March Comes in Like a Lion
This show is what I like to call a masterpiece. It is a slice of life about an eighteen-year-old boy who plays the game Shogi for a living. In case you haven't heard of shogi before, it's a Japanese game that is similar to chess but a lot more complicated. Basically, it's chess on steroids. First I want to talk about the animation. There is a lot of attention to detail which I appreciate, (ripples on the water, hair moving in the wind) and so many of the animation choices move the story along quite nicely. Next up, the characters. The main character Rei suffers from depression. He plays shogi because he's good at it. He initially took it up to please his adoptive father (who was obsessed with shogi), but ended up alienating his adopted siblings in the process. A lot of Rei's depression revolves around losing his family at a young age and then being made to feel unwelcome in his new home because his new siblings were jealous of their father's interest in him. The story is about Rei's journey towards love and self-acceptance through a small family he happens to meet one day after some of the older shogi players took him out drinking and left him on the curb really messed up. The oldest, Akira, took him home and sobered him up and ever since then they've been treating him as one of their own. He sometimes feels like he's imposing and stays away, but the three sisters: Akira, Hinata, and Momo readily welcome him, as does the man of their household, their grandfather. The girls' parents and grandmother have all passed on. The story revolves around Rei's overcoming depression through a supportive community and helping others work through their problems. It's very beautifully acted and written and I really loved it. I also loved the bit of insight I got into shogi and the culture that it reflects. I'd love to learn how to play one day, but I'll have to get better at reading kanji since the pieces are all just wooden slabs with different kanji symbols on them. Finally, I'd like to mention the awesome opening and ending songs and accompanying animation, which I fell in love with immediately.
Dusk Maiden of Amnesia
This show, which has a supernatural theme, is about the relationship between the ghost of a girl who died in the 60's (Yuuko) and the only boy at her school who can see her (Teiichi). What I liked about this. The art style was perfect for the horror-esque setting and dark themes the show explored. The humor was good. The first scene shows a girl (Momoe) interacting with Teiichi in their after school club (which explores paranormal activity). Momoe notices that a lot of supernatural stuff seems to be happening. Did that cup just move? How did her pen get across the room? Then once Teiichi comes in, he seems to be responding to her thoughts. But the scene then reverses to show things from Teiichi's perspective and it's just Yuuko trolling Momoe. It's pretty hilarious. The show also explores regret and trying to be perfect. Yuuko cannot move on because she cannot accept the horrific way in which she died (I won't spoil it for you, but it's pretty messed up) or reconcile herself with the feelings she had while dying (hate, fear, etc.). She's not embarrassed about exposing her ghostly body, but when the living students find her actual corpse she gets upset. I identified a lot with Yuuko's desire to seem perfect and separate herself from her negative emotions for fear that she would not be accepted.
Shinseki Yori (From the new World)
And speaking of messed up, here's a show that will bend your mind. This is a dystopian future type show. It follows a group of kids from about seven years old until adulthood. The kids live in a world some time in the future, where every human has developed psychic powers and there is a race of sentient rodents who serve them. They are warned about the dangers beyond the village, monsters like ogres and other creatures that exist beyond the safety of the place. But something odd is happening in the village. Children are disappearing and no one seems to remember they were there at all. This group of kids starts to investigate when they realize that they are missing memories, but to investigate thoroughly, they may need to face the monsters they've always been warned about. The story that unfolds is kind of twisted and really interesting. It's one of the best dystopian stories I have ever seen portrayed in any media. I enjoyed the culmination of this story, and definitely did not see the twist reveal at the end coming. And it also gets props for including bisexuality (although it was used to show that the genes had been altered, so not that many props).
The Disastrous Life of Saiki-K
Imagine an OP protagonist who has all kinds of mind-bendingly amazing powers, each more ridiculous than the last, whose only goal in life is to be as normal as possible and keep everyone else from finding out he's different. This is the basis for a hilarious comedy about the psychic Saiki and his friends (most of whom just kind of gravitated towards him whether he wanted them there or not, and none of whom are even remotely normal). Some of the hilarious antics that the show includes are: his parents fighting but secretly wanting to make up. Saiki solves this by linking their minds so they can hear each others thoughts. Saiki being deathly afraid of cockroaches (despite possessing the power to turn any living thing into a statue for 24 hours just by looking at it [this is why he wears sunglasses all the time]). At one point he even teleports to the other side of the world to avoid a cockroach. Him changing his gender (which he can do at will) just so he can get a free desert (he has this thing for coffee flavored jelly). Just really funny material, well written characters, and a pretty entertaining show.
Stein's Gate
Well I am a sucker for anything time-travel related. This show starts off by introducing a cast of unique and slightly oddball characters. The main character Rintarou and his best friend Daru along with his childhood friend Mayuri are inventors. They inadvertently create a time machine that can send messages into the past. Rintarou discovers that these messages actually change the timeline, but he's the only one that remembers all the timelines when things change. Enter Kurisu, a scientist in town for a talk about the theory of time-travel who happens to be in town. Rintarou first discovers the time-machine after having seen Kurisu's bloody body and sending a text to Daru who happened to have his phone hooked up to their machine. When he gets back, he discovers that the timeline has changed and that Kurisu is fine. She ends up helping them with their time experiments and the gang changes some pretty drastic stuff. Little by little more people end up joining the group, until a girl who claims to be from the future shows up needing help fixing her time machine which she claims they helped to build. It gets pretty dark, pretty fast, and the show explores a lot of things. I wasn't crazy about how they portrayed the trans girl (or possibly just gay man) character Ruka (the reason this is unclear is that Ruka wants to change their gender so they send a message to their mom during her pregnancy about what to eat and Ruka ends up being born female somehow, why it is not clear if they are really trans or just gay is that the reason Ruka wants to be a girl is to date Rintarou who they are in love with, but who is straight), but apart from that, I loved everything about the show. Also, Daru may be a bit of a perv, but he's my favorite character.
Wandering Son
This slice of life story follows a young trans girl as she fights to be accepted for who she is in a world that does not want to accept her. Her best friend is a non-binary child who thinks they might be a trans boy, but later (not in the anime itself, but in the manga from what I've heard) goes back to presenting female. The story shows how difficult it is for a young trans child to survive without an adequate support system. Really, she only has a few peers to rely on and one older trans woman who is her mentor. Her older sister, parents and the school are decidedly transphobic. The gender binary dress code doesn't help matters either. I like this story because it presents a realistic (although painful) story of life outside the gender norms and how important it is to have family who understands what you're going through. I didn't use any names because the two main characters are some form of trans but the series never allows them to chose what they'd like to be called, perhaps because first names are rarely used by people who aren't close in Japan so there is less focus on the gender binary as it relates to names and naming.
Hyouka
This slice of life is about a young boy Hotarou who has little to no ambition in life. He doesn't mind that his life is dull, he prefers it that way, or so he claims. When he meets the precocious Chitanda, his peaceful life is upended. Hotarou is smart and he's good at solving mysteries, and Chitanda is curious. Slowly, he begins to question his peaceful, dull, life, and want a colorful interesting one. What I loved about this show: The characters were all superb and interesting, especially Hotarou and Chitanda, but the side characters as well. The mysteries were intriguing and kind of pulled you in. The name of the show is the same as the name of the anthology their literary club puts out. One of the mysteries is about Chitanda's uncle who may have said something about the publication, but she can't remember what and since he disappeared when she was little she can't ask him either. She asks Hotarou to figure it out and the conclusion he comes to is both satisfying and heartbreaking. I loved watching Chitanda slowly pull Hotarou out of his shell. Their relationship was so sweet it soothed the romance in my heart. I loved the animation, especially every time Chitanda said "I'm curious" the way they portrayed Hotarou's emotional reaction. I loved the second opening theme song, but especially the accompanying animation because I felt like it did a really good job of portraying Hotarou's past self and the person he was becoming.
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood
While I liked both the original anime (Fullmetal Alchemist) and the newer one (Brotherhood) they are vastly different stories. This is mostly because the original was popular and caught up with the ongoing manga too soon. Instead of waiting for the source material, the show created its own story and the plot of the two diverges at that point. Brotherhood was made after the manga finished its run and thus follows the original intended story. Without further ado: What I liked: The plot was terrific. The overarching plot of this story was about a being trying to become a god and humans, being imperfect as they are, stepping up to stop him/it (presents as male but doesn't seem to have a gender as it is more of an amorphous blob to begin with). It is also about sacrifice and loss. The characters: Alphonse and Edward Elric are two brothers who started learning alchemy from a young age because it made their mother smile. Their father had run off and left them to fend for themselves. When their mother takes ill and dies, the boys try to use alchemy to bring her back with disastrous results. Ed loses his leg and Alphonse loses his body. Ed manages to bind Alphonse's soul to a suit of armor by sacrificing his arm. The Rockbells are automail (basically functioning prosthetics) mechanics who live down the road. When they find Ed, they use their technology to create an arm and a leg for the young boy. The two boys then set off to find a way to restore their bodies to what they were. Winry Rockbell is about the same age as Ed, she has a pretty big role in both stories, but I felt like this one really explored her character in more depth. Roy Mustang (my favorite character) is a fire alchemist, the only one of his kind. Roy is fiercely loyal and somewhat self-loathing. He has a very tight bond with his lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. Hawkeye is in love with Mustang, but also feels responsible for him because the fire alchemy he uses was her family's secret which she shared with him. Mustang is also friends with the very precocious Maes Hughes, although he does get tired of how much Hughes gushes about his family. Hughes has a pretty tragic character arc, since he dies after uncovering a huge secret, but the most important thing about his character is not what he was like alive, but how his death effected everyone around him. And you can't talk about the Full Metal Alchemist brotherhood characters without mentioning the Homonculi. These creatures are manufactured humans who seemingly cannot die, but they can cause havoc, and so they do. They are working for a man they call Father, but they go about this work in various different ways and they all have different powers. Lust has the power to turn her fingernails into swordlike weapons, Gluttony has the power to swallow anything and everything into some alternate dimension in his stomach. Envy has the most dangerous power of all, the power to shapeshift. Wrath is mostly just really strong because, unlike the others, he was once human. Greed has the power to harden his body. Greed is actually the most interesting character of the group, but we can come back to that. Pride has the power to move through and manipulate shadows. And finally, Sloth is just a huge lazy bulldozer. He's about three times the size of an average human, and harder to kill than the others, just because of how big he is.
The first human antagonist is Scar, but it turns out that he's also a victim. His country was mercilessly invaded and his people were killed. His brother, who studied alchemy, somehow used it to give his own arm to his brother as he was dying. Scar now has alchemical powers, but can only use them to deconstruct stuff, so he's been using them to hunt down military alchemists and kill them as revenge for what happened to his people. The first people he killed with the arm was an accident, it was the two doctors who were trying to treat him. When you find out who those doctors were, it gets kind of interesting but I won't spoil it. I love Scar's arc in this and how he ultimately ends up choosing to liberate his people rather than create more chaos and destruction.
And I could continue to talk about this series for another good long while (especially since there are so many more characters I haven't even mentioned that are just as interesting and bring their own zest to the plot), but I'll probably wrap this up there. Before I go, I just wanted to give this show a few specialized awards:
Most shipable couple: Roy Mustang / Riza Hawkeye
Most evil: Shou Tucker
Most interesting: Greed
Most heartrending scene: Maes Hughes' funeral
Most complicated character: Scar
Sweetest character: Alphonse Elric
Okay, that was fun. I'm done now. I promise. See you next time.
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