“Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola”

–I Want You, Savage Garden

This song takes me back. I just close my eyes and I am taken to place where I’m standing against the gymnasium wall at a middle school dance while one friend is crying in the bathroom and the other is trying to hook me up with my science lab partner, “because we both have glasses.”

I began watching JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in 2012 with the David Production-led reboot of the series from the beginning — Stardust Crusaders had already been animated as an OVA in 1993. From the theatrics of the first episode and Jonathan Joestar’s cries of “Dio!” I was hooked. However, I stopped watching the series after Battle Tendency and never picked up Stardust Crusaders. I decided that I would catch up with the manga re-release, and began collecting volumes of that instead.

Naturally, I returned to the animated JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure for the most embarrassing of reasons — I heard that Savage Garden’s “I Want You” was used as the new ending theme, and the colors in the ending captivated me. I wanted to see the JoJo’s take on my junior high school nostalgia. Taking to Twitter, I asked friends who were spamming screenshots of the new JoJo’s, Diamond is Unbreakable, who informed me that as long as I knew what stands were, I would have no issue jumping into Part 4 without having seen Part 3, Stardust Crusaders.

Diamond is Unbreakable appealed to me in a different way than Phantom Blood. Where Phantom Blood had hooked me with ridiculousness — Diamond is Unbreakable also has ridiculousness to spare — Diamond is Unbreakable offered the intimate setting of Morioh — a 1990’s-era horror movie small town with a muted palette and threats lurking around every corner. The milkman is a serial killer with stands. The crazed otaku kid in school takes out his pettiness on others with stands. The girl who becomes enamored with one of the main characters is an obsessive maniac with stands. Nearly every person in town is gifted a rare stand ability and hilarity ensues.

This isn’t to say that the series can’t pull off genuine emotion as well. The Nijimura Brothers’ narrative arc is surprisingly poignant, and the moment Josuka Higashikata meets his father for the first time is genuinely sweet — after Josuke and company have staved off a stand attack from both land and sea, of course. Diamond is Unbreakable plays with its pastoral setting, subverting horror tropes while adding dashes of affecting drama all while keeping up the craziness for which every iteration of JoJo’s is known.

I unfortunately haven’t been able to keep up with Diamond is Unbreakable on a regular basis. However, when I’m having a really rough day I know I can always load up the next episode of JoJo’s and delight in Joseph Joestar and Josuke chasing an invisible baby around Morioh.

One of the Monogatari series’ greatest strengths is its inadherence to chronology. It often eschews placing events in chronological order to focus on a particular emotional narrative or relationship. The anime adaptation plays with this visually, revealing tidbits in background details that further inform viewers upon rewatching the series as a whole.

Koyomimonogatari is a series of short, seemingly frivolous episodes tertiary to the main storyline. They’re short diversions that span the length of what Monogatari arcs have aired, plopping the viewer into the center of that specific timeframe before jumping ahead to the middle of the next narrative arc. Chronology is usually discarded by the Monogatari series, but it has a deliberate role in Koyomimonogatari.

When it comes to favoring emotional impact over the order of events as they happen, no other Monogatari narrative arc is a triumph quite like that of Tsubasa Hanekawa. The true depth of her distress is revealed slowly and deliberately until it comes to a breaking point in the Tsubasa Tiger arc of Monogatari Second Season. Further backstory and her true starting point — as Koyomi Araragi comes to know her — comes in the film Kizumonogatari, shown two and a half years later than the final episode of Tsubasa Tiger.

Koyomimonogatari offers yet another look at Tsubasa’s transformation, this time in chronological order.

In Koyomi Stone, the first of the Koyomimonotari shorts, Tsubasa appears as she does in Nekomonogatari: Kuro and Bakemonogatari — long hair braided into two pigtails and a guarded look. As always, she is Araragi’s confidante, answering his questions and aiding him in solving mysteries, this time of the not-so-supernatural variety.

She trades in this look by the third episode, Koyomi Sand, having cut her hair to match up with the Nisemonogatari timeframe. Hanekawa is outside fairly late at night, hinting at her ongoing family issues.

By Episode 6, Koyomi Tree, Hanekawa has already passed the events of Tsubasa Tiger. In one scene, she talks to Araragi while browsing maps of the world. At long last, she has a room of her own inside her family’s house. Her hair is two-toned, allowing us to pinpoint almost exactly when this conversation takes place. At the end of the episode, she’s all packed and ready to go, still alone in her room. This time, her hair dyed to remind us that she still hides part of her true nature when she attends school.

It’s not long after this that Hanekawa will tell Araragi that she’s leaving town for a while — after solving the mystery of Sodachi Oikura in Owarimonogatari — to go on her soul-searching trip briefly shown in Tsubasa Tiger.

The next time we see her, she’s chatting to Araragi from exotic locales. Episodes 9 and 10 show Hanekawa watching the sunrise from a boat, swimming in the ocean, and bathing in a mountain spring. By the end of Episode 10, unbeknownst to Araragi, Hanekawa is returning to town in order to help Deishu Kaiki with Sengoku Nadeko.

This doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of the series. Relevant plot events in Koyomimonogatari that haven’t been mentioned in previous arcs are relegated to the final few episodes, and don’t involve Hanekawa directly. Showing Hanekawa’s progression chronologically doesn’t affect any plot events in Koyomimonogatari, although it further helps viewers organize these short episodes within the larger timeline. However, it strengthens the relationship between Hanekawa and the viewer, reminding them of just how far she’s come over the course of Monogatari as a whole.

For a series so focused on emotional narratives, Hanekawa’s is right up there with Araragi, Hitagi Senjougahara, and Shinobu. Her narrative is the one that I appreciated the most and is emotionally resonant for me personally, as is most of the Monogatari series. Although she doesn’t command viewer or community attention like those three, I loved how her development was reiterated throughout all of Koyomimonogatari.

One of my close friends was a professional athlete. He hasn’t competed in five years and is, by all accounts, retired. I rarely see him anymore, but the few times I have visited in the past five years, there are still trappings of his career — tucked away in corners of the apartment, shoved behind his brother’s discarded motorcycle in the garage, photographs in his father’s living room.

He began when he was three, coaxed and coached by his father. He retired at 25, already older than his more successful counterparts.

Perhaps this is why, for me personally, Yuri!!! On Ice is a story about time, and has been since I first saw the series’ ending sequence — a series of instagram posts that only linger for a few seconds before scrolling down to the next.

Time is not on the side of the three main characters in Yuri!!! On Ice. All three individuals are of different ages, and at different stages in their respective physical and emotional maturation.

Yuri Plisetsky is only 15 years-old. This is his debut year on the senior circuit after winning three consecutive Junior World Championships. Prodigious, arrogant, and ambitious, Yuri hasn’t ever had anyone who could rival him in his own age division. Initially, he wished to face off against the legendary Viktor Nikiforov, but Viktor takes a year hiatus to coach Yuuri Katsuki. Yuri is later inspired after losing to Yuuri in Hasetsu, and returns to Russia even more determined to win a gold medal at the Grand Prix Final.

Many of Yuri’s insecurities revolve around his age, his adolescence, and Viktor. His body has yet to fully mature, and he continues to push to his utmost limits during his first year in the senior circuit lest his body change through puberty. By all accounts — Viktor, Otabek Altin, and his coach Yakov Feltsman — Yuri has always been fiercely competitive and sometimes overly ambitious. Yuri has always worried about catching up to and surpassing Viktor, but consistently tries to overreach, seemingly all-too-aware of his own time limit.

Yuuri Katsuki is in the prime of his career. Despite beginning the series depressed, overweight, and generally lost, Yuuri is a late-bloomer who blossoms throughout the series. Even if this year is his last, it’s also undeniably his best.

This is no small feat. At 23 years-old, Yuuri is rapidly nearing retirement age and has never had the same raw physical talent that both Viktor and Yuri possess. Instead, Yuuri is a diligent and tireless worker who makes up for his shortcomings with more practice time.

Yuri!!! On Ice is primarily the story of Yuuri’s emotional maturation. Behind his whirlwind year being coached by living legend — and his own personal idol — Viktor Nikiforov, there is a finite sense of time. Yuuri has little time left. If Yuuri is to have a year where he overcomes his emotional hangups and truly taps into every ounce of talent he has, it’s this year portrayed by the events of Yuri!!! On Ice. There will not be another chance for Yuuri Katsuki to win a Grand Prix Finals gold. It has to be now.

Viktor Nikiforov is the eldest of the group. He’s introduced as one of skating’s greatest, a natural-born talent with five consecutive Grand Prix Finals and World Championships. Although he is 27 years-old, well past the figure skating prime of 19-20 years-old, he was always expected to continue competing. The fact that he took a year off to coach Yuuri Katsuki is not well-received by most, earning Yuuri the ire of Viktor’s legions of fans as well as other top-tier skaters.

Yuuri may be the star, but it’s Viktor’s decision to step back from competition that is the catalyst for most of the events in the series. Many of the other figure skaters in the men’s division were used to Viktor automatically taking all of the top awards. Without him, the field is suddenly wide open, reinvigorating his former competition. Viktor had already lost his spark at the beginning of the series, and finds it again in coaching Yuuri. Similarly, Viktor’s competition also had grown complacent in light of Viktor’s guaranteed victories.

Looming over the entirety of Yuri!!! On Ice like a shadow is what Viktor will do once the Grand Prix Finals are finished. Regardless of whether his charge wins the gold or not, Viktor still has to decide what he wants to do with his own career. He was drawn to Yuuri for inspiration, but now that Yuuri’s year is complete — and Yuuri’s own career is somewhat up in the air — Viktor can’t delay his decision about his own career anymore.

One of the most haunting images in the ending sequence is that of Viktor and Yuuri seated on a train with the caption “time flies so fast.” Yuri Plisetsky has already broken Viktor’s short program record. This is likely Yuuri Katsuki’s last year. Viktor, after putting his career on hold for a year, now has to make a decision.

That’s how I feel about Yuri!!! On Ice as a whole as well, time flies so fast.

The third episode of Flip Flappers was a turning point for viewers and in-universe characters alike.

Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s Flip Flappers is often been compared to Shinichiro Watanabe’s Space Dandy, which Oshiyama himself worked on as an animation director. Flip Flappers has been similarly praised as an “animator’s showcase” since its premiere, and marks Oshiyama’s highly-anticipated directorial debut.

Episode 3 cemented this idea in many viewers’ minds. Storyboarded by Kazuyoshi Yaginuma (who has done everything from Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise to Rolling Girls) with animation from Chief Animation Director/Character Designer Takashi Kojima, Naoya Wada, and a transformation sequence courtesy of Yumi Ikeda, the episode is an absolute feast for the eyes.

Dubbed “the Mad Max: Fury Road” episode for its post-apocalyptic setting, this episode embodied everything that a fan of animation as a whole could ask for — a beautiful setting from Studio Pablo, gorgeous animation, and a fun, concise romp through an imaginary world. Flip Flappers had already made it apparent in Episodes 1 and 2 that this would be a story of two girls exploring alternate realities together while collecting amorphous fragments hidden inside each world. Episode 3 sealed the deal and stamped it with the most beautiful seal imaginable.

This episode had a completely different effect on me personally. This was the episode where I fell in love with Flip Flappers for its two leading ladies: Cocona and Papika.

When I say that Flip Flappers is more than an animator’s showcase only, I’m not deriding Space Dandy. Instead, I’m reiterating that Flip Flappers is trying to tell a larger emotional narrative across its span of episodes, rather than using them in a more standard episodic format. More than exploring worlds and going on adventures together, this narrative is what draws me. The more I return to Flip Flappers‘ early episodes, the more of this story is revealed, hidden in details along the way. Cocona’s development in this specific episode was what hooked me. From Episode 3 onward, Flip Flappers was a weekly must-watch, rather than a fun and well-animated diversion.

Not much in this series is explained up front until later episodes — a friend once joked that Flip Flappers is an exercise in subtext — but Cocona’s interactions with both Papika, and the being spawned from the amorphous fragment that created this Pure Illusion world hint at greater things to come. Upon arriving in this world, Cocona is separated from her partner Papika and confronted by a blonde-haired seductress, who slaps a mask onto Cocona that takes over her body.

The seductress tempts Cocona. She berates Cocona for having nothing — no strong opinions, no sense of self — and then whispers sweetly that the mask only amplifies feelings that the wearer already has. Cocona was the one who truly wanted to fight Papika. Cocona was the one leading her raiding party and subjugating other people, Cocona was the villain. She presses further — this is the only role that Cocona has “shone in,” won’t Cocona join forces with her in order to find a sense of purpose or achieve a goal?

Cocona’s answer is no. Almost every episode, Cocona is teased with something forbidden, unknown, and/or unhealthy. Most of the time she waffles, before pushing back with surprising resiliency, even against her own mother in Episode 11. Episode 3 is the first time we see Cocona turn down a tempting invitation in order to press forward towards her own emotional development, leaning on her growing relationship with Papika for support. She later apologizes to Papika because she recognizes that a part of her really did want to hurt Papika directly — for fear of the unknown, dragging her recklessly into other worlds, or being separated from her, Cocona never says. However, admitting fault and apologizing to Papika is the first step towards her own emotional advancement and journey through adolescence.

Flip Flappers Episode 3 has something for everyone. I can certainly see why people hold this episode near and dear to their hearts for the wonderful animation. Ikeda’s transformation sequence alone is one of the most stunning pieces of animation I’ve seen this year. Yet, I’ll remember this episode, the much-famed “Mad Max episode,” as the one that hooked me on Cocona’s personal growth and well-being.

I didn’t expect to like Space Patrol Luluco all that much.

While it’s sacrilege to say this in front of the Studio Trigger faithful, I couldn’t really get into the antics of Inferno Cop. Studio founder and former Gainax star Hiroyuki Imaishi’s latest short, Sex and Violence with Machspeed did not interest me at all. I enjoyed Kill la Kill and, more recently, Kiznaiver, but neither of them are lasting favorites for me personally.

Until Luluco, the only Trigger properties that I truly loved were this short films of Little Witch Academia.

Space Patrol Luluco will likely be written off by many as a fanservice series only. An entire story arc is dedicated to visiting different worlds of Studio Trigger properties — Kill la Kill, Little Witch Academia, and Sex and Violence with Machspeed — and references to other Trigger properties come fast and furious. Even Kiznaiver, which was airing at the same time, gets a visual nod, and Space Patrol Luluco ends with the titular Luluco’s reveal as “Trigger-chan,” one of the studio’s latest mascots.

Yet no other property has so succinctly captured a young girl’s adolescence like Space Patrol Luluco. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to having a series that’s one giant FLCL Eri Ninamori episode. Despite a rocky stretch of two to three episodes in the middle of its run, the series perfectly portrayed the intensity and frivolity of Luluco’s first love — and first heartbreak, and first relationship.

All she wants to be at the start of the series is a normal girl — a sentiment near and dear to most junior high school girls’ hearts. She crushes on a good-looking guy named Alpha Omega Nova, befriends her shrewd classmate Midori, and later feels betrayed when said guy doesn’t return her feelings, dying as a result. It takes a pep talk from Inferno Cop while in hell — this is still an Imaishi series after all — for her to realize that the true importance of her first love is hers and hers alone, even if it’s ultimately fruitless.

When Luluco dares to be honest with her feelings towards Nova, that’s when they’re able to have a relationship — before he’s fired into a black hole, of course. A simple lesson, but no less impactful for its simplicity, especially with the ridiculous visual trappings that accompany Luluco and Nova’s confession sequence. At the end of the series, Luluco is healthy and happy, fully accepting of her own weirdness having crossed the invisible line called adolescence. As her space pirate mother Lalaco says, “If you ask me, only after one dies and comes back to life do they become a normal person!”

Part of me wishes that I could erase my memory of the Monogatari series completely, and watch Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu with fresh eyes.

I wonder what I would see. How I would interpret the visual feast that the film provides. If I would have fallen in love with the film as I did with the series in 2009 when I watched Hitagi Senjougahara fall into Koyomi Araragi’s arms, his inner monologue a constant accompaniment.

A film version of the Kizumonogatari story was teased at the same time Bakemonogatari aired seven years ago. Kizumonogatari became a joke among the Monogatari fan community — “we’ll get [impossible thing] when we get the Kizumonogatari film.” That’s seven years of watching other Monogatari narrative arcs accumulate and build off of one another without watching the story that chronologically comes before all of them.

I’ve mentioned this multiple times on this blog, but it’s worth reiterating again — the Monogatari series loves to play with chronology. When we see Araragi talking to Tsubasa Hanekawa after school in Kizumonogatari Part 1: Tekketsu, we already know intimate details of their relationship. We know of Hanekawa’s entire narrative arc, one of the more affecting stories in the Monogatari series alongside Araragi’s own growth. In fact, we already know this exact scene, since it prefaces the first episode of Bakemonogatari. 

We know that the great vampire Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade has many regrets, even if her imperious personality hampers her ability to express them or be honest with herself and Araragi when recounting her tale well after the events of Kizumonogatari. We know that part of her wishes shed her immortality and finally die. We know that part of Araragi also welcomes death.

Watching Kizumonogatari is an experience, especially with the absence of Araragi’s inner monologue that defines the rest of the Monogatari oeuvre — both Nisio Isin’s light novels and the animated television series. Kizumonogatari is a visceral film.

It’s blood, sweat, spit, tears, and charred flesh. It’s rising steam from chemical plants that crop up next to the shipyard docks in the distance, mirroring Araragi’s own changing body chemistry — a clash of old and arcane (the vampire) with sleek industry. Perhaps the skyline was never a city, it was all a maze of pipes and blinking lights, giving the illusion of skyscrapers. It’s the tree that somehow manages to grow in the center of a building and the old story of human versus nature.

When Kiss-shot Acerola-orion Heart-under-blade screams that she doesn’t want to die, flailing in a pool of her own blood, we hear her. Despite knowing her wish to die from later narrative arcs, we feel her in that moment — she wants to live. It’s what draws Araragi to her, and later seals their relationship, binding them together for their lifetimes.

I can’t see Kizumonogatari with fresh eyes. Yet I can’t help but wonder what I would see if I could.

When faced with the danger of becoming lost in a snowy, Pure Illusion forest, Cocona takes a page out of Hansel and Gretel, placing small snacks to mark her path in the snow. Papika trails behind, eating the snacks one-by-one to Cocona’s dismay.

Snacks are all that Flip Flappers gives us — and Cocona — for the first nine episodes. Only in Episode 10 do the pieces scattered throughout the series begin to come together. Even after Episodes 11 and 12, which are much heavier in exposition than anything that precedes them, the series still deals primarily in small, now additive pieces that collect and accumulate like the Pure Illusion snow.

What I’m about to say will sound laughably obvious, but it’s not something that people mention all too often in their daily lives — particularly those that live in colder climates and are used to snow as a regular occurrence.

Snow changes the way the world looks. It changes the way the world sounds.

Sharp objects like tree branches, pine needles, and protruding architecture are made soft. The presence of snow deadens sound. Accumulating snow rounds edges, changes the color palette, and affects the way you perceive light, shadow, and depth. The first Pure Illusion world is the snow-covered ruins of Cocona’s hometown — later echoed in the snow that blankets the town in Episodes 10 and 11 when Pure Illusion begins to blend with reality.

Upon first entering Pure Illusion, Cocona and Papika travel through a long tunnel before exiting into a snow-covered world, reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s Cocona’s hometown, but also nothing like it as familiar landmarks are toppled and scattered through snowdrifts. The colors are brighter during the daytime with the snow as contrast, but far more muted once the sun sets and snow starts to fall — the same town, but different to our, and Cocona’s eyes. We can only see one place at a time.

Their quiet walk through the woods also resembles the Pevensie children’s first walk through Narnia together with Mr. Beaver. The Beaver warns them that the trees could be spies, and Cocona looks upon the trees in Pure Illusion with the same distrust and skepticism despite expressing initial delight at seeing frost-covered trees. By contrast, she also later cries to Papika is desperation, asking for reassurance that everyone is hiding from them and they’re not alone in this world. Later these same trees become giant snow monsters that stampede towards the sea.

Even if Papika hadn’t eaten her trail of snacks, the snacks and their footprints would have been covered in snow by morning. Cocona has no lamppost to guide her. Her only compass, so to speak, is Papika, who stands out in relief against the backdrop of this snowy world.

The “witch” in question is Cocona’s mother Mimi. More precisely, it’s the protective facet of her mother’s personality. Later, Mimi makes the snow fall in Cocona’s “real” hometown while the two return to the snow world of Pure Illusion, blurring the fabric of reality and making the two worlds one and the same. This piece of Mimi first uses clovers — symbolizing betrayal and revenge for broken promises — to cover the world and then uses snow. The end result is the same — a change in a familiar landscape, making everything wholly unrecognizable.

Mimi also travels in a small boat with a lamp shaped like a bellflower, which represents unchanging love. Although Cocona has only met one piece of her mother face-to-face, this is another reminder that the “witch” of Pure Illusion is but one facet of Mimi’s personality.

Throughout the course of the season, Mimi appears in Cocona’s dreams as the “young woman, old woman” optical illusion — an image used to show perceptual ambiguity. The brain can perceive the image as a young woman, or an old woman; however, the human eye can only perceive one of these images at a time. The red line can be a choker around young Mimi’s neck or the smile of an old crone. The most visible part of flesh can be an obscured face or a large, hawkish nose.

Just as we can only see the young woman or the old woman at a given point in time, we only perceive Mimi in facets. She is presented as young, but is old enough to be Cocona’s mother. Part of her is fiercely protective, stifling her daughter just as she herself was shut away from the world. Part of her wishes for Cocona to have the freedom that she did not have, growing up isolated in a laboratory. As one piece of Mimi rails against Cocona having a choice — saying that she’ll make all decisions for Cocona going forward — another approaches Cocona and assuages her daughter’s fears, reassuring Cocona that everyone is afraid of failure, and that it’s okay to be indecisive.

Above all, Flip Flappers shows us, and Cocona, that one part of a person’s personality doesn’t encompass the whole. It’s important that Mimi, the same person who is fighting against Papika and Yayaka, is also the person who helps Cocona realize her own agency. We, and Cocona, can only see one facet at a time. Both, along with a myriad of other pieces, make up the whole of Mimi.

I’ve written a few times on this blog about Aikatsu! but not nearly as much as I should have. Aikatsu! is an utterly charming children’s series — far more than a vehicle for selling an idol card game should be.

With a fitting end to Akari Oozora’s emotional narrative, the regular franchise of Aikatsu! ended this past March after four seasons. Succeeding it was a near-impossible task. The spin-off sequel, Aikatsu! Stars, with a brand new cast of idol hopefuls in a stricter, boarding school setting was met with general disinterest compared to previous seasons.

Yet, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of Aikatsu! Stars just as much, if not more so, than the original franchise, and not solely for its amazing ending song, “Episode Solo.”

The episode that cemented my appreciation for Aikatsu! Stars is the simple and unassuming Episode 4, where lead Yume Nijino has to work backstage preparing for an upcoming concert.

In the original Aikatsu!, Ichigo Hoshimiya is a prodigious talent. Her successor, Akari Oozora, works her way up through the ranks from nothing — she’s first introduced as an Ichigo superfan who has to attend aikatsu bootcamp in order to catch up to her peers.

By contrast, Yume is a bit of a slob. She’s presented as a girl with extraordinary talent from her first performance, but doesn’t know how to make the most of her abilities. She constantly tries to take shortcuts. She spaces out in and out of class. She double-fists bagel sandwiches while on lunch break.

These qualities help make Yume sometimes obnoxious, but also endearing. Deep down, she does care about her own career as well as the careers of her closest friends. She proves to be a caring and hard-working person, albeit a selfish and lazy one at times. Yume is a very relatable character, set in an Aikatsu! universe where her school’s stars seem both distant but their places attainable — unlike the complete domination of Mizuki Kanzaki in Aikatsu!.

Although Stars was subject to more criticism for being too different than the original Aikatsu!, I’ve thoroughly appreciated my time with Stars, and wish that I had more time to catch up — right now I’m still on Episode 19. As the ending song says, when one song ends, the next immediately begins, and I can’t think of better successors to the spirit of Aikatsu! than Yume and Aikatsu! Stars.

This post was actually going to be part of a longer post on small “breadcrumbs” that Flip Flappers has scattered throughout the series — small tidbits that are now either coming together, or reframed by recent exposition in Episodes 11 and 12. However, that one post turned out to be far too unwieldy, especially for something that began as a collection of odds and ends.

The first post is on Mimi, the idea of “the witch,” and perceptual ambiguity. This post will cover Cocona, Papika, and Yayaka in regards to their color scheme and color theory.

From the first sequence of Flip Flappers‘ opening song, “Serendipity,” there’s a sequence that starts with one beat, then two, then three. Although the main emotional narrative of Flip Flappers is about Cocona’s maturation and coming-of-age, the first person shown before the single beat is a lonely Papika. This makes sense in a greater context. Papika has been waiting for both Cocona and Mimi all alone, going through other failed partnerships — that result in the other person’s death, according to this grim shot in Episode 1.

Before the second beat, Cocona is shown. Before the third, Yayaka.

In Episode 12, Yayaka finally receives her own transformation sequence. Her impending union with Cocona and Papika was foreshadowed in the opening animation, through their temporary alliance in the robot world of Episode 8, and finally through the use of primary colors of light and pigment.

A long-running joke in the anime community is the game of “guess the protagonist” based on which characters have brightly-colored hair in a classroom overview shot. Flip Flappers introduces Cocona in her cram school classroom, taking a test. The overview shots first compare her blue hair against the normal hair colors of her classmates, and then show a sleeping Yayaka with colorful yellow hair. This immediately establishes them as important, key players within the series.

Cocona, Papika, and Yayaka’s hair colors — blue, red, and yellow respectively — make up the trio of common subtractive primary colors used for artists’ pigments and paints. The true colors are cyan, magenta, and yellow (abbreviated CMY), but are simplified as blue, red, and yellow in artists’ lessons and classrooms. They’re also the colors we see the most of in a close-up of Iroha Irodori’s in-progress painting.

Not only are Cocona, Papika, and Yayaka important — the main protagonists of this story — but they will, as the colors hint, work together towards a common goal. The series will, at some point, need all three girls like the beats in the opening sequence increase from one to two to three.

Flip Flappers makes it easy to see Cocona and Papika as a pair. Their colors mirror each other in transformation and outside of it, inverting different blues and reds. Cocona often makes up for Papika’s weaknesses and vice versa. The two express admiration for their respective abilities, especially regarding what they themselves lack that their “other half” has. Not only to their colors invert while transformed — Cocona’s eyes turn blue and her hair red while Papika’s eyes turn red and her hair blue — but their outfits match each other as two halves of a greater whole.

When Yayaka is added to the mix, their outfits tell a bit of a different story.

With green hair and yellow eyes, the transformed Yayaka completes both color primaries — additive (red, green, blue) and subtractive (cyan, magenta, yellow). Additive primaries make up the spectrum of light rather than pigment — red, green, and blue light added together makes white light. Subtractive primaries, as previously mentioned, are in pigments and every day colors.

Each color primary when mixed creates the other primary trio. The secondary colors in the additive color wheel are the primary colors of the subtractive wheel, and vice versa. When all three girls are transformed they represent both color primaries. Their eyes (cyan, yellow, magenta or blue, yellow, red) make up the subtractive primary trio while their hair colors (red, green, blue) make up the additive primary trio.

I approached Digimon Tri — a continuation of the beloved Digimon Adventure from my youth — like any faithful Digimon fan.

At first, I was in it just for the ships.

Digimon Tri isn’t a poor adaptation. In fact, it’s a great continuation of Digimon Adventures that captures most of the essence of the original and plops it into an older but still familiar cast. Their dynamic is noticeably different because they’ve aged and, most importantly, there’s a sense that if it wasn’t for the reemergence of their digimon partners and yet another blurring between their everyday lives and the digital world, some of them wouldn’t even be friends anymore — certainly not close friends.

Above all else, I found this to be especially realistic. As Digimon fans, we have our own idea of which characters we want to end up together when they get older — especially since the series provided us with such neat pairings supported by just enough subtext to feed our imaginations. What I’ve seen of Digimon Tri — the first two movies — continues to give us this subtext, sprinkled among realistic examples of how these characters would interact and feel now that they’re older. It’s not always pretty, and I’m firmly in the camp that it shouldn’t be. Rarely are problems resolved as easily as they are in collective fanon.

That being said, returning to a beloved childhood property after so long is weird. My return to Digimon Tri felt almost awkward, like I was peering into these kids’ lives again without their permission. They had moved on with whatever they were doing, and I had moved on in the real world, occasionally sparing a few moments to think back on Digimon the franchise and say to myself, “Yeah that was a fun time.” I wasn’t yearning for a new Digimon series, but when I heard about Digimon Tri, I was excited. Watching it has been a bittersweet experience. I’m glad that the characters in the series moved on, but there’s still that childish part of me that just wants to see Joe and Mimi somehow have a relationship.

More than anything, I feel old, even though I’m happy that it was made.

I’ll now leave you with a few stray notes on what I’ve seen of Digimon Tri thus far:

Yamato (Matt) and Tai (Taichi) are the most convincing “ship” in the series.

Mimi Tachikawa is amazing. I loved her narrative arc where she realized her own selfishness. I loved that she was self-aware enough to work through it and come out a better person. I love her fashion sense and attitude.

The scene where they lock Matt and Tai together in one ferris wheel booth and Mimi chronicles it with continuous cell phone photos is the best scene in Digimon Tri.

The fifth episode of Sound! Euphonium‘s second season is one of the most sublime moments I’ve ever seen out of an anime production.

It’s impossible to put into words the scale of this performance. As a viewer, I went in with the assumption that Kitauji High School would take gold at the Kansai Competition, if only because the narrative required it — they had to make it all the way to Nationals.

Yet, I still found myself alongside Hazuki, kneeling offstage next to a small shaft of light shining through the heavy stage doors. I couldn’t help but hold my breath and watch, nervously, waiting for the slightest mistake, the small slip-up that would disqualify Kitauji from national competition. Sound! Euphonium did the impossible — added weight and drama to a performance that was a guaranteed victory before the first note was played.

At the very end, on each beat, the camera alternates between cutting to a band member onstage and one waiting in the wings. The smile of Nozomi Kasaki caught my eye. All you see is her head tilted back, eyes closed, as the experience of it all washes over her. This is echoed by the triumphant smile of their conductor Noboru Taki, in the final seconds of their performance.

My concert band teacher always stressed that you should never celebrate at the end of a performance — that even though you may want to jump, scream, cry, and allow your emotions to explode outwardly in joy, to do so in front of an audience and your fellow competitors is the height of rudeness. Sound! Euphonium savors this euphoria in these quick snapshots, allowing our emotions to flow through Nozomi, and giving Taki the quickest of clenched fists in victory before he turns and bows to the audience. The members of the Kitauji High School concert band are quiet, their breathless pants and clinging sweat palpable over the audience’s cheers. Tension releases and subsides.

In the afterglow of Episode 5, I wrote about how the series makes a point to show scribbles in the margins of various members’ sheet music scores, reiterating the idea that they’re all playing for something or someone.

Even the notoriously aloof Asuka Tanaka’s knowing glances during the performance and Taki’s triumphant grin are reframed by later Sound! Euphonium episodes.

They too, play for a loved one.

One of my favorite anime series that I watched in 2016 is a series that I did not write about until this post.

Although the two series are nothing alike, I have similar feelings towards Lupin III Part 4 or Lupin III (2015) that I also have towards Flying Witch. Both are so strong and successful at what they want to accomplish that there’s little left for me to write, other than to reiterate my personal love for it.

Lupin III (2015) is hilarious, sexy, and even emotionally affecting at times. Its episodic format allows you to move through it quickly, savoring everything in bit-sized pieces that eventually tie into a larger storyline that never weighs the series down. If you find that you don’t like an episode or character, chances are that the next episode won’t focus on them as much. The series continues to move at a good pace that never feels frenetic and stops to smell the roses, sometimes literally, along the way. New characters to the franchise — specifically Rebecca Rossellini whom Lupin marries in the series’ first episode — fit well into the existing dynamic, and you don’t need to be an avid Lupin III fan to understand said dynamic.

Most importantly, Lupin III (2015) is fun. It has a sense of joy and delight that few other series, anime or no, manage to embody. My writing in this post is trite and wrote in comparison — I can’t begin to give the series justice. I highly recommend this series to anyone, even those who don’t watch a lot of anime series.

“Just write down where you want to go.”

-School counselor to Cocona, Flip Flappers, Episode 1

The first time we see the painting, it’s in Cocona’s periphery as she walks down her school staircase. Her school counselor’s words are heard while she walks. The painting is prominently lit — the only object in the scene that is highlighted — by light from a large, multi-paned window. Shadows from the muntins disappear before they reach the painting, giving it the highest priority in this scene.

Cocona spends most of Flip Flappers undecided and lost. Different choices are presented to her throughout the series. Flip Flappers primary narrative is that of Cocona’s maturation. She discovers where she wants to go and makes a definitive choice to be there.

As early as the first episode, Flip Flappers is trying to point her in a direction. Putting the painting in a position of prominence as Cocona mulls over why she is so afraid of choosing the wrong place for her own future lights the path towards her family, specifically her mother Mimi. Later, in Episode 4, Cocona opens up to Papika and admits that, if the amorphous they’re collecting grant wishes, she would wish to meet her family.

In the series’ final episode, Flip Flappers reveals that the painting is of Mimi in her own Pure Illusion world, floating among lily pads in a dark pond surrounded by trees.

Having swapped with the protective side of herself, Mimi also remains here, lost and floating until Cocona and Papika break through the illusion and defeat that protective personality facet. Their victory effectively sends that piece back to the whole of Mimi, where she wakes up in the middle of the pond.

Cocona and Papika’s final words to protective Mimi are, “Don’t you dare get in the way of our adventure!” Upon waking and reuniting with that aspect of her personality, Mimi realizes that she was the one in the wrong. She tells herself to return to the days where she eagerly awaited her daughter’s birth. Ultimately, what Mimi truly wants is for Cocona to be able to choose where she wants to be — a luxury that Mimi herself was not afforded for the entirety of her life.

The painting additionally reflects the Pure Illusion landscape that Mimi creates for Papika and Cocona, before she sends them away and presumably splits into the amorphous gems. Mimi leaves Cocona with Papika, but seals Papika in a tree.

Watching the trees grow up around Papika, containing her until her age coincides with Cocona’s, is reminiscent of the Sleeping Beauty or Little Briar Rose story. Although Cocona’s maturation is the series’ focus in it’s primary narrative, here Papika is the sleeping beauty, preserved until Cocona, her princess, arrives. For her part, Mimi takes the role of both the antagonist — the witch who tries to keep Cocona and Papika apart — and benevolent fairy who protects Papika and Cocona until they come of age by creating an entire world for them.

Flip Flappers also touches upon the Sleeping Beauty story in Episode 5 — the Class S yuri school — where Cocona pricks her finger with a needle and Papika sucks on it to stem the bleeding.

When Cocona first stops to look at the painting in Flip Flappers‘ second episode, she has already been to Pure Illusion once. Previously, it didn’t catch her attention, but it was present in the background while she walked down the stairs, thinking vaguely of her own future. Once she’s traveled to Pure Illusion and unwittingly met her mother, the subject in the painting, Cocona pauses to look at it.

She is joined by art club senior Iroha Irodori, who presses Cocona for her opinion on the painting. Cocona responds that “It’s scary, but . . . ” and trails off while thinking of Pure Illusion. Iroha presses Cocona for a firmer answer, telling the younger girl that she too loves this painting. The painting, much like its subject Mimi, is scary but also familiar. It helps lead Cocona to her chosen destination.

There’s no one, two, or even ten ways to categorize fears and feelings of inadequacy. They come in all shapes and sizes.

Canadian superstar Jean-Jacques Leroy is designed to be hilariously obnoxious from his first moments on the small screen. He’s loud, brash, doesn’t read the situation, and is remarkably self-centered. JJ isn’t just another figure skater in Yuri!!! On Ice, he’s a brand, built on his own desires to be different than all of his other competitors. A character like JJ has nowhere to go but down — especially with the legendary Viktor Nikiforov sidelined as Yuuri Katsuki’s coach — yet his fall is still shocking.

When JJ says that he doesn’t understand what’s happening after completely botching his short program at the Grand Prix Finals, I believe him. JJ’s sudden turn from lovable but annoying heel to nervous wreck is just that — sudden.

Yet, I find Yuri!!! On Ice‘s portrayal of JJ’s fall just as believable as Yuuri’s progression from flailing, crying mess to erotic muse, if not more so. Most people I know, myself included, trend more towards acting like JJ to cover up their insecurities than Yuuri.

In the end, they’re both equally adept at pushing people away. Yuuri hides from people, stress-eats, and avoids dealing with things because he feels like he’s failed the people he cares about. In Episode 11, we come to see that JJ also has crippling fears that the people he cares about will abandon him if he fails. Part of this comes from the fact that he’s built his brand around success and style. He sees this all falling away during his doomed short program. However, like Yuuri, JJ is surrounded by people who actually care about him, the human. Part of his failure at the Grand Prix Finals is learning that his fiancée truly loves him, and that his athletic programs truly affected the lives of those who cheered him on.

I am generally terrified of people and, more often than not, am in some sort of spiral of self-hatred and loathing. You wouldn’t know this if you met me, especially at a work event, because I put that aside to do my job — feature writing — which requires talking to people. Just recently, I followed a team around for almost a week. During that time I did multiple individual interviews, but generally remained a fly on the wall for most of it. Throughout that time period I continuously told the team not to worry, that I would write the best piece on them and that event. Just mustering up that small amount of bravado pushed me to succeed.

There are a lot of times where I mess up. One team knows me as “that girl who was too shy to take pictures.” Another time I botched an interview so badly that I only asked about three questions. Sometimes I miss deadlines and it makes me want to curl up in a ball and disappear — the Yuuri method of coping with anxiety and fear. However, a larger portion of the time, I’m JJ, trying to stand alongside two people that I admire greatly, instead of just remaining in their shadow. In order to do this, I have to bluster and tell others that I will be the best — one side effect of this is that putting up this front continues to push me forward when I wouldn’t necessarily get there otherwise. Sometimes you have to swallow all of that fear, muscle your way up to your figurative podium flanked by people you’ve admired for a long time, and say, “Hey, I don’t just admire you, I belong here too.”

“I ordered a magic learning kit online but I had no idea what to do with it. I don’t really understand the basics all that well . . . “

-Akko Kagari, Little Witch Academia, Episode 1

Part of the craft in creating a magical world involves the mundane. Magic and fantasy worlds are created in contrast to the comparatively dull world in which we live our everyday lives. This contrast is important in selling a magical world to a reader or viewer of a specific fantasy franchise, whether it’s by forcing these two worlds to collide, lengthy and involved world-building that induces total immersion, or a protagonist who is new to the magical world in question and discovering it along with us. Last year, Flying Witch used Japanese rural life as a backdrop for witch-in-training Makoto Kowata. We discovered the wonder of pastoral Japan through the eyes of Makoto, and the wonders of her magic through the eyes of her young cousin, Chinatsu Kuramoto.

The most obvious, and popular, example of this is the titular Harry Potter of the Harry Potter franchise — now a veritable empire with intricate detail after intricate detail. Even without Harry himself to take our hand and lead us from the mundane muggle world to the magical, the Harry Potter world already encourages complete and total engagement due to its attention to every last detail.

Although Harry is a wizard, he was raised as an average muggle — cupboard beneath the stairs and emotional abuse aside — and doesn’t discover his powers or the wizarding world until he turns 11 years-old. This allows us to explore the wizarding world through Harry’s eyes, our own eyes widening in awe at lengthy descriptions of moving staircases in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, ghosts, moving pictures, and what it feels like to fly on a broom or levitate a feather. By contrast, Harry Potter gives us Draco Malfoy, or, for someone closer to Harry himself, Ron Weasley who have lived as wizards their entire lives.

Stuck somewhere between Harry Potter and Ron Weasley is Little Witch Academia‘s Akko Kagari.

“Speaking of awful, I heard a rumor about the new students. It seems one of them isn’t of witch blood.”

-Luna Nova witch at the Leyline Terminal, Little Witch Academia, Episode 1

Akko is an odd case. There’s no Luna Nova letter, no dramatic moment where a half-giant tells Akko that she’s a witch — she simply chooses to become one.

Through her, Little Witch Academia strikes out on its own with a somewhat unique approach to mixing the magical and mundane. In the world of Little Witch Academia the series, the average person is aware of magic and is either unconcerned with it or views magic as a tourist attraction — seasoned witches are heard complaining about tourists at the Leyline Terminal. They also introduce the concept that witches are bred through a bloodline, not learned, although Akko was accepted to the prestigious magical academy Luna Nova despite her commoner blood.

In the Little Witch Academia OVAs, Akko is looked down upon by Diana and company not for her lack of magical blood but for her idolization of Shiny Chariot, who is thought to be somewhat of a fraud in the magical realm. Friction between natural-born witches and learned commoners like Akko will presumably remain in the background throughout the series’ run — especially with the upcoming introduction of Diana Cavendish — an interesting addition to the world of Luna Nova.

The opening scene of Little Witch Academia shows a young and eager Akko at Shiny Chariot’s magical show. This inspires her to become a witch, in the same vein that attending the Boston Symphony Orchestra at a young age inspired me to take piano lessons and learn music — despite the mentions of bloodlines, magic also appears as an available talent that seemingly anyone can pursue. For me, at that time, the thought of playing Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” was magical. For Akko, Shiny Chariot’s magical show places her on the path towards learning actual witchcraft.

When introducing herself to Sucy Manbavaran, Akko reveals that she tried to buy a magic kit online but didn’t know what to do with it. She meets Lotte Yanson after attempting to climb the vines on the sides of the Leyline Terminal to Luna Nova, doggedly trying to make her way forward without the necessary broom to fly her there. Luna Nova doesn’t give her help because she wasn’t born a witch — Hogwarts, for example, provides even muggle-born students with a list of required items — Akko comes to the terminal without even the basic knowledge of what a Leyline is, or how to get to the school. Although Akko is presented as a warm-hearted but self-centered dunce, she has a lot of catching up to do that involves no small amount of hard work and training.

The idea that magic can be learned rather than born into is a subtle difference that makes Little Witch Academia unique. It additionally serves as a way for Akko, and us by extension, to be continuously wowed by her new magical surroundings. If the opening sequence is anything to go by, Akko will figure out how to fly on a broom just as well as her peers eventually. The question is of how she’ll get there.

Yayaka is an intriguing character. Her story isn’t unique, but her presentation throughout the series leads to some of the most compelling scenes in all of Flip Flappers.

She straddles two worlds and is torn in opposite directions. She’s an odd woman out to Cocona and Papika’s burgeoning relationship but also a key part of their primary trio. She is a necessary catalyst in their Episode 12 reconciliation but in reuniting the two, sidelines herself in the process. At the end of the series, all Yayaka can do is cheer them on, physically restrained by Cocona’s pet rabbit, Uexküll.

All three characters in Flip Flappers‘ main trio are introduced in the series’ first cold open — Cocona, diligently taking an exam, Papika making a break for it and seeking out her next partner on her own, and Yayaka sleeping through the same exam that Cocona is dutifully completing. Not only does Yayaka sport the trademark brightly-colored hair that designates her as an important character in this anime series, but she also stands out by sleeping through her test.

The next time we see her, she’s in the opening sequence, standing alone in the rain before blowing up a mass of chemical plants behind a chain-link fence. A small aside — this isn’t the first recent anime to use chemical plants as scenery, the first Kizumonogatari film used them as a delivery system for Meme Oshino, a metaphor for recent chemical changes in Koyomi Araragi’s body due to both adolescence and becoming a a vampire. In Flip Flappers they could mean similar for Yayaka — minus the vampire part. While the series focuses on Cocona’s coming-of-age through her visits to Pure Illusion, Yayaka is in the background, bumbling her way though her own maturation and adolescence.

Yayaka is not a subtle person. She immediately blows up the chemical plants in the opening sequence. She blusters her way forward, even if she’s uncertain or confused. She admits that she gave herself to Asclepius to bring about a world where no one would get hurt, and where she wouldn’t have to worry about making decisions at all. Unlike Cocona who has trouble making the most minute decisions because she’s afraid of making the wrong choice, Yayaka chooses immediately, even if that choice is spurred by a burst of emotion. Each choice she makes reflects a duality within Yayaka herself — she wants to be seen as one way, but internally often feels differently. Her exterior is tough. Her interior is empathetic and kind.

It’s fitting that Yayaka’s Pure Illusion world is one fraught with overt subtext — the Class S yuri boarding school that resets at midnight — providing an excellent backdrop for the multiple facets of Yayaka’s personality. Although Yayaka makes choices, she only buys into most of them on the surface, going as far as she can without actually addressing her true feelings.

Yayaka is the first person that Cocona and Papika meet in this world, greeting them with a “gokigenyou” — the established phrase that all other representations of demure, chaste, boarding school girls repeat in warped fashion. Yayaka is the template, they are the result of her repressed emotional state.

In this world, Yayaka is again able to play the role of cool, experienced sister. Rather than being upfront with her feelings towards Cocona, the setting allows her to take charge without repercussions. She goads Cocona, teases her about getting hot and bothered, before revealing the secret of the time loop. Despite being at odds with each other, Yayaka still helps Cocona along. On the surface, she remains bound to her cause. Beneath, she cares deeply for Cocona and will do anything to help her.

“Once you enter a Pure Illusion world, you’re influenced by its nature.”

-Yayaka to Cocona, Flip Flappers, Episode 5

This same world is used to examine Cocona’s feelings towards Papika, her own adolescence, and her sexuality. Although the world is Yayaka’s through and through, Cocona experiences it in her own fashion. Even Cocona’s mother Mimi is present in this episode — a young woman who was never able to live her life with any sort of freedom or choice. Every world of Pure Illusion is as much Cocona and Mimi as it is the initial owner or creator. As an audience, we experience these worlds through Cocona. Mimi is present in all of them, as the amorphous that allow their existence are from her own shattered psyche.

We are privy to another look into Yayaka’s mind during the amorphous twins’ Pure Illusion world in Episode 9. This stark and bleak place has two miniature settings within it — an ice palace with various facets reflecting Yayaka’s relationship with Cocona, and Cocona’s insular tearoom. We learn how Yayaka first met Cocona, and how her feelings quickly developed into friendship and love despite the fact that Yayaka was initially sent to monitor Cocona for Asclepius’ cause.

Begonias are Yayaka’s flower throughout the series, indicating dark, preoccupied thoughts and warnings of caution as well as finalizing an alliance or friendship. Even her flower has multiple, conflicting meanings. Yayaka is unable to be truly honest with herself until the final few episodes when she recognizes the strength of Papika’s feelings for Cocona. She pulls Papika out of her rut, essentially giving their relationship her blessing despite the fact that it means that Cocona and Papika have stronger feelings for each other than Cocona ever did for Yayaka.

When added to the pair, Yayaka creates a trio. Her colors cement both the subtractive and additive color primaries when all three girls are together. However, even here, Yayaka is noticeably separated. She is sidelined in the final battle while Cocona and Papika receive matching outfits that resemble wedding dresses. Even while transformed alongside the two, Yayaka’s outfit is built to stand alone, while Cocona and Papika are two halves of a matching pair.

When we first meet Tohru of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, she is unmistakably a dragon. With green scales, yellow eyes, and a body that doesn’t even fit within the series itself — only parts of her are shown until she raises her head above the forest and takes off in flight — Tohru is massive and clearly strong.

Yet, for most of the series, Tohru appears as the young woman above — a cute, busty cosplayer with seemingly limitless energy. She appears as what she believes will be the most desirable physical representation to her soon-to-be employer, Miss Kobayashi.

In their drunken first meeting, Miss Kobayashi not only invites Tohru to her home, but mentions that having a maid would be the best. We later learn that she had a very specific image of a victorian-style, traditional maid, of which Tohru knows nothing.

During her initial journey to Miss Kobayashi’s house, Tohru soars over a group of young women, dressed in costume, handing out flyers for a maid cafe. This is presumably her only experience with maids and she takes their appearance to heart, copying their outfit for her every day maid dress. When Miss Kobayashi asks Tohru to perform the duties of a maid, Tohru stands cutely in her living room with a sign, advertising “Maid Cafe Cozy” while handing out flyers.

Years ago in DokiDoki! Precure, an episode aired that showed the precures’ fairy partners transforming themselves into humans for a day. Their purpose was to aid their human counterparts in any way possible by becoming human. Furthermore, their varying physical appearances represented the different relationships that they had with their respective other halves.

For example, Davie — partner of Makoto Kenzaki (Cure Sword) — always appears as her manager. Makoto is currently undercover as an idol, and Davie not only provides her with moral support but also sees to it that Makoto’s work life runs smoothly. Sharuru, who wants to become a human exactly like her partner, Mana Aida (Cure Heart), looks like the spitting image of Mana when transformed, only younger, and so on.

Tohru’s transformation is similar. She becomes what she thinks Miss Kobayashi will want. Since her experience with maids is limited to what little she saw while flying, she quickly adopts this style of dress.

Even when Miss Kobayashi gives her every day clothes, Tohru still keeps her maid headpiece accessory when changed. She does remove this while sleeping; however, sleep is notably unusual for dragons. The fact that Tohru is sleeping at all also signifies her desire to grow closer to Miss Kobayashi.

Tohru’s horns, lizard-like eyes, and green tail remain as residual physical traits of a dragon. She is also visibly larger than Miss Kobayashi in every way. When they share a bed at night, Tohru’s giant tail peeks out from under the covers, curling on the floor. This is a nice testament to her strength and existence as a legendary beast, reminding us that when she was first introduced, she couldn’t even fit within the scope of the series’ camera.

“The theme was about a young animator who joins the industry looking up to a -sorry for the term- lowbrow late-night magical girl anime. So he’s mocked by people around him.”

-Yoh Yoshinari on Little Witch Academia, interview with Animestyle (2013)

Whenever I think of Studio Trigger, the first thing that comes to mind is a line from Ryuko Matoi. The conclusion of Trigger’s Kill la Kill essentially boils down to Ryuko facing off against  Ragyo Kiryuin, allowing both women to shout their respective philosophies at each other — most of which appear in the bold, red lettering that the series is so fond of for emphasis.

They both fiercely believe in their individual outlooks to the point where Ragyo finds it impossible to digest Ryuko’s assertion of an indomitable human spirit. “What is this nonsense?!” Ragyo screams, to which Ryuko simply responds, “Nonsense is our thing!”

To some, it may be a cop-out that absolves Studio Trigger from having to explain exact hows and whys. However, one person’s nonsense is another’s meaning. All of Trigger’s original series — Kill la Kill, Kiznaiver, and Space Patrol Luluco — wear their influences on their visual sleeves, especially when said influences are from their own catalog or former studio GAINAX.

A criticism — at the very least, a comment that causes friction — of anime today is that the animators themselves have been influenced by anime only, rather than real life. Legacy animators like Hayao Miyazaki have credited what they see as anime’s derivative nature and lack of creativity to the fact that animators are drawning on their experience with anime, not actual life experiences. In a 2013 interview with Animestyle, Little Witch Academia creator and Studio Trigger (née GAINAX) animator Yoh Yoshinari talks about his own experiences with Osamu Tezuka’s works and how Tezuka is impossible for animators to escape in their drawings — another testament to how consuming a certain aesthetic over time will leave its mark on your own art regardless. At the same time, Yoshinari asserts that no artists at the time were drawing Tezuka’s work correctly.

Yoh Yoshinari wanted to create a story that fit the idea of a young animator entering the scene whose inspiration came from low-brow anime rather than more esteemed media or real-life experiences. In Little Witch Academia, he gives us not one character who represents this viewpoint but two: Atsuko “Akko” Kagari and Diana Cavendish.

Akko is the obvious dunce, the would-be sorcerer’s apprentice who acts before she thinks and tries to skip steps two through nine on her way from one to ten. Her idol is a witch performer named Shiny Chariot. When Akko was younger, she saw Chariot perform in an outdoor venue — much like a casual summer concert, just a step up from a street performance — and Chariot inspired her to become a witch.

“Akko’s like someone who joined the industry out of passion but without actual technique, so she can’t draw clean lines for in-betweens. Yet she has that egocentric confidence about being able to draw good key frames despite that.”

-Yoh Yoshinari on Little Witch Academia, interview with Animestyle (2013)

Clinging to her love of Shiny Chariot, Akko enters the prestigious Luna Nova Academy despite her lack of a magical bloodline. Once lessons start, she laments that classes on magic can be boring and dull. The magic she knows is Chariot’s — flashy and made for a large stage. Since she is an average human with no magical descent, she will have to work even harder to become a witch, yet studying is the last thing for which her personality is suited.

“Magic is cultivated through the accumulation of lasting traditions and assiduous research. It’s not something that those prone to temporary diversions can learn.”

-Diana Cavendish, Little Witch Academia, Episode 2

Diana Cavendish is presented as Akko’s opposite. She is diligent, learned, and has a renowned magical birthright. However, Diana was at the same performance that inspired Akko, with presumably the same stars in her eyes.

In Little Witch Academia‘s second episode, Diana shows that even their temperaments may not be so different. Akko is known for skipping steps and thinking that she’ll be able to get by on sheer belief and force of will. Meanwhile, Diana is studious, but her position as the school’s idol and great hope of the magical world has made her overconfident. Diana presses on with what she assumes is right, even if she comes to the incorrect conclusion, like seeing the Papilliodya chrysalises as parasites.

In Yoh Yoshinari terms, Diana would be a well-trained, up-and-coming animator who insists that her admittedly gorgeous key frames fit within the director’s vision, even if they visually do not. This isn’t exactly like Akko, who just jumps into the fray with no thought, but they do share an important influence — the low-brow, all flash and no substance magic of Shiny Chariot.

“You can’t blame little me for not knowing. How could I have guessed that magic energy comes from the Sorcerer’s Stone? I just believed I could fly and practiced my heart out!”

-Akko Kagari, Little Witch Academia, Episode 3

The opening scene of Little Witch Academia‘s third episode finds Akko Kagari still desperately trying to use magic with little to no success. Ordering her books to return to their shelves, she finds herself just as unsuccessful at moving them as she did in her Episode 2 magic demonstration when she was humiliated by Diana Cavendish. Professor Ursula’s subsequent interruption in the form of her official appointment as Akko’s mentor, and the appearance of a school-supplied broom, distracts Akko from her most recent magical failures. Instead, the conversation inevitably turns to Akko’s idol, Shiny Chariot, when Professor Ursula takes note of Akko’s staff, the Shiny Rod.

The irony is that Akko is speaking to Shiny Chariot herself, brandishing the Shiny Rod in Chariot-turned-Professor Ursula’s face while spouting off her catchphrase: a believing heart is my magic.

It’s a bitter turn when Ursula tells Akko that, since the staff revealed itself to Akko, the staff now belongs to Akko, not Shiny Chariot. As Ursula leaves Akko to fawn over her new broom, Ursula repeats her words, “A believing heart is my magic, hunh?” in a wistful, almost icy tone. We don’t exactly know what happened between the Point A of Shiny Chariot and Point B of bumbling Luna Nova Professor Ursula, but the journey seems to involve a belief or faith lost.

Ursula’s untold story is placed against the backdrop of Luna Nova and the magical world as a whole. Little Witch Academia made it clear in Episode 1 that magical bloodlines and belief in magic is waning. The school is running out of money, which paved the way for Akko’s own admission despite her lack of a magical bloodline. While the high-born magical users look down on flashy show-woman Shiny Chariot, the rest of the world doesn’t believe magic exists beyond parlor tricks and slight of hand. When Akko asks the good folk of Glastonbury the location of a bus terminal for Luna Nova — while raving about Chariot again — their reactions range from slight amusement, to confusion, to annoyance.

For her part, Akko doesn’t care about magical bloodlines or what others think of her much-maligned idol. However, her blundering reveals bits and pieces of Little Witch Academia‘s magical world every time she makes a misstep.

The Leyline Terminal to Luna Nova is located at St Michael’s tower on Glastonbury Tor — the St Michael’s leyline as defined by Alfred Watkins in 1921, which Little Witch Academia has also referenced. As an aside, the Tor has been cited as the Isle of Avalon, of Arthurian legend, a powerful magical landmark. In Little Witch Academia, the Leyline Terminal taps into the leyline — a powerful magical source. As one of the witches that Akko first meets on the Tor says, magic energy has flowed through the leyline since ancient times. This energy allows witches to port themselves to Luna Nova on their brooms.

In the series’ opening scene, Chariot opens a portal to a leyline with the Shiny Rod after the performance that inspires young Akko to become a witch. Later, Akko opens a similar leyline portal to transport Sucy Manbavaran, Lotte Yanson, and herself from Arcturus Forest to Luna Nova, also using the Shiny Rod. While in that leyline, Akko sees bits and pieces of things that are presumably of her own future, like the Shooting Star broom that appears later in Episode 3.

Presumably, leylines are present throughout the world — or at least, England, where the route to Luna Nova is accessed — but the location of a specific terminal on the Tor hints that they’re not always accessible. By extension, this makes the Shiny Rod a peerless magical item, despite the fact that it belonged to Chariot, a charlatan in the magical world.

The Shiny Rod appears to Akko in Arcturus Forest as she carries an injured Lotte. Akko is firm in her determination that she will become a witch, and the rod presumably responds to that belief. Despite the fact that Akko is a commoner with no actual knowledge of magic beside her so-called believing heart, the rod appears to her when she needs aid. All of Akko’s attempts at using the rod for magic in later episodes fall completely flat unless she is faced with the desperate desire to protect something (the papilliodya chrysalises) or someone (Lotte).

In Episode 3, Sucy reveals that the only reason they can use magic freely on the Luna Nova campus is due to energy from the Sorcerer’s Stone. This is further reiterated by Lotte when she and Akko walk into town instead of riding brooms, citing the weakened power of the Sorcerer’s Stone off campus. Not-so-coincidentally, they run into a magic-infused broom while out and about — another magical item that Akko later uses, even though she’s unable to tap into the Sorcerer’s Stone like every other witch at Luna Nova.

Professor Ursula ends the episode acknowledging Akko’s passion, while looking at an old, undisguised photograph of herself when she attended Luna Nova. Passion seems to be the sole reason why Akko can use magic at all, allowing her to borrow the power of various magical items without actually knowing the basics. When the time comes to concentrate or do something with purpose — but without someone’s life or something important to her endangered — she’s unable to perform magic at all.

Many anime use cherry blossoms for lingering shots, full of deep longing or the ephemeral Heian mono no aware. Makoto Shinkai’s 5 Centimeters Per Second immediately comes to mind, as do the more recent series Your Lie in April or Amanchu!, both of which frame principal relationships with blooming cherry trees.

Yet, only one other anime series came to mind when I saw this shot from the third episode of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. Another quirky comedy animated by Kyoto Animation — Nichijou, or My Ordinary Life.

The above shot from Nichijou is the opening punch line of the series, blossoms blooming from buds with a pop after Yuuko Aioi is roused from her ennui by the simple encouragement of Mio Naganohara. This is followed by scene where the two sit, drinking tea, as a short line is read: I wish I could be a simpleton. The joke is that Yuuko is an idiot.

In the next scene, cherry blossom petals fall over Shinonome Laboratory, transitioning the viewer from Yuuko’s idiocy to Nano Shinonome’s domesticity. A giant wind-up key in her back stands out as the only visible thing out of place in an otherwise tranquil morning.

Nichijou deftly switches gears from scene-to-scene, juxtaposing belly laughs, quirky visual gags, poignant bits of characterization, and genuine emotional moments. Cuts to scenery, like the budding cherry tree popping into bloom after Yuuko’s yelling, are often used for transitions in between skits — breaking them up into smaller chunks while tying them together in the same universe.

Additionally, the series uses pillow shots — seemingly unrelated shots of scenery that are inserted between segments, to add a dash of non sequitur absurdity. The differences between an establishing shot and a pillow shot — as defined by critic Noel Burch when studying the works of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu — are slight, and the two often blend together. If you think of an entire scene as a sentence, a pillow shot is an off beat, or a slight syllable of nonsense that disrupts an expected rhythm. Pillow shots cut away to random scenery without an obvious narrative tie-in and hold that image for approximately five seconds.

The pillow shot above is taken from Nichijou Episode 24. It shows three birds of prey circling a power line set against the setting sun on the mountains and appears after a scene where Mio believes she has grown closer to her crush, Koujirou Sasahara. Nichijou‘s next episode features an extended — somewhat famous — running sequence with Mio after she sees Misato Tachibana and Sasahara arm in arm. Her dreams of being with Sasahara are crushed.

On their own, the birds of Episode 24 are circling unknown prey. Coupled with Mio’s thoughts in Episode 24 and what happens in Episode 25, they become harbingers of doom for her potential romance with Sasahara. It’s not overt symbolism per se, more of a story beat that can be recontextualized with additional scenes in the series. Nichijou also uses these cuts to show passage of time within an episode. Earlier in Episode 24, the same scene is shown that morning, with a flock of birds on the power lines taking off.

Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid uses similar scenes for transitions, but leans on the side of establishing shots rather than their more non-sequitur cousin, the pillow shot — an overview of the city, followed by a two-to-three-second shot of an egret in the river shallows. In that same episode, the shot of a construction site sets up the noise Miss Kobayashi and her dragon companions have to deal with in their new apartment.

Maidragon Director Yasuhiro Takemoto worked under Tatsuya Ishihara on Nichijou, and it’s not surprising to see him use comparable visuals in a somewhat similar comedy. Nichijou is far more absurd and almost surrealist at times, but Maidragon also has its own absurdities, focused around the fish-out-of-water story of Tohru the dragon who became a maid in the modern world.

Takemoto borrows most from Ishihara when he uses establishing shots several times throughout an episode to show the passage of time, both within an episode and in a more general sense. In Maidragon‘s second episode, Miss Kobayashi takes in another dragon, Kanna.

An establishing shot of her apartment complex in this episode first shows a small cat, asleep. The cat is a tiny dot in a larger shot, and is given a closeup moments afterwards.

Later in the episode, another establishing shot features a group of cats asleep under the same stairwell. The cats have multiplied, as has Miss Kobayashi’s makeshift family of dragons. It’s a more overt usage of establishing shots that can’t technically qualify as pillow shots — especially with such obvious narrative tie-ins — but still mimics Nichijou‘s rhythm, adding a transient quality to the series as a whole.