecha would be a devastating weapon. Steel lets an allomancer push on other metals, flinging them away if they are of less weight than the individual pushing them. If a steel mecha is itself using an allomantic push, then the weight of that mecha would lend tremendous power to its allomantic pushes. A giant mecha could known down an entire building with a distant wave of its hand. And a jaeger could flatten an entire city before it ever reached it!

Iron – Iron enables an allomancer to “pull” other metals towards it. There would be a fair share of iron mixed in with the steel construction of a mecha, but as opposed to the offensive power steel would provide, iron and its allomantic abilities would probably be better used in ensuring the structural integrity of the mecha.

Due to the sheer size of a mecha (think everything from “slightly larger RoboCop” to “walking skyscraper”), each step it took would generate vibrational force, or shock, to the mecha’s frame. One consequence of this is that the shock would  rattle loose the thousands, if not millions, of connective parts between the machinery of the mecha. Iron supports and joints could alleviate this by absorbing the compressing and expanding forces of the shock, and by maintaining a precise allomantic “pull” with the metals around it. The pull would need to gauged in conjunction with steel-pushing, so that the movements and stress on the mecha are calculated exactly. Otherwise, too strong a pull might collapse the mecha, or too weak a pull would result in its leg parts flying away whenever it took a step.

Pewter – Pewter increases physical strength and endurance, and while that seems straightforward, it gets confusing when you apply it through technology. Is a person still burning pewter and applying its effects to the mecha, or can a mecha itself burn pewter? If the mecha can burn pewter, then that would undoubtedly be a huge help in making the mecha strong enough to prevent being torn apart by its own weight. This would raise the uncomfortable question of whether the mecha was sentient, however. And if burning pewter makes the mecha sentient, does that make it wrong for humans and allomancers to control it?

Tin – Burning tin to increase senses would be of the utmost important in a giant mecha. A mecha’s mechanical systems would require constant maintenance, and tin is a logical shortcut to creating effective and powerful internal and external sensors for a mecha.

There’s a question of how tin would function in this regard. If a machine is itself a sensor, then does pairing it with tin make the sensor more detailed? Does it increase that machine’s sensor range? Does it do anything to the machine’s functionality or does it only affect the end-user? For example, say we were pairing tin with a sphygmomanometer. Would it give a more detailed read-out of your blood pressure because it can sense minute changes more easily? Or would it simply make the person feel the machine’s pressure sleeve more intensely? Sphygmomanometer, you raise so many questions!

MENTAL

Zinc – Zinc, as an allomantic material that enflames emotions, would undoubtedly have a wide sphere of influence when used by a giant mecha. Would this be at all useful, though? Emotional manipulation is a delicate art, one based primarily on the context it is used within. A mecha dropping a zinc bomb (or field, or sphere, or whatever you want to call it) could enflame an entire city, but to what end? Zinc inflammation doesn’t immediately equal actual riots, so what good is it for?

Brass – Brass pacifies, and while that would be extremely useful in clearing out a swarm of opposition, (Imagine a bunch of fighter pilots suddenly giving up all at once!) it may not be useful for much else. Maybe making people less afraid of a giant mecha? Do not fear, people of Elendel Basin, Mecha-Wax is good! Mecha-Wax is friend to all children and animals!

Copper – Copper creates a cloud that hides allomantic pulses, but if you’re walking up to a city in a HUGE ROBOT THING then you’re obviously not trying to hide where you are and what you’re doing.

There’s an interesting side effect here in that a mecha’s myriad assortment of internal systems would be wired to each other through copper lines. An enemy infiltrating a giant jaeger may have a hard time locating key systems as a result. This is a handy fallback defense to infiltration of such a sizable jaeger-type weapon.

Bronze – Bronze senses allomantic use, which adds an extra category to the tin-enhanced sensors of a mecha. By pairing bronze and tin in a mecha, it probably wouldn’t be hard to build a livefeed screen that measures and tracks allomantic use in an area.

ENHANCEMENT

Duralumin & Nicrosil – Here is where things can get really fun in a mecha. A mecha would almost certainly want a duralumin engine (a battery of the metal, really) to drive its allomantic usage. This would make the mecha’s already titanic steelpushes even stronger, but to push this mecha even further into the territory of the truly insane, let’s consider the use of nicrosil “overdrive” units! A machine that burns and directs the enhancing power of nicrosil could be stationed within or around a mecha, but separated from the body and systems of that mecha, and activated when the mecha’s duralumin engine burns steel. These amplification effects could stack, creating a steelpush strong enough to crumple the very mecha that produces it from feedback alone!

Aside from weaponization, this set-up would be an effective mobility system for the mecha, granting it enough power to move rapidly in emergency situations.

Aluminum & Chromium – Where duralumin and nicrosil present opportunity, aluminum and chromium present some surprising roadblocks. While our mecha is made primarily of steel, supported with iron, and threaded through with copper, it’s also coated in chromium and stuffed with aluminum. Chromium, while brittle, is useful as a coating to prevent rust, and aluminum is a handy and abundant insulator. Both of these metals drain allomantic reserves, but they’re also necessary in the construction of the mecha, as a machine of that size and complexity will have issues with rust and heat generation. Aluminum in particular would be necessary to channel the tremendous amount of heat a jaeger’s movement and structure would both capture and produce. Ultimately, a mecha would have to include these two metals, because while it’s difficult to weaponize with them, it can’t even exist without them!

TEMPORAL

Gold – Along with zinc, gold is probably the most useless and unnecessary metal in a mecha, as its main ability is to let a user sees its own past. (Although maybe mecha are big on self-reflection, who knows.)

Electrum – This metal, which allows allomancers to see the future, would be an absolute necessity in the sensor system of a mecha. Not only would it allow the mecha to foresee and analyze incoming attacks, but it would allow for the construction of a perfect system of maintenance in a jaeger, alerting the jaeger and its crew to problems before they become disastrous.

Cadmium Bendalloy – Cadmium Bendalloy, which slows time for the user, pairs well with electrum in regards to anticipating and addressing attacks and problems. It could conceivably be used as a replacement for chromium, as well, in regards to preventing corrosion, although this strikes me as excessive. (Really? I’m writing an article about giant magical mecha and this strikes me as excessive?)

Bendalloy Cadmium – Bendalloy Cadmium has an unexpected but vital use in a jaeger: electrical power transmission. Jaeger will need huge amounts of power to run, but there’s a physical ceiling in regards to how much power a jaeger’s circuits can hold at once. Copper wires and circuits can be overloaded by excessive power loads, meaning that certain actions that a jaeger wants to take would be delayed by the transfer of power. It’s like filling up a glass of water. You can’t do it instantly because the faucet and the container can only hold so much at a time.

Bendalloy Cadmium could eliminate this delay if laced into the power system by speeding up the time it takes for power to transmit through the mecha. To the mecha and its crew, it would seem as if every system is always receiving maximum power!

As we can see, Mistborn’s magic system of allomancy makes mecha downright dreamy. Maybe we’ll see some way down the line!

And maybe we’ll see some that combine feruchemy and allomancy, too. That could be a truly unstoppable machine.

(Hm…)

(That’s not what Odium is, is it?)

Chris Lough writes about fantasy and superheroes and science and stuff on Tor.com. This kind of article is essentially what happens when you read Mistborn and play Xenoblade at the same time. His website has more writings.

The winter anime season is cracking along, and with a few episodes of new shows under our belts, it’s time to carry on with the keepers and drop the duds back into the 2D oblivion from whence they came. In addition to some strong carryovers from fall, such as Haikyu!! and Osomatsu-san, winter sees some highly anticipated continuations (Akagami no Shirayukihime, GATE, Durarara!!) as well as the usual slew of new stuff. This season is shaping up to be a bit of an odd one, with two runaway favorites dominating the conversation while the rest of the season floats somewhere between “not bad” and “please don’t make we watch another five minutes of this.”

As usual, we’ve picked the best of the new anime for your viewing pleasure, from a not-to-be-missed fantasy thriller to a peculiar comedy featuring Japanese candy. Simulcasts are just a click away, so snuggle up in that down comforter and check out our five top picks for winter!

ERASED / Boku Dake ga Inai Machi

Twenty-nine-year-old Satoru Fujinuma dreams of being a manga artist, but, after repeated rejections, scrapes by as a pizza delivery driver in Tokyo. Increasingly, his mundane life has been interrupted by a strange supernatural phenomenon in which he suddenly finds himself sent back a few minutes in time in order to prevent some death or disaster around him. When someone close to him is killed, Fujinuma is once again thrust into the past—but this time, not by minutes, but decades. Fujinuma awakens eighteen years in the past as an elementary schooler, just weeks before a childhood classmate, Kayo Hinazuki (voiced by Aoi Yuki), was kidnapped and killed. Now Fujinuma (Shinnosuke Mitsushima as an adult, Tao Tsuchiya as a child) must not only save Hinazuki, but discover how the murder in his past is connected to the terrible events of his present.

This seinen thriller, based on a highly regarded manga by Kei Sanabe, was widely anticipated going into winter season, and after three episodes I can certainly see why. The introspective Fujinuma leads a fascinating cast of fully realized characters brought to life by strong voice talent (Shinnosuke Mitsushima and Tao Tsuchiya play especially well off of each other as the adult and child Fujinuma). Excellent direction and pacing from Noitamina veteran Tomohiko Ito (Silver Spoon, Sword Art Online), along with polished art and expressive animation, make this show a pleasure to watch. Best of all, BokuMachi’s gripping plot and tense atmosphere leave viewers craving the next episode every week—this is the kind of show that makes you want to marathon the whole thing in one go. I’m not sure if I can write more about this one without spoilers, so suffice it to say that BokuMachi is very good indeed so far. If you watch one show this season, make it this one.

For fans of: Steins;Gate, Death Parade, Subete ga F ni Naru

Watch it now on Crunchyroll, Hulu, or Daisuki.

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju begins with the release of a young delinquent (Tomokazu Seki) from prison. Although he has nothing but the clothes on his back—and those only recently acquired—he is determined to track down Yuurakutei Yakumo (Akira Ishida), a respected master of rakugo (a form of traditional comedic storytelling), in order to become his student. Yakumo has consistently refused to take apprentices, but when the young man, who he nicknames “Yotaro,” explains how he fell in love with rakugo whilst watching Yakumo perform at the prison, the master shocks everyone by taking the ex-con as his first student. Yotaro soon comes to realize that the master he admires is a man haunted by the past, and that his reasons for accepting him as a student may be entwined with the tragic death of his closest friend and colleague, Sukeroku (Koichi Yamadera).

This lush historical drama is adapted from an award-winning josei manga by Haruko Kumota. Rakugo Shinju is the kind of anime we are not treated to often: mature, measured, and deliberate, this show is very much focused on the human drama of its small cast, and is content to take its time creating atmosphere and dwelling on its characters’ smallest conversations and gestures. Director Mamoru Hatakeyama (Sankarea) skillfully uses the “camera” to direct viewers’ attention during the rakugo scenes, bringing the stories to life even for those totally unfamiliar with this kind of performance. An outstanding veteran voice cast, including Tomokazu Seki (Sagara Sousuke, Shinya Kougami), Akira Ishida (Kaworu Nagisa, Koutaro Katsura), Koichi Yamadera (Spike Spiegel) and Megumi Hayashibara (Rei Ayanami, Lina Inverse), further bolsters this impressive production. Although the pacing in the double-length first episode is a bit disjointed (it was apparently cut down from a longer OVA), Rakugo Shinju hits its stride in the second and third episodes and shows no signs of any drop in quality. Another one not to be missed this season.

For fans of: Sakamichi no Apollon, Natsuyuki Rendezvous, House of Five Leaves, the obligatory Joshiraku

Watch it now on Crunchyroll.

Dagashi Kashi

Kokonotsu Shikada (Abe Atsushi), known to his friends as Coconuts, lives in a small rural town with his father, who owns a shop that sells dagashi: small snacks and sweets beloved of children with pocket money to burn. While Kokonotsu’s father dreams of his son taking over the family shop, Kokonotsu has ambitions of becoming a famous manga artist (seeing a pattern this season?), and is determined to leave his small town—and his father’s dagashi shop—in the dust. Kokonotsu’s life is turned upside down (surprise!) when Hotaru Shidare (Ayana Taketatsu), the eccentric daughter of a famous candy manufacturer, arrives at his father’s shop.

Dagashi Kashi is bog standard shounen romcom fare at heart, with its unique angle obviously coming from its focus on obscure Japanese candy. How much you enjoy this show will really depend on how amusing you find Hotaru’s bizarre antics and how interested you are in learning about foreign snacks—but as of the first three episodes, both of those things are working pretty well for me. Hotaru’s complete and utter weirdness keeps things unpredictable and entertaining enough to get a few laughs out of me each week, and so far the adaptation of Kotoyama’s manga by animation studio feel. (which I’m apparently not allowed to capitalize) has been consistent and well executed. Dagashi Kashi is worth a look for anyone in the mood for a light and wacky comedy.

For fans of: Jitsu wa Watashi wa, Seto no Hanayome, Majimoji Rurumo, Mysterious Girlfriend X

Watch it now on Daisuki or Hulu.

Dimension W

In the year 2072, the discovery of the W dimension has allowed the monopolistic New Tesla corporation to provide the world with an unlimited source of energy, extracted and distributed in the form of small devices called coils. Along with the officially distributed coils, there exists a black market for illegal coils, which tap into a dangerous amount of Dimension W’s power. Kyouma Mabuchi (Daisuke Ono), a grumpy luddite with a passion for classic cars, is a Collector who makes a living recovering such illegal coils from the criminals who use them. When a collection job gets Kyouma involved with Mira (Reina Ueda), a unique android created by the secretive founder of New Tesla, Kyouma finds himself with a new and unlikely partner.

This seinen science fiction show is based on a manga by Yuji Iwahara, who will be known to most as the character designer for Darker Than Black. Indeed, the Darker Than Black vibes are strong here in more ways than one, given the near-future setting and the loner protagonist that uses knives and wires as his weapons of choice. Said protagonist is—so far, at least—a rather dull curmudgeon who brings little of interest to the show; on the other hand, I find myself liking Mira more and more, and hope she continues to take center stage as the show progresses. Relatively new animation studio 3hz and 3DCG studio Orange bring some nice visual flair to this series under the direction of veteran Kanta Kamei (Usagi Drop, Nanana’s Buried Treasure), and suggestions of an overarching plot promise to raise the stakes soon enough. A solid, if not groundbreaking, sci-fi action series to follow this season.

For fans of: Darker Than Black, Psycho-Pass, Tetsuwan Birdy Decode, Un-Go

Watch it now on Funimation or Hulu.

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash / Hai to Gensou no Grimgar

Haruhiro (Yoshimasa Hosoya) awakes one day in the RPG-like world of Grimgar, with no memory of how he got there or his life before he arrived. Though he soon meets other people, like him, they remember nothing but their own name. Haruhiro and his friends are told to form a party, learn fighting techniques, and kill enemies as part of the city’s volunteer guard, but do any of the them have the skills—or the nerve—to do what it takes to to survive in their new world?

Yes, I am also surprised to see this light novel adaptation make my list this season, not least because it is about the 492nd iteration of the “oh dear, we’re living in an MMORPG” premise we’ve seen in the last few years. Granted, this show is more visually enticing than some of its generic cousins: director Ryosuke Nakamura (Aiura) and A-1 Pictures (Sword Art Online, GATE) have bestowed Grimgar with lovely watercolor backgrounds, a soft palette, and some skillfully animated scenes. But the main reason this show is here is that, after three episodes, I’m still rather interested in finding out what exactly this show is try to do with the genre. So far, Grimgar has been subdued and contemplative, punctuated by surprisingly brutal moments as the protagonists struggle their way through an alien landscape that none of them seem particularly equipped to deal with. Add in the mystery of how the cast arrived in the world, and I’m beginning to wonder if Grimgar is aiming to be the Haibane Renmei of the stuck-in-a-video-game genre. Or perhaps just a sincere effort to bring awareness to the suffering of virtual goblins. Whatever it is, for those looking for something somewhat different in a pretty tired genre, Grimgar may be intriguing enough to try this season.

For fans of: Sword Art Online, Accel World, Btooom!, Log Horizon, No Game No Life, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Overlord, GATE, KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World!

Watch it now on Hulu or Funimation.

Nothing here catch your eye? Check out the full winter roster here, and be sure to let us know what you’re watching this season in the comments!

Kelly Quinn recommends everyone who hasn’t picked up Osomatsu-san yet rethink their decisions. Tell her how bad her taste is on Twitter.

Kotaku has shared the most wonderful thing: chibi Harry Potter! And not just any chibi Harry Potter, but official anime designs for Harry Potter:

Warner Bros. Japan has officially licensed these illustrations for a series of Harry Potter goods that will go on sale within the country. So far, the designs have been limited to things like folder files, buttons, rubber stamps, and keychains.

Buttons? Rubber Stamps? Keychains??? Come on, guys, we want squishy plushy things, and we want ’em now! Click through to see the character designs, and bow before the power of Buckbeak!

See? Look at Buckbeak:

Here are an-even-more-mischevious-than-usual Fred and George:

And Draco is somehow more adorable than Ron? How is this possible? At least Sirius’ brooding personality has survived chibification.

Actually, as long as we’re making demands, we’ll second Kotaku and formally request an anime adaptation.

[via Kotaku!]

In this ongoing series, we ask SF/F authors to describe a specialty in their lives that has nothing (or very little) to do with writing. Join us as we discover what draws authors to their various hobbies, how they fit into their daily lives, and how and they inform the author’s literary identity!

I have often been asked why I am so interested in animation, and in anime specifically. What I think it comes down to is genre—what I’m really into is SFF, and as a teenager growing up in the 90s, at least in terms of television, animation was the best place to get it. Every so often a live-action show would break through (Babylon 5 played a big role in my formative years) but in animation virtually every show had an SF or fantasy element.

In the early 90s, a few U.S. TV companies had gotten the idea that mining the booming Japanese animation industry could serve as a cheap source of cartoons for the American market. Respect for the source material was low to non-existent—the idea was that the footage, which cost next to nothing to license, could be sliced up as needed and combined with dubbing to create shows. The grandfather of this trend was of course Carl Macek’s Robotech, which splices together three Japanese shows (Macross, Mospeada, and Southern Cross) into a single extended continuity. (Which almost worked, visually, since the ultra-successful Macross‘ style had been widely copied.) That was before my time, though I saw it eventually, but at age twelve or thirteen I had Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball.

Perhaps most influentially among me and my friends, we watched Teknoman, the U.S. adaptation of the series Tekkaman Blade. I’m not actually sure at what point I really understood that this was originally from Japan, but we knew fairly early on that it was different; dark, weird (Tekkaman starts with most of Earth being destroyed), with a plot that continued from episode to episode and a willingness to kill characters and bring in new ones. This gave it pride of place over the U.S. cartoons that were in endless syndication (think G.I. Joe, He-Man, and so on) with their episodic, tame stories and toy-lineup casts.

The next step was into anime proper, courtesy of the SciFi Channel (as it was then spelled) and its Saturday Anime block. This started in 1995, and showed, in retrospect, an astonishing variety of stuff. It had everything we’d liked about Tekkaman and more—it was dark, story-driven, and weird. SciFi was running these on the cheap, even by the standards of anime adaptations at the time, which made things even stranger. They would often have some episodes of a series but not others, and rather than recut or censor the casual nudity that was such of feature of anime at the time they would simply drop whole chunks of a show with no explanation. The dubs were, to put it mildly, sub-par, with the same team doing so many shows that we got to recognize them. And yet we were hooked. We wanted more!

I honestly forget who it was that first showed us around Chinatown in NYC. It is probably a succinct description of my suburban upbringing to say that taking the subway down to Canal Street felt slightly daring. There was a mall there, full of strange products with incomprehensible labels, and in the basement of this mall there was a guy who sold anime. This was an extremely shady sort of operation, with shelves that could be swung closed and packed into the back of a van at a moment’s notice. But in terms of price and selection, it blew away anything you could find at the record store. (Anime was for some reason sold at record stores? Does anyone else remember that?) Home we came, backpacks bursting with Nth-generation tapes.

This was the first time I really considered myself an anime fan. Instead of just watching what was on TV, we made special trips to acquire our favorites, and even knew (through third-hand translations of BBS posts) when new stuff was coming out. Not coincidentally, this period also saw the release of Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was one of those era-defining classics that forever divides a genre into “before” and “after.”

That single show encapsulates both the highs and lows of anime for U.S. fans. It had parts that were spectacularly good, so that setting them beside something like He-Man seemed like a joke. It had parts that were incredibly strange or incomprehensible, which brought with them endless debates about whether the translators were doing a good job and whether there was some bit of Japanese culture we were missing that would explain things. It was more R-rated then anything U.S. media would sanction for fifteen-year-olds, sometimes in completely baffling ways. And it was unquestionably brilliant but, ultimately, unsatisfying. (Inasmuch as the ending is more of a chronicle of the director’s descent into depression and madness than a coherent story.)

When I left for college, in 1999, it was in the post-Eva world. My viewing had declined somewhat from the glory days of our runs to Chinatown, but I thought I was more or less keeping up with the times. When I arrived at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, I was happy to see that two doors down from me in our freshman dorm someone had already hung an anime poster on his door. Something to talk about! I said hello.

“Have you seen Neon Genesis Evangelion?” I said, very impressed with myself.

The guy, whose name was Konstantin, said he had. Then he showed me his anime collection. I was expecting something like mine, a double handful of tapes; instead, Konstantin had a cardboard box of perhaps two cubic meters in volume, full literally to bursting with VHS cassettes. I couldn’t even lift it.

That was when I went from a mere fan to a lost cause. Konstantin and I watched through all the classic 90s series that I’d missed—Slayers, Rurouni Kenshin, Card Captor Sakura, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and on and on. Sometimes they were on copied tapes that were so bad they’d fritz out and become unwatchable, so we’d have to piece together stories like archaeologists working from incomplete texts. We joined (and later ran) Vermillion, the CMU anime club, which was plugged in to a cross-country network of fansubbers who mailed one another amateur translations of new shows.

Getting my tapes from Chinatown turned out to be fortuitous, because it meant I’d been watching subtitled shows instead of dubs. The 90s and early 2000s were the heyday of the format wars, fought between the (evil, untrustworthy) side that favored English dubs and the (righteous, correct) side that preferred subtitles. This was a big issue because tapes could only have one or the other, and the whole conflict went away after the switch to DVDs, which could hold both. Ironically, this was also about the time dubs went from “three guys in the producer’s basement” to real, professional productions I could actually watch. [Nowadays I even have friends in the dubbing industry, like Apphia Yu (also a Vermillion member!) and Cassandra Lee Morris, who narrates my Forbidden Library audiobooks!] It just goes to show that even the most gruesome conflicts fade away with time.

The next big change was the internet, obviously. Napster arrived in 2000, and with it the idea of peer-to-peer file-sharing. CMU had a fast internal network, so sending video around was practical long before that became possible more broadly. A number of networks came and went, squashed by IT or by legal challenges, and anime clubs and fansub groups started running their own invitation-only FTP servers, with logins jealously guarded to preserve precious bandwidth. A bunch of fellow computer science students and I set up a massive (for the time, which meant something like six HUNDRED gigabytes!) server and made ourselves popular in those circles, although not with campus IT. (It was called Bloodgod, after Warhammer 40,000’s Khorne; this is why bloodgod.com still goes to my website! Its shorter-lived partner was called Skullthrone.)

Finally, BitTorrent blew all that wide open. It’s hard to overstate the effect this had on the social scene; anime groups had been insular, jealously hording their stashes and doling them out to privileged followers. With BitTorrent, the more people who shared something, the faster it went—overnight, the social landscape became open and sharing. It was the end of the anime club’s special position, but I wasn’t sorry to see it go.

That brings us roughly to the modern era. (Sort of. There’s the rise of streaming, but that’s another article.) I still watch anime with Konstantin (whose meticulously-detailed collection can be seen here) and even blogged about it for a while at SF Signal. And it’s filtered into my writing in interesting ways. In my series The Forbidden Library, for example, the image of an endless library of worlds owes a lot to the anime Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito (literally Travelers in Darkness with Book and Hat, or something similar), while the magic system, where Readers must subdue magical creatures and can later use their powers, was inspired by of Card Captor Sakura with a dash of Pokemon.

TV is getting a lot better than it once was for SFF fans, and nobody is more excited about it than I am. Even today, though, anime lives and breathes the genre in a way few live-action shows do. I’m a fan, and I don’t plan to stop watching!

P.S. Go watch Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. Trust me. You won’t be sorry.

Top image from Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death & Rebirth.

Django Wexler is a self-proclaimed computer/fantasy/sci-fi geek. He graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in creative writing and computer science, worked in artificial intelligence research and as a programmer/writer for Microsoft, and is now a full-time fantasy writer. Django is the author of The Forbidden Library series, as well as the adult fantasy series The Shadow Campaigns. He lives near Seattle, Washington. Follow him on Twitter at @DjangoWexler.

Maybe it’s the flowers blooming or the lovely warm weather outside that makes this time of year so pleasant… or perhaps it’s the remarkably good season of new spring anime that’s lifting my mood.

Spring season features a long list of worthy contenders, including the fourth installment of fan-favorite JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and a new entry in the venerable Macross franchise, in addition to a host of new shows. As always, we’ve picked the most promising of the new stuff, and boy is it an eclectic mix this season: we’ve got cartoons ranging from superhero adventure to surreal school comedy to fantasy slice of life. With simulcasts a mere click away, there’s no time like the present—read on for six of this season’s best shows that you can watch right now.

My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia

In a world where the majority of the planet’s population has manifested superhuman powers called “Quirks,” Izuku Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita) is one of the powerless minority. Despite being Quirkless, he has always dreamed of being one of the brave heroes that defend society from those who would use their Quirks for evil. When an encounter with a villain puts Izuku face to face with the hero he admires most of all, the invincible All Might (Kenta Miyake), Izuku is given a chance to pursue his dream in a way he never expected.

This highly anticipated manga adaptation puts a shonen spin on the superhero genre. Although Izuku’s story is textbook Shonen Jump material (underdog dauntlessly pursues his larger-than-life dream), author Horikoshi keeps things interesting with a large dose of influence from American comics and a winning cast full of colorful characters and weird superpowers. My Hero Academia is off to a running start under the direction of Kenji Nagasaki (Gundam Build Fighters) at studio Bones (Noragami, Akagami no Shirayukihime), and the dynamic visuals are supported by a heroic score from Yuuki Hayashi (Haikyu!, Gundam Build Fighters). Expect this show to only improve as the rest of the cast is introduced.

For fans of: One Punch Man, Tiger and Bunny, Naruto, Blue Exorcist/Ao no Exorcist

Watch it now on Funimation & Hulu

Bungo Stray Dogs

After being kicked out of his orphanage, Atsushi Nakajima (Yuto Uemura) wanders the streets of Yokohama penniless, hopeless, and hungry. His fortune changes when he rescues a man, Osamu Dazai (Mamoru Miyano), attempting to drown himself in the river. Dazai and his companion Doppo Kunikida (Yoshimasa Hosoya) are members of the Armed Detective Agency, a group of private detectives rumored to possess supernatural powers that allow them take on cases beyond the ability of the police. And by a wonderful coincidence, it just so happens that Atsushi himself may be the key the their latest case.

Another manga adaptation with plenty of hype behind it, this fantasy-action show’s major gimmick lies in the fact that most of the characters are named after Japanese literary figures. Never fear—little knowledge of literature is actually required (though it is worth noting that the historical Osamu Dazai did in fact commit suicide by drowning in a river…pretty dark stuff). Led by director/writer duo Takuya Igarashi and Yoji Enokido (Ouran High School Host Club, Star Driver) at animation studio Bones, Bungo Stray Dogs boasts the polished art and animation one would expect from this team. After a flashy, fast-paced opening, Bungo Stray Dogs now seems to be trying to strike a tonal balance between goofy comedy and a serious action plot—but at the moment, I find both aspects sufficiently entertaining, and am looking forward to the rest of the season.

For fans of: Durarara!!, Bakemonogatari, Blood Blockade Battlefront/Kekkai Sensen, Noragami

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto / Sakamoto desu ga?

High school student Sakamoto (Hikaru Midorikawa) is smart, athletic, and mysteriously aloof. Girls admire him, boys envy him, teachers are amazed by his accomplishments, small animals and infants are soothed by his very presence. In short, Sakamoto is the coolest high schooler on this planet, and probably on any other you care to name.

Adapted from Nami Sano’s almost inexplicably popular manga, Sakamoto desu ga? thrives on a strange chemistry born from a mix of absurdist humor with parody of high school tropes. The comedy here lies as much in Sakamoto’s antics as in the other characters’ reactions to him, especially as he slowly wins over potential enemies with his superhuman coolness—though as much as I try to explain it, this show really needs to be seen to be understood. Helmed by veteran comedy director Shinji Takamatsu (Daily Lives of High School Boys, Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE!) at Studio Deen (Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, KonoSuba), Sakamoto is in excellent hands, and I anticipate another twelve episodes as funny as the first.

For fans of: Daily Lives of High School Boys, Cromartie High School, Gintama, Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita/Humanity Has Declined, Nichijou, Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Flying Witch

Fifteen-year-old Makoto Kowata (Minami Shinoda) has recently moved in with her relatives in the countryside of Aomori to attend high school. Aomori is peaceful, quiet, and surrounded by nature—an ideal place to complete Makoto’s training as a young witch. Makoto and her cousins Kei (Shinsuke Sugawara) and Chinatsu (Eri Suzuki) spend their days going to school, enjoying country life, and meeting new friends… both human and supernatural.

Based on a manga by Chihiro Ishizuka and adapted by JC Staff (Shokugeki no Soma, DanMachi), this charming slice of life show follows the everyday adventures of a teenage witch-in-training. Flying Witch has a slow, measured rhythm to its storytelling and comedy (the characters even walk slowly) that tends to lull you into its peaceful world, where mundane activities such as frying tempura are blended seamlessly and matter-of-factly with supernatural visitors and flying brooms. An excellent entry this season for those who enjoy funny, comfy, slice of life as well as understated fantasy.

For fans of: Natsume Yuujinchou, Barakamon, Silver Spoon

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Kiznaiver

High school student Katsuhira Agata (Yuki Kaji) has been a target of bullying ever since he can remember, in part due to his strange inability to feel pain. The significance of this trait becomes apparent when classmate Noriko Sonozaki (Hibiku Yamamura) reveals to Katsuhira that he and six of his classmates have been chosen for a program in which they are to be connected by the Kizuna System, an experimental technology which allows them to share the effects of their wounds—and pain—with the rest of the group. Now this collection of disparate personalities, assembled like some kind of anime Breakfast Club (the delinquent, the basketcase, the playboy, the childhood friend…), dubbed “Kiznaiver,” will be forced to work together towards the unknown goals of the Kizuna System’s developers.

The latest original project from Studio Trigger (Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia), this science-fiction thriller is off to an intriguing, though not wholly engrossing, start. On a superficial level, the show is appealingly stylish, with attractive character designs and some of Trigger’s signature visual quirks in evidence. Yet the first two episodes have been heavy on exposition and short on reasons to invest in the characters’ personal stories. Writer Mari Okada (AnoHana, Nagi no Asukara) is a controversial figure whose work is often either loved or reviled by fans, and director Hiroshi Kobayashi is rather untested in his role. I’ll be interested to see if subsequent episodes develop the characters into more than the stereotypes they are meant to embody, and give us a reason to care about the fate of the Kiznaiver team.

For fans of: Bakemonogatari, Mekakucity Actors, Gatchaman Crowds, Star Driver

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress / Koutetsujou no Kabaneri

After the outbreak of a disease that turns people into zombie-like Kabane, monsters that attack humans indiscriminately and infect with a single bite, humanity has retreated behind walled cities connected by armored steam trains. Protagonist Ikoma (Tasuku Hatanaka) is a steam smith who makes a living maintaining the trains that come through his station, while secretly working to develop a weapon that can pierce and destroy the tough hearts of the Kabane. When the station experiences a devastating outbreak, Ikoma is finally given a chance to test his weapon and fight back against the Kabane.

First off, let’s get the Titan out of the room—this is an anime-original show by the same director (Tetsuro Araki) and studio (Wit Studio) that adapted Attack on Titan, and has a very similar premise and some very similar visuals and very similar themes. That said, it also has a cool steampunk-meets-Edo-era aesthetic and a strong first episode that promises plenty of zombie-killing action to come (and not insignificantly, the protagonist seems rather less annoying than Eren). Although Kabaneri is shamlessly tapping into the popularity of its predecessor, I’ll be interested to see if Araki and his team plan to play with the world and themes in Kabaneri enough to say something original here.

For fans of: Attack on Titan (duh), Last Exile, Owari no Seraph, Knights of Sidonia

Watch in now on Amazon Prime Video

Nothing here catch your eye? Love something I left out? Be sure to let us know what you’re watching this season in the comments!

Kelly Quinn will only be responding to comments from Savage Garden fans. Tell her how bad her taste is on Twitter.

Warner Brothers had been trying to develop a Speed Racer film for nearly two decades, but the project never really launched until it was suggested that perhaps the Wachowskis should direct something beneath an R-rating to introduce them to family audiences.

The movie wasn’t very well received, and that’s wrong. Cosmically wrong. Speed Racer is brilliant.

This was the only Wachowski film I hadn’t seen before starting this rewatch (2008 was a busy year). So this was actually a first watch for me, and I had no idea what I was in for. Per instructions from my colleague Leah, I went to Hulu first to watch an episode of the 1960s cartoon for reference. This proved to be useful for a few reasons; I now know the theme song; I had an idea of what I was in for in terms of characters and plots and relationships (the Racer family littlest brother has a pet chimpanzee that he likes to pal around with, for example); I walked in knowing that Speed Racer was an actual name, not some cute nickname or callsign. Having watched that episode, I was considerably more nervous about the film—what about this show could possibly make for entertaining cinema?

About ten minutes in, I found myself shouting: “Why don’t people like this movie? Why don’t I hear anyone talk about it? This movie is AMAZING.” I took to Facebook to demand an explanation, and found that many of my friends love Speed Racer, which gives me hope that it will enter the realm of cult classic sooner rather than later. My most profound reaction was, explicitly: I want to eat this movie.

And when I say that, I don’t just mean wow it’s full of pretty colors and everything looks like candy om nom nom. I mean I literally want to ingest this film and somehow incorporate it into my being, have it leak out through my pores, and then coat the world in its light. I want to feel the way that movie makes me feel every damn day.

I’m pretty sure that’s the highest compliment I can give a movie.

That isn’t to say that Speed Racer is the paragon of cinema, or that it is the greatest piece of art ever produced. But in the realm of uniqueness, there is absolutely nothing like it in American cinema, nothing that even tries. It is cheeseball and violently colorful and blatantly anti-capitalist and so very eager it makes me want to cry. And like every other Wachowski film, it is about love and family and supporting one another and making the world a better place.

Look, I’m not a race car person. I’m also not a sports movie person because they all feel roughly the same to me—the emotional beats all add up to the same peaks and valleys every time. But Speed Racer is a race car movie and a sports movie, and I would watch every sports movie in the world if they were all like this.

Did I mention that the villain was capitalism? Yup.

For the uninitiated, the Racer family is in the car business (through their small independent company Racer Motors), and Speed’s older brother Rex used to be the one who raced family cars in various tournaments. He died in a dangerous race, the Casa Cristo 5000, and Speed took up the family mantle—driving his brother’s old cars, clearly every bit as talented as his brother was. His success prompts E.P. Arnold Royalton of Royalton Industries to take interest in sponsoring Speed, promising to take him all the way to Grand Prix in style and privilege. Speed decides not to take the spot, and Royalton reveals that the Grand Prix has always been a fixed race to help corporate interests, then vows to destroy Speed’s racing career and his family for turning down the offer. Speed is contacted by Inspector Detector of the corporate crimes division, who wants Speed to help him expose criminal activity in Royalton Indutries. Speed agrees, but Royalton does as promised and wipes him out during an important qualifying race, shortly after suing Speed’s father for intellectual property infringement and dragging their family business through the mud.

Speed decides to join the dangerous rally that his brother died racing in because Inspector Detector says it could get him to the Grand Prix—Taejo Togokahn wants him and the mysterious Racer X (who Speed suspects is truly his brother, Rex) on his team for the Casa Cristo 5000 to prevent his family’s business from being bought out by Royalton. Speed’s family is horrified that he’s entered the rally, but choose to stand by him and help. Their team wins the race, but the Togokahn family turns around and simply sells their company to Royalton at a higher price, their true plan all along. Taejo’s sister feels this is wrong, so she gives Speed her brother’s invitation to race in the Grand Prix. Speed wins the race against all odds, exposing Royalton’s racer for cheating in the process and ruining his company.

It sounds simple as can be, but this film is startlingly bright for such a hammer-heavy premise. A lot of that comes down to the cast, who are so earnest in their cartoonish roles that it’s hard to be bothered by how over-the-top everything is. Speed’s parents (whose first names are literally Mom and Pops) are Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, for crying out loud, so there’s really no way that the movie was aiming for jovial mediocrity. Emile Hirsch plays Speed with such a serious brand of goodness that you can’t help but like him even when his character is as Stock Hero as they come. Christina Ricci is so forcefully wide-eyed as his girlfriend Trixie that the strangeness of the character loops back around into a completely enjoyable figure.

This is not a film for the faint of concentration. I can’t help but wonder if this movie didn’t do well initially because it was billed as a family affair, something fun and easy that required little investment. In reality, the plot is awfully complex and so is the timeline. (The very first race we witness flashes back and forth between Speed’s race and one of Rex’s old races, and the integration is so seamless that it can be hard to track, if gorgeous.) If you’re only in the market for mindless action, Speed Racer will not fit the bill.

But if you are in the mood for some of the most glorious car racing sequences in film history, go no further. The action in Speed Racer is top notch in every sense, as though everything the Wachowskis worked on in the Matrix trilogy was simply a warm up. The hand-to-hand combat scenes are also a treat for fully absorbing anime stylization into a live-action setting. (I’d argue that it’s better than Tarantino’s work in Kill Bill, if only because the choice to go full camp is beautiful.) This is even more pronounced whenever Speed’s little brother Spritle wants to join the fray—all fights essentially occur in his head, where he can emulate his favorite television heroes. The film also does an excellent job of showing the world from a child’s perspective on more than one occasion, and it prevents Spritle and his pal chimpanzee Chim Chim from becoming an irritating kiddie distraction throughout the movie.

The anti-capitalist commentary is just plain scathing, and it’s great fun to watch. Royalton (Roger Allam, back from V for Vendetta) lands in front of the Racer home in a helicopter, basically invites himself in, and when he tastes Mom Racer’s pancakes, he insists that he wants to buy her recipe. Mom tells him that she’d be happy to give it to him for free, but Royalton is adamant, talking about getting his lawyer to draw up the paperwork. The meaning here is clear—Mom’s cherished, comforting family recipes, willingly given out to appreciative guests, mean nothing to Royalton but capital. He tells her “pancakes are love,” but everything is meant to be exploited, everything exists for potential gain, even that love. When he tries to woo Speed over to his company for sponsorship, Pops makes a point of saying that Racer Motors has always run as a small independent in these races. He gives a sharp line about how the bigger a company gets, the more power it amasses, the more the people in charge of it seem to think that rules don’t apply to them. And Speed, being a good kid, listens to his Pops.

Royalton is every inch the mustache-twirling cardboard cut-out that he needs to be. In a world where we’ve seen how well money and power corrupts on a corporate level, it’s far more enjoyable to view it from the distance that such a comical portrayal provides. But more to the point, it’s jarring when you finally realize that this is an anti-capitalist blockbuster film bankrolled by Hollywood. While it’s doubtful that the studio execs failed to notice, everyone involved still ultimately voted in favor of this angle, and that all by itself is weirdly heartening to see.

The theme of the day is family, and while that is a constant in all Wachowski works, here it is showcased on a more fundamental level. Rather than dealing with the concept of created or found families, Speed Racer is primarily concerned with given ones. This is a story about relationships between parents and children, between siblings and significant others. But rather than making a single-room drama showcasing the complexities of those family networks, the Wachowskis cut it down to essence, to an ideal, and blow it up to marquee size—family are the people who are there for you no matter what. Family doesn’t put you down, family doesn’t make you feel small or less than you are, family doesn’t walk away when you need their support. Family is capable of articulating their failures and working on past mistakes. Family is all you need to succeed.

On the other hand, with parents named “Mom” and “Pops,” these characters are clearly meant as stand-ins for everyone’s family, and they enact those roles at every turn, extending themselves to Sparky the team mechanic, and Trixie as well. It doesn’t come without any struggle whatsoever—Pops takes Speed aside halfway through the film to acknowledge his failings with Rex, and how he plants to do better by giving Speed the space he needs to take his own journey—but this crew never gives up on one another. The Togokahn family is meant as a juxtaposition to this. Yu Nan, Taejo’s sister, has her opinion and efforts repeatedly ignored by the brother and father, resulting in her betrayal when she gives Speed the Grand Prix invitation. She tells him that she suspects he won’t need luck with all the wonderful people surrounding him, continuing to highlight the importance of the support Speed receives from those closest to him.

The film is largely affirming on the theme of identity. The entire plot revolves around Speed coming to understand his legacy as a racer, one that heralds from his family and has defined him his entire life—the opening sequence features Speed as a little boy, unable to concentrate on a test in school as he imagines himself behind the wheel of a race car in his own technicolor cartoon world. We come to understand that the death of Speed’s brother has ultimately held him back from his destiny—a desire to respect Rex’s career as a racer has made Speed hesitant but also humble. He needs a push to recognize that he deserves to embrace this part of himself. But the best part of this legacy? There is no true “greater” meaning behind it. Speed simply loves to race. It makes him happy, it drives him, it means something more than track and wheels and awards. That’s good enough.

But there is one place where the question of identity takes a sharp and sad turn, particularly for a film filled with so much color and joy. Racer X is eventually revealed to be Rex after all; in an effort to protect his family while he took on the corrupt racing world, he staged his own death and had massive plastic surgery. When Speed finally confronts Racer X about his suspicions regarding his identity, he cannot recognize the man, and Racer X tells him that his brother is definitely dead. By the end of the film, Inspector Detector asks him he made a mistake, leaving his family, never telling them that he’s still alive. Rex’s reply is simply: “If I did, it’s a mistake I’ll have to live with.”

It’s hard to dismiss the idea of Rex’s changed physical appearance being something that bars him from returning to his family. It’s hard to dismiss that although they win the race and expose the corruption, although they win the day, Rex still doesn’t believe that he can return to the people who love him. It’s the one true moment of pain in the entire film, and it’s impossible to ignore the fact that it deals with a character who has essentially transitioned into a new person.

All of these themes and thoughts come together in the no-holds-barred phantasmic explosion that is the Grand Prix. Like I said, I’m not a fan of sports films in general, and the “final game” is a thing with very specific beats and shifts—I expected to get bored at this point. But as the race commenced, my eyes only grew wider and wider.

The theme song suddenly wove its way into the soundtrack:

Go, Speed Racer!

Go, Speed Racer!

Go, Speed Racer, go!

I could feel myself grinning hard enough to make my cheeks ache. Big bang action sequences that make up the end of movies are anxiety-filled affairs; we love to watch them, but the experience isn’t typically pleasant in the truest sense of the word. We endure them. It’s what we pay for enjoying those sorts of high-octane thrills.

Go, Speed Racer, go!

That anxiety was completely missing as I watched the end of this film. Instead I felt the strangest emotion come over me in its place: Delight.

It doesn’t matter that you know Speed has to win, it doesn’t matter that that you’ve seen dozens of car chases and races in all across the big screen, it doesn’t matter that you’re accustomed to feeling cynical at these sorts of stories. Like I said, I want to eat this movie. I want it pumping through my veins at all times. I want to feel exhilarated just by walking down the street, like I’m driving the Mach 5.

Who wants to live in a perfect rainbow with me?

Emily Asher-Perrin will be singing that theme all week. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.

Dancing requires strength, speed, and flexibility. For instance, most fast-paced tap dancing requires precise muscle movement, otherwise your feet make the wrong sounds, even if the rhythm of your body feels exact. Tap moves also stack and accelerate while stacking, calling for more focus and precision, which can be frustrating if you’re having trouble trying to nail just one move consecutively, like a Maxie Ford. This isn’t limited to tap. Shaking of the hips, like in Polynesian dancing, requires a lot of strength and flexibility right at the start, and any dancing that requires the body to move onto and off of the floor is going to utilize almost every active muscle area, from legs to upper body. For dancers, strength equates to endurance. The stronger a dancer is, the longer they can repeat their actions with precision and speed.

Replace the word “dancer” in the previous sentence with “swordsman” or “fighter” and the statement remains no less true. So much so that dancing and superior fighting skills have become a common trope in genre fiction. It looks cool to see (or read) a fighter weave around their stronger opponents attacks, and it makes battles more interesting.

Here are a few noteworthy examples of this battle dancing as depicted in sci-fi/fantasy!

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Blademasters (Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time)

Sword made by Brendan Olszowy. Click link to see more of his work.

The Swallow Takes Flight met Parting the Silk. Moon on the Water met The Wood Grouse Dances. Ribbon in the Air met Stones Falling From the Cliff. They moved about the room as in a dance, and their music was steel against steel. (The Great Hunt).

In Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time there is a distinct difference between a soldier who wields a sword and a true Blademaster. Blademasters handle a sword in perfect harmony with their body and their form is so precise, reactive, and fluid that their movements appear as more of a dance than an aggressive action. That style of movement, along with their distinctively marked heron swords, are how the laymen in the series can tell that they are in the presence of a Blademaster and not just another swordsman. Superior swordsmanship are often depicted as dancers in genre fiction, but Jordan’s Wheel of Time, in providing names and classifications for a Blademaster’s movements, provides an exceptionally clear written depiction of this trope.

Killer Bee (Naruto)

Killer Bee (the one in white with all the swords) is a rapping man, continuously pumping out rhythms even in the midst of battle. His love of rapping seeps into his movements (or vice versa), making them resemble a cross between real-life dance-fighting style capoeira and ceremonially demonstrative muay thai. If his opponent becomes accustomed to his dance-fighting style, then Killer Bee will purposefully break his rhythm to make his movements more erratic and unpredictable, effectively using someone else’s sense of rhythm against them!

Rock Lee (Naruto)

A master of taijutsu (think martial arts with chakra-enhanced strikes and movements), Lee is already formidable. A lightweight when it comes to alcohol, after a drink or two, his natural talent for the unpredictable and fluid drunken boxing technique comes to the forefront. The switch to drunken boxing gets rid of the direct style in which Lee normally fights, replacing it with what looks like a dancing parody of martial arts with real strikes thrown in. There are numerous examples of the Drunken Fist being used in both film and comics, most often against psychic or precognitive opponents to confuse them. Those not familiar with anime may recognize the fighting style from the films of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan.

The Dancing Dragon (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

The Dancing Dragon is a firebending form found by Zuko and Aang after searching old Sun Warrior ruins. This is the most blatant form of battle dancing in the series, although bending in general is very dance-like, and could easily be mistaken for a ritualistic dance if the show did not include visuals portraying the bending of the elements involved. There is also a scene in the episode “The Crossroads of Destiny,” one of my favorites, where Sokka dances out of the way of May’s strikes like a ballerina.

River Tam (Serenity)

When describing River Tam, her brother Simon recalls “River was more than gifted. She was a gift. Everything she did, music, math, theoretical physics—even dance—there was nothing that didn’t come as naturally to her as breathing does to us.” This talent for dance comes into play when her unstable psyche is triggered in a bar by a commercial. (And if you know what commercial this is, then I’m sorry for putting it in your head for the next five hours.) The trigger makes her treat everyone in the bar as a threat, and she lays waste to its clientele with a graceful mixture of kickboxing and wushu. While impressive, it is nothing compared to the ballet-style combat grace that River exhibits in the film’s climax.

Siegfried (Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple)

Kenichi’s Siegfried will defeat you in prestissimo! The opera that continually runs through his head may have something to do with the fluid, dance-like style of fighting he employs. He bends and pretends to be hit, then uses the force of the blow to swing around with counterstrike. He moves and sings to the opera he creates as he fights, allowing him to confuse and scare his opponents.

Arya and Syrio (A Song of Ice and Fire)

In A Game of Thrones the young Arya Stark wants to do nothing but fight and, begrudgingly, her father lets her, enlisting the help of master swordsman Syrio Forel to teach her. Instead of teaching her in the same manner as a guard or regular soldier, Syrio instructs her in the fencing style of Braavos, his home city. The style relies more on body movement, thrust-strikes, speed, and finesse, than it does on brute force, making it ideal for the small-framed Arya Stark. So far, the style has served her very well indeed.

T.K. (Angel Beats)

Angel Beat‘s T. K. likes to dance, that much is evident, and in the final fight of the show, T.K. makes his entrance to the fight by breakdancing down the stairs of a nearby building. He continues to dance as he fights, earning him the title “Dance Battler.”

There’s so many more that I haven’t mentioned, but to do would make this article endless.

But…dance-fighting…doesn’t it look like fun?

Welcome back to the Lovecraft reread, in which two modern Mythos writers get girl cooties all over old Howard’s sandbox, from those who inspired him to those who were inspired in turn.

Today is our hundredth post! To celebrate just how weird Weird Fiction can get, we’re watching varying amounts of Haiyoru! Nyaruani, a TV series based on a Japanese light novel by Manta Aisora (writer) and Koin (illustrator). The light novel (manga series) was published by Soft Bank Creative between April 2009 and March 2014. The flash series aired October 2009–March 2010; the follow-up series aired December 2010–February 2011, and April 2012–June 2013. Spoilers ahead.

“The pagan gods’ hearts are all slimy. (You and I both like cowardly things)/If you can see a pagan being with a slimy form (Then we will have a date under the blazing sun)”

Summary [gleaned from peeks at the series as a whole, as well as the “assigned” episodes]:

One night high school student Mahiro Yasaka is pursued by an alien creature that looks like a night gaunt with the vertical maw of a Gug—talk about unholy hybrids. He’s rescued by a silver-haired girl who calls herself Nyarlathotep (Nyaruko for short), the Chaos that always creeps up on you with a smile. Either she’s an avatar of the Outer God or a native of the planet Nyarlathotep. Or both. In either case, the Space Defense Agency has assigned her to protect Mahiro from criminal aliens. See, aliens are strangely attracted to the resources and entertainments of Earth, particularly Mahiro himself. (He IS quite handsome, for a human.)

Other aliens join the protection squad. Kuku looks like a slim, red-haired girl but is from Cthugha. Though soft-spoken, she’s a fire elemental and prone to explosions. Hasuta looks like an androgynous blond boy but is from Hastur. He’s wields air magic. The alien trio settle into Mahiro’s apartment, where he keeps these dangerously powerful beings in line with a deftly wielded fork. You know, of the dining sort.

In “Remember My (Mr.) Love(craft),” two more alien agents appear: Nyarue, a Nyarlathotepian of the sporty persuasion, forever brandishing a baseball bat; and Otoko, a black-haired girl in a traditional kimono printed with stylized webs and spiders, a reference to her native planet of Atlach-Nacha.

All the aliens are obsessed with Earth pop culture. None seems to have an earthly job, unless you count playing video games and Web surfing. Eventually Nyaruko, Kuku and Hasuta enroll at Mahiro’s high school, the better to keep their eyes on the endangered human.

Okay, but see, Nyaruko is in love with Mahiro, who seems both attracted to her and annoyed by her antics. Kuko is in love with Nyaruko, who once saved Kuko from school bullies (even though Nyaruko beat up Kuko along with her tormenters.) Otoko, whom Nyaruko calls a lecherous tease, tries to seduce Kuku and Mahiro. Nyarue is instantly smitten with Mahiro but tries to deny her feelings, sometimes getting so flustered she reverts to a formless blob. Hasuto has feelings for Mahiro, too. Oh, and there’s a miniature Shantak bird, pet to Nyaruko, called Shanta-kun.

Comic and romantic complications ensue. In the mini-episodes we watched, there’s a lot of cooking (much of which produces either boiled shoggoth or aphrodisiac sausages.) Nyaruko flirts relentlessly with Mahiro, while Kuku comes on to Nyaruko and is jealous of Mahiro. Otoko is coy but very naughty, especially when the “girls” end up together in a hot spring. Meanwhile, an alien vessel like a cross between the 2001 monolith and a Borg ship, rumbles toward Earth, supposedly to annihilate humanity. It crash-lands in the city, and Nyaruko and Squad must confront it and fight the good fight. Mahiro gets all sentimental, hoping Nyaruko will return safely. They end up in a tight embraces, and she promises to come back—especially if Mahiro will hold her again.

After such high drama, Mahiro is angry to learn that the alien vessel was simply a charter bus come to ferry aliens and temporarily abducted humans to Space Comiket (Comic Market.) Nyaruko let him worry that she was going into battle when she was really just feeding her pop culture addiction? Oh, but it was a battle, Nyaruko contends. She fought to snag four limited edition action figures, which will protect Earth from a vague cosmic catastrophe. Mahiro doesn’t buy her story, and the fork comes into play one more time.

What’s Cyclopean: Not even gonna try to judge the vocabulary level in something with subtitles.

The Degenerate Dutch: Apparently everyone hates Pisces. [AMP: Pisces and Cancers, which I as a Pisces highly resent. No wonder I empathize with Kuku.]

Mythos Making: In Nyaruko-san, the “elder gods” are representatives of alien races who find humanity all too intriguing.

Libronomicon: No books appear, but elder gods apparently have strange taste in video games.

Madness Takes Its Toll: Nyaruko is fond of a dating sim where the women chase the men and lose sanity points.

Anne’s Commentary

Happy 100^th blog post! I brought a keg of dubious lunar wine. Anybody get some nice plump Zoogs to grill?

I watched the two “prescribed” series and some longer episodes as well. I will now have the bouncy theme song of “Remember My (Mr.) Love(craft)” orbiting my cerebral cortex, looking for some neurons to permanently colonize. Oh well, better that than the noxious “Muskrat Love,” my long-time nemesis.

Very interesting. When Yith take over human bodies, they seem be bring their lack of sexual libido with them. When other aliens assume human form, at least in the Nyaruko saga, they become raging sex maniacs. I’m assuming they’re not raging sex maniacs in their native forms, but that’s based on the impression Lovecraft and his coterie give of the Outer Gods and Great Old Ones. Maybe with the exceptions of Shub-Niggurath and Cthulhu in Ravening Mode. And Yog-Sothoth courting Lavinia Whateley on Sentinel Hill. And Deep Ones with their appetite for human consorts….

All right, so maybe Lovecraft just wasn’t so blatant. So coyly pornographic. He definitely dabbled not in cutely transgressive romantic comedy, which is what Nyaruko and friends bring us. Look, people, girl aliens just want to have fun. Mostly with Mahiro. Poor Mahiro! His superpower (apart from close quarters fork combat) is inciting alien lust. Except in Kuko, who only wants to have fun with Nyaruko. Lucky Mahiro! All his admirers are quite attractive. In human form. Smart Mahiro! He doesn’t forget that they have other forms or avatars not quite so chibi-cuddly. Nyarlathotep’s the Crawling Chaos, the Howler in the Dark, the Three-Lobed Burning Eye! Cthugha’s a great freaking ball of living flame! Atlach-Nacha’s a giant spider god spinning a web the completion of which will signal the end of days! Hastur is the Unspeakable, the mind-wrenching King in Yellow!

But gracious, they’re so CUTE, especially in their school uniforms. Full disclosure: I had to wear a little plaid skirt and little bow-tie and little white blouse every day of my grammar school life, so I can relate. The nuns never let us wear thigh-high stockings. They knew that a glimpse of creamy skin between plaid hem and stocking top was the true Mark of the Beast. Outer Gods and Great Old Ones can get away with it, though.

I’m not well-versed in anime or manga, but I’ve always enjoyed the candy-hued pop of its colors and the stylization of the human form and face, minimalist in feature (huge eyes, little to no nose, broad of brow and pointed of chin) but at its best oddly compelling and expressive. Detail’s all in the costumes and styling. Here alien species (in human guise) translate some native feature into quirky hair idioms: Nyarlathoteps have silver hair with one long arching strand bobbing up from the crown. Hasturians have yellow hair (in honor of the King?) with two antenna-like locks upright at the temples. Kuku, the Cthughan, often sprouts flames from the bases of her long ponytails, but when she’s discreet, the flames are represented by ribbons charred black. Speaking of Kuku, she’s my favorite. So deceptively flat of affect and deadpan of delivery! So crazy-ass passionate within, as befits a fire elemental. Plus her battle mode or power form “outfit” of skin-tight red cat suit with flame-shaped cut-outs and black mid-thigh boots rocks the super-entity fashion world.

Gotta admit, when I scrolled through images relating to the series, I was rather taken aback by certain images of Kuku chaining Nyaruko to a bed with pink satin sheets. Roses float over the scene, obscuring certain naughty bits, but we can see that Nyaruko wears black lace thongs. Can you imagine Howard’s astonishment, to learn that among Nyarlathotep’s countless avatars, there’s one who sports risqué undies beneath her demure schoolgirl skirt?

Unspeakable! Unnameable! Ahem, but not unimaginable and undrawable, obviously.

Ruthanna’s Commentary

OMG what is this even. You guys, I am so sorry. I was led to expect more surreal neo-Lovecraftian plot and less stabbing with forks.

At the very least, I expected amusingly discordant. Instead, there are some particularly unpleasant magical anime girls with the names of elder gods, and dialogue that I can occasionally recognize as intended to be funny. It occasionally saunters in the direction of being interesting—and then saunters back.

I finished the initial flash series, and then watched the first two episodes of Remember My Mister Lovecraft in the hopes of reaching the theoretical plot and interest described in the above summary. Still nope. One screen promises “70 days until the destruction of humanity.” This would be intriguing if my main concern weren’t whether I’d have to spend the whole 70 days watching people stab each other with forks and beat up tiny demon dogs. [ETA: Anne’s research, more thorough than mine, identifies the pet as a tiny shantak bird. It’s the only character I like, in any case.]

The most Lovecraftian thing about this mess is that my wife is now curled on the bed whimpering, and I’m trying to frame my experiences within the bounds of ordinary human language in a desperate and doomed attempt to warn others.

There’s a certain level of cosmic horror that I expect in even humorous neo-Lovecraftian stuff. Neil Gaiman’s “Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar” (which we really will cover one of these days) is mostly a joke about two Deep Ones walking into a bar, but still ends with the witness terrified by unearthly visions beneath the waves.

The closest Nyaruko comes to that shiver of Not Meant To Know is the pixelated blob of don’t-wanna-think-about-it that Nyaruko cooks in the kitchen episode. But Nyarlathotep as playground bully is just petty. Cthugha as a pyrokinetic with a self-destructive crush on Nyarlathotep is just WTF.

(Someone who’s more of an anime fan is doubtless going to come along to point out that I just don’t get it. I will freely admit to that, and am glad if some people get inexplicable pleasure out of the thing. I’m glad that my housemate—who got a lot of credit for introducing me to Revolutionary Girl Utena and now has some ‘splaining to do—enjoys it.)

There’s so much potential here. Nyarlathotep has a thousand forms; it’s not unreasonable that one of them might be an anime girl with a fondness for lolita dresses. If It can’t make lace and parasols look intimidating, who can? Set It down at Ohtori Academy and let it loose on the student council, and I will watch the hell out of that show. Is there anyone here who doesn’t want to see Akio-I’m-Not-Lucifer-No-Really try to seduce Cthulhu? Genderqueer elder gods dueling cross-dressed high school students for the Rose Bride’s hand? I didn’t think so.

After all, there’s not really that much difference between revolutionizing the world and immanentizing the eschaton.

Next week, we get back to our roots with Lovecraft and Heald’s “The Horror in the Burying Ground.”

[Image from the credits for Haiyoru Nyaruani: Remember My Mister Lovecraft. The demure-looking redhead is Cthugha.]

Ruthanna Emrys’s neo-Lovecraftian stories “The Litany of Earth” and “Those Who Watch” are available on Tor.com, along with the distinctly non-Lovecraftian “Seven Commentaries on an Imperfect Land” and “The Deepest Rift.” Winter Tide, a novel continuing Aphra Marsh’s story from “Litany,” will be available from the Tor.com imprint on April 4, 2017. Ruthanna can frequently be found online on Twitter and Livejournal, and offline in a mysterious manor house with her large, chaotic household—mostly mammalian—outside Washington DC.

Anne M. Pillsworth’s short story. “The Madonna of the Abattoir” appears on Tor.com. Her first novel, Summoned, is available from Tor Teen along with the recently released sequel Fathomless. She lives in Edgewood, a Victorian trolley car suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, uncomfortably near Joseph Curwen’s underground laboratory.

Summer season is upon us at last, and what looked at first to be a rather dismal showing has shaped up in the last few weeks to have quite a few worthwhile new series. Among the interesting trends this season are a cluster of sports shows (Cheer Danshi, Battery, Days) and idol shows (Tsukiuta, B-Project, Love Live Sunshine), as well as several hotly anticipated sequels and spinoffs (Shokugeki no Soma, Cute High Earth Defense Club, Handa-kun), some of them VERY long awaited (Berserk, twenty years after its first TV series, and D.Gray-man Hallow, ten). There’s also a show about a cat that lives in a banana.

As always, I’ve picked out five of the best new shows airing right now, as well as a special bonus this season—two shows that are available to binge watch from start to finish. Quit trying to catch that Zubat for a minute, it’s cartoon time.

Mob Psycho 100

Shigeo Kageyama (Setsuo Ito), known as “Mob” to his one sort-of friend, is a middle schooler with powerful psychic abilities. He must be careful how he uses them, because if his emotional capacity reaches 100%, his powers will overwhelm his body and he will explode. Mob spends his days lying low as the assistant of a fraudulent psychic detective, Reigen (Takahiro Sakurai), who uses Mob’s prodigious powers to boost his own reputation.

This supernatural action show is an adaptation of a manga by ONE, the artist behind the super-successful One Punch Man. Unlike OPM, which used the sexier and more detailed art of collaborator Yusuke Murata, director Yuzuru Tachikawa (Death Parade) and animation studio Bones (My Hero Academia, Bungo Stray Dogs) have opted to maintain ONE’s (let’s say) crude style, and made the most of it with splashy, cartoony animation and crazy neon colors. Like One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100 is primarily a gag manga with action scenes, though there are some hints even in the first two episodes that there may be a bit of a deeper story for our boy Mob here. A must-watch this season.

For fans of: One Punch Man, Ping Pong, Gintama, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Sweetness and Lightning / Amaama to Inazuma

High school math teacher Kouhei Inazuka (Yuichi Nakamura) is adjusting to being a single parent to his young daughter, Tsumugi (Rina Endou) after the death of his wife six months ago. While he does his best, he struggles to cook wholesome meals for his daughter. When he and Tsumugi run into one of his students, Kotori Iida (Saori Hayami), whose mother is often too busy to share meals with her, the lonely Kotori convinces Kohei and Tsumugi that they should learn to cook together.

Based on a seinen manga by Gido Amagakure, this fluffy slice of life has an irresistible charm—who, after all, can say no to cute children eating delicious food? Under the cotton-candy fluff, however, are bittersweet undertones: Kouhei trying to deal with the challenges of raising his young daughter alone is faintly heartbreaking, and though Kotori’s family hasn’t been given much screen time yet, she is also clearly a very lonely young adult. Painfully adorable, with the added bonus of teaching basic cooking skills.

For fans of: Usagi Drop, Flying Witch, One Week Friends, Barakamon

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

91 Days

Set in Prohibition-era America, 91 Days follows one Angelo Laguza (Takashi Kondo), whose family was killed in a mafia dispute when he was a young child. When Angelo returns to his hometown years after the incident, he teams up with his friend Corteo (Soma Saito), now a small-scale moonshiner. The two set out to get revenge against the mobsters who murdered his mother and little brother.

91 Days has been on my radar for a while now, both because it is an anime-original story, something that is always welcome in any season, and because of its relatively unique subject matter—the only other anime with a similar setting that comes to mind is the widely-loved Baccano!. What director Hiro Kaburagi (Hoozuki no Reitetsu) brings to the table in 91 Days, however, takes much less from the madcap world of Ryogo Narita and far more from American mafia yarns like The Godfather and Boardwalk Empire—91 Days is a somber, intense, and (so far) compelling mafia revenge story. An excellent choice for those who enjoy a high body count with nary a high schooler in sight.

For fans of: Baccano!, Joker Game, Gangsta, Jormungand, Senkou no Night Raid

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Battery

When middle schooler Takumi Harada (Kouki Uchiyama) moves to a new town, he is determined to join his new school’s baseball team as a pitcher. After a chance meeting with his new team’s catcher, Go Nagakura (Tasuku Hatanaka), Takumi’s confidence as a pitcher is shaken. Will the two be able to form a formidable enough battery to take them to nationals?

This sports drama is an adaptation of an award winning novel (that’s novel novel, not light novel), and is also the Noitamina entry this season, not that that means much these days. As of the first episode, it appears that Battery will focus more on character drama than competition—the protagonist is a cocky brat with plenty of room for development, and the spotlight is on his relationship with his family and his new catcher. The show also has some nice visual touches: character designs by Takako Shimura (Wandering Son) are, as always, a pleasure to watch in motion, and the watercolor opening and ending sequences go far towards setting the literary mood this show is after. A good choice for those who enjoy character-driven sports stories like those by Mitsuru Adachi.

For fans of: Cross Game, Touch, Ookiku Furikabutte/Big Windup!, Diamond no Ace, Haikyu!

Watch it now on Amazon Video

Orange

Shy high schooler Naho Takamiya (Kana Hanazawa) is surprised when she receives a letter that claims to be from herself ten years in the future. Though skeptical, Naho begins to believe when the events laid out in the letter become reality one after another—most significantly, the arrival of transfer student Kakeru Naruse (Seiichiro Yamashita). Naho’s letter warns that Kakeru is no longer with them in the future, and begs Naho to take action to save him while she can.

This shoujo drama, adapted from Ichigo Takano’s popular manga, is yet another entry in the time travel/do-over trend we’ve been seeing much of recently (see also: Erased, ReLIFE, Re:Zero). Here the science-fictiony plot device is merely the prime mover in what is principally a romantic drama. Orange’s restrained tone and naturalistic presentation quietly build tension about Kakeru’s future, and Naho, though essentially a shy everygirl, becomes increasingly easy to cheer on as she begins to break out of her shell thanks to the letter’s instructions. A great choice this season for those who enjoy their romantic drama with a touch of science-fiction.

For fans of: Ao Haru Ride, Koe no Katachi/A Silent Voice, Erased, Your Lie in April, AnoHana, Wandering Son, ReLIFE

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

BONUS—Binge-watch These Now:

ReLIFE

Another life do-over show, this time following Arata Kaizaki (Kensho Ono), an under-employed, single twenty-seven-year-old who is offered a pill that will make him appear seventeen again and allow him to return to high school for one year. For those of you who were Drew Barrymore fans in 1999, let’s call this Never Been Kissed: The Animation. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by ReLIFE; in addition to drawing a pretty sensitive contrast between Kaizaki’s maturity level and the kids he’s thrown in with, I enjoy how the show (and the popular web manga it’s based on) uses the high school setting not to escape or erase Kaizaki’s own personal issues, but to force him to confront them with the maturity of an adult. All thirteen episodes are available to watch now on Crunchyroll.

For fans of: Erased, Orange, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU

Kuromukuro

Another Netflix “Original” anime that did not actually originate on Netflix, this mecha show follows high school student Yukina Shirahane (M.A.O), who is thrown into the middle of an interplanetary invasion when she encounters time-traveling samurai Ouma Kennosuke Tokisada (Youhei Azakami) at the UN facility where her mother works. That’s right, a time-traveling samurai. This anime-original show, created by studio PA Works (Shirobako) and director Tensai Okamura (Darker Than Black), also has robots, and aliens, and you guessed it, alien robots. Amidst the large-scale sci-fi premise, however, the main cast, especially Yukina’s family and Kennosuke, are both refreshingly human and insanely likable, and have left me eagerly awaiting the second cour of this show. The first thirteen episodes are available now on Netflix, with the second half of the show to be added, presumably, in the fall.

For fans of: Suisei no Gargantia, Aldnoah.Zero, Eureka Seven

Nothing here catch your eye? Love something I left out? Be sure to let us know what you’re watching this season in the comments!

Kelly Quinn is a blogger and children’s librarian. Tell her how bad her taste is on Twitter.

At last night’s closing ceremonies for the Rio Olympics, Tokyo presented a trailer for the 2020 Olympic Games—yes, a trailer—starring a bevy of geeky characters. We don’t know anything about which athletes will qualify for the Olympics four years from now, but we already know that they’ll be competing against greats like Mario (watch out for him in the Kart races), Pac-Man (who interestingly seems to be competing alongside the ghosts, though he’ll probably cross over into their lanes once the starting gun goes off), Hello Kitty, futuristic robot cat Doraemon, and Captain Tsubasa, a.k.a. Flash Kicker. Hoo boy, it’s anyone’s game.

The cutest part is when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cosplayed as Mario. Watch the trailer:

We’ve got our fingers crossed for future cameos from Sonic, the Sailor Scouts, and (maybe, horrifyingly) Akira. In the meantime, CNN lists every way that the Tokyo Olympics could be straight-up sci-fi, with robot villages, meteorite showers, and a multilingual app to tie it all together.

via Kotaku

It’s that time again—new anime is here along with the fall leaves, and it is our duty, as usual, to divide the 2D wheat from the chaff. Fall is traditionally a strong season for anime, and though this one is a bit lacking, there are still a few new shows worth checking out. Joining a roster of strong sequels—Haikyu!! is back, along with Kyoto Animation’s Sound! Euphonium, the second part of Bungo Stray Dogs and Iron-Blooded Orphans, and the fifth season of Natsume Yuujinchou (hallelujah)—are a smattering of interesting offerings. Fans of madcap comedies might check out ClassicaLoid, a show about classical composers making magical gyoza, and shoujo and BL fans can unite this season over unlikely romcom Kiss Him Not Me. If you’re in the UK, count yourself lucky because The Great Passage, a literary drama about publishing a dictionary, is apparently available only in your region.

And if you just want the best of the season’s new anime without all the funny business, keep reading—I’ve picked three promising shows that you can start watching right this minute. Here’s a little hint: axel, lutz, loop.

Yuri!!! On Ice

After facing a series of crushing defeats in international figure skating competitions, twenty-three-year-old Yuri Katsuki (a very good Toshiyuki Toyonaga) returns to his small town in Kyushu to decide whether to continue his professional career or cut his losses and retire. But when his childhood idol, five-time world champion Victor Nikiforov (Junichi Suwabe) turns up on his doorstep, Yuri finds himself once again plunged headfirst into the heat of competition, where his primary rival may be yet another Yuri—a fifteen-year-old rising star named Yuri Plisetsky (Kouki Uchiyama).

This original anime from director Sayo Yamamoto (Michiko & Hatchin, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine) needs hardly any introduction at this point, as it seems to be already the hands-down favorite of the season… and with good reason. Lovingly produced by studio MAPPA (Days, Ushio to Tora), Yuri!!! On Ice is gorgeously designed and animated (just take a look at the beautiful minimalistic opening ), both through the flashy figure skating sequences and the smaller character moments. And it’s not just nice to look at—the show is surprisingly goofy and charming, with characters, especially Yuri himself, that you can’t help but get attached to upon meeting. Yuri!!! On Ice has already packed lots to love into the excellently directed first two episodes, and if Yamamoto and MAPPA can manage to keep it up throughout, this may handily take the title of anime of the season.

For fans of: Ping Pong The Animation, Yowamushi Pedal, Haikyu!!, Your Lie in April

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

March Comes in Like a Lion / 3-gatsu no Lion

Seventeen-year-old Rei Kiriyama (Kengo Kawanishi) is one of the youngest professional shogi players in Japan. Despite his apparent success, his personal life is far from ideal: his relationship with his adoptive father is strained, and he has few friends at school—when he even bothers to attend. Rei finds solace with the three sisters of the Kawamoto family, Akari (Ai Kayano), Hinata (Kana Hanazawa), and Momo (Misaki Kuno), who welcome him into their warm and colorful home.

This rich character drama, which revolves around professional shogi (a Japanese strategy game like chess), is a highly anticipated adaptation of a seinen manga by Chica Umino (Honey & Clover). The source material is dripping with honors, including the Manga Taisho Award, Kodansha Manga Award, and the coveted Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. Apparently at Umino’s request, director Akiyuki Shinbo is overseeing the anime at Shaft (Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Bakemonogatari), a studio with a penchant for visual and directorial gimmicks that some find unique and interesting, and others find tired, lazy, or downright obnoxious (depending on who you ask).

While some of the manga’s fans are a bit bent out of shape about the studio choice, I’ve enjoyed the first two episodes of this one. The visual idiosyncrasies have so far stayed relatively restrained, and while we’ve yet to really dig into the meat of the story, the contrast between Rei’s rather bleak inner life and the warmth of the Kawamoto family comes across loud and clear. The source material alone makes this a must-watch this season, although how this adaptation goes down with fans remains to be seen.

For fans of: Honey and Clover, Your Lie in April, Chihayafuru

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Poco’s Udon World / Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari

When his father passes away, Souta Tawara (Yuichi Nakamura), a web designer living in Tokyo, returns to his small town in Kagawa Prefecture to wrap up some of the family’s loose ends. In particular, he must clean up and close up his father’s udon shop, a favorite among both locals and tourists in an area of the country famous for its udon noodles. Souta is surprised to find a lost child napping amidst the shop’s cluttered bins and boxes—and he’s even more surprised when the toddler, Poco (Shiho Kokido), turns out not to be human at all, but a shapeshifting tanuki with a fondness for udon.

It seems that “single guy raising an adorable child solo” is legitimately a trend in anime now, especially with Udon no Kuni coming hard on the heels of last season’s Sweetness and Lightning. Based on a seinen manga, this adaptation by LIDENFILMS is so far merely pleasant—not as poignant as Sweetness and Lightning or Usagi Drop, not as funny as Barakamon, and, though the fantasy aspect is intriguing, not as colorfully supernatural as shows like Flying Witch or Uchouten Kazoku. Above all, I am interested to see how the show takes on Souta’s relationship with his father and the restaurant, which is clearly a source of tension, as well as if the fantasy aspect will come more to fore or remain principally an excuse to drop a toddler in the lap of a hapless young man. A sweetly enjoyable outing for those looking for a replacement for Sweetness and Lightning.

For fans of: Barakamon, Usagi Drop, Sweetness and Lightning, Flying Witch, Natsume Yuujinchou

Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Nothing here catch your eye? Love something I left out? Let us know what you’re loving (and hating) this season in the comments!

Kelly Quinn is a children’s librarian and katsudon connoisseur. Find her and her bad jokes on Twitter.

Looking back at the year in anime, it’s been a pretty eclectic mix. We’ve had some very highly anticipated adaptations, some ambitious original stories, and even a few unexpected revivals of seemingly long-abandoned franchises (looking at you, D.Gray-man). If anything, 2016 has showcased how flexible and creative the medium can be: we’ve had shows featuring zombie fighting, lexicography, concert bands, mafiosos, superheroes, professional figure skaters—this year we watched a Taiwanese fantasy puppet show and called it anime, for god’s sake.

Narrowing down the top ten was, as always, a unique challenge, and, as always, I’ve left off quite a few of my favorites. But enough excuses—read on to see what made my list for the best ten TV anime series for 2016.

Erased / Boku Dake ga Inai Machi

Tenth on the list this year goes to Erased, the seinen thriller that made waves last winter. Following Satoru Fujinuma, a down on his luck twenty-something who is thrust into the past in order to prevent a tragic event from his childhood involving his classmate Kayo Hinazuki, Erased’s suspenseful storytelling had me hooked from the first episode to the last. The ending felt abrupt and, to be honest, didn’t really work for me, but the first ten episodes of the show, which deal with Kayo’s narrative, along with the very polished execution as a whole, were powerful enough to kick this show into my top ten over other contenders.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Orange

Interestingly, the ninth entry on this list has a rather similar premise to Erased—in fact, the “do-over” plot was uncommonly popular this year, if you count Erased, ReLIFE, Orange, and Re:Zero (am I missing any?). In this shojo drama, high schooler Naho Takamiya receives a letter from herself ten years in the future warning her that a close friend, Kakeru, will commit suicide that school year. Naho herself remained frustratingly passive through most of the anime, but the restrained presentation and sensitive portrayal of Kakeru’s depression as the story approached its heart-wrenching emotional climax elevated this show above similar titles this year.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Flying Witch

The eighth spot on this list takes us into lighter territory with Flying Witch, a show about a young witch in training who moves to the countryside of Aomori to live with extended family. Evocative of perennial favorites like Natsume Yujin-cho and Kiki’s Delivery Service, Flying Witch’s particular brand of rural slice-of-life mixed with low-key fantasy was a real winner for me. The show seamlessly mixes everyday wonders with the fantastic, from the small triumph of growing a garden to encounters with shape-shifters and spirits. Flying Witch’s slow, dreamy pace and buoyant, childlike positivism was a bright spot in a rather dark year.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable

Usually I try to steer clear of second (or third, or fifth) seasons for this yearly wrap-up, but I feel that Diamond Is Unbreakable deserves an exception here, (a) because JoJo’s arcs can to a large extent stand alone, and (b) because Diamond Is Unbreakable was just that GREAT. Diamond Is Unbreakable takes place on a smaller stage than previous parts of the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventures series, but that hasn’t in the least prevented it or its hero, Josuke Higashikata, from being just as intense as any of the other entries. The insanely likable cast, quirky villains and powers, and general outrageous JoJo-ness of it all has been an absolute highlight of my year. And honestly, did anyone seriously think that a show with an ending by Savage Garden wouldn’t make this list?

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Sweetness and Lightning / Amaama to Inazuma

This is the second year in a row I’ve been able to put a show about cooking in my top ten for the year, a trend a foodie like me can only hope continues. Sweetness and Lightning is a poignant series that follows the culinary adventures of a single father trying to feed his young daughter wholesome meals after the recent death of his wife. Though the premise is inherently a bit of a downer, the tone of the series is, for the most part, as light and fluffy as Tsumugi’s voluminous hair. The show’s light touch with its characters and tender portrayal of how love is shown though cooking is nothing short of heartwarming, and earns it a spot on this list.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

My Hero Academia / Boku no Hero Academia

We certainly can’t end without one conventional battle shonen on this list, and there really isn’t any doubt about which it ought to be. The adaptation of this Shonen Jump title was highly anticipated, and director Kenji Nagasaki (Gundam Build Fighters) certainly did the material justice. Following the journey of Izuku “Deku” Midoriya, a kid who dreams of being a superhero despite lacking any powers of his own, My Hero Academia delivers an engaging cast of young heroes, flashy battles executed with the expected Bones polish, and enough wacky superpowers to keep things fresh in a world frankly overburdened by superhero stories. My Hero Academia is Shonen Jump played straight, but played at its finest, and I’ll be looking forward to the second season in 2017.

Missed it? Watch it now on Hulu

Mr. Osomatsu / Osomatsu-san

Of course Osomatsu-san is on here. This madcap comedy was positioned as a reboot/homage to the popular 1960s manga, Osomatsu-kun, which follows the various misadventures of sextuplet brothers. What we actually got is a wild episodic comedy with only the most tenuous relationship to the original title, in which six profoundly awful human beings who can’t manage to stop flinging abuse at each other long enough to hold down a job or get a girlfriend torture each other in increasingly creative ways. The show is hysterical and became deservedly popular beyond anyone’s expectations. Osomatsu-san’s gleeful misanthropy and complete disregard for logic or decency earns it a well-deserved place on the list this year.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Yuri!!! On Ice

Oh, what to say about Yuri!!! On Ice. Yuri swept in this fall as a breath of fresh air for the sports genre, focusing as it does not on high school hopefuls but professional athletes, and presented an even more refreshing romance between protagonists Yuri and Victor, whose mutual fascination with each other drives much of the series. Joyful, sincere, and full of infectious love for its subject and characters, Yuri took the world—or at least social media—completely by storm, with even professional figure skaters watching (and in some cases appearing in!) the show. Though ending on a somewhat low note after seeming to stumble a bit in its final arc, Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo’s passion project absolutely made history (sorry not sorry) in 2016.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju

And now we’re getting down to it. Measured, deliberate, and beautifully crafted, Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju gave us mature characters within an engrossing historical drama. Although there is a lot to love here—the delicate handling of the relationships, the atmospheric opening sequence—the highlight of the series for me was easily the rakugo performances themselves, which were brought to vivid life by both creative visual direction and the excellent work of a veteran cast. Rakugo is the kind of series we are lucky to see made these days, and 2016 was undoubtedly better for it. This season wrapped up the first portion of the story deftly, and I’ll be looking forward to the second season in January.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

Mob Psycho 100

Penned by ONE, the author of One Punch Man, and made by a significant number of the same staff, Mob Psycho 100 entered the scene riding hard on the coattails of last year’s hit. As much as I love One Punch Man, what I certainly didn’t expect was for Mob Psycho 100 to be, in many ways, a better show than ONE’s most popular title. Mob Psycho 100 follows Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, a kid with powerful psychic abilities but a total inability to stand out from the crowd. Mob is an unusual protagonist, and his struggle with his own nature is equal parts compelling, funny, and strangely sad. Elevated by a standout production effort led by director Yuzuru Tachikawa (Death Parade) at Bones, this thoughtful take on superhuman powers comes out on top as our favorite show of 2016.

Missed it? Watch it now on Crunchyroll

And that’s it, folks! Didn’t see your favorite show from 2016 on here? Tell us your favorites from the year in the comments—or better yet, what you’re looking forward to in 2017!

Kelly Quinn is not sorry that Re:Zero is not on this list. You can complain to her about it on Twitter.

Princess Mononoke is celebrating its 20^th Anniversary this year. Personally, I consider it Miyazaki’s masterpiece, beyond even Kiki’s Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro, and Spirited Away. Since the film has been re-released in a few theaters, I want to look back at the movie, and talk about what I think is the most remarkable aspect of a remarkable film.

Princess Mononoke was not a sure bet. Miyazaki hadn’t made a truly serious film since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind back in 1984, and most of his studio’s movies were aimed at children. But Miyazaki looked back at early sketches he’d done in the 1970s, that featured a girl married off to a monster, and felt the need to make a film about the battle between civilization and wilderness. He created a male protagonist, and axed his monster (it looked a lot like the Totoro’s friend the Catbus) and decided that the princess herself would be the monster. Over two years he pulled a film together at a pace that can only be considered heroic—out of the 144,000 cels created, Miyazaki personally redrew over 80,000. The film that emerged was complex, ambiguous, and definitely not for small children. It delved into Japan’s past, offering a look at people on the cusp of modernity, and portraying pre-modern Japan was far more diverse than previously traditional depictions.

Miyazaki takes what appears at first to be a simple quest story and twists it into a giant, multi-faceted ecological commentary. Ashitaka, a young Prince of the Emishi, is cursed by a boar-god and sets out to learn what turned the boar into a demon. He leaves his village, the oracle Lady Hii, and a girl named Kaya. He soon learns that his cursed arm has superstrength, but he knows that the curse will gradually eat into his soul and give him an agonizing death. He meets a monk/conman named Jigo, and ends up in Tataraba, Iron Town, where the boar-god was killed. He rescues two of the townfolk, catches a glimpse of San, the adopted daughter of Moro the wolf-god, and befriends the Kodama, mischievous forest sprites. Initially taking the gods’ side, he hates Lady Eboshi, the boss of Tataraba, and finds himself entangled between her, San, Moro, a second boar-god, a lord named Asano, and  eventually Jigo.

San and the gods revere the supreme Forest Spirit, Shishigami, and want to drive the humans away from the ancient forest. Jigo wants Shishi’s head, and has asked Lady Eboshi to get it for him. Lord Asano wants Lady Eboshi and her town full of meddlesome women under his command. And what does Ashitaka want? He wants to do as Hii-san has asked, and “see with eyes unclouded by hate.”

To say it paid off seems almost like a joke. Between the movie’s Japanese premiere in July 1997, and the following November, the movie was seen by twelve million people—about one tenth of Japan’s population at the time. When the film came to video, there were reports that 20% of the sales were to people who had never bought a video before. Two years later, long after it had been established as a hit, and you could easily rent or buy a copy, a Friday evening broadcast of Princess Mononoke earned a 35% share of the night’s TV ratings. While it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar in the U.S., it was the first animated feature film to win Best Picture in the Japan Academy Prize.

It’s interesting to look back at the American reviews for the English language release in October of 1999. Many reviewers are trying to wrap their heads around an animated film that’s not for kids. Several focus on the Japanese-ness of the film, and try out the word “anime” (you can hear them sounding it out as they type) and then they compare the film to either Otomo’s Akira or the work of Akira Kurosawa, take a bow, and call it a day. Only Roger Ebert seemed to understand that he has seen a masterpiece.

And looking back at those early reviews, no one makes any mention of the English screenplay, written by this obscure author named Neil Gaiman. I had already seen the film by then—I was lucky enough to see a bootleg subtitled version of it about a year before it came to U.S. theaters, but I was on board for the dub as soon as I learned Miramax hired Gaiman to write it, since I’d also been turned on to Sandman a few years earlier. In 1999, however, Gaiman was barely a cult figure in the U.S., and it wasn’t until a year later that American Gods came out and put him on more readers’ radars.

But back to the film itself. You can see Miyazaki’s concerns play out in the character triangle he creates, and the triangle he sidesteps.

In the subtitled version I saw, a village girl named Kaya runs out to say goodbye to Ashitaka, even though, as he’s been declared dead, she breaks a huge taboo in doing so. The relationship between Ashitaka and Kaya is left ambiguous. She gives him a crystal dagger and promises to think of him, and he says he won’t forget her. With no further village scenes, we have no way to know whether it was bold for a girl to give a young man a gift, or if the two were betrothed, or if they’re just good friends. To me, the scene reads as a young couple reluctantly saying goodbye. Later, when Ashitaka wants to declare his love to San, he gives her Kaya’s dagger. She adds it to her necklace of teeth. But in the official Westernized Disney script, Kaya refers to Ashitaka explicitly as her brother, and he says, “How could I ever forget my little sister.” This completely changes the context of the gift, and now when Ashitaka passes the dagger to San, he’s giving her a family heirloom, not his ex’s jewelry. Talking about the scripting process for the tenth anniversary, Gaiman implied that that wasn’t his change:

Every once in awhile, there are little bits where I go, “How did that happen? I don’t get it.” I was asking them last night, “Why did the little girl in the village become explicitly his [Ashitaka’s] sister? I didn’t think she was in the script they gave me, and she certainly wasn’t in the script I wrote.” And nobody seemed to know where that had come from.

This certainly changes the relationship. My assumption is that Miramax, and later Disney, were spooked by the idea of Ashitaka leaving his girlfriend, and then giving said girlfriend’s prized possession to his new squeeze. Western audiences would probably be distracted by Kaya, and expect the film to adhere to a “love conquers all” plot, in which Ashitaka and Kaya are reunited and conventions be damned.

But no, Miyazaki leaves his convention-damning for a different emotional triangle.

Ashitaka is a member of the Emishi, an aboriginal people who lived in northern Honshu (the big island of Japan) and were mostly (and violently) pressed into submission by the Japanese by the 10^th Century C.E. San is a fantastical version of a Jomon woman, the indigenous people of Japan who had died out by 300 BCE, and are possibly the ancestors of the Emishi. These two crash into the old gods, who have regarded humans as little more than a nuisance until recently, and the much more modern—and much more Japanese—Lady Eboshi.

As I watched Princess Mononoke for the first time, I remember being so viscerally on San’s side during her first attack on the village. When her knife clashed with Lady Eboshi’s I felt it in my chest – two women fighting, and thrilling in their fight, as the male hero looks on. Two different viewpoints crashing into each other. And I knew whose side I was on: I wanted San to tear Lady Eboshi’s flesh right off of her bones.

I hated Lady Eboshi. I have rarely hated any fictional character so strongly. Everything she was doing disgusted me, and because this was a Japanese film, set against an ancient culture, I was able to drop any preconceived notions and barriers and experience the film in a way I rarely have.

But then, inevitably, I saw how she cared for her people. I saw how she rejected the Emperor as weak and useless, and championed the working-class. I saw how she opened her arms to people cast off by society. I saw how she was willing to kill the gods themselves to give humanity a better future.

She certainly sees gender lines. She holds the men and women of her town to separate jobs. She has recruited her women from brothels—gendered, sexual work—and holds secret meetings to remind them not to trust men. For all of her own strength and personal power, she allows herself to be used by a male monk, which leads to the destruction of her town, and, maybe most telling, she is never seen without makeup. Her lips are a red slash at all times, creating a pleasing face—for herself? The men? The women?—and providing a counterpoint to San’s first appearance, when the girl’s mouth is red with her mother’s blood. Eboshi has bought her women’s freedom and trained her women to shoot, but she has also locked everyone into a rigid life that cannot bring true equality or freedom.

In the opposite corner we have San. Looked at from a certain angle, San is also a Disney princess. San is a monster princess, not by birth but by adoption. Her parents threw her at Moro’s feet, sacrificing her to save their own lives. Rather than eating the infant, Moro chose to raise her, and she proved herself worthy of life in the pack. If she had shown weakness Moro would have killed her in the same way she threatens to kill Ashitaka, not out of hatred but purely for efficiency’s sake.

San knows her cause is doomed, but she fights anyway. She knows what her mother’s blood tastes like. She nearly becomes a demon, loses her mother and her home, and in the end feels the burning of Ashitaka’s curse when the demon-didaribotchi touches her. She has more reason than ever to hate humanity. But even after that, she’s the one who saves Eboshi. By the end of the film, she even allows herself to love Ashitaka, without allowing humanity to change her essential nature.

Where Ashitaka transcends the two women, and finally becomes the hero of the film, is in his respect for all life. When he comes to Iron Town he hates Lady Eboshi, and with good reason, but he listens to her. He sits with the men in their quarters and listens to their stories, then he goes to bellows to visit the women and help them with their work. In Iron Town the work is divided along gender lines, but Ashitaka simply ignores them: he helps the women with the bellows not to belittle them, but to give them a break from work that he recognizes as difficult; he treats Lady Eboshi with respect despite his anger; and he speaks to the lepers without fear or revulsion. His relationship with Yakul is one of equals, and he treats all the god-animals with deference rather than hatred or fear. He even asks the Kodama for permission before walking through their forest, a politeness which is rewarded when they lead him to the healing waters of the pool. Ashitaka sees all sides, and since he’s approaching the fight from a place of empathy, and a real desire for understanding, he’s able finally to broker peace between them all.

At the end of the film, San and Ashitaka lose their fight. The two people you’ve been rooting for fail, and Lady Eboshi kills Shishigami. But the film doesn’t just end there, because actions have consequences.

Does Shishigami simply grow a new head, smile, and prove that deity trumps humanity?

No.

The Forest Spirit is truly dead, and his body becomes a horrifying black ooze, killing everything it touches. What sentience is left to the monster becomes obsessed with one thing: reclaiming its stolen head. Eboshi, victorious and unafraid, is mauled by Moro’s corpse and loses an arm. Does she bleed to death on the ground, decrying her foolishness? No. Ashitaka binds her wound, and San and her wolf brothers to carry her to safety. She has acted stupidly but her life is still precious, and Ashitaka has promised the villagers he’d save her.

Jigo absconds with the head, and Ashitaka and San pursue him. Does Ashitaka end the film with an epic battle with the monk, killing him?

No.

First of all, Jigo turns out to be a much better fighter than you’d expect. But more importantly, Ashitaka reasons with him, going so far as to beg him not to take a violent path.

Jigo says that if they just wait for sunrise, the demon-Didaribotchi with disappear like a bad dream. This is probably true—the monk’s been right about everything else. But Ashitaka knows that though this is the easier path, it isn’t the right one. Shishigami deserves to die, if he must die, in dignity. To allow him to fade away in his demon form will curse the countryside.

In the end Jigo gives up, and Ashitaka and San return the head. Shishigami is restored just as the sun comes up. And what happens then? Does the forest suddenly sprout? Does Shishigami shake off his wound and go back to normal?

Of course not.

He’s dead, in the way gods can die when humans defeat them, but he’s also still alive, in the way that his spirit infuses the countryside. His body falls right over Iron Town, and his spirit rolls out over the lake and countryside like an atomic blast. Ashitaka and San are healed, but not just them – so are the lepers and the war-wounded. As we watch, the blighted land becomes green, and flowers even begin to sprout. The Great Forest will never again be what it was, but Ashitaka and San’s act of reverence has healed the land.

Do San and Ashitaka live happily ever after?

Not exactly.

Ashitaka is a human, and he loves the people of Tataraba, but San will never forgive them for the murder of Shishigami. So, in what may be the healthiest romantic resolution of any film in history, Ashitaka decides to live in the village and help his friends rebuild. San will go back to what’s left of the forest, and restore order with her wolf-brothers. They’ll live their separate lives, and Ashitaka will come into the forest when he can to visit. Change is inescapable, and much has been lost, but the pair doesn’t give up on their love simply because it’s difficult—they create a new path that will make it possible.

Each character, by letting go of their own hatred and short-sightedness, is able to rebuild a life in a new world.

Leah Schnelbach is going to spend all day watching Studio Ghibli films. You can bug her on Twitter!

Artist Thomas Romain may work for series like Symphogear, Space Dandy, Aria, and Basquash!, but he understands that his true calling is to transform his children’s drawings into fabulous anime characters—hence the creation of wonderful characters like this Steampunk Doctor! Romain shares the images through a Twitter series called Father and Sons Design Workshop, and we’ve highlighted some of our favorites below.

Here’s a dapper Eye Monster:

Behold the majesty of Magic Knight!

But nothing beats the simplicity of Cyborg:

[via Bored Panda!]

Welcome once again to the winter anime season preview, where I watch all the worst shows so you don’t have to—and with Hand Shakers airing this season, I really do mean the worst shows. With arguably the most widely anticipated winter show, Trigger’s Little Witch Academia, being held hostage by Netflix until further notice, the list of new anime that is both defendably worthwhile and available to watch instantly this season is rather short (by which I mean I’ve picked only one). On the other hand, we are graced with quite a few highly anticipated sequels, including Blue Exorcist and KonoSuba, which are doing their best to redeem a dismal winter.

So what’s worth a look? Well, there’s this pretty cool show about fantasy politics directed by the guy who did One Punch Man… and you don’t even need an Anime Strike subscription to watch it.

ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.

In the peaceful kingdom of Dowa, an organization called ACCA provides essential services (police, fire, medical) to the kingdom’s thirteen autonomous territories. Keeping watch over this sprawling organization is the inspection department, where our enigmatic protagonist Jean Otus (Hiro Shimono, in a significant departure from his usual type) is second in command. Nearly one hundred years of peace in Dowa have made the kingdom prosperous and ACCA’s agencies complacent, but when rumors begin to stir of a plotted coup d’etat, Jean Otus seems to find himself at the heart of events.

Directed by rising star Shingo Natsume, who gained notoriety for his work on Space Dandy and then the hit One Punch Man, this adaptation of Natsume Ono’s (House of Five Leave, Ristorante Paradiso) fantasy drama is the most high-profile debut of the season. The show so far is a slow burn, displaying little urgency in getting to the meat of the plot, and instead letting the intrigue slowly unfurl in the background as we are introduced to the cast and world through everyday events and interactions. Strangely, while the characters are all believable and subtly drawn—Jean especially is intriguingly ambiguous, and I truly have no idea which, if any, of the suspicions that surround him at this point are true—the world-building is regrettably ham-fisted. The first two episodes contain not one but two instances of clunky “as you know” exposition, and despite all the explanation, I am still not certain I’m sold yet on the world of Dowa as anything more than a stage for the cast to move around on.

That said, the show as a whole is deliciously stylish. Although I have heard some complaints about the character designs by Norifumi Kugai, namely that they are not faithful enough to Natsume Ono’s unique art style, I personally love them, and find it a pleasure just to watch them indolently smoking cigarettes and eating a variety of delicious food as they talk obliquely around the topics of internal corruption and government overthrow. Whether ACCA appeals to you will likely depend on your level of patience with the slow-moving plot and tolerance for meaningful sidelong glances, but, so far, I am very much enjoying the characters, underlying intrigue, and overall ambiance. I look forward to seeing where (if anywhere) the larger plot leads us.

For fans of: House of Five Leaves, Ristorante Paradiso, Joker Game, 91 Days, Psycho-Pass, Death Parade

Watch it now on Crunchyroll.

If I haven’t made it obvious by now with my incessant whining, there’s not much new anime to get excited about this winter. But the season’s really not so bad if you include sequels—and it might be a great time to catch up on some of the more highly anticipated ones out this winter.

Blue Exorcist returns to TV after six years (good lord, has it really been that long) to adapt the Kyoto arc of the manga, picking up right where it left off in 2011. Long-running favorite Gintama returns (again) for another cour or two before it pretends it’s going away forever (again). Cycling anime with a heart of gold Yowamushi Pedal returns this season with a slew of new characters, and alternate-world comedy KonoSuba returns for a second season with the same four morons from season one. If you’re in the mood for something more serious, there’s no better time to pick up historical drama Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju, which has just started its second season, or March Comes Like a Lion, a sensitive seinen drama about a young professional shogi player, which begins its second half this winter.

So? What are you watching this season? Let us know what you’re loving (and hating) in the comments!

Kelly Quinn is a children’s librarian and professional anime cynic. You can complain about her taste to her face on Twitter.

Over 30 years ago—in March of 1984—Hayao Miyazaki’s first original movie soared into theaters. This was Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and it proved a watershed moment in the history of anime. Here was a film built around real thematic concerns, with a heroine who fronted an action movie without becoming an action cliché. Here monsters were revealed to be good, and humans were revealed to be… complicated. Here, Miyazaki created a film that would serve as a template for the rest of his career.

And maybe best of all, Nausicaä’s success led to the foundation of Studio Ghibli the following year.

Creating the Valley

Toshio Suzuki, editor of the magazine Animage, was impressed by Miyazaki’s work on The Castle of Cagliostro. He asked Miyazaki to pitch ideas to Animage’s publisher, Tokuma Shoten, but when his film ideas were turned down, Tokuma asked him to do a manga.

Miyazaki began writing and drawing Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in his spare time in 1982, in addition to his work directing TV shows (including a few more episodes of Lupin the III) and the manga soon became Animage’s most popular story. Hideo Ogata and Yasuyoshi Tokuma, the founders of Animage, joined Tokuma Shoten in asking Miyazaki for a film adaptation, which he finally agreed to do if he could direct. Isao Takahata came on as a producer, but they needed to choose an animation studio. They went with a studio called Topcraft, hired animators for Nausicaä only, and paid them per frame.

The animators managed to create an iconic work in only 9 months, with what would be a $1 million budget today.

This was Miyazaki’s first collaboration with Joe Hisaishi, a minimalist composer who would go on to score all of Miyazaki’s films, as well as other anime productions, and many of the films of Beat Takeshi Kitano. (Joe Hisaishi actually based his stage name on Quincy Jones – since in Japanese his name would be written Hisaishi Joe, with “Hisaishi” using the same kanji as “Kuishi”, which is close to Quincy.)

Miyazaki’s Nausicaä (the character) is named for a character in The Odyssey, the daughter of Alcinous and Arete, who help Odysseus return home to Ithaca after his adventures. Nausicaä (the movie) was inspired by the tragedy of Minamata Bay. During the 1950s and 60s, Chisso Corporation’s chemical factory continuously dumped methylmercury into Minamata Bay. This resulted in severe mercury poisoning in people, dogs, cats, pigs, and obviously fish and shellfish, and the effects were named “Minamata Disease.” Even after it seemed the original outbreak had been resolved, Congenital Minamata Disease began cropping up in children over the next decade. There were thousands of victims over the years, and by 2004, Chisso Corporation had been forced to pay $86 million in compensation. This horrific incident inspired a great deal of activism and art, including this iconic photograph by W. Eugene Smith.

Obviously, that work focused on the victims, and the negative aspects of the environmental impact. Miyazaki took it in a different direction by exploring an environment that adapted to the poison. Much like the Japanese kaiju films of the post-World War II era that used silly rubber suits to comment on the horrors of nuclear weaponry, Miyazaki used manga, and later anime—both seen as frivolous entertainment—to comment on the destruction of the natural world.

The interesting thing to me is that Miyazaki took a horrific injustice that is know throughout Japan, and chose to look past the immediate tragedy. He commented that his imagination sparked because, since no one would fish in the Minamata Bay anymore, sea life there had exploded. He became interested in the way Nature was adapting to the poisons that had been dumped into the bay, and rather than retelling the story of the human horror, he focused on the way nature synthesized the poison and bounced back. He created an entire world that had been poisoned so he could look at the way humans’ toxicity warped the Earth, and the way the Earth healed itself.

Story

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind takes a sliver of the manga and runs with it. Nausicaä is the Princess of the Valley of the Wind. The Valley is one of the only fertile areas we see in the film, but its close proximity to the Acid Lake and the Sea of Decay put it in constant danger. Spores from the Sea of Decay—a massive toxic forest—would destroy the crops, but usually the winds keep them at bay. Life in the Valley is peaceful, but there are dark undercurrents: Nausicaä’s father is wasting away from his years of exposure to toxins, and there are rumors of war surrounding the Valley. In addition to human danger, there are massive insects called Ohm that will kill people who get too close to their young—in the film’s first action sequence, Nausicaä rescues her friend, Lord Yupa, from a pissed off Ohmu.

Life in the Valley is shattered when a massive plane carrying the Princess Lastel of the Pejite people crashes near the village. The people haven’t even finished burying the dead (including the Princess) when the warlike Tolmekians show up. They are led by another Princess, Kushana, who has to use mechanical legs and an arm after being maimed in an insect attack. Her men kill Nausicaä’s father, subjugate the people of the Valley, and claim that the Pejite cargo, a massive bioweapon called a God Warrior, will be finished in the Valley and used to destroy the Ohmu.

Nausicaä is caught between wanting to protect her people and save the Ohmu, especially after she discovers that there’s more to them than most people think. The Tolmekians take her hostage, the Pejite attack, and she gains an unlikely ally in Lastel’s brother, Asbel. All the conflicts come to a head when Lord Yupa, Asbel, the Pejite people, the Tolmekians, and Valley people face an army of Ohmu who are enraged when a gang of Pejites kidnap and torture one of their young.

Warriors of the Wind

In 1985, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind came to America. But because we can’t have nice things, New World Pictures (Roger Corman’s production/distribution company, which, to be fair, at least gave us Heathers) were the ones who brought it over. Thinking Americans couldn’t handle a complex environmental fable, they chopped Nausicaä to bits and re-edited the film to turn the Ohmu into exactly the “relentless killing machine” cliché that Miyazaki was subverting. They deleted over 20 minutes of footage, including the introduction to the Sea of Decay, Nausicaä’s secret garden—which explains that there is pure water beneath the earth—and Nausicaä and Asbel’s journey beneath the Sea of Decay—which reveals that the plants are filtering the poison from the world, and that the Ohmu are guarding it. It also cut Nausicaä’s role down in general, and, as you can see in above, slapped a bunch of nameless male “protagonists” into the promotional art.

This utter mangling of a heartfelt piece of art led to Studio Ghibli’s “no cuts” policy going forward, which is why it took a while for many of their films to come to the U.S. (According to rumor, when the Weinsteins planned to edit Princess Mononoke, an unnamed Ghibli producer sent them a katana along with a note reading: “No Cuts.” I desperately hope this is true, and that that producer got a raise.) It wasn’t until John Lasseter was in a position of power with Disney that he and Ghibli brokered a distribution deal for their films.

Nausicaä’s Legacy

The most obvious legacy of Nausicaä is that soon after this film’s success, Studio Ghibli was born. After twenty years of work together, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata teamed up with producer Toshio Suzuki and Yasuyoshi Tokuma of Tokuma Shoten Publishing to create a new studio with its own personality and ethos.

One of my favorite bits of trivia that I learned during this rewatch is that Hideaki Anno was the main animator on the “God Warrior” sequence (above). Anno went on to create the iconic Neon Genesis Evangelion, which is also about giant human/mechanical hybrids created to defend earth from monsters. He also did a live-action take on the God Warrior sequence for the Ghibli Museum which you can watch here. And over thirty years later, Miyazaki asked Anno to voice the main character in The Wind Rises.

Another fun thing that Nausicaä contributed to the culture: the giant, ostrich-like Horseclaws are riding birds based on the long-extinct Gastornis. These affectionate creatures supposedly inspired Final Fantasy’s beloved Chocobo.

Who Run the (Post-Apocalyptic) World?

Miyazaki—in his first original film—populates the world with complex women in order to subvert the message of a centuries-old folktale. Along with the tragedy of Minamata Bay, the 12th-century Japanese tale “The Princess (or Lady) who Loved Insects” is often cited as an influence for Nausicaä. This story is about a Heian-era girl who loves playing with bugs. This is sweet at first, but as she gets older her family and the other women of the court become increasingly critical of her. She refuses to wear makeup, to blacken her teeth, to enter into the usual court intrigues, and most problematic, she has no interest in being courted. But this doesn’t seem to be a cute story about an oddball who finds happiness with her insect friends—instead it seems much more like a didactic folktale, reminding women that their value lies in beauty and conformity.

Miyazaki takes that seed and grows a beautifully unique tree. Nausicaä does what she wants, not because she’s a spoiled princess, but because she is truly interested in learning more about the Sea of Decay.

When she finds Ohmu shells she shares them with the villagers. She treats all the people of the village as her equals. She helps fix windmills, she plays with the kids, and you get the sense that Lord Yupa is not the first hapless traveler she’s rescued from an Ohmu. Her interest in the Toxic Jungle, which could be an eccentricity in a lesser story, becomes the source of hope for her people when she realizes that the Earth is healing itself.

Best of all, it’s not just her. As enraging as Princess Kushana’s behavior is, she’s not a cardboard villain. Even after surviving an insect attack, she willing to listen to the Valley’s Wise Woman, Obaba, and to Nausicaä; Kushana isn’t subjugating the Valley of the Wind to be cruel. Obaba herself is afforded complete respect from everyone. The women of the village work just as hard as the men, and hope for their daughters to be strong like Nausicaä. Best of all, when Nausicaä is imprisoned by the Pejite, it’s the other women who rescue her. Asbel tells the women the truth, but they’re the ones who work out an escape plan and choose to substitute one of their own to dupe the guards. Lastel’s mother leads Nausicaä through a room of women who all wish her well and encourage her to save her people—a network of people considered too unimportant to be closely watched, who save the person who saves the world.

Redefining the Monstrous

Nausicaä is a post-apocalyptic adventure tale that subverts every cliché it finds. The obvious would have been to pit Nausicaä against a man: the empathetic, caring woman fights an angry, warlike man through the power of love. But Miyazaki sidesteps that trope by creating a complex female antagonist. Kushana is much more assertive than Nausicaä, but she was also maimed in an insect attack, and understandably does not see the Ohmu as anything to make peace with, and she genuinely wants to unite the people of the world in order to reclaim Earth from the insects. In a different story, she’d be the hero. Most interesting, even after she has subjugated the people of the Valley, she still wants to sit down and discuss Nausicaä’s theories about the Sea of Decay and the Ohmu’s role in the world.

But Miyazaki has an even bigger subversion in store. Nausicaä appears to be building up to a final confrontation between several different furious worldviews. The Tolmekians, the Pejite, and the Valley people are all coming together to a battlefield beside acid lake, while the Ohmu charge toward them. Kushana has her God Warrior, the Pejite have a gunship, the Valley people are waiting in hope that Nausicaä is coming back to lead them.

But that isn’t what happens.

When Nausicaä sees that the Pejite people are torturing a baby Ohmu to incite an insect stampede, she leaves her people and veers across the Acid Lake to rescue the baby. She literally sidesteps the battle, and changes the meaning of the film. This is not a war story. It is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a film about listening to Nature and redefining the monstrous. The people who tortured the baby Ohmu are monstrous. The people who would revive the God Warrior are monstrous. And rather than engaging in a dialogue with them, Nausicaä resets her priorities and goes to do the thing only she can do: save the baby Ohmu, and calm the insect herd.

When the film starts, we see an intricately designed tapestry that seems to tell a prophecy. We see a man investigating a village destroyed by poison. We get long panning shots showing us the weird beauty of the post-apocalyptic terrain. And then? We meet our heroine Nausicaä, who wanders through the forest unafraid, rejoices when she finds an intact Ohmu shell (her villagers can use the shell for all sorts of things) and pries one of its eye lenses up.

The first action we see our heroine take is to literally look at the world through the eye of a creature that most would call a monster. This is an extraordinary sequence, and Miyazaki allows it to play out with the confidence of a much more mature filmmaker. After all, this was only his second film, and his first original one, but he allows minutes to go by as Nausicaä lays on top of the shell and gazes at the forest.

It tells us almost everything we need to know about her in a few gorgeous images.

As we begin the film, we think of the insects as monsters, giants who can be blinded by rage. But they are protectors: they protect the “Sea of Decay” because beneath the poisoned forest the Earth is healing itself. All the insects can be reasoned with, all of them are sentient. Here Nausicaä is set apart from other people because of her immediate acceptance of other creatures. Rather than seeing a divide between human and animal, royal or peasant, she simply treats everyone the same. She loves the Ohmu long before she has any idea that they’re helping the forest. And of course, we get an early hint that they see her, too:

The movie presents the first Ohmu we see as a terrifying rage monster, and when Nausicaä hears gunshots and rushes to help, we assume she’s going to help the human, but no—she immediately assesses the Ohmu’s anger, decides that the human must have threatened its young, and takes action to calm the Ohmu down and lead him back into the forest, where he’ll be safe.

At the end of the film, when she rescues a baby Ohmu, she calls him a “good child” – which the subtitles on the DVD, and the dub of Warriors of the Wind changed to “good boy”. Now, while the phrase “good boy” has become a great honorific on the internet as memes praising doggos and puppers have proliferated, Miyazaki scholar Eriko Ogihara-Schuck pointed out in Miyazaki’s Animism Abroad that this is placing the Ohmu in the role of a domesticated animal, a role of servitude, where the film clearly does not see the Ohmu that way, and obviously Nausicaä referring to the Ohmu as a child puts the insect on a much more intimate standing with her.

Nausicaä doesn’t care about the differences between humans, animals, insects, plants – they are all living creatures deserving of respect. Nausicaä is also considered especially gifted when it comes to wind, but here again, it’s because she listens. There’s nothing that special about her otherwise, she’s just willing to watch the wind and go where it takes her.

But there’s another aspect that’s important to mention.

She has to choose between her own animal anger and her instinct to act out of love and trust. When the Tolmekian soldiers murder her father, her rage is entirely justified, and it is darkly satisfying to watch her burst into the room and cut them all down. But at the same time, her rage would have led to the slaughter of her people; as it is, she injures Lord Yupa when he tries to stop her.

This moment is echoed years later in Princess Mononoke, when Ashitaka steps between San and Lady Eboshi—here again people must learn to transcend violence.

The last third of the film sees Nausicaä desperately trying to get home, to warn the villagers of the oncoming Ohmu attack. As soon as she sees that a baby Ohm is being tortured she changes tracks. She knows that Yupa and Mito can warn the village—but she’s the only one who can rescue the Ohm, and hopefully accomplish the much larger task of calming the herd of insects. Yupa, with all of his nobility and swordsman’s skill, is useless here. Asbel, who would be the hero in most adventure films, is now little more than a sidekick. Not even the wise old woman Obaba has cultivated the connection to the natural world that Nausicaä has. So she grabs her glider and veers left, racing to reach the Ohm. The Ohm is being flown by two men in a basket, who are guarding their captive with a machine gun. First they shoot at Nausicaä, then they mistake her for the dead princess Lastel.

She stands on her glider, either to startle them, or in the hope that they won’t shoot when they see she’s unarmed. But once they crash, Nausicaä will do what is necessary. She is no cute moe, like Clarisse in Cagliostro, or Kiki in Kiki’s Delivery Service. But nor is she a feral child like San, or a cold bitch like Kushana and Lady Eboshi. This is a woman who ignores the pain from two gunshot wounds to help the baby Ohm.

This is a woman who unhesitatingly threatens the Ohm’s captors with a machine gun to set it free.

I have no doubt that she would have shot both of them for the chance to calm the Ohmu herd, and she would have felt terrible pain doing it, but she’s going to do what’s necessary for the good of her villagers, and the good of the Ohmu. She knows now that the Ohm are part of a larger design to save the world, and she’s not going to stop until they’re safe.

And naturally, it is this baby Ohmu, whom Nausicaä accepts as a child like any other, who saves her life during the stampede:

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind could have been a rote post-apocalyptic tale. Instead, Miyazaki created a film that is alive with ideas. The film merges a real-life tragedy with a centuries-old folktale to tell a subversive story of independence, intellectual curiosity, and, most of all, hard-won, life-saving empathy. Nausicaä created the road map for Studio Ghibli to follow, and soon Nausicaä and Asbel were joined by an army of smart girls and thoughtful boys, along with even more subversive monsters.

Leah Schnelbach wants an Ohmu of her very own! Come talk to her about post-apocalyptic super bugs on Twitter.