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Imagine for second that you are 11 years old again and your fantasy world is the free African savannah, open and free, full of love, and the only thing you can possibly think about is about what fun adventures are around the corner. Then out of nowhere, society calls and tells you its time to take your first step towards adulthood. You wake up, and the dream is gone, but you remember the dream, but its time to get dressed and go to school and be part of society. In a very metaphorical sense, this is the narrative introduction to Persia's character. ...

Persia takes her fantasy with her and goes on a new journey, this time to understand what this mystical and obscure idea known as Love means. Through the comedic framing we the audience are pulled into this world view without rules into Persia's worldview to take that first step with her into a new chapter of life. Mahou no Yousei Persia is a coming of age story, setting it apart from (at least as ive seen, i have not seen every magical girl pre Persia, though I have sampled many) the Magical girls that came before. Where Minky Momo considered what dreams meant and Majokko Meg wondered if there was good in humanity, Perisa looks inwards to find meaning in something inherently opaque to common understanding. I found this analysis of Persia to be very well constructed, even as it twists through the episodic comedy of Persia's episode count, and at the end, Persia learns to let go and accept whats outside her control. This journey is most directly explored at the series mid point and concluded at the end, but between episode 22 and 45, Persia constantly grapples with different forms of Love, deepening the thematic message the Show writers wanted to convey, and I found this to be a wonderful use of the show's runtime, whether thats a Yoyoko's love for her parents, Goutou's love for a nostalgic memory, locked in a single sepia photo, Kishin's love of photography, or Kenji's love for a girl who disappeared from his life never to return.

Persia herself is an almost addictive character, with Tominaga Miina's incredible voice performance. Her antics are constantly fun and when the tone calls for it, emotionally gripping. Shes simple and earnest and wild, but grows more empathetic as the show progresses. The show uses its comedy brilliantly; I laughed a lot, but the show writers use the aesthetic of the episode to set the tone with expertise. I especially love a scene in episode 20 where Persia transformed as Fairy walks through an empty city street in the rain, her child form reflecting in the building window, all soaked in somber blues, yet complimenting both Fairy and Persia in their moment of solitude.

I do think the OP/ED change was a clear negative, especially given how important the first OP is to Persia's core character arc with Kenji. In universe, the first OP was written by Kenji as a ballad to his previously mentioned lost love. It just doesnt add anything for me, and the song and visuals are distinctly worse.

Mahou no Yousei Persia is a well crafted introspective series that pulls you into persia's worldview with a brilliant and convincing audio visual aesthetic, and im so glad I watched this show.

Majokko Megu chan lives as the 9th mahou shoujo in history, coming after Cutey Honey and Miracle Shoujo Limit-Chan, and exists as a show at a cross roads between the sexy Honey and the innocent Akko chan from Himitsu no Akko Chan. This show felt like a response to Honey, acknowledging the metaphorical can of worms it opened in the mahou shoujo space while simultaneously choosing the status quo. This show looked into the face of greatness and chose mediocrity.

Majokko Megu has a wonderful first half, with consistently interesting episode up to episode 40, peaking with episode 32: A tense 25 ... minutes of horror and suspense at the hands of the villain Joker lurking in the shadows at every turn. There are episodes that acknowledge the darkness inherent to the human condition, where Megu confronts topics from suicide, abandoned children, living with survivor's guilt, and more, and all this plays into the show's theme of affirming the soul of humanity at large. The unfortunate reality is that this thematic density is almost unilaterally dropped by the show's mid point, never to be seen again; left in the dirt in favor of easier, less intrusive, and by extension more dull episode plots. With that said, its not as if there are no episodes with caring about in the second half, with episode 49 and 63 both standing out amidst mediocrity. The final 2 episodes are also decent, focusing on the true villain Sataan.

Megu and her nominal rival Non stand as apparent antithesis of one another: Where Megu cherishes humanity, Non scoffs at their importance, but just when it seemed the show was embarking on a journey to remember with Non's character, the entire arc is abandoned. Non increasingly sees the flaws in her world view through episode 45 until suddenly she doesnt, and returns to her starting point to remain an antagonist to Megu's ideals. I think this is a massive miss step for the show, and Non's appearance in episode 48 is the point of no return for a character with so much potential.

Visually, the show certainly has highlights worthy of seeing, but generally exists in a space of "its okay". Perhaps this is a bias of falling out of love with the show but i found less visual frames to glee over in the back half of the show. Occationally there are hints of color experimentation but largely the show plays it safe, visually.

In the end, I find it hard to consider Megu as more than an attempt to return Mahou Shoujo to its thematic roots established by earlier titles. Perhaps this was for the best back in 1974 when it seemed that Honey could have taken the genre in a different direction.

Samurai Giants: The show featuring Nagahama Tadao fresh off Kyojin no Hoshi leading a staff roll that could make any one's mouth water with expectation including Ishiguro Noboru, Osamu Dezaki, Yoshiyuki Tomino, and a young Hayao Miyazaki on deck, theres no end to what a viewer could expect, and never once did Samurai Giants ever disappoint.

Its worth mentioning here before i delve into the content how I even ended up watching some random baseball anime from the early 70's with less than 200 completed members in the first place. The truth is, I had been recommended Touch by some friends, and I ... decided that it would be worth understanding the tropes of baseball anime which Adachi's work would play off of, and Samurai Giants is the first major production following the towering Kyojin no Hoshi.

Looking at Samurai Giants from the surface, it seems exactly what you might expect from a show attempting to live in the shadow of a trend setter baseball show about a star pitcher, following its own pitcher: Banba Ban. Banba is introduced as a reckless and emotional highschooler known to throw punches first and pitch so wildly his batting opponents cant help but shiver in their boots. Banba is a man who hates bullies, and this sets the stage for his incredible character arc to maturation as a person, a player, and a pitcher.

A show about a pitcher is always going to focus on the pitch itself, and Samurai Giant's take on the pitching mind game is to pit the most creative monsters against each other. Each of Banba's takes on ways to throw a ball to psych out the sharpest batters out there is unique and entertaining and each plays well to Banba's wild nature, while all of his rivals never shy away from his insanity. From a trope perspective, Samurai Giant's path to live in Kyojin no Hoshi's shadow is through Banba's wild pitching, and the growth of Banba as a player along the way.

Visually, man, this show looks great. Even ignoring the remaster quality increase, this show uses constantly engaging frame composition and a color palette that never fails to say something about the scene. The staff never seems to shy away from using what ever color suits the moment and that works as a strength all the way. The OP and ED's are largely made of clips from the show but the music performance is endlessly catchy.

At the end of the day, Ive found yet another untranslated show the wider western anime audience is missing out on and I hope to see this show get the fan release it honestly deserves.

If I ever took on a personal anime translation project, it would the absolute diamond in the rough, Haikara san ga Tooru はいからさんが通る. This show takes a popular showa manga in the rom com genre set in the Taisho era of Japan, and brings it to life in the way only anime can deliver. These characters evolved from seemingly flat comedy tropes into people who I constantly think about, months after finishing the show. This show succeeds as an adaptation by bringing a far more melancholic and ethereal ending to a typical "true love finds a way" narrative. Haikara san ga ... Tooru has a message about loss and morning which is hard to find even amongst the sea of anime released in more recent decades, and very few people in the west have ever heard of this show, a real shame, as I see it.

It's perhaps best to address the short comings of this show up front: If you dont particularly enjoy slapstick showa comedy, seen in shows such as osomatsu kun, tensai bakabon, or Urusei Yatsura, you may want to temper some of your expectations. I found it charming, funny, and found myself smiling and chuckling along the way. This was made long before the era of Otaku media, afterall, and so there is an element of the writing being a product of the time and culture. This extends to the art, from the backgrounds to the character designs, which may be less detailed and more stylized than the modern anime fan may be used to. Art evolves over time, after all. I found these aspects to be quite appealing, myself.

With that said, I will readdress the art as a strong positive, as the color work and the framing finds strength in how it communicates the emotional movement and themes of the show with particular poise. This aspect, particularly, improves greatly through the shows run time, with a specific scene around episode 30 coming to mind as a strong point. The visual language of Haikara speaks to the viewer in a visceral way.

The show diverges from the manga at a certain point, due to the abrupt cancellation of the show's place on television, but the anime take on the ending morphs the story and its themes into something amazing. Where the manga holds that true love can always find a way, the anime comments on the cycle of love from beginning to end, and that message resonated with me in a lasting way. The staff were able to deliver on something special as only a well considered adaptation can.

Finally, i think one of the most interesting aspects of Haikara is the way in which it engages with gender norms (at least as understood from a western perspective. I understand Japanese, but I am still a westerner after all). This theme is explored in a number of directions from a number of different characters, from Benio's masculine take on femininity to Ranmaru's feminine take on masculinity. There is certainly much more depth to this, but i will leave this note of the review here. I found this commentary to greatly enhance the core narrative and its themes, with a simple message: people are people, and they exist in society. People's relationship to societal expectation is, in the end, fluid and ever changing.

That Haikara san ga Tooru is not translated for the wider anime audience is quite honestly, a great shame, and I hope we as a community can correct that in the near future. If you understand Japanese, I highly recommend this show.

[SPOILER WARNING]

Houseki no Kuni is a show where the most boring, flat cast of characters do absolutely nothing for 12 episodes amidst one of the most barren, uninteresting environments I've ever had the displeasure to see. Ill attempt to break down why this show assumes the audience is brain dead and is generally an offensive watch.

First: what this show does right!
Animation: HnK won best CGI in the crunchy roll anime awards, and id agree with that sentiment. Some of the shot composition is really well done, and the movement is very fluid. The CGI is well done and never ... comes off as jarring. I was really excited when i saw Phos laying in the grass as it was truly gorgeous to look at.

Sound: This anime got an amazing OST it frankly doesnt deserve under any circumstance. What an absolute waste of brilliant music. Most of the sound design works well too. HnK is a joy to listen to.

Now the rest:
Character: The cast of HnK is absolutely forgettable, with the exception of Phos who is so poorly written, it makes me want to gag. On that note, Ill break down Phos.
Phos is presented as a character living in a utilitarian society with no utilitarian value. I found this to be a very interesting and intriguing way to introduce a character arc, especially within the confines of the physical aspects of various crystalline structure. The first few episodes seem to want to embrace this character arc, as some quick research shows there is some structural merit to Phosphophilyte itself that other crystals dont share. However, this seems to be too complicated for the author to actually realize, and so HnK decides instead to continually break down Phos's body in favor of other tired and boring gimmicks shared by the rest of the cast. So we first see Phos broken down via dissolution, which magically gives her the ability to converse with the sea creatures (whose name i cant be bothered to remember), though this is later revealed to be simply the sea creatures selectively conversing with Phos in order to take advantage of her. Nothing comes of this. Second, Phos is given legs of a different gem stone which gives her super speed. Nothing comes of this. The author clearly cant decide on a consistent way to develop Phos's character and attempts to force Phos into a tragic scenario where they must watch another character "die" in front of her eyes. This scene has no weight as death in this show has by this point been established to have no weight. Thus Phos comes away from her tragedy with gold and platinum arms that do the exact same thing Cinnabar's body does. So by the end of the show, Phos's character has been stripped of any chance to shine as inherently unique and replaced by the same stock gimmicks given to the rest of the cast. Phos only has value when she casts aside her identity. This is a clear sign the author has no fucking clue how to write a convincing character arc, and this is reflected in the rest of the characters.
The rest of the cast: They almost entirely exist in the background making the occasional snarky or edgy comment which constantly falls flat. Kongo sleeps, and occasionally shows up to be a bad ass, Barts is a diamond thats somehow better than the other diamonds even though black diamond is supposed to be crude (props for working that aspect into her character, making Barts ever so slightly less dull than the rest of the cast). Diamond tries to be affectionate but gets through to no one. Everyone else falls into obscurity as quickly as their introduced. Cinnabar is sad because she is poisonous and no one wants her, but no one does anything about it. Every one is a one trick pony with no impact and no agency.

Narrative/ Plot
Its fine for a show to have a boring, flat cast of characters if there is a narrative that holds up the show, but HnK's narrative is non existent. A bland cast of characters fights a boring monster of the week that goes no where. How dull. The biggest sin this show commits is that the writers realize the show is complete garbage and attempt to shift the tone by forcing a tragedy out of no where, but as previously said, this falls completely flat, has no foresight, comes out of nowhere, and just comes off as a lazy attempt to make the show edgy. HnK is certain the audience is brain dead enough to accept what happens though, but the "death" of Antarcticite is frankly offensive as a plot device with Phos being inexplicably trapped in a prison, unable to do anything but watch. Anyone paying attention knows that no one is actually dying though since gems can always be resurrected at the plots convenience, which was previously established early on. The plot then attempts to pit Phos against Kongo but goes exactly no where with it. On a final note is the arc, or rather lack there of, for Cinnabar who is exactly where she started by the final episode.

Ill reiterate: Houseki no Kuni is a complete train wreck which assumes its audience is brain dead in an attempt to sell pretty visuals and aesthetic as a passable show, and its absolute transparency is frankly offensive to sit through. I wanted to drop this show at episode 3, 4, 6, 8,9,10 but stayed based on the assurances of others opinions that the show would come through at the end, only finishing the show past episode 10 due to being so close to completion.

DO YOUR SELF A FAVOR AND JUST LISTEN TO THE SOUNDTRACK THIS SHOW DIDN'T DESERVE AND THINK OF YOUR OWN STORY TO ACCOMPANY THE MUSIC. YOU COULDN'T POSSIBLY COME UP WITH ANYTHING WORSE THAN HOUSEKI NO KUNI.