#i love songs that explore the fact that miku isn’t real

[dailyhatsune]

a miku from a pinocchioP song? up to you which one ^^

‘well, someone’s just making me say all of this’

[bearpillowmonster]

Top 15 Anime!

I’ll be talking about them in order of appearance, that way, if you see a picture you like, you know what anime it is. The order shown does not represent how much I like one over the other. This also does not represent my ratings on MyAnimeList because since my viewing, my opinions have changed on some and I don’t want to reevaluate my score. Three more rules, NO anime movies, and some I may not have finished, only because they have 100+ episodes and nothing I’ve dropped so no One Piece.

This is going to be controversial...heck, anime is controversial. 

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki Kun: My tagline is “It’s an anime about art...an art about anime.” It follows the life of a manga illustrator and the friends he’s made along the way and a bit of slice of life in there too.

Plastic Memories: Red alert! We have a tear jerker. I was recommended this anime and was told it was sad, no big deal...I then got through it and cried during the ending. I talked to the person who recommended it to me and I said “About that ending...” and they said “I didn’t see it.” “What?!” “Yeah, I thought, this is too sad, I can’t watch the last episode.” Needless to say I made them watch it. I woke up in the middle of the night crying then it affected the other person the same way, this is some powerful stuff. Think of “Ex Machina”, wait no I haven’t saw that. Well maybe “Her”...yeah no haven’t saw that either...Anyway it’s just an android anime.

Sword Art Online: Address the elephant in the room, this one is a divided one. Ok, so just to clarify, I’m specifically talking about the first arc of the first season. We all know the plot at this point, people get trapped inside a full dive video game with real stakes. This resembles my resurgence with anime, I was never serious about it until I saw this. You either like it or you don’t, and even if I do like it, I’ll be the first to say it has a fair share worth of crap but I’m in so deep that it is what it is, when it shines, I really enjoy it, tell me seeing action like this isn’t cool.

Toradora: This is THE romance anime in my opinion, it’s so well crafted. It just makes sense, even if you can’t relate it to yourself, you know somebody you can. I found it here on tumblr through a gif and that gif was the ending, I didn’t know that until later but even knowing what the ending was going to be, I didn’t care, it’s the journey, I even looked into the manga.

Attack on Titan: Sie sind das Essen und Wir sind die Jaeger! That means “They are the prey, we are the hunters.” My friend introduced me to this by showing me the titan fight at the end of season 1, in return I showed him the Legend of Korra, so I guess we’re even. That was before Season 2 which took forever to come out so I knew the struggle just as much as everyone else. This whole series kind of took everyone by storm, I mean if you don’t care too much about the hype then it’s good, it’s something to get into, something to wait for, even if it’s dark and gory, it’s nice to know there is a big percentage experiencing the same thing.

Gamers!: I’m scared. The manga has been going on but season 2 just won’t come out “Maybe next year” I keep thinking but we’ll see, I’ve purposely been avoiding the manga because of it. I don’t like to see the word ‘Gamer’ so much because it makes me think of how cliche people try to be in order to fit into the crowd, too many fakers but this, this gets it right, it deserves its title. I started with the dub but I didn’t like the voice of a specific character, it just didn’t fit them and the sub was always at least one episode ahead of the dub so I watched the sub and then whenever the dub came out, I watched that too. I was that pleased with this anime.

Chihayafuru: The characters, the music, the visuals...all over a card game. If you can make that interesting and make me sit on the edge of my seat, not only watching it, but also awaiting the next season then you’ve done something right. This is technically a sports anime? But not, I don’t really consider it as such and is the only one you’ll see on this list because it’s not a genre I’m into so you know they succeeded in that field too.

Rurouni Kenshin: Sometimes it isn’t easy to explain something right out, it’s the feeling it gives off that explains it all. This is my calm anime, it’s just so peaceful yet has action, definitely not your average ‘sword fighter’.

Hunter X Hunter (2011): I didn’t watch the 1999 one (yet) and you know what? I probably tried the first episode 3 times all together because the first two, I just wasn’t feeling it, it was like “They’re just going to be different fighters.” NO! I kept coming back because I wanted to give it another chance and I succeeded and I loved it, I realized just how in depth it was and a lot more than “Tournaments” PUH-LEASE! I knew I’d love it as soon as Gon made it through the boat during the first few episodes.

Yu Yu Hakusho Spirit Detective: Made by the same creator as HxH, who is also married to the lady who made Sailor Moon! This family man...But yeah, I didn’t like Yusuke’s hair and I thought it was going to be a bunch of tournaments which meant a lot of filler. Yeah there is ONE tournament (that I know of) this is one of the ones I didn’t finish yet, but it’s not a whole lot of filler. In fact a lot of the stuff surrounding it has to do with the Spirit Detective part, hence why I put that part in the title. What made me change my mind and get into it you might ask? Ladies and gentlemen I present to you the opening song: 

Dimension W: If you saw my other lists, you know I like to have a few wild cards in there, this is one of them, once again, where is season 2?! It has to do with electric coils, basically what builds their economy, a new type of power source. We know about the X, Y, and Z axis but what about W? It’s not as complicated as it sounds. My favorite character is named Loser...yep, what more do I need to say, just try it out!

Erased: Same person who recommended Plastic Memories, recommended this so gear up. This is actually a time travel anime, it seems odd at first but you’ll understand pretty quick. It’s a mystery, something I’m a sucker for, you can tell a lot went into it with some pretty talented people. It’s twelve episodes long and I watched the second half in one day, I binged this baby probably more than any other.

Rascal Does Not Dream: The poster I used is actually for the movie which finishes the title with “of a Dreaming Girl”, but I didn’t want you to take it at face value because at face value it’s called “of Bunny Girl Senpai.” and features a girl who dresses as a playboy bunny which sounds like a hentai, but it’s not! Let me explain, this is actually a conspiracy series, a series of strange events if you will. The girl only dresses like that for a little bit because she’s invisible to everyone but this dude (no, literally) and she’s trying to get attention. The dude goes around fixing problems such as that and something his sister deals with. She got bullied so bad that it hurt her (again, literally) and it caused her memory loss. Then there’s the girl who splits into two different personalities (do I need to say literally again? You got it now? Ok.)

Quintessential Quintuplets: Face Value! Looks like another harem...and it is. But listen, Miku Nakano.

Apparently a lot of other people agree with me. It’s kind of embarrassing to explain but basically it doesn’t beat around the bush. This dude ends up with one of the quints, it even has a scene where he marries them but you don’t know which one it is because...they’re quints. I said how I liked mystery and slice of life...well, this is basically a guessing game, it keeps you interested even if you think you know who it’s going to be. The other sisters are just as good of characters with their definitive personalities.

Mob Psycho 100 II: I wanted to end this off with a bang and I while I watched both seasons, I wanted S2 to represent this one because it does better in every way. Let me put it this way, I thought the first season was alright, I gave it a 7, kind of average. This season I gave a 9, it surprised me and it did really well from its action to its art within the action to its characters, this might be the best second season I’ve watched of an anime. The story expands on these characters and explores morals and stuff that only hit the surface in S1. It shows how you don’t ‘need’ seasons worth of material to make a good final episode, there were time where I thought ‘How is it going to top this’ in the middle of the season and then blew me away by the end of it.

Well time to stay indoors, here are my recommendations for your quarantines.

[secretlyviola]

Wake Up, Girls!: the Black Sheep of Idol Anime and International Perceptions of the Japanese Idol Industry

Wake Up, Girls! as an anime is probably one of the best and most accurate representations of the real life Japanese idol industry that I've seen thus far. So much so that after completing it, while keeping the crude humor of the show in mind, I struggled with how it wasn't more popular both domestically in Japan and overseas where I live or why word wasn't spread about it more widely. Now, granting & considering the fact that the structure of the show is confusing (1 movie, a TV anime series, 2 more movies, and then the most recent 2nd season which concluded this past winter) I can understand why it has low viewership and interactions compared to other idol-related shows like the various Love Live! and Idolm@ster series that seem to be booming or at least doing better both domestically and overseas. With that in mind, I wished to do a bit more exploring into possible reasons other than these that would address some of its setbacks and at the same time encourage people to give the series a fair chance.

What's Missing?

The thing that I'm noticing most about the deficit in Wake Up Girls' (WUG's) interest mostly has to do with its promotional material.

To start, WUG does not have a mobile game like it's competitors; or rather it did and now will again after some time. The first game unfortunately failed due to possible competition from Love Live! and similar rhythm and gacha games releasing the same same year. The girls' characters do have a feature on a console game called Miracle Girls Festa which shares an engine with the Hatsune Miku Project Diva series. However, a new game involving WUG has not seen a release since then,(other than appearances in other games) which in the rat-race of mobile idol gacha games has put them at a stark disadvantage of the discovery and interaction of their characters. This is, however, on the horizon to change in the fall with the release of their newest mobile game. I'm not able to talk much on this as a data point simply because it isn't released and doesn't really have any gameplay other than a few promo videos.

The Show

Because of the gaming fallout, character discovery and building is almost solely reliant on watching the show. This can be both good and bad. Good, because the group's content is more centralized, but it can severely lack when it comes to more individualized interaction and selecting the all-too-well-known oshimen or "best girl"

The anime itself--as mentioned earlier--is very convoluted in its setup and crude in its initial delivery. If you miss the first movie and just start watching the first season, you can definitely watch the series, but details are a lot more well-rounded when you do watch it.

There are also two separate movies in between the most recent season that are helpful to watch, but that Crunchyroll does not have available for streaming as of writing this, which makes it a bit more complicated to watch without more details.

A general thing to keep in mind while watching is the amount of crude humor that develops throughout the movie and the first three episodes. Without giving too much away to the actual plot, there are themes of sexual exploitation that are present in the beginning of the show. I do see why this may turn some people off to the series since it persists for a majority of the beginning watch time, but I have a firm belief that it is worth pushing through and some parts of it even are good representations of how idols can be exploited in the industry. (It's not all just smiles and friendship!)

"But, why should I watch this?"

If you enjoy Asian idols of any form, I strongly believe it's worth your time. 

Or rather, I could just leave it at that but I know that lack of substance can make people hesitant to try something. So, here's a quick review from 1st movie to most recent season:

The first movie, Shichinin No Idol (Seven Idols, 七人のアイドル) covers the formation of the group through the small Sendai-based agency Green Leaves who sets off to make money by creating an idol group to rival popular powerhouse I-1 Club. (it's essentially this universe's equivalent to AKB48 and it's sister groups) The movie follows the recruiting of Yoshino Nanase, (Member Image Color: Light Blue) a former child model and the group's appointed leader, Miyu Okamoto, (Member Image Color: Orange) a local cafe maid, Minami Katayama, (Member Image Color: Yellow) a joyful and energetic girl who's recruited after winning a folk singing competition, Kaya Kikuma, (Member Image Color: Green) who quit her part-time job at a ramen shop, Nanami Hisami, (Member Image Color: Purple) who aspires to be a stage actress, Airi Hayashida, (Member Image Color: Navy) a timid girl who auditions for the group at the encouragement of her friend and the final member of the group, Mayu Shimada, (Member Image Color: Red) who happens to be a former I-1 Club core member or "center" in the idol world.

The following first tv-aired season covers the girls' activities after debut, inevitably leading to their participation in a high-profile idol competition though their national promotion and with help from a famous producer who wrote songs for I-1. The issues with Mayu's former association with I-1 Club complicate this, as the rivaling group is the host for the idol festival and a large amount of fans are present. How they overcome all of this really emphasizes the level of tribulation that real life idols go through in the industry to get discovered and recognized.

The next movies in between the 1st & 2nd season, Seishun no Kage (青春の影) and BEYOND THE BOTTOM follow a similar plot as the first season, except the girls are challenged with debut under a major agency and the complications that come with that, having to start over from zero, being a one-hit-wonder and do everything that comes with struggling after success, reflecting on the point that sometimes you have to look back to move forward.

The second tv-aired season has the girls moving into the same house and taking on more independent activities to boost the group's overall popularity for their national tour. The show takes a new art and staffing direction than the previous iteration and while doing this, in my humble opinion, retains what's good while cutting a lot of the crude humor that was, at times, unnecessary and honestly almost makes the amount of time building up to the season more worth it.

.~*~.

So is it all worth it? That's up for you to decide. I would personally put it on my top 10 essential anime to watch. While I can't really say it's my favorite, I definitely think that it should be taken for more than it's face value of just another idol anime with fan service. Overall, I can say that I'm glad I invested my time in this series and hope that others may do the same.

Epilogue: "So is there more than that?"

So I can say now that this blog post was actually in progress over a pretty long period of time, written on & off over a period of 7 months. In that time, a lot of things have happened, including the expansion of Wake Up, Girls' sister group, Run Girls, Run (RGR), the announcement of the upcoming mobile game, and--unfortunately--the announcement of the disbandment of the real-life counterpart of WUG, the singing seiyuu unit. (By the same name of course)

To speak briefly on them, the girls share the first name with their animated counterparts and have had group activities outside of the anime including singing for anime openings and endings. They perform both these songs and songs from the show at their concerts. The members each have their own activities outside of the group which includes voice work in other popular Japanese mobile games such as Fate: Grand Order, Idolm@ster: Cinderella Girls, and Tokyo 7th Sisters. This disbandment is set to occur in March of 2019, so if you're going to be in Japan before or around that time, I'd recommend going to see them before time's up. Their live performances are definitely one of their strong points. If you can't make it before, then my point in this post still stands and I still firmly believe watching the show is something worthwhile even if it only changes peoples' perspectives a little.

[recentanimenews]

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Is Sweet Music to Our Ears

  When news of a Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem collaboration hit, most people seemed to initially assume it would be some sort of strategy game, like Fire Emblem, with SMT trappings, or a SMT style RPG featuring Fire Emblem in some way. With the popularity of the Persona series due to Persona 4 and the announcement of Persona 5, a lot of people’s thoughts were going in wild places. When Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE emerged, many people were rightfully a little confused about what the game actually was, or how it was even connected to either franchise, as it featured characters no one recognized in a third-person RPG world, centered mostly on… idols?! 

The reality is that TMS is greater than the sum of its initial parts, a fun and light RPG with nods to Fire Emblem characters and Persona-lite gameplay trappings. Unfortunately for the game, it was released towards the end of the Wii U’s lifecycle, meaning that a lot of gamers either never got a chance to play it, or easily overlooked the game on its initial release. With the release of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, however, Switch owners now have a chance to take this fantastic, unique RPG for a spin; and if you played it before, you’ll find that there’s still something new here for you, as well!

Following a mysterious mass disappearance 11 years ago, the game picks up with the spotlight on Itsuki Aoi, a somewhat bland but otherwise fine protagonist. He isn’t the silent type like SMT protagonists tend to be, and feels a bit more like the player insert character Robin from Fire Emblem Awakening; a character with a set personality that can be adjusted slightly through basic choices. Anime fans will likely pick up on a lot of the character tropes that the cast of TMS are putting down, from the dopey but genki Tsubasa Oribe to the hero-wannabe Touma Akagi, these are familiar characters that are easily likable and have great chemistry with each other. 

Itsuki and Tsubasa find themselves in trouble as an idol talent scout turns out to  be a trap to capture “Perfoma," a type of energy that humans possess, that the mysterious Mirages attempt to obtain for their own needs. By strokes of luck, Itsuki and Tsuaba prove to be Mirage Masters, able to control and bond with Mirages in order to battle against other Mirages, and these beings prove to be the Fire Emblem flavored link between the two game series; Itsuki partners with Chrom, while Tsubasa partners with Caeda. Other Fire Emblem series staple characters come into play as more Mirages appear, and even Tiki the dragon appears as an “uta-loid," a Mirage that also acts as a virtual idol like world famous performer Hatsune Miku. This is generally where the Fire Emblem connection ends, however, and for the most part TMS is a SMT-lite or Persona-lite RPG, with characters traversing the “Idolasphere” in between visiting real-world locations in areas of Tokyo, like Harajuku or the famous Scramble Crossing. 

The real plot of the game revolves around solving the mystery of the disappearances, their links to Mirages and Perfoma, and the individual characters striving to achieve their goals in the entertainment world, as everyone in your party is somehow connected to performance in some manner: Tsubasa wants to be an idol, other members are already idols, some are models, actors, managers, and other entertainment related jobs. TMS has a mini-social link system, like Persona, in which Itsuki’s interactions and choices with characters influences their goals and successes in their dream jobs; if you manage to achieve all of the links to success, the ending will change to reflect this as a bonus. 

Characters are lively and animated, and the game has a somewhat unique system of featuring characters as almost full body figures while they talk to you, with expressive facial features (Tsubasa’s “awawawa” shock face is my personal favorite!), and extra dialogue scenes related to side quests happen in a very amusing in-game re-creation of chat app LINE, complete with stickers. These little optional conversations are generally how Itsuki affects the social link options, but they also provide a fun view into how characters talk to one another, with group chats and solo chats appearing as the cast expands, making it feel similar to Vincent’s phone in Atlus’ Catherine series. Gameplay in dungeons works similar to Persona 3 and 4, with players piloting Itsuki around various dungeon maps, striking enemies for first hits, and then transitioning into lavish battle sequences that feature the game’s truly interesting battle system, specifically the Session System.

Battles are turn-based, and the SMT/Persona influence becomes very apparent here, as TMS feels very similar to Persona 4’s battle system (and, in retrospect, almost feels like it had some influence on later mainline game Persona 5’s system as well). The player has control of 3 characters, with Itsuki being a mainstay, and the other two swappable at any time during a battle. Finding enemy weaknesses is the main way to deal extra damage, and each enemy has a range of weaknesses to various physical and elemental damages. Unlike SMT, where weakness striking triggers turn skipping, TMS instead allows players that have discovered enemy weaknesses, and who have the corresponding skills on their various party members, to unleash powerful Session attacks, where multiple characters can attack out of turn sequence to devastate opponents. Exploiting Session abilities is key to survival in TMS, and in all honesty the game is fairly challenging at times, even on normal difficulty, meaning that players will need to stay on their toes and be mindful of what skills work best, when to be defensive, and when to swap party members to ensure victory. 

Pursuing character side stories unlocks more powerful abilities, called Duo Attacks, and even more abilities, Ad Libs, can be discovered as players progress further. While the story of TMS is light and fun, the battle system is where the real excitement lies, and this game ensures that players who enjoy SMT style combat will probably find a lot to love. Newcomers to the SMT sensibilities of RPGs will similarly find the game accessible and easier to understand than Persona games, as players aren’t required to worry about fusions or being killed in one hit by the enemy striking your new Persona’s weakness. Instead, as players explore the world, they can farm items from enemies that will allow them to continually unlock new weapons they can equip, letting their Mirages learn new abilities and skills that deepen their usefulness in combat. Having static weaknesses on your player characters lets you learn everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, and allows you to plan better as battles become more challenging, keeping things fresh and exciting.

Overall, the game looks great, and even though it originally came out on the Wii U in 2015, the game has aged very well in the transition to the Switch; in fact, the game looks fairly vibrant and gorgeous in a lot of cases, and the Switch seems to be able to pull out some of the beauty even better than the Wii U did. Travelling between the city scenes and Idolasphere dungeons are always colorful affairs, and the game really does try to make things seem alive and popping, even rendering faceless NPC characters in crowded scenes as rainbow-colored people, rather than grey shapes. Major dialogue in the game is also fully voiced, however there is no dub track to the game, meaning Japanese voices are the only option for audio. While the performances are all great, this does mean that people in need of English audio, or who may rely on non-Japanese audio cues, are a bit left in the lurch by this decision. The fairly barebones release of the game on the Wii U likely meant there was no dub planned, and this re-release seems to mostly work off of existing translations and assets from the original release. 

In general, this isn’t a big problem, but it is a bit of a bummer that the game isn’t quite as accessible as it could be due to the lack of dual audio options. Since music is a huge part of the game, players will be happy to find out that the OST and songs in the game are all fantastic, with some being homages to Fire Emblem music, and others being completely new arrangements and performances of unique songs made directly to tie in to the idol-focused nature of TMS. Audio and visual wise, TMS is a real treat for players, and the Switch seems to take advantage of both of these things far better than the Wii U did. 

If you already played TMS on Wii U, you’ll be excited to learn that there’s plenty of new things to explore, as Encore features new playable characters and side stories, expanding what you can do and see during the game. I found this to be a really welcome addition, but was surprised that it wasn’t really advertised very well; I actually had no idea until I was presented with options and characters I didn’t have in the original game. These new scenes are all great, and they really help flesh out the already fun cast by adding in some new changes and additions. 

Not only that, but each of them feels natural, meaning that you likely wouldn’t know what was new content or not if this were your first time to ever play the game. While there isn’t much other content added, all DLC for the original game is also included, making this version of TMS the superior and overall best version of the game. If you missed it on the Wii U, or you just want to play it again, pick up Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore for the Switch and engage with the truly weird and wonderful mash-up of idols, Fire Emblem, and Shin Megami Tensei. 

REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Lost sleeper hit gets a great new update and wider release.  

+ Game runs and looks great on modern hardware, and sounds great too.

+ Controls are simple and clean, with game systems being easy to understand and accessible.

+ Characters, story, and a unique world are all fun to interact with and experience.

+ Variable difficulty provides just the right level of challenge, and even on Normal can prove to be a test of wits!

- Lack of a dub track means that some people may have a harder time accessing the game and enjoying it fully. 

  Did you play the original Tokyo Mirage Sessions? Will this be your first Fire Emblem or Shin Megami Tensei game? Let us know what you think of the game in the comments!

    ----

Nicole is a frequent wordsmith for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

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