Catch-Up Watchlist

As time hurtles on... here’s a catch-up watchlist of what I missed from 2014-2018 that I plan to try out.

I gave some thought as to how popular each series was, since I’m trying to catch up with the anime series that the community has been talking about in the past few years. However, I also wound up choosing series that I felt I would personally enjoy. There’s only so much time in the day, after all. ;-)

So here’s the list.

I saw clips from this series at Crunchyroll Expo last year. There’s something hilarious about the emphasis on food that you see in some anime series, and I have to believe a show about competitive cooking would compound that a thousand-fold, so Food Wars! made the list.

Cells at Work! got a lot of nice reviews, and just sounds like something different than the usual, so I’m happy to give it a try.

And now—something I feel some trepidation over.

I recall Tokyo Ghoul making quite a splash when it came out in 2014. I don’t mind gore when it’s in service to the story and not gratuitous, but I’ve heard too much about the violence in Tokyo Ghoul to believe they held back in deference to this principle. In short, I’m not sure I’m ready for Tokyo Ghoul, but a lot of people were into this one, so I feel obligated to at least give it a look.

And finally—or almost finally—the one I think I’m likely to enjoy the most.

My Hero Academia has a lot of love out there in the anime community. It’s shonen, so that’s a big point in its favor in my book. I’ve read the premise and looked at the art and character designs and, I must say—none of it immediately grabs me, but the story seems to have really touched people, so I’m definitely trying it out.

And finally... cats.

My Roommate Is a Cat joins the list, because... cats. Everything is better with cats.

I also considered for this catch-up watchlist: One Punch Man, Made in Abyss, The Promised Neverland, Bakumatsu Crisis, Black Clover and The Rising of the Shield Hero.

One Punch Man, Made in Abyss and The Promised Neverland are still possibilities. I love stories set in the Bakumatsu period, but Bakumatsu Crisis is getting terrible reviews. :-( Black Clover, while a hit shonen series, is getting a mixed response from fans, even shonen fans.

The Rising of the Shield Hero got promoted big-time at Crunchyroll Expo last year, and is still getting the featured top-of-the-list treatment at Crunchyroll.com despite there not being a huge amount of enthusiasm for it among fans that I can see. It’s a maybe, but not likely considering how long the list is already.

I’ll also be starting Dragon Ball soon, after all. XD

Dragon Ball Posts - Art Styles and Character Designs

Dragon Ball. So where to start?

It might be best to start with the obvious. This blog is called Neo-Shonen Fujoshi. Note the “Shonen” part of the blog name.

(For the full reasons why the blog is called “Neo-Shonen Fujoshi,” click here. It has to do with Daryl Surat and Otakon and Fist of the North Star and Rurouni Kenshin and a number of other things...)

Shonen anime is—along with BL/yaoi anime—my favorite kind of anime. I love Naruto. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is brilliant, a work of art, unforgettable. I enjoyed watching Bleach and Gundam 00 and many, many similar anime series.

I’ve known of Dragon Ball all the years I’ve been an anime fan. How could I not? It’s one of the biggest story universes in all of manga and anime. And it’s shonen, obviously—right up my alley as an anime fan.

So why, until my accidental initiation into Dragon Ball at Crunchyroll Expo, did I avoid anything to do with Dragon Ball all this time?

Reason No. 1

You can call this the Old Animation Style reason. Early on, in the mid-2000s when I was first getting into anime, I took a look at Dragon Ball and its 1980s look and went “...” Plus, it seemed to be aimed at children. So I kind of turned away from it.

You could argue that Naruto is also aimed at children, and you’d be right, especially about the early seasons. But I saw right away that Naruto Uzumaki lived in a big world. There were the other ninja students, adult shinobis, a Hokage, other ninja nations, as well as powerful enemies with amazing and scary abilities. I saw Naruto’s bigger world, its increasingly expanding world of ninja lands, characters, villains—and had no problem saying yes to all of it.

But we’re discussing art styles, not anime for children versus anime for adults, so let’s get back to it.

I began my excursion into Dragon Ball by first watching Dragon Ball Super. In other words, I started with the Dragon Ball series with the most up-to-date animation quality. Now I’m working my way backwards through the universe, with the original Dragon Ball series to be the final series I watch.

I just finished Dragon Ball Z a few weeks ago. Through the progression of the 291 episodes, you can clearly see the changes in animation technology. By series end, the visuals are looking pretty modern, and could hold their own against many anime series of today.

But that’s not to say Z’s earlier episodes were shabby-looking. They weren’t. From what I can tell so far about the Dragon Ball setting, it takes place in Earth’s future, and considering Z’s first few seasons were broadcast in 1989, the futuristic cityscapes and other designs are very well done.

So while the dated art style initially gave me pause, it wasn’t the determining factor.

Then why did I avoid watching the Dragon Ball series all these years I’ve been an anime fan?

Reason No. 2

I think it may have come down to the character designs.

I like to think, as an anime fan, that I’m not that picky about characters’ looks. If the story is compelling, it has me.

That said—if the character designs actively turn me off, it’s another thing entirely.

Take Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, for example.

I watched the first season of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. The over-the-topness didn’t bother me, the craziness didn’t bother me, but those faces really squicked my eye.

And not to start a fight with One Piece fans, but those character designs too...

In sum—there are a lot of anime series out there, and only so many hours in the day. Personal choice is always an individual thing as an anime fan: we gravitate toward what we already like.

Now specifically, which character designs kept me away from Dragon Ball for so long?

It certainly wasn’t the non-human characters. In fact, the aliens are the best and most memorable character designs in the Dragon Ball universe I’ve seen so far. Piccolo, Frieza, Cell and Majin Buu. Each character’s design is highly distinctive and unforgettable.

But my favorite aliens are probably...

I remember staring in fascination at Beerus while watching Super. He’s like a purple Egyptian pharaoh cat-rabbit god, if that makes any sense, while Zenou-sama, with those blankly-staring eyes and child’s voice, is equal parts unnerving and endearing.

And Chiaotzu! So adorable!

I haven’t watched the first Dragon Ball series yet, so I’m not sure what Chiaotzu is, but he doesn’t appear to be a regular human being.

So the non-human, alien character designs are great. What about the human characters?

The women in Dragon Ball are fine: Bulma, Chi Chi, Videl, et al. And the child characters are really cute.

Okay, so that leaves... Yeah.

That leaves the two main characters in the Dragon Ball world.

Taste is individual, as I said before. And no, I don’t need my anime protagonists to be handsome in the conventional sense, or any other sense, though I hardly think it would be a crime if I did.

No, I have to say it: Goku kind of squicks my eye, and so does Vegeta. Maybe it’s a Saiyan thing?

And when I was first watching Super, and saw Goku’s default clueless expression—eyes staring blankly, mouth hanging open—I was not too impressed. This is the hero of Dragon Ball? I wondered if maybe you had to watch Dragon Ball from the beginning in order to love Son Goku. Maybe you had to know Goku as a child first, be in his corner from day one, to really get him as a character. Because, after watching Dragon Ball Super and now Dragon Ball Z, I still don’t feel like I know who Goku is.

In a way, it was good that my gateway into the Dragon Ball universe was Super. In Dragon Ball Super, Goku’s universe of family and friends were such a large and interesting group of characters that it didn’t matter that Goku himself didn’t interest me.

And it’s a good thing too that I found so many of the characters likable and funny, and the story compelling, and the anime so much fun that it made watching Dragon Ball Z inevitable, or I would have missed out on some great anime watching otherwise.

So those were my reasons for avoiding Dragon Ball early on, but those reasons are gone now.

Next up on my viewing list: Dragon Ball, the original series. ;-)