A Spicy Controversy

You know, I originally planned to spend this week talking about the recently released One Piece: Episode of Skypiea special. But then that turned out to be kinda boring and badly paced, and really only hardcore One Piece fans like myself would actually care about that sort of thing. And then a real explosion of controversy ripples through the anime community and now it feels silly to talk about anything else.

So the good people at Crunchryoll (or rather, their parent company Ellation, but that seems to have flown over everyone's head), decided to launch a brand new animation studio to create original content to run on Crunchyroll and VRV alongside their normal selection of anime. To go along with this, a brand new original project entitled High Guardian Spice was announced for a 2019 release. The show is apparently about four girls, each named after spices for some reason, going to a special school to become fantasy heroes or something. And as they girls go on their journey, they will "form allegiances and comical kinships, uncover legacies and betrayals, and discover their true identities while preparing to protect the world from an ominous unknown threat." Though I could have told you that they decide to form a jazz band and ride ostriches on the surface of Neptune and you would have had no choice but to believe me after seeing the trailer.

Surprisingly, an announcement trailer for an animated series has NO ANIMATION in it. Instead, all we get is a bunch of boring live action interviews with people working on the show interspersed with a slideshow of concept art. And while it's super cool that you guys are using hand drawn animation in a field dominated by digital animation nowadays and that you have an all-female writing team, I don't think that this is exactly what you should be focusing on when you're trying to pitch the merits of your show. And just telling me that your show is going to be like "nothing I've ever seen before" isn't an effective way to hype me up when you have nothing to show me. It just sounds like you don't have the confidence to let your show speak for itself and are just trying to trick me into liking it.

But a lackluster trailer alone isn't quite a controversy, so what gives? Well, anime fans apparently don't understand the concept of original programming and are absolutely furious at the idea of Crunchyroll airing something besides anime. Naturally, I disagree, otherwise I wouldn't have written such a disgusted sentence just now. Seriously, I don't understand the issue here. If Netflix and Amazon are allowed to create original content in order to buff up their library alongside all the licensed content they already provide, then why can't smaller streaming services like Crunchyroll? And even if High Guardian Spice sucks (which is impossible to determine right now), it doesn't change the fact that you can still watch anime you actually like on Crunchyroll after dropping it. And like I said earlier, this isn't even Crunchyroll's decision (even though Crunchyroll would like you to think differently because they're a recognizable brand). This is Ellation, their parent company, calling the shots. In other words, even if the Crunchyroll higher ups don't think this is a good idea (and obviously, I can't say one way or the other), their hands are tied.

I wish I was talking about One Piece instead of having to talk about this.

Now some people are using this trailer as ammunition for their actually long list of complaints about Crunchyroll as a whole. And, yes, Crunchyroll isn't perfect, but that has nothing to do with Ellation's decision to produce original content and host it on their own platform that they own. And what really irks me is the people implying that Crunchyroll is stealing Japanese animators' work to fund western projects for the sake of profits and aren't supporting the anime industry.

I'm sorry, what?

Of course Crunchyroll supports the anime industry. Maybe not the way you want them to, but there is no denying that they do. First of all, they have to pay licensing fees to the anime studios and production companies for every single anime they add to their library. That's money going into the anime industry. Secondly, the new Ellation Studios has two production facilities, one in Burbank and the other in Tokyo. I'm assuming that an animation studio in Japan is going to be hiring Japanese animators. Thirdly, Crunchyroll (as well as Netflix and Amazon), actually invest in the anime industry by co-producing A LOT of anime, including A Place Further than the Universe, Recovery of an MMO Junkie, and (sigh) Island, thus helping to keep the industry (and everyone hired by them) supported. What more could you people want? Aside from not paying anyone who works on the western side of things (for things like site maintenance and subtitles), it doesn't seem like there are any other options for them.

And to those of you who are complaining about inaccurate subtitles and the continued use of an outdated and dying player like Flash in the middle of all this, calm the hell down. One, there is no point in complaining about such things during this particular discussion, it just muddies the issue and gets people off topic. Time and place, people. Second, Crunchyroll has already been working on switching to HTML5, they just haven't announced it because they rightfully assumed that an announcement that was so boring and technical and had nothing to do with anime would get a lot of attention from the majority of their userbase. But in the response to the crazy amount of backlash from the High Guardian Spice trailer, they announced that a new HTML5 player will be rolled out in September, which is already right around the corner. Third, inaccuracies in the subtitles are inevitable when you have so many different episodes being translated so soon after airing in Japan one after another. And while it would be nice if inaccuracies were corrected in a timely manner, Crunchyroll only has so much time and resources, and I understand why they might decide translating new episodes to be of a higher priority than fixing old episodes. The alternatives are either Crunchyroll taking on fewer properties, thus making their library weaker and strengthening their competitors, or taking longer to actually translate episodes, thus giving up the same day release that makes them such an attractive service in the first place.

In short, people need to abandon their knee-jerk reactions and take the time to do some research before suddenly and loudly concluding that a western-produced cartoon is proof that Crunchyroll is a parasitic blight on the anime service, selfishly profiting off hard working Japanese creators' works without giving anything in return. Because all it took were a few google searches and a little bit of time on Crunchyroll's website and the Anime News Network for me to learn that that was not the case.

Oh, yeah, I started watching this recently. It's pretty good, maybe I should talk about it.

Jump Force Wish List

Okay, this is an anime blog, and it’s focus will always be primarily about anime. However, anime culture can go beyond the anime that are featured in television and film, and so occasionally I will be going beyond television and film as well. And that is why today, I will be speculating on an upcoming video game that is heavily rooted in video games.

At the Microsoft press conference at E3 2018, a trailer was shown for a new game developed by
Bandai Namco (of Tekken, Soul Calibur, and Super Smash Bros fame) called Jump Force. A crossover
fighting game of the different franchises of popular manga publisher Weekly Shonen Jump, the first
trailer featured Son Goku and Freeza of Dragon Ball, Luffy of One Piece, and Naruto of, well, Naruto,
battling in several locations, including my then home at the time, New York City. When the trailer ended
showing Light Yagami and Ryuk of Death Note looking down at the battles, I knew that this game was
not going to be afraid of going deep into Jump’s history to find the best possible characters to truly
celebrate the magazine’s 50 year run. The game isn’t going to be released until some time in 2019, so
I thought it would be fun to talk about franchises that are confirmed to be represented in the game, as
well as other franchises that I would like to see represented alongside them. I will be considering
things like popularity, uniqueness, legacy, and my own personal taste here, but really the only rule is
that the characters have to be from a manga that is published by Shonen Jump.

Dragon Ball

Starting with what is possibly the most well known manga series of all time, Dragon Ball already has
series protagonist Son Goku and the most well known antagonist Freeza represented in the game.
Both of these characters are no brainers, but there is one more character that feels like it must be
included, if only because his absence would feel so strange: Goku’s rival-turned-ally Vegeta. While he
might not be my favorite Dragon Ball character, he is the most prominent character in the series not
named Goku, and there have been just as many characters from subsequent works based on him as
there have been on Goku. This feels like such an inevitability that I’m just shocked Vegeta wasn’t
shown in any trailers or demos yet.

Naruto

Up next, we have Dragon Ball’s number one fan, Naruto. This franchise also has two fighters
confirmed for the game: the eponymous ninja himself and his rival-turned-evil and walking emo joke
Sasuke Uchiha. Both of these characters are again obvious choices, but I really feel that Naruto, as
well as its two biggest contemporaries One Piece and Bleach (more on them later), deserve three
representatives on legacy alone. While the obvious choice might be to pick Naruto and Sasuke’s
teammate Sakura Haruno to round out the trio, and a female character would be a welcome addition,
I don’t think she is the best choice from this franchise. Instead, I feel that the protagonist of the sequel
manga, Boruto Uzumaki, makes the most sense, at least from a marketing perspective.

One Piece

The last major series shown in the trailer, One Piece again has two fighters confirmed for the game:
future King of the Pirates Monkey D Luffy and his first mate Roronoa Zoro. Both are excellent choices
that make a lot of sense, but again, I think at least one more representative is needed here. One Piece
is the best selling manga in history, currently sitting at 440 million copies sold at this time of writing
according to Wikipedia. And after Luffy and Zoro, the next most prominent fighter in the cast would
have to be the ship’s cook Sanji, who along with Luffy and Zoro, are known as the Monster Trio in the
game. Just think about what a hype moment it would be to have these three facing off against Freeza
in whatever story mode the game would have.

Death Note

I said One Piece was the last major series shown in the trailer, but Death Note’s Light Yagami and
Ryuk were shown at the very end of the E3 trailer as well. However, post trailer interviews with the
game’s creators have stated that Light and Ryuk were not going to be playable fighters in the game,
even though they do seem to have a role in the game’s story. This makes sense to me, as Light is a
strategist who, while physically fit and a police officer, is not a fighter, and Ryuk has always been
portrayed as an observer who does not care for the conflicts of mortals. However, I do think it would
be cool, story wise, to have Light’s nemesis L Lawliet make an appearance in the story as well, but
that feels unlikely.

Bleach

The last of the Big Three franchises of the 2000s (alongside One Piece and Naruto), Bleach was
confirmed with three fighters after the E3 trailer, choosing to represent itself with heroes Ichigo
Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki, as well as the villainous Sosuke Aizen. While Ichigo and Rukia are great
choices, as they are the two main protagonists (at least in the early arcs before the cast of Bleach
becomes so large and ensemble-based), Aizen is a weird choice. It makes sense for the villain of the
series to be chosen instead of one of the many many lesser heroes or henchmen, but Aizen is one of
the least popular characters in Bleach, at least here in the West, and his powers are so vaguely
defined and not visually spectacular that it seems ridiculously difficult to make a moveset around him.
But whatever, these are the three characters we get, and I don’t think it makes sense to expect
any more playable fighters besides that.

Hunter x Hunter

This was confirmed on the same day as I started drafting this post, but Gon Freecs and his
sometimes enemy, sometimes ally Hisoka were both confirmed as being added to the roster.
This is slightly surprising to me, as while Hunter x Hunter is a very popular manga, the fact that the
manga is frequently put on hiatus (to the point of two incomplete anime adaptations have been made
and released without a definite ending) made it feel questionable that it would get representation. I
also find it surprising that Hisoka would get the nod over Gon’s best friend (and the character that gets
the most focus besides him) Killua Zoldyck would get passed over. Not that Hisoka is a bad choice,
his Bungee Gum would make for a very unique moveset, but it just seems strange. At the same time,
with Hunter x Hunter being a comparatively smaller series than Dragon Ball, One Piece, or Naruto, it
feels wrong to say that it deserves three reps, so I guess Gon and Hisoka are here to stay.

That does it for the franchises that have confirmed representation. Now, it’s time for the fun part. I’m
going to be diving into a full list of Jump’s franchises, picking out the ones that I think are likely or
have potential or that I have a bias toward, and talking about what I want versus what I think will be
likely.

My Hero Academia

After One Piece, My Hero Academia is probably the biggest title that is currently being published by
Jump, with lots and lots of fans in both Japan and the West. And while it’s getting its own fighting
game in October, I think it would make a lot of sense for Jump to be adding popular characters from
manga it is currently running in the magazine. As such, I think that it is highly likely that both series
protagonist Izuku Midoriya and his rival Katsuki Bakugo would make an appearance. If Jump and
Bandai Namco decide that a third rep is deserved, the most obvious choices would be either All Might
or Shoto Todoroki. And between the two of them, while I like All Might as a character more, I think that
Todoroki makes more sense as he has a three way rivalry with Midoriya and Bakugo that a story can
build off of and has a unique powerset that would make him distinct, whereas All Might and Midoriya
literally have the same powerset.

Black Clover

I don’t know anything about Black Clover as I have never read the manga nor have I watched the
anime. A brief look on Wikipedia and TvTropes tell me that it is a story about a boy named Asta trying
to become “The Wizard King” despite having no magical powers of his own, instead relying on an
anti-magic sword. I’m not going to judge the series’s quality when I haven’t read the manga or
watched the anime at all and I have no idea if I would like it or not. What I do know, is that Jump, as
well as Crunchyroll and FUNimation, were pushing this show quite a bit before release. While it hasn’t
quite gone over well in the West, it seems to be decently popular in Japan, being the 14th highest
selling manga in 2017 with 1.9 million copies sold. These numbers alone make me feel that it’s pretty
likely that Jump is going to want to keep pushing Black Clover a little more, but I also feel that it’s likely
that only one character will be added to the roster here, as it hasn’t had the runaway success that its
contemporary My Hero Academia has had. Thus, I feel like Asta is a safe choice to add to the roster,
and if they do add a second character, which again, I think is unlikely, it would be his rival Yuno.

Dr. Stone

Dr. Stone is another manga that is currently running in the Shonen Jump magazine. This is an unusual
story about a stone age type world that originated after a mysterious cataclysmic event turned the
human race into stone, with survivor Senku Ishigami struggling to depetrify the fellow humans and
bring about the scientific revolution a second time, all while other survivors try to stop him and create
a science-free utopia. Due to the rather combat-lite nature of the manga, it feels unlikely that this would
have a playable character represented. However, I think it’s possible, though not highly likely that
Senku would appear in the story in a similar capacity to Light as a non-action chessmaster type
character. If playable characters do come out of Dr Stone, which is highly unlikely, it would probably be
Taiju, the original protagonist before the series switches to focus on Senku, Kohaku, Senku’s main
combat ally from the post-cataclysm village, or Tsukasa, the leader of Senku’s anti-science opposition.

The Promised Neverland

Another manga currently running in Jump, The Promised Neverland is such a weird story that it’s
impossible to even talk about the premise without spoiling an incredible plot twist in the first chapter.
I’m not going to dwell on this too much, since I think that The Promised Neverland deserves a post of
its own to truly talk about it. And with an anime adaptation announced for 2019, it makes sense to me
to have the main character Emma introduced here as a playable fighter to build up hype for the
upcoming anime release, similar to how Nintendo promoted the upcoming Fire Emblem: The Binding
Blade by adding Roy to Super Smash Bros Melee before his game even released. Emma also being
a female fighter whose primary weapons are firearms has a lot of potential for a unique and
memorable fighter. However, due to the nature of the story of The Promised Neverland, Emma is a
rather underpowered fighter compared to the sheer power of characters from Dragon Ball, Naruto,
and the like, so it doesn’t feel guaranteed at all. That being said, I think that this is more likely than
any currently running Shonen Jump story besides One Piece and Black Clover.

Yu Yu Hakusho

The other major manga by Hunter x Hunter’s creator Yoshihiro Togashi, Yu Yu Hakusho is one of my
absolute favorite anime of all time. I’m not going to go into great detail about it here, as it really needs
a post of its own (I can gush about Yu Yu Hakusho for hours), but it’s such a successful series (selling
50 million copies in Japan alone), along with being a major influence not only on Hunter x Hunter, but
on shonen anime as a whole, that I think it makes sense that it would get representation here.
However, being an older series that hasn’t had new additions to the franchise over the years like
Dragon Ball has, I think only the series protagonist Yusuke Urameshi would be added here.

But my heart will always belong to Kuwabara.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure

This is the big one. A multi-generational spanning epic, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure has been running
continuously from 1987 all the way to the present day, and while it hasn’t always been published in
the main Shonen Jump magazine, it is easily one of the most popular and influential series of all time,
not just in anime, but in fiction in general. This being said, there are way too many characters to have
all of the popular major characters be represented without overwhelming the rest of the cast, and I
thus think that the only characters that should be added are the two most popular and influential
characters of the series, at least as far as I can tell: Part 3’s protagonist Jotaro Kujo and the series
main antagonist, the immortal vampire Dio Brando. Both have larger than life personalities and very
memorable powers and abilities.

Gintama

Another popular, long running series, Gintama is another series that I have no experience with. As a
primarily comedic series with light action elements, it might not seem to make a lot of sense at first.
However, its cult status in the anime fandom makes it seem that Gintama is a probable, if not
guaranteed addition to the roster. If nothing else, Gintoki Sakata is a historic character that’s been
around for 15 years now, and I figure that that, along with the fact that most fighting games have huge
casts nowadays, would make him a good addition to the roster.

Other Franchises

These are all the major franchises that I think have the best chance of having major representation in
Jump Force. However, I do have quite a few other characters that I would like to see in the game that I
feel should be discussed, though I don’t have a lot of reasons to argue for them other than just that I
want them in.

Shaman King has always been a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine, and Yoh Asakura is a cool
puppet-master type character, using the spirits of deceased warriors (most notably the samurai
Amidamaru) to augment his physical abilities. I love Yoh and would love to see him, but I like him more
for his personality than I do for his fighting style.

Pegasus Seiya of Saint Seiya and Arale Norimaki of Dr Slump are two rather historic characters from
Jump’s run in the 80s.  Saint Seiya is a rather popular series, with a revival in 2002 and an upcoming
Netflix production later this year. And Dr Slump canonically takes place in the Dragon Ball universe,
with Arale having appeared in both the Dragon Ball manga and video games. Plus, Arale is a robot
that looks like a little girl and can easily kick your ass. That’s just awesome.

You can't convince me that it wouldn't be awesome to have her fight against Naruto.

Koro-sensei of Assassination Classroom seems like a decent choice for me. With a unique non-human
design and an emphasis shown on his superhuman speed, he could be a character built around fast
but weak combos. Though it is worth noting that Assassination Classroom is more of a character
drama than an action series, and thus most of Koro-sensei’s moveset would have to be elaborated
instead of taken directly from the source material.

Kenshin Himura of Rurouni Kenshin would be a fantastic addition, as it is a very popular series of the
90s. However, what with the recent revelations of creator Nobuhiro Watsuki’s possession of child
pornography, it’s highly likely that Jump and Bandai Namco would choose to ignore his work in order
to avoid controversy.

Claymore is a manga about a group of women in medieval armor fighting monsters. I never read it,
but that sounds badass enough for series protagonist Clare to get a spot in my book. Plus, more
female characters would be good, since we only have one confirmed female fighter on the roster.

Fist of the North Star is one of the most influential anime series of all time. Fist of the North Star ran in
Shonen Jump. It only makes sense to have the protagonist Kenshiro get representation in a game
meant to celebrate Jump’s 50 year history.

Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo is the eponymous character from the series that parodies Fist of the North Star.
He fights with the Fist of the Nose Hair. That’s hilarious. Put him in.

I’ve never read The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. But Kusuo Saiki is a psychic character with pink hair
and antennae. I like his look. Put him in.

Silver Fang: The Shooting Star Gin is a story about dogs running away from their owners and
getting in a feud with wild bears. That’s absolutely nuts and I love it. Put Gin in, just for funsies.

This is real. I love it.

Kinnikuman is a classic series that combines aspects of superhero parody and professional wrestling
to craft a unique identity. While it is better known in the West for its sequel series Kinnikuman Nisei
(or as we call it in America, Ultimate Muscle), I think that Kin is a better choice for the roster than his
successor Mantarou just because of his historical significance to Jump, though both would be good
additions in my book.

I love the idea of Yugioh monsters making an appearance in Jump Force in some way, and I think that
adding Yugi Moto (or the Pharaoh Atem, whatever) as a character who summons monsters to fight on
his behalf would be a fun addition. Seto Kaiba would work, too, since his Blue-Eyes White Dragon is
the most popular monster from the Yugioh franchise.

And that’s all I got. While several of these choices are a bit outlandish and unlikely, this is more
intended to be a fun thought experiment and not a serious attempt to predict the eventual roster. With
50 years of manga to draw from, it’s nigh on impossible to actually predict who would make the cut. I
mostly focused on the potential playable fighters, but with the addition of Light Yagami as a confirmed
NPC, the possibilities truly seem endless. Let me know if you have any ideas for other Shonen Jump
characters that could be represented in Jump Force, as speculation makes the wait for the game’s
release fun for me, and I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives.

EDIT: While I was editing this post, a new trailer for Jump Force dropped, announcing the addition of
Vegeta from Dragon Ball and THREE more One Piece characters (Sanji, Sabo, and Blackbeard). I
decided not to change what I already wrote and just acknowledge that this happened.

I'm too Good for this Anime

Have you ever watched an anime that you thought was bad? I have. But even with anime I dislike,
there was always something I thought was a redeeming factor, and usually, that’s a character. These
characters who are so well-written or well-conceived that they feel almost out of place when compared
to the bad that’s everywhere here. Hell, this even happens in good anime, with characters that are just
so great it makes everything else look like crap. So this post is going to be dedicated to those
characters, the ones that stand above the rest.

The first character I want to pay homage to is Tsubasa Katsuki from Comic Girls. I know that I’ve talked
about Comic Girls extensively already, so I’m not gonna get too far into it, but suffice to say my overall
opinion is...mixed. I think Kaos is a terrible character, and most of the side characters feel completely
pointless. Koyume and Ruki are solid characters, but nobody can hold a candle to best girl Tsubasa.
She’s cute, she’s supportive, she’s passionate, it’s no wonder why Koyume has a thing for her. I love
how she cosplays as her own manga characters as she draws her manga, the way she compares her
life to high fantasy is adorable, and on top of being cute and hilarious, she has the best conflict in the
anime. It’s still nothing amazing, but having to deal with a family that doesn’t support you is a real thing
that a lot of creative people deal with, and the final scene where she writes “There is nothing else” on
the career form is quite effective. I know that when I proposed a fix for Comic Girls’s story I cast
Koyume as a protagonist, and I stand by that, but I really think that Tsubasa could carry her own
anime as a protagonist as well.

And speaking of protagonists, can we take a moment to talk about Aihara Yuzu from Citrus? Citrus is
pretty bad. The animation is pretty meh, the music is forgettable, and the story is just bad. Yuzu and
Mei meet, someone gets sexually assaulted, a new romantic rival shows up, there’s some angst,
someone gets sexually assaulted, another romantic rival shows up, someone gets sexually assaulted,
lather, rinse, repeat. It really was a slow-motion train wreck, and appropriately, I just couldn’t look away.
At least I had Yuzu to keep me company. I love that when she realizes that she’s attracted to Mei, she
doesn’t really dwell on the fact that she’s a girl. It’s less, “Wait, am I gay?” and more “Why does it have
to be this bitch?” Even when she comes to grips with her quasi-incestuous yuri fantasies, she doesn’t
let Mei push her around. My favorite example of this is when Mei starts putting the moves on her and
Yuzu is rolling with it, but the second Mei implies that she’s doing this as a way to thank Yuzu for
standing up for her, Yuzu pushes her off, rightly deciding that sex isn’t worth it if her partner isn’t 100
percent enthusiastic about it. And even better than this, she even makes the decision to stop pursuing
Mei when she comes to the realization that Mei needs people who are there for her without expecting
anything of her in return. Everything about Yuzu’s character seems designed to explore what it means
to be a good partner in a healthy relationship, which would make a great foil to Mei as a personification
of unhealthy relationships if Mei had any personality or emotion whatsoever (Even with character
development, there is no personality here.). Also, the fact that she reads yuri manga and changes her
hairstyle so often during the series is amazing. And shout out to Harumin. She’s also too good for this
trainwreck.

Citrus would have been three times better if this were the main pairing, is all I'm saying.

You know what show is not a trainwreck, though? MAR. It’s nothing mindblowing or anything, but MAR is a solidly made isekai from the era when that wasn’t such a dirty word and actually introduced young Patrick to the concept of isekai. I have a post about MAR in the planning stages right now, but going over 102 episodes is a vastly different beast than the short seasonal releases I’ve talked about so far. But I will say that the characters here are pretty basic. 13-year-old me was a bit too easily impressed, I guess. Most of the characters are just shallow references to fairy tales, but they get the job done. And even though he’s just as basic as everyone else, I feel like protagonist Ginta Toramizu is a bit of a stronger character than the rest of the cast.

He’s a dreamer, he’s a tourist, he’s a fighter, he’s a leader...I dunno, something about him feels like Monkey D. Luffy, only less complex. Or maybe I just like that he’s a character who ends up in a fantasy world and is just like “Sweet, let’s explore!” It feels like a true representation of childhood. I mean, Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody (God, that's a stupid title) tried to do something similar, but I try not to think about Death March.

And I think this image is enough to explain why I try not to think about Death March.

Another 2018 anime I try not to think about is Caligula. What is it with me and bashing 2018 anime today? I mean, overall I think 2018 has been a strong year for anime, but I’ve been watching more anime at once this year than I ever have before, so I guess that odds are higher that I find some stinkers. Anyway, I might have gone into Death March expecting to hate it, but I was actually pretty interested in Caligula when it first came out. All I saw was a page on MAL and I saw some neat character designs and a four sentence synopsis that spoiled the mystery that the first episode was building up. So, going in, I knew that all the characters were trapped in a virtual world even though most of the characters take a few episodes to figure that out, and everything was unnecessarily drawn out and just kinda shit. Why was a character’s (I can’t remember her name) turning point framed around fat-shaming again? But I’m getting off topic. The creator of this virtual world, Mu, is an interesting character who feels wasted in this disappointment of a series.

A virtual idol who just wants everyone to be happy, Mu is manipulated by who I assume to be the
villains (I don’t know, I dropped this show.) into trapping depressed people in a high school AU of the
Matrix. And look, I know the whole childlike character with the power of God being manipulated by
villainous characters isn’t a super original idea, but Mu’s design is neat, standing out even among
other unique character designs, I like her voice actor, and the songs she sings are easily the highlight
of the lackluster series.

But enough about 2018. There were anime that existed before 2018! Like Naruto. Naruto...certainly
exists, doesn’t it? I have very mixed feelings about Naruto. I enjoyed Part 1, but after the timeskip, I
found that there was a massive drop in quality. And I never particularly felt a huge attachment to the
main trio of Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke. Instead, what always kept me coming back to the manga (I
lost patience with the anime’s pacing eventually) was the imaginative world and the excellently written
supporting cast. There are so many characters from Naruto that feel like they are wasted in this story,
like Kakashi, Shikamaru, and Jiraiya, but my pick for the best of them would be Rock Lee.

Lee is a microcosm of everything that once made Naruto great. He has a memorable design, with his
jumpsuit, his bowl cut, and his magnificent eyebrows; he has a quirky personality, what with his
earnest, polite speech and his hero worship of Guy; and he has a unique fighting style that ties into his
backstory and his motivation. Early Naruto fights were distinct from other shonen anime of its time in
that the characters were all rookies. No matter how powerful they were, they were raw and unpolished,
and the battles were small-scale because they just aren’t capable of insane, world changing effects
like the Z-Fighters or the Soul Reapers. With the exception of prodigies like Sasuke, Neji, and Gaara,
characters didn’t have great techniques or powers to fall back on, thus being forced to think creatively
to cover their weaknesses and play to their strengths. Lee cannot use the ninja magic that the rest of
the characters can, so all of this is emphasized for him. And even though he couldn’t use the fancy
ninja magic, Lee still defeats Naruto, would have defeated Sasuke if Guy hadn’t stopped him, defeated
and nearly killed Dosu in the Forest of Death, and, most memorably, nearly defeated the powerhouses
that were Gaara of the Sand and Kimimaro. It sounds cliche, but if the anime instead focused on Lee,
a magically-impaired character struggling in a magic-dominated world, I might have enjoyed the series
that much more. Or, you know, just let Lee keep up with Naruto and the others instead of fading and
becoming a background character.

But there is no point in wondering about what anime might have been. Today is about what anime is.
And anime is a mistake. The great Hayao Miyazaki said so. Which is why from now on, this blog will
be dedicated to Fortnite or something else that’s trendy and slowly corrupting our culture, and yes,
this joke is here just because I can’t think of a better way to conclude my incoherent ramblings about
cartoon characters!