Winter 2025 Anime Season Wrap-Up

It was a good winter anime season, at least the shows I watched, and looking ahead, spring season might be even better.

But first, a wrap-up of the winter shows. I'll talk about the spring season in my next post.

Blue Exorcist’s Blue Night arc was as tragic as expected, as it revealed the twin’s origins and the true story of their mother, father, and adoptive father. I was more moved than I thought I would be, even though most of what happened was fairly predictable.

The series has always been slightly insane regarding its wild use of Catholic iconography and symbolism. Rin and Yukio are literally sons of the Devil after all, but even so, the story plays fast and loose with its outsider view of Christianity. And then that’s combined with the paranormal aspects, and the True Cross Academy for that high school feel, and suddenly you realize that Blue Exorcist is actually more multi-layered than you thought it was. The academy setting and the protagonists being teenagers fools you into seeing it as your usual shounen story, just set in a weirdly religious environment. And with the main characters being the Devil’s sons.

The Blue Night arc has Rin going back in time to find out the real facts about his and Yukio’s births.

Their mother Yuri Egin was an orphan who, as it turns out, was targeted by the Devil when she was still young. She stumbles upon Shiro Fujimoto, Rin and Yukio’s jiji, the one who later on more or less raises them with the help of monks and the rest of the staff. Shiro has run away from the academy, having been one of those students who were experimented on under Mephisto Pheles’ orders, but he is captured and returned to the academy. The academy discovers that Yuri has the potential to become an exorcist, and she is accepted as a student.

Shiro and Yuri, friends who frequently quarrel on the outside, are in love with each other but can never quite admit it. Meanwhile, through some plot complications that I had trouble following, the Devil is being held captive at the academy. He is a handful to deal with, and the only person he emotionally relates to is Yuri, who taught him when he was young.

By the time Shiro acknowledges his love for Yuri it’s too late, as Yuri has already committed to become the Devil’s lover in an attempt to pacify and prevent him from destroying the world.

The upshot of this trip to the past is that Rin sees the sacrifices that were made by a whole lot of people, Yuri especially, so that he and Yukio could survive. And Shiro’s sacrifice in raising the boys also finally makes sense. It never did before this, as all we saw was this old irascible priest, basically, who seemingly was stuck raising these two kids for an unknown reason.

Blue Exorcist’s Blue Night arc ends on a cliffhanger, but not the kind you resent. More like, yes, it makes sense to end it here and I can’t wait to see what happens next.

I watched Momentary Lily because it was a GoHands production. GoHands was the producer of K, sometimes called K Project, one of my favorite animes.

Momentary Lily was... okay. I mean, it was certainly no K and I wasn’t expecting it to be, based on the premise and the previews. It’s about a gang of young women who survive the apocalypse, and who are somehow gifted with incredible sci-fi type weapons to fight the “Wild Hunt,” huge mecha-ish monsters that enforce whatever new order now exists in the world.

Momentary Lily suffers from pacing issues. For the first seven episodes, it’s what you’d expect. The young women - teenage girls, actually - spend their days fighting the Wild Hunt, running from the Wild Hunt, hiding, and foraging for canned foods to make meals with. Meal prep is a running theme in the show, as the main character, Renge, loves to cook and eat meals with her new friends.

Two things happen in the first few episodes that hint at the mystery at the core of the story. The blonde-haired Yuri, who seems like a main character, unexpectedly dies at the end of Episode 2. Another issue is that Renge can’t recall any of her memories. Her body also heals miraculously, without treatment.

It’s not until Episode 8 that the truth begins to be revealed. When it is, it’s not a bad plot twist, but more hints could’ve been dropped sooner, and the fact that they waited so long means that the first seven episodes felt aimless. The visuals are pretty - the GoHands team are masters at character design - but this time, the story simply wasn’t that engaging.

Which brings me to Unnamed Memory, season two.

I already knew I would enjoy Unnamed Memory’s second season regardless of whether they explained everything that happened at the end of the first season. The first season was a wonderful slow-burning romance with a huge payoff in Episode 11, as Tinasha and Oscar married in a beautiful ceremony.

It was in the first season’s final episode, Episode 12, where the jaw-dropping reversal happened. One should always be wary of fantasy stories where magic is a thing. Meaning...

Meaning that everything that came before then got wiped out, reversed, in that final episode. ARGHHH

So season two begins with the characters starting over from scratch, essentially. The characters are beautiful and the writing was so good in the first season, that I had no worries that this season would go awry.

And in fact, it didn’t go awry. Basically, as this is a fantasy romance story, the characters had to fall in love with each other all over again, just in a different time period and with a few things that were changed.

And they did. And... as it turns out, this wasn’t their only time that they had a do-over, not hardly.

Here’s the thing. Magic on its own, with rules, okay. Time travel on its own, with rules, okay. Both magic and time travel... there are no rules left that mean anything.

The first season’s end saw Oscar go back in time when he touched a certain magic orb. And Tinasha - who retains the knowledge of what happened in their other relationship in season 1 - in season 2, she has to proceed with Oscar knowing that he doesn’t remember her from that time, and is under no obligation to fall in love with her again.

Most of the plot tension in season 2 comes from this. Along the way, Oscar gleans that he loved Tinasha in another time and that he made a certain sacrifice to save her.

The story’s antagonist, Valt, is from the mysterious Time-Reader clan. We don’t get how critical his role is in the overall story until fairly late in season 2.

He appears to be resetting time, or causing new timelines to form, or something... maybe I’d lost focus or stopped caring by the middle of the season, because I wasn’t clear on it. But finally, near the end, in Episode 11, he comes out with it.

And it’s a huge info dump when he does. Basically, it was this:

TINASHA: Valt...? Did you transport me here?

VALT: Yes, I did. It was for a reason.

TINASHA: What reason?

VALT: Well, let me tell you why... and explain my powers... and what I did to you before... and the significance of it... and...

Okay, I’m exaggerating, but not by much. The scene goes on for long minutes as the two stand facing each other and Valt explains about the Time-Readers and what they do and what Tinasha must do for him in order to save her kingdom of Tuldarr, etc.

It’s amazing, but this continues into the beginning of the final episode, Episode 12. More truths are revealed, including about Oscar, about whom it’s been hinted from the beginning that he also has the ability to use magic.

The bottom line is, the series ends well, or at least decently, in a story sense. The different timelines are stopped, leaving one new timeline that can’t be interfered with. Oscar and Tinasha find each other in that timeline and it’s implied that they’ll fall in love yet again.

My point about magic and time travel in fantasy stories is that we need to be told earlier than the final few episodes not only what is going on, but also what the parameters of the magic and time travel are, what can and can’t be done, and how to counter those abilities. Otherwise it’s a free-for-all where anything can happen, simply because we are told so.

It felt like the producers thought they had a season three coming, only to be told around Episode 9 that they would have to wrap the story up in season two instead. At least, I hope that’s how it happened, otherwise I don’t know why the end was so rushed.

But would I recommend Unnamed Memory despite its flawed final season? Yes.

At its heart, Unnamed Memory is a solid romance. The characters truly love one another; you can feel it. Each is drawn to the other again and again through time, realizing that the other is the only one for them.

Again, the character designs are wonderful. And the seiyuu for Oscar, Yoshiki Nakajima, has a great voice, very masculine and yet velvety smooth.

Another reason to recommend Unnamed Memory is that Tinasha and Oscar are equals in status and power. Oscar is the King of Farsas, while Tinasha is the most powerful witch, and in at least one timeline she’s also the inheritor to the throne of Tuldarr, her own kingdom. I love stories where the characters, whether romantically involved or not, are equals and have to respect each other.

I’ll probably rewatch Unnamed Memory in future. Actually, I would consider buying the DVDs if they’re ever released in the U.S.

Finally, Dragon Ball Daima, a holdover from fall season, came to an end in the middle of this season. The series had a rushed feeling at the end, similar to Unnamed Memory, but sadly, I think we can guess why.

Akira Toriyama passed away in the midst of developing Dragon Ball Daima. I don’t know whether he had figured out the ending or if he’d had the time to fully work through the details. Regardless, I enjoyed Dragon Ball Daima. It is an addition to the Dragon Ball canon universe and to Toriyama-sensei’s memory that is entirely worthy of both.

Donghua Lands in the West - Master of Diabolism

Donghua is landing in the animesphere, big time.

Crunchyroll has uploaded the first two seasons of The Master of Diabolism. Following on the heels of Heaven Official’s Blessing, this is another Chinese animation entry - and boy’s love to boot - that looks poised to succeed in the west.

The description of the story from Crunchyroll:

After attaining the state of immortality, Wei Wuxian’s rule descends down the demonic path of Mo Dao. Ultimately, his reign of terror is overthrown, but the tumultuous fall leads to a chance for redemption. 13 years later, Wei Wuxian is reincarnated and reunites with his former classmate, Lan Wangji. Together they’ll unravel the mysteries of the supernatural world and forge an unexpected bond.

If you read Chinese light novels and/or manhua (manga), this description probably sounds familiar. That’s because The Master of Diabolism is actually based on a well-known boy’s love light novel series and manhua series that has been available in translation from Seven Seas for some time.

I’m not sure why they changed the title to Master of Diabolism when the English language novels and manhua were already known as Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but there it is.

And if you were wondering just how popular this Chinese boy’s love stuff is... take a look at the 4.9 stars from over 7,000 ratings for Grandmaster vol. I. These stories, in English translation, are doing better in the west than Japanese boy’s love stories have ever done.

I’ve added Master of Diabolism to my Crunchyroll watchlist but who knows when I’ll get around to it. I’m still absorbed in the fall season releases, most notably Blue Exorcist, Dragon Ball Daima, and The Prince of Tennis II U-17 World Cup Semi-Finals. Those are my favorites of the season. I’m also slow-watching Blue Miburo and Yakuza Fiance.

It’s been an excellent anime season. In particular, Blue Exorcist has started a very serious story arc with high stakes for the protagonist twin brothers. Dragon Ball Daima is just a delight and PoT II U-17 World Cup Semi-Finals is a welcome return to a nice enjoyable story universe for me.

Even better, the upcoming winter 2025 anime season looks amazing so far. I’ll post about my watchlist come January but I already have a number of picks. 2024 is ending strong in terms of anime and 2025 will be starting just as strong.

The Fall 2024 Anime Season and What I Will Be Watching

The Fall 2024 anime season starts next week - and it looks like it’s going to be a very good one. :-)

First, I basically skipped the summer anime season. I was busy writing and publishing a new book, Daredevil Prince, and getting ready for GayRomLit, which took place the week after Labor Day Weekend.

I may have to go back and see what I missed. But here comes fall season, and there’s going to be a lot to watch starting in just a few days - so here is my watchlist.

Part 3 of Bleach’s Thousand Year Blood War arc returns on Oct. 5. It’s been a year since Part 2 ended and I think we’re all ready for this one.

I haven’t read the manga so everything that happens is a surprise to me. I mean, I’ve heard a few things about how the characters end up (... and who with) but that’s it. I’m especially looking forward to this part because there’ll be more of Ishida in it. Uryu Ishida is one of my favorite Bleach characters and I always thought he was underutilized in the story, so more Ishida is a good thing.

Dragon Ball Daima is a new canon story set soon after the end of Dragon Ball Z. Something has happened to Goku and friends and now they’ve all turned into children!

Just... just look at this image of little kid Goku and LITTLE KID VEGETA.

There’s not a lot of story description available yet but those who are going to watch the series (which includes me) don’t really care, because... LITTLE VEGETA!!

Blue Exorcist returns on Oct. 5. I always enjoy watching the brothers Rin and Yukio, along with their friends from the exorcist academy, fight demons and that shadowy organization of villains. This fall, the series will cover the “Beyond the Snow Saga” arc, and in January 2025 we’ll be getting “The Blue Night Saga” arc that will finally reveal the secrets of Rin and Yukio’s birth (they’ve never revealed this up to now). So it’ll be six months of nonstop Blue Exorcist and I’m on board for it.

Believe it or not... The Prince of Tennis is coming back!

I’ll freely admit that I’ve lost the string as far as where the series is now. Years ago - and years after the original manga/anime ended - a new series, The Prince of Tennis II, began. If I remember correctly it’s about a competition that takes place the summer after the original series ends (in other words - they’re still not even in high school yet), but I don’t remember anything else about it really, even though I watched it.

Still - it’s Prince of Tennis - and even if I can’t remember much about this continuation story I still love these characters, so I will be there on Oct. 2 when Prince of Tennis II U-17 World Cup Semifinal begins airing on Crunchyroll. :-)

And finally... the description of this one initially put me off. Even though I write romance and “dark romance” is big now (dark romance usually meaning Mafia characters or biker characters with intense, violent, or otherwise dark elements to the plot), personally I don’t care for it.

... Until I heard who plays the main character in this anime.



IT’S HIM THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN VOICE

It’s Kaworu from Evangelion

Athrun Zala from Mobile Suit Gundum Seed

Cho Hakkai from Gensomaden Saiyuki (this is the role that made me fall in love with him)

Gaara from Naruto

... and Katsura from Gintama

It’s Akira Ishida, one of the OG seiyuu of the grand era of long-running shounen series and owner of one of the best voices in all of anime.

Even after all these years, it only took about three seconds to recognize THAT VOICE. And so despite my qualms about the story (and that old old character design - seriously, look at the art!!), I will be there on Oct. 7 to give Yakuza Fiance a chance. It’s Akira Ishida, I can’t help myself.

Akira Toriyama Is Gone

Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, has passed away.

He was twenty-eight years old when the Dragon Ball manga was first published in 1984.

The Dragon Ball universe is such a legendary franchise of the Japanese manga and anime world that it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around this loss. Whether Dragon Ball was a favorite of yours or not, as an anime fan there’s no denying its impact around the world. People who never watched anime in their lives know who Goku and Vegeta are. Dragon Ball touched every part of the globe.

It could be said that Dragon Ball was the beginning of shounen manga, which of course led to the shounen anime shows so many of us love.

I came to the Dragon Ball universe through Dragon Ball Super, which I loved, after which I watched Dragon Ball Z and most of the movies. I have yet to watch the original Dragon Ball series (I didn’t mean to watch the series in reverse order - it just happened that way).

It’s the characters that I enjoy the most about Dragon Ball, wildly original characters like Beerus and Frieza, as well as main characters Bulma and Vegeta and Gohan and so many more.

The Dragon Ball story is epic. It was the original franchise-level story universe before there was Naruto or One Piece or any of the others.

The reactions are still coming in but I’ve seen comments from fans that are epic in their own way. People are mourning but also giving Toriyama-sensei the best kind of sendoff, like saying they’ll gather the Dragon Balls and call on Shenron to bring him back, or that he’s now in the Lookout heaven with Dende and Mr. Popo.

Rest in peace and power, Toriyama-sensei. Thank you for giving us your very best.

Funimation Is Finally Redundant and Fall Season Update

Hello again! It feels like a long time since I’ve posted.

I was distracted from the end of September until mid-October getting ready for a convention where I was one of the official authors. I had to order promo cards and arrange for my books to be sent to the convention, etc.

Now I’m back... and just today I took care of some leftover business with my anime subscriptions... namely Funimation.

Last year I wrote about the Crunchyroll-Funimation merger and how clumsily Sony was handling the whole thing. It took so long for Funimation’s catalog of titles to be transferred over to Crunchyroll that after a while I literally forgot about it.

I’ve done this before. I paid for a subscription to the Anime Network (anyone remember them?) back when they were the only site that streamed Zettai Karen Children (Psychic Squad). I kept the subscription long after I bought the entire series on DVD until I finally remembered to cancel it.

So after my convention was over and I had the time to take care of some things, I recalled that I still had my paid Funimation subscription and decided to check whether every series I cared about had been transferred to Crunchyroll by now.

I actually hadn’t logged in to Crunchyroll in months. Remember, my mainstay anime Boruto is currently on a long hiatus. The most recent cour of Bleach ended last month, but Bleach is on Hulu now and not Crunchyroll.

For years, logging in to Crunchyroll was a daily thing for me. It felt odd to log in again after months away.

It was a task to compare the Funimation and Crunchyroll catalogs. (It had been even longer since I’d logged in to Funimation.) I looked at my watchlists on both sites and tried to remember if there were other anime series on Funimation that weren’t on my watchlist but that I’d wanted to watch.

I’d kept the Funimation subscription mainly for four series: 1) Dragon Ball; 2) Junjou Romantica; 3) Hetalia; and 4) Heaven Official’s Blessing.

Funimation had all of the Dragon Ball series, while Crunchyroll only had Dragon Ball Super. I was relieved to see that Crunchyroll now has all of the Dragon Ball titles.

After I’d cross-checked that Junjou Romantica, Hetalia, and Heaven Official’s Blessing were now on Crunchyroll as well, I suddenly remembered The Prince of Tennis, one of my old favorites.

The Prince of Tennis has always been on Funimation but not Crunchyroll - or at least not consistently on Crunchyroll. However, the good news is that the whole series is now available on Crunchyroll... for the moment anyway. I get that licenses can and do end, but it’s good to know that Crunchyroll has it for the time being.

So I canceled my Funimation subscription today. I will be saving a whole $5.99 a month (lol). Well, it starts to add up if you include my now-deceased Netflix DVD subscription which was $7.99 a month.

And speaking of Netflix DVD... I was hoping that Netflix would have some kind of offer for loyal DVD subscribers after Netflix DVD bit the dust, something like a special discount for Netflix streaming for example. And then in early October I received an email from them that offered three free months for streaming with ads and $6.99 a month thereafter, which I’d say is a good offer from them. I also have a whole 12 months to accept the offer, which is cool.

Now that I’ve logged back in to Crunchyroll and updated my watchlist to include all the titles ported over from Funimation as well as everything I wanted to watch in the current season, I feel plugged into the animesphere again. And I have a ton of stuff lined up to watch.

I have to wonder when the Funimation site will be shut down for good. I’m not sure what it has these days that Crunchyroll doesn’t have. I hope people who still have paid subscriptions there will do what I did and cross-check their watchlists with Crunchyroll. Honestly, there doesn’t appear to be any reason to pay for both anymore.

Fanime 2023 Convention Report

I attended Fanime in San Jose, California this past weekend.

It was my fourth time at this convention. Fanime’s motto is “For Fans, By Fans” and it shows in their panels, most of which are conceived of and presented by fans. There’s little corporate presence at the convention, even in the Dealer’s Hall. It’s always been this way and it’s one of Fanime’s distinguishing traits. It means that there are a lot of panels that focus on things that fans really want to see and talk about.

I’ve been feeling distanced from the anime world lately and wasn’t planning to do a lot at this convention, but I surprised myself. I went to a number of panels, a Lolita fashion show, the Dealer’s Hall, the Gaming Hall, Artist’s Alley, some of the con’s 18+ activities, the manga library, cosplay photo shoots... it almost felt like old times. I really enjoyed myself.

Panels

The Anime and History panel covered anime depictions of various historical eras. The presenter showed slides of different periods like the Heike, Tokugawa, and Meiji eras along with the manga and anime series that were set in those periods. The focus was mostly on Japan’s history, but China and Europe were also discussed.

Next, I attended the Anime and Black Culture panel. Jeffrey Clark is a comedian who also studies anime. His takes on black anime characters like Bleach’s Yoruichi and One Piece’s Usopp and on anime’s treatment of black characters in general was super-funny and entertaining.

Oddly, among some anime fans, Dragon Ball’s Piccolo is considered to be black, although he is green... I asked Clark about this after the panel.

Clark explained that a lot of black families have members in the military and that Piccolo’s gruffness and military bearing make him the perfect “military uncle” figure. I’m still not sure I understand... lol... but it’s fine. I’ll consider Piccolo as black from now on. =D

If you want to follow Jeffrey Clark, his TikTok handle is @DataFist.

Gilles Poitras is a local anime fan, retired librarian, and frequent guest at Fanime. This year he presented a panel called “From Fan to Tokyo Explorer” based on his latest book, Tokyo Stroll.

Tokyo Stroll is Poitras’ guide to Tokyo’s anime spots. He matched anime scenes to photographs of the actual locations, including the famous steps at the end of Your Name. He’d been working on the book before the pandemic struck. Since then, he’s worked to update an online map of the locations in the book, replacing businesses that closed down due to the pandemic with current ones.

Finally, a panel on Cup Noodle. ^o^

Titled “Cup Noodle: Beyond the Styrofoam”... this panel was a hoot. Nissin has advertised its famous - or infamous - Cup O’Noodles cup ramen all over the world, but the commercials from Japan are the best.

The ad team really gets into themed commercials. One of the strangest was the “Hungry Days” campaign.

Imagine two high school students caught in the apocalypse. The sky darkens, and as buildings crumble and fall around them, the boy and girl realize that they love each other and... apropos of nothing, “HUNGRY DAYS” blazes across the screen, along with Cup Noodle, of course. Or maybe it’s kaiju, or Final Fantasy video game characters, or J-pop, or falling in love at the matsuri, or, or...

Wait, I found it on You Tube!



Those were the weirdest and most sublime… the rest were just hysterically funny. Arnold Schwarzenegger did a whole series of Cup Noodle commercials back in his bodybuilding days. And there are anime series tie-in commercials featuring Sword Art Online and Attack on Titan, among others.

The panel was made more fun by the presenter’s droll commentary that accompanied the slides and commercials. The presenter’s name is Nick Redman and his Twitter is @NickNickGoose.

Dealer’s Hall

I didn’t spend much time in the Dealer’s Hall, but was in there for a little bit.

The first thing I saw when I walked in was this:

An anime merchandise vendor named Thousand Skies had their U-Haul truck stolen. All their Famine goods were inside, so they had to bring their planned Anime Expo inventory instead.

I bought some stickers because I felt bad for them. The incident was featured on the local news.

U-Haul With Anime Merchandise Stolen in San Jose

It’s not funny, but... I’m imagining kawaii art being hawked in a dark alley somewhere in America, right next to the fentanyl pills and crystal meth...

On a lighter note, I went to the Artist’s Alley and walked around some. I saw a lot of artwork that was based on the artist’s original characters. Either that, or I’m truly out of touch with the latest anime and simply didn’t recognize characters from newer anime series.

The Gaming Hall was huge and full of video games, tabletop games, and arcade games. One arcade game I love is the Namco Taiko no Tatsujin drum game from Japan.

I’ve played this game before. It’s quite vigorous as you have to beat the drum constantly, while a shrieky little voice screams at you in encouragement(?).

It’s fun though. There are a lot of tie-ins with anime franchises, which means you see familiar characters in various scenarios as you beat the drum. You can look up these videos on You Tube.

Here’s a good example of Taiko no Tatsujin.



Seeing how extensive the Gaming Hall was, I reflected on how anime and gaming are often conflated with each other in the U.S. I’m not a gamer, but even I can see that gaming is absolutely huge. It is a big, big market. I’ve been going to anime conventions since 2006 and have witnessed the evolution of how gaming has crept into anime spaces.

There’s another interest that has entered the animesphere in a big way.

Elegant Fashion Show

This used to be called “loli” or “gothic Lolita” dress. At least, that’s what I remember from about ten years ago. Now it’s expanded into various subsets like “elegant” and “pop.”

This kind of fashion is very popular now at anime cons. At this year’s Fanime, the loli dress phenomenon took over the entire Hyatt hotel across the street from the convention center with workshops, clothing sales, fashion panels, and especially two fashion shows – an Elegant Fashion Show and a Pop Fashion Show.

I attended the Elegant Fashion Show. I got in line late for it, so was forced to be one of the standing room only crowd that stood against a wall for two hours. I was near a corner of the room so my camera’s POV was sort of not helpful, but I tried to take decent pictures regardless.

I have to say I’m not really into the Japanese fashion angle at anime cons; fashion seems less related to anime than gaming is, but I don’t mind J-fashion’s presence there. It’s all good.

Night Market and Other 18+ Activities

Finally, I ventured into Fanime’s adult realm. The adult side of things took place at the Doubletree Hotel a few miles from the convention center, serviced by free shuttle buses.

Incidentally, this was the same Doubletree that Clockwork Alchemy used to take place at. Clockwork Alchemy is a steampunk convention. It was linked with Fanime until the two conventions amicably parted ways. It still exists and is held at another Bay Area hotel.

Fanime’s adult programming consisted of three tracks: adult video rooms, an adult manga library, and the Night Market.

The adult video rooms were a strange disappointment. Everyone including me expected hentai and got regular anime instead, to wit: episodes of Classroom of the Elite and Vinland Saga.

I’d never seen either anime, so I settled in to watch some episodes. And saw nothing that would qualify either as “adult” programming. Both were really odd choices as such. It wasn’t just me; I heard others express disappointment over this and both video rooms were almost empty. I guess the con staff lost their nerve, lol.

I had much better luck in the adult manga room. Here, along with some outright hentai-ish books, they had yaoi manga and light novels... in other words, my kind of books.

My favorite find in the room was Spiritual Police, a yaoi manga by Youka Nitta.

Youka Nitta draws beautiful male characters. She’s been around the scene for many years, and is the author of the Embracing Love series, among many other works. I read through half of Spiritual Police and liked it. It’s about a burned-out police detective who receives healing treatments from a blind healer – who also happens to be psychic. I’ll probably pick up the series the next time I’m at a Kinokuniya bookstore.

The Night Market was a ballroom full of adult art/trinket vendors (think phallus-shaped candles, etc.). I only found one thing I really liked, a piece of fan art, and it wasn’t even an “adult” item.

The artist told me that this character is named Vesper Noir, and that he is a “virtual YouTuber” endorsed by HOLOLIVE. I don’t know what a virtual YouTuber is - lol. Some aspects of fandom are beyond my current understanding... I just liked his romantic visage and the dusk atmosphere behind him. It’s an evocative image, the kind of fan art that I like to encourage by purchasing it.

I enjoyed my time at Fanime this year. I don’t know if this means I’m back to going to conventions again: I may or may not be. But it was great to just have fun at a convention again.

My years as an anime fan, then as an industry person editing books, my Japanese language studies, and anime convention-going are all sort of mixed together in my mind. I feel like I’ve been slowly pulling away from the whole complex or maybe it’s slowly pulling away from me.

I try to be aware of where I’m going. Like they say, if you don’t know where you’re going, you might end up somewhere else. We’ll see. Either way, I highly recommend Fanime. It’s held in San Jose in the San Francisco Bay Area every Memorial Day Weekend, which is the last weekend in May. It’s the best regional anime con in my experience and if you go next year, maybe I’ll see you there.

2022 Anime Year in Review

For me as an anime fan, the year of 2022 had its ups and downs, with the year ending on a decided upswing.

As well as Attack on Titan (more on that below), the year began with - as always - eternally... Boruto.

I’ve complained about Boruto before... that it hasn’t developed Konoha’s new generation as deeply as the original characters, and the plot arcs aren’t as compelling, and there’s a lot of filler episodes to boot. The filler aspect can’t be helped, as the manga is being created at its own speed and there’s nothing else to be done until the manga gets ahead enough in the story.

Boruto has been in filler episodes for the entire year of 2022. Most of the year we were in a filler arc that actually began at the end of 2021, believe it or not. Briefly, this arc had Team 7 on a mission in the Land of Water that involved a prison break on an island, pirates, a clan war, etc.

So many deaths took place in this arc that it became a downer to watch on top of being filler to begin with. The final episode was a surprise though, as Boruto offered to sacrifice himself in order to stop an ongoing bloody war between factions on the island. His rationale was that both sides - including the one he’d been on - bore responsibility for the conflict and that if his sacrifice would bring an end to the bloodshed, he was willing to do it.

It was a tense and thrilling episode, one of the best I’ve seen in the series. One thing that filler arcs can do is to deepen the characters if you put them in potentially life-threatening situations, and that’s what happened at the end of this too-long filler arc. I’m not sure I can say that it was worth it, but it did bring the character of Boruto further along and showed us his new maturity and leadership.

According to manga readers, when Boruto comes out of fillers we’re in for a treat. At some point thereafter the series will time-skip ahead and the new generation will then be teenagers.

This is exactly what the parent series did when it went from being Naruto to Naruto Shippuuden. Naruto went on a three-year training journey with his master Jiraiya and returned to the village at age 16, and the series’ most satifying storylines came after the timeskip.

If Boruto follows that same formula for success then I’m all for it.

As to movies, the only one I saw in the theaters was Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. It was a fun diversion and a decent addition to the Dragon Ball universe. It was especially nice to see Piccolo and Gohan featured as the main characters as they didn’t get a lot of chances to shine in the DBS series.

I also streamed a couple of My Hero Academia movies. I tend to forget about movies based on anime series, and in fact, there have been three MHA movies released so far.

In autumn two of my favorite series came back: Bleach and My Hero Academia.

Both series returned with really intense arcs. Bleach is covering the final arc of the manga, which includes Ichigo’s true origin story... which makes it even more amazing that it’s taken ten years for the arc to be animated considering its importance to the overall Bleach story.

My Hero Academia is currently in the middle of an enormous battle arc involving all of the superheroes, the students, and a near-unbeatable villain, Tomura Shigaraki, plus Shigaraki’s entire army of bad guys. A city has been destroyed and several heroes have died and the arc doesn’t even appear to be close to its conclusion yet.

This fall I also started watching Heaven Official’s Blessing, an example of Chinese danmei or boy’s love. I haven’t finished the first season yet even though I only have a few episodes left. I think it’s because I know there’s a second season coming and my binge instinct has kicked in. I’d love to roll from S1 right into S2, but that’s probably unrealistic since there’s still no date set for the start of the second season (though a trailer for S2 has been released).

Recently I added Spy x Family to my currently watching list. I’m intrigued by this non-shonen series that appears to be wildly popular. Well, that and the male lead is quite the biseinen, isn’t he? It’s been fun so far.

As to the industry year in review... quite a bit happened.

In-person conventions returned, including Anime Expo and the San Diego Comic Con, two of the largest. Funimation’s anime catalog began to be transitioned into Crunchyroll, a process that is still ongoing.

Kadokawa bought a majority stake in Anime News Network. And speaking of buyouts - Right Stuf was bought out by Crunchyroll. Shawne Kleckner headed Right Stuf for over 30 years and this one surprised me. I know the pandemic was hard on merchants but Right Stuf was one of those vendors that always felt solid to me. They even had their own in-house production company, Nozomi Entertainment. I’m sorry to see them get swallowed up.

The biggest industry news by far was Disney’s acquisition of Bleach. Since then they’ve also acquired the second season of Tokyo Revengers, but so far, nothing bigger than that. It could be that they’re waiting to see how Bleach does before making any greater inroads into the animesphere.

With all these ups and downs, this year is ending on a high note for me as an anime fan. I’m watching a lot of anime each week, just like the old days.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Attack on Titan.

You might recall that around this time last year they announced that the “final cour” of Attack on Titan would stream beginning in January 2022.

Well, it did. Half of it. The final cour was split in two, with the last episodes set to air in January of 2023.

Like everyone else, this past winter I watched the episodes expecting to see the end of Attack on Titan. Instead, rumors began to leak that the second half would be delayed, which was confirmed at the end of the last episode that aired in April.

Other series have had very lengthy delays between seasons: Haikyuu comes to mind and there are others. Attack on Titan though is a premier title and this delay really surprised me. It’s a series that has a huge international audience and the expectation was really high that the series would be concluded this year.

I say that, and yet... here we are at the end of 2022 with Attack on Titan set to stream its final - let’s hope - episodes starting next month. Because next month it’s January again, already.

Another year in the animesphere has passed and it was a good one. Next year looks good as well, so let’s get ready for it. :-)