#this talk is also a yuri visual novel recommendation (kind of) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

masterhandss · 4 years ago

Text

‘My Next Life as A Villainess’ Anime is over...

SO WHAT NOW???

A lot of us are disappointed that Katarina’s adventures are finally over, and a lot of us are gonna miss watching the wacky hi-jinks of our dense villainess. I’ve seen a lot of people say that they will stop posting or paying attention to hamefura after the anime ends, and while I might be the same to some extent, I just want to say that there are still a lot of hamefura things to look forward to after the anime ends!

These are actually some very obvious things to look forward to, but you know I’d still like to share them so you can use them to fill the hole in your heart that the anime left behind.

-------

Edit: (9/30/20) I added stuff, as well as a cut for all yall who says my posts are too long qwq

The Manga

Hamefura still has an on-going manga that is currently in Chapter 3 of the Light Novels! A lot of you already read it, and understand that it can get frustrating when there’s a lack of updates on the english side of things, but if you’re really curious, you can go over and check out the JP releases every month so you can have an idea of whats to come for the manga :DD (The fan translation of ENG Chapter 26 came out a few days ago so you know it’s not dead!!)

I’d recommend reading the english translation on Mangadex, since most translation groups officially upload their translation on there.

The Spin-off (Hametsuo/Bakarina Alter)

It deserves it’s own category for just how unique it is in terms of its reception in the western crowd. I know a lot of people probably read it, but I guess people barely talk about because it’s not really that far into it’s premise yet.

I just can’t stop recommending this manga to people (despite not going where I thought it’d be) because of how good the art-style is and how much promise it has. It updates monthly, which I know is a long wait, but it does pay off when you see the quality of everything. Plus it’s just fun to imagine how hamefura would go if it followed the typical “villainess otome isekai” format.

I actually love talking about hametsuo, so maybe my posts are woth the look ;; w ;;

The Light Novels

credits to @sparckle-art for the scans!

I’m happy to read that a lot of people are gonna go switch and buy the light novels after the anime ends! By the time the anime ends, the Vol. 6 of the LN would release a week later, acting kind of like a replacement of what is supposed to be a new episode for that week.

The fan-translated version of the web novel is available online, up until half of Vol. 4, but I still recommend buying the books on bookwalker (i don’t know if the sale is still there, but I’d recommend picking up the book regardless!). If reading the fan translation piqued your interest, then playing for the books would definitely worth your money if you ask me!

An increase of sales might show them that there’s interest for this light novel, and might make them translate the JP novels even faster! (or maybe i’m just too impatient to wait 2-3 months for Volume 7 dshfjsfgs who knows?)

My only warning is that the tone really does shift post-arc 1 (Fortune Lover I) so if you’re looking for harem hijinks, from spoilers I’ve seen I think there would less of that and more of world building. (ps. please stop asking me where to read it ;;-;;)

Edit: Volume 8 is coming out in a few months, with Volume 9 probably being released at either Jan or Feb next year, then after that it’ll be a yearly update

StoryMe Otome Game

credit to the hamefura reddit discord for the screenshots!

I’m surprised a lot of people doesn’t know about the StoryMe game, despite it updating every week alongside the anime. Just kidding I didn’t either lol, I actually found about this thanks to the hamefura reddit discord server! StoryMe is a choose-your-own-adventure otome game, kind of like those “Episodes” or “Chapters” game that gets recommended on Youtube a lot.

It’s still in japanese, which is probably why not a lot of people knows of it yet, but it seems like you can play as Katarina and romance anyone from the entire harem (yes, the girls too), so keep you eyes peeled for if ever it gets an english translation!

It’s basically the bluray Fortune Lover game with the DVDs, but instead of Maria, you actually get to play as Katarina!

(I’ll make a separate post for this later, maybe)

Edit: The game just came out in English in September 16, and just spat out a 11-episode update at September 30

tldr: go play it, it has 19 episodes out right now

Katarina’s Farm

It’s a newly announced mobile game with a web trial version that centers around playing as Katarina, trying to earn money and points for expanding your farm land, planting more expensive plants and getting the other members of the harem to join you! It’s a 2D pixel game that seems like it wouldnt take too much time to play (you can get the first 4 characters within 30 minutes of gameplay, but that might be adjusted in the mobile version) so I understand if it might not interest some people, but that’s still something to look forward to!

I made another post about it so check out the link to the web version here!

The Bluray Otome Game

While I can’t say this for certain, but maybe if there was ever an official english bluray release, it might include the Fortune Lover Male Capture Target Routes that are included in the game. Maybe someone will play it and translate it even! It would interesting to see how different the boys are, and give us further appreciation for Katarina’s influence and changes!

There’s a preview for a CG in Keith’s Route, which comes with the second bluray (no pv for Geordo ;; w ;;)

Edit: All the boy’s routes are out in Japanese

We don’t know if they’ll ever be released in English though, so hopefully someone translates them at least ;;w;;

The Manga and Yuri Anthology

Missing the hilarious and heartwarming antics of Katarina and her harem? Then you should check out the Manga Anthology (that has just been been translated in its entirety). It’s 14 chapters of absolute hilarity!

There’s also a Yuri Anthology, featuring the 4 girls of the harem! If you’re looking for more of that then, it’s an absolute recommendation!

Spin-off Visual Novel

Edit: They recently just announced a spinoff visual novel! It takes place after the Fortune Lover 1 Arc and features sexy pirates hgsjhgsdf

It’s just recently announced so there’s not a lot of info besides the company making it (it’s Otomate) and the fact that it’s gonna be an all new Bakarina adventure uwu

Bakarina Radio

I heard there’s a Bakarina Radio too, featurning the VAs of the anime cast.

I don’t know if its a regular thing or a one time thing, but its still worth checkin out!

https//twitter.com/hamehura/status/1309831738525278209

The Second Season of the Anime

I seriously wasn’t expecting another season, considering how different the next arc is, but I’m happy nonetheless for more Bakarina! I hope this motivates the fans to continue supporting the series, as a bigger reaction will definitely lead to more content for us to enjoy! I have a theory about S2, which I think is worth the read :3c

Other Otome Isekais

There’s a lot of other Villainess Otome Isekai’s that are worth the read, and a lot of them as just as interesting as hamefura, despite the lack of a harem (from deep rooted revenge to hilarious and crazy villainess, there’s a lot!) The quickest recommendation I can give is just looking up “Akuyaku” and “Villainess” on Mangadex (do both btw they dont have the same results), but theres a lot that doesn’t get recommended so do your research! I swear it’s worth your time!

Anyways, I hope any of these fill the hole that the hamefura anime will leave in our hearts as we wait for season 2! (sorry for repeating the same line again hdsfgdjhsfg) Feel free to add anything like fanfic recommendations and artists, as I can’t cover everything on my own, as those really help provide hamefura fans with content :DD

398 notes · View notes

bmpmp3 · 4 years ago

Text

JUST finished watching Angel Beats after being obsessed with the song from the 6th promotional video since I was 11 years old and being recommended to watch it since i was 14 by all my little weeb friends AND NOW here’s a review no one asked for (spoilers for a decade old anime no one has talked about since 2015 under the cut):

SO my takeways

bi king otonashi

bi king hinata

bi queen kanade

yuri voice: this is my girlfriend kanade and her boyfriend otonashi and my girlfriend’s boyfriend’s boyfriend hinata and my girlfriend’s boyfriend’s boyfriend’s girlfriend yui

i wonder if they had conceptualized the ending visuals (all the characters fading in the static shot and changing it up) before the final story was how it ended up cause they didnt get a lot of opportunities to remove cast members from the end card (to make you cry). oh well at least they got some use out of it in the last episode with all the fading out. i imagine i probably woulda took another 10 years to actually watch it if it had more episodes but with such a large cast they really did need more episodes, i wonder if the initial concept woulda had a character vanish each episode per the ending credits visuals

there was a visual novel but it was one part out of like six (the first game had only 3 of the characters stories, understandable since it has a cast of thousands) apparently and the rest were never made tho which is a shame cause it probably would work so much better as a visual novel, i mean this is key....this is key............this is the king of visual-novels-where-watch-anime-girls-die-to-sad-songs-sung-by-ethereal-sounding-female-vocalists key, you know what this is

oh god i just realized there mightve been a full TK focused story if they had ever made all the other games and now i understand why people are so sad the other games were never made.....imagine...........

speaking of anime girls dying to sad songs sung by ethereal sounding female vocalists i was wondering how they were gonna do the whole girl-dies-in-main-characters-arms-and-its-really-sad-and-emotional-and-also-the-lighting-is-very-pretty-and-the-saddest-anime-girl-dying-song-is-playing thing if everyone’s already dead and has been dead this whole time but they did it! those crazy sons of bitches did it!!! disappearing to be reborn in a new life instead of dying but close enough! i did cry and also i laughed because it was funny but also i wouldnt be able to make this much fun of key if their dead anime girl shtick didnt work on me every single time theyve done it

im very mean to key and ive mentioned this before but its really truly because watching air tv when i was 10 years old gave me brain wormsIM SORRY IM BEING MEAN AGAIN what im TRYING to say is that keys works are something akin to some kind of obsession or fixation or something for me and i will be mean to them. because i will consume all of their media whether i like it or not

stupid anime girl dying company *buys everything theyve ever put out*

the show was good tho or well if u got key brain worms from watching air tv when u were 10 like i did then you’ll adore it, its moreso just good but a little rushed, id recommend it if you want a pretty show with fantastic music thats very emotional sad but usually in a melodramatic and heightended sorta way, yknow? i liked it a lot

i think “i am god” kid and “call me christ” kid shoulda hung out

i watched it in the dub (although with the subs on at the same time because im fucked up and evil and also sometimes i switched to the japanese audio to see how some of the voices were) and i thought the dub was honestly pretty great outside of some slightly odd name pronunciations and TK....i think their TK was fine and they definitely did the best they could, localizing a character like that is so hard, but also part of me wonders if it wouldntve been funnier if they coulda somehow got the licenses to use the japanese voice acting for TK cause it has like, a different slightly off audio quality and it added a lot to his performance OH maybe they even coulda got their dubbed version but recorded it from like, the other room to get that weird audio quality hfsjakmdsdfs i dunno i think its a little funny

anyway those were most of my thoughts on the show but also none of that matters because the real thing we need to talk about is HOLY shit my guys i CANNOT stop thinking about the npcs likE WHAt

THRE FUCk

I KNOW its not the point and i KNOW i should not be thinking this much about them but WHAT kinda turing test bullshit IS THIS they are indistinguishable from humans.....they all have very human emotions and responses (except for that one guy in the second last episode) and like their CODE....THEIR CODE CAN BE FUCKED WITH??/ these are normal people....i know at one point they were like “they dont have souls” but like is the soul really the end all be all thing here......a human could become an npc......a human could be turned into an npc..............im so fuckinng invested in these npcs you guys what if you were a program that perfectly mimics a human highschooler in every way but the only difference is time doesnt seem to move the same and also at any second your code could be fucked with and youd become some kinda shadow creature

and like early on when naoi would keep the balance of his model-student-ness by beating up npcs so he wouldnt get obliterated..........those are people.......those are just people...

is there culling. do they get culled out of the environment when no dead people are around in order to save on memory. i need to know. jun maeda put down the piano synths for one second i need to KNOW

key accidentally made some of the most compelling pieces of speculative scifi ive ever seen in the background of their anime girl dying show i cant stop thinking about those npcs like they like music...they have favourite bands....they can be fans of in universe band gldemo....isnt that just as human as having a soul...... i njust

AND ALSO what was the DEAL with that last npc the one who was like aware of his programming...is that why hes so fucked up and weird or maybe when he was altered by the guy who turned himself into an npc he added that in AND LIKE i KNOW the real reason is cause the writers needed to retcon just how human the npcs were last second for the story to work BUT LISTEN *starts drawing up a giant conspiracy theory board with red string and newspaper clippings)

2 notes · View notes

shazzeaslightnovels · 6 years ago

Text

Reading Log - February 2019

Mostly Saekano with some first volumes thrown in. As per usual, there will be no spoilers, unless tagged otherwise.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 4 by Fumiaki Maruto:

With this volume Blessing Software is now complete! But before I talk about our new member, I want to say that my favorite thing about this volume was seeing just how close Katou has become with Eriri and Utaha, especially the former. I have mixed feelings on Michiru: on the one hand, purple colour theme + short hair + can’t-read-the-room + genki gal = moe; on the other hand, I would hate her if I met her in real life. She constantly invades Tomoya’s personal space, belittles his hobbies and dreams and is way too disrespectful to the person who is giving her a place to sleep while she fights with her dad. I think she’s an enjoyable and interesting character but an awful person. I really disliked how the anime handled her first episode. The constant shots of her boobs and ass made me so uncomfortable, especially seeing how that kind of outfit is actually pretty typical hot weather wear in Australia. It became a bit better in the following episodes but I still despise it. Overall, I’d still call the anime adaptation a good one, though. It succeeded in making Katou feel more like a boring heroine than the novel and manga did and I still love the café scene in episode 2. I won’t be covering the second season in this section anymore because AnimeLab doesn’t have access to it and I mostly only watch things using AnimeLab these days. In any case, I’m interested to see where the story goes from here.

Kumo desu ga, Nani ka? 1 by Okina Baba:

Well, this book was certainly a struggle to read. Most of the book is written in a stream-of-conscious writing style, meaning that 90% of the volume is purely narration. It’s a hard style for me, both to write and read but I think it works well here due to the protagonist’s personality being incredibly fun. But my attention did wander quite a bit while I was reading and I struggled with deciphering the skill names in Japanese. I also found the S chapters that occur after every few main chapters to be unnecessary. One of the things that can really kill my enjoyment of a story is knowing something before the protagonist does. I like to experience the story and world along with the protagonist and it’s frustrating when something important is revealed to the reader long before it’s revealed to the protagonist. This is not the most irritating example of it but I think the manga was right in skipping these chapters. It keeps you in suspense for longer. While I certainly enjoyed this volume I may continue the story through the manga instead of the light novel. The visuals in the manga are hilarious and really added to my enjoyment of the series and I don’t think I’m interested enough in the story to be annoyed with the slow pace of the manga.

This series is currently being released in English by Yen-Press as So I’m a Spider, So What? so pick it up if the series interests you.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 5 by Fumiaki Maruto:

Definitely my favorite volume so far. It was incredibly interesting to the point where I stayed up late just to finish it. It also included a lot of my favorite elements of the Koisuru Metronome spin-off: a conflict the centred on writing issues, information on how to improve writing and Utaha being really interesting and complex. All that was missing was Mayu. In any case, I think what I want this series to do is to challenge it’s own genre and tropes. It’s a great romcom but it’s not much more than that yet.

Bishoujo Sakka to Mezasu Million Selleraaaaaaaa!! 1 by Takeru Kusakabe:

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure why I bought this book. I think I was looking for something easy to read at the time and this ranked in KonoRano 2018. Anyhow, this is written by the author of Noucome, which I remember as a series with an alright premise that got old fast but had good girls. Million Seller isn’t much different. The protagonist is a guy who becomes an editor and wants to be able to be put in charge of a series that can sell a million copies but gets put in charge of light novel series, which don’t sell as much. So he gets put in charge of two ladies, one who’s a high school student and another who’s an office lady. And it’s… fine. The characters are likeable and I was impressed that the author made the characters distinct enough that if you were to pick out a random page from the volume, you’d be able to tell who was talking to who by looking at how they speak. The thing is, the series doesn’t stand out. If want a romcom with a harem, there are better ones and it’s really not that informative on the light novel industry. There are some funny interactions but I’d only recommend it if you really liked Noucome’s sense of humour or are looking for some easy light novels to read to improve your Japanese. I won’t be reading the second volume.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 6 by Fumiaki Maruto:

This was a really satisfying volume in terms of what it did for the plot and Eriri’s character. And, like vol. 5, every time I finished a chapter, I wanted to hurry on to the next. Iori continues to be a delight and Izumi has really grown on me. I’m excited to see what these characters do next.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata F.D. by Fumiaki Maruto:

Going into this, I knew that it wouldn’t have much to do with the main story but I ended up wishing that it had even less to do with the main story. All it is is a bunch of short stories taking place in between chapters of the main light novel that were previously published in magazine + an interview with Maruto and Misaki (the illustrator for the series) that is really hard to read on an iPad. I thought it would be a bunch of non-canon icharabu scenes between Tomoya and the heroines but there wasn’t much of that at all. Furthermore, Sayuri, who appears on the cover, doesn’t actually appear in the volume and I get the feeling that she’s only on there because Misaki created an amazing character design that wasn’t able to get shown off in vol. 6. Interestingly, some of these stories appear in other versions of the story; I recognized some of them because similar scenes appeared in the anime and Koisuru Metronome. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I had read it while I was reading the main volumes but I really don’t think it’s worth buying unless you’re a diehard fan of the series and want to know everything about the characters. This volume did make it clear how much Maruto has grown as a writer though; the first few stories were written the earliest and felt really jarring to read and definitely felt more like the type of writing that would be used in a galge but the later stories were much better.

Baccano! The Rolling Bootlegs by Ryohgo Narita

Note: I read this in English a few years ago and loved it and the anime was one of the first that I saw and I loved that so reading this volume in Japanese has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.

As much as I enjoy the Baccano! series, this volume has never been one of my favourites. Even in the anime, I tended to zone out during these parts. But I did enjoy it more this time around. Narita really knows how to set the scene and make you really absorbed into it. The thing that surprised me the most about rereading this was Ennis. I remember that I used to find her really boring but I LOVED her here. She’s a genuinely interesting character and her scenes with Miria and Isaac were my favorite part of the volume and I loved the scenes that were narrated by her. My favorite thing about Baccano has always been the lack of a true protagonist and that’s certainly true here. Firo’s probably the closest to it in this volume but you could definitely argue that the protagonist is Maiza and Isaac and Miria have always been so iconic that they’ve always felt like the protagonists to me. That being said, I found the scenes revolving around the Gandor siblings and Dallas to be really boring and I can see why someone might not enjoy a series that has this many characters to follow. I’m looking forward to reading the 1931 arc, in any case.

This series is currently being published by Yen-Press as Baccano! so pick it up if the series interests you.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 7 by Fumiaki Maruto

Well, this was certainly an emotional volume. It starts off seeming like it’s going to be pretty cute valentines day volume but it becomes an emotionally taxing one by the end. But I didn’t mind it too much. The drama elements worked for me and I was so shocked by the first epilogue that I thought my eyes would pop out of my head! Indeed, like the previous volumes, I set off to read one chapter and was half-way done with the volume before I knew it! One thing that Maruto does really well in this series is balancing the heroines. I still think that end girl could be either Katou or Eriri at this point and, if not for Koisuru Metronome’s existence, I would say that Utaha still has a chance too. And part of me is still holding out for a surprise yuri ending with Eriri and Katou. Their relationship is so well written that I can’t help but wonder whether Maruto just really wants to write a yuri novel but hasn’t for whatever reason. This volume marks the end of the manga adaptation (though it looks like they also adapted the GS side novels so I’ll probably talk about that at some point) and it was a good manga adaptation. I think the adaptations of the first 4 volumes were not great but 5-7 have been adapted really well so I’d recommend it.

Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata Girls Side by Fumiaki Maruto

The volume is split into two parts. The first part focuses on how Utaha and Eriri first met and it’s an amusing side story and definitely worth the read if you’re a fan of those two. The second scenario’s premise is more spoilery as it focuses on events that the reader heard about but didn’t see in vol. 7. While this volume isn’t required reading to understand the main plot, I still thought it was worth reading and would recommend it to most Saekano fans, especially those who like Utaha and Eriri. As for the manga, it only adapts this volume and it’s a 1:1 adaptation so no complaints from me.

Assassins Pride 1 by Kei Amagi

If I were to describe this volume in one word it would be ‘weird’. It has weird pacing in that most of the chapters could have been made into their own volume though I suspect that the reason for the fast pace is because the writer wanted to grab the readers’ attentions straight away. It has a weird protagonist because I can’t read him at all. I can never tell when he’s acting and when he’s being genuine. Finally, the future volumes look weird. From this volume and the covers of future volumes I assumed that this series would have a central OTP with possibly a slight harem element but the colour illustrations for the future volumes make it seem like it’s going to become an ecchi lolicon harem series so I don’t know what to think so I’m approaching this series with cautions and won’t be buying volume 2 until the anime comes out so that I can find out whether this series will go in that direction or not. As for the volume itself. It was fairly interesting and held my attention when I was reading but I would have preferred a slower pace. That said, I enjoyed the manga a lot. The illustrations in it are really something and the pacing is much better so even if I don’t end up continuing the light novel, I’ll likely be reading the manga anyway.

#Saekano #Kumo desu ga nani ka #So I'm a spider so what #Bishoujo Sakka to Mezasu Million Selleraaaaaaaa #Baccano #Assassins Pride #Light Novels #Reviews #Reading log #Kei Amagi #Fujimi Fantasia Bunko #Fumiaki Maruto #Ryohgo Narita #Dengeki Bunko #Takeru Kusakabe #Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko #Okina Baba #Kadokawa Books

4 notes · View notes

cerastes · 7 years ago

Text

O-K so I finally got off Helltime, and now I have the Time to write something I’ve been meaning to: Doki Doki Literature Club prim and proper critique.

Now, you’ve seen me gush about the game, you’ve seen me recommend it to everyone I thought would enjoy it, you’ve seen me go through post-media depression after it, and it is precisely because I enjoyed it so much that I want to do a proper, serious post about it as a piece of media.

This post obviously contains massive spoilers for DDLC. Look away now if you have not read it yet and wish to experience it at full power.

NOW, what is Doki Doki Literature Club? It’s a Visual Novel, but not quite a Visual Novel, I’d say it’s more of a Visual Experience, kind of like a roller coaster. It sure is a read, a short read, but a read nonetheless, but you are not there just for the narrative: The gimmicks and the aesthetic are why you are here. Much like a roller coaster, you also don’t go through it too many times unless you really love it. Aside from the critique, I want to explain why I believe DDLC made amazing use of its medium and choice of narrative to do what it set out to do.

Now, you may say it’s a metanarrative with a heavy emphasis on glitches disguised as a cutesy dating sim, except, you don’t go into it expecting a cutesy dating sim, you go into it knowing something’s funky. The game is honest about it. It has a very serious, very thorough warning right on the get go, and it says to check a specific link to see more in detail. This not only makes it a fair warning, but it also doesn’t spoil anything to those that don’t want to see the warning/don’t need it. That’s a good touch. It’s never disguised, as much as it is stylized as a cutesy dating sim with something lurking within. This is important to note because it’s not a Surprise Genre Change or anything like that: What you get is what was intended for you to know from the get go.

DDLC was never intended as tight narrative, it was always intended to be an experience. It’s definitely not lacking as a narrative, but it’s not deep, either, and I’d say bare bones in some parts. DDLC did not discover the Wheel 2, that is, it’s not a revolutionary read, because it never intended to be a revolutionary read: It was always an experience from the get go. You are not there for the deep, intricate characters, you are there for what is done with the basic characters you get, and with the medium they are presented through. What does this mean? Let’s find out.

The base cast is a very simple selection of tropes we are all familiar with: Sayori, the childhood friend and catalyst as to why the story starts. Yuri, the sweet, loving and yet reclusive and hurt well mannered lady. Natsuki, archetypal tsundere who is very demure and caring past the spicy exterior. Monika, all around ace and role model, good at everything, model student. The characters are nothing new, which, coupled with the previous warning, does raise a few flags immediately: Works with such hard-coded characters and with Something Lurking Within Them tend to be deconstructions or ham fisted parodies that set out to mock these things. An experienced reader will already be on guard.

But, it never goes there.

A lot of things happen in DDLC, but it never once mocks the medium. It never once holds a sign that says “ONLY DUMB VIRGINS PLAY DATING SIMS”, or one that says “THESE BASIC CHARACTERS ARE DUMB AND ONLY FOR LONELY NERDS”. Think about it. It never does. If you thought it did, congrats, that’s your own bias against metanarratives playing you. The closest it gets is Monika saying “You play these kinds of games? Well, that’s weird, but I won’t judge you, haha”. At no point does DDLC actually mock the tropes it employs or the people that enjoy them, it simply uses them to do something unexpected in another way. I really respect this because it’s really easy to just be like “HEHE, THIS IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR. DID YOU EXPECT CUTE DATING, YOU VIRGIN?”, I legit thought that was going to happen, but it didn’t, and I appreciate it, because I can do without cynicism in every single piece of media I consume, especially metanarratives I enjoy so much.

Now, if it’s not a cruel mockery of tropes and those who peruse them, what DOES DDLC do with its “generic trope” characters? It plays them in two ways, both of which I enjoyed: TOO straight, and then subversively.

What does “TOO straight” mean? In Act 1, towards the end of it, you hear Sayori explain her depression. She doesn’t say “I have depression”, she explains her depression in a scene with dialogue that cut a little too deep in the skin of a lot of readers, myself included. The way she explains it, as someone who works in mental health, and as someone who had depression, is shocking because it’s what actual depression feels like. Ask anyone who has or had it, Sayori’s dialogue cut deep and caused this wave of empathy towards her from a lot of people because she’s unexpectedly realistic in this regard compared to what you usually see in fiction. It is, in fact, a recurring theme with the characters, shown subtly with the meatiest narrative resource it uses: The poems.

A rundown, using information from poems and implications from the girls’ dialogue:

Sayori had suicidal depression. Most of her words in the poem minigame refer to sorrow or suicide.

Yuri’s depression is linked to her immense loneliness, and she copes by cutting.

Natsuki is the most adjusted, but she receives regular beatings from her father, and it is implied that she’s so short compared to the other girls due to malnutrition.

We’ll cover Monika later.

DDLC does not make a mockery of the genre, as much as it injects a lot of realism to it that is alien to the genre and characterization. All these causes of depression, sadly, are very common among teenagers. It’s truly uncomfortable because it hits home.

From Act 2 and on, the characters are played subversively: This is when Monika’s tinkering has begun robbing the game of its stability, and has begun amping the bad aspects of the girls purposefully. The narrative heft here is much lower than in the first part of the game, where the poems were subtle windows; instead, here we are on the other side of the window, and the poems from the first part make sense. No, the narrative heft is not the star here, from Act 2 and on, you are in the part where The Shit Has Gone Down, and you get to see the slow, slow devolution of these people, as they are aware of it. The files start going nuts, new documents appear in your game files, It’s All Gone To Shit, my dude.

A roller coaster is an apt metaphor for Doki Doki Literature Club: Act 1 is the ascent, where it’s all slow and nice and you are telling the person next to you that this can’t be that bad. Act 2 is when you get to the submit and then go down the super vertical rails of the roller coaster at 600 kilometers per hour, screaming in languages you didn’t even know you knew: That’s when the experience begins.

I need to put emphasis on the word experience. Salvato wasn’t making a meaty narrative with this game, and if you were expecting one, man, sorry, no, Salvato was making an experience, a roller coaster, something you go through, reach the end of, and say “FUCK YEAH”. Act 2 is the roller coaster’s descent.

All I want to say is that I am so very thankful to Salvato for making it an experience without any sort of arrogance. It’s rare for something this meta to not insult the medium it is using. It feels more like he just picked “Cutesy visual novel with this crazy glitchfest is what’s gotta go down” and went with it. That’s not to mention the amazing craft of the whole thing: Renpy is mostly a very basic Visual Novel engine that runs on Python, and easy and serviceable coding language. The shit he pulled in DDLC makes it clear he studied the engine in and out.

So with all this said and done, and my insistence on viewing this as an experience very clear, you might have noticed there’s someone we haven’t talked about.

Yup. That’s the topic we have left.

Just Monika.

Monika is the driving force behind the experience. Monika is the Big Meme. You see Monika where DDLC is mentioned. As of this writing, Monika has more followers in Twitter than Dan Salvato. But see, if you remove the wrapper from the candy, if you look beyond, what is behind Monika.

Not much.

And that’s wholly the point.

Monika is an NPC. Monika was never meant to be a love interest. Monika was the Bro Character that helps you get with the girls and cheers you on. You know who Monika was supposed to be?

youtube

Tomoda. Monika was supposed to be this extremely friendly but otherwise hollow nobody in the narrative.

Unfortunately, Monika has grown aware of her status as a fictional character. Monika achieved independence from the narrative, and turned the narrative into an experience. But, see, you can’t just create something from where there was nothing. If you put aside Monika’s obsession for you, you truly are left with nothing. Because that’s all she had in the first place: She existed as the Tomoda that only lives to help you out with the other girls. The was nothing beyond her in the first place. What does this result in? One of the purest Yandere in the latest years, if not the purest. Beyond you, there is nothing in her. Sure, she likes piano, she loves debate, she likes poems, but... There’s nothing inside. There’s nothing in there. What happens when you suddenly thrust conscience, sentience upon something hollow that only has one operative command to “support Person”?

She’ll only have Person to think about, and nothing beyond it.

Monika is not supposed to be a dream wife, she’s a pitiable creature of bites and unrequited love, because it is impossible to love her the way she loves you: To her, you are everything, but to you, she’s the shitter that made all of this happen in this game you picked up to see what was going on. That is fully intended. For her, you are everything she ever thought about for as long as she’s had sentience. For you, she’s that one girl that wasn’t even in the poem minigame and that always mostly hung in the background.

If anything in this world ever made you think that the experience wanted you to feel anything for her except pity at how justifiably, tragically shallow she is, I have no clue what to tell you.

That’s what’s fascinating about Monika and why I love her character.

Because it’s just that.

It’s Just Monika.

There’s nothing inside. Deleting her is not like when you put a bullet through The Boss’ skull in MGS3, because holy shit, you have grown to understand the suffering and pain of The Boss. Deleting Monika is more akin to finding a grievously wounded dove that you tried your best to nurse back to health, but that is suffering too much and you have to put her out of her misery in order to do her the slightest and only favor you could to her in her short life. This is not interpretative, either: Whenever you close the game and reopen it, she tells you about her nightmares and how it feels like a brief yet eternal, intense, suffocating death: Even in her endgame situation, where supposedly everything is just as she wanted, she’s suffering so much.

The dove thinks you are its savior because you are the only one that tried to help it when both its wings broke. You have to kill the dove out of mercy because even in this state, it will only continue suffering. The dove also didn’t delete three other people.

It’s a pathetic mess.

It’s just Monika.

The other three characters, who you could say are overused tropes, are deeper characters than Monika already. It was always intended, and she never escaped this, even in sentience.

That’s all she ever was meant to be, as an NPC, and as someone who usurped being an NPC. She never could win.

I could adapt DDLC’s experience to the writing style of a Greek tragedy and you would be none the wiser. For Monika, it was always a King Midas situation.

So she’s the final triple horizontal twirls in a roller coaster.

The thing with metanarratives is that you have to be flexible when it comes to reading them. You can’t just throw a tantrum because it lacked something a narrative worth its salt should have; it’s not a narrative, it’s a metanarrative. Some metanarratives will follow more conventional rules, but they don’t have to. Don’t be a sheep for the status quo. This goes especially hard towards experienced readers. Think about Dadaism and its cultural context back in the day

So that’s that. DDLC doesn’t lack clarity of purpose, it’s purpose was always “a cool experience” first and foremost. It’s not that the plot “didn’t go anywhere”, the ‘plot’ went exactly where it had to: To the cool roller coaster triple twirls.

Of course, that is not to say that “ur dumb” if you think it’s a bad piece of media because it lacked those things or anything, I’m just saying “you were looking for fish at the beef steak menu”. Hell, you may even understand a lot of this and still think it could’ve done better with other things. That’s fair, all I am saying is that denouncing the experience for not being a narrative when it never tried to be one is like blaming the fish for not being beef steak. Sometimes you want a novel, sometimes you want a roller coaster. For me, personally, it’s how it played with its medium so wonderfully that made me fall deep in love with it, the files, the documents, the aesthetic... I went in for a roller coaster ride, and I got one.

If you are looking for a meaty, deep narrative with rich characterization and intricate plots, you are not looking for what DDLC has to offer.

If you are looking for a roller coaster, well, I have good news for you: Tickets are free, and I hope you enjoy the ride.

TL;DR: Not a powerful narrative, but a very powerful and fun experience.

#ddlc spoilers

223 notes · View notes

backwardsflow · 7 years ago

Text

So I played Doki Doki Literature Club the other day and I have some thoughts. I’d like to talk frankly about the game, but I’m not too interested in describing the disturbing elements, so I’m afraid this post might not make much sense if you haven’t played for yourself.

I am really torn about DDLC. I picked it up after personal recommendations from friends and seeing it appear on Patrick Klepeck’s games of the year list. I played the whole thing through, six hours, in one sitting. After sitting on it for a couple days, one of the YouTube games writers I follow released a brutal piece criticizing DDLC’s portrayal of mental illness through it’s second act. That video reminded me of the big gripe that I do have about the game, so this post is going to go into some detail about both what I think worked and what didn’t.

My first playthrough was very enjoyable in the moment. The emotional moments hit me hard, in a very satisfying way, and the jumpscares for the most part managed to have substance behind the shock. I was really impressed that the visual novel style could evoke the same sense of reluctance and dread that other horror games like Stories Untold and Anatomy did for me.

I had some idea of how the meta elements of the game would play out (manipulating files in the game directory), but I didn’t know anything about the story or characters going in. The first act of DDLC was a rollercoaster of emotions that took me from groaning audibly at the shameless visual novel tropes to genuine investment in the characters (I played a Yuri-centric route) to stunned silence as act one closed with Sayori discussing her depression.

The game’s biggest draw for me was seeing it being praised for surprisingly good portrayal of mental illness. The first act really did attempt to deliver on that, as Sayori was genuinely written to be sympathetic and realistic. Yuri also showed realistic signs of social anxiety and (this might be a bit of projection on my part) autism when she opens up about her special interests. I didn’t spend any time with Natsuki, so I can’t speak to the portrayal of abuse in her storyline. What I realized in hindsight is that the game did such a good job getting me invested in the horror in its second act that I completely missed it when this aspect was thrown out the window.

Sayori’s sucide is played purely for shock value to the player. The thoughtful discussion with the character in previous scenes is more or less ignored so that the game can shock and guilt the player. You get no agency to help prevent Sayori’s death, and the single choice you can make only reframes the event to play up guilt or surprise. As shock horror, it’s effective, but it would be extremely dishonest to describe DDLC’s handling of the scene as healthy.

Of course, the moment the player is shown the scene they are simultaneously confronted with the reality (through the error log file) that Monika had caused the suicide, if not the entire depression plotline, by tampering with the game. From this point on, it only becomes clearer that Monika has been completely rewriting every character. I have two issues with this. Firstly, this approach paints mental illness as the product of an unstoppable otherworldly force rather than a struggle that can ever be soothed or overcome. The second act does away with any pretense of portraying its mentally ill characters in any kind of empathetic light. Second, Monika is upfront with her intentions behind altering the game and changing these characters. She does it to make them less attractive to the protagonist. DDLC spends none of its time examining or criticizing Monika’s assumption that mental illness makes people unattractive and unlovable. The game runs headfirst with this grossly harmful stereotype, and while it never condones Monika’s actions outright it does treat this assumption as correct. How could you want to pursue Yuri after seeing her self-harming? Why would anyone continue to care about Natsuki when she breaks down over her abuse?

This is the most insidious of the game’s faults, and it’s made even worse by the shreds of realism used to portray these characters. If you have experience with the situations portrayed in DDLC or you empathize with the characters during the second act, the game offers no hope nor reassurance for you. It is the game’s firm stance that these things are nothing more than shock fodder, completely ignoring the real-world weight of the topics it throws around.

Really, I’m of two minds about DDLC, and I think this speaks more to the game’s fractured nature than my indecision. As I said, the first act is played totally straight - promising a visual novel that subverts tropes through its empathetic portrayals of mental illness. But as soon as it is revealed that Monika is manufacturing said mental illness, the game takes a hard turn into effective but stereotypical horror. Even through the scares of the second act, I couldn’t shake the feeling of disappointment that I couldn’t see how the first game could have ended.

(I didn’t have a good place to fit this into the rest of the post, but I want to mention how bitterly disappointed I was with second-act Yuri. I really related to her in the first act, with her hyperfocusing on books and sharing her special interest in fantasy. Monika claims that her manipulation of Yuri was just bringing out her “obsessive” qualities, but the entire anxiety angle was dropped altogether which makes it seem like Monika manufactured the “obsessive” traits completely. Also, self-harm as a jumpscare? Really?)

#txt #ddlc #doki doki literature club #ddlc spoilers

8 notes · View notes

lostsummerdayz · 5 years ago

Text

Syrup and The Ultimate Sweet: A delicious sugary snack; Short, Sweet, and Satisfying

By Nay Holland

Right off the heels of their visual novel showcase, Ratalaika Games released one of their seven visual novels yesterday, Syrup and The Ultimate Sweet, developed by NomnomNami.

The original game was developed for YuriJam 2015, a two-month game jam that featured visual novels and dating sim based around, as the name would imply, Yuri or “girl love.” Five years later, it would see a widespread console release on all major handhelds and consoles. This is a review for the Nintendo Switch version, courtesy of Ratalaika Games themselves!

Perhaps the one thing that drew me in was the expressive art and vibrant colors, all of which helped define a specific character. Syrup’s aesthetic is green, so her hair, the lollipop she eats, and her speech is green. The candy golem is as pink and red as pink and red can be, so her speech reflects that as well. The story and art were both done by the talented NomnomNami herself, while the immersive music was done by Mock Off.

So. What is Syrup and The Ultimate Sweet?

The official description of the game is as follows.

In a magical town there lives a candy alchemist, Syrup, who one day discovers a candy golem in her basement. Where did she come from? Who could've made her? Go find out!

Featuring a memorable cast of colorful characters and 10 unique endings. Your choices affect the story! Will Syrup achieve her dream of making the Ultimate Sweet, or will she meet a much more tragic fate...?

It may sound like a simple premise and to some degree it is. However, there is a lot of underlying depth that took me by surprise. I’ve completed the game from cover to cover, viewed all ten endings, and was overall left impressed. It was short and sweet, sure, but it was a feel good story that left me with something to think about. The importance of being kind to others, treating others with respect, owning up to your own negative insecurities, and promoting self-growth. All of these themes and more showed themselves throughout the story.

This will round out the spoiler-free section of the review. In short, I recommend giving this game a try. Whether it’s on the official NomnomNami page or on the many different console choices available. Past this point, there will be complete breakdown and critique of the game itself based on my personal experience!

Now then. Let’s indulge in the sugary succulence!

Syrup is a skilled alchemist who uses her craft to create succulent treats for her candy shop. While traveling into the basement of her candy shop, she comes across a candy golem whose first request is to “eat her.”

Awkward pleasantries and introductions aside, Syrup’s assistant, Pastille sees the golem and encourages Syrup to befriend her. Naturally, upon seeing a sentient talking candy girl who requests Syrup to devour her, Syrup is reluctant to take her in. Eventually, she warms up to the idea and the candy girl becomes the shop assistant. Syrup eventually gives the candy golem the name, Gumdrop.

Syrup immediately has suspicions that a witch created the candy golem as it was the only logical reasoning for Gumdrop’s creation. Because of this, Syrup immediately suspects Butterscotch, a witch who lives on the other side of town, to be the one responsible for the creation. Upon arriving at her house, Butterscotch neither confirms nor denies that she created Gumdrop, but Syrup has pressing matters on hand.

See, there’s this treat called the “Ultimate Sweet,” which is such a delicacy that whoever eats it will sing praises of the gods and shout to the heavens above. However, no alchemist was able to successfully create the candy. It’s revealed that part of this reason is due to the final ingredient located on top of a cold frigid mountain that only those proficient in magic can hope to survive.

The only woman who Syrup knows that is proficient in magic is none other than Butterscotch herself. The very same woman who Syrup is the most disagreeable with. However, she’s able to put her differences aside if only to use Butterscotch’s ability to secure the final ingredient.

After run-ins with hostile wild wolves and a friendly anthropomorphic wolf by the name of Treat, the unlikely duo ends up finding the final ingredient. However, in doing so, they end up entrapped in an ice cave. It is here that Butterscotch reveals her secret. She has been keeping a false appearance in order to maintain her own self-worth and in keeping the false appearance, her magic has been subdued the entire time.

It is at this moment that Syrup’s ego, paranoia, and overall cold exterior begins to defrost. She realizes that part of the reason for Butterscotch’s insecurities are due to the fear of Syrup’s hatred for her. Once Syrup finally acknowledges this and sets to right the wrongs that she made, Butterscotch is able to calm down. Due to her calmness and assurance in life, she’s able to melt the ice wall away and return back to town.

As repayment for Syrup’s kindness, Butterscotch reveals that she has been spying on Syrup via a crystal ball and to inform her to watch the crystal ball in privacy to get the answers that she sought the entire time.

Upon viewing the crystal ball, she learns that it was Pastille who created Gumdrop. The intention was that Pastille wanted Syrup to make friends. Being that Syrup was cold to all of the residents, Gumdrop’s creation was made as a last ditch effort to help Syrup find a friend.

At this point, Gumdrop intrudes on Syrup and Gumdrop, who was told not to reveal who created her, admitted-without-admitting that Pastille did indeed create her. At this point, Syrup has an understanding that Gumdrop, despite the awkward introduction and Gumdrop wanting Syrup to eat her, “was created with Syrup in mind.”

Syrup and Gumdrop decide to take on adventures alone while building up their friendship together in the process. Pastille understands this, happy that his plan was a success, while Butterscotch is saddened that her former-rival-turned-friend is gone. However, she’s content to see Syrup in a much better state than how she started.

That concludes the Gumdrop route.

I mentioned that there were a total of ten different endings. To break this down further, there are five normal endings representing each of the characters featured in the main menu. As you complete their route, their appearance changes to reflect this. Gumdrop, for example, wears an overcoat.

The other five endings are the bad endings. These range from Pastille flat out leaving Syrup altogether, deeming her a lost cause to Butterscotch and her cat familiar, Toffee, taking over Syrup’s shop after she refuses to work with the latter due to their use of magic in their sweets.

These are the endings that you acquire when give into Syrup’s negative traits to the utmost extreme. Take an earlier scene where Syrup and Butterscotch are trapped in the ice cave. The ideal choice is Syrup forgiving Butterscotch for being who she is. You do have a choice to give in to Syrup’s frustrations by declaring that she hates Butterscotch for getting them into this mess.

In certain route paths, this choice leaves the two of them, frustrated with each other, to sit in silence as they inevitably freeze to death. In other routes, they are saved from an “outside source.” (later revealed to be Pastille using his magic to melt the ice)

If the latter happens, then Syrup has one last chance to make amends with Butterscotch, who approaches her while still feeling bad about all that has happened. The actual canon choice at this point is to forgive her.

If Syrup still holds onto the bitterness into her heart, she ends up dying due to implied pneumonia. This is the “worst end,” as she dies alone with coldness in her heart.

There’s one more “bad” ending and it’s so obvious that I ended up getting this ending first purely by accident. It’s an ending you can get within two, count ‘em, two choices. You decide to actually eat poor Gumdrop right in the beginning of the game. As you’re doing it, the text that follows is meant to fill the player with regret.

You essentially just ate your friend’s creation who is sentient enough to know that she is being eaten. At the end of the day, all she wanted was to be friends with Syrup, but, well, that is one way to go about it.

Right, so, now that all of the sad endings are out of the way. Back to the main endings. I mentioned Gumdrop’s route first because I feel it may be the “canon” route, although each of the routes have their own merit. However, Gumdrop’s ending wasn’t the first ending I got.

After eating Gumdrop, I decided to play the game for real, answering how I feel Syrup would answer along the way. Early on in the story you have the choice to give Gumdrop to Butterscotch and Toffee. After a while Syrup realizes that it was probably cruel to do such a thing, so she goes to retrieve her only to find that Butterscotch was eating Gumdrop!

It’s almost as if this was mocking me for my blunder from earlier.

Syrup ends up saving Gumdrop and re-crafts her missing body parts, while deciding to keep her hair short.

The game continues on as normal, although the crystal ball scene plays a bit different. In this route, Syrup feels betrayed that Pastille would hide the fact that he’s a witch from her. Rather than succumbing to her earlier negative traits, she reflects on the budding relationship she has with Butterscotch and declares it’s best to make amends with her. After all, everything involving Butterscotch’s insecurities were a byproduct of Syrup’s cold attitude.

In the end, Syrup teaches Butterscotch how to make candies and she starts selling candy on the side. Syrup and Pastille reaches an understanding with each other, with the latter just happy that she was finally able to befriend her rival. Perhaps even form a budding romance if the text is anything to go by! Butterscotch ending achieved.

There’s also an ending where Syrup doesn’t look at the crystal ball. In some routes, it’s flat out told through Syrup that she has an idea on what the crystal ball would show her, meaning she had suspicions that Pastille was a witch the entire time. However, no matter the route, if Syrup doesn’t look at the crystal ball, she convinces some investors to invest in the shop. She then spends the rest of her life wealthy yet remains distant to everyone. This is Syrup’s ending.

I feel like this is neither a good nor a bad ending. Just as simple a “normal” ending if this game had one. Syrup may very well realize that Pastille wasn’t completely honest with her, but she doesn’t care. She just gets even by making profits instead. Money is a strong motivator after all, but is it the best one?

There’s a hidden Toffee ending which follows the exact same path as the Butterscotch ending, yet a bonus scene plays. Toffee wants Syrup to take them to Treat to thank her for taking care of their master, Butterscotch. These scenes are short, but it expands on Toffee’s characterization.

There’s a scene where Toffee asks Syrup a simple question. Is Toffee a boy or a girl in Syrup’s eyes.

At this point I never got to think about Toffee’s gender, so for this question to arrive, it took me off guard as much as it took Syrup. When Toffee revealed that they were agender, it made sense.

A funny touch is that if you go back to this scene later, you have the option to indeed choose “Neither,” in which Toffee will ask if you’re a time traveler. I want to think in my purest of hearts that this is a Life is Strange reference. If so, kudos to you Nami!

Toffee’s entire characterization, from deliberately foregoing cat puns when it’s time for serious conversation, to their gender reveal, offers a hidden layer of depth for a supporting character. A depth that one wouldn’t be aware of if they didn’t take the time to get to know them.

As I unlocked this Toffee ending, I realized that Syrup and the player are one in the same. Characters reveal themselves, such as Butterscotch’s insecurities, Pastille being a witch, and Toffee being Toffee, the more they feel they can trust Syrup.

In order for others to trust Syrup, Syrup has to trust herself. The only way to trust herself is to look at her negative traits, acknowledge them, learn from them, and grow as a person.

With this new knowledge of Syrup and how the player is meant to view her, I felt I was ready to take on the final ending. Pastille’s.

Syrup confronts Pastille for keeping this a secret from Syrup as Syrup considers Pastille family. Pastille was at a crossroads. He didn’t know how Syrup would react and didn’t mean any ill intention. He just wanted to see someone who he cared for as a sibling figure happy. Syrup acknowledges Pastille’s witch-hood and offers a partnership.

In the end, Pastille’s magical powers to seek out rare ingredients and Syrup’s alchemy in making delicious treats proved to be a powerful combination. Not only were they both renowned for their accomplishments, but the two of them couldn’t be any closer.

I feel, with Pastille’s ending being the final ending that I unlocked, it was the perfect way to close the book on this visual novel. It took me about an hour to reach all the endings, so it is a bit on the short side. However, while short, it is indeed sweet. I was able to learn about all five central characters within the contained space that the story gives.

No piece of information was lost on me. I felt it was due to this that I felt some of the dialogue choices sting more. In the end, if you look at it from the perspective of watching Syrup’s growth affecting her relationships with everyone around her, then it’s a feel-good story to compliment the colorful art and music.

#syrup and the ultimate sweet #nomnomnami #review #video game #games

0 notes

4noki-vns · 2 years ago

Text

Polishing your Release: the Little Features that Could

youtube

This is a write-up for my Visual;Conference 2023 talk on polish: UX and accessibility.

I will discuss quality-of-life features and accessible design with engine-agnostic tips for implementation, walking you through case studies of existing visual novels.

This talk will guide you to answer the question: How do I give my players an improved user experience?

To create a polished visual novel is to deliver your game with both style and usability.

This talk focused on the aspect of usability and accessibility in your visual novel. How can you give your players a better user experience in terms of the following?

Core Visual Novel Experience

Accessibility

Extra QoL Features

I. Core Visual Novel Experience

You want your player to be able to read your narrative as conveniently for them as possible. Interactive components in your game application should mostly be there to enhance the player experience whether it is part of your narrative or there to give players more control.

I briefly touched on some common components/screens found in just about every visual novel.

Quick Menu

Be easy to click and inobtrusive

Be easy to understand

Convince your players that it actually works by providing feedback to button clicks

Text based quick menus are easy to understand, but take up lots of space. Icon based quick menus can be very abstract (what do the icons mean even if seemingly "obvious?")

You may want to consider a combination of both, but if using icon based quick menus, be sure to clarify the icons such as via tooltips.

Provide feedback when the quick menu items are clicked. Most actions just bring up a screen (obvious feedback). Skip will cause rapid movement of text on screen (easy). Auto is more subtle.

What can you do?

Change the auto button to an active state vs. idle state on press

Hide the CTC and/or quick menu on auto

Change the CTC to an "auto-mode activated" CTC

Etc.

History

Provide long enough history to backread

Provide utilities (e.g., if voice acting in game, allow voice replay)

Remember that rollback and history are two different things

Save/Load

Provide context of when and where

Provide sufficient slots for all choices without requiring player overwrite (visual novel players SAVE EVERY CHOICE)

Consider feature to indicate newest save, file deletion button, save file locking

To provide context, have a visual and timestamp, but also try providing chapter names or scene descriptions.

Configs

Provide reasonable default settings (e.g., audio at 70%)

Avoid overwhelming users by categorizing options and providing reasonable support (e.g., slider vs radio)

Provide previews

Single pagers and multi-pagers are both good. Make it easy for the player to get in, change the settings to their preferred values, and get back to the game.

Additional recommendations:

CTC icons

System sound

Splash screens (especially first time setting initializations)

II. Accessibility

Stating the obvious: start with good design :)

Make accessibility features easily accessed and support them:

Put it into your configs screen even if it's built in if you want to support it

Test and check that it works correctly (e.g., self voicing pronunciation, text size overflow)

Provide a reasonable number of options per feature. Whatever options you explicitly provide, you should actually be supporting them.

No one’s coming after you if the built in Ren’Py accessibility toggles overflow your textbox, but it sure will be a problem if the font sizes you’re explicitly providing are broken because that’s just a bug.

Recommended accessibility features: (italics talked about in presentation explicitly)

Self voicing

Image descriptions

Text options

Photosensitivity

Screenshake

Audio captions

Graphic images filter

III. Extra QoL Features

Not all features are great for all games, but some quality of life features can be very useful depending on your game. Therefore, you should know your game to know how to make the player experience better.

What's the genre?

How long is it?

What's the branching structure (if any) like?

Gameplay?

In this section, I briefly tackled exploring Aoishiro (highly recommend this game, by the way) and how some of its quality of life features are useful due to the type of game it is.

Genre?

occult fantasy, Japanese mythology

Having a glossary (with "new" indicator and alphabetization to make it usable) is very useful in game genres with lots of terms!

Length?

30+ hours (according to vndb. I took way longer, so pretty long)

Fourth item down in the first box is a togglable alarm for when skip ends! (Vibration mode, sound mode, both, or silent) Longer visual novels with large trunk portions of shared text that might get new unlocked text often need lots of skipping.

Branching?

56 endings, route unlocking mechanics

Aoishiro provides a spoiler option that lets you "mark unread content as read," unlocking content that you may not have actually been able to play through, whether it's due to difficulty or just laziness.

(This is also useful for remasters or sequels that contain previous game content but are not backward compatible save file wise.)

Conclusions

Make life more convenient for your players by keeping in mind UX heuristics such as:

Providing feedback & status

Error prevention & control

Recognition over recall

Consistency & standards

To polish your release, you want to make its features usable, accessible, and useful for your players!

Make baseline features with usability and accessibility.

Add additional QoL features depending on your game.

I hope this talk helps you make your visual novel a better experience for your players!

#visual novel development #vnconf #visual novel #vndev #development guide #talk write-up #devlog #game development #ux #accessibility #game work game convenient game good #this talk is also a yuri visual novel recommendation (kind of)#Youtube

54 notes · View notes

rieshon · 6 years ago

Text

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. ☆☆☆☆☆

#power rankings

0 notes

liuwdere · 8 years ago

Text

Women Directors in Anime Panel - Transcript

Here are the slides and audio. (I dunno why you’d want the audio if you’re reading a transcript, but hey, who am I to judge.)

Prior to the start of the panel proper, I played the Animator Expo shorts “Endless Night” and “Tomorrow From There” so the early comers weren’t stuck sitting around with nothing to do. I then put on the first Kyousougiga PV as a lead-in to the presentation.

Hi guys, and welcome to Women Directors of Anime. I’m Micchy. You can find me on Twitter @liuwdere, where I post very bad content most of the time and also have opinions on figure skating.

To start us off: Who can name an anime director? Anyone, go as basic as you like.

Hayao Miyazaki, the obvious one.

Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Ninja Scroll.

Challenge: who can name a female anime director?

Sayo Yamamoto.

That’s cheating, I showed her name earlier. Well, anyway, point is, they’re a bit harder to think of.

Raise your hand if you’ve seen one of these shows. Looks like just about all of you. Yuri on Ice? I see a few Yuri on Ice fans here. (Audience member: “I don’t know what that is.”) Well, congratulations, you have seen an anime directed by a woman!

Why talk about anime directors? I’ve seen several panels about fictional representations, strong female characters, so I would also like to bring some attention to the real-world anime industry and representation in that aspect of anime. There are a ton of women working as key animators, writers, in-betweeners in anime, but very few have managed to get the higher roles of production. This is not to say the lower roles are not important—they’re super important. With key animators, I’m a huge fan of Megumi Kouno, who key animated Shelter, if you’ve seen that. This topic is kind of arbitrary, but there are some talented ladies out there and I want to talk about them. Also, honestly, it’s also possible to be very comprehensive because there are like, 25 of them.

What do directors do? Basically they oversee anime production. Their involvement can vary; some of them are very involved in the storyboarding, the music choices, the writing, while others are a little more hands-off, a little manager-like. Some directors rise on the production side—they’re good at managing people, good at making sure people have their stuff done on time, and that’s what gets them in charge. Some of them start as key animators and eventually take over the lead visual development. Of course, they are all beholden to the will of the production committee, which is made up of the sponsors and execs in charge of the show, because money—money’s gotta come from somewhere.

Where are all these ladies? If you look through the industry, they tend to be clustered in a few genres. Number 1: kids’ shows and long-running franchises. We’re talking things like Precure, with the Suite Precure, Happiness Charge Precure, and Heartcatch Precure movies. [Yoko Ikeda, Chiaki Kon, and Rie Matsumoto] all started by directing episodes of the show before taking charge of the movie. Cardfight Vanguard G, the second season. [NOTE: This is actually inaccurate; Yui Umemoto is not a woman. Apologies for the mistake.] The File of Young Kindaichi Returns, also the second season. [Both Umemoto and Ikeda] were taking over established franchises.

Where else? We’ve got kids’ shows, and obviously, anime for women. We’re talking shoujo and josei manga adaptations, otome games, what I like to call “manservice” (though this genre classification is really loose), and boys’ love.

With shoujo manga, you’ve got Vampire Knight (anime Twilight), Otome Yokai Zakuro, Nodame Cantabile (a romcom about music students), and Skip Beat. We’ve got Sailor Moon Crystal season 3, Ristorante Paradiso (old man moe), the fifth season of Natsume Yuujinchou (Kotomi Deai taking over from Takahiro Omori), and Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun. (I hear a few shouts, nice.)

Otome games: These are visual novel dating sims where you play as a heroine character and get your choice of pretty boys to date. On that side of things you’ve got La Storia della Arcana Famiglia, Magic-kyun Renaissance, Diabolik Lovers, and its sequel Diabolik Lovers More Comma Blood—directed by two different women, because of course they are. (This is my favorite bit of Diabolik Lovers—you throw her into the pool. Just throw her in a pool.)

Manservice: This is what I like to classify the sports shows, the boy idol shows, the historical romances and stuff. We’ve got Meganebu! (cute boys doing cute things in a glasses club), Hakkenden, Prince of Stride; Free! (with one exclamation point), Cheer Boys!! (with two exclamation points), and Yuri!!! on Ice (with three exclamation points).

Boys’ Love: There’s a conversation to be had here about how women are kind of co-opting gay men’s stories, but that’s a topic for another day; I’m not talking about that today. You’ve got This Boy cycle from Soubi Yamamoto. These are a series of independent films, all short. Doukyuusei from Shouko Nakamura, a lovely story about two high school boys falling in love. And on the trashier side of things we have stuff like Junjou Romantica, World’s Greatest First Love, and Gakuen Heaven. Personally, I recommend Gakuen Handsome.

It’s important to note that even in these genres, most of the anime is still directed by men. Super Lovers—anyone?—that’s directed by a man. And of course, you can find women elsewhere; these are just the genres you’re most likely to find women. After all, who better to make anime for women than women?

Where else are they? If you look towards the edges of the industry—the avant-garde, the experimental animation showcase projects—you can see that some of these projects give younger women a chance to take charge of their own short films. Space Dandy was supposedly directed by Shinichirou Watanabe and Shingo Natsume, but in actuality, they gave a lot of creative reign to the individual episode directors, which is why every episode looks so different. Some of them were women. Panty and Stocking was another case of this. There’s also Japan Animator Expo, a series of web shorts released over several years, which featured quite a few women.

Talking about the women in particular: I’ve grouped them for convenience. I’m going to start with the ladies at Kyoto Animation.

A little about KyoAni: KyoAni is a unique studio in that all their animation is done in-house with a salaried staff. This is the case with most of the industry; most other studios hire animators freelance. Okay, you come in, you draw these few cuts, you go home. The only other major studio to do this—to have a salaried staff—is Studio Ghibli. Kyoani also has a strong focus on training young talent. Their veteran animators will spend a lot of time providing guidance to the younger staff. (Another studio that does this is Studio Toei, which produces Precure.) Both of these factors make it very conducive to nurturing young talent. Two of the names at Kyoani are Naoko Yamada and Hiroko Utsumi.

Naoko Yamada [the first female staff director at Kyoani] is probably best known for directing K-On. What I want you to notice about Yamada is her astute attention to character animation and body language. If you’ve seen any Kyoto Animation shows, you know what I mean; [the characters] act in specific ways, and [the animation is] very shiny, very polished. This particular attention to body language is what eventually got her the directorial position for A Silent Voice, which is about a deaf girl. Obviously [the girl] communicates through sign language, so you can see why the body language would be important there. (Also, [Yamada] likes legs. She has a lotta legs in her storyboards. It’s pretty obvious; you see knees all over the place.)

[A Silent Voice PV]

Going on to another woman at Kyoani: Hiroko Utsumi, who directed Free. It should be pretty obvious that this show was helmed by a woman just from the butts and abs on display [for the female gaze]. I mean, characters in-universe state, “Oh my god, those are really good butts and chests and abs and shoulders.” So that’s a thing.

Here’s where I get a little wibbly-wobbly: What I like to call the “Penguindrum alumni.” This is because there were several women working on this particular show that later went on to head their own projects. To talk about them, I need to talk about Kunihiko Ikuhara. This guy is the infamously eccentric director of Revolutionary Girl Utena, Penguindrum, and Yurikuma Arashi. He’s heavily influenced by the late Osamu Dezaki, with a strong focus on visual metaphor, cinematic language, and very surreal imagery. On one of his projects, Penguindrum, there were a bunch of ladies who were episode directors and assistant directors who later went on to lead their own projects.

The first one I’m going to talk about is Mitsue Yamazaki. A lot of her work is really pretty, but personally my favorite is her comedy work on Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun. Here’s a clip where two boys play a dating sim game and get a little too into it.

[Nozaki-kun - Tomoda]

Another one of these ladies who worked on Penguindrum is Shouko Nakamura. She did a lot of early work at Studio Gainax working on Gurren Lagann and Panty and Stocking. You can see the Gainax influence in her style with loose, relaxed lineart—you could contrast it with, for instance, KyoAni’s polished realism. Last year, she directed a boys’ love film adapted from a manga by Asumiko Nakamura, Doukyuusei.

[Doukyuusei PV].

If you’re wondering which episode she did on Panty and Stocking, it’s the one where Panty’s sex tape gets leaked.

Akemi Hayashi: She saved the human race from the Zentradi in 2009. Actually, no, she didn’t. Fun fact: her name happens to share the kanji from a possible Chinese rendering of Lynn Minmay, from Super Dimension Fortress Macross, which made researching this one kind of hard. (I was like, I wanna find out about this director, but was only getting results for this anime girl. I like Macross and all, but that wasn’t what I wanted.)

Akemi Hayashi for real: She, like Shouko Nakamura, did early stuff at Gainax. You can see her work going way, way back—if you’ve seen the 1997 anime Revolutionary Girl Utena, she did key animation on the opening sequence for that. She’s been the animation director for a number of high profile projects, including Casshern Sins [and] the Rebuild of Evangelion films. She hasn’t had a full TV series or movie debut yet, but she has directed a few short films and the penguin episode of Space Dandy. What I’m going to put on for you next is a short film done for a collaboration project called Ani*Kuri 15: fifteen one-minute shorts from different creators in the industry. Hers was called “Namida no Mukou,” roughly “from behind tears.” Like Shouko Nakamura, she also has a strong focus on fluid animation. I especially like her use of subtleties in facial expression and body language, conveying emotion through that.

[Ani*Kuri 15, “Namida no Mukou”]

Getting to directors who did not work on Penguindrum (which is a ridiculous classification in itself): My personal favorite, Sayo Yamamoto. This lady is super extra: when she was in college, she wanted to work on animation, but the faculty told her, “No, you can’t work on animation.” She said, “Heck, I’m working on animation anyway,” and did. She caught the attention of director Satoshi Kon to work on Millennium Actress. Stuff happened and she didn’t end up working on that, so her first work at Studio Madhouse was some animation on Trava, which later became the basis for the movie Redline, if you’ve seen that. There she got noticed by Shinichiroh Watanabe, director of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. She was brought on to be an episode director on Champloo, and that’s where she says she first got creative control over her project. [Yamamoto] has also directed a lot of opening and ending sequences; if you’ve seen the first ending sequence to Attack on Titan, that was all her: the sketchy charcoal drawing, that’s her.

Yamamoto’s one of those creatives that has a strong influence over story direction as well as the visuals. For instance, she has a fixation on the femme fatale character, as well as gender and sexuality in general—especially female and queer sexuality. You’ve got Michiko and Hatchin, which is about Latina women, one of them a lesbian. The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, literally an entire series about what makes the femme fatale—Fujiko Mine, the femme fatale character in the long-running franchise Lupin III—what makes her tick, and why is she bad? That show is about interrogating that.

Yuri on Ice also addresses sexuality in a way that’s a little more subtle than her previous works—YOI is a lot lighter, less gritty than the “sex and murder” tone of Fujiko Mine. Part of this is because it is a collaboration with manga artist Mitsurou Kubo. But you can still see hints of this fixation on sexuality and femininity in [for instance] episode 3, where Yuri literally works to channel his inner Fujiko Mine. There’s also a queer character in Fujiko Mine, so yeah, gender and sexuality is a big thing in Yamamoto’s work.

Also, butts. Sayo Yamamoto isn’t that open to giving interviews, but from people who work with her, we have reports that yeah, she was very insistent that they draw butts very well. She says figure skaters have such nice butts you can put things on them, and was really insistent that the staff draw them all. Also, she is on record saying that she liked the scenes in Lupin III where Fujiko took her shirt off—make of that what you will.

Beyond her fixation on butts and sex, she also has a focus on fairy tale imagery and sketchlike charcoal/pencil drawings. This is the ending sequence of Rage of Bahamut (which is getting a sequel this season, I’m so excited) and it’s quite gorgeous.

[Rage of Bahamut ED]

Wasn’t that pretty? (Audience member: yes.) As much as I would like to talk about Sayo Yamamoto all day—I will seriously talk about Sayo Yamamoto all day if you let me, so don’t let me—next we have Rie Matsumoto.

Rie Matsumoto is a director who started at Toei, animating and directing episodes of Heartcatch Precure. (If you don’t know what Precure is, it’s basically My Little Pony, but magical girls and Japanese. That’s the kind of fandom it has. Maybe a little less bad, but not the point.) At Toei, she directed the original promotional video for this series called Kyousougiga, which became a web series and eventually a 10-episode TV series. Then she went AWOL for a few years, later reappearing at Studio BONES directing Blood Blockade Battlefront. (She’s also really cute, I think. [Audience member: It’s true.])

Matsumoto’s another one of those creators with a strong storytelling stamp as well; she has a hand in writing a lot of these works. She as a creator is eclectic as hell. Kyousougiga is like a dozen shows in one, about nostalgia and regret and salvation through platonic love and depression and narcissism—it’s great. Some of the themes that reappear across her work, especially in this original part of Blood Blockade Battlefront, are family bonds, salvation through familial love. In Blood Blockade Battlefront she basically added an entire subplot that was about two siblings reconciling with each other, because that was [the story she wanted to tell]. That’s not even in the manga at all.

For Blood Blockade Battlefront, the artist of the manga [Yasuhiro Nightow] had only one request to the anime staff, and that was to make an opening sequence worth seeing a hundred times. That’s a pretty daunting task, but Rie Matsumoto was like, “heck, I’ll do it.” I’ll let you decide whether she succeeds or not.

[Kekkai Sensen OP]

Every frame of that thing has so much, the composition’s superb. Matsumoto is not directing the second season, unfortunately; she says she’s told the story she wanted to tell and no longer has interest in telling more. Someone else will be taking charge of that second season!

Here’s Soubi Yamamoto, another one of my favorites. No relation to Sayo Yamamoto. Soubi Yamamoto is unique in that she’s basically entirely independent. Most of her work she wrote, directed, and animated almost all by herself—kind of like Makoto Shinkai, director of the current hit Your Name, as well as Five Centimeters Per Second, Garden of Words, if you’ve seen those.

Yamamoto’s really young. Her This Boy series: This Boy Can Fight Aliens, This Boy Caught a Merman, This Boy Suffers from Crystallization, and This Boy is a Professional Wizard. They’re all standalone, thirty-minute shorts. She made the first one of those when she was 22. (She’s like, 27 now. Really young.)

Characteristics of her style: When you see a Soubi Yamamoto thing, you know it’s Soubi Yamamoto. It’s got a saturated color palette, limited animation (since it’s basically just her), on-screen text and manga-like textures/aesthetic. She also has a pretty large hand in writing most of her shorts. You see themes of loneliness, isolation, the difficulty of maintaining interpersonal connection—and boys kissing, there’s quite a bit of that too. What she did not write was MEGANEBU, her one and only TV series to date. This is about a bunch of guys in a glasses enthusiastic club. It’s about as dumb as it sounds. In this scene one of the characters is trying to go to club and is sidetracked by a praying mantis.

[Meganebu, episode 5 - about 3:00-4:30]

The rest of the episode escalates from there—he brings out a suit of armor and a flamethrower just to get past this bug. It’s pretty great.

Atsuko Ishizuka. She was the first [female] staff director at Studio Madhouse. In 2008, the head of Madhouse Masao Maruyama said of her that she was probably the most talented young director in the industry at the time. She’s managed to get a foothold in the otaku market with No Game No Life and several other reasonably successful properties.

She’s also very fond of very, very bold color design. Personally I think she goes a little overboard with it most of the time, but in this 2009 show Aoi Bungaku I think she handled it well. This show is an anthology of adaptations of Japanese literature. Ishizuka directed episodes 11 and 12, “The Spider’s Thread” and “Hell Screen,” both based on short stories by Ryuunosuke Akutagawa. (Has anyone seen Bungo Stray Dogs? Yeah, it’s that guy. He’s actually a real person.) Hell Screen is about a painter who’s commissioned to decorate the tomb of an emperor with his glory, but when he’s faced with the suffering and strife that’s going on in the country he paints a picture of suffering instead. This is the scene where he finally breaks when his daughter is burned before his eyes. [Its exquisite use of color] is really gorgeous; y’all should watch it.

[Aoi Bungaku, episode 12. No link, sorrymasen.]

Aoi Bungaku has unfortunately never been licensed because the market for adaptations of Japanese modernist literature is kind of small. (Its audience is me, mostly.)

Moving on, we have Eunyoung Choi. Choi is a longtime collaborator with avant-garde director Masaaki Yuasa. If you’ve seen Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong, Kick-Heart (which aired on Toonami a while ago, I think)... they also did an episode of Adventure Time together. Most of Eunyoung Choi’s work has been with Yuasa, so you see their styles kind of merge, with loose lineart, flexible animation, favoring dynamic motion over consistent character models. She did direct the ninth episode of Space Dandy herself (Yuasa came later in the second season with the fish alien episode). This is the episode where Space Dandy and the crew go to a planet where all the living things are plants.

Interesting to note that Choi is Korean, and not Japanese; if you look at the edges of the industry, with the ‘artsy’ projects, you can see a bunch of non-Japanese people. Kevin Aymeric, French background artist; Michael Arias, a director from America; Thomas Romain, French mech designer; Bahi JD, Austrian animator; a lot of them work on the same projects because they’re all buddy-buddy with each other.

So she’s directed this lovely but trippy episode of Space Dandy. [It’s a unique style on display here.]

[Space Dandy, episode 9, about 15:30-17:30]

That was Eunyoung Choi. Here’s another lady: Ai Yoshimura, who directed Oregairu, Blue Spring Ride, Dance with Devils, and Cheer Boys. She’s pretty good at handling moments of intense emotion: in Blue Spring Ride there are so many scenes where you can just feel the atmosphere dripping with romantic tension. (Sometimes it’s bad.) But my personal favorite thing of hers is Dance with Devils, which is basically an anime Broadway musical about a girl and demon boys. This show had the brilliant idea of making Cerberus a mashpotato dog. And he has a musical number. You guys should see it ‘cause I love this show to death.

[Dance with Devils - Loewen]

This show also has wonderful numbers like an extremely wannabe rap and a song called “Emo Liar.” It’s “I Won’t Say I’m In Love” but with anime boys and more screaming. Anyway, that show is great and I feel like everyone should watch it, but that’s just me.

I feel like I should mention the most prolific director in the entire industry, [Chiaki Kon]. I don’t think this is even a complete list of her work. Here I have Golden Time and Sailor Moon Crystal. Season 3, since the first two were directed by someone else. She, uh, sure does put out a lot of work. Not a lot of it’s very good, but there sure is a lot of it! Props to her for getting so many jobs. I mean, as much as I love Nodame Cantabile, those two seasons are not good. Also Junjou Romantica. I’m not gonna say anything about Junjou Romantica, but… Junjou Romantica.

Literally everyone else: I of course did not have time to get to everyone. A couple of names I like on here:

Noriko Takao directing Saint Young Men, which is about Jesus and Buddha chilling in an apartment in Tokyo, and it’s pretty great. That will probably never get released over here because fundies.

Kotomi Deai directing the second season of Silver Spoon and the fifth season of Natsume Yuujinchou. She took over Silver Spoon from SAO director Tomohiko Ito, who was currently then busy with SAO.

Sayo Aoi directing The Merman In My Bathtub. See, there are actually two gay merman anime. I just think that’s incredible.

I also really like [Mitsuko Kase’s] Ristorante Paradiso. It’s the kind of show you watch if you’re really into older men. Like, if you want to sit back after work, chill and watch reasonably attractive older men do their thing, that’s the show for you.

(I have seen basically everything on this list. Some of it’s pretty bad. Some is actually decent. Not [Yukina Hiiro’s] Chu-bra. Nnngh, we don’t talk about Chu-bra.)

The anime industry today is obviously changing. There’s more anime produced now than ever before; we have dozens of new shows every three months. Go back a few decades, we had a dozen new shows a year. With that boom, the women’s share of the market is definitely growing. You see this with a lot more anime directed at women: the idol shows; the sports anime,which are intended for younger boys but have a significant female following anyway (hot guys); Touken Ranbu, which is more of a thing over in Japan than here; Osomatsu. With that, we have more female-led projects than ever before.

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The wages in the industry are terrible. Animation is a really hard job! It takes a lot of skill, and they get paid almost nothing for it. Also, the industry is kind of a boys’ club and has been since the beginning. On the bright side, a lot of these women are really young and will probably do good work in the future, so I’m gonna beg you guys to support them by watching through legal channels. (I’m shilling for good friends at Crunchyroll.)

I then went through a few resources and places to watch the good cartoons, concluding with the same two Animator Expo shorts from before the panel for the people who showed up later. Thanks for playing!

#women in anime #anime boston #transcript #long post #very very long post

22 notes · View notes

finotaisen · 8 years ago

Text

Anime Elimination: Fall Leftovers Part 2

These writeups are a bit more compact than the last set.

ClassicaLoid

Premise: A landlord desperately tries to collect rent from her freeloading squatters, most of whom happen to be classical composers with powers stemming from their connection with music. While their eccentric personalities create a lot of messes, their abilities ultimately brighten everyone’s day.

Verdict: ClassicaLoid is more competent than its premise and promotional materials might lead you to believe. It’s cheesy and prone to abusing running jokes, but more than a few times it manages to set up and deliver some genuinely funny dialogue while also capping each of its opening episodes off with a creative sequence to sell the power of music. If it were an OVA, it’s the kind of series I wouldn’t have any issues recommending. Unfortunately, it weighs in at 25 episodes and I have serious doubts about it being able to hold the fort for that long. I’ve seen what happens when ClassicaLoid has to kill time between its more well-thought-out segments and it’s not pretty, bordering on obnoxious. This kind of inconsistency is a fairly big threat to longer series and doesn’t bode well when you have to weigh ClassicaLoid’s finite creativity and budget against the option of cheap and easy shtick.

March Comes in like a Lion

Synopsis: A shogi player struggles with the memory of his dead relatives while he pursues his career and gets to know a trio of sisters with family problems of their own.

Verdict: This anime has a fair bit of potential and aside from a few visual mishaps with poorly-integrated CG, it managed to stay consistently good in its opening episodes. While one or two characters drift close to shtick territory, most of them at least hint at being multi-faceted. Combined with distinct and expressive character designs, this makes for a promising slice-of-life series. March Comes in like a Lion is definitely on the shortlist of series I’d like to revisit, given the chance.

Occultic;Nine

Synopsis: A tabloid blogger, among many seemingly unrelated people, are dragged into a supernatural conspiracy set-off by the murder of a famous scientist-turned-occultist.

Verdict: Occultic;Nine suffers from an absurdly fast pace that makes its events fairly hard to follow, especially in the first episode. It’s a bit difficult to separate this issue from this anime’s other problems, but the end result in either case is that it’s trying to cover way too many perspectives at the same time. And it’s not like the characters are terribly great, either. Most of them, especially the detective, come off as being quirky in an obnoxious way. Along with a fair bit of aimless fast-talking and borderline pretentious asides, these qualities make Occultic;Nine a fairly unappetizing series in my eye.

To Be Hero

Synopsis: A philandering toilet salesman is chosen to be Earth’s defender against an alien invasion, but there’s a catch: his superpower is turning into an ugly pervert who can’t communicate like a functional human being. Luckily for him, the bad guys are even stupider.

Verdict: While thoroughly crass, this anime had a number of decent jokes in its first few episodes. One that stood out to me was when Knockoff Wolverine tries to assassinate our hero and goes to the wrong address. When he finds out, he does a “silly me” pose and accidentally skewers himself. It was funnier to watch. Trust me. That said, it occurred to me that this anime’s premise can’t really sustain a full season and when its comedy is off, it’s downright grating. To Be Hero is the sort of anime where I’d be more inclined to watch the highlights on YouTube than the actual series.

Yuri on Ice

Synopsis: A figure skater goes on hiatus following a number of disappointing placements. After a long slump, he tries to get back in the groove of things by emulating his idol. A secret video of his performance goes viral and said hero shows up at his doorstep with an offer to coach him back into relevance. However, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s more than just admiration at play.

Verdict: Yuri on Ice holds the distinction of being the most overhyped anime of the fall season. But I wouldn’t say it’s bad. The part I was the most impressed by were the characters, who aren’t forced into one-note roles. Victor goes beyond the magic 8-ball of motivation you’d get in other sports series. You have his laid-back demeanor contrasted with his hard driving and bluntness about the realities of figure skating and what it means to compete. The two Yuris also show a fair bit of potential by virtue of how quickly they’re maturing. One goes from constant self-doubt to accepting, to some degree, the feelings he has for Victor. The other goes from reckless self-confidence to understanding his own motivation and seeing his own weaknesses. By getting all this out of the way in the first three episodes, Yuri on Ice has a fair bit of room to explore other aspects of its premise and hopefully do something interesting.

I actually find it more compelling from a character perspective than its portrayal of the sport, which in this opening arc has been very stale in terms of cinematography. I get the impression that the series was made with a singularly technical eye. This might make it accurate, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that you’re nailed to the judge’s table and limited to their corner of the rink. More than a few times in these opening three episodes, I was desperately hoping for some variety in terms of shot composition instead of another ground-level, straight-on setup. It’s a clinical, almost sterile approach that seems at odds with the show’s emotional element, which was supposed to influence their performances. Also, character detail falters significantly during these segments, which in my experience usually points to rotoscoping. That said, it’s well-integrated and Yuri on Ice doesn’t suffer from the uncanny weight of movement that you typically get in other rotoscoped series like Flowers of Evil and certain parts of Saekano.

It’s undoubtedly fujoshi-bait and suffers from a few visual weaknesses, but I think there could be a genuinely worthwhile story here. At the very least, I think it’s novel enough to be worth a look.

#anime elimination #I'll do the winter season if I have downtime

2 notes · View notes

recentanimenews · 8 years ago

Text

FEATURE: Crunchyroll Favorites 2016, Part One: Anime and Manga!

Hoo boy, 2016 was a rough year (and that's putting it very, very mildly)--but there were a few bright spots, and that's what we're here to talk about today! Crunchyroll Favorites kicks off its fifth year with another three-part look at all our favorites from the past twelve months!

The rules were simple: for Part One, only anime, manga, and related media that were released in 2016 (or received a Western release in 2016), or experienced a major milestone (like starting a new season or closing up a major arc). There's a lot to look at in Part One--let's get started!

NATE MING (@NateMing)

FLIP FLAPPERS- Finally, a modern magical girl series that steps out of Madoka's shadow and delivers something that's unique, energetic, and positive as hell. Callouts to everything from Fist of the North Star to Sukeban Deka to (of course) Sailor Moon are welcome for longtime fans, while still getting appropriately dark and moody. Cocona is all about the unease of adolescence, and Papika exudes the simple charm of Son Goku in all her pure, heroic glory. Speaking of...

Dragon Ball Super- I rarely get excited to watch simulcasts as they come out--I tend to wait and binge, but I'm there every week within a day for Dragon Ball Super. In 1995, when I was 13 years old, I wanted a sequel to Dragon Ball Z with Future Trunks coming back. Now, over twenty years later, I get to see a DBZ sequel where Future Trunks comes back--and the series feels even more like the original Dragon Ball. This is the real secret to eternal youth.

Yuri!!! on ICE- Yeah yeah, "fujo bait" or some other BS, you're just mad their fandom is more organized than yours. That says a lot to me--that a TV anime, a sports anime, can pull together so many people and get them excited, week after week. Lapsed fans have viewing parties, share recommendations, and remember why they were once into anime in the first place. This is what happens when it feels like something's made for you, and that's a wonderful thing. Yuri!!! on ICE was a pretty okay show, but it's what it symbolizes that means so much more to me.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable- I always say that JoJo's is like the original Star Trek movies--the best parts are even-numbered. Diamond is Unbreakable continues Studio David's glorious adaptation of Araki's mega-epic, bringing out all the style and soul and violence of Josuke and the gang's battle to save their town. New to JoJo? Start here--and buckle up.

Tanaka-kun is Always Listless- Anime comedies are pretty important to me--whether it's the sheer absurdity of Cromartie High School or the more low-key silliness of Tonari no Seki-kun, finding a fairly simple premise and then focusing on it is a good way to hook me. In this case, a lazy guy has to deal with his high-energy friends, and we learn that sometimes, taking it easy is the only easy way to get ahead in life.

Evangelion 3.33: You Can(Not) Redo- It felt like this movie was never going to come out here after its 2012 release, but holy crap it was worth the wait. After the familiar ground of 1.11 and the bold, assertive new direction 2.22 took, 3.33 brings us back to what Evangelion does best: raw emotional pain, horrifying visuals, and never quite trusting or rooting for anybody we see on-screen. What a ride.

Rurouni Kenshin live-action trilogy- Another awesome release that was a long time coming, this adaptation of my all-time favorite manga condenses the first 17(ish) volumes of the series into three movies, trimming some plotlines and making them all just work as dynamic, rough, yet stylish martial arts actioners. Thankfully, great fights and drama don't overshadow Rurouni Kenshin's sense of fun. Check these out when you can!

Thunderbolt Fantasy- Written and created by Gen Urobuchi? Voice acting by Junichi Suwabe, Rikiya Koyama, Nobuyuki Hiyama, and Tomokazu Seki? An opening by T.M. Revolution?! I don't care what you say, you have those credentials, it can be live-action and be made in Antarctica and still be anime as hell. As the only person I know who regularly bought ComicsONE's kung-fu manhua, Thunderbolt Fantasy brought me back to the days of hunting down volumes of Saint Legend and Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre.

My Hero Academia (manga)- There's always a certain point when a manga hooks me, and I'm in it for better or for worse. One Piece had Arlong Park (and later Enies Lobby). Naruto had the Chunin Exam. Hunter x Hunter had Yorknew City. Now, My Hero Academia's 2016 developments--and a very public, dangerous reveal and its emotional fallout--have pulled me in. I don't just say "My Hero Academia is good." Now I say "My Hero Academia is One Piece good."

Crunchyroll x Funimation- Competition's good, but everybody wins when we all work together. Funimation are the other half of what we do, and have been in this business a hell of a lot longer. Being able to watch brand-new anime subbed on CR or dubbed on Funi is the kind of thing I never thought I'd see, and I am excited as hell to be a part of this, and to see what good it can do for anime fans.

JOSEPH LUSTER (@Moldilox)

Dragon Ball Super- Dragon Ball Super went from "this thing I keep hearing is poorly animated" to "my favorite show of the year" in record time. As soon as it was available legally I jumped into a mountain-leveling, rosé-tinted marathon of madness, and as of right now it's the best damn thing since DBZ. Super has completely rekindled my not-so-dormant love for all things Toriyama, and I can't wait to see where they take the series next.

Mob Psycho 100- I loved the One-Punch Man anime, but I'm pretty sure Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama could take Saitama in an unrestrained fight. That's saying a lot, but it's just another indicator of how much I adored BONES' gorgeously-animated spin on ONE's manga (which needs to come out in English ASAP). It certainly has some of the most creative fights of 2016, and that's a year that brought us the butt-battling of Keijo!!!!!!!!

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- On paper, Re:ZERO isn't something I should have enjoyed as much as I did. I read the first volume of the light novel series and found it as clunky and poorly written as most other light novels I've attempted (noted exception: Kizumonogatari), but the anime really hooked me. It's one of the few series I felt I was watching right alongside everyone else, and it never failed to surprise me and punch me in the gut when it mattered most. This one will be remembered fondly down the line, and here's hoping we get more since Tappei Nagatsuki is still churning out volume after volume of the novels in Japan.

Also, Subaru is great, you just can't handle how devastatingly real he is.

PETER FOBIAN (@PeterFobian)

FLIP FLAPPERS- On a visual level, FLIP FLAPPERS is a fascinating tour de force of concept and animation, featuring regular bouts of intense sakuga and amazing environmental design in the diverse worlds of pure illusion all illustrated in a pseudo-classical style. For critics it is a cornucopia of satisfying references to fine art, science, psychology, philosophy, and spiritualism with visual callouts to a diverse range of media from Neon Genesis Evangelion to The Shining to Popeye. For the casual viewer it’s a powerful story of adolescent discovery told both literally and through beautifully-rendered metaphor.

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- Despite the formulaic basis of Re:ZERO’s story, appearing as one of a dime-a-dozen isekai light novel adaptations featuring a female harem, Re:ZERO proved to have some serious narrative worth. Not quite a deconstruction, Re:ZERO featured a deeply flawed protagonist in Subaru and an atypical narrative featuring a novel premise in Subaru’s ability to resurrect from death. This gave the anime a huge potential for speculation, and created an entire community of enthusiasts and analysts who followed it from week to week to see what happened next.

ERASED- Halfway through winter season I was absolutely convinced that nothing in 2016 would be able to top the combination of subtle direction, emotional narrative, and unique premise of ERASED. The series masterfully invested its audience in Kayo’s well-being, so for the viewer, the series became less about solving the mystery of the murders than the simple hope that this brave, unfairly abused girl could find some modicum of happiness in a cruel world. Satoru’s altruistic quest, forthright concern, willingness to admit his own faults, and habit of accidentally vocalizing his thoughts made him a truly endearing protagonist.

March comes in like a lion- This show tells a story that's as difficult to look at as it is to look away from. The inextricable nature of the sources of Rei’s joy and sorrow have created a narrow path he must walk upon just at the edge of despair. Studio SHAFT makes excellent use of visuals, employing darkness and deep water to give Rei’s emotions an elemental quality that allow you to experience the suffocating hold that his depression has upon him, while surrounding the Kawamoto household with a warmth and childlike simplicity that represents the refuge their unconditional love offers to him.

Mob Psycho 100- Mob Psycho 100 may justifiably have a place on top 10 lists for 2016 simply for visual power of the anime alone. Like FLIP FLAPPERS, Mob Psycho 100 is a demonstration of what is possible when you let artists loose on a project. It also showcased ONE’s versatility as a storyteller, strangely, by portraying the same type of overwhelmingly powerful protagonist through a different lens. Behind all the oddball humor and eye-popping art is the story of a boy who struggles with being normal, while everyone around him wants to stand out.

Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū- What we have here is one of a kind: a dedicated, generational period piece not only faithfully depicting post-war Japan, but doing so through the the lens of an obscure and nearly-extinct form of artist theater that is uniquely Japanese. Rakugo feels like the sort of soulful, arthouse passion project that a Hollywood director would have to put years of time in to build the clout to justify its creation. Its direction, emphasizing on gesture and expression, is absolutely cinematic, drawing out each emotional note of the melancholic narrative. The somber humanity of Rakugo almost doesn’t feel like an anime, and is a testament to the versatility of the medium.

My Hero Academia- The next up-and-coming shonen hall-of-famer, in many ways My Hero Academia has already surpassed many of its peers with its fascinating triadic rivalry between Deku, Kacchan, and Todoroki. MHA does a tremendous job of portraying its immensely charming cast of characters' pursuit of diverse personal goals that are equal parts altruism and self-interest. Most importantly, Horikoshi has tapped into the ethos of superheroes, creating inspirational figures that are intrinsically human, but saddled with the responsibility of representing something larger than life.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable- Despite my many attempts to get into the series, Diamond is Unbreakable is perhaps the first iteration of JoJo that had something interesting to say. The slow-burn murder mystery set in an idyllic town and the many asides, notations, and references all work in concert to build the fictional city of Morioh into a nearly real place like The Simpsons' Springfield. With that hurdle passed, Araki’s stylized art and its amazing adaptation into color and movement by Studio David become an art form unto themselves.

Tanaka-kun is Always Listless- Maybe it was how atypical Tanaka was as a lead in a medium where protagonists are homogenously faceless, featureless, and altruistic that drew me to this series. The entire cast each have some sort of hang-up, but the titular Tanaka-kun just treats it differently (ironically) by treating them all the same. Tanaka-kun definitely has a lot of offer on the classroom comedy front, but it also provides a unique sort of iyashikei, or healing media, in which characters' idiosyncrasies are taken in stride and wholeheartedly accepted, even appreciated, by others. It’s this light-hearted dedication to the positive that makes this anime so dear to me.

Yuri!!! on ICE- Complaints about animation and 11th hour writing aside, I do believe Yuri!!! on ICE was one of the most important anime this year or perhaps of the past several years. Yuri!!! on ICE is a story meant to appeal to a much more vast audience than the more targeted content we’re used to, and it showed. It's created new fans for the sport of figure skating, reached out to the LGBT community, and represented countries that hardly see a mention in modern media. It was written for a global audience and it reached it. Only time will tell if it's destined to have any sort of lasting cultural impact, but in the present, at least, it has drawn some deserved attention to the art form.

KARA DENNISON (@RubyCosmos)

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress- I had this show dropped on me by a friend with absolutely no lead-in whatsoever. I've had my fill of steampunk and zombies, so I nearly gave it the brush-off... but then I realized Mikimoto was behind the character designs! It's a gorgeous piece of work, and not at all tuned to the tropes I was expecting. The promise of more is incredibly exciting.

BAKUON!!- Motorcycle anime? Sign me up. It took literally zero arm-twisting to get me into a show about schoolgirls on bikes. Especially when one of them is pretty much literally the Stig. I haven't finished this yet, but I'm looking forward to watching the end very soon!

Love Live! School Idol Project (pre-2016)- Yeah, yeah, I'm late to the party. After lurking around on the game, I finally gave the anime a try to see what all the fuss was about. And I admit it: it's actually really good. It helped that I was in touch with the characters after playing on the app for so long, I think, but I really did jam with this. Looking forward to starting Sunshine soon.

EVAN MINTO (@VamptVo)

Space Patrol Luluco- As Crunchyroll’s resident Trigger fan, I’m obligated to put Luluco at the top of my list. It’s the famed studio of loony ex-Gainax dorks indulging in some of the most surreal, self-referential comedy this side of FLCL (the show where Luluco director Hiroyuki Imaishi got his start as an animation director). Not only does Luluco boast references to every Trigger property from Kill la Kill to Kiznaiver and cameos from Little Witch Academia, Sex & Violence, and 2016’s REAL Best Boy — Inferno Cop — but it’s also a surprisingly sincere shojo-inspired cosmic love story!

Mob Psycho 100- I loved what I saw of One-Punch Man, though I never did finish it (I know, I know). Mob Psycho 100, also from webcomic artist ONE, has some of the same appeal — superpowered battles, lush animation, and an absurd, slightly dark sense of humor — but cuts it with a heartfelt coming-of-age-story. More than anything else, though, I watched Mob just to see what wild shots the animators at BONES would try next, and I was rarely disappointed. Mob Psycho 100 is easily one of the best-looking shows of the past five years; every animator gets a chance to show off their unique style, and even the most mundane scenes are infused with energy and personality.

ERASED- It’s rare we get an anime series I can comfortably recommend to my parents, but ERASED manages to capture the nail-biting cliffhangers and complex mysteries that drive so many popular modern American TV series. On top of all of that, director Tomohiko Ito (of Sword Art Online fame, go figure) crafts powerful, cinematic visuals without resorting to expressionistic anime flourishes. When it all comes together it’s a captivating experience. The ending needs a bit more room to breathe, but even with a few stumbles at the finish line, ERASED is a series I’ll be recommending for years to come.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable- I wasn’t super pleased with Stardust Crusaders, but Diamond is Unbreakable brings back all of the wacky charm of the first two parts of the JoJo’s saga, EXCEPT WITH STANDS. This time Araki doesn’t hold back, introducing a host of completely absurd Stand powers, including: “transform a person into a newspaper and read their life story,” “heal people via Italian food,” and “a real army but the size of toys.” It’s also much smaller-scale, with a lot of recurring characters, many of whom are some of my favorites in the whole series. Though they’ve dropped the incredible Kamikaze Douga OP sequences, David Production makes up for it with colorful, high-contrast artwork that perfectly accentuates Araki’s manic sense of style. I’m sad to see Diamond is Unbreakable go, but JoJo’s still has so much more in store.

Only Yesterday- At 25 years old this year, Only Yesterday is hardly a “new” title, but 2016 was the first time we got it in the United States! Produced at Studio Ghibli and directed by Grave of the Fireflies’ Isao Takahata, the film is a beautifully understated, lyrical look at a woman’s life, told simultaneously through a summer spent farming and a series of memories from her childhood. Most of the movie is ordinary almost to a fault, but like many of Takahata’s movies, it builds carefully and almost imperceptibly to a sublime emotional climax. Only Yesterday is easily one of my favorite anime of all time.

Belladonna of Sadness- Another retro release, Belladonna is the third and final film in the Animerama series of erotic art films produced by Osamu Tezuka’s Mushi Productions. This one, however, is entirely directed by Eiichi Yamamoto (Tezuka co-produced the other two). Suffice it to say, it’s not exactly what you might expect from the studio that produced Astro Boy. A medieval lord rapes a beautiful peasant woman, who seeks revenge by making a deal with the devil. Yamamoto presents the story’s gothic horror — complete with Satanic rituals and frightening descents into madness — with elaborate animated paintings and an incredible psychedelic rock soundtrack from Masahiko Satoh. Not for the faint of heart, Belladonna of Sadness is an arresting work of experimental animation that’s a welcome change of pace from the banality of modern anime.

One-Punch Man (manga)- I’m finally close to caught up with One-Punch Man, and I’m surprised I didn’t read it sooner! Eyeshield 21’s Yusuke Murata has a great eye for character design and pulls off some surprisingly ambitious page layouts, but it’s ONE’s absurd, childish sense of humor that makes the series stand out so much from its shonen action contemporaries. Saitama’s complete apathy undercuts every opportunity for serious danger or drama, giving the series a sardonic self-awareness that’s relatively rare in shonen action series.

And Yet the Town Moves- After a 10-year run, And Yet the Town Moves is finally over. Masakazu Ishiguro’s decade-long manga never follows a single storyline for more than two or three chapters, instead constructing a deliberately out-of-order series of episodic comedy vignettes about a small Japanese town and the grossly out-of-place maid café at its center. What always made And Yet the Town Moves a joy to go back to was Ishiguro’s ability to weave endless strings of jokes at his characters’ expense, all while painting a picture of a tight-knit community of decent, lovable folks both old and young. Appropriately for a sitcom that consistently shuns sentimentality in favor of comedy, the final chapter ends with just another dumb joke.

The Gods Lie.- Lots of anime and manga feature children as the main characters, but it’s rare that these stories really tackle what it means to be a child in modern society. The Gods Lie, on the other hand, tackles it head on with the story of three kids — the oldest of whom are in 6th grade — who live alone in an abandoned house for a summer. There’s a fair bit of high drama in this single book (an absentee father, a sick, elderly soccer coach) but The Gods Lie communicates far more about how how societies nurture and shelter their children through showcasing the fractured but functional surrogate family that the three kids form for each other.

The Osamu Tezuka Story- Though it’s sometimes a little too detailed for its own good, The Osamu Tezuka Story is an invaluable book for anyone like me who’s obsessed with the life and work of Osamu Tezuka, the “God of Manga” who created Astro Boy and revolutionized both the postwar manga and anime industries. In manga form, author Toshio Ban lays out Tezuka’s life from his schoolboy days sketching in the margins of notebooks to his death in 1989, pulling from memoirs, interviews, and personal accounts from those who knew him best. Tezuka loved to write manga epics about the lives of heroes and historical figures, so it’s fitting that he’d get immortalized in his own manga biography.

SAM WOLFE (@_Samtaro)

One Piece- 2016 was another great year for the One Piece manga, as the Straw Hats finally did something fans have been anticipating for years: take on one of the Four Emperors of the Sea! Luffy has been making waves on Whole Cake Island, home to the notorious pirate lord Big Mom (and let me tell you, she’s got that name for a reason). Next to Teach, Big Mom has become one of my favorite One Piece villains, largely due to her distorted views on family. But is Big Mom really so bad? After all, her dream is to sit at a table where everyone sits at the same height…

ERASED- ERASED was a critically received murder mystery and drama that took the anime world by storm earlier this year, and I can’t sing its praises enough. Regardless of your feelings on the ending, ERASED had us gripped, and because the anime promised an alternate ending than its source manga, we were all in the dark. But to me, the success of ERASED was its appeal to both anime fans and non-anime fans. When a newbie asks me for anime recommendations, ERASED is sure to be on that list.

Dragon Ball Super- Dragon Ball Super really wasn’t on my radar until it was licensed in the States, and boy am I happy it was. As a big fan of Battle of the Gods and Resurrection F, Super was familiar territory, but this year I realized how good of a follow-up this show is to Dragon Ball Z; the power levels are higher, as are the stakes, and Goku is finally an underdog again. It’s good to be back.

Yuri!!! on ICE- I know, I know, you’ve heard enough about this one, but it deserves the nod. Yuri!!! on ICE is a special show for a lot of reasons: it’s appealing to anime fans and non-anime fans alike, it was an original story (meaning, it’s not based on a manga or light novel), and it told the story of two male figure skaters falling in love. It’s more than just a fujoshi dream come true; Yuri!!! on ICE did something really new, and that’s worth noting, even if you’re not a fan.

ISAAC AKERS (@iblessall)

As has been my custom with this space over the past few years (okay, just last year), rather than highlighting the shows that made it into my top 10 of the year, I’ll be touching on a few of the year’s offerings that just missed the cut.

She and Her Cat -Everything Flows- One of the quietest and shortest shows of the year was also a serious contender for being one of its best. Based on an earlier work of the same main title by Makoto Shinkai, She and Her Cat -Everything Flows- is a peaceful, melancholic look at the life of a young woman struggling with the loneliness and sadness that can come with being out on your own in the world. Much like one of my favorite short pieces from 2015, the Animator Expo’s tomorrow from there. She and Her Cat captures with ease and empathy a kind of wistful yet warm existential state. If you’ve been in the main character’s shoes even a little (or, if you’re in them right now), She and Her Cat -Everything Flows- is like getting a nice hug.

Three Leaves, Three Colors- Studio Dogakobo is well-known for their bouncy comedies, with recent hits like Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun and Love Lab leading the list. However, Three Leaves, Three Colors (from the same mangaka as Engaged to the Unidentified) is a somewhat more demure affair despite sharing many of the same trappings. With standout bits of animation scattered throughout and great color work, it’s a pleasure to look at, but it also boasts a rock-solid main trio of friends who play off each other in fun ways. There are even some almost surrealistic comedic interludes interspersed here and there. If you like moe comedies and missed this one this year, here’s your cue to check it out!

The Lost Village- Arguably the most controversial show of the entire year when it was airing, whether The Lost Village was genius, mediocre, or horrid varies depending on who you ask. I’ve weighed in on the matter with my own thoughts multiple times, but even considering how much respect I ended up having for the show I still find myself a bit baffled by it. That being said, it’s definitely one of the shows I had the most fun watching, writing, and discussing during the year, and I think those who engage with it ready to be flexible with their expectations will find, at the very least, a very unique anime to add to their completed list.

As for manga… I didn’t read any manga this year and I don’t think Nate will let me put Orange on my list for the third straight year, so sorry. [EDITOR'S NOTE: I would have been cool with this.] Pokemon Special’s still fun and good, by the way.

NICK CREAMER (@B0bduh)

FLIP FLAPPERS- FLIP FLAPPERS offered basically everything I want in an anime: great character writing, stirring themes, beautiful worlds, and an overall sense of whimsy that kept the whole thing fun and propulsive even when it was touching on topics like child abandonment and an inability to love yourself. It was an astonishing visual showcase and also a remarkably well-constructed character story, using its many diverse Pure Illusion adventures to consistently illustrate new things about its central characters. It’s one of those weird passion projects that make anime special, and I’m very happy it exists.

Concrete Revolutio: The Last Song- Okay, when I said FLIP FLAPPERS was everything I want in an anime, I sort of lied - I also like shows with searing political messages, and The Last Song was that all over. Depicting the breakdown of an alternate post-war Japan where superheroes are real, The Last Song was more reflective and bittersweet than Concrete Revolutio’s first season, but just as clever, creative, and engaging. From its wild pop-art style to its smart application of superhero archetypes to the social turmoil of 60s/70s Japan, The Last Song offered me a hefty meal to dig into every single week.

Sound! Euphonium 2- And reaching the final pole of my anime preferences, Sound! Euphonium continued to be thoughtful character drama done right. The show’s second season was messier than its first, adapting some material that couldn’t match the consistency of its predecessor, but the show’s characters continued to be very strong, and Kyoto Animation’s execution was just beyond compare. While many shows use the open canvas of animation to tell soaring, fantastical narratives, Euphonium demonstrated just how much magic and beauty there is in the personal and everyday.

Kizumonogatari- Oh, I also watched the first two Kizu movies this year, and they were glorious. Monogatari has been one of my favorite anime franchises for years now, but seeing Tatsuya Oishi’s gorgeous take on the prequel novel still felt like a revelatory experience. Instead of the TV series’ usual embrace of heavy internal monologue, Oishi fully realized Araragi’s depression, panic, and sexual mania through sound and pictures alone, making for one of the most distinctive and visceral film experiences I’ve seen. The Kizu films are a remarkable achievement.

FROG-KUN (@frog_kun)

Yuri!!! on ICE - An anime that was born to make history. Besides all the pretty boys and ice skating, the one thing that will stick with me about this show is how international its scope was. Yuri!!! on ICE takes you around the world and offers a surprisingly detailed and true-to-life picture of international competitive ice skating. We got to see skaters from Thailand and Kazakhstan excel at what they love on the world stage. As compelling as Yuri's journey as an athlete was, any of the skaters could have been the main character of this story. In fact, this was something that director Sayo Yamamoto and mangaka Mitsuro Kubo specifically went out of their way to suggest. No wonder this series was so beloved around this world!

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- This series might look like a typical fantasy-adventure story about an insufferable male nerd at first glance, but I was really impressed by how much empathy the narrative had for its main character. Subaru is an extremely weak character in the scheme of things, and the world doesn't revolve around him. His struggle to connect with others and move past his self-hatred resonated with me for similar reasons that My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU and Neon Genesis Evangelion did. I also happened to really love all the side characters in this series, and there's enough left unexplained by the end to make me burn with curiosity to find out what happens next. Season 2 when?!

your name.- I got to see Makoto Shinkai's masterpiece when it came out in Australian cinemas in November, and I ended up loving it so much that I saw it twice in three days! In my view, it's the first Shinkai film that balances its macro plot and themes equally with the love story, and that might be one of the reasons why I found it so personally relatable. your name. was created in response to the Fukushima disaster, and I found its message of empathizing with others and treasuring every fleeting moment especially profound in that context. I also think that the film touches on something deep about the way we humans connect with each other, and how it's possible for us to emotionally identify with people we've never even physically met. For that reason, among many others, it has become one of my favorite anime of all time.

WILHELM DONKO (@Surwill)

Sound! Euphonium 2- The first Sound! Euphonium was already my favorite anime of 2015, and the sequel again managed to make my list this year, as the second season was not lacking any of the traits and attributes responsible for the remarkable first season. Sound! Euphonium 2 kept its authentic grounded tone, which was accompanied by realistic characters and character-interactions, relatable drama, and background art nothing short of stunning. After a bit of a slow start, the season really picked up after the incredibly animated musical performance during the Kansai Competition, and in the end managed to tie up most loose ends beautifully. I’d also like to quickly mention Kumiko’s voice actresses’ unusual and mellow performance, which added a lot of personality to her character in my opinion.

Haikyu!!- Volleyball? I’m surely not going to care for an anime about a sport I don’t even know all the rules to. Boy, was I wrong. I picked up Haikyu!! around the start of the year, while the second cour of the second season was still running, and was immediately hooked. The show is extremely engaging, energetic, fast-paced, and almost always kept me on the edge of my seat during the matches. Haikyu!!’s cast is equally lovable (even the opponents in the show are great), and undergo some major character development throughout the seasons. I really did not care for Tsukishima at the beginning of show, but he soon became one of my favorites, especially after the thrilling third season. I guess I could say the same about Haikyu!! in general.

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World- I don’t think I need to talk a lot about Re:ZERO, as it was undoubtedly one the biggest, if not the biggest anime this year. The show was definitely one of the more interesting takes on the Isekai (different world) formula in recent memory, and always sparked a great amount of discussion after each episode. And what can I say? I really liked to see Subaru suffer.

Love Live! Sunshine!!- I’m fully aware that Love Live! Sunshine!! is the odd one out of all my picks, and I would never objectively consider it as anime of the year, but it was my personal favorite of 2016. Even though I watched both seasons of the original, I never really cared for the Love Live! series, but that drastically changed with the start of Love Live! Sunshine!! While I never warmed up to Muse, I just adore every member of Aqour’s, and generally consider Sunshine!! to be a step up in every aspect compared to the original. However, it wasn’t until my own pilgrimage to the show’s setting, Uchiura and Numazu that I really fell in love with the series. I’ve done a lot of anime pilgrimages, but this one ranks among my favorites. After that I started collecting everything Love Live! Sunshine!! related I could get my hands upon. From art books, to figures to coffee mugs, I have it all – I even play that darn mobile game every day. Yousoro ~

Honorable Mentions: Flying Witch, KONOSUBA, Ajin.

BRANDON TETERUCK (@Don_Don_Kun)

FLIP FLAPPERS– Magical girl anime have encountered a bit of a dry spell in recent years. Thankfully Kiyotaka Oshiyama brought us a unique spin on the genre with his directorial debut, FLIP FLAPPERS. While FLIP FLAPPERS was a mishmash of different styles, ranging from campy shojo horror to Mad Max action, each episode worked harmoniously to create a cohesive emotional narrative. FLIP FLAPPERS’ two heroines, Papika and Cocona, learn more about themselves and each other by exploring a slew of psychedelic and dreamlike worlds. Although the peculiar fusion of genres may not suit every audience’s taste, FLIP FLAPPERS had essentially what I wanted out of a modern magical girl anime: creative and experimental animation sequences, heavily allegorical storytelling, and fabulous henshin scenes.

KIZNAIVER– Hiroshi Kobayashi’s directorial debut, KIZNAIVER, was an ambitious project unlike anything studio Trigger had attempted before. Alongside scriptwriter Mari Okada, Kobayashi created a contemporary adolescent drama that wasn’t afraid to tackle some of the touchier issues in Japanese society. Throughout KIZNAIVER, its cast of misfits constantly grapple between wanting to feel the physical and emotional pain of others and questioning whether an artificial connection could create a sense of togetherness. This was the primary dramatic narrative of KIZNAIVER, and while intriguing in and of itself, it was truly Kobayashi’s thoughtful directing and clever use of visual symbolism that elevated the material. KIZNAIVER may have lacked narrative polish around its edges, but it was one of the most visually poignant pieces of commercial anime to come out of the industry in the past couple of years. Here’s hoping that Kobayashi will have more directing roles in the future as his cinematic vision brings a lot to the table for commercial anime as a whole.

Sound! Euphonium 2– The first season of Sound! Euphonium had always been a favorite of mine, and as such, the bar was set quite high when I heard a prequel was announced. Despite a rather lackluster first arc, the second half of 2016’s Sound! Euphonium 2 blew me away. The relationship between Kumiko and Asuka, two of the central pillars of Kitauji High’s concert band, embodied both the heart and soul of Sound! Euphonium’s web of emotional connections. It was beautiful to see their close-knit bond - built upon respect, trust, and understanding - unfold as the barriers between senpai and kohai were broken down. It set the stage perfectly for the resolution of Sound! Euphonium’s many other narratives: Kumiko and her older sister’s mending of their sibling conflict, Reina’s emotional maturing, and Taki’s finding peace within himself over his late wife. With a soulful conclusion to an already fantastic anime by Kyoto Animation, Sound! Euphonium is a series that couldn’t have ended in a more satisfying manner.

Mob Psycho 100– Mob Psycho 100 is unequivocally a testament to the creativity and passion of the anime industry’s top animators. Director Yuzuru Tachikawa and animation director Yoshimichi Kameda created an experimental take on ONE’s source manga that showcased the importance of animation for storytelling and expression. While still operating within the confines of a shounen work, Mob Psycho 100 is an anime with a visual and ideological identity that does not confirm to the sterile and idealistic standard of perfectionism that is seen in many contemporary anime. “If everyone is not special, maybe you can be who you want to be.”

Love Live! Sunshine!!– Last, but certainly not least, is a pick that you may find a bit strange if you’ve been reading the reasoning behind my other favorite anime of 2016. While I do value artistry in animation and direction, there are times when a fun anime with a cute and charming cast of characters is just as enjoyable to watch. Despite adopting a similar plot structure to the original Love Live! series, Love Live! Sunshine!! knew how to play around with its audience’s expectations, in some cases subverting characterization tropes and outright parodying the original. The girls of Aqours were a low-key bunch of loveable dorks who enthusiastically attempted to emulate the franchise’s previous group of idols (often times with hilarious or unfortunate results). Aqours’ playful banter and goofy antics quickly made me invested in their underdog soul search for stardom, while the intimate relationship between Chika and Riko brought a smile to my face. With the collective energy and excitement it brought to my life while watching, Love Live! Sunshine!! was one of my most pleasant surprises of 2016. Also, Dia is best girl.

----------

And that's a wrap for Part One of our three-part series! Be sure to tune in at the same time tomorrow for PART TWO: VIDEO GAMES! And if you're still in the mood for past CR Favorites, check out the previous years' features here:

Crunchyroll Favorites 2015 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2014 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2013 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll Favorites 2012 Part One Part Two Part Three

Crunchyroll News' Best of 2011 Part One Part Two

What were your favorite anime and manga of 2016? Remember, this is a FAVORITES list, not a BEST OF list, so there's no wrong answers--sound off in the comments and share your favorites with us!

-------

Nate Ming is the Features and Reviews Editor for Crunchyroll News, creator of the long-running Fanart Friday column, and the Customer Support Lead for Crunchyroll. You can follow him on Twitter at @NateMing.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

3 notes · View notes