Anime Hidden Gems – Three That You Probably Missed

Japan produces a lot of anime each year, and only a fraction of it gets licensed for streaming in the U.S.

It’s easy to miss some good ones despite the fact that the number of series released in America per season is fairly manageable. Throw in one’s own preferences for certain types of stories and genres and a kind of tunnel vision sets in. We don’t even notice the series that are outside our comfort zone.

Sometimes it’s just a matter of not enough time. The descriptions of this or that anime don’t appeal, so you don’t give them a chance.

It’s understandable. Also, the anime seasons come and go so quickly, don’t they? It’s summer now but soon enough it will be fall, which will morph into winter, and then it’s spring again.

So here are three anime series that you probably missed when they were first released. None of them are flashy action stories or made a huge splash when they debuted, though I think all received good reviews, especially the one I’ve placed at No. 1.

In any event, I can wholeheartedly recommend all of them. At the very least, they’re something to watch while we wait for the return of My Hero Academia and the concluding arc of Bleach to air this fall. ;-)

3. Blast of Tempest (Zetsuen no Tempest)

Put a shonen story together with a looming apocalypse, supernatural powers, and a fantastic murder mystery - and you have Blast of Tempest.

Hazake Kusaribe, a powerful female mage, gets stranded on a desert island by her traitorous lieutenant Samon. She puts a wooden doll - a magical communication device - in a bottle and sends it over the waves. The bottle reaches Mahiro Fuwa. Mahiro is a rich kid whose parents and adopted sister Aika were murdered the year before. He agrees to help Hazake escape the island in exchange for the mage’s help in solving the mystery of who killed his family.

Mahiro teams up with his best friend Yoshino Takigawa to aid Hazake in her fight against the members of the Kusaribe clan who betrayed her. Compared with Mahiro and his rough attitude, Yoshino is the good kid and nice guy of the pair. He does, however, keep one secret from Mahiro - the fact that he and Aika were dating behind Mahiro’s back.

Huge eyes appear in the sky above Japan and start turning people into metal. This event is connected to the Tree of Exodus, which Samon is working to resurrect. Hazake says that they must stop this from happening in order to save civilization.

Hakaze’s Kusaribe clan - Samon’s original clan - is supported by the Tree of Genesis, which opposes the Tree of Exodus’s awakening. As Mahiro and Yoshino get swept up in the conflict, they must decide which side is the right side for the fate of the world.

Some elements of the story hark back to Shakespeare’s Tempest, hence the name. Blast of Tempest is a quality production with beautiful, fluid animation and a memorable music score.

But what really makes Blast of Tempest stand out for me is the mystery surrounding Aika. Aika (in flashbacks) and everyone’s memories of her haunt the story from the very beginning, creating an underlying tension that increases with each episode. The question of what happened to her informs Mahiro and Yoshino’s every action, all the way to the final episode when the answer is revealed. The mystery gives Blast of Tempest that extra edge that makes it truly memorable.

And now... I need to say a few things before I talk about the next anime.

There’s a missing genre when it comes to anime released in the U.S. Think about it. We have shonen, shojo, action, fantasy, historical, isekai, and quite a few other genres.

So what’s missing? It’s a genre called josei.

Josei is stories for adult women, usually with a woman as the main character. It’s often romance, though not always. It’s not shojo for girls, or magical girl stories such as Sailor Moon or Madoka Magica. I would define it as stories for women with a woman main character who has agency and the ability to determine her own destiny.

There are so few josei anime that make it to the U.S. that it’s hard to think of one off the top of one’s head. There’s Nana, and possibly Fruits Basket would fit in this category. There’s also an older josei anime called Diamond Daydreams that I can recommend.

I’m going to guess that there’s a lot of josei manga in Japan, but that most of it never gets translated into English or made into anime. It’s basic sexism... the belief that stories about women just aren’t as exciting as stories featuring men (a belief hardly unique to Japan - Hollywood has it too).

And - too often - even josei focuses on romance stories. Nothing wrong with romance, but as the automatic default genre for ‘a woman’s story’ it gets a little tiresome.

My point is this. I would love to see more josei stories from Japan. We’re in the 21st century now and past the point where we should be required to justify why stories about women are worthwhile.

2. Hanasakeru Seishonen

Oil magnate Harry Burnsworth proposes an odd challenge for his teenage daughter Kajika. She is to choose her future husband from among three candidates. The catch is - he won't tell her who they are. Her job is to find that out for herself.

I know... romance again. But Hanasakeru Seishonen only uses this marriage game as a starting point. The story actually turns into a political thriller, at the heart of which is Kajika and the choices that she makes.

The three men Harry referred to are: Eugene, an heir to one of Burnsworth Oil's subsidiaries; Prince Rumaty, the grandson of King Machaty of the fictional oil kingdom Raginei; and Carl Rosenthal, the son of the oil magnate whom Harry Burnsworth beat out for control of Raginei's oil export market.

As Kajika becomes involved in the three men’s lives, she begins to discover secret information that links her family to the Raginei kingdom.

Kajika is a strong female lead. She makes her own decisions and doesn’t look to others to rescue her. She’s also genuinely likable and someone you can root for.

Despite its reverse harem look, Hanasakeru Seishonen has more to offer than just that. All of the important characters are interesting and given character arcs of their own, and the international political intrigue angle really spices up the story. It’s also a nicely multicultural mix of East Asian/Southeast Asian/white characters, all of whom are equals playing on the same level in a non-forced way.

I really recommend Hanasakeru Seishonen, especially if you’ve never seen a josei anime before. Maybe - like me - you’ll wonder why we don’t see more anime like this in the U.S.

1. The Eccentric Family (Uchoten Kazoku)

The Eccentric Family is a charming story about humans, tanuki, and tengu in contemporary Kyoto.

The main character is Yasaburo Shimogamo, who appears to be a teenage boy, but who is actually a tanuki.

Actually, his entire family are tanukis. Tanukis are raccoons, technically raccoon dogs, and in Japanese folklore they are considered to be tricksters and shapeshifters.

The Shimogamo family is the eccentric family of the series’ title. The mother of the family dresses in prince drag, while the eldest son Yachiro bosses Yasaburo (the third son) and little Yashiro (the fourth son) around. The second son Yajiro currently lives as a frog at the bottom of a dry well. (In other words, he’s a tanuki pretending to be human who is now pretending to be a frog.)

Yasaburo looks after Professor Akadama, a gruff elderly tengu who - like the Shimogamos - masquerades in human form. (Tengus, in Japanese legends, are supernatural birds of prey, like flying yokai.)

Benten, a beautiful human woman, is an ambiguous figure who may be a friend or a foe. Prof. Akadama taught her how to fly like a tengu when she was young. Yasaburo is wary around her as she is rumored to have had something to do with his family’s great tragedy.

The tragedy is that the father of the family was cooked in a hotpot years ago by the Friday Fellows, a social group that celebrates the year-end by eating tanuki hotpot.

The Eccentric Family is a slice-of-life fantasy show told with wry humor, and it has some genuine laugh-out-loud moments that catch you unawares. The writing has that quality I really appreciate where all the characters take responsibility for themselves and their actions and the unique makeup of each person - their personal history, character, and conscience - is given its due.

The first season is full of quirky and gentle humor, but underneath the fun you can feel that the father’s death has cast a long shadow over things.

Particularly as to Yajiro, the brother who lives in the well. We get the feeling that he’s running from something; that he feels guilt. Though he’s pleased when his brothers visit and bring him fried chicken, there must be a reason why he stays in frog form and isolates from the family.

(Yajiro is clearly stretching the limits of shapeshifting here, as he is a tanuki pretending to be human pretending to be a frog who is eating a piece of chicken.)

The mystery of who was really responsible for the father’s death is revealed at the end of the second season of The Eccentric Family, bringing closure for the family at last.

The Eccentric Family is just a delight on so many levels. It’s a comedy, a paranormal fantasy, and a tribute to accepting the weirdness in people. The Shimogamo family is strong together because of their tolerance of everybody’s quirks and strangeness. The inescapable conclusion is that eccentric families make the best families. If you watch The Eccentric Family, you may find yourself agreeing with this conclusion as well. :-)

Top Ten Most Memorable Anime Characters - 2013 Version

I did a post on the Top Ten Most Memorable Anime Characters back in 2009. I've seen a lot of anime since then, so I thought it was time to do a new post covering the anime I've seen since 2009.

Like the first list, this 2013 version is a list of what are the top ten most memorable characters for me, as opposed to a top ten "best" list of some kind (best shonen heroes, etc.). So it's a very eclectic list that reflects what appeals to me or intrigues me personally. The list consists of three creatures, one man masquerading as a creature, two samurai, one gender-ambiguous person, one female and two paranormal warriors.

Oddly, many on the list are from just this past year. It’s been a great twelve months for anime.

10. Kamanosuke/Brave 10

Kamanosuke is possibly the most genuinely gender-ambiguous anime character ever. By the end of the 12-episode series you’re still not quite sure which gender s/he is. S/he’s a violent gang leader who joins Saizo and Sanada’s group, and is the receiver of much speculation throughout the series that s/he’s actually female, though s/he claims to be male.

Kamanosuke’s seiyuu is Motoki Takagi, who appears to be a male. There’s been no sequel to Brave 10, so I guess Kamanosuke’s sex will just have to be left a mystery. ;-)

9. Elizabeth/Gintama

Even if you don’t watch Gintama, you’ve seen Elizabeth (on the left, above) in pictures or merchandise from the series.

Elizabeth is actually a human man under that odd duck-like outfit. In numerous episodes you can see hairy legs peeking out from under his white cover as he walks. The Renho Arc in Season Four reveals Elizabeth’s true identity in Gintama’s take on Star Wars complete with a Renho version of Darth Vader, “Dark Vader.”

Elizabeth has his dramatic moments in Gintama, most notably in the Benizakura Arc. But for me it’s just his completely strange appearance that lingers in my mind (whether I want it to or not XD).

8. Don Valentino/Cuticle Detective Inaba

Don Valentino is an unforgettable villain. A one-foot tall miniature goat, Don tries so hard to be evil, but usually just winds up failing in the funniest ways.

Toru Okawa is Don Valentino’s seiyuu. Okawa usually plays authoritative adult roles like Roy Mustang in the first Fullmetal Alchemist series or Kondo in Hakuouki, but here with Don he gets to chew the scenery left and right. He even sings the deeply dramatic ending song. XD

7. Andy Hinomiya/The Unlimited – Hyobu Kyosuke

Okay, he’s hot. But I swear that’s not the only reason why Andy Hinomiya is on my list. ;)

As I wrote in a recent post on The Unlimited, Andy reminds me of a time when Americans were portrayed as fascinating, unique heroes in popular culture. American men in particular were looked upon by world audiences as being uncomplicated, sincere and manly, from a vast country that had just won World War II that many knew little about but found enthralling.

Andy has that same post-WWII kind of innocence to him, which added to his attractiveness for me, and provided a perfect counterpoint to Kyosuke Hyobu’s cynicism in the story.

6. Kamo Serizawa/Hakuouki Reimeiroku

In Hakuouki Reimeiroku, the prequel series to Hakuouki, the conflict between the Shinsengumi’s first leader Kamo Serizawa and Kondo and Hijikata is played out.

Violent and brutal, Serizawa nonetheless lived by his own samurai code to the very end, to the point of teaching Toshizo Hijikata a thing or two about courage. You may not like Serizawa, but you can never forget him.

5. Sloth (Namakemono)/Polar Bear’s Café

And here we come to the second of our three creatures – the slooow-moving Sloth of Polar Bear’s Café.

Sloth is responsible for some of the funniest and sweetest moments of Polar Bear’s Café. His slooow manner of speech and sleepy, happy-sounding voice are just a joy to listen to. Here’s Sloth singing his part in the Shirokuma Café Song:





If you listen to the full cast singing the song, you can hear Sloth as a vague echo in the background, singing along at half-speed. XD Kudos to seiyuu Kishou Taniyama. It’s literally impossible to think of Sloth without smiling. =D

4. Polar Bear (Shirokuma)/Polar Bear’s Café

And finally for the creatures – Polar Bear from Polar Bear’s Café.

Polar Bear’s Café features animals who live among humans just like humans themselves, with jobs and families and friends, going to karaoke, the summer matsuri and the beach. At the center of Polar Bear’s Café is Polar Bear himself, the café’s genial host.

In some episodes the main focus, in others the silently supporting figure in the background, Polar Bear never fails his friends—and everybody is his friend. His dry humor, love of ridiculous puns and acceptance of animals and humans just as they are—make him not only “human” but actually better than most humans. ;)

3. Aika Fuwa/Blast of Tempest

Blast of Tempest not only had a great story and two strong lead characters in Mahiro Fuwa and Yoshino Takigawa, but two equally strong and impressive female main characters in Hakaze the Mage of Genesis and Aika Fuwa, Mahiro’s adopted sister—and Yoshino’s secret girlfriend.

At the beginning of Blast of Tempest, Aika Fuwa has been deceased for a year, murdered by a person or persons unknown. As the story involves time travel and magic I can’t say too much more about the plot without spoiling things, but Aika is featured prominently toward the end of the series.

I’m seldom captivated by female anime characters. I would like to be, but most of them are weak, stereotypically “girly” and/or uninteresting compared to the male leads. Aika Fuwa is none of those things. She’s amazing—and what’s more—she’s not only strong and fascinating but also deeply feminine and saucy and self-possessed, making world-changing decisions with a shrug and a smile and keeping Mahiro and Yoshino guessing till the very end.

By the end of the series, I wanted to see more of Aika. I would have loved to have seen Blast of Tempest told from her point of view.

2. Kyosuke Hyobu/The Unlimited – Hyobu Kyosuke

I’ve written enthusiastically about The Unlimited and its lead character Kyosuke Hyobu a lot lately, but I have a few additional thoughts.

What makes Kyosuke Hyobu so memorable for me are his relationships, particularly with Andy Hinomiya and with his “queen,” Kaoru. In Andy, Hyobu sees his own innocence as a boy, his trust in his team leader Captain Saotome that was so brutally betrayed. This is why he can forgive Andy’s betrayal and the two become true allies later on. Seeing Andy’s change of heart in a sense heals Hyobu’s old wound and leads to his more humane decisions toward the end of the story.

With Kaoru, whom Hyobu sees as his future Queen in the esper vs. human rebellion, it’s easy to say he’s a loli (when they met, Kaoru was a child – she’s now in junior high) – and maybe he is. ;-) (But not an abuser – he’s keeping his hands off her until she’s an adult.)

Hyobu is not only pinning all his hopes on the prophecy coming true—that he and Kaoru will lead the esper rebellion—but there is a real romance to his waiting long years for Kaoru to come of age, while quietly watching from afar. In traditional romance novels, one trope is where the guardian eventually marries his ward. Those stories aren’t for everybody – I don’t particularly care for them myself – but here it truly works. I can feel Hyobu’s longing for Kaoru and there’s something almost sweet about it. It’s another side of a very complex and fascinating character—Kyosuke Hyobu.

And finally… my number one most memorable anime character…

1. Gintoki Sakata/Gintama

And I’ve written a lot about Gintama as well, and its main character Gintoki. But just a few more thoughts. ;)

In some ways, Gintoki is the typical shonen hero. He’s a samurai, an incredible fighter, has a somewhat dark past and usually a ready physical response for the bad guys.

But he’s also—despite being a team with Kagura and Shinpachi—a loner, someone who assesses situations on his own before acting, again often on his own.

Gintoki is sometimes like Kagura and Shinpachi’s irresponsible big brother and at other times their teacher, always showing by example.

Paradoxically, although he’s a loner, Gintoki has gained a community of loyal friends in Edo, due not only to his forthright courage and fighting abilities but also to that “peculiar charisma” that Tae-chan mentions in the Kintoki Arc. There’s an essence to Gintoki that can’t be possessed by anyone else, even those closest to him. Perhaps it’s that he was an orphan, or that his teacher who was like a father to him died in the war that their side eventually lost. Each of Gintama’s opening credit sequences features a moment where Gintoki stares off in the distance, seeing something only he can see.

In the past four years of anime-watching, Gintoki Sakata is the one character I would never be able to forget.

The Best Winter 2013 Series You're Not Watching

As the winter 2013 anime season winds down, there are two series that I think deserve a final shout-out as must sees.

The first is The Unlimited: Hyobu Kyousuke, the dramatic spinoff from the Zettai Karen Children comedy series.

The Unlimited has lived up to all my expectations of it. The story follows Kyousuke Hyobu, the bad guy “esper” (paranormal powers user) from the original series, as he and his cruise ship full of espers (collectively known as P.A.N.D.R.A.) take revenge on “normals” (all non-esper humans), while their new teammate Andy Hinomiya, an American of half-Japanese ancestry and himself a half-esper and half-normal, participates reluctantly.

Hinomiya of course is a double agent, secretly working for a black ops American organization. P.A.N.D.R.A. is caught in the middle between the American group and B.A.B.E.L., the Japanese anti-esper or rather esper control organization that includes the Children from Zettai Karen Children.

The Unlimited is a finely crafted story with solid drama and action scenes and good character design, particularly Hyobu and Andy. Every episode has been entertaining and moved the story forward, and even the two flashback episodes on Hyobu’s past were absorbing to watch.

The series stands alone, despite being a spinoff from another series. I haven’t seen Zettai Karen Children myself, so I can say that it’s not necessary to have done so in order to enjoy The Unlimited, which is a self-contained story line. Enough is given on the background of B.A.B.E.L. and of the Children (who also appear in The Unlimited as side characters) so that the viewer understands the universe.

The Unlimited hasn’t gotten enough love from anime fans this season, and I’m not the only one to think so.

The second series I can highly recommend from winter season is Blast of Tempest, which is continuing from the fall season.

I wrote about the first half of the series in an earlier post. The second half of the series – after a scary couple of episodes where I feared it was turning into a romantic comedy – has proved to be as compelling as the first half.

The saga of Mahiro, Yoshino, Hakaze and Aika, the Tree of Genesis and the Tree of Exodus continues and the mystery surrounding the two Trees and Aika’s death only deepens. The various factions of adults that fought each other in the first half now come together to support Mahiro, Yoshino and Hakaze as they search for the solution to the two supernatural powers that threaten to destroy the world.

Blast of Tempest is a quality series that has gone largely unnoticed. It’s supernatural sci-fi/fantasy but also contains romance, action and mystery. It’s easily held my attention for 22 episodes and maintained the same level of excellence throughout.

Two episodes remain for both series. The Unlimited and Blast of Tempest are streaming on Crunchyroll if you want to try them out.

Blast of Tempest - A Mid-Series Review

Many 24- or 26-episode anime series tend to bog down in the middle.

I stopped watching Guilty Crown and recently Sword Art Online midway through because either the first half ended without a cliffhanger and I just didn’t feel like continuing with it (Guilty Crown), or I heard that the second half of the series wasn’t as good as the first half (SAO).

I have to say I’m not having that problem at all with Blast of Tempest.

If you’re not watching Blast of Tempest (Zetsuen no Tempest), you are missing a really good series. :)

Two teenagers, a bad boy and his best friend, get caught up in an end-of-the-world scenario in which—unsettlingly enough—it appears they were fated to play a part.

Mahiro Fuwa, the one with the bad attitude, is from a rich family. He had a possessive attitude—laced with subconscious sexual attraction—toward his adopted sister Aika. When Aika was murdered, Mahiro swore revenge on the killer, who remains unidentified.

Yoshino Takigawa, the “good” kid, has been looking out for Mahiro since they were little. But Yoshino has his secrets that he keeps from Mahiro and everybody else.

Hakaze Kusaribe is a mage, a powerful princess who uses magic. Unfortunately her magic doesn’t protect her from her traitorous lieutenant Samon who strands her on a desert island where her magic is nullified.

When Hakaze sends a wooden doll in a bottle and it reaches Japan’s shores, Mahiro picks it up. The doll is a communication device and he and Hakaze start talking. Hakaze says she will use her magic to find Aika’s killer if Mahiro will help her get off the island.

At the same time, huge rotund eyes appear in the sky over small coastal towns in Japan and start turning people into iron. The magical eyes are connected to the coming rebirth of the Tree of Exodus, to which effort Samon has lent his strength.

However, Hakaze’s Kusaribe clan—Samon’s original clan—is supported by the Tree of Genesis, which opposes the Tree of Exodus’s awakening. As Mahiro and Yoshino get swept up in the conflict, they must decide which side is the right side for the fate of the world.

A solid supernatural shonen story—but Blast of Tempest’s good points don’t end there.

Mahiro and Yoshino are very smart and capable but still believable as vulnerable teenagers. Mahiro, still enraged over Aika’s murder two years after the fact, demonstrates he will do anything to find her killer and avenge her. At one point he abandons Hakaze when it seems she can’t help him any further and Yoshino has to convince him that Hakaze can still be of use.

While Mahiro is the quick-thinking one, able to assess changes in circumstances and instantly adjust to them, Yoshino is the long-range strategist who thinks six and seven steps ahead of everyone else. His main secret that he keeps from Mahiro is that he and Aika were dating behind his back.

Mahiro is ruthless but Yoshino is made of similar stuff. As Evangeline Yamamoto, a government agent, notes—after a fight in which Yoshino piledrives her head-first into the ground without a second’s hesitation—despite his innocent face, this young man is something different.

The series takes risks that pay off. One example is in the pacing. At one point, for nearly three whole episodes Mahiro holds a weapon on Samon while both Samon and Hakaze (through the wooden doll) as well as Yoshino attempt to sway Mahiro to their way of seeing things.

There are flashbacks, and we hear the internal thinking of all four characters, but otherwise the scene is virtually static: Mahiro with the rifle, Samon pleading his case, Yoshino on the ledge above Mahiro holding Hakaze’s doll and Hakaze on the faraway island giving Yoshino information that he eventually uses to turn Mahiro back to Hakaze’s side.

It could have easily derailed the story as it built to its mid-series climax, but instead—it was riveting. You couldn’t take your eyes off of the four characters until the very end, when Hakaze’s situation takes a dramatic turn and Mahiro finally lowers the gun.

The use of the word tempest in the series name doesn’t refer to stormy conflicts or fight scenes—it actually refers to Shakespeare’s Tempest. The characters frequently quote from The Tempest, as well as from Hamlet, and the series echoes many elements from the play such as the use of magic, magicians and Hakaze being stranded on a desert isle.

The mysterious Aika, though already dead when the story opens, is still a major force in the story. Old beyond her years and with issues of her own (at one point she offers to have sex with Mahiro, who turns her down), I can’t quite let go of the idea that she’s not really dead—though disturbingly, Mahiro and the others come to suspect that the Tree of Genesis may have engineered Aika’s death in order to bring Mahiro into the conflict years later.

One of my resolutions for 2013 as an anime fan is to pay more attention to the industry side of it. I typically don’t notice who directs a series or what production company made it, but starting with Blast of Tempest, I am taking notice. The series director is Masahiro Ando, who directed the magnificent anime feature film Sword of the Stranger, one of my top ten favorites. And the studio responsible for Blast of Tempest is Bones, the producer of Sword of the Stranger as well as both Fullmetal Alchemist series and numerous other anime series.

All this is to say that Blast of Tempest has beautiful animation: it’s fluid and there are no choppy parts or moments where the characters suddenly look weird, where you know they farmed the scene out to their overseas contractors to finish—everything looks great.

One final note: the music production is also excellent. Even in talking-head scenes it sounds like a full orchestra is playing in the background, and in battle scenes it’s like a symphony reaching its climax.

Blast of Tempest is set for 24 episodes. If you have any room in your anime viewing schedule at all, you really might want to give this series a try.