There’s a wonderful moment in the second episode of O Maidens In Your Savage Season where the literary club is trying to come up with a less dirty word to describe sex. After going through similar sounding words — as Momoko Sudou says, it becomes a presentation on dirty puns — club president Rika Sonezaki comes up with the perfect sentence.

The suffering of erotic experience.

Naturally, a description this long needs an acronym to make it more palatable and easy to say, so Sonezaki shortens it to S.E.X.

This experience perfectly encapsulates what makes O Maidens funny, but also demonstrates how much it understands its subject matter: budding sexuality and the “savage season” of adolescence. In avoiding the crass, dirty nature of sex in line with Sonezaki’s thoughts, they went for a flowery literary choice only to require paring it down to its essence, allowing them return to, well, the word they were trying to avoid: sex.

The obvious commentary is that the act of sex isn’t dirty or disgusting, but neither is it flowery prose or more pure if its tied to a grand romance story. Sonezaki, and the other characters in O Maidens all have their own, demonstrably different, views on sex that end up changing throughout the series’ run. They learn that sex isn’t dirty, doesn’t make you more of an adult, isn’t limited to the opposite gender, and the act of not having it doesn’t make you more pure. While the series could push a lot more on a few of these issues, O Maidens makes sure to treat all of these characters perspectives with the gravity they deserve. It doesn’t denigrate them for being confused, but it also doesn’t celebrate its characters’ terrible choices.

Hyouka has always meant a lot to me for myriad personal reasons. It aired at a time when I still didn’t know who I was or what I wanted from life, and ended up inspiring me in more than a few ways. This year, after the Kyoto Animation fire, I reposted one of my posts on the series from my previous blog, and then decided to rewatch it. My Hyouka rewatch wasn’t part of reviewing “favorite of the decade” series, but a simple return to my personal favorite of Kyoto Animation’s works.

I was, and still am, struck by its melancholy.

Hyouka is an oddly divisive series. People don’t argue about it frequently, but the reaction to Hyouka generally falls in one of two categories: “personal favorite”, or “so-boring-I-stopped-watching.” Like all Kyoto Animation series, Hyouka is gorgeous. Even the show’s detractors will agree that its visuals are outstanding, particularly when used cleverly to showcase the series’ chosen deductive mastermind Houtarou Oreki. At its core, Hyouka is about solving mysteries. It’s the perception of what mysteries the series is actually interested in solving that makes Hyouka so intriguing.

If you want a show that’s interested solely in its own plot-level mysteries, like the secret of the Literature Club and Chitanda’s uncle, or the mystery of Class 2-F’s movie, the in-series mysteries will disappoint you. Yet, if you’re interested in the mysteries of character and emotional narratives, Hyouka will likely become a personal favorite of yours as well as mine.

The truly mysterious and terrifying in Hyouka comes once the mysteries are solved from a plot standpoint. Thanks to the club’s sleuthing and Houtarou’s deductive skills, she learns that her uncle took the fall for a protest movement that accidentally burned down a school building. Despite not being the true leader of the movement, he was expelled. The visuals that aid in a retelling from someone who was there (the school librarian) are horrifying, as is the moment when you realize that a simple “ice cream” pun is a reference to Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. All of Hyouka’s mysteries, once ended, produce further questions of humanity, character, and emotion. It’s slow, contemplative, and visually arresting.

Hyouka ends on a particularly melancholy note, with Chitanda showing Houtarou how she has accepted the burden of her family name and what is required of her. It’s not happy, but dutiful in a way that suggest she’ll eventually find her own happiness within that duty with musings on what that means for both her and Houtarou.

It’s no coincidence that most, if not all, of the characters’ individual emotional narratives remain relatively unsolved, albeit in a different place than when the series began. They all grow, but there’s no “solving” people.

I have no idea if I’ll do Kyoto Animation justice after all that happened this year, so here goes nothing.

The moment I hear of a friend or family members’ death I unwittingly commit it to memory. The first time came when I was in elementary school. I remember staring at the side of a Rice Krispies box at the kitchen table as my mother hung up the phone and turned to tell us the news.

I can’t tell you how I felt because I don’t remember that.

When it comes to major deaths of celebrities, I’m rarely affected. Perhaps this is because I don’t watch many movies or pay much attention beyond social media with the exception of the professional gaming sphere. Recently a friend rightfully called me out for seeing The Rise of Skywalker of all films after not having gone to a movie theatre since The Last Jedi. He was right.

Not-so-coincidentally, I remember the moment that I found out that Carrie Fisher had died.

Anime is the type of media I watch the most outside of esports competitions — and the hours spent watching this year’s LoL Pro League alone dwarf any amount of time I put into anime — but it doesn’t translate well into your average social situation. When Carrie Fisher died, everyone I knew talked about it.

When I tell people about the Kyoto Animation fire, I have to start with “Do you know about that arson attack that happened this summer in Japan?” It requires explanation and buildup.

On July 18, 2019, I had my window open because it was hot in my apartment. I was leaning up with my back against the window, laptop in my lap. I saw the news of the Kyoto Animation fire on Twitter. Soon my timeline was flooded with news and speculation. The information slowly grew worse and worse throughout the night and in the coming weeks. A total of 36 people died. If you’re reading this post, you probably already know this. Maybe you too have that number burned into your brain along with the names of some of your favorite animators and directors.

I didn’t blog for months. The only post I put up was a repost of a Hyouka editorial I wrote years ago. I still don’t know how to say “the right thing” about this, with the proper weight and gravity.

Of Kyoto Animation’s 29 television series, I have seen 24. I didn’t start watching airing or more current anime (anything that wasn’t on television) until 2008. One of the first series I saw was Clannad, animated by Kyoto Animation, which in hindsight can seem almost as egregious as the fact that I recently went to the movies to see The Rise of Skywalker, but at the time was visually-stunning. It captured my attention and to this day, Clannad has a special place in my heart despite how awful Kotomi’s arc was and I cried at several points during the series. This led me to all three of their KEY/Visual Arts adaptations, which led me to Haruhi, which led me to Lucky Star and at this point I was a Kyoto Animation lifer. It’s rare that a studio has such personality, technical prowess, and treats its employees so well. This fire was devastating.

I can accept this place as my home, just like any other.

Kyousougiga is many things. It’s the television directorial debut of Rie Matsumoto, who had previously worked at Toei Animation across a variety of the Precure franchise. It’s stunning, with amazing visual and audio direction as well as storyboarding and cinematography. Like many anime series and pieces of media in general, Kyousougiga is also a look at the idea of home and family.

“Home” in Kyousougiga is first established as the Mirror Capital, a drawn replica of Kyoto that High Priest Myoue created to escape the world with his family. But “home” is also the near-empty room where Koto meets her mother and sees her father’s face for the first time. It’s the hill where they watch the city and sunsets together. Or a ruined garden at the so-called end of the world, after a much-needed airing of grievances. “Home” isn’t a place but the people you love isn’t a new narrative, but Kyousougiga tells it so beautifully, with characters you want to root for, and the stunning visual setpieces that Matsumoto loves.

Kyousougiga also shows how various characters are bound by fates and circumstances that accompany the gifts they receive. Sometimes these gifts are from people they love. The original High Priest Myoue first regrets how his gift separates him from others, and then uses it to create a world for his family which he then attempts to destroy before leaving them behind in a fit of stereotypical “they’re better off without me” angst. Yakushimaru is saddled with Myoue’s responsibilities and an immortality he didn’t ever want. In fact, all of the siblings are saddled with existence. It’s how they cope with existing that’s the interesting part.

At the end of it all, Kyousougiga asks “What’s wrong with just being?” having already provided the answers to its wayward priest Myoue (and us) in the form of Koto’s rant moments before. “It sounds really nice when you say ‘I love you,'” she tells her father, Myoue. “But you have no idea what’s going on.” She then proceeds to attack him verbally and physically, listing off small moments of her childhood like watching sunsets, eating breakfast, and coming home five minutes early. Koto punctuates every instance with “That’s love!” There’s an underlying current of selfishness that Koto knows but won’t release. She wants her father here, so he should stay here instead of leaving while also passing off his problems to her and her siblings.

“Just being” is one of the most difficult things to do and Kyousougiga knows this.

Further Reading:

Rie Matsumoto at the end of all things 

Kyousogiga and What We Find There

Kyousogiga and the Strength of Koto’s Tears

I can accept this place as my home: Kyousogiga and me.

Needing to Know in Kyousogiga

Yakushimaru in Wonderland

I love figure skating. My childhood was full of attempts to copy Yuka Sato or Surya Bonaly before I was told — admittedly in the kindest way possible — that I would never be a professional figure skater. Since then, I’ve followed competitive figure skating casually for years. These past two years I’ve followed it more closely as ladies figure skating finally is having the same (admittedly obnoxious) discussion that the men have been having for years with quad jumps and whatever PCS means to the judges on that day.

As an aside, if anyone else wants to rant and rave about the “three As” (Alena Kostornaia, Anna Shcherbakova, Alexandra Trusova) and what they’ve brought to ladies skating over the past year, I’m on Twitter.

Before Yuri!!! On Ice ever aired, I watched director Sayo Yamamoto’s short, Endless Night, and wished for a figure skating series to come along some day.

Then Yuri!!! On Ice aired and it surpassed all of my expectations.

It takes a lot to get me to watch a fall series while it currently airs due to my job. The League of Legends World Championship happens every year for the entirety of October, and grows longer every year, which means that most of my time is taken up with traveling, writing, watching and rewatching matches, along with filming, prep work, compiling statistics, I put all of my effort into covering this tournament. If there’s a series I want to watch in the fall, I typically put it off until after Worlds.

I made the effort to watch every single episode of Yuri!!! On Ice as it aired during the fall 2016 season.

Yuri!!! On Ice is a lot of things. It’s a genuinely heartwarming romance, and more importantly, it’s a genuinely heartwarming gay romance, set purposefully in a world where there’s no more added pressure or scrutiny than a straight romance. This means that the series can breathe and allow the relationship between Yuuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov to unfold naturally. Yuri!!! On Ice is, to date, the most purely romantic anime series I’ve ever seen (with the added caveat that I don’t actually watch much romance at all because it usually bores me). It even has one of the most masterful romantic plot twists of all time, that in hindsight makes so much sense and adds even more depth to Yuuri and Viktor’s relationship.

It’s a love letter to figure skating. Yamamoto understands what makes figure skating such a draw, while also managing to poke a bit at some of the sport’s systemic flaws (how rigidly gendered it is) to the point where parts of Yuri!!! On Ice border on subversive. At the very least, they’re pointed commentary. You don’t have to love figure skating to love Yuri!!! On Ice, but if you happen to love it, you’ll be able to tell how much Yamamoto and company love it too.

It’s a look at depression, and the different ways it can manifest in people (both Yuuri and Viktor have significant mental hangups, but they deal with these in different, often toxic ways). It’s a look at ambition. At aging. At youth. Yuri!!! On Ice has a lot to say, and every time I’ve rewatched it, I’ve been struck by how many layers it has beyond the emotional narratives of Yuuri and Viktor.

Further Reading:

Yuri!!! On Ice On Social Media and Ephemerality 

Another Frame of Reference (Yuri!!! On Ice and Social Media Part Two)

It’s JJ Style! — A New Year’s Day Yuri!!! On Ice Post

In my Yuri!!! On Ice post, I mention how difficult it is for me to watch currently-airing series during the fall season due to my job. Yuri!!! On Ice was an exception.

I didn’t watch Flip Flappers right away or keep up with it while I was inundated with work, but once I watched the first episode, I was hooked. I couldn’t look away.

Flip Flappers has a lot to say about adolescence, sexuality, and navigating all of that as a queer woman. It also has a lot to say more generally about the human mind and how we process imagery. Flip Flappers uses a lot of visual cues that other anime have also employed, but does so in a way that makes them seem wholly new and fresh while also intrinsically-tied to series’ lead Cocona’s emotional narrative and growth. It begins as an episodic series with Cocona and the erratic Papika jumping to different worlds in a place called “Pure Illusion” in pursuit of amorphous fragments. Every world they visit is beautiful and tied to someone they know in the “real world.”

Of all of my favorite series of the decade save one of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s works that has yet to appear, Flip Flappers is the most visually-stunning of any series on the list. So much attention and detail has gone into the framing of every scene, the positioning of characters, and everything from flower language to art history references to color theory plays a role in further fleshing out Cocona and her story. Flip Flappers is, as a friend so succinctly put it, almost entirely subtext, but it works because of the care put in by director Kiyotaka Oshiyama and his team.

In fact, Flip Flappers had such a visually-impressive three-episode debut — ending on what was rightfully dubbed the series’ “Mad Max episode” — that many fans who were expecting an over-the-top animators’ showcase were very vocal in their displeasure when it became the story of Cocona’s adolescence and burgeoning sexuality. The production itself was fairly troubled, and for as much as I’ve gushed over the way Flip Flappers looks, there are noticeable dips in quality throughout the series. The departure of Flip Flappers‘ scriptwriter and Yuniko Ayana mid-project was also highly-publicized while the series was airing, casting another shadow over the show.

Like adolescence, Flip Flappers is messy and imperfect (if you’ve been reading through all of these “favorite anime of the decade” posts, you’ll notice that’s a running theme) but manages to end surprisingly neatly with the conclusion of Cocona’s emotional transformation. I’d recommend anyone who hasn’t seen it to at least watch the first three episodes.

Further Reading:

Cocona’s Emptiness in Flip Flappers

Flip Flappers — Pure Illusion and the Painter

Who is Bu? Behind Flip Flappers’ Annoying, Ubiquitous Robot

Pieces of Yayaka: Flower Language in Flip Flappers

Breaking Promises in Flip Flappers

The Breadcrumb Trail in Flip Flappers — the Witch

Another Breadcrumb Trail in Flip Flappers — Color Theory

Flip Flappers and the Painting

Yayaka’s World (and a few stray thoughts on Flip Flappers’ Pure Illusion)

Flip Flapping!

I didn’t enjoy Yuri Kuma Arashi all that much on first watch. I enjoyed dissecting it and writing about it, but it didn’t fill me with the same exuberance of Kunihiko Ikuhara’s other works (Revolutionary Girl Utena and Mawaru Penguindrum). The ending was phenomenal but the series itself felt too dense. The characters were too distant and cold. And the series felt like it had more than its 12 episodes allowed it to say.

I’ve not-so-coincidentally mentioned this regarding Sarazanmai‘s placement in my personal top ten of the decade as well, and expect that I’ll feel differently after watching it a few times as well, but I don’t think it will ever top Yurikuma for me due to personal reasons. With every rewatch, Yurikuma remains dense but admirably concise in its storytelling. Like any Ikuhara series, there is more to discover with every rewatch, but only with Yurikuma have I loved the series exponentially more with each viewing.

Yurikuma‘s primary failing for first-time watchers — and something that Ikuhara did course-correct somewhat with the main trio in his next work, Sarazanmai — is that the characters are difficult to connect with. Kureha Tsubaki and Ginko Yurishiro are, by design, frustratingly obtuse and cold. This aids their respective roles in the story — especially that of Ginko, who is revealed as someone who actually cares very deeply about the people she loves — but doesn’t make them initially appealing as characters. Only Lulu Yurigasaki, who is assigned a warmer, comedic relief role at first, is immediately likable.

Not-so-coincidentally it was Lulu’s story that really hooked me and made me emotionally invested in the rest of the series. Her realization at the world’s societal unfairness and how it drives a wedge between her and her younger brother is painfully relatable (and hilarious, especially when she kicks him into an antlion pit).

Yurikuma is a series with a lot to say about societal infrastructure and systemic pressure on queer women and does so surprisingly neatly. Of all of Ikuhara’s series, I also find it the most bittersweet because Yurikuma says, in no uncertain terms, that the system is still firmly in place, even though Kureha, Ginko, and Lulu have broken their own cycles. The Wall of Severance is continuously being built, but also continuously being dismantled by those brave enough to not only recognize but overcome those same pressures to pursue the love they want.

Further Reading:

A Room With a View: Lulu Yurigaski

On Beginnings, Endings, and Yuri Kuma Arashi

Yuri Kuma Arashi: Constructing a Wall of Severance

The Visible Storm of Yuri Kuma Arashi

Kureha Tsubaki and Flower Language in Yuri Kuma Arashi

There is likely to be a lot of Masaaki Yuasa’s work in decade top tens, especially if they include films (which mine does not). Beginning with The Tatami Galaxy in 2010, Yuasa had a remarkable decade that included Kick Heart (2013), The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl (2017), and Devilman Crybaby (2019) along with other successful projects and animation guest spots in Space Dandy and Adventure Time.

Ping Pong the Animation surpasses any other Yuasa work for me personally.

The opening lyrics of “Tada Hitori” by Bakudan Johnny (used as Ping Pong the Animation‘s opening theme) sum up the series’ overarching theme better than I ever could.

“Maybe there’s no job I’m the only man for, but am I going to fade away without doing anything? Like hell, I’m going to fade away without doing anything!”

Ping Pong the Animation is first and foremost a story about talent and ambition. Not everyone has it in equal measures and sometimes we all need a kick in the ass. The friendship between Makoto “Smile” Tsukimoto and Yutaka “Peco” Hoshino is painfully relatable and messy. Neither of them can move forward while trapped in this toxic, fairly codependent stasis that the series slowly unravels. When they both come out the other side as more whole and stable humans, it’s an emotional triumph that few other series have been able to top. Their journey is framed by phenomenal characters at every turn (Kong Wenge is my personal favorite) whose own individual narratives are equally compelling and emotionally-affecting.

Many sports series deal with these themes — they’re the easiest to develop in any sort of competition show — but none treat them with the nuance of Ping Pong the Animation. At every turn, Yuasa’s visual flair punctuates these narratives, delivering them with precision. The sound direction in this series is also fantastic, infusing joy and despair into every match.

Not everyone has the talent to go pro. Not everyone has the wherewithal or ambition to make the most of their talent. Sometimes hard work can propel someone who is naturally less gifted to the top and sometimes it just can’t. Sometimes having talent — or being told you have talent — is terrifying. Ping Pong the Animation knows all of this and presents it better than any other series I’ve seen.

Further Reading:

The Stop After the Next

Smile, Sound, and Fury

Smile and the Butterfly Effect: Converging Narratives in Ping Pong

Peco, Kong, and Presence on the Court

Ping Pong: A Retrospective

I hadn’t rewatched From the New World until I reviewed it specifically for this list. Because it has been seven years, I had forgotten the actual opening of the series — instead, the ubiquitous image of this show, the children standing on a hill at sunset, is what had stuck in my mind.

From the New World begins with a flickering camera, tension that the viewer can instantly feel, before it’s released in a series of human explosions to Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 (From the New World). More specifically, “Largo” or “Going Home” as it’s more commonly known in the United States. It then transitions, still playing this song, to the image I remembered. As if they’re talking to the viewer directly, one of the children says, “When they play ‘The Way Home’ plays on the speakers you have to head back.” It’s equal parts haunting, stunning, and (upon rewatching) emotionally-affecting despite the fact that a fresh viewer knows nothing about the violence shown in brief bursts or these children arguing at sunset.

It’s only a taste of what’s to come.

When I first watched From the New World, I was at an odd point in my life where I felt like everything I wrote was awful, so I just didn’t write — as opposed to now where I still think everything I write is awful but the exact purpose of this blog is to simply keep writing about shows that I love or am fascinated by regardless of quality. I didn’t write much about it, but it made me think in a very specific way that was much different and broader than more typical mystery or puzzle-box storytelling.

Parts of From the New World are deeply cynical about human nature and no character escapes wholly unscathed. With each reveal about the world that Saki Watanabe and her classmates live in comes a pointed jab at humanity. This series begins at a slow and relaxed pace, but conveys a building tension, especially with cuts from Saki’s every day life, back to the initial boom of humans developing psychokinetic powers and destroying each other. Even with a fairly egregious infodump a few episodes in, From the New World is so smart and visually-arresting that I hardly cared, especially when the series picked up its pace with horror after horror after horror. It’s one thing to make an anime (or novel, From the New World is based on the Yusuke Kishi novel of the same name) about a far-off dystopian future, it’s another thing to succinctly underline so many flaws of human societies with the confidence and visual panache of From the New World.

Seizon senryaku, bitches.

(I don’t usually spoiler tag things because I expect people to realize that this is a very spoilery blog, but just in case, MAJOR CONTENT SPOILERS for Mawaru Penguindrum.)

If you’ve followed this blog, or anything I’ve written about anime at all in the past decade, you know that my favorite anime of all time is Mawaru Penguindrum. Naturally, it’s also my top anime of the decade. Although other series on the decade list may change places over time, some slipping out of contention with others (Revue Starlight) moving up after more consideration, time, and rewatches, Penguindrum‘s place is absolute in both a decade top ten and as my all-time favorite.

Although I had watched Kunihiko Ikuhara’s first independent (see: not Sailor Moon, a.k.a. under the thumb of Toei Animation) work Revolutionary Girl Utena prior to Penguindrum and loved it, Utena didn’t slap me in the face like Penguindrum did. Where Utena was leisurely and sometimes meandering, Penguindrum‘s first episode was a triumph — a colorful explosion that successfully integrated whimsical magical realism, three likable siblings, and intriguing monologues about fate with haunting musical and visual cues.

I later learned that these monologues were almost word-for-word copies of written accounts with Aum Shinrikyo members interviewed by Haruki Murakami for his book Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. Saying that Penguindrum is about the 1995 Tokyo Subway attacks is technically correct, but that’s only half the story. Through the story of the Takakura family and others at the periphery of their lives, Ikuhara deftly tells a story of societal pressure and the danger of simply “othering” people without looking at the larger social factors influencing their behavior. It’s a story that’s very Japanese at its core, but has a far-reaching universal message. Living may be the punishment, but it can be circumvented by reaching out and truly loving other people. It feels like I learn something new every time I rewatch it, and am about to finish up yet another rewatch in a few days with a friend who is watching it for the first time.

From a more meta perspective, Penguindrum inspired me to stick with blogging about anime as a hobby. I wouldn’t be writing here if it weren’t for Penguindrum and honestly, I also wouldn’t be an esports writer if it weren’t for Penguindrum either, simply due to the people it introduced me to, who in turn introduced me to various League of Legends professionals and streamers. More importantly, it introduced me to lifelong friends in the blogging community.

I’ve now been blogging about anime for nearly ten years.

Further Reading:

Super Frog Saves H-Trio: Himari Takakura and the divine

Himari Takakura’s fun and exciting Mika-chan house

You have finally realized it: watching and rewatching Mawaru Penguindrum

Are we . . . the “bad guys?”

The short answer is yes, obviously. The lengthier one involves a surprising amount of nuance and one, specific moment in time.

From the New World‘s greatest strength as a production is its confidence. It knows what it wants to say. It knows the plot points it wants to hit. It knows what it wants you to think about as an audience after the fact. This is partially due to the fact that it’s based on a 2008 award-winning novel by Yusuke Kishi, but a lot of credit goes to director Masashi Ishihama and team for bringing it to life. Even with viewers’ gripes over the series’ visual style — most of which I personally disagree with, but that’s a post for another time — the sound direction and cinematography remain at a consistently high level throughout the series.

Upon rewatching it for my personal top ten anime of the decade, From the New World struck me as remarkably prescient in its themes and impressively detail-oriented. There are a lot of small moments that I hadn’t remembered or noticed while watching it for the first time since I was wrapped up in the vague mysteries of the world that were being presented. I was learning, alongside series lead Saki Watanabe and her elementary school friend group, the truth of their world at the same pace that they were. This pacing is another deliberate choice of From the New World, and one that changes completely when you rewatch it with prior knowledge of how the series ends and the structure of the in-universe human society.

For it’s first three opening episodes, From the New World cuts back and forth between a timeline at least 500 years in the past from the series’ current in-universe timeline up to 1,000 years prior to the existence of Saki, her friends, and the society they belong to. Saki and company are wholly unaware of their situation, or how their current society came to be. The truth of their history is not taught, it’s hidden between the layers of the things they are taught. This repeatedly shown visually through shots like the one above, where the children stand, firmly separated from the truth (in the form of a being they call the “false minoshiro”) that they seek by staging and an aptly-placed tree.

The series’ fourth episode is an information dump aptly titled “Bloody History” that was somewhat maligned when it aired for being an infodump. Yet there are a few moments that are particularly timeless and immediately struck me while rewatching.

Once they’ve cornered the “false minoshiro,” it admits that it’s a library terminal and repeats a monotone warning to Saki as she threatens to rip its antennae off. Repeatedly she returns to threatening it with violence. Saki isn’t a particularly violent person — we see her save a monster rat in a previous episode — yet this is what she resorts to under stress.

As the library terminal tells the children the bloody history of psychokinetic humans (PK users) — and this is just the history of one group of humans, the Holy Cherry Blossom Dynasty — enslaving non PK users, killing indiscriminately, the children learn of the bloodbath that was a precursor to their own comparatively peaceful society.

In the moment pictured above, the false minoshiro states this: “To end the chaos, the keepers of the technological civilization, who had remained bystanders, rose up and took action.”

First, the series cuts instantly to Saki and her friend Maria Akizuki’s visible relief. Saki begins to say “Then, are we?”

There’s a memetic phrase that often travels around all corners of the internet from the British sketch comedy That Mitchell and Webb Look where two Nazi soldiers realize that yes, they are in fact, the “bad guys.” Saki’s question is related to this, and also the more general perception of her existence. At the mention of the society that stayed out of the dynastic wars and slaughter that, according to the false minoshiro, cut the entire population by half, Saki and Maria recognize a lifeline. They don’t have to be descended from the murderous emperor who killed so many people that plagues of flies descended on cities that stunk of rotting flesh, they can instead be descended from the people who stayed out of it.

The question that they don’t ask, or think to ask, in their relief is whether standing by as tens of thousands of people are murdered for no reason other than the whims of a person in power in fact makes these keepers of the technological society “good guys” at all. From the New World recognizes this and just leaves the line to hang over Saki and Maria’s easing tension. When their friend Shun Aonuma realizes that something is still off about the whole thing — after all, their society has PK users including Saki, himself, and all of their classmates as well as their parents — they discover that a combination of education, physical and sexual intimacy, hypnosis and psychological repetition is used to weed out problem children who are then killed. On top of this, their genetics were modified to include something called the “death of shame” where there is a physical internal feedback to killing another human that kills the attacker in turn.

Later in the series, when Shun’s power leaks out of control, the world around him warps. He unwittingly modifies genetic material in other beings, creating new mutations of anything from an insect to his beloved childhood dog while doing nothing but existing. He tries to ingest poisons to kill himself but his body warps them to be non-toxic due to an unconscious desire to live. In the end, he kills himself with his PK power instead.

Throughout the series, the extent of PK powers and the lengths humanity goes to control them are revealed. From the New World asks a lot of questions of who ends up in power as the surviving people when civilizations collapse (people already in power or with some sort of leverage), who benefits from that collapse, and how the surviving society moves forward both in structure and how it disseminates information. Those in power will do anything to stay in power. In the end, the big reveal that an entire society of beings (the aforementioned “monster rats”) that were enslaved were in fact, human, is initially laughed at due to the fact that it comes from the mouth of a perceived tyrant who dared to rise up against his human oppressors. When the truth is fully revealed by Satoru Asahina, who studies the so-called monster rats’ genetic code, he simply states that their ancestors did it to protect their privileged status.

The question of From the New World isn’t “Are they the ‘bad guys?'” — the answer to that question is “yes” — but of what, if anything, can be done about it. None of this happens in a vacuum and in the end Saki and Satoru, two people who were raised in this society and now know the truth of it, are married adults with a child on the way. They obviously aren’t the first people to know the truth so the question is of how they’ll move forward with that knowledge and what knowledge will be passed down to their child.

“Were we able to change?” Saki writes in the closing episode. “You’ll know the answer as you read this, one thousand years from now. I hope that answer is ‘yes.'”

I’ve been thinking a lot about fanworks lately.

More specifically, I’ve been thinking a lot about fanfiction and how frequently it’s written off or denigrated publicly, but this also somewhat applies to fanart and other methods of engaging with a media property outside of the recognized canon.

Part of this is because of the recent Star Wars canon (I’m using this word very loosely here) post-The Rise of Skywalker, part of this is because I’m a fanfiction writer myself (compartmentalization comes remarkably easy to me), and part of this is because Magia Record aired today.

Magia Record is a mobile game spinoff of the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which in turn received its own anime adaptation, Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story. You don’t have to have watched Madoka Magica or have played the mobile game to understand Magia Record but, like most stories that are part of a larger franchise, it plays with the expectations of an informed viewer who has already watched Madoka Magica in its entirety.

The original 2011 Madoka series, and series composer Gen Urobuchi played a lot with audience expectations of what a magical girl story should be. Although I can rant all I want about how it wasn’t that much darker than a lot of other magical girl series, Madoka Magica celebrated the existence of the magical girl and has been one of the more influential anime series of the past decade. The expectations of a viewer watching Madoka Magica as it aired were that of lighter and fluffier fare. Madoka Magica played this up and then did away with it entirely in its third episode.

Instantly popular, Madoka Magica gained viewers by the week. Watching it and discussing it became an entire experience complete with an online water cooler courtesy of social media. Then came the movies — two reworks of the original series’ narrative and an addition called Madoka Rebellion. Rebellion relied on preexisting Madoka knowledge and then undid the entire series’ canon in the most perverted way possible. It was panned by critics and a large portion of the Madoka faithful, written off as a fanciful fanwork brought to life by a rabid fanbase and a desire for all involved to make as much money off of the Madoka franchise as possible. Early announcements of Magia Record were met with similar derision.

Magia Record plays with all three aforementioned stages of Madoka knowledge: a set perception of magical girl series generally, set perception of Madoka Magica the anime, and a set perception of Madoka Rebellion. Gekidan Inu Curry and their team’s visual style takes a lot from the original SHAFT production while poking at the viewer through similar imagery to the first series and brief winks via lighted train signs.

“Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The rumor about the magical girls?” an unseen chorus of young girls chatters over the opening fight. They finish their conversation with “Ah~ I want to become a magical girl too.” A sage Madoka viewer will know that this too is a perversion of the original Madoka message (and a massive part of what Rebellion purposefully undoes). When Kuroe tells Iroha Tamaki that magical girls can be “saved” if they go to Kamihama City, it recalls both the original series and the warped version of Madoka Kaname’s hometown, Mitakihara, present throughout most of Rebellion. That same viewer can’t help but ask where Magia Record will fit in this established canon and whether Madoka’s wish remains in effect in some way.

We already know what Iroha and her magical girl counterparts of Magia Record don’t — that the wishes are a horrid monkey’s paw. Shots like Kuroe holding her soul gem call to mind the sacrifices made unwittingly by these young women. So many other shots in this first episode are meant to purposefully call to mind Madoka Magica or Madoka Rebellion. The question is of where Magia Record will go next, and whether there’s a place left to explore beyond the anime series and movie trilogy in a creative manner. Thus far, Magia Record‘s first episode says a hesitant “yes.”

For some, only Gen Urobuchi’s Madoka Magica is canon. For others, Rebellion is their favorite part of the franchise. Magia Record will likely be compared to a fanwork, but it’s playing with established narratives in an interesting way. It’s also another marketing arm of a very successful franchise. Although these two pieces (established spinoff of Madoka and an interesting anime) seem mutually exclusive, they don’t have to be.

This is it. The greatest world.

There is bound to be a lot of praise in the anime community (on social media, larger review sites, YouTube, and even tiny little blogs like this one) for Masaaki Yuasa and Science Saru’s adaptation of Keep Your Hands of Eizouken! Their love of animation as a vehicle for their and our imaginations is abundantly clear in every frame. In my own corner of anime Twitter, I saw a variety of sakuga fans sharing the above image — Eizouken protagonist Midori Asakusa watching Future Boy Conan with rapt attention as her voice over muses that this was the moment she realized that people made the anime she watched — with their personal realizations of anime creators and own similar epiphanies. For lack of a better description, Eizouken is a sakuga anime about sakuga. It’s love of animation as a medium and vehicle for our imaginations is apparent in every frame.

Young Midori’s reimagining of her own apartment complex struck me more than the above scene. It’s a more simplistic drawing, and lacks the detail of her later concept art, but is a pure expression of a child’s imagination — something that stuck with me as a viewer throughout the episode and well after I was finished watching.

When I was in elementary school, my friends and I created our own worlds, scribbling them down on scraps of paper like Midori. My friend D and I had an entire stable of horses that would follow us to school every morning and be waiting for us every afternoon to walk us home. Another friend and I dug up pieces of pottery and marbles from my backyard and hoarded them, later running a museum with these all-important artifacts for our parents. Yet another friend’s house was cursed with the big toe of a giant, and we would run screaming through her house, up and down the stairs all the way from the attic to the basement trying to avoid being crushed.

These slowly evaporated as we went into junior high school and later high school. I continued drawing, but creating concepts was never my forté. In fact, as much as I identified with Midori as a character — especially her rampant imagination — I’m much more like Tsubame Mizusaki in practice. I focus much more on life drawing, people, and characters in my art than I do extensive backgrounds or concept art.

There are so many small details in Eizouken that resonated with me as an artist despite the fact that I don’t consider myself a sakuga person (or at all qualified to comment on individual animators regularly). It gets the imagination part right. It gets the progression over time as an artist right — Midori evolves from the scribbles initially presented to rich visual worlds. And it gets that artists themselves are focus on different things. By combining Tsubame’s characters with Midori’s art we get a full product and a love letter to animation itself.

Recommended Reading: Sakuga Blog will likely cover the series in full, and I highly recommend their detailed accounts of the creators behind this show.

I’m getting old.

It’s not the kind of aging on which Sing “Yesterday” For Me has trained its sights on.

That type of aging, at risk of offending the majority of people who read this who will definitely be significantly younger than me, is a relatively young type of aging. It’s the post-university ennui. You’ve been told time and time again by people older than you — and that one acquaintance who actually managed to get a good job upon graduation and is rather obnoxious about it — that you really should have figured out what you want to do by this point in life. These same people also may have told you that whatever you actually wanted to do in life — photography, in the case of Sing “Yesterday” For Me‘s Rikuo Uozumi — wasn’t lucrative enough to have a career in. They (probably) meant the best for you by saying this, or at least thought that they did.

Sing “Yesterday” For Me not only reminded me of my past self at this specific time, but also the self that immediately followed. The one that looked back on that initial, fresh-from-graduation self and thought with a relieved sigh, “I’m so happy that I finally got through all that.”

My fresh-from-graduation self was a bit of an asshole.

Rikuo is at this exact point in his life, fresh from graduation with no job other than being a part-timer at a convenience store. He’s also not unaware of his situation, nor does he blame anyone else but himself for landing in it. This, as several other characters point out to him, is an obnoxious and toxic self-fulfilling prophecy. Rikuo deliberately sets low expectations for himself and doesn’t try as a precursor “gotcha!” whenever others, he himself, or the universe at large calls him out on it.

He’s already beat you to the impending insult.

I’ve been here. It’s not a good place.

At the presumed time of Rikuo’s graduation, Japan was in the initial throes of an economic stagnation. A cursory glance at any article about “The Lost Decade” reveals a landscape eerily similar to that which faces United States’ university graduates currently, only with a growing pandemic and an ineffectual government on the top. It doesn’t excuse Rikuo’s behavior, but it makes it even more unsurprising. His type of self-centeredness is as grating as it is resonant.

Rikuo seemingly only cares about two parts of his life. The first is his relationship with former classmate Shinako Morinome, who he appears to have put on an alarmingly high pedestal, admiring what he perceives as security from already having found her life’s calling in teaching. Whether this is actually true remains to be seen.

The second is photography.

Photographs are one of the only things that Rikuo has bothered to put away in his mess of a room, showing a care and attention to detail that he lacks with everything else in his life. Even his jean cuffs are ripped — we see this as he’s lazily slipping out of his tied shoes and stepping directly on them — either because he cannot afford new ones or simply doesn’t care. Hilariously, the first photograph he takes is the stereotypical dude with camera shot of a cute girl in Haru Nonaka for the completely unrelated “Snow White” demo tape that Kinoshita handed off to Rikuo at work. (It’s definitely not a coincidence that Rikuo’s closest coworker is in a band and working at the convenience store presumably to make ends meet.)

Rikuo is relatable, but too gloomy to carry this show for me. He doesn’t even believe in yesterday himself, knowing that his own lack of direction or motivation helped lead him to where he is now.

Despite its prescient nature to current events, Sing “Yesterday” For Me ultimately made me feel old because I’ve already been there and come out the other side (hopefully as a better person but honestly it’s always a work in progress, I’m still remarkably self-centered). Perhaps watching this will inspire me to examine my own thoughts on aging, albeit an aging that will happen to these characters down the road.

Ultimately, it’s Sing “Yesterday” For Me‘s visual direction that instills the most hope, despite a setup that could easily become a rote love triangle complete with quirky Haru as Rikuo’s “muse.”

And if that happens, I can always rewatch Honey and Clover.

Gal & Dino isn’t perfect. A similarly esoteric follow-up to Pop Team Epic from Jun Aoki and his team at Space Neko Company and Kamikaze Douga, Gal & Dino is comparatively slow, replacing frenzy with a relaxed slice-of-life feel. Pop Team Epic fans may be (and have been) disappointed with this first episode.

But someone on staff knows their fashion magazine photography and I am here for it.

That someone is Tomoe Nakano, the Kamikaze Douga artist who directed and storyboarded Gal & Dino‘s opening sequence. It begins with a short piece of animation that follows the unnamed (thus far) Gal into her home where the Dino is seated at her table. Cue a live-action cut after the title drop to a person in a Dino costume dancing around the Gal’s apartment.

This is followed by the most impressive and energetic part of the opening sequence, despite the fact that it’s effectively a series of still shots quickly shown one after the other. The quality of these could show up on any Instagram influencer’s stories or photo feed, and reflect how a modern “gal” would be using social media platforms. Influencer feeds and fashion photography bleed together frequently, and the Gal & Dino opening uses this to create something creative, weird, and pretty to look at (which is the end all, be all of fashion photography as it is).

Both the Gal and Dino are never shown in the same medium together. For example, the snapshot above — which looks like it’s lifted from an influencer’s stories after taking photos at a trendy café opening — Dino is printed on the takeaway cup and we only see Gal’s real-life hand (nails on point).

Other sequences pair the live-action Gal with a drawn Dino, followed by a fully-drawn Gal and Dino — although Dino is still integrated into the scene somehow, like the silly party straw that Gal is drinking from.

At other times, Nakano employs Gal’s surroundings and integrates Dino into them while Gal is posing for photos like the graffiti or wall tiles in her background. Some of these photos appear to be very specifically chosen and posed (like an Instagram feed) while others attempt to be candid shots — although they’re still the type of “candid” that magazines and social media influencers choose.

Gal’s face is never shown, regardless of whether she’s drawn or it’s her real-life stand-in, while Dino’s goofy open-mouth grin is always visible.

Another way of pairing the two is by showcasing Dino within Gal’s belongings. He appears several times in makeup and food shots that you would also find in an influencer’s social media feed or as photographic beats in a magazine shoot. The effect is like an I Spy photograph where the viewer plays “spot Dino” before the opening moves on to the next shot.

One of the most common criticisms of Gal & Dino will be that the premise — Gal randomly invites Dino back to her apartment after a night of drinking and he just hangs out there — is thin. Yet, as shown by Nakano’s opening sequence (and other parts of Gal & Dino‘s premiere) that leaves a lot of room for creativity and exploration.

Paneling — separating out specific still panels like in a comic — appears frequently in anime. Part of this is simply because the source material for many anime comes from manga, and transferring those panels to isolate specific characters from others is an easy visual transition. At other times, it can be used to more clearly show characters’ relationships with each other in an easy-to-digest visual format. Paneling additionally conveys a deliberate thought process especially if panels are revealed in a certain order with precise timing — Masaaki Yuasa’s Ping Pong: The Animation immediately comes to mind.

In Sing “Yesterday” For Me, paneling is used to frame characters’ memories in specific ways that convey their perspective on others or how they subconsciously see other people without them ever saying these thoughts aloud. Panels appear in flashbacks and introductory episode titles, framing how characters think.

Rikuo Uozumi is the first character that the series introduces. He’s messy, generally listless, and only cares about two things: photography and his former university classmate, Shinako Morinome. His love of photography is highlighted in regular, present-day shots of his room. His feelings for Shinako are framed in paneled memories.

Through Rikuo’s first few flashbacks, Sing “Yesterday” For Me not only establishes his feelings towards Shinako but how the series itself is going to use panels to show characters’ internal motivation and thoughts. First an image of their college class appears at a river in the general panel. Then Shinako smiling — presumably at Rikuo, the first-person in these memories — in an isolated panel. That panel fades with a filter as another panel appears on the right — Shinako looking ahead. Filters and focus indicate the direction of thought or movement.

This shows Rikuo’s thought process. To him, Shinako is someone who is always looking forward. She knows what she wants to do and pursues that with a determination that he doesn’t have — making her attractive not only because of what she looks like but because of who he thinks she is.

Another paneled flashback shows Shinako looking back and smiling at him while Rikuo is not paying attention in class. His memories are filled with conversations with Shinako that involve her admonishing him for his lack of direction.

Shinako’s own memories tell a completely different story.

In Shinako’s flashback, an unknown boy features prominently. She remembers him as he walks in front of her. Shinako carries a bag of groceries while she looks at his back, smiling.

In the series’ second episode, it’s revealed that Shinako was in love with someone from her hometown of Kanazawa — Rou Hayakawa’s older brother — and this is the person that she thinks about in her paneled memories. A close-up on her bag of groceries in one of the panels carries a different weight by the end of the episode, as it’s revealed that he died of a heart condition and she used to cook for him frequently. Presumably, this is a walk home from their high school where she’ll be preparing another meal for him.

Rou’s memories tell another facet of the same story.

As he explains to Rikuo what happened between his older brother and Shinako, Rou’s memories are displayed in paneled flashbacks. They feature a set of shoes carelessly placed in the entryway and then a series that features specific comic-style paneling as well as environmental paneling, using a doorway to frame Shinako and his older brother as he peers in on them

First, Ruo thinks of Shinko taking care of his older brother. His older brother appears to be looking off into the distance, with Shinako looking down at the floor and the food she prepared. Yet, when the next panel appears, the doorframe isolates the two of them together as a couple while Ruo watches them out of the room — visually out of the frame that the doorway provides. Later he thinks of Shinako looking at the cherry blossom trees, saying that she always thinks of his brother at this time. Outside of Ruo’s paneled memories, Shinako mentions that she hates cherry blossom season. The series takes care to almost always frame her with cherry blossom trees, making them less pretty and more oppressive.

Lastly, there are the memories of Haru Nonaka. She looks at Rikuo the same way that he looks at Shinako (with similarly forgiving and misguided filters) and the series makes it a point to place both of their memory flashbacks in the first episode as a point of comparison. Haru remembers him as someone determined and in a hurry.

Later Haru says that she knows relationships are an illusion, but that she still spent a while pining after Rikuo. In her memories he appears much more put-together and less directionless.

Paneling is only one of the reasons to love Sing “Yesterday” For Me‘s visual direction — but it’s also the most prominent visual technique and the series uses it precisely and with purpose.

Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake are anime series, right? Okay, good.

I don’t usually spoiler tag anything because I make the assumption that readers are coming with the knowledge that there will be spoilers but just in case: major plot spoilers for all compilation Final Fantasy VII material including the original game, Remake, and related games/media like Dirge of Cerberus.

Here is way too many words about Reeve Tuesti. If you actually make it to the end of this, thank you. Also, wow. 

My favorite Final Fantasy VII character is Reeve Tuesti. It was before Remake was released, and since Remake, my assertion of Reeve as one of the better characters in the game has only grown.

When I tell people that my favorite character is Reeve Tuesti, the responses are usually as follows:

Who?

Why?

Cait Sith sucks! 

If I’m making an esports comparison (the first and last one of this rambling Reeve manifesto) these are similar reactions to the ones I received when I said that Go “Score” Dong-bin was my favorite League of Legends pro long before he was was briefly known as the best jungler in the world.

Why Score when there are so many better (read: less boring) players? 

Okay, fair.

So why Reeve when there are so many better (more interesting/hotter/insert positive adjective and/or description here) characters. He’s not even (technically) a playable character in Final Fantasy VII. He works for Shinra. He sits in an office all day. He spies on the main party through a weird cat robot.

Again, fair.

Yet, Reeve is a man of our time. I’d argue that he is, in fact, interesting and a prime example of some of the more nuanced parts of Final Fantasy VII scattered among very heavy-handed ideologies that clash between many of the main characters. He’s important to me. Here’s how he could also be important to you or, at the very least, a character that is more than a suit in passing, especially after the events of Remake. 

Who in heck is Reeve Tuesti?

In the game Final Fantasy VII and its various compilations, Reeve Tuesti is an executive of the Shinra Electric Power Company. He is on the board of directors and is the department head of the Urban Development and Planning Division.

Later in the game, it’s revealed that he created Cait Sith, a fortune-telling robot cat who joins protagonist Cloud Strife’s party the first time they visit the half amusement park-half casino called The Gold Saucer. How does he control Cait Sith? The game doesn’t explain that. Is he listening the entire time from his office in the Shira tower? The game doesn’t explain that either. It also doesn’t explain why Shinra would choose to employ a toy cat that tells fortunes and rides a giant mog around as a party member. Why does Cloud immediately accept the excuse of “I want to see how my fortune turns out so I’m joining your party” (paraphrased) as a legitimate reason to join their eco-terrorist group without any proper vetting? 

Seriously Cloud, what were you thinking?

That isn’t to say that the compilation of Final Fantasy VII doesn’t provide some of these answers, especially around who Reeve actually is, but the original game decidedly does not. 

Within the scope of Final Fantasy VII alone, Reeve is the only Shinra executive who isn’t actively terrible or a cartoon villain. Scarlet is petty, mean, and abusive. Heidegger physically assaults whoever’s in front of him. Hojo is behind all of the awful human experiments in the game, coolly suggests that they breed Aerith in order to give her a longer lifetime as a research specimen, and has no qualms about sacrificing Midgar or the planet for the sake of science. Palmer is a buffoon who is later hit by a company truck in a scene that I wish I could say I didn’t laugh at, but it makes me laugh out loud every time I play the game. 

And then there’s Reeve.

When President Shinra suggests the Final Fantasy VII equivalent of a Gundam colony drop — purposefully dropping an entire sector of the city onto another sector of the city, murdering approximately 50,000 people for no other reason than to send a message — Reeve is the only person who thinks that maybe, just maybe, this is a bad idea. To which Public Safety (the cop division of Shinra, not to be confused with the mafia-like men-for-hire of Shinra’s Administrative Research division) executive Heidegger replies in the original translation, 

“Reeve, flush your personal problems with the rest of your crap!”

Imagine thinking that the lives of tens of thousands of people are “a personal problem” rather than something everyone should care about, especially when their deaths are easily preventable by not doing this one terrible thing. Just, you know, stew on that for a minute. And maybe think of current events while doing so. 

Heidegger’s response marks the first point in Reeve’s favor — he cares about people enough to clear the remarkably low bar of not wanting them to die to Shinra’s whims — and the first step towards understanding how or why Reeve is an important character. This is a world where the rest of the corporate higher-ups think the deaths of tens of thousands of people are a personal problem, and in this same world, there is a man on the Shinra executive board who does not believe that.  

This is expanded upon further in Remake, where Reeve begs President Shinra not to go through with it, tells his administrative assistant that the situation was “beyond the pale,” and argues with his direct superior (the president of the entire company, no less) when Shinra refuses to rebuild the sector.  

In the original, Reeve’s role as Cait Sith (or Cait Sith’s creator, again, this is not explained at all) isn’t revealed until the end of the game. As Cait Sith, he works on behalf of the Shinra company several times — most notably, stealing the Keystone away from Cloud and company while blackmailing them with audio of Barrett’s daughter Marlene. He later blows his cover to the AVALANCHE crew and the Shinra executive board when trying to save the city of Midgar.

Why is Reeve Tuesti important (and what other information can we glean from the compilation material and Remake?)

Digging deeper into what has been said about a variety of Final Fantasy VII characters from other games in the compilation and media released around Final Fantasy VII, Reeve becomes a slightly more important character to the overall fabric of the game. In terms of being a socially-relevant character to current events, there is no one more prescient than Reeve. 

If the official timeline is as stated, Reeve would have had to design Shinra’s Mako reactors between the ages of approximately 15-17, making him a prodigious teenager who went on to become an adult, trapped in an office at 35 years-old with little to no agency. Even if you’re giving the ages some leeway and saying that he perfected the Mako reactor, he would still only be about 20 at the time he created it. 

Reeve was responsible for how Shinra collects Mako efficiently as an energy source because he designed that system. Mako as an energy source, and the lifeblood of their planet, is the central conflict of Final Fantasy VII. Reeve’s success begat Shinra’s success. They would not have reached their ubiquitous status on this planet were it not for Reeve Tuesti’s brain. 

In joining the executive board, he would have easily been the youngest executive at the company. We can only infer that Reeve was brought on to the board following the success of the Mako reactors he designed, and was pushed up through the system thanks to his own dedication and a helpful hand from the Shinra company itself. In doing so, Shinra keeps Reeve close while continuing to profit off of him far more than he likely makes monetarily and, as his duties and position are further revealed, are certainly not worth the emotional abuse he suffers from his peers and superiors. 

Reeve is trapped, quite literally, in a situation and location of his making.

Supplementary material also tells us these fun Reeve facts:

-He grew up in the country and Cait Sith’s accent is an homage to his parents. He does not have this accent himself.*

-He likely bought them a vacation to the Honeybee Inn during the events of Final Fantasy VII and we have no idea why he would think that this would be a good idea.

-His mom sends him handkerchiefs and reads books to try and keep up with what he’s doing as an engineer/city planner/architect before she dies when Meteor falls on Midgar.

-He once used Cait Sith to help the Turks in a mission that went against the company line before the events of Final Fantasy VII. 

-He later becomes the head of the World Regenesis Organization, which is effectively an interim government after the Shinra company collapses, and is dedicated to finding alternative energy sources to Mako. 

-He’s the type of person who builds a robot of himself to full scale so that his other robot, Cait Sith, can pilot it into battle. 

-In Remake, his division icon is a heart. You can almost hear Scarlet and Heidegger taunting him with a line like, “Wow Reeve, they made your department logo a heart because you’re so lame and stupid” (likely with more expetives). The heart emblem also hints at his character. 

-Also in Remake, he’s the only division head that takes his museum hologram filming seriously, going as far to apologize to the citizens of Midgar for their slowness in addressing city projects. 

-Cait Sith appears in Remake moments after the plate falls and reacts with despair when he realizes that he was too late to stop it. Any player who knows that Cait Sith is controlled by/was created by Reeve, realizes that Reeve tried to save the plate from falling but was too late. This is his first act of true defiance within the scope of Remake.

*As a person who took painstaking attempts to erase their own Boston accent growing up after they were made fun of by other kids — this was before Boston accents became somewhat cooler after the Red Sox broke their World Series drought in 2004 — the accent notation affects me on an emotional level. It probably shouldn’t, but hey, this is all about reading too much into and having emotional responses to video games. 

What is it about Reeve Tuesti in Remake that makes him important?

Digging a bit further into how Reeve is presented in Remake, it’s clear that the game designers want you to feel for him. Here is a guy who is just trying to do his job and in the process makes the mistake of saying, “Hey maybe let’s not murder these people.” He is then ridiculed by his peers for making said statement. 

There’s a lot of nuance in the difference between actively murdering people and being complicit in their deaths due to an existing power structure. More on that later. 

In Remake, Reeve goes one step further; he begs the President to reconsider. This scene was apparently so important that it was featured in Remake trailers. When the plate drop happens anyway, he internally assigns blame to himself as the city’s director, while continuing to marvel at the fact that it happened at all. His assistant warns him about his “beyond the pale” remark, a reminder that Shinra is always watching him at all times. The camera then swaps to Mayor Domino, who is spying on Reeve and his assistant and is later revealed to be an AVALANCHE operative working from inside the Shinra building.

The short cutscene with Reeve in his office is an exercise in how to make a player care about a non-playable character in as little time as possible.

It opens with him demanding that they check all of the reactors for any malfunctions (he doesn’t want more people killed senselessly). Unlike Scarlet and Heidegger, who are again both shown physically abusing and even killing their subordinates, Reeve speaks to his assistant like she’s a human being (again, it’s a low bar, but an important one that he has to be shown clearing immediately). She mentions that he should get some sleep and the implication is that they’ve probably had this conversation more than a few times. In those times, Reeve presumably did not punch her (Heidegger, Scarlet) or use her in an experiment (Scarlet, Hojo). He likely acted as he does in this scene, saying that he has too much work to do to sleep. The work is effectively cleaning up Shinra’s mess — designing a reconstruction plan for the sector that the president decided to destroy. 

You get the sense that Reeve has to clean up after Shinra’s messes a lot. 

In other scenes showing the Urban Development team, Reeve’s employees are exhausted, but still working while waiting for his direction and, most importantly, are not terrified into submission. 

This entire sequence on the 63rd floor into the conference room scene tells us several important things about Reeve. He is a person who is willing to work overtime despite colleagues and higher-ups treating him with active disdain. He vehemently disagrees with several of his company’s policies. And the final, somewhat more speculative piece based on his creation of a reconstruction document following the plate drop: he idealistically believes that he can still “do good” from within the company despite literally everything in his path screaming that no, he cannot.

Reeve also inspires at least a baseline level of respect from his subordinates who are neither cowering in fear nor are they afraid to speak their minds to him (like his assistant). One can only imagine what would happen if one of Scarlet’s subordinates happened to tell her, “Hey you look tired. Why don’t you rest?”

Returning to the idea of not wanting to actively murder people versus being complicit in the deaths of others, Final Fantasy VII Remake touches upon and returns to this key distinction throughout its runtime. Most notably, when they’re in the Shinra building elevator, Barrett (the most gung-ho member of their eco-terrorist group) states, 

“A good man who serves a great evil is not without sin. He must recognize and accept his complicity. He must open his eyes to the truth! That his corporate masters are profiting from the planet’s pain. Only then can he redeem himself.” 

He may as well be talking about Reeve directly. 

Anyone who has ever lived and had a conscience knows that what Barrett espouses isn’t easy. Reeve has been actively complicit in the deaths of numerous people because he’s a Shinra executive and because he designed the Mako reactors. He obviously doesn’t agree with his coworkers and he verbally fights against the idea of dropping an entire plate of the city, but there’s no way he’s “clean” by Barrett’s standards. Reeve’s very existence forces an astute player to think on just how complicit he is while also feeling badly for him given his situation. It also reminds the player that there are varying degrees of complicity and responsibility. This isn’t to say that Reeve should be forgiven immediately — if anything, the Remake makes him too sympathetic — but it’s another challenge to take a look at the effect of the Shinra company as a whole 

Somewhere between “Boo-hoo corporate executive feels bad about all the people they screwed” and the mocking “Ahhhh, so you denigrate society but actively participate in it, quite interesting!” there’s Reeve Tuesti: a man who was likely groomed by Shinra adults as a child and honestly cares about people, but is still complicit as long as he toes the company line. And if you don’t think this is at all relevant to what’s going on in current events all around the world, then you haven’t been paying attention. Reeve’s first act of defiance is shown, but it remains to be seen as to how Remake will follow up on this. Already they’re giving him a larger role than he ever played in the Midgar section of the original and have made it very obvious that they want us, the player, to care about him. 

Final Fantasy VII and Remake deal in a lot of morally-grey areas. Reeve is but one of these examples, but he’s also the most relatable one due to the current times we live in. Without putting too fine a point on it, a closer look at Reeve forces us to re-evaluate our own actions and just how complicit we are in the machinations of our own superiors and societal structures.

“My mother is waiting for me, after all!”

-Riko, Made In Abyss, Episode 13

Outside of an affirmative yell and calling Nanachi’s name, this is Riko’s last statement within the scope of Made In Abyss‘ 13-episode run. Her mother is waiting for her. She wants to continue adventuring immediately (despite a near life-ending injury among other things). Riko’s entire journey through the Abyss began with her desire to see her mother Lyza again while living in the massive shadow of her mother’s legacy.

(spoilers for Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul)

The final episode of Made in Abyss ends with an anime-only, remarkably-fitting ending where Riko sends a message up to her home city of Orth from the abyss. It effectively acts as her ascent. She cannot return to the surface due to the curse of the Abyss and has decided to continue journeying towards the bottom with no definitive end outside of her own curiosity and potentially meeting her mother. With the fifth layer of the Abyss well within her sights as she descends through the fourth with Nanachi as her guide and the ever-loyal Reg as her protection, Riko knows that she’s physically closer to her own “last dive” than she is to the surface and Orth.

Riko had already accepted the fact that she is unlikely to ever leave the Abyss, but her message confirms this in a visual way while giving Riko her own return.

It’s no coincidence that Riko’s Episode 13 return echoes that of her mother in the series’ second episode, which in turn started Riko’s journey with Lyza’s white whistle and letter to her daughter. Petals of eternal fortune flowers, Lyza’s favorites, flutter through the air as Riko’s balloon reaches the surface, much like the flower petals and confetti that celebrated Lyza’s own return. In the world of Made In Abyss, Lyza’s return means that she has gone to depths from which she cannot physically ascend and remain human, even with all of her strength and cave-delving prowess. Her whistle is returned to the city as a symbol of her achievements and last dive.

“Riko, I think it’s not so much that you wanna go see your mother, but but more that you want to be like your mother and go on adventures with her.”

-Pruschka, Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul

Made In Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul picks up immediately where the anime left off (alternatively, where the second Made in Abyss compilation movie ended). Riko, Reg, and Nanachi descend through the rest of the fourth layer, the Goblet of Giants, to reach the eternal fortune flower field just above the fifth layer (aptly-named the Sea of Corpses) that Lyza loved.

Throughout Riko’s journey further into the Abyss, the flower field, and the eternal fortune flowers themselves, have been a visual motif of Lyza. As viewers, we knew that Riko wasn’t going to physically meet Lyza here, but there was still a sense that she would receive a small piece of closure if not another clue as to her mother’s whereabouts or current state.

Instead, the field is burned due to a bug infestation and Riko is there for mere minutes before she watches her mother’s favorite place go up in flames. It’s the beginning of an important narrative threshold that Riko must cross in order to go on her own last dive: the separation of her own desires and the presumed ones of her mother Lyza.

Riko receives her mother’s signature relic: Blaze Reap, which she later uses directly in combat, ultimately with little success (although this is not Riko’s fault and is because of what Bondrewd is). When compared to Lyza physically, Riko has always been found lacking due to the circumstances of her birth. Lyza gave birth to her in the Abyss and Riko still suffers a few complications from it including poor eyesight and a general lack of physical strength even when not compared to the monstrous strength of her mother.

Yet Riko’s talents lie elsewhere, and in Dawn of the Deep, those talents are made apparent once again due to her relationship with Pruschka. Pruschka’s sacrifice becomes the key for Riko to continue her journey, albeit at a cost that Riko never would have asked for. This happens after an important conversation between Riko and Pruschka where Riko admits that she started the journey to find her mother, but that’s now secondary to her own curiosity and call to the Abyss. Pruschka points out that this too is a way that Riko can be with her mother, even in Lyza’s physical absence.

Lyza’s whistle may have brought Riko to the Idofront platform in the Sea of Corpses, preparing for her final dive, but it’s Pruschka and the white whistle Riko has earned — again I feel the need to stress that Riko never would have chosen advancing in the Abyss over Pruschka’s life — that allow her to cross that final threshold. Riko has already had her own small return with her balloon message, she’s found her own path that runs parallel to Lyza’s but is one that Riko chose for herself in Dawn of the Deep, and has now taken her last dive, past the true point of no return.

Prior to watching the latest Netflix thing that everyone is talking about, The Queen’s Gambit, it was pitched to me by several people as “basically an anime.” Half of the time I saw someone talking about it on social media, or heard one of my friends chatting about it, The Queen’s Gambit was placed side-by-side with an anime-style narrative. I even joked about this myself, saying that it was Shion no Ou — a psychological thriller anime series about a girl who plays shogi — with substance-abuse issues.

The Queen’s Gambit isn’t the first live-action television series that has been compared to anime, nor is it the most frequently-referenced piece of media in a side-by-side comparison. In my esports travails, “anime” often becomes a short-cut for a specific type of narrative, usually in reference to a scrappy upstart team or player making their unlikely way through a gauntlet of strong challengers. Elizabeth Harmon, the wide-eyed lead of The Queen’s Gambit, follows a similar narrative, albeit with a lot more nuance, especially when it comes to her being a prodigious woman in a remarkably male-dominated field. (Watch the show. It’s good.) The constant comparisons of The Queen’s Gambit to anime television series also offer a framework for discussing what we mean when we talk about “anime” in the west, why it’s referenced as a narrative framing device when it’s actually a medium, and maybe a bit of pleading on my part to use a different comparison.

Is The Queen’s Gambit anime?

Are esports anime?

Why ask questions with such a seemingly obvious answer?

A precursor to all of the questions posed above is: What is “anime?” If we’re going to be comparing The Queen’s Gambit — or any piece of media — to anime, it would be best to know what anime even is.

This seemingly simple question unfortunately comes with highly-contentious and hotly-debated answers worthy of their own separate and nuanced post. The short, dictionary-definition answer is: hand-drawn and/or computer animation originating from Japan. Domestically in Japan, it can apply to any piece of animation. Outside of Japan, anime is animation from Japan.

Yet, the definition standard — even as combative as discussions around what that standard or definition is can be — isn’t how “anime” is used in the west. There is a subsection of western fandom that can be remarkably strict about anime very specifically being cartoons from Japan, excluding series primarily produced in South Korea, China, any country in Southeast Asia, or even western countries if they’re funding a project or are the studio behind a project. A series like Pop Team Epic or Gal & Dino (pictured above) that are sprawling mixed media projects that use live actors, a variety of stop-motion animation with various objects, and hand-drawn animation may not pass certain viewers’ “anime” bar. Land of the Lustrous also fell into a nebulous category for some, despite having a Japanese animation studio, simply by being completely computer-generated 3-D animation. Similarly, the 2013 rotoscoped Flowers of Evil animation was panned for being ugly and “not anime.”

By contrast, there’s also the question of whether something like A-1 Pictures’ animated MV for American musician and producer Porter Robinson’s song “Shelter” was anime — it was animated by a Japanese studio but was for a western song not a Japanese television production. This specific case was debated at great length on the anime subreddit. For the purpose of this post, anime is animation from Japan, making it a medium.

What we talk about when we talk about anime in the west is all-too-often that aforementioned underdog narrative, commonly found in shounen series. It sometimes involves a robot, definitely involves multiple training arcs or montages, uses animation in “wacky” or “weird” ways, and sometimes has a transformation sequence or two. This definition and reference unfortunately downsizes what can be a wonderfully-creative and diverse medium with a variety of narratives. When people refer to a real-life person’s story as “anime” it’s this same scrappy story with various trials and power-ups found in series like Naruto, Bleach, My Hero Academia, Sailor Moon, Hunter x Hunter, Dragon Ball, Cardcaptor Sakura, and many others. By this narrow narrative definition of anime, something like Hyouka (an odd, pensive, slice-of-life mystery series by Kyoto Animation) wouldn’t be “anime” despite being very Japanese in its story.

The more correct phrasing of “Is The Queen’s Gambit anime? Are esports anime?” would be “Are they this one specific narrative?” This too undermines how multi-faceted and interesting a person’s life or success in a sport can be (and their genuine struggle to reach the top), while also reducing the medium of anime to a specific storytelling structure when it excels with multiple styles and narratives. Although The Queen’s Gambit has similar plotting and a scrappy come-from-behind story (with multiple training “arcs”) the one time it actually reminded me of anime was a cinematic sequence comparing series lead Beth Harmon to one of her rivals, Benny Watts, as they both tear through the U.S. Championship, en route to meeting each other in the finals. Both players are pictured in various squares, resembling a chessboard, while other squares showcase their moves and defeated opponents. This type of visual decision-making is something I see more frequently in anime, but wasn’t what people were referencing when they were comparing the two and recommending the Netflix series to me.

At the end of this rambling post, I’ll leave the reader with a challenge: whenever you see something with something you would consider “anime” by an underdog narrative definition, frame its description differently. Try to convey the nuance of something like The Queen’s Gambit, even if it does follow a similar narrative rise, fall, and eventual triumph of a certain subsection of popular anime series.

Director, I regret to inform you that no one in that boardroom is going to listen to you.

In this world, there is a company so large, it effectively acts as the government — the president of the company is the president of the world by default. With control over the most important natural resource, hands in everything from energy and power to cutting-edge technology to the entertainment and dry goods sectors, and backed by a formidable military, there’s little anyone can do to stop them. The balance of power and income is heavily skewed towards the executive suite while propaganda and (if necessary) force keep people in line.

Every day life in this world for the average person isn’t great, but there’s the illusion that it could be worse, furthered by this company’s ubiquitous presence and media control. If you live in the slums of the city — literally called “the undercity,” separated into numbered sectors below the middle-class plate-dwellers — your goal is to get topside, to the Levittown-style suburbs of the plate. If you already live topside, your goal is to get into the high-rise glitz and glamour of Sector 0 and the company’s executive floors.

Director of Urban Development and Planning, Reeve Tuesti, has the illusion of power within the company. By contrast, he has significantly more power than your average Midgar citizen and lives a comfortable life. He doesn’t need to worry about where his next meal is coming from or if he’s going to have a place to sleep at night — insert a joke about how he’d probably sleep in his office anyway because he works too hard here — because all of his needs are taken care of by the company.

The price he pays for these things is his conscience. He knows that the company he works for is bad, but for the majority of his scenes in Final Fantasy VII Remake, there’s a distinct impression that he believes things should be done in a certain order, through the proper channels, within the parameters of the system. For as much as he seems to genuinely care about things his executive suite compatriots do not — the well-being of his employees, the efficiency and quality of life within the city itself — he’s hardly a radical. More of us are like Reeve than we would be willing to admit, especially if we do have a semblance of a conscience. Guilt is present but even then, action isn’t guaranteed. The path to one (or a select few) companies running a world into the ground for their own personal gain is more boring in the everyday than fiction depicts it to be and it’s easy to be complicit. Furthermore, if the system is all that he knows and has benefitted from it, it’s easy to understand why he would make the assumption that change could happen by following the rules of that system.

Regardless of who is in charge of the city of Midgar, how much is the daily life of an average citizen in the undercity going to change as the Shinra Company accelerates its control of the city and, by extension, the world? For that matter, how much will Reeve’s life change, or the lives of those who work for him change?

Furthering this line of thought, what choice do most of them have (especially the denizens of the undercity) but to keep working?

The turning point for Reeve isn’t the Sector 7 plate drop itself but the one-two combination of the plate drop (which he actively protests) and the president’s announcement that they’re not going to rebuild the sector at all. They’re not going to touch it. The company is not only going to allow the initial wave of deaths that come from purposefully dropping one section of the city on top of another as acceptable casualties, but additionally is going to let the demolished Sector 7 fester in the aftermath causing a second wave of wholly preventable deaths and spin it as an act of terrorism by another party.

In the original Final Fantasy VII game, Reeve’s inclusion in the much smaller Midgar section of the game is reduced to the single scene where he protests the plate drop (although he appears in the boardroom meeting later as well). The big reveal that he designed the robot Cait Sith, which travels with the party for a large amount of the game, happens at the end of the game. Additionally, Cait Sith is hardly a benevolent force through which Reeve is enacting his vengeance against the Shinra Company. Instead, he’s a spy for said company, but ends up playing both sides once his city is in danger. Remake is setting him up to be a more important character already. This could be positioning him for an earlier defection, or simply filling in some blanks while the game has the time, playing with an informed audience’s knowledge of Cait Sith and who he is.

Regardless, Reeve is a prescient character whose actions reflect an added nuance to the idea of someone who is in a better position than most everyone else in the game — someone who believes in the existing system until it becomes abundantly clear that there is no hand-shaking with a side that wants you dead. Reeve hasn’t reached this latter point yet in Remake, but his increased presence in this first installment could make for one of the more interesting character narratives of the entire game, especially against the backdrop of current global events.

Sidenote: Welcome to the 2020 Twelve Days of Anime project, where I’ll be blogging each day for twelve days (until the Christmas holiday) about bits and pieces of anime that resonated with me personally. Yes we’re including Final Fantasy VII Remake in there, despite it being a video game.