#maetel’s the best
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Fumito Ueda was inspired by… Galaxy Express 999 (1979).
Ueda has cited the Galaxy Express 999 manga series as one of his influences. Watching the film they made in the middle of its run, I could see a lot of Ico and also some Shadow of the Colossus.
It made me think of Gulliver’s Travels, Alice in Wonderland and Firefly as we follow the boy, Tetsuro, visiting different planets. On a planet called Titan, Tetsuro is given a gun by an old woman that turns out to be ‘the only cosmo gun capable of killing machine men’. Ueda's games feature special weapons that are uniquely effective against the antagonists.
Spoilers for the movie ahead!
It prefigures Ghost in the Shell. There's a character called Tochiro who, moments before his death, gets Tetsuro to activate a machine that vaporizes his body and transfers his consciousness into the supercomputer of his best friend's ship, 'Arcadia'. Maetel, one of two Yorda-like figures, explains to Tetsuro, "I am a copy of your mother in her youth. I am a shadow in the form of a human. When I grow old, I get a copy of a new body. That is how I survive through the ages and travel through time." Both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus feature characters whose bodies are vessels for other consciousnesses (Yorda for The Queen and Wander for Dormin). With the line ‘I had become a witch who controlled time’, it actually sounded more like a warning against plastic surgery.
The castle in the movie gets destroyed.
The other Yorda-like figure is Claire whose mother forced her to trade in her body for one made of glass. Her appearance is reminiscent of petrified Yorda and she has a power that makes her glow which she uses not to open Idol Gates but to save Tetsuro from Queen Promethium.
At the end, Maetel says to Tetsuro, ‘From now on, I will be a woman who lives on only in your memories. I will be nothing more than an illusion of your young boy’s heart, a phantom of your youth.’ The lyrics of 'You Were There' for me carry a similar feeling of nostalgia.
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The movie can be watched for free on YouTube.
#galaxy express 999#fumito ueda#ico#shadow of the colossus#phalanx#you were there#fleeting memories rise#from the shadows of my mind#shadow creatures#yorda#dark mother#self-sacrifice#tetsuro#my one and only friend#i loved you#long lost love#farewell days of youth#gulliver's travels#alice in wonderland#firefly#titan#ghost in the shell#arcadia#wander and mono#dormin#nimrod#time castle#queen promethium#idol gates#fumito ueda was inspired by
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CWZ Official Character Ages and Bios
Since I've seen it come up a couple times now, I went and found an archived version of the CWZ official site. Link in source if you want. It's wholesome to look at. I'll post the machine-translated bios for the major characters under the cut, which includes their official ages.
Warrius Zero (27 years old) is a true soldier who is obstinate in his samurai spirit. He is easily misunderstood because of his impulsive and clumsy behavior, but he is also very compassionate and his iron-clad beliefs are purely straightforward. He is also a stubborn person who will not accept anything unless he sees, experiences, and is convinced of it himself. Currently, as the commander of the Earth Federation, he is trying to kill Harlock. Zero will travel through space aboard the battleship Karyu, which is equipped with a powerful weapon called the St. Elmo Cannon, while also dealing with the conflict between the human and mechanized crew members. From now on, as he fights with Harlock and his friends, they will come to know that even though they are rivals and cannot get along because of their different positions, they are aiming for the same thing, and a relationship of trust will be born. Zero will carve out his own future with his own beliefs, something that Harlock and his friends cannot do because they do not live with mechanized people.
Young Harlock (23 years old) Despite his cool appearance, he is passionate and loyal. In his younger days, Harlock built his own ship and traveled the oceans of space, training as a warrior. He was just starting to distinguish himself as a pirate in the universe, and he was also Zero's strongest enemy. He shares the same beliefs as Zero but is torn between mechanized humans and humans and refuses to give up and fights for coexistence. Harlock, on the other hand, loves freedom and fights unrestrainedly based on his own beliefs. How will the battle end?
Great Samurai Tochiro (21 years old) is energetic and reckless. He's terrible with guns, but his sword skills are top-notch. He is a great Sarmata monster whose motto is "talentless, cannibalistic, harmless."[???] He is said to be the best engineer in the universe and created the ship of their dreams, the Arcadia. In preparation for the future, he travels through space to make further improvements to the Arcadia. He is also Harlock's best friend and shares Harlock's way of life. He is an outsider who can only live clumsily, but the way he charges ahead recklessly on the path he believes in is refreshing.
Lady Emeraldas (22 years old) Owner of Queen Emeraldas. Tochiro's lover. Emeraldas in her younger days was also a warrior with incredible strength... A female pirate who is sometimes called an ice woman or a witch because of her extreme nature. However, deep inside her heart flows a passionate soul, and she is also a kind woman who watches over Tochiro's dreams. Having found herself in the midst of her fateful battle, she is now searching for the mystery behind the construction of her ship, the Queen Emeraldas.
Marina Oki (22 years old) graduated from the Space Defense University with excellent grades and is a talented girl who is on the elite course. At first, she tries to apply military discipline according to the textbook, but due to lack of practice, she often fails. However, she earns everyone's trust in her own way. And she begins to have a slight crush on Zero because of his upright way of life. However, she sometimes behaves strangely, and it seems that she has a secret...
Maetel (Maetel in her blue years) knows what it means to change from white to the blue of sadness, and then to the black of darkness. By traveling along the many rails of sadness, Maetel is gradually stained by the sadness of misfortune. For Maetel, who is no different from the Extrasolar Galaxy Government Headquarters that brings misfortune to Earth, meeting Zero as her savior will likely lead her to find hope. No one knows where Maetel went after this. Did she go to the future Earth of hope that Zero created, or to the future Earth of sadness?
#Cosmo Warrior Zero#Warrius Zero#Captain Harlock#Tochiro Oyama#Emeraldas#Maetel#Marina Oki#Obviously you should headcanon their ages however you feel.#I am not out here trying to be a cop haha just reference for fun
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Wendy, Son. 🦢
⃝웬디
GENERAL INFORMATION
BIRTH NAME: Shon Seung-wan
HANGUL: 손승완
NICKNAME(S): Olaf
BIRTH DATE: February 21, 1994 (age 29)
BIRTH PLACE: Seongbuk-dong, Seoul, South Korea
HEIGHT: 160.3 cm (5 ft 3 in)[1]
WEIGHT: 46 kg (101 lb)
BLOOD TYPE: O
♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚。⋆ | ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
OCCUPATION
JOB: Singer, Songwriter, Actress
POSITION: Main Vocalist
COLOR: Blue
YEARS ACTIVE: 2014–present
AGENCY: SM Entertainment
ASSOCIATED ACTS: Red Velvet, SM Rookies
♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚。⋆ | ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Do everything to your best ability with a positive mindset.
-WENDY
♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚。⋆ | ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Shon Seung-wan (Hangul:손승완; born February 21, 1994), better known as Wendy (Hangul: 웬디), is a South Korean singer, songwriter, and actress. She is the main vocalist of the South Korean girl group Red Velvet.
♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚。⋆ | ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Wendy was born as Shon Seung-wan in Seongbuk-dong, Seoul, South Korea. Her family consists of her parents, an affluent couple whose names haven't been revealed to the public, and her sister, Son Seung-hee, who is three years Wendy's senior. Wendy spent most of her childhood years in Cheongju, South Korea.
Wendy aspired to become a singer from the age of six and throughout her life trained to fulfill this goal. She also learned to play the saxophone, piano, flute, and guitar.
At the age of 12, Wendy and her sister moved to live in Canada, and later the USA. Whilst living in North America, Wendy began using the name Wendy Shon and learned to speak English, as well as some French and Spanish. For her education in these countries, she attended Shattuck St Mary's School in Minnesota, USA, and Richmond Hill High School in Ontario, Canada.
After graduating high school in 2012, she moved to South Korea to establish a professional singing career. Prior to this in 2010, she auditioned for the "Koreaboo: Cube Entertainment Global Auditions 2011" with an online audition and was picked from over 5,000 videos by Koreaboo and Cube Entertainment to continue to the final round in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. G.NA personally picked the 15 finalists with Koreaboo to open for her first solo showcase, held in Vancouver, BC, Canada. In 2012, she auditioned at the SM Global Audition in Canada and was recognized for her musicality, being able to play several instruments, as well as having strong vocal skills.
♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧⋆⭒˚。⋆ | ˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
Career
2014: Pre-debut activities
She trained for less than two years before she was introduced as a member of SM Entertainment's pre-debut trainees team SM Rookies on March 14, 2014
As part of SM Rookies, Wendy released the song "Because I Love You" for the soundtrack of the Mnet drama Mimi, which was one of the soundtracks of the Mnet drama series, Mimi, which labelmate Changmin starred in, appearing in the music video as well. A clip of Wendy singing a cover of Taylor Swift's "Speak Now" was released on SM Entertainment's official YouTube channel.
2014–2019: Debut with Red Velvet, stage accident
In late-July 2014, Wendy was assigned to represent the color blue and chosen to be the main vocalist of Red Velvet, which debuted on August 1, 2014 with the single "Happiness".
Wendy collaborated with rapper Yuk Ji-dam for the song "Return", one of the OSTs of KBS2's drama Who Are You: School 2015. The song was released on June 8, 2015 and debuted at #31 on the Gaon Singles Chart. She released another song "Let You Know" for the soundtrack of the JTBC drama D-Day on October 16. On January 9, 2016, she became a panelist on We Got Married. On King of Mask Singer (episode 43 aired on January 24, 2016), she participated as a contestant with the stage name "Space Beauty Maetel". Wendy released a collaboration single with Eric Nam titled "Spring Love" on March 4, 2016, as part of SM Entertainment's SM Station project.
On December 25, 2019, Wendy fell from a raised stage while rehearsing for a performance on the year-end show SBS Gayo Daejeon. She fell approximately 2.5 meters (8.2ft) and received multiple injuries, including a broken wrist, fractured pelvis, a cracked cheekbone, and other unspecified facial and bodily injuries. Wendy was subsequently on hiatus for over a year while she recovered.
2021: Return to activities, Wendy's Youngstreet, GOT the beat
On January 1, 2021, Wendy's health hiatus official ended and she returned to idol activities.
On July 12, 2021, Wendy became the DJ host for SBS Power FM's radio show Wendy's Youngstreet, adopting the DJ name "WanD". The show ran for almost two years, until July 2, 2023.
On December 27, 2021, Wendy was revealed alongside Seulgi as one of the members of GOT the beat, the first unit of the project group Girls On Top.[2] The unit debuted on January 3, 2022 with the digital single "Step Back".
2023: First musical role
On June 19, 2023, Wendy confirmed that she had been cast in the role of "I" in the musical Rebecca. She performed from August 19–November 19, 2023.
Filmography
Since her debut, Wendy has appeared on the variety shows, We Got Married, King of Masked Singer, Trick and True, Raid the Convenience Store and Battle Trip. She made a cameo in the series, Descendants of the Sun and made an appearance in the documentary, SMTown: The Stage.
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I watched “The Cockpit” last night, which is a 3 episode OVA from 1993 based on a manga by Leiji Matsumoto. What’s notable about is that each episode tells a different story about an axis soldier during WWII. Leiji Matsumoto, for those who don’t recognize the name, was a famous mangaka with a very distinct art style, best known from Galaxy Express 999, Space Battleship Yamamoto, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, and in the west for Interstella 5555.
Anyways, the first episode was titled Slipstream. It had the most promising premise but ended up being the least interesting. Plot is that Germany has developed the atomic bomb first, and is getting ready to test it. A luftwaffe ace named Erhadt is tasked with escorting the bomb to Peenemünde. However, he encounters his old flame who has been working on the project, and of course she looks exactly like Maetel from Galaxy Express 999, she convinces him that it would be better for humanity if the atomic bomb was destroyed on route to the test site. Yaddya yaddya yaddya, he lets the bomb get destroyed by enemy fighters on purpose, the end. This episode is extremely melodramatic in typical Leiji fashion, if you know you know.
Episode 2 was titled Sonic Boom Squandron and follows Ensign Nogami, a kamikaze Ohka pilot who fails his first mission by being the only survivor of the bomber he was on. He gets assigned to a new bomber, and talks with the new crew about how he wished to have been the rocket scientist and to be the first man on the moon, but now because of the war he has essentially turned himself into a rocket. Of course there is also a tall weepy woman he has feelings for, though this time Leiji resisted making her blonde. Anyways, next day comes, and he proudly and successfully kamikazes himself into an American aircraft carrier. Somehow the photo of the woman he loves ends up on the bridge of the American ship, and the captain says that Japanese must be crazy, he then receives a call report that an atomic bomb has just been dropped on Hiroshima, shortly before the ship explodes. They make a big deal in this episode by talking about how the Ohka was a highly feared weapon by the allies and that once launched from their parent bomber they were essentially unstoppable by allied countermeasures. This is incredibly false, American forces derisively referred to the Ohka as a “Baka Bomb” and most of them never reached their targets because they were usually intercepted. I also want to point out here that Hiroshima was bombed on August 6 1945 and the last documented Kamikaze attack using Ohkas was on June 22 1945, and they were all shot down before reaching their targets.
Episode 3 is titled Knight of the Iron Dragon, and was surprisingly my favorite of the 3. It follows two privates in the Imperial Japanese Army during the battle of Leyte. One is an old geezer and the other is a young boy, the younger one has a motorcycle (the titular iron dragon), and is determined to make it back to his comrades, the older fella decides to accompany him in the side car, even though they both secretly know it’s already too late. I think I liked this episode the best because it lacks much of the melodrama of the first episode and isn’t strangely propagandistic like the second. For example this episode treads similar ground to the last episode, they are both about Japanese soldiers carrying out suicide missions at the end of the war, but in this episode the mission really is portrayed more of a Quixotic act of folly, unlike episode 2 where the dude takes out a fucking aircraft. The only kinda notably weird thing in this one is there is a part where they get false flag attacked by an American piloting a Japanese plane, which like I can’t find any documented evidence of that being a thing, and the idea of doing a false flag attack in an active war zone when your side has an overwhelming advantage seems like a good way to just get yourself friendly fired.
Overall the animation was great, but the writing was kinda meh. They deal with controversial subject matter, and but the only one that actually felt a little questionable was the second episode which portrayed the Ohka as a desperate but highly effective weapon when in reality it was an abject failure, also the way the crew of the bomber proudly cheer Nogami on as he launches is like probably historically accurate maybe but it’s still is kinda bruhhh. Also while it was based a manga, each episode was directed by a different director, so without having read the manga I can’t say how accurate this OVA is to Leiji’s vision. So yeah idk, if you like anime and WWII, or strange OVAs from the 1990s, I would recommend it I guess.
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What I Watched This Week – 11/12 – 11/18
Chrono Crusade – I’ve been vaguely aware of this series basically since it came out in the US, and just had never gotten around to watching it. Now that I have seen it, I can’t figure out for the life of me how this was as popular or enduring as it has been, because it really wasn’t very good. The main character, a young nun who belongs to a militaristic church order that exterminates demons, is just breathtakingly stupid, and much of the plot relies on her carelessness, recklessness, and general thoughtlessness creating problems that turn into dramatic situations. It’d be one thing if the story didn’t take itself too seriously and played all of this off as comedy, but considering the serious tone of the ending and the straight-faced action sequences, it really felt like it wanted me to feel the suspense of a girl getting kidnapped by the big bad after the brain geniuses at the religious order tasked the main character they’re constantly berating for being incompetent with her protection.
In addition to the writing being pretty amateurish, the visuals are nothing to write home about, and they capture basically nothing about Catholicism beyond an extremely surface aesthetic. Anime just completely cannot tell the difference between the insides of Catholic churches and Protestant ones, and always have their sexy gun nuns running around these plain-walled, saint-statue-free brick meeting houses that are Episcopal at best. 5/10
Galaxy Express 999 Ep. 101-113 – I started watching this back in the spring, and decided this would be the perfect anime to make my 999th completed entry on MAL. That mark rolled around this past week, and it became time to say goodbye to Tetsurou and Maetel and their journey across the universe. It was a fun little episodic series made up of one- to two-episode long vignettes about the people they met on the planets the train stopped at along the journey to the Andromeda galaxy to get Tetsurou a mechanical body. I enjoyed the creative and fantastical approach to sci-fi, never bothering itself too much with how anything could be possible, and just doing it and wondering how that would play out.
As much as I liked the idea of riding a train across space and opening the windows to feel the breeze, and as weird and wonderful as many of the planets were, the one thing about this series that keeps it from being a favorite of mine is its fairly conservative politics. Many of the vignettes were pretty didactic with a clear moral to them, and that moral often stressed the dignity of work, or how giving money to the poor just makes them lazy, or that if people had machines to do work for them they’d become deathly indolent and fat. It wasn’t a poison pill obviously, or I wouldn’t have watched over a hundred episodes of it, but I did often feel like I was talking to my boomer mother. 7/10
Belladonna of Sadness – I was fishing around for ideas of what to watch for my 1000th completed anime, and somebody suggested watching something I wouldn’t usually think to watch that would be memorable one way or the other. That comment immediately shook this title of my mind, because what could be more memorable than a 50-year-old arthouse anime about rape and witchcraft? In the loosest terms, the story follows a medieval peasant woman named Jeanne and her husband Jean and her rocky life of trials and devilish temptation in the aftermath of the local lord gang-raping her on her wedding night. The movie is made up of a mixture of watercolor and oil paint stills, as well as bursts of abstract animation that convey more of a vibe or a feeling rather than specific actions, making it feel more like a dream than a story. It was sometimes difficult to watch, as the rape is very much on-screen and center stage despite being depicted abstractly, and not all of the experimental flourishes feel purposeful or meaningful, but it’s definitely a movie I’ll be thinking about for a long time. 7/10
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With my very best friend Valenth Gurian @y-yorle (∩‘꒳’∩)
#ffxiv#ff14#ffxiv a realm reborn#ffxiv heavensward#ffxiv stormblood#(t)wmbf#(t)rolling#lich server#valenth&maetel#maetel’s the best#valenth’s (almost) the best#ffxiv arr#ffxiv screenshots
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maetel
best waifu from 1978
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Reblog if Maetel (Galaxy Express 999) is best girl.
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tagged by @stickers-on-a-laptop!
Fave colour: Teal
Currently reading: Started a little bit of my first volume of Rose of Versailles, same with the OG Kamen Rider manga
Last song: Hateno Village from the Botw ost
Last series: Kamen Rider Den-O (I am also watching Donbros, but the last episode I saw of something was an episode of Den-O I saw the other day, but I am watching both.)
Last movie: Dead stream
Currently working on: Got a few fic wips I need to finish up and a couple art wips for a project I can’t say much else about right now
share 10 different favorite characters from ten different pieces of media in no particular order, then tag 10 people 🎥🎬📺
1. Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO - This bird has truly perched himself in my brain, the bird of all time. I love this asshole (affectionate)
2. Link from Zelda - My original Blorbo, could gush about him for weeks if enabled
3. Maya from Captain Harlock (Arcadia of My Youth) - I love her and she deserves so much more
4. Bright Noa from Og 1979 Gundam - This poor guy really is doing his best to mantain a ship full of children being sent out to war and the dude is only fuckign 19
5. Minako from Sailor Moon - If you had to make me pick a sailor scout as my favorite, it’d be her. Though I really adore them all
6. Dr. Kiriko from Black Jack - My only exposure to him right now is his one episode in the Dezaki OVAs but I love this trash doctor man
7. Maetel from Galaxy Express 999 - Maetel my beloved
8. Nico Robin from One Piece - Her backstory always gets to me
9. Yuri from Dirty Pair - I love Kei too but she’s definetly my favorite of the pair
10. Zox Goldtweaker from Zenkaiger - The latest pirate blorbo in my collection of pirate blorbos. He yo-ho-hoyed into my heart and brain
@carmypen @kanohivolitakk @neckspike @toku-fangirl-2015 @heavvymetalqueen @demiurgicfeline @violetlou2020 @cennydd-bookwyrm @sastheforestspirit @ceeceeforeigngeek0927 (no pressure either! do it if you feel like!)
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Drew Maetel (reference picture included) yesterday on stream.
Realised it’s been like 3 years since I last did traditional so it’s not the best-
I’d drawn this yesterday before I watched Galaxy Express 999 but sheberight-
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30 days manga challenge
day 6. A Manga You’re Embarrassed About Liking
I’m not embarrassed of my taste... So I’ll twist the question into : A manga you love even if it’s objectively not that good
Rinjin 13-gou (Neighbor No.13) ! By Santa Inoue (who happens to be Taiyou Matsumoto’s cousin by the way).
It’s about a man with a split personality due to trauma, as he was heavily bullied as a child. He seeks revenge on his former bully, who is now his coworker and neighbor.
I’ve read Neighbor no.13 twice by now, and I genuinely enjoy it. Yet I’m still unsure if some of the things I love about it are actually intentional on the author’s part or not.
Let’s start with the most obvious: the odd art style. Santa Inoue is not best artist, the characters have weird proportions, their faces don’t look very good either...The hands are really badly drawn sometimes…
He doesn’t have a good grasp on perspectives either and the backgrounds sometimes just look plain wrong.
The art looks amateurish, and the whole manga feels like Inoue drew it alone without assistants (I don’t know if that is really the case or not).
Oh, and he also sometimes reuses the exact same panels several times, in a way that is quite jarring :
Yet the clumsiness, and weirdness of the art is perfect for the story.
Neighbor No.13 was published in 1993, and looking at Inoue’s more recent manga, he made huuge progress in drawing, and his current more realistic style makes me think his earlier clumsiness was not wanted as part of his artstyle.
↑ His art nowadays
Yet in my opinion it had its own charm. Honestly I think Neighbor no.13 would be nowhere as good with clean and neat art.
It feels like genuine, unintentional Heta-uma (bad yet genius). The weird perspectives just work really well with the theme of mental disturbance, and insanity of the main character.
The environment feels unstable, with objects changing sizes from panel to panel for example.
↑ The size of this building changes in every panel. But here, the fact that it looks higher in the panel where the character is falling works well for dramatic effect.
And while his skills are not the best, one has to commend Santa Inoue for not staying in a comfort zone of easy things to draw.
There are plenty of authors who are not the best artists and just get away with drawing as little background as possible, and by drawing the characters in the same frontal angles…whereas Santa Inoue does a lot of foreshortening, audacious camera angles, and draws detailed backgrounds that draw the reader’s eye (with lots of flashy decorations and details in the characters homes.)
The naive art also fits the soft protagonist (when he is not his alter No.13) and the sometimes unrealistic plot, as the characters’ behaviors are at times a bit hard to believe, and some stuff seems too far-stretched, especially at the end.
Neighbor no.13 oscillates between taking itself seriously and a more humorous approach. I felt that the humor and the parts actually meant to be scary or serious are not always balanced well. At some point, two totally useless joke characters were introduced (one of them is a Maetel parody), and they just kind of make it hard to take anthing seriously.
Moreover the end of the manga is confusing and not very satisfactory in my opinion.
But as flawed as Neighbor No.13 might be, I’m still very fond of it.
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RECS: What To Finally Tackle On Your New Year’s Watchlist
The recent holiday and New Year’s season might feel longer than usual — so why not take the time to check out these series that go beyond your typical 24-episode series run? If you’re already caught up with your favorite long-running anime or are finally deciding it’s time to tackle those “must-see” shows that have been sitting on your watchlist for years, here’s your starting point. For housekeeping, this list only covers anime that run anywhere from 30 to 100+ episodes, including multiple seasons. A complicated plot, a big setting, and a wide cast of characters aren’t always necessary for a long-running anime. These series that push their episode count may even seem daunting for new fans. From slice-of-life comedies to monster-of-the-week science fiction and angsty teen romance, this list hopefully exemplifies why you shouldn’t turn your nose up at something that is “too long” or “retro.”
Galaxy Express 999 (1978-1981)
Episodes: 113
Set in a future where human bodies can be exchanged for high-priced immortal cyborg bodies, the poor and needy seek out tickets aboard the legendary Galaxy Express 999 in hope of attaining a robotic replacement. Adapted from Leiji Matsumoto’s 1977 manga, this series is a scenic romp across the stars on various planets with their own (sometimes existentialist) personalities.
Testurou, a young boy, accompanies a mysterious woman named Maetel on this dangerous journey. Masako Ikeda’s performance as Maetel adds a layer of allure and mystery to a tight-knit cast of characters. In fact, you can hardly take anything for granted on the space frontier given the oftentimes Twilight Zone-esque twists. Galaxy Express 999’s episodic angle makes it easy to follow without worrying about overcomplicated continuity. While a space opera in spirit, the emphasis on the human-cyborg differences never strays too far from Testurou and Maetel’s unique perspectives. Fans of series like Cowboy Bebop and Kaiba should find themselves right at home on this long-haul.
Dear Brother (1991-1992)
Episodes: 39
Source: RetroCrush
This adaptation of Ryoko Ikeda’s classic manga Onii-sama E... is a melodramatic, marathon gut-punch about high-schooler Nanako joining a sorority at the prestigious Seriran Academy. Each episode’s brilliant screenplay showcases the emotional and psychic realism in Ikeda’s characters; nothing’s there without a purpose. Although best remembered as a cornerstone of the yuri genre, director Osamu Dezaki’s contemporary stylization of ‘70s romance with ‘90s anime aesthetics makes Dear Brother a must-watch for any fan. Who is the titular brother? Who will kiss who? Will Nanako pass cooking class??
Of course, this series also heavily draws from Dezaki’s ‘80s adaptation of Ikeda’s famous Rose of Versaille manga. Dear Brother notably features Dezaki’s iconic "postcard memory" technique for the best climatic effect — nothing makes the lives of schoolgirls more dramatic than a museum-quality painted freeze-frame of someone getting face-slapped in homeroom. Like any Jane Austen novel preoccupied with the nuances of gender and women’s lives, you’ll be sucked into this intricate social web of betrayal, growing pains, and forbidden love in no time.
Natsume Yujin-Cho (ongoing)
Episodes: 39+
Takashi Natsume is a loner, but not by choice. He sees dead people. Or rather — persistent spirits who won’t leave him the hell alone. Adapted from Yuki Midorikawa’s ongoing manga series, Natsume Yujin-Cho is another episodic series focused on one main character and a small supporting cast. But how do you tell a slice-of-life story with a character so skeptical of intimacy? Thankfully, his grandmother, Reiko, kept a “Book of Friends” — aka a supernatural, pen and paper friends list to keep him busy.
The holidays can be a lonely time for some, and loneliness, too, is a recurring problem for Natsume. Rather than putting its protagonist in the spotlight, this series spins its unwilling hero into an opportunity to showcase everyday people’s relationship with folklore, religion, and the past. Like a more mature serialized GeGeGe no Kitaro, Natsume is a wholesome story about a boy learning to empathize with yōkai and humans alike. Cozy up under the covers and keep company with this series if you don’t mind the occasional ghostly chill.
YuruYuri (ongoing)
Episodes: 32+
Middle school is an awkward time to make new friends, especially if you don’t particularly stick out. At first glance, YuruYuri seems like any other slice-of-life school comedy with cute girls doing cute things. But beneath that veneer is a cast of characters constantly defying social expectations, acting rowdy, and being as inappropriate as anyone else was back in their adolescent school days. This is less slice-of-life and more of a pie-of-life thrown in your face.
YuruYuri is a series that takes its gags and running jokes very seriously. This doesn’t necessarily make its cast seem flat or two-dimensional — in fact, most of the humor derives from the girls not acting their age. While your mileage may vary, YuruYuri's love for callbacks, comedic timing, and of course, the yuri genre itself, is hard not to admire. Fans of slice-of-life series like K-On! and Genshiken should definitely check this one out. The YuruYuri manga by author Namori began serialization in 2008 has been on hiatus since 2011, but if you still can't get enough of taking it easy, plenty of YuruYuri OVA and web specials are on standby.
GTO - The Animation (1999-2000)
Episodes: 43
GTO - The Animation is definitely from another time — a time where you definitely didn’t portray controversial subjects in a high school setting. Eikichi Onizuka is a former-gangster-turned-teacher who takes his student’s troubles to heart … even if that means resorting to less than sane solutions. Onizuka’s (albeit misguided) mission to marry one of his students becomes an afterthought once he becomes a full-time teacher hired to wrangle delinquents, drop-outs, and dastardly teens. Although the trope of “cool teacher reforms his classroom” is cliche today, Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO) is confident enough to take Onizuka out of class to battle his own personal demons. It dares us not to literally wonder what a “great teacher” is, but what makes a great man who learns from his mistakes.
As a heavily character-driven show, GTO doesn’t have the privilege of treating its homeroom students like disposable monsters-of-the-week. From an adult’s perspective, it provides a robust, humanized portrayal of those working in education. From anyone younger, it definitely fulfills the fantasy of high school being a much cooler place. That’s not the only thing that makes GTO notable — it inadvertently launched a genre of live-action dramas (including an adaptation) about edgy teachers and their bad apples. Most importantly, GTO never loses sight of Onizuka himself. Despite being a seemingly standard “high school anime,” over its 43 episodes, GTO clearly becomes a story about the existential crisis of being in your 20s. What happens to these kids after they graduate? Is there such a thing as being too rebellious? If you’re feeling nostalgic or want to emulate hearing your weird uncle’s old stories, please take a seat and let charismatic Mr. Onizuka instruct you in life lessons you never knew existed.
And remember, take it easy! Let us know what you're planning to watch this year ~
Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more. There is no yuri bias here, nope.
Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!
By: Blake Planty
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I downloaded the Tubi app on my TV and I’ve been watching/revisiting a lot of anime.
Lupin III: The original, green jacket series. Despite only being 23 episodes, I always ended up dropping this series. I don’t know why. I love it, but something always happens and I stop watching it. This has going on for over 10 years. Anyway, I finally finished it last week! While red jacket will always be *the* Lupin series for me, green jacket isn’t far behind. I think the stories are a bit more interesting, and I really love the more somber, adult mood of the first half. The Miyazaki episodes are really good too, but I missed the pulp aspect from the earlier episodes. I also really dig the roughness of the animation, and the music is top notch. The episode with the time traveler was my favorite. I think Lupin is at it’s best when the plots are surreal and trippy.
Ronin Warriors: OH BOY. I haven’t actively watched this show in AGES. I originally watched it as a kid when it was on Toonami. The dub is really impressive. Aside from some weird name changes, it’s virtually uncensored and has a pretty faithful adaptation. It’s funny to me how series like Dragon Ball Z, and Sailor Moon were so heavily censored and Ronin Warriors was like “fuck it, who cares?”. The series still takes place in Japan. Most Japanese names are kept. Original music is still there. Characters can mention death and even die. There’s even nudity left in! Killer. I will say, the first story arc is INSANELY dragged out. But the characters are a lot of fun, especially the villains. Also this series terrified me as a child (namely Talpa and his nether spirits) and still kinda does. Kento is bae.
Alien Nine: I watched this as a teenager back in the day, and I barely remembered it. I rewatched this last night. The premise is good, and the production values are nice (I can’t believe this is early digital animation, because it looks REALLY good, aside from the CGI). But, the series is definitely catered to grown men who enjoy watching young female characters suffer. Like I’m sure grown ass men who loved this, went on to adore shit like Madoka. It’s a shame because it’s a pretty good series, but the creepy loli aspect is hard to ignore. I don’t think I’ll pursue the manga.
Galaxy Express 999: Another series I’ve seen bits and pieces of, but never finished. I’m on episode 5. I love almost everything about the show, but... the writing kinda sucks? At least after episode 1. I thought the first episode was great, but the following episodes have had really bad pacing. The episode with Clare being a prime example. Apparently it gets better, so I’m gonna try to stick with it. The animation is also kinda... eh. I’m used to inconsistent animation styles, but it sticks out wayyy too much here, mostly because it’s a Leiji Matsumoto series. Maetel goes from looking like a Leiji-style heroine to a random anime girl on and off. It’s jarring.
Devilman Lady: I binged the first half of the series a couple of months ago, and I’m resuming it now. This is such an underrated series. It feels more like an adaptation of Devilman, rather than the Devilman Lady. The new transfer is beautiful. There are a lot of unintentionally funny scenes (Jun buying a bunk bed for her and Kazumi, LOL) but the show gets legitimately scary in places. The soundtrack is well done, AND utilized perfectly. Konaka needs to do another horror series.
Anyway, just my rambles on what anime I’m currently watching!
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Nature documentary narrators are the best. (maetel)
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My 2021 Winter Break Watch List
It has been a long year under the influence of Coronavirus, and my life has been totally out of schedule.
Now that school is over and I have a whole month at my own disposal - I declare that I'm gonna work hard! And do my best to watch all the anime I've been looking forward to in the past year >:0
So currently I'm in love with two universes.
One is, of course, the Digimon multiverse.
Watching Digimon has been my summer / winter main activity in the past few years.
In 2018 winter I was rewatching Digimon Adventure, then in 2019 summer Digimon Adventure 02, then Digimon Tamers in 2019 winter... And of course, I finished Digimon Frontier this summer. And I have almost finished Digimon Savers by now!
But I want to speed up the schedule a little bit since I recently started obsessing over appmons and I want to finish DXW asap so that I can jump into Appmon XD
I know I don't have to watch in order, but I want to feel the development of the series.
So for Digimon, my plan is:
Finish the last 3 episodes of Savers - Actually, I'm gonna finish them today.
Finish the first two seasons of Digimon Xros Wars (DXW), so that's a total of 54 episodes.
If possible, finish the last season of DXW as well. But I don't think that would be reasonable.
So I have two friends who are Digimon fans in real life. One of them loves DXW the most, the other hates it the most XD. So I'm really interested. So far I've had a great experience with all past Digimon seasons (and most of the movies).
My ranking would be: DT > 02 > DA = DF > DS. I would discuss the ranking in detail in another post.
Aside from the 54 episodes of DXW, I also need to watch the movie for Savers :D It would be perfect to watch it on New Year's night.
Now, let me introduce - Leijiverse.
Leijiverse is a really old IP, older than my mom, something that belongs to the generation of my grandpa. It was first created in 1977 by Leiji Matsumoto(松本 零士)when the old TV series Space Pirate Captain Harlock was released. The series then evolved with the introduction of Galaxy Express 999, Queen Millennium, Queen Emeraldas, and Maetel Legend, etc.
Captain Harlock, as far as I know, is probably the most iconic pirate captain in history. Many many heroic pirates in the future would use him as a prototype. I think the design of CaptainHookmon in Digimon is also a reference to him. (Yes, unlike Captain Hook, CaptainHookmon is a heroic pirate with a quest for justice like Captain Harlock.)
I jumped into the series from Galaxy Express 999. This kinda messes up the watch order. The following is the release order but the bold part is the ones I have watched:
Space Pirate Captain Harlock (1978)
Galaxy Express 999 (1978)
Galaxy Express 999 Movie (1979)
Adieu Galaxy Express 999: Andromeda Terminal Station (1981)
Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy (1998)
Queen Millennium (1982)
Queen Emeraldas (1998)
Maetel Legend (2000)
Space Symphony Maetel (2004)
Yeh... Of course, the timeline is different. Queen Millenium's stories happened first, then it's the generation of Emeraldas, Maetel, and Harlock, and eventually Tetsuro's story in 999. But I always prefer to watch in the order of release date instead of the real timeline.
I want to pretend I have grown up with that series, and I want to see how the creators developed those ideas, which ones they explored deeper and which ones they abandoned, which ones were successful and which ones were not... Stuff like then.
To restore order to the Leijiverse (?) I decided to finish the 42-episode Captain Harlock TV series - the first piece to be created in the series! And I surely need to finish the last movie of Galaxy Express 999.
(So far my favorite character in the series is the train itself hhhh)
So in summary, after I finish Savers tonight, I will start watching 3 episodes a day (probably DXW first then Harlock, but it depends on my mental state). My winter break lasts until February, so I will have 35 days to go and a total of 96 episodes to watch!
But keep in mind that aside from the 96 episodes, I also have 2 movies and the weekly Digimon Adventure reboot to watch, and a ton of reviews to write if they both turn out to be GOOD.
So I guess this is gonna be a harsh but interesting winter >:[
#digimon#leijiverse#watchlist#my anime list#anime list#plan to watch#2021 winter anime#2021 watch list#winter break watch list#review
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Dangerous speed 60 trio I always choose only water starters because I love water-type pokemon. Among them, these slow pals were the best ace in each party of them, and even my PvP battle team. - Yuri (Swampert) : male. Quiet-nature. The stoic, intellectual mud fish who loves reading books. He is very good at cooking, and takes care of many baby pokemons with loving mind. Because of these, everyone loves him. His name, Yuri is common Russian masculine name.(Ex: Yuri Gagarin, Yuri Zhivago) Absolutely NOT Japanese. Maetel (Empoleon) : female. Brave-nature. Despite her cold looking, she is a little bit aggressive and loves fighting. So make sure not to mess with her as she gets angry easily. The energetic penguin though. Actually, her trident-like horn is removable like mask. So if this mask were removed or lost, she would lose her energy and become pessimist like this. She is named after Maetel from <Galaxy Express 999>. Ciel (Primarina) : female. Relaxed-nature. This carefree, and lax sea lion loves sour tropical fruit juice. She likes using her bubble to play a joke on her friends. Maybe she is good entertainer of everyone. Because she has the same slow speed stat as Yuri and Maetel, they became close friends.
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