Once, while alone in my room, I may have pantomimed a figure skating routine along with Sayo Yamamoto’s Endless Night.

Also, it may have been more than once.

Figure skating was something I put away come junior high school, along with many other things. Unlike stuffed animals (too childish), or a shell collection (too uncool), I left figure skating because there are only two choices when one reaches a certain age – either put all effort into figure skating, or leave it entirely. Soccer, the thought of playing a sport with my friends, and making an attempt at that whole “fitting in thing” overrode any sort of affinity I had cultivated for figure skating.

However, a bit later in junior high, I fell very ill and spent months at home. During this time, I ended up watching a lot of figure skating competitions, and would occasionally try to recreate or mimic their movements as I watched – partially out of boredom or feverish delusion, and partially due to missing it a bit.

Endless Night, a short by Sayo Yamamoto (Michiko to Hatchin and Lupin III: A Woman Called Fujiko Mine) for Animator Expo, portrays a figure skater growing up watching another skater on television. All he thinks about is skating, shown in the near-five minutes of constant, non-stop figure skating animation – 30 seconds longer than a long program – throughout. He skates in front of the television, he skates to school, in class, on the train. Through a series of seamless transitions, we watch as he grows older and hones his craft until the final scene, where he completes a professional program at the highest level.

Since Endless Night‘s debut, when I’m feeling particularly exhausted, sick, or stressed, I sometimes put it on and get lost for five minutes. I don’t want to be a professional figure skater, and I certainly cannot execute even half of what I was taught properly, yet Endless Night is oddly comforting to me, like watching an old movie or television series.

If you’ve seen Shirobako, you know the scene pictured above. Even if you haven’t seen the series, this image’s memetic prowess among anime social media circles is impressive – almost like the word-of-mouth rapid-fire spread of the Shirobako gospel itself. There’s no doubt that this image will top many “best-of” lists and 12 Days posts, as Shirobako grew an impressive cult following by the end of its run, emotionally resonating with many.

Here are my Shirobako stories.

Ultimately, Shirobako is a story of young adults trying to find their way through their workplace – which happens to be an anime production studio. Their line of work comes with its own set of unwritten rules and troubles intrinsic to the anime industry. From an anime fan perspective, watching Shirobako is fairly eye-opening, although it’s definitely filtered through a rose-colored lens and cute characters. Of the five main young women – all of whom are chasing childhood dreams by working on anime in various respects – Shizuka Sakaki, the would-be voice actress, stands out as the least successful of the group.

While her friends are struggling at their respective positions, Sakaki struggles to find work. When she finally does, it comes as a part for a series that her friends are already working on. This is unbeknownst to Production Manager Aoi Miyamori, a close friend of Sakaki’s, until Sakaki announces herself for the recording.

Sakaki’s final line recorded is, “I just got a step closer to my dream!” At this point, Miyamori can no longer hold in her emotions, and she covers her face with the script as she cries at Sakaki’s success.

In covering League of Legends esports closely over the past year, I’ve had the pleasure of befriending many talented people who struggle to find work, or seemingly have everything going against them, especially in one of the minor regions I follow closely: Brazil. I’ve had a few Miyamori moments this year, and I hope to have more in the future, as there are so many hard-working and talented people out there who deserve that step.

“I have no choice but to rely on you. I have only you to rely on. So I’m saying this to someone for the first time. Help. Please, help.”

-Tsubasa Hanekawa, Nekomonogatari: Shiro, Episode 5

Where Bakemonogatari and Nisemonogatari focus on identifying one’s inner demons – exemplified through various oddities – Monogatari Series: Second Season, and subsequently the more recent Owarimonogatari, show characters actively dealing with their respective faults.

No one character in the series exemplifies this as much as Tsubasa Hanekawa. Placed on a pedestal from her first introduction by Koyomi Araragi, Hanekawa creates the perfect mask for her own desires and negative emotions. In her attempt to cast them away, she attracts a cat oddity whom she makes infinitely stronger by the wall that she forces between the image of a peerless student and someone who carries an exorbitant amount of resentment towards others – her parents in particular. The idea of a mask, or certain persona, is also something that permeates the entire series – and is later touched upon with Nadeko Sengoku, making the audience complicit in her character pigeonholing – and playing up to, or destroying said masks is

Asking for help falls into the category of appearing weak. The perfect image of Hanekawa is someone who not only doesn’t need help, but provides constant aid to others. Monogatari Series: Second Season shows a Hanekawa struggling further with her negative emotions, spawning an additional entity to the cat: a tiger. Unlike “Black Hanekawa,” her feline alter ego, the tiger is completely unreasonable, and simply wishes ill on everything. In order to deal with the tiger, Hanekawa writes a letter to her other self, Black Hanekawa. For the first time in her life, she asks someone for help and that someone is a part of her that she had previously discarded. While there are still some viewers that take umbrage with the fact that Araragi shows up at the end of Hanekawa’s arc and defeats the tiger, what’s important is not who commits the killing blow, but that Hanekawa learns to accept her imperfections. Hanekawa won, so to speak, as soon as she admitted that she needed help.

“According to urban legends, after they die, cyberpets go live somewhere else.”

–Dennou Coil, Episode 26

Above all else, Dennou Coil is a series that tackles the emotional stew accompanying any sort of loss. The story of Yuuko Okonogi (Yasako) begins with the loss of her grandfather and ends following the loss of her beloved pet, Densuke. Throughout, the series carries a melancholy undercurrent regarding the formation of relationships and the inevitable parting of ways. There’s also the obvious theme of how much is “real” of Yasako’s relationships, particularly with her cyberpet, Densuke, who doesn’t actually exist in the real world.

Ultimately, the series paints their relationship as a standard one between girl and pet, and her final parting with Densuke involves her petting him for the first time – thanks to the series’ magic of its cyberspace. Yasako finally acknowledging that Densuke is actually gone frames Yuuko Amasawa’s own struggle to let go of someone dear to her.

For the remainder of this post, I’m simply going to tell a story about my dog, Piper.

As I’ve written previously, I fall ill fairly frequently and pneumonia is one of those things that inevitably happens at least once a year. One year it was significantly worse than previous years, to the point where I had a high fever and was unable to do much of anything. At this time, I had owned Piper for less than a year. She was a Basenji and Shiba Inu mix who was also a ball of nerves and neuroticism having been abandoned prior to my adoption of her. Piper cleaned herself like a cat, refused to go to the bathroom in the rain, and avoided all bodies of water from the lake to a puddle on the sidewalk. She had a strict schedule, as recommended to me by the adoption center, so as soon as I missed our morning walk, she knew that something was wrong.

I was too weak to get out of bed, never mind attend class, go to work, or take the dog out, so I had accepted the fact that she would probably have an accident in the apartment and resigned myself to clean it up when I felt moderately better. The problem was that Piper kept trying to climb into bed with me, in spite of knowing that she wasn’t allowed on furniture. She whined until I acquiesced because I didn’t have the energy to deal with her. I don’t know how many hours I laid in bed – my memories of this day are understandably fractured – but Piper was there by my side throughout. She didn’t have an accident. She didn’t whine for food or water. She didn’t move until I moved, many hours later.

Thanks, Piper, wherever you are.

“When you see someone in trouble in front of you, you act before you think. That’s how you’ve always been since you were a child, and I’ve always been proud of you because of that. But right now, you need to think hard. What is it that you can do?”

-Yuru-jii to his great-granddaughter Tsubasa, Gatchaman Crowds insight, Episode 10

Putting aside the aliens, marshmallow-like physical manifestations of the prevailing atmosphere, and existence of superheroes (Gatchaman), the underlying message of Gatchaman Crowds insight is encapsulated in the message above: think.

Throughout this year, in my job, I’ve seen the prevailing atmosphere change in an instant depending on what the latest social media post said. I’ve seen people I like and respect mount public personal attacks against others. I’ve seen people jump into arguments simply to have their own voice be heard, or partake in a popular groupthink.

I’m not judging them, because I am also culpable. Going along with the atmosphere isn’t as obvious as hugging an oddly-shaped alien-creature. It’s shrugging off or acquiescing to what others say, even if you strongly disagree. It’s throwing in an odd insult against someone whom you actually have nothing against for the sake of fitting in. It’s not helping out someone because it goes against what the popular opinion dictates. It’s ridiculously easy.

You may laugh – and I by no means find Gatchaman Crowds insight to be peerless or perfect – but I’m happy to have watched it because, even though I may go along with the prevailing atmosphere from time to time, it reminds me to think of why I’m doing what I’m doing. Additionally, why I should seek out my own reasoning and answers, regardless of whether they end up agreeing with the majority or not.

“Friends are important above all else, right? We, in this classroom right now, are all friends. Don’t you think that those who deny our feelings are the scum of the earth? Those who stray from us are irredeemable. People who don’t stain themselves our color are nothing but trouble, right? We have a word for people who can’t read the mood: evil. Izumino Sumika was killed by a bear because of that. But that was entirely her fault, for she was evil. We must proceed to select the next evil to exclude. Let’s . . . search . . . evil!”

-Eriko Oniyama, Yuri Kuma Arashi, Episode 3

Those evil people aren’t going to exclude themselves, you know?

This particular manifesto of friendship and evil comes courtesy of Yuri Kuma Arashi, and played a major role in the series’ slow and attentive unraveling of existing societal structures with particular attention to lesbian relationships.

Gatchaman Crowds insight also dealt with the concept of a particularly noxious social atmosphere. However, where insight‘s Tsubasa Misudachi and Gel Sadra had arguably good intentions, Yuri Kuma Arashi shows a cutthroat environment where girls continuously look for the next of their peers to be excluded from society, as shown in the speech quoted above. Titled The Invisible Storm, girls of Arashigaoka Academy are prompted to vote for the “next evil to exclude” via a class-wide cell phone voting process called the exclusion ceremony.

Why?

No specific reason is given by the girls themselves – other than the aforementioned manifesto – and the series points directly to the fact that this is what these girls were taught. Unlike the colorful Judgmens of The Severance Court who dictate and uphold social rules, these girls are simply following them. They were taught to build figurative walls and shun those who are different, including those separated by the Wall of Severance (bears) and those who don’t fit into the current atmosphere.

Seeing such a straightforward “us” and “them” mentality – all while most of the girls are sneaking around behind one another’s backs or are bears themselves – is both hilarious and incredibly effective for Yuri Kuma Arashi‘s overarching narrative. The series ends on a semi-positive note with the main characters having found their respective loves, but the existing societal structure relatively intact – the Invisible Storm’s exclusion ceremony continues, always under new management. Circumventing it takes a strong will and a loving heart.

Also, it’s difficult not to laugh aloud at a girl holding up a cell phone shouting, “Let’s search evil!”

Sometimes, we really just don’t know.

This past summer, I had the pleasure of rewatching Yuyushiki. It was initially a series to relax with, following a long work day. I could bask in the visual direction, laugh or cringe at the nuanced relationship dynamics, or simply smile at their goofiness.

One night, as I queued up an episode, I received a text from a close friend stating that his father – with whom I am also fairly close – was in the hospital following a stroke. This episode in particular found Yuzuko, Yukari, and Yui surfing the internet for whale facts. They end their search with the summary above, unable to organize the facts that they had gathered with the magnitude and perceived majesty of a whale. Stunned and unable to sleep – as my friend’s father’s condition was still unstable – I finished this episode after checking in with my friend, and proceeded to look up as many facts on strokes as possible. However, none of these facts helped me in understanding what was actually happening to someone I care about. Researching and knowing things, in this case, still resulted in “Really . . . don’t know.”

Time has passed, and one wouldn’t be able to tell that my friend’s father had suffered a stroke as his recovery was that swift and fortunate. To this day, I’ll admit that I likely ascribe more profundity to this particular episode of Yuyushiki than the episode itself actually has.

Yet, it was oddly resonant and timely, especially for a series with the simple premise of three friends searching for random facts on the internet.

Earlier this year, I resigned myself to return to the Puella Magi Madoka Magica franchise, in the hopes that I could rekindle my lost love for it. Unsurprisingly, my most recent foray back into the franchise – marathoning all three Madoka movies in order – reignited the feelings that I had for Madoka when it was initially airing. What may come as more of a surprise, is that it was Madoka: Rebellion that stirred me the most.

Rebellion is, as a general rule, much-maligned by Madoka fans. At best, it’s considered indulgent fanservice. At worst it’s panned for character assassination of the highest order. My own thoughts on the movie itself are conflicted. Even having rediscovered my personal love for Madoka, I still don’t hold the series in the same esteem as others, in spite of believing it incredibly well-executed.

However, I do love Rebellion.

It’s wonderful, weird, and attempts something so contrary to the magical girl ouevre that it’s nearly impossible to peel one’s eyes from the screen, even if their emotional reaction is vehement anger. Lingering shots on familiar vistas from the series make the world of Rebellion suddenly seem so much larger and grandiose than the original Mitakihara, when in actuality it’s the former which acts like a movie set and the latter that is the in-universe reality. Beautiful transformation sequences and eerie banquets with their Nightmare prey pervert any sort of pleasure derived from seeing one’s favorite characters effectively reborn. It’s a completely grotesque movie and I love it all the more for that.

[Spoilers for the game Life is Strange up to Chaos Theory. Choosing to read below the cut may have consequences.]

One of the more necessary plot lines in the time travel videogame Life is Strange involves protagonist Max Caulfield revisiting the day that her best friend’s father died.

Up until that point, the game had solely focused on immediate rewinds and potentially unforeseen or unintended consequences. The first two chapters of the game – and the manner in which the time travel mechanic is utilized – only reveal that Max can rewind time a few moments prior. This allows the player to, among other things, exhaust every possible dialogue option before choosing the one that they feel is “right,” or presume will show them a desired result at a later point in time. An effect of this mechanic, intended or not, is that players continuously second-guess their answers. Even after making a choice, a certain feeling of uneasiness remains, especially in these first two chapters where everything is relatively fresh as the player is learning about the game mechanics as much as they are the protagonist herself, and her friends.

However, when Max travels back in time to save Chloe Price’s father in Chapter Three: Chaos Theory, both Max and the player learn of her ability to leap through time using photographs. This answers some questions regarding the scope of Max’s powers, and also explores the inevitable question that every time travel hero or heroine asks: “What if I used my powers to change a specific, important moment in my own past?” Max does this presuming that it will improve Chloe’s quality of life, which wholly backfires, resulting in Max undoing these actions and returning to her original timeline. Had Life is Strange not addressed this specific narrative thread, the question of why Max couldn’t simply jump back and fix X Event would have lingered on the savvy player’s mind.

Boku Dake ga Inai Machi (The Town Where Only I am Missing, or the English title of Erased) introduces a similar mechanic for Satoru Fujinuma. Fujinuma has a power that he calls Revival, which automatically sends him back in time approximately five minutes before, in his words, something bad is about to happen. He then has to think quickly about what seems off after the rewind, and attempt to avert whatever crisis or injury is en route.

The waning moments of the series’ premiere finds Fujinuma transported back to his childhood of 1988, presumably to prevent his classmate, Kayo Hinadzuki, from being abducted.

There are key differences between Life is Strange and Boku Dake ga Inai Machi; however, comparing the two allows for their respective uses of time travel to shine.

For Max, traveling through time feeds her sometimes unhealthy insistence on helping others, or at least being nice to them regardless of their previous interactions. Even if the player chooses to be the meanest possible Max, she comes off as an indecisive hipster teen whose awful communication skills get in the way of her kind-hearted nature. Her time travel lessons are ones that accompany any adolescent through their journey to adulthood, specifically: sometimes, even if you try to change something, it won’t end the way you want, in spite of good intent. Much of the mechanic focuses on rewinding conversations over and over, searching for the perfect answer – something that one with any amount of anxiety will resonate with wholeheartedly – only to discover that there is no perfect answer, just a series of answers with both good and bad consequences.

Fujinuma’s tie to time travel is vastly different. Where Max is a fledgling person, stumbling through repeated attempts at making the right choices, the 29 year-old Fujinuma is already steeped in his failure to save a childhood classmate, carrying the burden as he’s aged. Fujinuma’s Revival periods are a frantic attempt to pinpoint what exactly is going to happen and what he will be able to do about it to reverse or change the situation. Max’s rewinds reflect her indecision and agonizing, incredibly teenaged, thought process. Already jaded, Fujinuma is trying to make amends the only way he knows: by saving others if possible.

I personally have mixed feelings on Life is Strange, which ultimately boil down to the fact that a fantastic journey to reach an end, even an unsatisfying one, is still well worth the trouble. In spite of a surprising amount of nuance – dialogue excluded – when dealing with depression, anxiety, suicide, and bullying, Life is Strange fails at key moments and the thriller aspects of the game often fall flat. It’s doubtful that Boku Dake ga Inai Machi will go this route, due to Fujinuma’s already strong characterization as a person with many regrets in his life. However, the way both properties contrast small, immediate jumps with larger, purposeful ones in service of righting a wrong or saving a friend offer an interesting similarity.

If one follows Shoji Kawamori’s somewhat dodgy, albeit interesting, excuse for an overall Macross timeline, his answer is this: much like history that is studied in classrooms and recreated in period dramas, Macross is the retelling of a historical event. The characters themselves may change, but every iteration will have the Macross staples of fighter pilots in transforming Valkyrie robots, idol singers, and a love triangle.

The first episode of Macross Delta breezes through this checklist with obvious ease. Plucky stowaway Freyja Wion, disillusioned grunt worker Hayate Immelman, and hapless Delta Platoon Lieutenant Mirage Farina Jenius – whose last name should immediately ring a bell with the seasoned Macross fan. Presumably, these three will compose the expected love triangle that will develop against the backdrop of a virus that is both spawned from song and quelled by song. Other checkmarks include the alien race Zentradi, a fighter pilot squadron, and an established group of idol singers that said squadron protects: Walkure.

With each iteration of Macross, the checklist becomes all the more obvious, especially to the shrewd viewer already familiar with the Macross oeuvre. Super Dimension Fortress Macross begins with a description of the Unification Wars, in a fairly extensive opening monologue. In comparison, Delta also begins with similar exposition regarding Var Syndrome, an unknown virus that affects human and zentradi alike, while additionally introducing the idol group Walkure and their fighter squadron Delta.

This is the first, glaring difference, between SDF Macross and Delta – additionally, SDF Macross and all that come after. SDF Macross was, from its beginning, more focused on the gritty battles that humans fight with one another. Alien technology is the catalyst for humanity’s encounter and subsequent war with the zentradi, but the focus of the series inevitably shifts back to the damage that humans irreparably do to one another in both love and war.

Subsequent, glossier versions of Macross – Frontier, and the new Delta specifically – are relatively unconcerned with this. Perhaps it’s because the focal point is all-too-often the love triangle itself, and characters are far more established in their pre-packaged roles, which brings the established Macross audience back to a key character from the original SDF Macross series, Lynn Minmay.

Minmay admittedly wanted to become a star prior to the events of SDF Macross – this post is concerned with the Minmay of SDF, not Do You Remember Love? – moving in with her aunt and uncle as part of following this dream. This proximity alone is what eventually traps her on the Macross, and eventually precipitates her future stardom.

One could easily make the case that Minmay succeeds by default. She was a pretty girl who ended up being in the right place at the right time. Unlike those who come after her, namely Ranka Lee of Macross Frontier fame, she has no close competitors. Following her Miss Macross win, and the fact that a broadcast of it goes out to the zentradi fleet, Minmay becomes a star by virtue of her mere existence. This is coupled with the zentradi’s utter lack of exposure to “culture,” or in the specific case of Minmay, catchy pop music. Her most fervent and loyal fans are the zentradi that she affects, again, simply by existing as a pop idol on the Macross.

Ensuing Lynn Minmay expys have rivals, and the idea of the intergalactic songstress is already well-engrained into their cultural memory. Additionally, music’s impact on the zentradi initially came as a shock to both the Macross crew and the zentradi themselves. Later Macross iterations have already established the effect that music has on the zentradi, continuing to toe the odd line between emotional inspiration and cultural imperialism. They trade the gritty human interaction found in SDF Macross in for a slicker, more manufactured idol presentation from the series’ beginning.

The Macross Delta premiere is the most synthetic fabrication of the Macross idol product to date. Delta‘s Lynn Minmay expy is Freyja Wion – a seemingly higher up member of the Windermere colony – who fled her home and an arranged marriage to try out for an opening in Walkure: the famous idol group that fights the Vars Syndrome.

If one is looking for SDF Macross in Delta, there’s initially not much to find beyond the checklist. However, what may pique the SDF Macross fan specifically, is the fact that the Vars Syndrome is the closest Macross has come to refocusing on the inner squabbles of people, rather than an unknown alien invader.

That being said, Delta still shares far more similarities with another Kawamori project, AKB0048, than it does with the original Macross series. Seasoned Macross fans will approach the series already knowing that Freyja will become the next songstress, Hayate will become her pilot, and Mirage – who is the most interesting piece of the puzzle, as she seems reminiscent of the original Misa Hayase more than anyone else – will complete the triangle. Music will once again save the world, likely against stunning action setpieces.

My grandmother has an awful cat. She picked up the cat from a shelter back when she was still living in her own home. With her children long gone, her husband passed, and little time to take care of a dog, it was no surprise that my grandmother greeted me at her door one day with a squirming ball of fur that she called “Buffy.”

Buffy hisses, she bites, she jumps up on furniture always – including surfaces meant for preparing or serving food, which naturally leads to constant, thorough scrubbings. She hates being pet, picked up, or otherwise bothered by anyone but my grandmother, and even then her presumed owner is given a short leash. My grandmother always laughed when Buffy walked through a Scrabble game or knocked holiday cards off of the fireplace mantle. We quickly learned that Buffy had license to do what my brother and I as babies would have swiftly been punished for, and learned to accept that my grandmother would never see her lengthy list of faults.

Pet owners, myself included, notoriously project their own emotional states or wants onto the actions of their animals, and my grandmother was no exception. She loved Buffy, Buffy loved her – at least, from my grandmother’s perspective there was love returned – and any word otherwise was quickly dismissed.

“Every morning, she wakes at the same time and prepares my breakfast. The same meal as always, the same kind girl as always. With her fur always perfectly in place, she is prettier than anyone as she stands up straight and walks out into the morning light.

-Daru, She and Her Cat ~ Everything Flows, Episode 1

She and Her Cat is the relaxing, undiluted essence of being a pet owner. This first part of a four-part short, which is a remake of Makoto Shinkai’s 1999 OVA, is told solely from the cat’s point of view. The perspective of the titular cat, named Daru, is one of a kind and loving friend – the way most of us love to see our pets. It’s warm and reassuring, not because life is always good, but because the cat’s presence is obviously a source of comfort for the girl, regardless of whether the cat believes it or not. Daru is the quintessential pet whose mere existence can be a wellspring of determination or strength to face another tough day.

Previously, I wrote about one of my many experiences with my former dog, Piper, and how she seemingly sheltered me on a day that I was ill. To this day, I can’t interpret her actions as anything else. However, the reality of the situation is that I’ll never know what Piper was thinking because Piper couldn’t speak to me directly, try as she might. I’m left to interpret her actions, which I chose to take as signs of love and companionship. From these presumed affectionate displays, I found my own strength to fight through my illness.

Buffy may be a monster to the rest of the family, but to my grandmother she’s a dear friend, one who has now been with my grandmother throughout her descent into dementia. In a life where very little appears familiar due to memory loss, Buffy is a welcome constant. She’s part of the routine that keeps my grandmother going. In this way, She and Her Cat perfectly encapsulates what it’s like not only to be a cat owner, but a pet owner.

Takeru Takaishi – or as I knew him from the English dub, TK – and his digimon, Patamon, are the first recipients of many Digimon lessons involving the concept of growing up. In their accidental visit to Primary Village, Patamon wrestles with the fear that he’ll never digivolve – an easy stand in for becoming older – while the young Takeru is still thoroughly enjoying his childhood and refuses to find answers through fighting. It becomes apparent that one of the reasons why Patamon has yet to transform is because his partner, Takeru, isn’t ready.

The answer that Takeru and Patamon find together is a simple but effective one: you’ll grow up when the time comes. There’s no need to rush things – especially if your impetus for wishing to grow up is simply because those around you are older – but it’s also important to move forward when you can, growing bit by bit. Takeru has to accept that conflict is sometimes inevitable, and that he can’t remained sheltered forever. When Patamon finally does evolve, he does so to protect his friend Takeru, and Takeru’s acceptance of the change still takes some time.

Digimon Tri revisits these ideas of growing up with it’s now older cast, starting with Mimi Tachikawa and Jou Kido.

“It’s fine. I did know on some level. These past couple of days I was made painfully aware. When something feels right or I think something is good, I act like it’s good for everyone else too. But ultimately . . . I’m not seeing those around me.”

-Mimi Tachikawa, Digimon Tri, Episode 6

Mimi’s problem is easily solved through compromise, primarily because Mimi has grown into a fairly self-aware young woman. In spite of her selfishness in presuming that her perspective represents the thoughts of those around her, when forced to examine her actions, she faces it almost immediately. In her conversation with Joe at the river, she even admits that she partially knew of her own arrogance, but had shrugged this off, thinking that she was ultimately doing more good than harm. This doesn’t forgive her pushy presumptions, but it her refusal to wallow in sadness and address the situation quickly is both an admirable trait and a necessary comparison to Joe’s emotional narrative in these same episodes. Mimi stares down her problems and finds a solution, while Joe hides, avoiding everything.

From a certain perspective, Joe is not wrong to wish for his own life separate from being a “digidestined.” Digimon, and the digital world, are the last remnants of his childhood. Much like the children in Dennou Coil, for a time, there’s a fleeting aspect to the digimon and the digital world that doesn’t translate into the real world – until the real world is directly affected later in the series. Being a “chosen one” in a world that you cannot share with others is an inherently childish narrative, and often used to gently push characters into adulthood. When compared to the pressures of high school and pursuing the goal of becoming a doctor, it’s natural for Joe to shrug off the trappings of his childhood, even while knowing that being a digidestined carries its own set of very real responsibilities. The problem lies in how Joe goes about dealing with his own inner conflict.

It’s also important to understand Joe’s specific point of view. When I watched the first and second seasons of Digimon, I falsely equated Joe with Koushiro Izumi (Izzy) because both characters were presumably smart. However, there’s an important distinction between the two of them that Digimon Tri makes abundantly clear: Koushiro is a genius, and Jou is not.

Everything comes naturally to Koushiro, and by the time of Tri, he’s seemingly built his own business conglomerate. Based on the selection of his wardrobe and general interactions outside of his office, Koushiro has remained blissfully unaware of common social norms in spite of growing older. In contrast, Joe is trapped by anxiety caused almost entirely by social norms and societal pressures. He’s not a genius, and his hard work has yet to pay off in the form of better test scores.

In his initial refusal to help the others and his partner Gomamon, Joe is fully giving in to his self-doubt regarding his schoolwork and future, shirking the duties of both the digital and real worlds while projecting his own feelings of inadequacy across all aspects of his life. Unlike Mimi, his response is to further withdraw from all of his responsibilities. It’s important to note that Joe is also self-aware. He knows what he’s doing and yet this doesn’t stop him from retreating, calling himself a coward. This is a surprisingly accurate portrayal of how crippling anxiety and self-doubt can manifest themselves into every day life. Joe is aware that he has a problem, but his anxiety warps everything around him to the point where he refuses to do anything.

“You said you wanted a reason, right? A reason for what? For fighting? Or a reason why we’re the digidestined? Joe, you’ve forgotten something important. You and Gomamon were chosen together as partners. Do you need a reason for that? Who cares about being an adult or a child? You two are partners.”

-Hikari Yagami to Joe Kido, Digimon Tri, Episode 8

This is the grown-up version of Takeru and Patamon’s initial trouble, albeit with the additional nuance required when discussing adolescents. In the first season of Digimon, Takeru refused to fight and it hampered Patamon’s ability to evolve. Now, in Tri, Joe’s refusal to face his fears aversely affects Gomamon until Joe overcomes his own self-disgust. He finds his answer in Hikari’s words quoted above: at the end of the day, Gomamon is a dear friend and he needs Joe’s help. Growing up doesn’t necessarily mean leaving your childhood completely behind, nor can one stay a child forever. Sometimes, doing the grown-up thing is as simple as helping a friend in need.

Summer heat gives way to the breezes that blow through the furin wind chimes, exorcising the stagnant, humid air. Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu‘s eighth episode uses pillow shots of furin to both establish mood and transition from scene to scene as tensions swell and crest between the series’ three key players.

The traditional Japanese furin originated from Chinese wind bells used for fortune telling as well as warding off evil spirits. Wind bells were placed at the four corners of pagodas and Buddhist temples to chase away said spirits from the premises. When Buddhism arrived in Japan, the furin followed. It became common to place the colorful glass wind chimes in entryways to prevent evil from entering a room. As time passed, furin came to represent mental relaxation and a fresh breeze.

The eighth episode of Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu opens with a rakugo monologue and the shot of furin hanging over a sunflower field. Furin are a shortcut for the summer season in addition to the changing breeze, and this sets the scene for Kikuhiko Yuurakutei’s performance while on tour with his master, the current Yakumo Yuurakutei. While Kikuhiko performs, Yakumo is pulled aside by a colleague and praised for Kikuhiko’s performances while fretting over Kikuhiko and the wayward Sukeroku’s impending shin’uchi nominations. This is the first hint in this episode at a disturbance, or a shifting breeze, in the status quo of Yakumo, Kikuhiko, and Sukeroku’s lives – a shift that begin in the previous episode with Yakumo selecting Kikuhiko to tour the country with him, leaving Sukeroku behind.

After a scene between Yakumo and Kikuhiko regarding Sukeroku’s slovenly and disrespectful behavior, the series transitions to Sukeroku onstage, feeding off of the audience’s energy as always and working up a summer sweat.

Furin usher in a quiet scene between Sukeroku and Miyokichi following Sukeroku’s performance, another conversation that signals change in the already tense balance that the three have struck.

They are still when Miyokichi greets Sukeroku after the performance and the two make small talk; however, as soon as Sukeroku mentions that Kikuhiko is off traveling, the wind immediately picks up, blowing harder than it has all episode. Miyokichi wasn’t privy to this information, and it confirms her greatest fear: Kikuhiko is breaking off their relationship. When Sukeroku moves to comfort her, Kikuhiko sees the two of them together, and the scene transitions again into the two Yuurakutei rakugo brothers talking about their own separate paths.

Kikuhiko is obviously siding with the deep-seated tradition of rakugo, while Sukeroku recognizes the changing times and wants rakugo to change. Their conversation takes place in a smoky American jazz bar, another sign of the ever-changing post-war era. Japan as a country is desperately trying to cling to their traditions while being forcibly pushed into Western industrialization under the United States’ heavy hand. Sukeroku, a performer that feeds solely off of his audience, knows that rakugo needs to change in order to compete with more modern media forms like film and radio. Even Kikuhiko benefitted from radio broadcasts, which allowed people all over the country to hear his rakugo performances – it’s not a coincidence that this is how Kikuhiko (now Yakumo) is introduced in Episode 1.

This entire episode is about the push and pull of tradition against growth or development as all of the Rakugo Shinjuu characters struggle with how to deal with the changing times. Most notably, Sukeroku gives his fan to Kikuhiko as a symbol of their parting as their paths diverge. The paper fan is one of two props allowed in a rakugo performance, and is Sukeroku’s last remaining memento of his first master. It’s his last tie to tradition, as he aims to take the Yakumo name on talent alone, and ensure that rakugo survives the changing times. He leaves it with the traditionalist, Kikuhiko before furin transition the scene once more, to the current Yakumo Yuurakutei.

The seventh generation Yakumo has just finished the shin-uchi meetings, and both Kikuhiko and Sukeroku were accepted – the latter in spite of his perceived lack of respect for tradition. As a soft breeze blows through the furin, Yakumo takes out the Yuurakutei family register, and momentarily laments that he believes that he himself has failed to live up to the family name. The shadow of the name looms over the seventh generation Yakumo, casting doubt over his individual performances and rakugo. In later episodes, there will be passionate arguments for and against tradition and change. However, throughout the eighth episode there are the furin, ushering a soft breeze that signals the oncoming storm.

“Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see.”

-Rene Magritte, Belgian painter

The entirety of Koyomimonogatari Episode 1 juxtaposes two things side by side to create another thing entirely – the modus operandi of Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte. Visual imagery throughout the episode reinforces the Magritte influence, the most obvious reference pictured above: one of his more famous paintings, The Son of Man. Present throughout the episode is the stone from The Castle of the Pyrenees, the red drapery from in The Human Condition (among other works), and cut-outs of a blue sky found in the likes of The Happy Donor.

Unlike many of his surrealist counterparts, Magritte was wholly focused on precise and realistic depictions of the objects and landscapes within the paintings themselves. The surreal, and often unsettling, part of his works came solely from the placement of these objects in certain settings. His oeuvre relied heavily on repetition of the mundane or average, with businessmen in bowler hats, his wife, and their apartment all featuring prominently in his works.

In a way, the Monogatari series and obvious Magritte references go hand in hand, as the former also loves playing with repetition in it’s visual imagery. Monogatari challenges its characters to confront their darkest fears, or monstrous parts of themselves all within a stark, modern setting. This contrast between the fantastic – shown in the myriad of oddities that Koyomi Araragi and company are tasked with tackling – and the everyday is a Monogatari constant.

The first episode of Koyomimonogatari focuses solely on the result of juxtaposing two mundane things together, and how it plays with individual perception and thought.

Koyomi Araragi often appears as a silhouette throughout all iterations of the series, with his trademark ahoge the standout visual cue that a shadow or being is Koyomi Araragi. Even the chapter titles in this episode show a round icon with an ahoge, symbolizing Araragi himself.

In Koyomimonogatari Episode 1, Araragi’s ahoge is replaced by a bowler hat, as he becomes the everyman of Magritte’s design. As it turns out, he is also partially responsible for the mystery of Koyomi Stone.

“The stone doesn’t look like a statue because of the shrine around it. The wooden junk looks like a shrine because there’s a stone in it. Both stop failing as their own objects.”

-Koyomi Araragi, Koyomimonogatari, Episode 1

This short episode tells the tale of Araragi’s woodworking project gone awry, discarded in a flowerbed around a stone. It’s then perceived as a shrine by passersby and given small offerings. Like a Magritte painting, the juxtaposition of two mundane things – a stone and a failed school project – create an entirely new thing: an enshrined stone that is the object of worship for unknown reasons. The punchline comes when Araragi destroys the “shrine” and takes a closer look at the stone itself, which turns out to be a piece of concrete. Monogatari as a series loves to play with perception, particularly how the audience perspective changes over time as new information is introduced and the series retreads characters’ individual emotional narratives. For this small, fairly self-contained story, Rene Magritte was a perfect fit while the series continues to fill in minute details and stays true to its own tradition.

The first day of my college orientation, we were instructed to write letters to ourselves four years from then, presumably when we would be days away from graduating. Looking around my orientation group, most seemed to struggle with what to say, gazing off into the middle distance or staring blankly at the small sheet of paper provided.

Unlike my peers, I began scribbling furiously.

I won’t recount the entire letter here, but most of it was painfully common — the kind of letter one would expect at that exact time, especially from someone who had struggled with anxiety and social pressures throughout high school. Don’t hide. Don’t withdraw from people. This is your chance to be outgoing and fun. The list of potential improvements to my dreary, shy self went on at length. None of them are particularly pressing concerns and all of them are simple, albeit relatable for most.

When we’re first introduced to Satoru Fujinuma in Boku Dake ga Inai Machi, he is a 29 year-old apathetic child, presumably scarred from his inability to do anything when his friend, Yuuki, is accused of murdering three children. Burdened with the knowledge that he couldn’t do anything to help his friend or Kayo Hinazuki, one of his classmates who was murdered, Satoru withdraws from the world until his mother is unexpectedly killed and he is framed for her murder. This sparks a time travel ability where he returns to his childhood body with his 29 year-old mind.

Bokumachi is a murder mystery/thriller – more of the latter since the mystery isn’t particularly difficult for the viewer to solve – and also a a tale of childhood and adolescence.

Others have written about the anime series’ many shortcomings as a thriller, but what I want to focus on is the time travel mechanic in relation to characters’ emotional narrative. While Bokumachi fails spectacularly in creating believable or interesting suspense, it succeeds when it focuses on lead Satoru and his growing maturity. As an audience, we are far more likely to relate to the feeling of wanting to change something in our past rather than solving a murder. The best parts of the series are small moments between Satoru and his childhood friends, as he actually lives through his childhood again where he had presumably checked out the first time around. These small moments pique interest and travels down our own personal memories as to what we would have done differently growing up with the knowledge that we have now as adults.

This emotional resonance with a reader, viewer, or – in the case of Life in Strange, which I previously compared with Bokumachi – player of a game with time travel present is crucial.

Without spoiling too much, the manga Orange covers a similar time travel narrative as Bokumachi, but does so through a letter from Naho Takamiya’s future self. In Naho’s future, one of her friends, Kakeru Naruse, passed away when she was still in high school. She writes herself a letter to see if her former self can save Kakeru from his early death.

Solving the mysteries behind Kakeru’s death is similarly serious to the murder mystery that Satoru is tasked with solving when he travels back to 1988. The difference is that the puzzle pieces uncovered by Naho and her group of friends in Orange remain deeply personal to them. Mystery, longing to right a presumed wrong, and changing the future are all interwoven in an affecting tapestry where Bokumachi‘s story elements of growth and maturity didn’t integrate nearly as well with any of the series’ murder mystery plot. I cheered for Satoru and Kayo as they grew closer to each other, but tended to tune the series out when the thriller plot took center stage. In contrast, Orange hooked me from the start, placing the regret around losing Kakeru side by side with Naho’s own burgeoning maturity and growth.

When I read my own “letter to the future” again, it was prior to my class’ graduation. In that moment, we were all mourning the accidental death of a friend that same week. Everything in it seemed trite and meaningless, yet I had very few regrets from my college years. I just gracelessly lived through them without instruction.

One of the Monogatari series favorite tricks is playing with chronology. Adapting from the original Nisio Isin light novels which are also technically out of order chronologically, the anime series similarly scrambles the chronological order of its narrative arcs. This refocuses the series on the emotional development of specific characters that would otherwise be lost if the story was told in chronological order.

Airing immediately after Nekomonogatari: Kuro, Nekomonogatari: Shiro is the shining example of the Monogatari series’ success. Placing the two side-by-side thoroughly explores Tsubasa Hanekawa’s character growth from a time before the first Bakemonogatari series — and immediately after Kizumonogatari, the first arc in the chronological timeline — to nearly four months later.

Koyomimonogatari is a series of short stories collected into one light novel that span a large amount of time across what viewers are already familiar with, including the recent Owarimonogatari arcs of Ougi Formula, Sodachi Riddle, Sodachi Lost, and Shinobu Mail along with the theatrical release of Kizumonogatari‘s first film.

Beginning with Koyomi Stone, Koyomimonogatari initially focuses on juxtaposing two objects to create an entirely new object or perspective. Using visual trappings from Rene Magritte paintings, Koyomi Stone sets the tone for the rest of Koyomimonogatari — these will be short stories interspersed into the main Monogatari timeline presented in chronological order. It presumes that we know everything from prior Monogatari story arcs and plays with this idea throughout, juxtaposing bite-sized peeks against the chronological series calendar.

One of the more overt winks at the audience comes from Nadeko Sengoku in Koyomi Mountain. From Nadeko Medusa in Monogatari Series: Second Season, we know that this very moment is in the middle of Nadeko’s transformation from self-centered junior high school girl to vengeful snake goddess. Continuous shots of the white scrunchie on her wrist are scattered throughout her exchange with Koyomi Araragi reminding the audience of Nadeko’s mindset in that moment. The scrunchie is a visible indicator that she is speaking with snake god Kuchinawa, who turns out to be a self-made repository of her more toxic thoughts rather than any sort of preexisting deity.

Not-so-coincidentally, Koyomi Mountain opens with Ougi Oshino speaking of the balance in their town, and how they lack an answer should another oddity of Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’s magnitude appear. Ougi is additionally the initial catalyst for Nadeko’s actions in Nadeko Medusa. The sage audience realizes that Nadeko later becomes the shrine’s new goddess, and Nadeko’s arrival later in the episode is all the more powerful for Ougi’s words.

Nadeko’s appearance is the most obviously pointed nudge at the Monogatari audience, but the most affecting recurring moments come from both Tsubasa Hanekawa and Hitagi Senjougahara. As Koyomimonogatari progresses, Araragi’s respective relationships with both young women evolve and change.

Of the many people Araragi revisits for advice throughout these shorts — Nadeko, Senjougahara, Suruga Kanbaru, his sister Karen — Hanekawa becomes Araragi’s closest confidant and go-to friend for advice. Their friendship only deepens throughout Koyomimonogatari as Araragi returns to Hanekawa time and again for a friendly, remarkably intelligent ear. Where Second Season showed Hanekawa before and after her travels, Koyomimonogatari fills in the blanks and allows us to watch as Hanekawa develops a genuine friendship with Araragi untangled significantly from their respective personal hangups — especially after Hanekawa departs on her trip following Araragi’s rejection and her request for help from “Black Hanekawa.”

Most interesting about Hanekawa’s appearances are her surroundings when speaking to Araragi. Hanekawa’s appearance, particularly after the events of Tsubasa Tiger, are striking and ground the viewer within a specific Monogatari timeframe better than any actual date. Hanekawa calls Araragi herself in Koyomi Sand when she’s out on the streets at night, avoiding returning to her broken home. The next time we see Hanekawa, Araragi seeks her advice while she’s in her bedroom — the one we know she specifically requested from her parents — planning her upcoming trip. From one shot to the next her hair changes, reiterating the fact that she dyes it every morning to keep up appearances, but is wholly herself in her room at night.

Subsequent shots of Hanekawa come from different locales on her trip. All the while, Araragi is feeding Hanekawa information, which explains why she does know what she knows come time to sneak back into town and speak with Deishu Kaiki.

Like Hanekawa, Senjougahara is tasked with listening to Araragi’s musings on a few of the riddles and fake oddities that he encounters during Koyomimonogatari. However, instead of watching the progression of a friendship, we see snippets of growth in Senjougahara and Araragi’s romantic relationship with one another.

Following their romantic night under the stars in Bakemonogatari, Senjougahara and Araragi’s relationship occurs primarily offscreen, which creates an interesting backdrop for Araragi’s actions across multiple narrative arcs. Senjougahara is always present, and the dedication from both Senjougahara and Araragi is always there, but we rarely see them together as a couple. There are many notable moments — the most recent in airing order occurred in Sodachi Riddle and Sodachi Lost — but the two communicate more through text and phone calls while onscreen in the Monogatari series. Koyomimongatari offers more phone calls and texts along with additional moments like Senjougahara making Araragi homemade donuts in Koyomi Torus, or insisting on escorting him to university in Koyomi Dead.

Koyomimonogatari ends on a cliffhanger that presumably leads into the remaining three Owarimonogatari arcs. For that alone, Monogatari fans will likely tell you that the series of shorts is worth watching. However, I think Koyomimonogatari has a greater value to the Monogatari fan in providing small, effective character moments that fill in gaps between the series’ various emotional narratives. Since the airing of Second Season, the series’ ability to retread its own timeline in service of developing characters has been both Monogatari‘s greatest strength and largest weakness — the latter specifically for newcomers to the series who may find themselves daunted by the amount of material — and Koyomimonogatari is yet another chapter to that end.

One of my favorite things to do while playing an online video game is to study the handles of my opponents. Various references to anime, manga, television series, professional players of both sports or esports, and a variety of other media favorites meet to create hilarious and entertaining names.

Mayoiga (The Lost Village), is the story of 30 people on a bus tour to “Nanaki Village” a town shrouded in about as much mystery as internet rumors and urban legends can provide. These people of all ages have gathered together to “throw away their old lives.” The sentiment is relatable but the execution of the series is appropriately hammy for the premise, much like a 14 year-old whose account name is “xXxDarkfl@memasteRxXx.”

“I’m ‘Soy Latte.’ I’m just trying to get a fresh start in a new place and find my path.”

-Soy Latte introduces herself, Mayoiga, Episode 1

Take a moment to think about your first social media name, internet handle, or gamer tag. It likely reflected whatever caught your eye at that time, or a piece of media that resonated with you emotionally. My first internet handle included a Casablanca reference of all things — at the time I was making my way through the Criterion Collection.

Like a teenager in a videogame, Mayoiga appears to be taking itself about as seriously as possible, which could work in its favor if the series continues to play its over-the-top dramatic moments completely straight. The dialogue matches the oppressive use of ominous background music to the point where it all blends together and becomes perfectly hammy and ridiculous. There’s a danger to this type of execution. If the series falters even a bit in its commitment to kitschy horror it will simply become rote and boring, but for this first episode I found Mayoiga wonderfully funny in its absurdity. The moment where this bus of people who have embarked on an adventure to discover their true selves or restart their lives sing a silly song — “The Unlucky Hippopotamus,” with lyrics among the likes of “Little Bunny FuuFuu” — en route to the fabled Nanaki Village marks the apex of what Mayoiga is capable.

“I’m ‘Hyokutsu no Judgeness.’ I’ve made my piece with this shitty world. If you get too close, you’ll get frostbite.”

-Hyokutsu no Judgeness introduces himself, Mayoiga, Episode 1

However, the essence of Mayoiga is presented within the first few moments of the premiere episode through the introduction of Nanaki Village’s future inhabitants. Characters like “Soy Latte,” and the eye patch-adorned “Hyoukutsu no Judgeness” give their respective rationales for restarting their lives. These reasons range from boredom, parental pressure, societal pressure, terminal illness, and apathy towards others in general, all of which are legitimate reasons for wishing to escape or change one’s life.

Paired with oft-dramatic, sweeping introductions, or equally hilarious one-word responses sans description, the viewer can’t help but laugh at it all. Their emotions and situations are real, but it’s all caked in layers of melodrama and chosen internet names.  The best part of the introduction sequence is when three women on the bus happen to have the same internet handle, “Yuuna,” and argue over which one of them should be allowed to keep it.

“‘I’ve already been Yuuna for over six years.’

‘I don’t think we should use seniority to decide who gets to use it! It’s exactly that kind of competitiveness in society that makes people want to leave! Oh, I’m also Yuuna.'”

-a conversation between two “Yuunas,” Mayoiga, Episode 1

Imagine trying to embark on your new life under your internet handle, and two other people in your new location already have the same name. It’s wonderfully incongruous, hilarious, and even sad, in a way.

Near and dear to my heart, the Sailor Moon franchise is something that means a lot to me personally. I know I’m not alone in this, and my story isn’t particularly special. Sailor Moon resonates with an enormous amount of people, making it one of the most well-known anime franchises both in Japan and the west.

Upon watching the first episode of Sailor Moon Crystal back in July 2014, I was ecstatic. While there were recognizable problems — primarily with the translation of Naoko Takeuchi’s character designs from the manga into animation — I overlooked them. Sailor Moon was back, with a promise to follow the manga more closely than its first anime iteration. My initial reaction was one fueled by nostalgia and emotional resonance.

As the weeks passed, poorly animated scenes, weak cinematography, and a general sense of laziness permeated Sailor Moon Crystal‘s presentation. Their schedule of one episode every two weeks made such glaring visual mistakes unforgivable in the eyes of the community. For me personally, Sailor Moon Crystal just made me sad to see a property that I cared about so much fail so miserably in creating any sort of resonance with me beyond my initial, rose-colored nostalgia glasses. After sticking with the first season for longer than I probably should have, I dropped the series.

It wasn’t fun. Sailor Moon Crystal was bad.

There was no “ruining my childhood” sentiment, as many love to say when a beloved piece of media is dredged up for another reboot. There was no anger, certainly nothing like the fury I saw on my twitter timeline every week.

I simply dropped it.

When Sailor Moon Crystal‘s third season was announced, I didn’t pay much attention. I hadn’t even made it through the first season and, by most accounts, the second season was also poorly executed. Making peace with the fact that the Sailor Moon that I loved was nothing like Crystal, I noticed the announcement but thought little of it. What brought me back to the franchise, and Crystal specifically, was promotional material featuring Haruka Tenoh (Sailor Uranus) and Michiru Kaioh (Sailor Neptune).

Sailor Moon S was my second-favorite season of the series growing up. Haruka and Michiru, along with Hotaru Tomoe (Sailor Saturn) are some of my most beloved characters. The relationship between Haruka and Michiru is particularly affecting if told well. The S season is also where Kunihiko Ikuhara — who went on to Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mawaru Penguindrum, and Yuri Kuma Arashi — starts to identify himself as a director. Sailor Moon S is known for its dark and serious tone, which is something that Sailor Moon Crystal: Season III tries to replicate. There was a notable shift in tone from what I remembered of Crystal, which was far more carefree and straightforward.

The third series of Crystal begins ominously with a monologue from the series’ new big bad before launching into a more melancholy opening from Etsuko Yakushimaru — her voice always reminds me of Mawaru Penguindrum, since she did both openings for that series — than Momoiro Clover Z’s “Moon Pride.”

Crystal Season III uses copious amounts of dutch angles to convey a feeling of uneasiness and frames both Haruka and Michiru interestingly in relation to Usagi and company. While the dutch angles are used a bit too frequently in this first episode, the entire presentation is significantly better and more thoughtful than any Crystal episode I can remember — which might not be saying much since I didn’t recall watching up until Episode 9. Gone are the stiff, manga silhouettes for character designs, with Season III opting for more filled-out look that works infinitely better in motion.

For lack of a better way to put it, Crystal Season III appears to have life, which the first season did not — each passing episode felt more and more like a soulless cash grab. The characters breathe, they move, and they feel things, something that seems like a simple concept until you watch the first season of Sailor Moon Crystal and wonder where the cardboard cut-outs came from.

It’s been a short while since we’ve seen Takuya Igarashi and Yoji Enokido together. The last time they teamed up as director and series composer/screenwriter respectively was 2014 Spring’s Captain Earth. Prior to that, the two worked together on Star Driver. Captain Earth started off strong — especially when it came to visuals and cinematography — but lacked Star Driver‘s self-awareness and over-the-top silliness while telling a similar story of adolescence and robots.

In fact, as a director and writer team, Igarashi and Enokido often seem more at home with comedic moments,  or combining over-the-top comedy with a few poignant emotional narratives, than he does when attempting something wholly serious.

Igarashi and Enokido first worked together for episodes of Sailor Moon Super (Sailor Moon S) under the direction of Kunihiko Ikuhara. Igarashi’s initial Sailor Moon S episode with Enokido was Episode 106, which follows a track star among Haruka Tenoh (Sailor Uranus) flashbacks.

The episode begins with more eccentric, Ikuhara-styled absurdity than it does the typical Igarashi sweatdrop and super-deformity. Professor Tomoe leads off Episode 106 by inexplicably running on a treadmill, talking about how great it is to work up a sweat before calling the Witches 5 to set up his next dastardly deed. Naturally, they’re targeting a track star, Elsa Gray — which explains the treadmill — who was inspired to improve by the fact that Haruka kept beating her in track. Elsa Gray also introduces herself by squeezing the butts of both Minako Aino (Sailor Venus) and Makoto Kino (Sailor Jupiter) before telling them that they have good glutes and they would do well on the track team.

As it turns out, Elsa had a notable impact on Haruka as well, and these more serious emotional moments are gracefully executed within the episode, not in spite of but rather due to the fact that it leads off with comic absurdity. Episode 106 is a weighty episode that underlies the serious and committed nature of Haruka and Michiru Kaioh (Sailor Neptune’s) relationship and Igarashi tells their story well. Sailor Moon is where Ikuhara, Igarashi, and many others began to develop their respective styles, and Ikuhara’s influence is felt throughout Igarashi’s Sailor Moon episodes.

Igarashi’s series directorial debut was Sailor Moon Sailor Stars, which was an unfortunate mess. It had good ideas and visual direction but lacked cohesive storytelling and was overly serious. Gone is the more stage-like atmosphere of Ikuhara’s Sailor Moon, replaced with a more straightforward approach that fails due to execution and the fact that the original story itself was also disorganized and unwieldy.

This quality returns in spades with Igarashi’s Ouran High School Host Club — the first episode of which is similar to Bungou Stray Dogs’ premiere. Our entire introduction to Haruhi Fujioka sets the stage about as literally as one can visually with a wide range of shots that show just how large Ouran High School is in relation to Haruhi, a commoner transfer student on scholarship.

Haruhi’s initial introduction to the members of the Host Club themselves is a bit different, and the sequence is full of visual cues and comedy courtesy of Igarashi. The first of these are the continuous arrows pointing at an expensive-looking vase in the center of the room, a vase which Haruhi will soon break, making her indebted to the Host Club and providing the reason for Ouran‘s entire plot.

Also present are a series of lightbulbs, one for each Host Club member. They are lit as soon as the corresponding member realizes that Haruhi is, in fact, a young woman and not a young man, which is the major comedic point that Ouran returns to again and again: Haruhi’s gender.

Bungou Stray Dogs opens with the unfortunate Nakajima Atsushi, who has recently been kicked out of the orphanage he grew up in, finding himself penniless and hungry. He saves Osamu Dazai (all of Bungou Stray Dogs‘ characters are named after well-known authors) from drowning in a comedic sequence that involves crows pecking at Dazai’s feet in a similar cartoon-ish style that permeates Haruhi’s introduction in Ouran. This is followed by a battle between their two stomachs, visually represented by the growling noises that they respectively make.

Dazai treats Atsushi to dinner on his coworker Doppo Kunikida’s dime. Kunikida’s arrival marks the return of Igarashi’s arrow, previously shown with Haruhi and the vase in Ouran.

Igarashi’s arrow is later present at dinner as Bungou Stray Dogs‘ Dazai scopes out a wooden beam in the ceiling that is perfect for committing suicide. The morbid in-joke is that Stray Dogs‘ Dazai is similarly obsessed with suicide as his real-life counterpart. Osamu Dezai attempted to kill himself multiple times throughout his life, and eventually succeeded by drowning in 1948.

Bungou Stray Dogs premiere episode also follows a similar plot to Ouran, and Igarashi’s visual comedic trappings set the stage for both properties. Atsushi ends up joining Dazai and crew, somewhat indebted to them for solving his own personal mystery of a bloodthirsty tiger. This setup is likely a precursor for their upcoming comedic hijinks throughout the series which will hopefully be accompanied by more poignant moments of character development, as Igarashi has already been proven to have a fairly deft — which should not be equated with nuanced by any means — and effective touch when combining the two.

Additionally, Bungou Stray Dogs has a hint of knowing, outside commentary, similar to the greek chorus element found in Ikuhara’s works. Igarashi presents these small tidbits on writing paper throughout the first episode, and they’re often accompanied by facefalls or super-deformed character expressions.

Since its inception, Concrete Revolutio: Choujin Gensou has dabbled with the concept of time — most obviously with actual time travel on top of playing fast and loose with chronology. The series has a myriad of reasons to watch: musings on heroism and justice, real-life complements to historical events and Japanese student activism, and strong emotional narratives that elevate Concrete Revolutio‘s characters beyond cut-outs for what they stand for.

In the painfully human fashion, what they stand for changes depending on context and timeframe.

“What did I do? No, I know. I knew. I should have known, what I should do. The S Planetarian is a criminal. Jiro protects criminals too. They are both my enemy . . . I knew this. I want to be fixed. I will get fixed. I am broken. Broken . . . I must be able to do the right thing. You are me from the past, back when I had no questions.”

-Detective Raito Shiba, Concrete Revolutio, Episode 14

Detective Shiba’s inner turmoil throughout the series’ second season premiere is reminiscent of Super Jaguar’s musings when he’s face with his other self. Both characters are forced to see their own hypocrisy — or the errors of what they have created — and live with the outcome of their actions, even if said actions don’t line up with how their thought processes have changed or how the world has changed around them.

A bona-fide time traveler, Jaguar is faced to address the consequences of his repeated time hops in the series’ tenth episode with the arrival of Infernal Queen. Jaguar is the creator of Infernal Queen — a group that takes black and white approach to protecting superhumans — in addition to the Superhuman Bureau itself, around which Concrete Revolutio is centered.

While Detective Shiba is a deceased human detective now in the body of an android and employed by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, Super Jaguar is a Historical Revision Police Officer from the 25th Century. He first created the violent IQ to ensure that superhumans would survive into his time. After being dispatched by the Time Patrol to stop himself, Super Jaguar created the Superhuman Bureau to look after and protect superhumans in a more bureaucratic way. Yet, IQ still existed and was directly at odds with the Superhuman Bureau, seeing the bureau controlling superhumans rather than aiding them — two snapshots of Super Jaguar at specific times warring with each other over what is “right” for superhumankind.

The efforts of both Detective Shiba and Super Jaguar result in scenes where they must kill their “past selves.” Concrete Revolutio gives them similar visual blocking in their respective climaxes as the two confront their adversaries. Super Jaguar commits to killing his IQ self, even with the understanding that he too will fade away due to the Grandfather Paradox. Detective Shiba kills the Space Sheriff Washizu, identifying him as a younger self, “before he had questions.”

In Super Jaguar’s scene, he’s confined to a narrow hallway. The only two people in the scene are Jaguar and his IQ self. He shoots, and the body is shown in the foreground, dead. Detective Shiba’s shot is similarly framed, but the viewer is aware of his audience: the Superhuman Bureau, Jiro Hitoyoshi, the criminal S Planetarian, and the looming government robot that Detective Shiba had once piloted. Jaguar is directly facing himself, while Shiba’s mind is still in turmoil, affected by his surroundings — killing Sheriff Washizu is part and parcel of making sense of his own thoughts.

Shiba forcefully rips a chip from Washizu’s head, dramatically framed with his former robot on its knees in the background. By contrast, Jaguar in Episode 10 simply looks down the hallway at his dead self and waits to die. Death never comes, and he stares at his hand in bewilderment. Shiba laughs manically at the chip, which he later says helped him realize what he had to do. The first person to speak after Shiba takes the chip is none other than Jaguar, who comments that Shiba was more human than anyone.

“Time can never go back to nothing. We layer paper on top to draw a new picture, but the old picture remains underneath. The IQ that I created still remained . . .”

-Super Jaguar, Concrete Revolutio, Episode 10

At the end of their episodes, Super Jaguar and Detective Shiba are given a sunset, but it’s hardly a figurative one.

Jaguar becomes an unsolvable time paradox. His Time Patrol stopwatch serves as a blueprint for its own creation. Shiba acknowledges that he killed the one who was most like himself, and still muses on whether it was “the right thing to do.” Killing your past self doesn’t mean that it ceases to exist. It lives on as a part of you, as you build on your own past by living through the present. Two men, who both lived multiple lives, must now face the future and live knowing the pain of their past.