#THIS IS THE KIND OF ULTRAMAN STORY THAT MADE ME LOVE THE SERIES AS A KID

[ask-cloverfield]

THE CONCRETE TUBES FUCK YES

[anne-lida]

Hello, Lida *-* I saw some Japanese titles in your WIPs names, so... Do you speak Japanese and never told me??? Do you know I love Japan, Japanese folklore, culture and their traditional food?? Now you know (Nikujaga is on the menu for dinner tonight ٩◔‿◔۶)

So, tell me more about those titles. And... how many languages do you speak? Did I see some Spanish titles too? Mmh.. Interesting!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Hello, dearest Lady Connor!

I'd just ran around my bed in excitement for... maybe two minutes or more after seeing your ask. Really tired, but happy to see you in my ask box! ^^

Anyway, for the ask:

I'll be very honest, I just started learning Japanese last December and I still can't make a proper sentence yet--probably even less knowledgable about Japanese anything than even you ^^'. Really sorry for disappointing you ;_;

Other than their foods, I do really love tokusatsu, especially shows like Super Sentai (and its American adaptation Power Rangers) and Kamen Rider. But last year, I delved into Ultraman franchise and found a... deep liking into a certain character ._.

And that's when I made that first Japanese-titled WIP ^^

(Btw, all of my Japanese-titled WIPs are Ultraman fanfics and for now, they're still written in English ^^)

So, for 限界を超えろ (Genkai wo koero!), I did post the faceclaim of its main character, Kazuki Ōkami ^^

Story-wise, it's a story of Kazuki, a paralympic athlete who was once a big fan of his city's hero, Ultraman Srika. One day, Kazuki lost his best friend during an attack and he found out that his very idol caused it. He was boiled in hellish fury, but far from enough to give him an even chance to survive the giant's blow, if he should fight Srika.

On his lonely walk, he sacrificed his life to save a mysterious young man, who turned out to be a new Ultraman in disguise named Gala. To pay for Kazuki's heroic deed, Gala bonded with him. Reviving him in the process and giving him ability to become giant. A chance to fight alongside Ultraman Srika, or against him :)

Yeah, that's basically what the first episode is ^^

The story of ミスター • ウルトラマン (Misutā Urutoraman) is still not well developed. The main concept is this series' Ultra host is a CEO of a food company. He only turned into giant if the company's properties were at high risk of getting damaged by the Kaiju and often used the catastrophic attacks to create his company's heroic image as "the savior of starvation" kind of thing through food donation xD

強大な翼 (Kyōdaina Tsubasa) popped quite recently. There's a pair of twins who worked in a Kaiju defense force--one is a pilot, and the other's a naval flight officer. On one mission of finding the Kaiju's nest far outside the border of the outmost village, the pilot's team was attacked by a mama Kaiju and the base lost contact with them. As the Kaiju got closer to the populated village, a mysterious Ultraman appeared and saved the day. Yet, after a search, no trace of the fallen pilots had been found.

And this is his story of finding his sister (and the process of accepting the possibility of her death) and, while still in grieving state, helping other living pilots protecting their homeland (along with the unknown gigantic alien).

Btw, on how many languages I speak...

Uh, it's only three ^^'

Japanese and Spanish (and Bable aka Asturian) are not even one of them. So if you (or anyone else) notice any mistake, please correct me xD

Idk if you also ask about the "Spanish-titled" files, but I'll tell you about it anyway xD

It's all under a WIP folder of a very loose Power Rangers fanfic. It was inspired by social-deduction games mechanic (like Mafia, Werewolf, Town of Salem, Among Us).

"During the sickening century of old, there were murderous beasts called "Monscuros". At night, they searched for foods and followers amongst humans and at day, dressed like the humans. The people of Nagüestia didn't have strength to hold off against their devilish power. But under the slightest glare of sun, people took a chance to push anyone who looked like they did the darkest sin last night into trials.

"Those people claimed that was the only way to win. But seeing so many innocent blood spilt before a sinner was caught, some of them silently believed more in the fabled Layenda. The heroes of the stars, who also hid amongst the men until the sun went down, when they would strike the monsters at the heart with their silver blade and starlight spells. Saving humanity from those wretched creatures... and themselves."

And that's the somewhat romantization vibe of that WIP ^^'

Also, I posted a drawing of a Layenda in the past.

So, yeah. Thank you so much for asking me! ^^

[tyrantisterror]

I did a four part series of trivia posts when ATOM Volume 1: Tyrantis Walks Among Us! came out, and that was pretty fun!  You can see that set of trivia posts here if you’d like.  I thought it’d be fun to do another now that ATOM Volume 2: Tyrantis Roams the Earth! is out - just one this time, because a lot of the trivia I talked about with Volume 1 still applies.

I’m gonna divide this into two sections: non-spoiler trivia, for things that really don’t give a lot of plot points away, and spoiler trivia, for things that DO give away major plot points.  I recommend not reading the spoiler trivia until after you’ve read Tyrantis Roams the Earth!, for obvious reasons, and will put the spoiler trivia under a cut.

Ok, let’s go!

- So if you read ATOM Volume 1, you probably noticed that the book is split not only into chapters, but “episodes,” which consist of four chapters a piece.  It’s kind of a nod to how the series owes a great deal of its DNA to various monster of the week shows, with Godzilla: the Series and The Godzilla Power Hour being obvious influences.  It also allowed me to pepper in some illustrations and cheesy b-movie style titles into each volume.

- The first “episode” of Volume 2, Tyrantis in Tokyo, pays explicit homage to the giant monster movies of Japan, perhaps even moreso than the chapters that came before it.  Given how much Japanese media influenced ATOM - from tokusatsu like the Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman franchises to anime like Digimon and Evangelion (hell, the title of this episode itself is a tip of the hat to Tenchi Muyo by way of one of its spinoffs) - it kind of felt obligatory that Tyrantis visit Japan and pay his respects.

- Tyrantis in Tokyo also fits in a tribute to another staple of Atomic Age pop culture: Rock and Roll.

- Kutulusca, the giant cephalopod that appears in Tyrantis in Tokyo, is one of the oldest kaiju in this series, dating back to the first iteration of Tyrantis’s story that I put to paper back in 2001 or so.  It’s changed a lot since then, but its fight with Tyrantis goes more or less the way it originally did.

- Old Meg, the giant placoderm/shark, and Nastadyne, the bipedal beetle, both owe their existence directly to Deviantart’s Godzilla fandom.  Old Meg originated as a dunkleosteus monster I submitted to a “create a Godzilla kaiju” contest held by Matt Frank, while Nastadyne is based on a Megalon redesign I made during the “redesign all the Godzilla kaiju” phase of DA’s kaiju fandom.

- The second episode, Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace, gets dark as we visit the USSR, which had enough REAL horror with atomic power in its history to make creature features seem a bit defanged by comparison.  It’s probably the episode with the strongest horror elements - ATOM’s always been influenced by Resident Evil, and this is probably where that influence shows the most strongly.

- It also features the first fully robotic mecha in the series, the mighty Herakoschei!  Its name is a combination of “Heracles” and “Koschei the Deathless,” with the former part being added by its Russian creators to make it seem a bit more international as they offer it to the U.N. in hopes of gaining aid for a very extreme kaiju problem they’ve developed.

- Most of Tyrantis vs. the Red Menace takes place in the Siberian Monster Zone.  Its name is a reference to the Lawless Monster Zone in Ultraman, which is such a cool fucking name I wish that I wish I could go back in time and steal it.

- The next episode, Tyrantis’s Revenge, is... full of spoilers, so we’ll move on for now.

- The penultimate episode, Tyrantis vs. the Martian Monsters, is a love letter to MANY different sci-fi stories that involve life on Mars, though the most prominent of them is of course The War of The Worlds (one of my top 3 favorite books) and its various adaptations.  From its tentacles sapient martians, the tripodal leader of the titular monsters whose name includes the word “ulla” which is uttered by said sapient martians, the plant monster made of red vines, the cylinder-shaped spacecraft the Martian monsters are sent to earth on, the copper-skinned stingray-esque flying martian who shoots lasers from its tail, and the fact that every chapter title in this episode is a quote from the book, the H.G. Wells influence is STRONG.

- The final episode, Invasion from Beyond!, is shamelessly inspired by Destroy All Monsters, although there’s a dash of “To Serve Men,” Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and The Day the Earth Stood Still mixed in as well.  It’s also sort of a tribute to my first “published” bit of a kaiju fiction - a rewrite of Destroy All Monsters that included EVERY Godzilla monster that had appeared at the time, which my middle school self wrote back in 2002 or so for Kaiju Headquarters, a kaiju fansite I’m not sure exists anymore.  Invasion from Beyond! is just as ambitious (but hopefully better executed) as my DAM Remake, with dozens upon dozens of different kaiju duking it out, earthlings vs. aliens.

- There were three different documents I made to outline the final battle of Invasion from Beyond!  It’s the largest episode of the series so far and more than half of it is that fucking fight.  My inner child is pleased, though, so hopefully you will be too.

Ok, that’s all I can share without spoilers.  READER BEWARE WHAT FOLLOWS BELOW THE CUT!

JUST MAKING SURE you know that SPOILERS will follow from here on out.  Read at your own peril!  YOU WERE WARNED!

(I’m gonna start with lighter ones just in case you scrolled too far and want to turn back)

- There’s a number of explicit Spielberg homages in ATOM Volume 2, from a “we need a bigger boat” joke during a chase with a giant shark to the fact that Invasion from Beyond! opens with a group of people flying to an island of monsters to review whether or not it should get more funding.

- When Tyrantis appears in the first chapter, I snuck in modified lyrics of The Godzilla Power Hour’s theme song.  “Up from the depths”... “several stories high”... “breathing fire”... “its head in the sky”... Tyrantis!  Tyrantis!  Tyrantis!

- The two rock bands in Tyrantis in Tokyo have real life inspirations ala Gwen Valentine, albeit a bit more muddled than hers.  The Cashews are inspired by The Peanuts (see what I did there), while The Thunder Lizards are a mix of The Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper.  I wanted The Thunder Lizards to be more akin to the myth of a famous rock and roll band than the reality - less the real Beatles and more the Yellow Submarine cartoon version of them.

- The song The Thunder Lizards write for Tyrantis was written to fit the tune of “The Godzilla March” from Godzilla vs. Gigan, though ideally if someone made an actual song of it it would be its own song.  I got the idea from Over the Garden Wall, which used the Christmas song “O Holy Night” as a a starting point for “Come Wayward Souls.”

- Perry Martin, UNNO reporter and peer of Henry Robertson, is a nod to Raymond Burr, with his name being a combination of two of Burr’s most famous roles: Perry Mason, and Steve Martin from Godzilla King of the Monsters (1956).

- Dr. Rinko Tsuburaya is a few homages in one.  Her name comes from Rinko Kikuchi (who played Mako Mori in Pacific Rim), while her last name is obviously in homage of Eiji Tsuburaya.  Her being the daughter of an esteemed scientist is inspired by Emiko Yamane from the original Gojira.

- Nastadyne’s Burning Justice mode is named after a similar super mode from various Transformers cartoons, though it’s more directly inspired by the Shining/Burning Finger super move from G Gundam.

- Martians sending kaiju to different planets via shooting them out of cannons (with or without cylinder spaceships around them) is another War of the Worlds shoutout.  So is martians living on Venus after their homeworld was made uninhabitable, actually.

- Kurokame’s vocalizations are described as wails in explicit homage to Gamera.  His name can be translated as either “black tortoise” (a reference to the mythical guardian beast Genbu, which can also be construed as a Gamera reference thanks to Gamera: Advent of Irys implying Gamera and Genbu are one and the same) or a portmanteau of the Japanese words for crocodile and turtle - “crocturtle.”

- Burodon’s name is just a mangling of “burrow down.”  It also sounds vaguely like Baragon, who Burodon is loosely inspired by.  AND, since Burodon is sort of a knockoff/modified Baragon, that kinda makes him a reference to various monsters in Ultraman!

- The final battle of Tyrantis in Tokyo is sort of a hybrid of the finales of Ghidorah the 3 Headed Monster and Destroy All Monsters.  

- The Japanese kaiju teaching Tyrantis the art of throwing rocks at your enemies is both a joke on the prominence of rock throwing in Japanese kaiju fights AND the tired trope of an American hero learning secret martial arts from a Japanese mentor ala Batman, Iron Fist, etc.  In this case, the secret martial art is throwing rocks at people.

- When introduced to Herakoschei and its pilot, we are told that the strain of piloting this early mecha is so intense that many pilots have died in the process, with the current one passing out on more than few occasions.  This is of course a Pacific Rim homage - sadly, no one invents drifting.

- Herakoschei’s design is a loose homage to Robby the Robot and Cherno Alpha, because big boxy robots are cool.

- The Writhing Flesh and ESPECIALLY Pathogen are both hugely influenced by Resident Evil and The Thing.  Giant body horror piles of raw flesh, tendrils, mismatched mouths and limbs may be a bit outside the main era of monster design ATOM homages, but they fit the themes and bring a nice contrast.

- I came up with Pathogen long before Corona but MAN it definitely feels different in 2021 to have a giant monster whose name is a synonym for disease driving other creatures crazy in a quarantine zone than it did when I plotted out the story in 2016.

- The chapter title “Hello, Old Foes” is a riff on “Goodbye, Old Friend”

- Minerva, the kaiju-fied clone of Dr. Lerna, is meant to be an homage to Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which is a genuinely good giant monster flick.  I am sure many of you will also believe I included her because I’m a pervert whose into tall women, but you’d be wrong!  I included the seven foot tall Russian mecha pilot Ludmilla Portnova because I’m a pervert whose into tall women.  Minerva’s inclusion was just coincidental, I swear!

- Since Promythigor is a play on the archetypal ape kaiju to contrast Tyrantis as a play on the archetypal fire-breathing reptile kaiju, their fight has a lot of nods to King Kong movies.  Promythigor attempts the famous jaw-snap maneuver of Kong (with less success), J.C. Clark paraphrases the “brute force vs. a thinking animal” line from the King Kong vs. Godzilla American cut, and Tyrantis slides down a mountain to knock Promythigor off his feet in a reversal of Kong doing the same in King Kong vs. Godzilla.

- Tyrantis sliding down a mountain on his tail doubles as a Godzilla vs. Megalon homage.

- Though Promythigor is the archetypal Ape and Tyrantis the archetypal Fire-Breathing Reptile, I think it’s fun to note that in some ways, Promythigor is the Godzilla equivalent in their matchup, and Tyrantis the Kong.  Promythigor has a slight size advantage, was scarred by humans performing unethical weapons technology, and is associated with violent explosions.  Tyrantis is a good-at-heart prehistoric beast who humanized in part by his unlikely friendship with a human woman.

- Of course, in the context of the famous quote from the American cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla, they remain in their archetypal lanes.  Promythigor is the more intelligent of the two (though not necessarily wiser), and Tyrantis is in many ways a brute reptile.  Their battle is a rebuttal of sorts to the assertion that Kong is the “better” animal because he is closer to human.  Promythigor’s near human creativity and emotions don’t make him the kinder/more benevolent monster, but instead fuel a very self-centered and destructive attitude that makes him the far more dangerous threat.  On the other hand, Tyrantis, who is less intelligent, limited in communication with others by his reptilian mindset and instincts, and simple in his thoughts and desires, is nonetheless a sweet creature that is easily dealt with when others consider his animal needs and mindset.  There’s a quote from Hellboy I love that probably sums up all of my writing thus far: “To be other than human does not mean the same as being less,” and that’s what the matchup between these two in particular tries to illustrate: the “less” human Tyrantis is nonetheless more benign than the “more” human Promythigor.

- Kraydi the psychic lizard began life as a soft sculpture I made of the Canyon Krayt Dragon from The Wildlife of Star Wars.  The sculpture didn’t look much like the illustration, but I liked how it came out, and so I made it an original monster named Kraydi (see what I did there).  Figuring out an explanation for that name in ATOM’s world was possibly the most difficult kaiju naming task in the series, but it worked out in the end.

- Kraydi and Promythigor having psychic powers is a result of my time on Godzilla fan forums in my middle school years.  Most of the forums had OC kaiju battle tournaments, and SO many of those kaiju had a wide array of beam weapons and psychic powers just to win the tournaments by beam-spamming and mind controlling their foes into oblivion.  There’s a special kind of rage you get when your original creation is beaten by “Fire Godzilla” because he has a genius level intellect and the power of unstoppable telekinesis.  Kraydi began as (and still is I suppose) my attempt to do a psychic kaiju well, while Promythigor’s villainy being tied to psychic powers being forced on him is sort of my passive aggressive commentary on people foisting powers on a monster without any real thematic reason for them.

- Henry Robertson and Dr. Praetorius chewing out the laziness of people giving kaiju completely unaltered names of mythic beasts will probably be seen as a jab at the Monsterverse and/or the numerous writers in the kaiju OC scene who do the same, but it’s ACTUALLY a jab at my past self, who had DOZENS of kaiju whose names were just Greek mythological figures verbatim.  There are dozens of kaiju named Hydra, Scylla, Charybdis, Chimera, etc., past me, try to make the names stand out!  Oh wait you did.  I mean, don’t pat yourself on the back too much, you still went with “Mothmanud” as a canon name and never came up with something better, but, like, good on ya for trying I guess.

- Dr. Praetorius takes his name from the evil mad scientis in Bride of Frankenstein, who basically has all the wicked traits that Universal’s Frankenstein downplayed in their take on Dr. Frankenstein.  Ironically, ATOM’s Dr. Praetorius is a bit less evil than his fellow mad scientists in ATOM.  I really like how his character turned out, he surprised me.

- Isaac Rossum, the pilot of the USA mecha Atomoton, is named for Isaac Aasimov, whose robot stories are to robot fiction what Lord of the Rings is to high fantasy.  His last name is a reference to Rossum’s Universal Robots, which is where the word “robot” came from.

- The unfortunate pilots of MechaTyrantis in ATOM Volumes 1 and 2 are all nods to Jurassic Park.  John Ludlow = John Hammond and Peter Ludlow, Ian Grant = Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant, Dennis Dodgson = Dennis Nedry and Lewis Dodgson.

- A good way to pitch Invasion from Beyond! would be “what if the staff and monsters were able to fight back when the Kilaaks tried to take over Monsterland?”

- Ok, here’s a fun joke that no one will get but me because it requires a very specific chain of logic based on some obscure and loosely connected nerd bullshit.  There’s a rocker in ATOM’s universe named Sebastian Haff, right?  One of his songs, “Darling Let’s Shimmy,” is referenced right before a mothmanud larva emerges from the ground in both ATOM Vol. 1 and 2.  Ok, so, in the Bubba Hotep, an aging Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff claims he is actually the real Elvis Presley, having changed places with the real Sebastian Haff as a sort of Prince and the Pauper deal that went wrong.  Got that?  Ok, so, in UFO folklore, a common joke is the theory that Elvis didn’t die, but was rather abducted by aliens (or he actually WAS an alien the whole time - the whole “Elvis didn’t die, he just went home” joke in Men in Black is a good example of this).  Ok?  Ok.  So, in ATOM’s universe, we can surmise that their equivalent of Elvis, whose name is Sebastian Haff, WAS abducted by aliens, and that his song “Darling Let’s Shimmy” is subconsciously influenced by his repressed memories from his time aboard the Beyonder spaceships, which is why it accidentally awoke a Mothmanud larva in Volume 1.  There’s a lot of bullshit jokes I put into ATOM, but this is perhaps the bullshittiest of them all.

- One of the most common bits of feedback on ATOM Volume 1 I got was “I kept waiting for something to eat Brick Rockwell, he’s such an asshole.”  And I had to smile and go, “Oh, yeah, guess he never got his, huh?” the whole time without letting on that he was going to die here all along!

- Dr. Lerna and Brick Rockwell’s nature as foils to each other is probably most apparent in Invasion from Beyond!, where both are given fairly similar situations - a nonhuman approaches them with a solution to a global crisis - and react to it very differently.  I worry that some people may think they both made the same choice and got different results, and that that’s hypocrisy on my part, but I hope I wrote it so you can see how their choices and situations actually differ in key ways, and why their decisions, while similar on the surface, are ultimately very different, and thus result in almost opposite outcomes.

- So, when I planned out this book in 2016, I swear I didn’t know about the Orca from 2019′s Godzilla King of the Monsters.  Having the plot hang around Dr. Lerna deciding whether or not to use a sonic device to rouse all the kaiju to save the earth was not INTENDED to be a Monsterverse reference - it came about from me looking at Pathfinder’s take on kaiju, who are all explicitly influenceable by music, and thinking, “Oh, wow, music and songs DO have a major connection with kaiju in a lot of media, I should do something with that.”  Whem KOTM came out a few days after Volume 1 came out I realized I was kinda fucked here, because the comparison was definitely going to be made, but I’d also set this all up already and you can’t just change suddenly to avoid looking like a copy cat and make a good story, so... I dunno, I leaned into it a bit, but it is what it is.

- While most people will probably think they’re a reference to the Reptoids of UFO folklore, the Reptodites are more inspired by the Dinosapien of speculative evolution fame and, even morso, by the Reptites from Chrono Trigger.  Me wanting to avoid the “lizard people control the government” conspiracy theory trope is one of the main reasons why Reptodites have this non-interference clause with humanity.

- Lieutenant Gray is a bunch of different humanoid aliens rolled into one - a little Hopskinville goblin, a little classic gray, a little this one weird alien with five-fingered zygodactyl hands, etc.

- There’s some Beyonder Mecha in this volume that are basically kaiju-fied versions of the Flatwoods Monster.  The species that built them ALSO engineered the Mothmanuds, because connecting Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster is fun!

- Pleprah is, obviously, a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

- Tyrantis’s brush with death, in addition to being so very anime, was inspired by my dad outlining how mythic heroes often have to travel to the underworld/land of the dead before they can finish their journey.  It’s one of the plot points that I’ve had planned for this series since middle school.

- I’m sure some will view it as hackneyed and corny, but as a person who’s battled with depression for decades, having Tyrantis’s choice to live be the big heroic turn of the finale was very important to me.  Tyrantis incorporates elements of a lot of imaginary friends I made as a kid, and in many ways he’s kind of the face of my more positive side in my head.  He’s been telling me to choose to live for a while, and while maybe to an outsider it may seem hackneyed, it’s just... very Tyrantis.  He chooses life and kindness in the face of pain and struggle.  That’s Tyrantis.

- Tyrantis’s powered up form is called “Hyper Mode,” which is another Gundam reference.  Originally it was a lot gaudier and involved him turning gold like a fuckin’ Super Saiyan.  I opted for something a little more toned down here.  

- Also, speaking of KOTM references, I decided to make Hyper Mode Tyrantis’s final duel with Pathogen be a sort of foil to Burning Godzilla’s final bout with Ghidorah in KOTM.  Instead of ravaging the city, Hyper Tyrantis’s pulse of energy rejuvenates his fallen allies, and as a result he is “crowned” not out of fear for his supremacy in the wake of killing a powerful enemy, but in gratitude for his kindness.  See?  Leaning into it!

- And now I can finally reveal that Yamaneon is ATOM’s equivalent of The Monolith Monsters - that is, a kaiju that is also a mineral.  I took the “strange continuously growing rock” thing in a very different direction, though, as unlike The Monolith Monsters, Yamaneon is actually alive.

- At various points in the pre-writing process, either Promythigor, MechaTyrantis, or both were going to die fighting Pathogen.  I ultimately decided to let them both live, with MechaTyrantis even getting his flesh and blood body back, because I think it’s more interesting and thematically consistent that way.  They get a chance to heal their wounds by changing their ways.

- The Great Beyonder and Dorazor both almost didn’t make the cut, as I felt they didn’t have the same pull as villains that Pathogen, Promythigor, and MechaTyrantis did.  But then I thought that could actually be the gag - build them up as the final boss, only to have Pathogen take their crown.  I want to explore post-face turn Dorazor a bit more, though.  We’ll have to see about that in a later volume.

- Volumes 1 and 2 make up what I call “The Ballad of Tyrantis Arc” for ATOM.  I call it that because Tyrantis’s storyline in these two volumes was patterend after Chivalric ballads like Yvain the Knight of the Lion.  Tyrantis, a heroic warrior who is kind but dumb of ass, learns of strange goings on outside his home and investigates.  During his journey into the unknown he falls in love with a powerful woman, whose favor he tries to win.  Through happenstance he is separated from his love and, distraught, wanders around fighting various foes to prove his worth, before finally returning to his love a better hero.  Invasion from Beyond! could even be seen as a sort of Morte d’Artur, with Tyrantis and a bunch of other kaiju heroes (including Nastadyne and Kemlasulla, who are built up as Hero Kaiju of Another Story) take part in a huge battle that threatens their idealic kingdom (of monsters).

- Volume 2 isn’t the end of ATOM, but it’s designed to work as an ending if you want to tap out here.  As a reader I feel a definitive ending is important, but as a writer I’m always tempted to revisit my beloved characters, so I feel giving closure while leaving a few doors open for possible future adventures is a good compromise between these positions.  There will be more ATOM stories, some (but not all!) following Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna, but if you want to know that Tyrantis and Dr. Lerna get an ending and the resolution to their arcs such a thing promises, here you go.  An ending, if not THE END.

[isitreallyok]

Super Hero Time and My Very Own Kamen Rider Club

[A quick note before we get started here.  In this post and likely in all posts to come names of people in my personal life have been changed to maintain anonymity.] After last week’s heavy topic regarding the pressures of positivity, I thought it would be better to at least start this week off lighthearted. It’s very likely that the vast majority of the readers of this are going to be from the US and as such likely have grown up with or at least seen an episode of Power Rangers. While there are a lot of things that the Power Rangers franchise does that are beyond silly and seem absolutely ridiculous to many of us that see them as adults, the things that are presented in these shows seem absolutely incredible to their target audience. These shows are marketed towards children in case that wasn’t obvious.

Power Rangers is a nostalgic thing to watch for me and I still greatly enjoy it!

Well dear reader, I am glad we agree on that. I grew up watching Power Rangers and as time has gone on I have found that I still enjoy the monster fighting, transforming, masked heroes presented therein. There are even a number of series in the franchise that I have enjoyed even as an adult. Though as I have grown older, and in turn begun to use subtitles on everything I watch, I have developed a fascination with Asian television as a whole since it tends to feel vastly different from most of what is made available in the US. This fascination extends to tokusatsu television shows including but not limited to Super Sentai and Kamen Rider.

For those who aren’t aware, Power Rangers is actually based on the long standing Super Sentai franchise in Japan. Each week on Sunday mornings, similarly to the Saturday morning cartoons of yore, a television block called Super Hero Time airs. This consists of the most recent annual series for both Super Sentai and the annual series of another long standing series called Kamen Rider. Both of these play into the gimmick of transforming masked heroes that have a different theme with each season. Of late I have been enjoying watching episodes of each of these series with a small group of folks on Discord and let me tell you all about the joy of finally finding a group of lovely people that are interested in these series the same way I am.

Sounds like it’s time for a story. Shall we queue the “Long Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away…” scrawl?

You know what. That sounds fun. Lets imagine this as an opening to a cinematic experience. Lets travel back to June of the COVID times, a mere six months that feels like it is 87 years ago . At this point depression had grabbed a hold of me and thrown me so deep into the pits of despair that I wasn’t sure where I was going to find a light at the end of the tunnel. I had just been through a breakup with my first girlfriend in four years, I was living at an extended stay with my father taking care of him as best as I was capable, all while sacrificing my own ability to take of myself and cope with the emotional break down that was happening as my social life and many of my friendships were falling to shambles.

Enter Kenshiro. I started interacting with Kenshiro on Twitter earlier in 2020 and saw that he posted a lot about One Piece (which I was actively catching up on at the time) and things in the tokusatsu genre. Eventually I noticed that he had posted about a small group of folx who ended up getting together on Tuesday nights to watch Sentai together. I managed to quickly, and very temporarily, overcome my social anxiety and asked if it would be possible for an invite to this group. Kenshiro had a “the more the merrier style” approach to this group and I was welcomed in with open arms. Thus beginning a journey that has lasted six months and is still going today.

I think it’s wonderful that you managed to overcome your social anxiety to get into the group, but don’t social interactions overwhelm you regardless?

Though I was able to get an invite into the server and start enjoying these watch parties with the crew, the social impact was still quite overwhelming. On any given night that we were watching Sentai shows there were between 14 and 20 people all typing (we mute our mics when we watch) at the same time and the wall of text that forms while there are four to six different discussions going on about the show was really overwhelming at first. I struggled to really feel like I belonged even though people were engaged and encouraging me with everything that I was talking about.

That all changed when Ex-Aid started up Rider Time on Thursdays. When I first joined up we were watching intermittent episodes of both Carranger and Gokaiger on Tuesdays and it was a blast. Carranger, the series that Power Rangers Turbo was based on, was easily the most 80s nonsense I’ve seen in a long time with multicolored jobber baddies that ended up being completely over the top and I loved every second of it. Eventually though we moved towards watching Gokaiger, a pirate themed anniversary season of Sentai, in its entirety. Once we moved to the stick to a single series and watch it all the way through it only made sense that someone would start up a different night for us to watch Kamen Rider.

This was originally an effort spearheaded by Ex-Aid to further the scope of the tokusatsu shows that we were watching as a group. We were running Sentai on Tuesdays, Kamen Rider on Thursdays, and Ultraman on Fridays. It was a wonderful time to have such an incredible community to surround myself with even if I was a little bit intimidated by the amount of interaction on some of the busier nights.

It sounds like a really nice time. How did you manage to overcome your social anxiety though?

Oddly enough, it came pretty natural to me when I started actually plugging myself into the Thursday night crowd. When we first began the Thursday night watch parties it started off with Kamen Rider Drive. This was a series that I had tried to get into before but never really managed to enjoy so I was a little hesitant to go through it because I didn’t think I’d enjoy it. Since we were only watching 3 episodes a week I figured I could carve out an hour and a half of my time to watch some stuff with like minded individuals even if I wasn’t the biggest fan of what we were watching. Guess what, it turns out that my gut reaction to the series was completely wrong and now I absolutely love it and am excited to revisit it when the show is a little less fresh in my mind.

The first few times I tuned in on Thursdays I was a little bit shy. I didn’t say much, I didn’t want to really engage because of the smaller atmosphere, and I sure wasn’t willing to divulge anything going on in my personal life to this new found group. Within two weeks that all changed. I began to joke around with people and participate in the call and response type stuff that we now do during opening and endings even if it’s just typing in all caps the English lyrics in the opening song.

I think the small environment really did wonders for my anxiety because since I wasn’t heavily invested at the start if I felt like I butted heads with any of the group I could have just politely backed out and stopped watching with that small group. By having this group of four to six other people instead of the routine fifteen to twenty that we were drawing on Tuesdays, in time, I felt much more comfortable putting myself out there and letting my voice and opinions be heard. In a very short time, I managed to get very comfortable with this small group and even was more confident and open during the Sentai streaming on Tuesdays with the larger group as well.

Though I absolutely adore the entirety of this community that has been built surrounding both One Piece and tokusatsu shows as a whole, I particularly enjoy the time that I’ve spent with my very own Kamen Rider Club!

Kamen Rider Club?! Frankly that sounds a little childish when worded like that.

It kind of does, doesn’t it? It is what we in the Thursday night crew call ourselves. It is also a reference to what the main cast of Kamen Rider Fourze call themselves. One thing that this weekly gathering of the fans has taught me it is that its okay to enjoy childish things. I’ve even bought myself some of the toys that have come from various Kamen Rider series as I have seen them during our very own show and tell segment where we all showed off our collectibles and various toys. So while yes show and tell is a bit of a childish thing to do it brought joy to our little group. The amount of serotonin I have generated in the last few weeks by playing with the aforementioned toys is astounding. Getting in touch with my inner child and remembering that it is actually rather fun to play pretend has been a real delight.

As adults, we often work ourselves day in and day out to take care of mundane tasks that are essential to our survival. We wake up, go to work, come home, make or order some dinner, eat, and then get ready for bed. I’ve chosen to add finding happiness in doing the things I wasn’t able to do as a kid to the list. Staying up late to find that next save point in a game, buying toys neither myself or my family could afford as a kid, watching nostalgic b movies that brought me some joy as a child, and following along with all the tokusatsu shows my heart can desire are just a few ways I’ve managed to embrace my inner child and cater to my own personal and emotional needs in doing so. There is nothing wrong with being a little childish from time to time. Doing this has introduced me to so many people that I never would have met otherwise.

It really does sound like you’ve managed to build yourself a group of friends here. Isn’t it pretty cool what can happen when you trust that others aren’t going to have your worst interest in mind.

You’re right. I let some people in and was actually surprised with the results. I absolutely adore this little crowd I’ve got. They have all done so much for me without ever realizing it and I am beyond appreciative. Ex-Aid started the KRC on Thursday nights and drops some incredible trivia all over the place. OOO and I have a ton in common and they are an absolute delight to talk to. I am always excited to see them pop into a conversation on the Discord because we tend to have a similar line of thought and form of humor we do have some differences in personal taste that account for unique perspectives and I absolutely love hearing about them. Epsilon and I both are not afraid to make lewd jokes about what we are watching. Tastefully of course. … Most of the time. Epsilon has also offered to be a conversation partner as I continue to get back to my study of the Japanese language! Zi-O has managed to convince me to revisit series I had otherwise written off because I didn’t think they would be of interest, but they managed to sell me on them so I now have an expansive list of series that I want to watch and a planned order to revisit them. Kiva and I aren’t particularly close as I haven’t done much to actually talk to them, but I’m excited to see things develop more in that regard because they seem like a really fun person to talk to. Finally there is Chaser. They are our newest member of our Thursday night group and they have managed to have me laugh so hard I’ve done spit takes. I appreciate each and every one of our little Kamen Rider Club more than words can ever say.

Quick aside and mushy feelings bit here, but if any the KRC are reading this I want you to know that you all have absolutely made 2020 better for me. We’ve had an incredible amount of laughs together. We’ve seen each other through being both happy and sad. Frankly, you all have reminded me that I do have people who I can call friends on days where I didn’t think there was anyone who wanted anything to do with me. I appreciate you, I absolutely adore each of you, and words can not express my gratitude for the warm welcome that I have received into this lovely community. You all have helped me grow as a person in ways that I didn’t expect going into this group. Shaking off my depression blues and finding confidence to embrace my love of these silly kids shows has been in large part thanks to you all. I love you all. Thank you.

Outside of our usual Thursday crew there are so many more people in this community that have put a smile on my face and some joy in my heart, but there is one other person that I would like to take a moment to express some gratitude for. Scipio was one of the first people I actually felt comfortable bantering with in the Tuesday community before the creation of our Rider Time segment on Thursday. They had an incredibly warm and friendly demeanor about them and naturally I didn’t mind bantering with them during the Sentai watch parties. After a while I followed them on Twitter and recently I reached out to them there and they were willing and able to listen to me when I was feeling overwhelmed about the state of chaos in my life and that alone solidified my feeling of being appreciated inside of this community. Thank you Scipio for taking the time to support a stranger and make them feel like they are a part of something bigger.

I’m so glad that you managed to find these people. It seems like they are really helping you in a lot of ways.

They truly are. The joy of it is that they aren’t even doing anything special. They are simply treating me like a comrade and that alone has done wonders for my self esteem. This year has been among the most challenging in my entire life for a myriad of reasons and just having this community to be a part of has honestly saved my life. I don’t know where I would be without them, but I do know that I would be a lot worse off.

So to wrap things up here for today I want to challenge my readers to do two things. Firstly take a moment to appreciate the people in your life that make you happy. If you feel inclined to tell them how much you appreciate them that’s great. If you just take a moment to reflect on it that’s great too. Secondly, I want to challenge everyone to embrace the things that might embarrass you if you talked about it to your friends with more conservative interests. Embrace the wild things that you enjoy. Don’t let anyone take the joy that these things bring you away. Finally as a reminder to all of you, you are stronger than you think, you are beautiful, and by goodness you are worth it. Lets go into this week ready to kick some butt and join some fandoms.

[majingojira]

Crossover Universe Musings -- Aliens

One of the things about working in a mixed Crossover Universe, linking to other series not because “it's cool” but from in story crossovers, meetings, and homages and the occasional pseudo-scholarly article, is that a lot of “Blending” happens.  And it really is rather fun. Or, rather, it’s a time-saving measure because having X number of species all being basically the same is just annoying as hell.  But remember, working in the “Crossover Universe” is like trying to piece together what happened at Pearl Harbor using only the movies made about it.  Here are some results, let’s see what you recognize. 

The Elder Things - One of the oldest sapient species in the universe, and also the ugliest. The Barel bodied, flam-footed, branching-tentacle armed, winged, starfish-headed horrors of Lovecraft.  They made many ancient technologies later species would claim as their own.  Also known as The Quintessons. 

The Ascended - A collective of various species that have shed biological form to exist as energy, thought, and smug. Many species achieve this, and each group holds itself to different standards.  They are all obscenely powerful, and when they act, it is rarely small. Also known as Any Number of God-Like Beings in Star Trek, The Ancients, Ultraman and other Ultras, The Mu (RahXephon and others), and Preservers. The later of which is partly responsible for why there are so many transported human cultures out in the galaxy.  The Time Lords - Ya know these goons.  That one meddling Doctor pops his head up everywhere.  The Celestials - GIANT SPACE GODS! They silently judge for their own reasons.  And tinker.  Because they are bored.  The Xothians - Better known as The Star Spawn of Cthulhu, or just the Star Spawn.  Powerful beings in mind, soul, and body. They have squid-heads, dragon bodies, and roughly humanoid shape. Usually standing between 3 and 23 meters tall.  The “Great Race” of Yith - They mentally transfer themselves into different species to learn, but generally have a habit of stranding their ‘preferred’ host body’s original mind in their last body.  So, yeah, they’re dicks. But they LOVE learning.  The Mi-Go - Aliens from Outside our reality, true Outsiders.  Horrific to view in their true form and masters of biomechanics, they sometimes like to show up on earth as Yeti rather than their true insect/fungal forms. Their aims in our universe are not nice.  The Neural Parasites - These are beings that either dominate a host humanoid or ‘blend’ with them to share knowledge and experience. The former is best represented by the “Let me play god!” Goa’uld.  The latter is best represented by the Trill. They have only recently diverged into separate species.  They have also been presented as the “Bluegill.”  Though for the record, it was the constructions at Egypt and other locations that brought the Goa’uld to earth, they had no hand in it at all.  The Colonists - The most commonly known “Grey” type.  They made first contact with Earth in 1947 and started setting up for colonization of the planet. They weren’t the only aliens to visit that year, but they were the only intentional ones.  The species infects through a “Black Oil” virus that infects a sapient species and converts it into one of them. Immature forms are more savage than the adult ones.  They use technology to take human form, but the technology didn’t always work well at first.  In the 50s and 60s, their human forms were basically shells of flesh with no blood, and no heartbeat -- and they could never quite get the pinky right. Plus, their bodies vaporized on death.  Today, they just are better at changing shape but after 60 some years of preparation, they lost interest in the earth due to climate destabilization. Examples are seen in The X-Files and The Invaders.   The Asgard - The other type of Grey, smaller, smarter, and less dickish. Examples include Stargate SG-1 and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

Xenomorphs - a.k.a. The Brood. A Genetically engineered bioweapon of a species that got out of hand.  Who made them?  Some jerks.  The Predators  - a.k.a. The Yau’tja, The Hirogen. They have a hunter-based culture.   Expatriated Humans - They are people who were transported elsewhere by other species and have since become their own cultures.  Some become different species, such as the Thoans, Jaffa, etc. 

The Kree/Kherubim/Capellans/Eridaneans/Sontarans - Between the Ancient and Expatriated Humans lie this species and its offshoot cultures.  They look human, but thanks to differences, they tend to be more physically fit, more durable, heal faster, and extremely long-lived.  This is in part due to nanotechnology, and in part due to genetic engineering on their part.  Some of them crash-landed on earth (or rather, several different ships of theirs crash-landed on earth at several different times) and they tweaked history every now and again.  Some are more ‘enhanced’ than others, and their society did assimilate a few other sapient species into their midst, but they are few in number.  The way to tell the cultures apart is to see if they have an elected “King”, or a ruling council.  Or if they obey a biocomputer. The societies have been at war with themselves and others for a long time and have a long history of using clone troopers as needed. Most look human, but some are not.  Some are blue, and some have true ‘dome heads’.   Kryptonians and Viltrumites/Daxamaites - They started as a mining colony for the above species.  They altered themselves to face the harsh environment: Both had high gravity, but one was a cold world with low light, so they used nanites to store extra energy, enhanced their senses genetically and nanotechnologically, and also could use their nanites to make a heat-based energy weapon in case of emergencies.  The latter had to fend off savage beasts so regularly, tweaking themselves to better survive combat was more useful than just having bigger guns to fend them off.  When the Kree/Capellan civilization was in one of its downturns, the two were left to themselves and decided to act on their own initiative.  They had their experiences of trying to be a galactic power in their own right, but the Kryptonians mostly turned in on themselves, while the Dazamites/Viltrumites cut such a swath through space, biological warfare and decimated the species.  Then Krypton blew up, leaving few survivors of that planet too.  Though, thanks to humanity’s special ability to crossbreed with damn near any non-Terran sapient species, members of each group view Earth with special importance.   The Rutan Host/Changelings/Founders/Skrulls/Daemonites/Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua - Shapeshifters whose natural state is liquid.  They are intelligent, but their young, sent out to explore the universe then find their way back home, can be very dangerous as they can be ... infectious.  Not as bad as another species from their home planet that got out in the universe -- no. Not as bad as that... Thing.  Or the horrifying Blob that originates on their homeworld but also barrels through space.  But, a juvenile member can dive onto another being, “Blend” with it, and then take its form.  However, this process is always a battle of wills, and people of strong minds and hearts can overcome the being and gain elastic abilities from the encounter.  Often referring to themselves as “Plastic” or “Elongated” men.  It’s pretty Fantastic.  BTW: Skrull is a slur against them.   

The Borg/Cybermen - Humanoids who, in order to survive, replace their weaker organic parts with mechanical ones.  They share their ‘gift’ with as many species as they can.  Also, they are dicks.  The Klingons/Draconians - Honorable Warriors with forehead-ridges and a dark complexion.   The Sarmaks/Kaldanes - a species from an other-dimensional version of Mars (I call it “Nevernever Mars” because crossovers) who tried to invade earth in 1898.  The War of the Worlds and the Barsoom series demonstrates this species. 

The Dholes/Space Monsters/Uchuu Kaiju - Massive, planet boring worms that fly through space and crawl through dreamlands.  They are the most terrifying species known that isn’t an out-and-out god.  The Myceneans - Gigantic beings, 3 to 30m in height (depending on how you allow things in your crossover universe), they alter themselves genetically and mechanically to become living weapons.  They are really only distinguishable by one feature: Having a secondary head usually in the enter of their chest.   The Cybertronians - Lastly, I’ll mention the most infamous Elder Thing creation (other than Shoggoths). They’ve been locked in a war that drags other species down with them for hundreds of thousands of years.  They are also insidious invaders, disguising themselves as different native machines to get one over on their foes.  While some do try to help, most of them view organic life with revulsion.  There are biomechanical Cybertronians that can disguise themselves as other living beings.  These are ostracized in their society but still employed as spies on other worlds.  One possible timeline has this species locked in combat with another creation of the Elder The Zentradi and Meltrandi.  4m tall giants who live for war.  This would lead to a 1999 crash landing of a Cybertronian city-ship, and it’s recovery/refit by humans who made jets based on the corpses of dead Cybertronians.  This technology was sometimes called “Robotech.” Other species of note that don’t have crossover representation, but are important to other degrees and are better known include Vulcans, Romulans, Daleks, Ogrons, Unas, Replicators, Klyntar, Color Out of Space, Majesdenians, Flying Polyps, Star Vampires, Xiclotlian, and Zarr.

[m-definition]

Ultraman Taiga - Episode 01 Thoughts/Complaints/Hopes | The new brings hype by taking it away from the old

Okay, so this is not going to be full-blown review since there are others here in Tumblr here who do that. Like check out #thekaijudweeb.

All thoughts, complaints, and hopes I will have about this show are not meant to offend, of course. I am pretty new to Tumblr anyway so please bare with me.

And my first focus will be Ultraman-related! As I’ve been a fan of the series since I was but a kid watching The Ultraman - The Animated Series on VHS.

God, I feel old.

So let’s start, shall we?

This opening showing all of the new generation Ultramen was awesome as heck. ‘Was’, yes. While initially hyped at this, I cannot help but worry about this whole entire thing now that I’ve thought about it. As awesome as it is... I feel liken this could have been better. NEITHER of the Ultramen here really showed off what made them so unique in their respective series.

Like their strengths are dialed down by that much. Orb and Ginga are crazy-strong, but here? Not so much. Honestly, this is a thing that happens with a lot of shows even outside of Ultraman.

I get it, of course. It’s to a) make the villain look that much stronger, b) create an opportunity for the newer blood to become ‘the strong one’.

But come on. Ginga and Orb in the SAME team and still getting owned? What happened to all those forms they all should have? I do hope this gets addressed at some point so as to justify this.

Especially mah boi Geed there. Come on, man, you got that power-up from Ultra King of all people.

And don’t get me started at how quick and rushed this scene took place. Only Ginga spoke but... I was kind of hoping the R & B heroes say something too and maybe show off that comedic chemistry they have. Or Orb giving some sage advice. Or X showing his dorky side.

But nope!

We get a “We’re taking over now!” “Okay, it’s dangerous out there so take these.”

Episode’s lit as hell but the build up here was just... so weak.

Sure it’s a passing the torch moment... but could have been better.

Could have made it so newer viewers would go “Oh wow, I wonder what their story was about” and actually go watch their series.

Still, let’s agree that the fight between Tregear and Tiga is awesome sauce. I know they don’t have as much budget making these episodes compared to the movies... but goddamn are they closing that gap with the right smoke and mirrors! 

The new Ultraman trio  are here!

And I love them when they appeared here. Especially Taiga and him outstretching both his arms and legs like that. That body languages really fits with his hot-headed, brash attitude for some reason and it’s adorable. Also makes him the obvious ‘young blood’ in the trio.

And more on Taiga’s personality later.

Because let’s talk about the humans for a bit! As mentioned in my previous post: I LOVE Ultraman Mebius. Not just because it had so many episodes and questioned a lot of things that SHOULD have been questioned in the series... but the characters were just that memorable.

Not their names, though, but that’s just me being bad with names unless I wiki them.

But I’m not gonna for this one.

Ultraman Mebius did what so many of the newer series could never replicate: character developing. Not just the Ultraman, but the human cast. i just don’t think they’re given enough chances to do this in the newer series (Mebius has 50 episodes and the newer ones, at most, cap at 25 episodes) and I find that disappointing.

When Mebius ended, I genuinely felt like I was going to miss not just Mebius himself, but every other cast there.

Can’t say the same for the others. But maybe I’m nit-picky.

The villain, though... I feel like this has a LOT of potential. Sure, the human form/host feels.. VERY silly to me with his head titling like that. But that thing with the shadow? Ominous. Can’t say much about this yet because I’m not sure if it’s a human host or a human form of Tregear yet.

Now for the one I hope they do the most in: Taiga’s chemistry with his human host. I loved it when they did it with Zero and I loved it when they did it with Daichi and X. 

I do hope they don’t just simply get along 100%, though. This little exchange (picture above) seems to suggest it would not be the case, but I’d love it if it’s the human who will end up teaching the Ultraman the lessons.

[headspacedad]

Netflix Ultraman review

no spoilers

also no previous knowledge of the canon and this is in no way going to be professional so much as my scattered thoughts on it but I know a lot of us are looking for something to watch and I figure I’ll give a review if that helps anyone thinking about Ultraman.

I’m going to start off easy.  Heckin’ yes, I recommend this show.  It’s thirteen episodes long and it did enough in those episodes to give me enough background to understand the rules of the world and to get to enjoy the characters while still leaving me with plenty of hints about things that would make a great second season (and third and fourth potentially).  The story was pretty simple, not a lot of psychological twists or in depth character or moral deconstruction but it stuck with that and gave me a really fun ride that had enough new reveals through it to keep me looking forward to what came next.

I will say - hugely not a fan of the animation style.  I don’t like this animation style, I don’t enjoy seeing more shows using it and I really don’t think it conveys any kind of subtly or beauty.  Personal opinion and I know some people do but definitely not my cuppa.  The CGI meshes went from ‘pretty decent’ to ‘oh my gosh that’s on the level of a guy in a rubber suit’ - which, granted, did give me a nice throw back to ‘guy in a rubber suit monsters’ of Ye Olden Days that Ultraman apparently started with but also pulled me right out of the immersion as well.  That said -

the fight scenes were glorious.  Just - completely beautiful.  Tight and tense and dramatic and - yeah, wow me beautiful.  I’m the kind of girl that scoots up to the edge of her seat in theaters when fight scenes come on and I was seriously cheering during certain parts (quietly, it was three in the morning and I had a sleeping bunny nearby but still).  Added to that - the Ultraman gear looked incredible!  I was completely in love immediately with the Ultraman gear and stayed that way all the way through.  The music was also a perfect fit for the series to me and the music that played in the final showdown in the last episodes was - I’m going to use the word majestic.  Pulled me right in and I would soundtrack the heck out of it if it becomes available.  It’s not over the top, it doesn’t overwhelm the action at all but its the perfect partner to it. 

The characters themselves managed to stay pretty interesting to me.  No one went off the track, you pretty much knew what you were getting almost as soon as they were introduced.  No one’s subverting troupes here.  But they also managed to fill out their troupe pretty nicely to me.  If they were only a dimension or two deep they made full use of those dimensions for the most part and the show did manage to avoid some ‘fill in the blank’ plot staples that I dislike.  The old men, their relationship and the way their friendship played out was a really nice surprise to me considering I was expecting the usual ‘make one bitter/untrusting/cynical’ gets tossed around, the protagonist, Shinjiro was the usual ‘teenage Japanese school boy’ but still came across as earnest and struggling and trying his best without being boring or repetitive.  There was a pop star who was certainly not the brightest - but bounced off the protagonist really pleasantly by the end and I was sold on the way their interaction developed (okay, the protagonist wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t the brightest either and it made it really - well, cute, by the end)  and - I’m going to pause here and introduce you to my favorite character:

This asshole.  Dan Moroboshi.  Okay.  I am not a big fan of ‘asshole’ characters.  Generally they annoy me more than anything else (more on that later) but this guy?  This guy was a competent asshole.  I am a complete sucker for amazingly competent characters and the ‘asshole’ part comes off, almost from the beginning, as a guy that knows what he’s doing and keeps having people throwing wrenches into that - thus causing him to be an asshole.  Or - more of one.  I’m going to say he was probably always a bit of one anyway.  Point being, I like him because as often as he’s being dismissive - he never, to me, came across as lying, intentionally cruel or doing what he was doing because it was enjoyable.  He was that horrifyingly rigid realist thrown up against things that were dreamy.  And, almost from the very beginning, despite shutting down the protagonist, he was also throwing in helpful things at the same time.

“The failure to do something when you could have taken action - that’s unforgivable.”

He’s at war and he’s trying to keep as many people alive as he can and, pretty early on, despite himself, that includes the protagonist.  By the end, when he’s calling Shinjiro ‘kid’ I was completely in his fan club.  More of Moroboshi please.

And let’s talk villains for a moment.  Because as an American viewer with no past history, the way each new one had to strike a pose and introduce himself (and how half of them fought shirtless?) did jar me a bit during otherwise tense moments.  By the third I was endeared though and the way Shinjiro response to the last one with ‘who cares?’ made me love the boy, and the show, even more.  The aliens themselves weren’t that impressively ‘alien’ and when they were they went straight into ‘rubber monster suit’ territory but I got that a great deal of that was because they were probably aliens from the rubber suit time when you slapped a mask on a guy and sent him out to throw styrofoam rocks.  If the show is staying true to its roots while updating its going to get some of those and once I got that mindset going I was good to go.  The CGI was definitely touch and go however with the aliens, sometimes it worked, sometimes it really really didn’t.

This in no way stopped the fight scenes from being amazing.

There were a couple of ambiguous characters, one of them obviously a HUGE plot point for further seasons if we get them and the other two less so but still suspicious in all the right ways.  None of them hooked me, even if one had a super interesting design, but I do hope we get more seasons so I can find out what’s really going on (or I’m going to have to manga things apparently).  I will add there’s one character, Seiji - that I could not stand.  He was all the things I dislike about that particular troupe.  However, I enjoyed not liking him.  I got where he was coming from as his story unfolded.  It didn’t make me like him any more and I seriously loved the scene between him and Moroboshi (which might say something about me but okay) but he was fun for me to dislike.  And by the end I was actually pretty good with him being a part of the story and where it was potentially going. 

The climax was two episodes and very satisfying to me.  There were several ‘things are about to get bad ass’ moments that I completely absorbed with glee.  Music and fighting were top notch of course.  And the ending was satisfying while still leaving plenty of openings for what came next.  I am seriously, seriously hoping for another season at least possibly more.

End summary: it was fun.  It was just a lot of fun for me.  Its not deep and its not going to throw anything seriously shocking at you.  It is very much a ‘by the book’ story progression for this kind of thing.  But its a enjoyable ride with mecha-suits, kid becomes hero, aliens amoung us, beautiful action scenes and enjoyable characters.

[animereviewsandotherstuff]

Top 5 anime of 2018

Pop Team Epic

Anime as a medium is something that allows for great experimentation and artistic expression that not every delves into, and that is ultimately okay. Not every show has to be something new and exciting. But then there comes a show like Pop Team Epic. A 4-koma manga that takes the slice of life genre and plays with it by adding absurdist ideas and a healthy dose of meta humor. A manga like that is not something I would ever expect to see adapted into anime. The jokes are super quick and sometimes work on anti-humor, the art is simplistic on purpose, and there is no story just gags. But I am very happy someone had more foresight then I did and just adapted it whole hog. This anime takes what it means to be an anime and turns it on its head. The first episode started on a completely different generic anime about a guy and idols and a possible harem and immediately swerves into the show proper. Every show ended with a preview for that fictional show. The ending theme was sung by different people every episode. The who was only half the run time and then it would run again with a different set of voice actors, swapping from an all woman pair to an all guy pair. Sometimes this would change whole jokes as the voice actors would make different choices. They would swap between different art styles and redo whole segments between episodes swapping between Pop Team Epic proper and Bob Epic Team. They had a segment all in french, animated in a third completely different style from the previous 2 which cost a ton of money to make and was written by a french intern who never read the series or something. The last episode had a live action pop singer bring the one of the main characters come back to life. This show was beautiful. It was a true work of art with layers of meaning and references, an experimentation of what an anime could be. Not every show should be this, but more shows should be able to just go wild with what an anime could be. Or maybe I was just thinking of Hellshake Yano.

Yuru Camp

There is a genre of anime I like a lot even though I usually know the return on investment for watching them is not super great. The best way to describe this genre is “the author has a very specific hyper-fixation and wants to write about it but doesn’t know how, so makes moe girls talk about it instead.” This is a very hit or miss genre but sometimes a show will come out of it that will stick with me forever. And Yuru Camp is one of those shows. Yuru Camp is a show all about girls camping. The authors love of camping really comes through, as the characters talk about the rules of camping and how to do it safely, and about how expensive the gear for camping is. The conversations the characters had felt surprisingly natural. Some of the back and forth the characters had felt like a conversation I could have with my friends. The best part about this show was how relaxing it was. This show was a calming breath. It was a show that knows how to set back and let a scene breath, like you are one with nature, fitting for a camping show. There is another genre of anime I like that can be hit or miss, known as healing anime. Healing anime are soft, kind, relaxing shows that are like chicken soup for the soul. Yuru camp is like that. It is relaxing and kind and made my day every time I watched it. But the most impressive thing this show did was make me, someone who hates nature and being in nature, actually consider camping for a few seconds.

Cells at Work

I am not someone who enjoys the intricacy of the human body. It is a gross thing we are all forced to live in. so when this show was first announced I had a bit of trepidation about this show. I don’t like watching the workings of the human body, it makes me uncomfortable. But this show was really was able to get past my initial discomfort and make the human body something interesting and more fun.  The story of the human body as told from the perspective of the cells who help run the body was perfectly told. It makes you sympathetic for your blood, fighting against the germs and diseases we come into contact with, rooting for the red blood cells who deliver your oxygen and the white blood cells who protect you, and makes you intimately familiar with your lymph nodes, and sweat glands. I really appreciated the small arc involving cancer of all things. Cancer as told from the perspective of the cells is really interesting, watching there fellow cells not become infected but born so, and the necessary need to kill them coupled with the inherent want to protect the body is an interesting perspective to take. It is not saying cancer is good or anything ridiculous like that, but it is just a perspective I was not expecting and one that led to an interesting story. The anthropomorphizing of the body and its cellular interactions was clever and engaging and made this a show I was glad to watch.

Planet With

I am not the first person to say this but this was the best show to come out of 2007. Everything about this show felt like a throwback to a very specific era of anime. A story about giant physic armors controlled by young teens and young adults fighting against aliens, the reversal of who were truly the good guys and truly the bad guys.  The larger themes of why one should fight and shouldn't fight, of growing up and reality being greater then any passive but beautiful fantasy, all fit into a show from a decade ago. Even the maid girl and the giant cat alien and the high school club for people who like supernatural stuff, the transfer student with amnesia being the main character, all of it fits a show that could have been a 52 episode series with slow reveals and mysteries and filler beach episodes. But instead this show was a tight 12 episodes. Each episode packed so much information and plot and action, it feels like watching more then your actually getting. It is concise but the emotional impact of every reveal and every hit is perfectly done. The best show of 2007 was also one of the best shows of 2018.

SSSS Gridman

Tokusatsu and anime are two great tastes that seem to rarely come together. It might be that there is something lost when live action goes to animation, at least when tokusatsu does so. Something intrinsic about tokusatsu, something that is fundamental to it, doesn't always survive the jump. This cannot be said about SSSS Gridman. This show captures the spirit and heart of tokusatsu shows and takes it to another level. It is a love letter to tokusatsu as a medium and to the original Gridman. The fact that the title of the show is a reference to the American adaptation, Super Human Samurai Syber Squad, alone shows a knowledge and love of the material. But at the same time I never felt the show was bogged down by references and external knowledge. Yes there were millions of references to other tokusatsu series, mainly Ultraman but not Ultraman alone, but you didn’t need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese live action shows to enjoy the show. They enhanced but never detracted in my opinion. Same with the fact that the show itself is a sequal to the original Gridman series while still standing entirely on its own. If you never watched the original you are fine, but it is enhanced so much with that knowledge.  And the ending had me in tears. I don’t want to spoil anything for these shows but like many tokusatsu series finales this one too made me tear up slightly. Truly a show I will carry with me into the future.

And those were my thoughts on the year of anime. This of course isn’t counting tokusatsu I watched but I love Kamen Rider and Super Sentai enough that they would be a permanent place on this list, so its only fair I keep them off. There was a ton of good shows other then these five, but I am looking forward to the new year ahead. So until next time, keep on watching.

[des-shinta]

Do you know any Tokusatsu anime like Garo the Animation series and SSSS Gridman?

That directly relate?  Beyond those two? It’s unfortunately kind of limited.

Closest next case would be Kikaider the Animation which I talked about WAAAAAAAY back in 2014, but it’s more of an adaptation of Shotaro Ishinomori’s manga Adaptation of the original Live-action series.  It’s not bad, but you kind of need to look at it at the right angle.

Ultraman has also had a couple animated series Tsuburaya’s been part of before SSSS Gridman happened; specifically –

“The Ultraman” from 1979, which actually was one of the things that helped put Sunrise (Of Gundam and Brave series fame, to bring things fully back around and to refute those who thought the Masami Obari brave series references in SSSS Gridman were out-of-place) on the map as an anime production company. “The Ultraman” referred to in the title is Ultraman Joneus.

There’s also a kamen Rider Sd special…that I personally Find to be terrible as it’s a bad parody of the showa heroes where a lot of modern-production misconceptions about the showa riders seems to originate from…’Least if it’s not outright Hearsay.  but others hold a more positive opinion of it than myself.

As Far as anime series who act like a Tokusatsu series?  I’d have to run down most of the Tatsunoko library with Gatchaman, Hurricane Polymar (Still haven’t seen the recent live adaptation directed by Koichi Sakamoto, sadly), Tekkaman (both classic and Blade/Teknoman, I love me some Tekkaman Blade) and The various Casshern series.

Disclaimer on that: don’t watch the 2013 Gatchaman Movie.  Despite having a young Tatsuomi Hamada (Ultraman Geed) and Tori Matsuzaka (shinken Red) in it?  the movie is trash.  Casshern also has a live-action adaptation, and I have it…but I’ve not watched it yet.

Other picks?  I LOVE Bioboosted Armor Guyver, and when going back to it it really feels like a precursor to the modern J-Drama angle for Tokusatsu Keiichi Hasegawa ended up being responsible for influencing it into…But sadly Despite all it’s adaptations being good at doing different things (bar the first live film which is crap), it’s best read in it’s manga form since they always cut off Very early in Guyver’s storyarcs. At this point we’re just worried it’s creator’s going to die before he manages to wrap the series considering it’s older than I am and yet is STILL being published a chapter a month.  If you can Find them though, The original Theatrical OVA had elements of it’s plot back-adapted into the manga, the 13-ep OVA series was the first voice-acting credit for the legendary Steve Blum, the second live-action film Stars David Hayter (AKA Solid Snake) and is a good one-off film, and the 26-ep series from the 2000′s which was Dubbed by Funimation is the best adaptation the story’s had to date.  Hopefully there’ll be one last one if the series concludes.

Tiger and Bunny–Sadly not gotten to it myself yet, on my list, told it’s pseudo-Kamen Rider-like.Samurai Flamenco–same situation as Tiger and Bunny.

The Pretty Cure (Precure) franchise is also the magical girl anime equivalent to Tokusatsu series as well–many consider it the third show in the superhero time block on TV Asashi–but an equivalent argument is made that it’s just banking off of the Sailor Moon Archetype and less being a Magical girl sentai series.That’s all I can name off the top of my head that I’m aware of.  probably others out there though.

[toku-explained]

Jyuden Sentai Kyoryuger: Brave Forever It's pretty hard to deny we're living in some pretty incredible times as Toku fans. Ultraman is in its longest continuous broadcast period ever, even if it is only having new shows during the latter half of the year, it's working great. We're still getting Space Sheriff Next Generation material coming out this year. Sure it's V-Cinema rather than shows but the format is working. Both Rider and Sentai are including more material than ever before, with post series V-Cinemas for both being the norm, and each having their winter crossovers (this year's Sentai crossover notwithstanding) to give us something great at the end. We've consistently been surprised by returning actors for the spring films (regardless of your views of their quality) and their spin-offs with Red One, GoseiRed, GokaiRed, Rider 1, X-Rider, ZX, Decade, Faiz, half of W, Black, Zeronos, Blade, Garren, Chalice, Leangle, KyoryuGold, Zolda, Aoninger, Beet Buster, Baron, Marika, Another Agito all having their actors at least return in voice for the spring crossovers while they lasted. In projects that weren't part of the inter franchise crossovers we saw the unexpected but welcome returns of 5 Zyurangers, 2 Abarangers, all 5 Hurricangers, one of them twice, NinjaRed, Jiraiya, Accel, all of the Dekarangers twice, Ouja, and, the one I wouldn't have believed would happen if you'd told me it was coming a month beforehand, all 6 Gokaigers. But there's one return that just happened which I think I can honestly say none of us saw coming. And in a way, it was the most likely to happen. Since in a way, it never really left. Jyuden Sentai Kyoryuger was the last Sentai I managed to keep up with as it aired. That isn't anything against Toqger, Ninninger, Zyuohger, and definitely not Kyuranger, but somehow that's what happened. By comparison, I kept up with Ultraman and Rider week by week no matter what, save for the latter half of Ghost/the early half of Orb, where real life caused me to kind of run away from pretty much all my regular online activity at the time for a couple of months. It's remained probably more popular than any of the series that followed except Kyuranger, although I can't guarantee that as I kind of try to avoid seeing too much fan opinions since it turns to vitriol at the drop of a hat. Sure people had problems with Kyoryuger, although even those who hated the show's Daigo focus seemed to hate Takaharu for it more despite the fact he was by a huge extent the lesser offender. Probably more upsetting to most people was the out of nowhere romance between Daigo and Amy in the last three episodes, which had no build up beyond a minor plot point in a single episode 30 episodes earlier, especially bizarre given Sanjou has written far better handled romances in W and Drive, and Daigo had an established love interest he plainly actually liked (people will also tell you Amy had more chemistry with literally every other member of the team). But enough about that. Over the course of a year we fell in love with these 14 men, women, ghosts and bird people, and their 11 dinosaur partners. The movie managed to actually be important to the overall story in some way. Heck, it was the last time the movie mecha actually appeared in the show (and not just for a one time appearance either) with subsequent movie mech being limited to a scene in the crossover or appearing in the V-Cinema. But eventually the series came to an end, Deboss was destroyed, leaving us a plot thread for the Vs film to come and a chance for some of the characters we'd come to love to show up again, and we turned to waiting for the V-Cinema and the Vs movie. The V-Cinema had a pretty interesting concept, placing the action 100 years in the future with the team's descendants struggling against a new Deboss Army. There was part of the story I would have preferred not to happen but it was good and just genuinely a lot of fun. It also turned out we were also getting another Toei Hero Next project, the 4th and currently final one, as a vehicle for the main cast, happening to feature several other Sentai actors in other roles. We're the Bounty Hunter Troupe managed to be a fun if very Kyoryuger referential story set in the same world with the cast being a group who used scripts devised by one of them to help them Bounty Hunt, enabling the actors to portray characters who were very much different to their first familiar roles. Most of us watched it the once if that and then forgot it to look to other things. It must have done pretty well though since it got two stage sequels. The first came out 18 months after the original, and featured only half the original Kyoryuger cast, the rest of the team was filled up by Blue Buster, GokaiGreen and Toq5, playing different characters with their own quirks different to the roles they were replacing. A talk show after each performance had different guests on different nights, including GokaiRed, Toq2, and the three Kyoryuger who weren't in the play, depending on the night. 14 months later another stage happened, with the same cast as the previous just with GokaiGreen replaced by KiNinger. Both also featured other Sentai actors in other roles in the plays. I feel like even if the original Toei Hero Next film didn't fly under our radars, the two stage shows definitely did. What didn't however was the amazing news last year of Kyoryuger Brave. It may not have been the best developed story, considering it amounted to around 2 hours and that's including 12 uses of both the OP and the ED, but the designs were nice, especially the modified Zyudenryu, and the changes made to create the Neo Deboss were also cool. In fact sadly, I imagine most feel the biggest issue with the series was the actors, though K can't be sure of that. Still it was a fun rise. And now in what's possibly more unexpected than even Brave, episode 33.5, with all 6 main actors returning to play a simple non-plot intrusive story, to promote a mobage of all things. It's nothing special but it is fun and if you have a spare half hour go watch it. It has a new Debo Monster and all (unless it's really well modified) which is incredible. I will not be surprised if this is the last we see of several of these actors in their Kyoryuger roles, though it's heartening to see them all willing to return after so long. Kyoryuger has certainly enjoyed a life well beyond its expected length, and that's pretty Brave.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Happy Birthday to Studio TRIGGER, the Most Anime Studio

Once there was a girl named Luluco who loved a boy named Alpha Omega Nova. Her love for him was so strong that just thinking about him made her turn into a gun. But one day she learned that Alpha Omega Nova could not return anyone’s love. He was a hollow shell the whole time, a pretty face she projected an entire person onto. Luluco’s love for Alpha Omega Nova was a third-rate middle school love, the kind her dad might say she would one day grow out of. But to Luluco, that third-rate middle school love was the real deal. She would stake her life on it.

  TRIGGER is a studio that has built its reputation on that kind of third-rate middle school love. Their body of work is studded with references to their favorite things — superheroes, Michael Bay movies, South Park, American cartoons, and video games. According to legend, the staff who created TRIGGER's first series--the bonkers comedy cult classic Inferno Cop--spent more time playing around with action figures than they did animating. That love goes both ways, too: studio employees were drafted to animate a nifty (but sadly unused) 2D credits sequence for the Toy Story short Toy Story That Time Forgot. Under the surface of homage, the roots of their Gainax past go deep. The emphasis on scale, heroes crossing their arms in space, the veneration of animation made by fans for fans. There are other Gainax expats in the industry, but none as loud or as prolific.

    Trigger’s output is fixated on what it means to be a fan and what it means to be an artist. Akko, the heroine of Little Witch Academia, wants to become a witch just like her idol Shiny Chariot. But her peers look down on Shiny Chariot for being all flash and no substance, solely dedicated to entertaining the masses rather than impressing academics. Is Akko wrong for idolizing Shiny Chariot and chasing the nostalgic dreams of her childhood? Even Promare, far more concerned with the evils of Elon Musk and societal persecution, still finds time to contrast the blocky robots of humanity with the improvisational flame creations of the Burnish. Galo discovers that fire powers aren’t just a useful tool; they can be used to make your giant robot look much cooler. Now that’s rad!

  The studio’s single-minded dedication to its staff’s interests can lead to some great episodes. Episode 4 of Little Witch Academia addresses fanfiction and the relationship between fans and the original author with refreshing candor. Episode 5 of Brand New Animal, besides being a very funny story about animals playing baseball, is also the tale of a man whose love of the game is poisoned by bad memories and societal cruelty. These episodes are effective because the animators and creative directors at TRIGGER are fans themselves. Rather than talk down to the audience, they’re in direct dialogue with them.

    At other times, the studio’s fixation can seem counter-productive. A sentiment that comes up in Kill la Kill, Brand New Animal and Little Witch Academia is the distinction between fakes and the real deal — whether those fakes be teenagers in manufactured alien clothes, witches pursuing “frivolous” magic, or half-human-half-animal were-entities that exist between worlds. Heck, the penultimate episode of Kill la Kill is titled “Imitation Gold,” and climaxes with the heroes yelling that while they might just be faking greatness, they’re still good enough to win! TRIGGER is many things, but at this point, it is not an upstart. Promare did well for itself United States — earning $2 Million in the domestic box office — and the studio's now working with big names like Ultraman company Tsurubaya and games studio CD Project Red. There’s a huge audience buying the absurd pastiche that's the specialty of studio directors Hiroyuki Imaishi, Akira Amemiya, and Yoh Yoshinari. Surely if TRIGGER is playing with the big guns now, the wider staff could be treated with the same courtesy.

  For me, the TRIGGER series that most successfully utilizes the studio’s burning passion to tell a story with real emotional intelligence is SSSS.GRIDMAN. The story reworks a cult classic tokusatsu series from the '90s, but never rests on its laurels. It packs every fight scene with shot-by-shot references to the work of mecha animator Masami Obari, but uses those fights efficiently to explore the characters rather than simply relive past glories. Most compelling of all is its villain, Akane, who would rather condemn others to die than face up to her own personal problems. At first, we hate Akane and the ease with which she hurts others. But slowly we learn that Akane loves tokusatsu dramas, just like we do. The monsters she creates are expressions of that love, and of her pain. If she pursues that love to forget her own fears and anxieties ... well, who among us isn’t tempted by escape right now?

    I remember how as a college senior, I’d sleep through a class I was auditing and catch episodes of Kill la Kill as they were posted (often without English subtitles) to Daisuki. Technically I was writing about the series on my friends’ blog, but really I did this because I was burnt out and wanted to see what happened next. I ended up not getting credit for that class, and to this day still have dreams where I relive the guilt over and over. Was it worth it? I think of Akane stagnating in her room. I think of Luluco chasing a bullet — that is, because this is an anime, her third-rate middle school crush himself — that she will never catch.

  Even so. As the years have passed, Trigger has been there. I waited in line with friends to get a signed sketch from TRIGGER animator Yoh Yoshinari. I saw the first episode of DARLING in the FRANXX the same day I was convinced for ten minutes I would die from a nuclear bomb in Hawaii. And I’m excited to see the work of upcoming studio talent like Kai Ikarashi, or former employees like Takafumi Hori and Mai Yoneyama. Today I want to say happy birthday to Trigger, a studio that celebrates its inspirations no matter how rude or silly. Bring on SSSS.DYNAZENON!

  What's your favorite TRIGGER anime? What's your song of choice played during the ending credits of Ninja Slayer? Is Turning Girls the secret best TRIGGER anime? (It is.) Let us know in the comments!

      Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he isn't listening to "LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME" by BOOM BOOM SATELLITES, he sporadically contributes with a loose coalition of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at: @wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[himitsusentaiblog]

Since we have Zero who is the son of Seven, and Geed who is the son of Belial, how would you feel about a series where the main Ultra is the son of the original Ultraman?

I would love that!

Of course, we kind of have something like that in the current Ultraman manga by Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi.  

In the original series, Ultraman merged with Shin Hayata of the SSSP (Science Special Search Party) to save his life after colliding with his plane while in pursuit of the monster Bemular. This merged their life forces and, to keep Hayata alive later when he departed back home, he left some of his essence inside of the human. This altered Hayata on a fundamental level.  He eventually got married and had a son but thanks to the changes made to his body by Ultraman, some of the powers of the hero were inherited by his son, Shinjiro.The manga follows Shinjiro as he discovers his powers and joins the revived version of the SSSP to secretly defend Japan using a suit of special armor that helps harness and control his abilities.  He battles a new alien menace and meets new versions of the original Ultra Brothers all with (mostly) Earthly origins. 

It’s an Alternate Universe story of course, one that ignores all of the later entries in the Ultraman franchise and bases its story entirely on the first one.  It also lacks any of the gigantic heroes from M78 except in reference and flashback but it tells a very interesting story of the son of the hero from the original.  I was really skeptical of it at first for that reason but I am hooked now and buy every volume as it comes out.I think it would make a fantastic subject for an anime series as well and wish it would get one soon. 

As for a true tokusatsu son of Ultraman, I think that would be awesome.  Ultraseven has one and Belial has one (albeit one manufactured not born) so giving the original Ultraman an heir would work for me.  

[tyrantisterror]

TT’S GONNA RECOMMEND SOME SELF-PUBLISHED KAIJU FICTION

Because the mood struck me

(and also because I’ve been meaning to give these a full fledged reviews for a RIDICULOUSLY LONG TIME and I’m kind of embarrassed how long it’s been taking so I figure if I do some quickies I’ll feel less bad about myself as a person ok LET’S GO)

I’m gonna start with the Daikaiju Yuki series by Raffael Coronelli, because its first entry was also the first self published kaiju novel I read.  This series is fun and fast paced, with wonderful characters and dynamic storylines in a highly unique setting: a post-post apocaylptic world, where humanity has rebuilt civilization after a kaiju war hundreds of years ago destroyed the old one (i.e. ours).  The protagonist of the series, Yuki, partners up with one of the few kaiju who decided to defend humanity back in the kaiju war, a grouchy old bipedal lion named Narajin, and the two essentially fuse to fight various threats to their world with the other remaining members of the Pantheon Colossi (i.e. the protector kaiju).

(Our heroes, Yuki and Narajin, ready to conquer your kaiju-fan heart)

For newbies, this series covers a lot of kaiju tropes in an engaging and unique way that actually serves as a pretty decent primer for how this genre stands out from other monster fiction.  For experienced kaiju fans, the new twists author Raffael Coronelli has put on the old tropes and the innovations he’s added solely of his own invention make for a take on the genre that is astoundingly fresh, managing the difficult task of paying homage to what came before while crafting something very new and distinct from it.

I also can’t stress enough how fun these books are.  The characters grow on you very quickly, and the stories move at a lively pace that makes the books very easy to digest while still having a lot of substance.  Also there’s a LOT of content to consume here, so if you find you like the first book, you’re in luck - because not only is there a lot more of what you liked in the other entries, but Coronelli’s writing has gotten even better with each installment.

Buy them here:

Daikaiju Yuki

Yuki Conquers the World

Yuki vs. Fleshworld

Mokwa: The Lifesblood of the Earth (a spinoff focusing on another member of the Pantheon Colossi - also has the best villain of the whole series IMO)

Scythian Frost (short story anthology in the same universe as Daikaiju Yuki)

Pharoah of Eels (novella in the same universe as Daikaiju Yuki)

BONUS: I’m gonna link Coronelli’s Big Egg here because while it’s arguably more of a Weird West story than a kaiju story and not part of the Daikaiju Yuki series, it’s nonetheless VERY GOOD and kaiju-adjacent enough to feel relevant.

If you love it when kaiju stories go dark and experiment with body horror - and I know a good chunk of my followers here do, both from the posts you make and from the sheer number of body horror-riffic entries you’ve submitted to my Create a Kaiju Contests in the past - you owe it to yourself to read All Your Ruins by Alex Gayhart.  It is a bleak kaiju story that leans as far into the horror as kaiju stories can, while still retaining many of a kaiju story’s hallmarks.  You’ve got experimental robots, you’ve got a big lizard who shoots lasers from his mouth and has a few suprisingly poignant and tragic moments of pathos, you’ve got scenes of massive property damage - and you’ve also got scenes of people being torn apart by swarms of giant bugs, poisoned by toxic kaiju blood, assimilated into piles of fungus, and all other sorts of horrifying demises.  If you want a kaiju story to send chills down your spine, this is your book.

I’m emphasizing the grim aspects of this story, but I also want to note that it avoids one of the pitfalls a lot of modern horror falls into, in that it balances all the horrific shit by having characters in it that you actually care about.  It’s a tragedy, you know from the start things won’t end well, but some of the people involved in the conflict are so lovable and try so hard to survive that you root for them despite the prevailing sense of dread.  It’s a gloomy story, but it’s not the sort that makes everyone relentlessly awful - more George Romero Day of the Dead in tone than, say, the all consuming bleakness of The Walking Dead.

Also it’s got some killer illustrations.  The main monster even takes the “bipedal lizard with dorsal spikes” visual in a direction so unique that it actually stands out against the progenitor of that design concept.  That’s not the say the book depends on those illustrations, mind you - Gayhart’s prose isn’t afraid of laying it on thick every now and then to paint an appropriately distinct and horrific image with words.  That might not be for all tastes, but as a person who’s read a LOT of classic horror literature, I personally appreciate it - a dash of melodrama in the description of the horrific, when used well, can make it very effective, and Gayhart put just enough in there to work very well for my tastes.

Buy it here:

All Your Ruins

BONUS: I’m going to recommend the two books in author Alex Gayhart’s Black Star Saga here as well.  I haven’t actually fully read them yet - I bought the initial release where the two volumes were bundled together as one, and got sidetracked by LIFE BULLSHIT shortly after I started it (this happens to me too often while reading - I still need to finish Stephen King’s It and Marie Kondo’s books too), but I liked what I read, and from what I’ve heard the more recent editions made some big improvements to the story’s pacing.  It’s the same quality of writing as Gayhart’s All Your Ruins, but with a less grim tone - more Ultraman and less Shin Godzilla.

The Black Star Saga Volume 1: 2525

The Black Star Saga Volume 2: Moonage Daydream

A lot of classic kaiju movies bring up the threat of giant monsters destroying all of civilization if they aren’t stopped, but almost none have shown them carry that threat through.  In the Shadow of Extinction let’s that threat actually play out - you see the kaiju apocalypse begin and civilization as we know it end in the first third of the book.  The remaining two thirds focuses on survivors picking up the pieces in a world now ruled by giants.  It’s the kind of story you’d think there’d be more of in our genre, but outside of All Your Ruins and, uh, the Godzilla anime trilogy, there really aren’t that other takes out there.

While Gayhart’s All Your Ruins focuses on the horror aspect of a kaiju apocalypse, Kyle Warner’s In the Shadow of Extinction focuses on a political/crisis management angle.  It’s like if Shin Godzilla had a baby with George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, and that baby had the “bureaucratic failings of big governments in the wake of national disasters” elements of the former and the “multiple different perspectives via a large cast of characters” format of the later.  There’s no one protagonist in this one - you follow a large and diverse cast of characters from around the world and from pretty much all walks of life as they try to navigate a disaster that destroys society as it once was.

Once the civilization effectively ends in the first third of the novel, In the Shadow of Extinction transition from “disaster movie” to “post apocalyptic thriller,” like The Stand, Day of the Triffids, 28 Days Later, or, I dunno, a toned down version of Mad Max (but, y’know, with giant monsters, so I guess not THAT toned down).  I bring this up because the content of the last two thirds takes after the tropes of post apocalyptic thrillers as much if not more so than kaiju stories - that is to say, there is some Triggering Content in this one.  That’s not something to dissuade you - the characters and story remains very solid and unique for the kaiju genre - but it is something I feel you should be aware of, and if you want a more explicit description of what kind of Triggers I mean here, shoot me a message.  Suffice to say, kaiju aren’t the only monsters when civilization breaks down here.

But Kaiju do remain prominent in the book nonetheless - it is ultimately a kaiju story more than anything else, and it’s impressive how the book manages to incorporate all those other influences as well as a heaping dose of political commentary without ever diminishing the presence of its monster stars.

Buy it here:

In the Shadow of Extinction

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to do what I should have done years ago and write some damn Amazon reviews for these so the authors can have a boost in Amazon’s search algorithms.

[vanilla-blessing]

qb Top 10 Anticipated New Anime for Winter 2018

here’s what my hype meter is at for the winter 2018 season starting with the highest and winding way, way down - qb

1. Kaiju Girls 2: Ultra Kaiju Gijinka Keikaku

im so excited for more of the ultraman monsters as anthropomorphic magical girls who protect the town from each other you dont even know

2. Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Saga

Cardcaptor Sakura is still one of the best and most beloved magical girl anime ever made, and Clear Card Saga's recent manga doesn't miss a beat and maintains the same level of artistic quality that CLAMP is known for. This new anime is slightly more shoujo and flowery than most people probably remember from the CCS in their childhood. I'm worried people might compare the new artstyle unfavorably to the original 90’s anime, but since Clear Card Saga's source manga is so strong, it would take a lot to bring the hype for this anime down.

3. Violet Evergarden

Looks excessively pretty and detailed and the story seems to be the kind of light sci-fi that Kyoani either nails or flubs completely, so this'll be one to watch out for, in 9 months, when Netflix decides the Spanish dubs are ready. Can't wait.

4. darling in the franks

I've more or less appreciated everything Studio Trigger has put out in the last few years, even the dips like Kiznaiver, and a mecha anime is what anime fans have been asking of them for years. It seems to have a lot of gimmicks like the co-ed partner pilots and the robots with boobs and faces but weird’s always been what Trigger does best. Some of their adjacent decisions like the terrible patreon idea, their recent production issues with longer series, and Estimated Horny Level (EHL) have me worried, but I can at least trust their aesthetic, right?

5. Pop Team Epic

I don't actually have any idea what this will be, this one's a gigantic question mark and the official youtube PV did not shed any light. It could still be a long con hoshiiro girldrop anime or like two minutes an episode for all we know. It could be anything.

6. Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san

I enjoy the manga a lot, so an anime would probably be just as consistently funny. Comedy anime are a mixed bag but I think this one will be simple to adapt without losing much of the original humor. Probably unlikely it'll go beyond the original though, so I might drop it if it can't sustain a full episode length, which I could definitely see happening.

7. Hakumei to Mikochi

Forest Fairy Five but without the animation.

8. gd men

Forest Fairy Five's animation but without the characters.

9. Marchen Madchen

Apparently the author of the light novel this is adapted from died? That sucks. All signs are pointing to this anime also sucking. Don't you love when anime schoolgirls get their clothes blown off with magic and have to wear tight fitting shorts? nvm that's from over a decade ago and it was creepy then too

10. Sanrio Danshi

This looks like some boy idol promotional material that has nothing to do with Sanrio's cast of cute mascots, despite their insistence that it does. male fanservice for whoever likes that. I want to see if aggretsuko shows up.

-qb kaiju girls and kaiju girls 2 on crunchyroll dotcom

have some more KAIJU GIRLS for the road 

[akanemachurida-blog]

Interview - “I’m going to meet that person in the 2D industry!” Furukawa Airi X Urobuchi Gen

This interview is at the very end of the SKE48 Extracurricular 2D Club book, published in April 2012.

Are all idols in danger of becoming like Mami? What’s the connection between modern magical girls and idols?

On the topic of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, some movies have been announced for 2012. There will be a movie with an original story in addition to two movies serving to summarize the TV series, bringing the total to three movies. Is the script for the movie with an original story already done?

Urobuchi Gen: The manuscript is already complete so the next step is for Shaft (the animation studio) to make it. I had the thought that “I can’t write a sequel” while originally planning the TV series, so when it was airing I pretended not to hear when someone said “It would be a waste for it to be only one season, so will you continue it?” (laughs) But the movies got announced and I didn’t have anywhere to run… I was able to keep going without any sort of unease when I gathered up my courage and tried to write, which surprised me.

Furukawa Airi: I want to see them soon~! I’ve liked magical girls for a long time but Madoka Magica is something completely different. It’s unbelievable how a heroine-like character like Mami dies in the third episode… Was that in the plot since the beginning?

Urobuchi: It was. That was actually decided before she was given a name. (laughs) In addition to advancing the plot by making the protagonist doubt whether she can become a magical school girl upon seeing a veteran magician die before her eyes, I wanted to shock viewers, so Mami was purposefully made to be a character you’d think would definitely not die.

The way she dies is quite something as well. She gets decapitated even though she’s a magical girl…

Urobuchi: If her death had been something like an arrow piercing her heart, then you’d probably think that she’d likely be revived. (laughs) I had to do something like that in order to let the viewers know that she absolutely won’t be coming back to life. However I didn’t expect Mami to contend for first or second place as the most popular character.

Furukawa: That’s because blonde hair with twin tails is a sure thing. I love the sickly beautiful girl characters so the scene where Mami goes crazy and attacks Kyoko really hit me!

Urobuchi: This may be something that idols are well acquainted with, but to live while being aware of things like “I need to do things properly in order to not break the dreams of those who admire me” or “I need to be everyone’s model” is something that’s really difficult to do. Stress builds up that way, so when it’s too much, it can become as scary as that scene… well, it’s a simple thing to imagine.

Furukawa: I’ll be careful at all times, not only as an idol, so as to not end up like Mami. (laughs) Also, another shocking thing about Madoka Magica is how the protagonist Madoka doesn’t become a magical girl, that surprised me. But she eventually becomes one during the final episode.

Urobuchi: It’s certainly a rare type of development. While it’s rare for a story to have the protagonist transform at the very end, it’s not a forbidden move. Ultraman Nexus, while part of the tokusatsu genre, did the same thing.

If you think about it in modern terms, it seems odd if she becomes a magical girl very quickly and fights. Just like Madoka, you’re going to naturally have motivation to fight after you experience a long period of conflict…

Urobuchi: It’s fine to include the main character’s original motivation for fighting in the first episode where the character beats the first foe, but that approach lacks persuasiveness in addressing the question of why the character fights. However, some claim that one series that succeeded in fitting things in the first episode is Mobile Suit Gundam, and Anno Hideaki, the director of Neon Genesis Evangelion, said that the limit of what he could do in the first episode was having Shinji enter the Eva. I’m aware of the hardships that my predecessors were made to experience time and time again, so I had Madoka run away until the last episode. (laughs)

Furukawa: Ah, I see. Amuro got the motivation he needed to fight in the first episode while Madoka got it in the twelfth episode. (laughs)

Urobuchi: That’s right. Well, it was possible to do it this way since it aired late at night. If it was a kids show airing during the day or evening, some of the sponsors would be toy stores, and they’d probably say something like “We want to make toys out of the soul gems, so please have Madoka transform in the first episode.” (laughs) Oh right, Madoka Magica didn’t have any of those sponsors in the beginning, so most of the merchandise currently on sale were made afterwards. So during the initial broadcast fans made their own goods of what they wanted to become merchandise.

By the way, Furukawa made her own Mami outfit while it was being serialized. And a Kyubey plushie as well.

Urobuchi: Wow! I saw them earlier but to think that you made them yourself… They look professional.

Furukawa: Ah no, that’s not true. There are some places in Mami’s outfit where the filling is insufficient, so I want to remake it. I want to challenge myself next time and make the muskets at the same time. I want to do the finishing attack, Tiro Finale! Oh, by the way, what does Tiro Finale mean?

Urobuchi: It’s Italian, it means “final shot” if you translate it literally. In essence it means “the finishing blow.” To tell the truth, at first it was given the inappropriate name “Ultima Shoot” in the script, and during an after recording session I blurted out “Is it really okay to give it such an inappropriate name?” and I was told “If you think it’s bad just change it!” (laughs) So I threw it away and rewrote it. I didn’t expect it to become this popular…

Furukawa: It’s become one of Madoka Magica’s famous quotes… So, what’s your favourite quote?

Urobuchi: Kyubey’s “It makes no sense at all.” (Note: Kyubey mutters this without thinking when his and human’s understanding of something are different.) When I wrote it in the script I thought that it seemed like it’d be popular online, and it really became popular, so… I did it! (laughs) What’s your favourite quote?

Furukawa: The quote that had the biggest impression on me was when Sayaka regrets becoming a magical girl and says “I’m really a fool.” My heart clenched when I heard that...

Urobuchi: Careless girls like Sayaka are able to be “good girls” because they aren’t self-aware that they’re careless. If they realized that, then they wouldn’t be able to be “good girls.” It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I made Sayaka’s character because I wanted to make her say that.

Sayaka is one of the five magical girls in Madoka Magica, but which one do you feel yourself to be closest to, Furukawa?

Furukawa: Hm, I wonder. I don’t know my own personality well, so I don’t know… Well, I just know that I’m not like Mami. I don’t think that “I need to be an example for everyone.” (laughs)

Urobuchi: An easier way of saying that is to say that those who want to lead a team and who make fruitless efforts are like Mami.

Furukawa: Ah, well then in KII, the team I’m a part of, (Takayanagi) Akane is like Mami. She occasionally thinks too much about others and gets weird.

Urobuchi: The type of person that Akane relies on the most is someone like Madoka.

Furukawa: That’s (Mukaida) Manatsu! So what’s Homura like?

Urobuchi: A kind of person who interferes the most with those other two.

Is that you, Furukawa?

Furukawa: Ah, maybe! I see, so I’m like Homura…

Urobuchi: Since I made all five characters conscious of their puberty, it might have been difficult to get a sense of their “current selves” if these characters were full-fledged members of society who established their own way of life. However, when I began to think about what type of person coincides with “the self of puberty”, I thought, wouldn’t that apply to any girl? You’re still young, but what were you doing when you were in middle school?

Furukawa: Hm, I taped late night anime and did nothing but watch that… Well, that’s not any different from now. (laughs) I’ve liked magical girls since that time, so I watched stuff like Sister Princess and Chobits. Also, I like magical girl games so I watched my older brother play Kagayaku Kisetsu e... Oh, but I was in fourth grade at the time.

Urobuchi: That’s tremendous! That’s deep!

That’s right, she’s a talented illustrator and it seems like she made a copy doujinshi (a doujinshi that you print and then bind together) even before joining SKE48.

Urobuchi: You should make the best of that talent of yours. There are a lot of different kinds of idols, but there isn’t an idol who produce doujinshi yet.

Furukawa: I’d like to start drawing it right away if I could, but I have a lot of shackles… (laughs) But I’ll do my best. If I’m given permission then I’ll make a Madoka Magica doujinshi and sell it by hand while I’m wearing my re-done Mami costume. It wouldn’t be a copy doujinshi but an offset! (A technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface, done at a printing company.)

[rieshon]

Fall 2018 Power Rankings

Wow, I actually finished this shit sort of on time this season.

1 Yagate Kimi ni Naru: You know a show is good when you put off finishing it just because you don't want it to end. I did that with Yagakimi this season, and not only is it my favorite show of the season, I'm pretty sure it's my favorite yuri anime of all time. It's not just that Touko and Yuu are such an adorable couple, but that the story and relationship dynamics are genuinely original for a yuri anime. You've got two heroines who are de facto dating from the outset, so no will-they won't-they bullshit like most yuri stories (lookin' at you citrus)... But only sort of, because it's complicated. You've got one heroine who doesn't want her girlfriend to fall in love with her because she has a weird identity crisis because of past trauma and is afraid to embrace her own individuality which having someone fall in love with her would validate because she's "only herself" around said girlfriend... And then you've got the other heroine who thinks she's asexual/aromantic but slowly starts to realize she's actually just gay, but only after she's promised her girlfriend she won't fall in love with her because she "can't." To say this is a weird relationship is putting it mildly. There's also some stuff you usually don't see in anime at all, like another character who actually IS aro/ace, and a live-in adult lesbian couple (one of whom is actually revealed to be bi later on) who are the Big Gay Mentors to the younger characters. There is still the requisite amount of Yuri Melodrama, of course (elevated by a beautiful soundtrack from the venerable Haketa Takefumi) but it's so much more interesting than usual here. Oh, and of course, as I mentioned above, Touko and Yuu are the most darling couple ever, perfect cinnamon rolls who must be protected. Well, okay, maybe not perfect: they got issues. But I love this story and characters so much I actually picked up the manga to read what happens next, and I basically never do that. Maybe it's not technically the "best" anime of the season, but it's the one I love the most. ★★★★☆

2 SSSS.GRIDMAN: Somehow, based Trig just keep doing it. You'd be forgiven for thinking Darling in the Franxx, the show that has "SMART ANIME FOR ADULTS" practically engraved on everything about it, would be the 'cerebral' robot anime Trigger made this year, and Gridman, a spinoff of a cheesy tokusatsu show that was itself a spinoff of Ultraman, would be little more than a fun but forgettable robot romp. You'd be totally wrong, of course: Gridman is every bit the heavyweight that previous Trigger/Gainax robot anime are, with its own flair of course. It takes a while for it to fully develop and present its themes about social anxiety and isolation, but once it does it really pops off. The dual heroines of Akane and Rikka are brilliant, not just for their lewd character designs but also for how well their stories are written. Rikka is the real hero of the show--Yuuta might be the one jumping around in a robot, but ultimately Rikka is the most important. Stellar performances from both Ueda Reina and Miyamoto Yume as Akane and Rikka, respectively, really carry the thematic weight of the show. There is, of course, some great art and animation on display, as you might expect from Trigger, who always make the most (and then some) of whatever resources they're given. Episode 9, which takes place for the most part inside of a dream, was especially visually striking. An all around great production and one that won't soon be forgotten. ★★★★☆

3 Zombie Land Saga: With all that out of the way, here's a show about some moe zombies. Ah, anime, even after all these years it still finds ways to surprise me, like a show about moe zombie idols being as genuinely moving as it is hilarious. Probably the weirdest thing about Zombie Land Saga, even as a show that features the undead filming commercials for a Saga-based fried chicken restaurant and competing in a Takeshi's Castle-style mud Olympics, is that it unironically works as an idol anime, too. All the characters (well, except for Yuugiri, who is woefully underutilized) really do grow throughout the show and it gives the idol anime aspect a really solid backbone to build off of. Of course, Zombie Land Saga is more than just another idol anime, and calling it a zombie idol anime is somehow still selling it short. From the aforementioned chicken commercials, to the unforgettably epic zombie rap battle, to the middle schooler biker gangs, to basically everything Yamada Tae does, this show was not just surprisingly moving but shockingly hilarious at times. Also, it must be noted that these zombies are fricking adorable: definitely way cuter than the undead should ever be. Especially Junko who is the best girl, once again proving the superiority of Showa idols. ★★★★☆

4 Seishun Buta Yarou wa Bunny Girl Senpai no Yume wo Minai: Since this is a light novel anime through and through, it seems fair to describe it in terms of light novel anime: it's basically the Monogatari series meets Oregairu. Our sardonic protagonist with a heart of gold (and impossibly hot girlfriend) meets a bunch of high school girls with weird supernatural problems and helps them solve them. That might make it sound boring or derivative, but as I always harp on, it's really all in the execution and Aobuta sticks the landing. It reminds me of those above shows not just in narrative content but also in terms of how sharp the dialogue is: it is one of those delightful shows where you could have two characters just have a conversation for 24 minutes and it would still be endlessly absorbing. The reliable Ishikawa Kaito is great as our male lead, bringing not just snappy wit to the table but also a surprising amount of emotional depth in later story arcs. The aloof, sarcastic protagonist is of course done to death in this genre (hi, Kyon!) but Sakuta is certainly an example of it done well. It helps that he's such a loving oniichan and cute boyfriend, which really endears him to the viewer. The gallery of heroines is of course stocked with plenty of cute and sexy girls--the art and animation is top notch--but what really carries the show is Sakuta's relationship with his girlfriend (and best girl) Mai, which is a continuing story throughout the series even as the focus moves to other heroines. They're just so adorable together. Ironically, the element of the show that probably matters the least is the weird sort-of-sci-fi plot hooks: you're really just here to watch these characters talk through their emotions and stumble through adolescence, and the sci-fi plot devices are basically incidental to all of it. ★★★★☆

5 Himote House: Talk about a dark horse of an anime... Himote House is the latest... thing... from the man, the myth, the legend who brought us Minarai Diva, Ishidate Koutarou, and it's great. It's half nichijou-kei anime, half just a seiyuu radio show that's animated, and it's all superb. In the scripted bits, the show can get wonderfully weird, from the episode that used the Game of Life to teach us about the lack of gay rights in Japan, to the episode that took place entirely inside of a copy machine, and I haven't even mentioned the Bitcoin episode yet, which is too bizarre to even give away in this review no one will read. The unscripted bits are also great thanks to a collection of some of the seiyuu industry's top personalities, including the always great combination of Suzakinishi, comedic genius Mimorin, and the criminally underrated Mizuhara Kaoru whose performance as Tokiyo really must be experienced: it starts over the top and just keeps going from there. Even the cheap 3DCG animation is surprisingly charming, and it's at least good enough that these girls look genuinely cute, although the show is also helped along by regularly inserting some nice hand-drawn stills in the most important moments. Almost everyone probably overlooked this show this season, but I'd give it a hearty recommendation. ★★★★☆

6 Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san: I hope Comic Cune anime are here to stay, because this was certainly the best pure nichijou-kei offering this season. It's "cute girl vampires" but, as you might expect from the source, this is the most laid-back depiction of vampires you're ever going to find in fiction. None of the human characters even seem to be remotely bothered that vampires are in their midst, the sun is an inconvenience that mostly makes it harder to go buy manga in the middle of the day, and they order their blood from Amazon. Even when a vampire hunter shows up, she's just won over by the vampire girls' cuteness. It does use vampire lore to tell some amusing jokes at times, like Sophie getting trapped outside because she had to count all the seeds in a sunflower, or Akari getting a plank put on her in bed because the vampires felt bad that her bed didn't have a lid, but mostly you're just here for the cute girls cuting, and cute they do. There's the requisite amount of soft yuri, and the character designs and animation are fantastic. Very little to complain about here--the show's only real weakness is that the jokes are occasionally kind of meh. Ellie is best girl. ★★★☆☆

7 Uchi no Meido ga Uzasugiru!: Shocking no one, the Comedy God delivered again. This show is frequently laugh out loud funny, and it's helped along by animation from Douga Koubou that is right up there with some of the best they've ever produced. The sole factor that makes this show somewhat weaker than Oota Masahiko's previous works is that with its completely absurd comedic premise it is ultimately trying to tell a very serious story--about a little girl who is terrified of having her late mother replaced by having any other adult woman enter her life--with a premise that definitely should not be telling a serious story. The show is at its best when Tsubame (voiced by Numakura Manami in some of her best-ever work) is being an irredeemable lolicon shithead, not a role model. Still, the show is pretty great most of the time, and it only gets better when ドM best girl Midorin turns up about halfway through. The Russian loli is pretty cute too I guess, but as seems to always be the case in these shows (I can't help but remember another Douga Koubou production, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei) the silliest and most perverted girls always steal the show. ★★★☆☆

8 Irozuku Sekai no Ashita Kara: It's a P.A. Works original, so that means it's time to complain about how it's not as good as other P.A. Works originals! Seriously though, although it's not the second coming of TARI TARI, this show is easy to recommend, being beautiful both artistically and narratively, with a simple and heartfelt story to tell about a girl going to a new place (well, a new time) to discover herself. Yep, you guessed it, this is one of my favorites: sentimentality anime! Girl literally learns to see the beauty in the world that she had been blind to by leaving her comfort zone and falling in love. Good shit, good shit. My main complaint is that the best girl, Kurumi, gets short shrift as best girls often do, although she at least does get one little story arc to develop her character. Ishihara Kaori is solid as the female lead, but I just loved Naobou as the snarky Kurumi so much. It's also worth noting that although the cast actually has a fairly even gender split, all the male characters are pretty much inoffensive to likable, which is all I really ask in a show like this. There's no one on the level of Wien, but Chigusa and Kurumi's relationship was pretty cute. Overall, though, this show is just about drinking in the atmosphere and the feels, and trying to avoid thinking about time paradoxes. ★★★☆☆

9 Akanesasu Shoujo: I had cautiously high expectations for this show going into the season, and although it didn't blow me away with a masterpiece, I was satisfied with what I got. The show doesn't have the best production values, but it has a solid premise that is executed well. A group of misfit high school girls in the incredibly lame Radio Club find a way to slip between alternate dimensions, have misadventures where they learn that The Real Power Was Inside Us All Along, and end up saving the universe from being consumed by some vague evilness. The story comes courtesy KID's Uchikoshi Koutarou, and definitely feels like something you might find in a science fiction visual novel. It's not afraid to be at least a little adventurous, with the various dimensions we visit being varying degrees and kinds of social commentary, and it even goes as far as killing off major characters and actually letting them stay dead! Plus, it had Kurosawa Tomoyo basically playing like three or four characters at once, which has to be worth something. If nothing else, I respected this series. ★★☆☆☆

10 Kishuku Gakkou no Juliet: Romeo and Juliet may well be the Bard's most widely popular play, so it's not surprising that now we have an anime version of it... sort of. In true anime fashion, this is not a tragedy of star-crossed lovers, but a comedy of errors about two goofball kids who fall in love at a ridiculous boarding school. Set against a backdrop of, uh, race war. Kayano Ai's blondenblu Juliet is pretty cute but as is typical in these shows the best girls never win, namely Ayaneru's Hasuki and the actual best girl, Shimamura Yuu's Chartreux. As always, the gay girls are the best. The show does have an unusually likable protagonist for one in this genre: Romio is a big dork who is singlemindedly dedicated to his cute girlfriend, and even if she's not the best girl, you definitely want to root for them. A pretty good show. ★★☆☆☆

11 Animayell!: Kirara anime are playing second fiddle to other cute girl shows again this season, but like Harukana Receive last season, this show is still decent. What it lacks in a compelling premise (sorry, not only do I come in thinking cheerleading is lame, but the show's animation isn't good enough to get it over as a cool thing) it makes up for in the most important ingredient for an anime, homosexuality. Not only is there the immaculately gay Hanawa-chan and the extremely homo Ukki, for some reason at one point theres also a completely random, out lesbian side character who asks our heroines for advice confessing to her female home tutor. But yeah, it's definitely worth it for Hanawa and Ukki at least; your mileage may vary on the rest of the actual show. ★★☆☆☆

12 Sword Art Online Alicization: I've repeatedly gone on record saying I love a slow burn, and I don't necessarily mind when nothing happens in a show if its at least giving me some good atmosphere and characters to gnaw on in the meantime... But man, is the new SAO one slow-ass show. Though I've never read the books, this really feels like a case of following the Original Way too closely. That's not to say that what is here is bad by any means; there's some truly interesting concepts, a good SAO story, and of course some stellar animation, but they probably could have cut this first cours down to like, six episodes and still accomplished the same things. I still have confidence that it will get more hype as we progress, though. There's a long way to go in this one yet, so this rating is anything but final. ★★☆☆☆

13 Debidoru!: This show is an ugly looking 3DCG abomination that was probably made in MikuMikuDance, but thankfully we now live in a post-Kemono Friends world, and so Debidoru! was still pretty great. You couldn't ask for a better trio of voices for an ad-lib stuffed comedy than Hanazawa Kana, Mimori Suzuko and Iguchi Yuka and they fill their roles with aplomb, especially Iguchi, who at one point tsukkomis so hard she clips the microphone. Like the best no-money shorts it also had some moments of true ART, like Sugahara Souta (the director) singing the moe opening song (in one uncut take) for no reason, or one of the greatest things I saw all season, episode 11, which was done (also in one take) entirely with paper cutouts of the characters in front of a camcorder. It's not really a mastapeece in the way Himote House was, but it was certainly a memorable little show. ★★☆☆☆

14 Beelzebub-jou no Okinimesu Mama: I'm as surprised as anyone that this show ended up as low as it did, but by the end of the season I had a hard time convincing myself to even load up the latest episode of this one, and it's hard for me to really even say why. On the face of it it should be my jam: it's full of cute girls and pastel colors, and it's even occasionally lewd. Really, it's probably just because there's so many male characters who get a decent amount of attention in the narrative. It also doesn't help that Beelzebub (despite being a cute blondenblu voiced by Oonishi Saori) is not really a very appealing character, which makes the protagonist, who is constantly fawning over her like she's the best thing since sliced bread, come off as less likable as well. It had some good stuff too, like Sargatanas's shyness and Gocchin's needing to pee constantly, but I guess it wasn't quite enough to hold my interest. It also doesn't help that my favorite girl, Eurynome, was barely even in the show after she was introduced. We ankle fetishists gotta stick together, man! ★☆☆☆☆

15 Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken: I had exactly zero expectations for this show to begin with, so I was pleasantly surprised with it at first. Those great typographic effects, especially, really sucked me into the first episode and I was excited to see where it went for the first few weeks, especially with the promise of cute girls on the horizon. The girls have been underwhelming, though (mainly by virtue of their having nothing to do in the story) and what actually is going on in the story, I find incredibly dull. Rimuru is just such a booooring protagonist, and his very existence tends to sap the tension out of scenes since you know he's ridiculously OP and will probably just absorb whatever bad thing shows up next like he's absorbed every other bad thing up to that point. 俺TUEEEEEE isn’t even necessarily something I hate, and it can be made to work, but Rimuru isn’t cool enough of a guy or really interesting in any way that I can self-insert and live vicariously through his TUEEEEE-ness. Just give me more Shion, she is the best purple oni secretary. ★☆☆☆☆

16 Hashiritsuzukete Yokattatte: I guess I should put this down since it's technically a show I finished from this season. It's kinda boring and lame, do not recommend. The girl with the glasses never even puts them on, she just wears them on top of her head like a doofus the whole time. Might have been able to deliver some feels if it was in a longer format, but just falls flat due to the <60 minute total runtime. ☆☆☆☆☆