At Anime Central, I attended the panel for Kobayashi Hiroyasu, CGI Director at Studio Khara, and I learned a lot.
Kobayashi has worked on titles such as the Rebuild of Evangelion filmsand Gundam GQuuuuuuX, but until I came to this panel, I didn’t have a good sense of what his job was. While one might imagine a CGI Director as a person in charge of 3D animation or models, his job along with the rest of the digital production team is to create assets and enhance scenes by adding details and intricacies so that the final product has the right character and feel. Along with translator Dan Kanemitsu (who is on the right in the photo above, and who also works for Khara), they described how one thing that sets Khara as a studio apart is the accumulation of small details.
Some examples of his work include the following.
Superimposed staff credits and lightning effects in the GquuuuuuX opening.
Monitors, logos, etc in Rebuild of Evangelion.
Superimposed textures like decals on model kits.
Making a scene better by adding a mesh walkway onto the floor.
Making things look dingier.
Dan Kanemitsu also mentioned that he’s charged with finding English assets to avoid “Engrish” issues.
Kobayashi also mentioned that sometimes, they’ll put in a bunch of work into a really nice and detailed background, and then it’ll be almost entirely obscured by extra graphics in the final product.
They also provided a lot of information about what it’s like working for Director Anno Hideaki.
Anno Hideaki used to add details in sharpie to cels, but now that’s Kobayashi’s job to do it digitally.
That attention to little details is characteristic of Anno.
Kobayashi and Kanemitsu told a story about how Anno sent them a post-it note with a message about adding locking holes to a scene similar to the ones used on aircraft carriers to anchor the planes. Anno thought it would be an easy copy/paste job but they actually had to create a locking hole model in CG to get the perspective right.
Anno generally wanted all monitor graphics to convey what is going on, which made their job harder. For example, in a scene depicting massive needles injecting EVA-02, they changed it so that the monitors showed the injected liquids going through the EVA’s entire body.
The glittery, shimmering water one used to often see in anime back in the cel animation days is called backlighting cel, and it was something Anno was especially good at. They wanted to recreate that feel for digital animation.
They also talked about working with Director Tsurumaki Kazuya on GQuuuuuuX.
Tsurumaki wants everyday life in GQuuuuuuX to resemble modern real life, which is reflected in the choice of cell phones and other details.
Spattering is an art technique used in the original Gundam, and the’re incorporating it into GQuuuuuuX as well.
The colony Side 6 is a facsimile of current Japan mixed with other cultures
In the world of GquuuuuuX, Anaheim Electronics is a glorified appliance maker.
Trains are primarily Tokyo style, but the station names take from different cultures.
On the subway maps, the stations have very different names. There’s a lot of British station names, and this might be because Tsurumaki is a big fan of British soccer.
A particular green subway line is a representation of Tsurumaki’s old defunct train route from his home.
The police wear uniforms that say “Military Police” in Japanese, but just “Police” in English because the director wanted signage to be readable at a glance.
There’s a travel book that purposely replicates a series of guides called How to Walk the Earth.
Stickers on a particular laptop are from drag racing in current day Tokyo.
A box of tangerines alludes to a tangerine box that Tem Ray was using in the original Gundam.
The activation key common to mobile suits resembles the Tem Ray circuit, which was a piece of junk in the old series.
Kanemitsu was asked to come up with elements to make Pomeranians trading card more MLB-ey
Saturn Doughnuts: “I told you I don’t like sour stuff” is a reference to FLCL.
Overall, I came away with an appreciation for another aspect of working in animation, and I hope I can convey that feeling to everyone reading this.
In 2016, I was looking at a preview of the new anime season with friends, as was our custom. We talked about the shows we thought had potential, the ones we were more skeptical about, and anything else of note. But there was one series that seemed to come completely out of left field. A Taiwan-Japan co-production that wasn’t animated but rather performed using puppets, and it was written by Urobuchi Gen of Madoka Magica fame?! Even if we potentially did not end up liking it, we had to at least give this Thunderbolt Fantasy a chance.
Nine years later, and this series has become one of my absolute favorite works of fiction ever. The novelty of its puppetry never actually wears off, and it’s backed by solid writing and charismatic voice actors giving some of their best performances, as well as a sense of tension and excitement that had me coming back for more. So when I found out that they would be doing the North American premiere of the feature-length Thunderbolt Fantasy: The Final Chapter, I made it my mission to attend the convention.
This is my review of the movie, but since then, the movie has come out on Crunchyroll under the name Thunderbolt Fantasy -The Finale-. I recommend you just get straight into watching it, but feel free to proceed if you want my thoughts. Note that there will be a MAJOR SPOILERS section at the bottom.
The Basics
Thunderbolt Fantasy is set in a world once ravaged by a war against demonkind, which humanity barely won thanks to the help of a series of divine weapons. In the long years since this War of Fading Dusk, the weapons have been sought after by the righteous and the evil alike.
When we first see the two main characters of our story—no-nonsense vagrant swordsman Shāng Bú Huàn and white-haired pain-in-the-ass illusionist Lǐn Xuě Ya—they have just met each other for the first time, and both are holding their own respective secrets. At the end of the first season, we learn that Shāng is not only a ridiculously powerful swordsman who can wield a wooden stick like it was real steel, but that he’s also in possession of the Sorcerous Sword Index: a special scroll designed to house all sorts of supernaturally powerful weapons. Shāng carries it to prevent the weapons from falling into the wrong hands, notably the Order of the Divine Swarm, a clandestine organization seeking to conquer the world.
But Lǐn the “Enigmatic Gale” has been far more, well, enigmatic. Throughout the prior seasons, he appears to just be an elusive trickster who finds joy in aggravating the powerful. But in the penultimate chapter, we finally learn a truth even he didn’t know: Lǐn is actually a kind of “offshoot” of the Demon Lord who rules the Demon Realm, cast away and abandoned to remove any of the leader’s weakness. Lǐn thus has a revelation that the greatest target to torment would be essentially none other than himself.
Three other major plot points help create the backdrop for the end. First, the leader of the Divine Swarm, Huò Shì Míng Huáng, turns out to be the Emperor of Xī Yōu, the land which Shāng was trying to leave. This means the emperor was playing both sides of the law the entire time. Second, one of Shāng’s old allies, a bard named Làng Wū Yáo (voiced by rock star TM Revolution!) is actually half demon and is being forcibly transformed into an infernal god by his long-lost father. Third, the armies of Dōng Lí and Xī Yōu (the East and the West) are on the verge of coming together to fight a new war against the demons, though the former doesn’t know a thing about the latter’s true identity.
The Final Chapter
I’ll admit that I don’t have the most rigorous grasp on the full story of Thunderbolt Fantasy. There’s a lot I’ve forgotten over the years among all the different plot threads, and I suspect many coming into this movie would be in a similar situation. However, I actually don’t think you need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all that has transpired to enjoy the film. In addition to just being incredibly entertaining, the characters all have such bombastic designs and larger-than-life personalities that it’s easy to identify what roles they each serve in the overall narrative, even if the details are a little fuzzy.
That said, the movie is (as expected) not meant to be watched without any prior exposure to the show, and it does little in the way of actively filling in the blanks for the uninformed. It feels very much like the conclusion of a long-running TV series than a work meant to stand entirely on its own legs. Things happen fast and furious, not only in terms of the pace of the storytelling but also the action. The fights are more complex and relentless compared to what is typically seen in Thunderbolt Fantasy, and rivals even the greatest martial arts fight scenes in history.
In a certain sense, this is PILI taking off its weighted clothes and unleashing its full potential. The studio has a four-decade history of creating action-oriented puppet TV shows in Taiwan, and if you compare Thunderbolt Fantasy to their other works, the latter often turn into such never-ending frenzies of stylized violence that the notion of “breathing room” is a suggestion at best. But action in Thunderbolt Fantasy is slower and more deliberate, emphasizing the drama over a fight choreography built on countless details. In The Final Chapter, we get the best of both worlds.
Battles truly feel like the characters are fighting with everything they have, while the narrative and the characters’ individual motivations provide context to give their movements meaning and weight. Lǐn fights his doppelganger, the Demon Lord, and they naturally match each other move for move. Làng’s travel companion, a sentient pipa, has turned human and fights with strings befitting a former instrument. When he runs into a yandere princess puppeting two magical corpses at the expense of her own life force in order to take on Làng’s demonic father, the three-way back-and-forth is nonstop but also relatively easy to follow. And when Shāng finally gets the chance to wield a non-wooden sword after nine years of avoiding it, his assault is all the more special.
The plot twists and dramatic turns are all really satisfying in a way that screams “epic finale,” and the respective fates of all the big villains provide perfect bookends to all their stories. The film even touches on the origins of Shāng himself, and it was the last thing I could have ever predicted. That being said, I want to discuss some of the details of the ending.
SPOILERS SECTION
There are three major spoilers I wanted to write about in greater detail.
The first thing is Shāng being in the same company as Marty McFly (Back to the Future), John Connor (Terminator), and Philip J. Fry (Futurama). Essentially, he turns out to be the son of Lāng and the blind harpist Mù Tiān Mìng, both with whom he fought side by side before the start of Thunderbolt Fantasy. They realize their baby is somehow the Shāng they know, and the couple gives him up to the sentient pipa-turned-human, who apparently comes to raise him in another realm so that he will be ready to fulfill his destiny.
I definitely did not expect that, and based on the audience reaction, I don’t think anyone did. I also genuinely thought he had romantic feelings for Mù, but I guess it turned out to be more filial. They hinted at Shāng being a time traveler of sorts in Season 4, and possibly before that as well, but it implies the source of Shāng’s unparalleled swordsmanship: the fact that the man has trained across time and space and dimensions since he was a child. So he was the child who saved everyone, and also got his own parents together, to an extent. At least he did not sleep with his own grandmother.
The second thing is the way the leader of the Divine Swam is defeated, and the aftermath of his loss. There’s something a little hokey but absolutely wonderful about him using all the divine weapons of the Sorcerous Sword Index to transform into a gigantic armored demigod. A part of me wishes he was vanquished in a more conventional manner, but I think what happens fits the story incredibly well.
Shāng uses the one remaining blade, and while it seems to have no effect on Huò, it seems to be opening up a rift in the sky. Realizing the true nature of the weapon in his hand, Shāng proceeds oto summon Bái Lián, the sage who originally created the weapons (and whom he met in Season 3). Bái Lián proceeds to forcibly bring the emperor into the void beyond and back home to his own world where the weapons came from, and where they are now rusted and lifeless. The emperor tries to use his dark magic to threaten Bái Lián but finds that he can’t form spells. Bái Lián tells him that had he arrived in this realm as himself, he would have retained his powers, but by tying his very being to the weapons, he is now as inert as they are, and the only thing he can do is live like any other average person. His precipitous fall from world conqueror to commoner breaks him.
I love this so much. Not only is it rather cathartic given the state of the actual world right now, but I really find pleasure in seeing someone who believed they were untouchable be laid low and made to feel vulnerable. The villain really thought he was inherently superior and deserving of ruling over his entire world, and the fact that he can’t handle the idea of fending for himself the way everyone else does is the justest of deserts. (See also JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind). Bái Lián is also based on a popular recurring character in PILI’s Taiwanese puppet shows, so his presence at the climax is also a way to pay homage to the studio that made all this possible.
The third thing is Lǐn taking over as Demon Lord. Hilarious. We get that silly moment where Shāng sees through his disguise and refuses to duel to the death with the Enigmatic Gale (“Of course it’s you. I’ve never even met the Demon Lord, so why would he want to fight me?). We also get to think about just how a Demon Realm ruled by the most egregious troll in all of existence would turn out.
SPOILERS OVER
Concluding Thoughts…and More
What a fantastic ride. I’ve been told that this movie was originally supposed to be a full season, and it does show to a degree, but I still think this was a wonderful way to close the book on Thunderbolt Fantasy. It was the essence of this whole international creative endeavor boiled down to a clean 90-ish minutes, and had me coming away grateful to have learned about it nearly a decade ago.
So those are my thoughts on the movie, but this is actually just the first part of my Thunderbolt Fantasy coverage from ACen 2025. There was a “red carpet gala” to show off the puppets before the screening, as well as a Q&A afterwards with some live puppet demonstrations. Even more exciting, I got the chance to interview the PILI staff and even try out one of the puppets!
I’m not a big fan of obsessing over tropes. The way people might try to fit everything into a TVTropes category bothers me, and even when asked questions about what kinds of character pairings I prefer, it always greatly depends on context and execution. Despite this, I do enjoy occasionally watching Overly Sarcastic Productions’ Trope Talk, and after watching their recent episode about the “Dreaded,” I found myself wondering what might be my favorite example.
The answer, as with so many things, is Heartcatch Precure!, the 2010 entry in the Precure magical girl franchise.
According to TVTropes, the Dreaded is “a character or a single, unified group whose primary characteristic is the fear the other side has of them.” Examples include Darth Vader, All-for-One from My Hero Academia, and perhaps even Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. In terms of narrative the way the character’s reputation precedes them adds to the sense of anticipation for when they do show their full strength, and as the Trope Talk video points out, a character can also lose their “Dreaded” aura if they are overused or mishandled.
The reason I love Heartcatch Precure!’s version of this is that there are two “Dreaded” characters, and the way the series handles them both is just magnificent.
WARNING: SPOILERS
The series begins not with girls who would become the main characters, but a clash where a warrior named Cure Moonlight is defeated by a formidable foe named Dark Precure, who seems to mirror her abilities. Before all hope is lost, Moonlight’s companion mascot, Cologne, sacrifices himself and creates an opening that will allow a new generation to take over the fight. In the first two minutes, Dark Precure is established as this overwhelming entity who crushed Cure Moonlight, but then Heartcatch! does something important: Dark Precure doesn’t show up, at least for a long time.
And so the new heroes, Cure Blossom and Cure Marine, discover their new abilities and find their footing as they repel the enemy’s minions and monsters time and again. Then, Episode 10 hits, and Dark Precure appears, beats them down, and makes all their efforts and progress look hopeless. The first episode established her as a dangerous foe, but this just shows superior she is compared to Blossom and Marine. It does a great job adding to Dark’s aura of dread.
But when nearly all hope is lost, a high school girl they met earlier shows up and does the seemingly impossible, blocking Dark Precure’s finishing blow. This girl, Tsukikage Yuri, is actually the former Cure Moonlight, and she’s using the broken remnant of her transformation stone as a shield. This is when Heartcatch does something that pushes the Dreaded trope to the next level: Upon realizing who it is standing before her, Dark Precure reacts with a caution so different from her previously stoic attitude that it immediately makes clear what a force Yuri is. With just a fraction of her strength, she makes a seemingly unstoppable villain hesitate.
Heartcatch Precure! thus establishes its Dreaded characters: one on the side of evil, and the other on the side of good. What’s more, both their stories play important roles long term in various ways. Relative to each other, they establish a deep sense that they are each others’ true arch enemies. To the main heroines, Dark Precure acts as a litmus test: As the series continues, the girls go from being outclassed to being able to at least hold her off—not enough to diminish Dark’s status as a Dreaded. Yuri, for her part, is part of a vital part of the story: It’s through the efforts of the others that she slowly regains her conviction to fight and to stop blaming herself for the death of Cologne. When Yuri finally transforms into Cure Moonlight again, all the anticipation that comes from her reputation pays off in spades.
The presence of a trope does not make anything inherently good or bad, and 90% of its effectiveness comes from execution. They’re descriptive rather than prescriptive, and Heartcatch Precure! uses both its Dreaded characters to both entice and reward its audience over time. It’s just one of the million reasons I still love this magical girl series so much.
I attended Anime Central 2025 last month! I enjoyed it a lot and ate a decent amount of Chicago’s iconic foods, so expect some reviews and other coverage in the coming weeks (or maybe months). The last time I was there, I was very under the weather (later finding out it was COVID-19), so it was sure to be a better overall experience this go around.
Kio had a talk at a gallery, and tweeted his wishes for how Gundam GQuuuuuuX would go.
Closing
I hear that a funny VTuber that may or may not be part Shark, part Mackerel is on the horizon. I hope she’s gonna be a part of the upcoming Virtual Vacation 2025 concert…
Kio was at Gallery Zenon and the Rakuen cafe. He went with manga author Tsuruta Kenji.
Kio founded the Madarame Cream Soda to be really fizzy, capturing the viewpoint of the manga. The gelatinous bits also make it dangerous to talk while drinking it.
Kio lays out his vision of what he wanted to see in Gundam GQuuuuuuX Episode 7 [SPOILERS KIND OF?]:
Machu and Shuji start the Clan Battle as MAVs -> Nyan deals with the money -> Deux goes berserk because of the kira kira -> The Psycho Gundam does severe damage to the colony -> The Military Police gets wiped out -> The Psycho Gundam reaches the building where Kycili and Machu’s mom are -> Machu and Shuji can’t stop it -> Xavier’s Gyan and Shallia’s Kikeroga arrive in style -> The Hambrabi is shot down -> The Psycho Gundam is pushed back, leading Deux to go Newtype berserk even more -> Zeknova -> The Red Gundam vanishes -> Xavier is shot down -> Challia and Machu form an impromptu MAV combo and destroy the Psycho Gundam -> Machu leaves her cockpit to find Shuji -> Machu’s identity is exposed by the broadcast -> She goes with Challia because he knows about Zeknova -> Nyan fails to procure the money and flees -> She runs into Xavier after he crashed -> Nyan goes to Zeon.
Orb: On the Movements of the Earth is either the best-timed anime release of all time or the worst. To begin airing in a time when scientific thought and discoveries of the past 150 years are under attack—by reactionary forces claiming to be speaking on behalf of God, no less—hits with stinging precision. But I’m very glad we have this show, which has a very good chance of being the best anime of 2025.
Adapted from a manga by the same name, Orb takes place in mid-20th-century Europe, and begins with a boy named Rafal, who has spent his life trying to present himself as the perfect child in pursuit of an easy life. However, he has a minor interest in astronomy, and when he learns the heretical idea that the Earth revolves around the sun, it sets him on a path in conflict with the Church and his own peace and comfort, and changes the lives of others who also similarly discover that the pursuit of truth isn’t easy when the authorities in your world want to keep you blissfully ignorant.
Throughout the show, one thing that stands out to me is how the characters are products of their time in terms of how they both follow and defy the predominant conventions around them. For example, while you have characters who are proponents of heliocentrism, they are often also deeply religious and believe that they are celebrating and worshipping God by doing so. They are shaped by both personal qualities and cultural forces, whether it’s a zealous inquisitor named Nowak who thinks his bloody work helps protect his family, a scholarly monk named Badeni who thinks scientific discovery is important but that literacy should be restricted to the elite, or a young girl named Jolenta who loves to learn but is faced with pervasive and entrenched sexism of her environment.
I hope as many people as possible watch Orb because while its ideas aren’t exactly new, they are especially important to remember and take to heart right now and likely in the coming decades. I would recommend that you go into this show knowing next to nothing, but if you don’t mind spoilers, I’m going to list some additional thoughts I had after finishing the series.
Before that, I need to mention the fantastic theme song, which has become a massive hit in Japan. If nothing else convinces you to watch this show, maybe the opening will.
SPOILER SECTION
I want to first start at the end, and think about the fact that the attempt by Rafal and all the others before the finale was ostensibly for naught, as they failed to get their book on heliocentrism published. However, by having the last protagonist be Albert Brudewski, showing him initially dismissing the idea heliocentrism but still believing in math, and explaining in the epilogue that this was a real-live person who would later become Copernicus’s teacher, the series emphasizes something important. Orb is basically historical fiction about what if there were earlier people who had made Copernicus’s discovery but were forgotten because their work was destroyed, but it also shows how the simple act of observing the stars with a curious mind can bring back ideas thought lost to time. Science has the power to persist because its findings can eventually be rediscovered. This even shows up when Badeni looks at the orb necklace hanging on two nails and inadvertently realizes that the planets have elliptical orbits—in the real world, it would be Johannes Kepler who theorized it over 100 years later.
The destruction of human knowledge is not fictional. Famous real-world examples of this include the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as well as the Imperial Library of Constantinople, and even today, we are seeing the loss of both knowledge and lives that has been the result of the current Trump administration and its sledgehammer gutting of science and health initiatives. The tragedy we are seeing will ripple forward, but there is hope that we can come back from this someday.
In thinking again about how the characters are shaped by their circumstances, one thing I really love about Orb is how the transmission of science across time is done through very imperfect individuals, instead of giving us brilliant intellectuals altruistically motivated to progress human thought. Badeni and his selfish scholarship is one thing, but there’s also Draka, whose profit-obsessed mind is what allows her to pursue unconventional avenues of thought and push things ahead where others might falter. Oczy is in no way an intellectual, but his tremendous eyesight and humble personality both help push things ahead, especially when he makes Badeni realize the potential there is in a simple book written for the (presumably dumb) layman.
Even figures who aren’t the protagonists or adjacent to them impact the course of events in fascinating ways. Count Piast pushes away a doubt he had about geocentrism for most of his life in the fear that it would render pointless his life’s work (and that of his mentor), but he ultimately acquiesces because he realizes being wrong is just as important to finding the truth as being right. A young inquisitor in training who thinks little about what his work truly entails later becomes the priest in the church where Albert makes his confession, and that priest’s questioning of Church orthodoxy is the result of seeing his colleague help Jolenta escape at the cost of being burned at the stake.
What a work, man. I hope it gets as much recognition as possible.
When I first saw the opening of Blue Comet SPT Layzner, I was blown away. The music, the animation, the dramatic flair, the giant robots—it all worked together to make me want to see the show for real someday.
This was my introduction to Layzner, and it would be a long time before I was able to watch the series. Now that I have, I’ve come away feeling that this Cold War relic is not only an excellent work despite major setbacks, but actually more relevant than ever, for better or worse.
Before actually watching it, I continued to encounter Layzner in different forms. In the first TV series of my beloved Genshiken, there’s an episode preview narration where the characters are talking about anime that got their runs cut short. The character Madarame (i.e. the nerdiest of the nerds) posits the curious notion that it’s not so much that great shows often get canceled but that getting canceled is the very sign of a great show. One of the series he mentions is the thinly veiled title Dizner, which taught me that Layzner was an anime that got kneecapped.
Was this abrupt end a case of a show burning bright and then fizzling out? Or maybe the merch simply didn’t sell; that happens all the time. But the truth is more bizarre, and tells the story of a series cursed by circumstances beyond its control—a faulty kerosene heater made by the primary sponsor of Layzner, Sanyo Electronics,meant funding ended up being pulled.
Later, I would command the characters of Layzner through my import copy of Super Robot Wars GC, but because my Japanese was not all that great at the time, my understanding of the story was limited, as was my awareness of how exactly it was rushed. (Having Shin Getter Robo and Mazinkaiser show up doesn’t exactly reflect the story of Layzner with great accuracy either.)
But now, in 2025, I can say I have watched all 38 episodes of Blue Comet SPT Layzner, plus the three OVAs made to give the series some semblance of a real conclusion. But before I get to the end, I need to talk about the beginning and all the potential this anime held and indeed lived up to, until things went sideways.
Watching Layzner
In the future year of 1996, the Cold War between the US and USSR has expanded into the stars. During a visit to a space station by a youth culture club, a mysterious figure appears. His name is Eiji Asuka, and he has come to warn the Earth of an impending invasion by his home planet, Grados. Eiji is half Earthling, and he does not want his father’s world destroyed by war. The advanced giant robots known as SPTs are far superior to anything humankind has created, but luckily, Eiji has an SPT of his own: the powerful Layzner. However, his abhorrence towards killing weighs heavily on him when he might have to turn his weapons on the very people from his home planet. This is made doubly troublesome because the A.I. of Layzner seems to hold a dangerous secret that makes it much less merciful than Eiji himself.
Layzner drew me in instantly with its compelling story, its characters’ political and philosophical conflicts, and its overall animation and style—80s “real robot” anime at its finest. Every episode brims with drama and intensity, and the action is consistently exciting. Central to it all is Eiji himself, who definitely has a place in the Mecha Angst Hall of Fame. Unlike the stoic Chirico Cuvie from director Takahashi Ryousuke’s Armored Trooper VOTOMS, Eiji is deeply passionate about his love for both Grados and Earth, and the determination he must hold while his heart aches makes for one of the finest (and indeed angstiest) protagonists ever. His compassion also helps win over some of the more skeptical Earthlings, who go from mistrusting him to being some of his closest allies. One of those humans, a 14-year-old girl named Anna Stephanie, acts as the narrator for the series.
The Mid-Series Tonal Shift
Like with so many anime that are set to run for an entire year, the “halfway” point for Layzner comes with a massive shift and changing of the status quo. Whereas the first 26 episodes are about Eiji trying to reach the Earth in the hopes of preventing or at least slowing down war, the second part sees the plot jump forward a few years to a time when the Earth is dealing with a brutally regime that is trying to stamp out all nearly aspects of human culture, including books and art. Given our current political climate—where right-wing leaders who are largely fascists, racists, and grifters who are trying to force their backwards view of humanity onto the world and bilk us for all we’re worth—I found myself taking a bit of psychological damage. Seeing the main New York Public Library being set on fire hits a little too close to home, and it makes me all too aware of the fact that I might have viewed this series differently if I had watched it even 10 years earlier.
Eiji himself changes during this time, abandoning some of his more pacifist tendencies in favor of outright opposition against the powers that be. He also goes from that angsty young man with a thinner build to a brooding and brawny freedom fighter. While he isn’t Fist of the North Star Kenshiro levels of being a barrel-chested Greek god, the difference is noticeable.
However, the biggest transformation goes to Anna Stephanie, who grows into a strong 17-year-old girl and has basically learned what it means to fight in the face of oppression from her time with Eiji. Anna might be a sticking point for viewers, as her younger self seems designed to appeal to lolicon fans, and they set up a burgeoning romance towards the end of the first 26 episodes that’s made more blatant after the timeskip (including an ending theme talking about love and longing). While Eiji is supposed to be 16 (later 19), his design is such that he looks much more mature than Anna, and I have to wonder if the timeskip designs are meant to make the pairing more generally palatable.
The Early Finish
It’s fairly clear around when the sponsorship got pulled because the show begins to make giant leaps forward in time with only the briefest explanations as to what has changed. The final episode answers next to nothing, functioning like a canceled manga’s non-conclusion. The third and final OVA episode basically replaces Episode 38 and gives a greater sense of closure to Layzner as a whole, but still has to suffer from the fact that the series was originally forced to rush through its story by the end. That said, it’s truly fascinating to see what a work of fiction prioritizes when it suddenly doesn’t have enough time left, and Layzner chooses to up the political and emotional drama of its characters.
If there’s a significant flaw of the series that is not wholly related to having its year-long run cut short, it’s that Lazyner sometimes doesn’t seem to know what to do with certain characters. For example, the initial image of Eiji’s sister comes from the ending sequence, where it implies that she is some kind of gentle soul draped in a white dress. However, when we finally meet her in the series, she is a focused warrior intent on revenge. Then, after the timeskip, she becomes more like a messianic religious leader whose pacifism gives hope to the people. Another character whose purpose seems to change over time is Le Cain, the talented and powerful son of the Gradosian commander who is leading the assault on Earth. Introduced later in the series, he swings from arrogant and brutal antagonist to honorable rival to naive noble desperate for his father’s approval, with some romantic sparks between him and Eiji’s sister. I get the sense that Le Cain ended up being a popular character, and that the show tried to lean into this.
Final Thoughts
Hobbled by aspects outside of the production’s control, Blue Comet SPT Layzner is nevertheless an all-time great that tragically could have been even better if it was allowed to tell its full story. It has the characters, the story, and the thematic messages to be a timeless classic, and unfortunately for us, it is perhaps more relevant than ever before. I’m very glad I watched Layzner after all these years. While it might have taken forever, the timing might have been perfect: In the world we live in now, Lazyner makes me feel more invigorated to stand up for human dignity.
April was a hell of a month for VTuber fans. Between the departures from various major companies, a few surprise returns, and even a boatload of legitimate drama on the indie side, it felt like a nonstop rollercoaster. It has been (and perhaps will continue to be) such a frenzy of a time that I devoted more posts to the topic of VTubers than I usually would—a combination of things I had been wanting to write about, plus other things becoming more time-sensitive. Additionally, I want to write something encapsulating the tumult, because I think it deserves to be gathered together and contextualized.
The result is that many of the posts I had been working on that are more directly related to anime and manga have been pushed back. Hopefully, I can get some out for May.
Last month, I mentioned thinking about allowing tips directly through WordPress. I don’t really see Ogiue Maniax as my primary source of income, so I’m not desperate for more ways to make money, but it might be a way for readers to show support without having to use Patreon. I do technically have a ko-fi gathering dust as well, but maybe folks would prefer less hoops to jump through.
Kio spent all of April Fool’s driving, so he couldn’t see any of the jokes. Someone suggests he still has time to fly to the US and experience the day there, and Kio responds that he’d only end up seeing American April Fool’s gags as a result. Another person mentions that he heard Genshiken 3 was coming out, to which Kio replies, “Yay!”
Kio drew fanart of Sis-tan (the mascot of the arcade Okayama Fantasista) for her 10th anniversary. SIsta-tan tells Kio that he’s helped make her anniversary more splendid, and asks Kio what games he’s played at arcades.
Kio responds that there were certain games—namely Neo-Geo ones—that he would only ever watch at the arcades because he wasn’t brave enough to play against other people. He did get to play them at a friend’s house, though. When it came to games he actually played, he liked vertical-scrolling shooters like Gunbirdand RayForce.
Sis-tan replies in turn that it was still great that Kio had an environment where he could play Neo-Geo, especially one where no one as skilled as Kohsaka in Genshiken would show up. And while Okayama Fantasista doesn’t have a whole lot of vertical shooters, it would still be great if he came to play the ones that are there.
Kio got help to finish his work schedule for April, but it looks like some of his other work will spill into May. A person replies that Gundam GQuuuuuuX model kits come out in May, but Kio doesn’t think he’ll be able to buy them, so he’s giving up now. He really wants them all, though.
Kio is happy to finally have some time to watch the first episode of Gundam GQuuuuuuX. He’s jealous of those who can watch the first episode without having seen the theatrical release, The Beginning, which he did.
Kio thought nothing would really surprise him in the first episode of GQuuuuuuX just because he saw The Beginning in theaters, but the ending theme made him a lot more emotional than he expected. [The ED is by hololive’s Hoshimachi Suisei!]
He was already seeing fanart of the show’s characters before the first episode even aired, so watching the ending video had him in tears. The personalities contrast between the two main girls is right up his alley, and his imagination is running wild as a result.
Someone responds that he also expects to see old men dancing to the opening. Kio recalls grinning so hard he could die at “Naatu Naatu” from RRR, and wonders if the old men dancing to “Plazma” could beat that.
Despite a busy schedule, Kio went to the Hirano Kouta Super Expo gallery, featuring the work of the Hellsing author. He thought it was fantastic, from the way it showcased the power and insanity of the work, to the choice of manuscript pages to feature, to the way it showed off what makes all the characters great.
He wanted to listen to the audio guide by the Hellsing characters Luke and Jan, but he didn’t realize that he needed to connect to it through his smartphone, so he ran out to get some cheap earbuds.
Kio wears bifocals, but he likes to look at his work with the naked eye. However, when he does, he risks getting headaches and has to take Bufferin (a brand of aspirin).
Kio is happy that after a day of intently painting erotic naked skin in grayscale, he then gets to watch trailers for the new Ghost in the Shell and Steel Ball Run anime.
Thunderbolt Fantasy 4 aired a few months ago, with Crunchyroll making the series available to English speakers after it concluded. The season is the penultimate entry before the movie finale, and I wanted to just get some thoughts out before I finish it all. Everything I said in my first and second reviews still applies, and Thunderbolt Fantasy is still something that I hope everyone checks out, whether in spite of its medium (epic puppets) or because of.
More eyeballs on it! More!
Thunderbolt Fantasy is the story of Shāng Bù Huán, a mysterious wandering swordsman who is trying to collect and seal the mystical weapons that once helped humanity beat back an invasion from the Demon Realm, but are now dangerous remnants that are sought after. He meets many eclectic (and often dangerous) personalities—some friends and some foes, but always larger than life. This most recent season finally brings the story to the Demon Realm itself, and while it’s as eerie and dreadful a place as one might expect, there are some surprising twists about what it’s really like, and the powerful figures who run it. Reunions and revelations are plentiful, but there are also new characters who make a hell of an impression (pun only somewhat intended).
Without going into spoilers, this is a series where truly anything is possible and it hits on so many different levels of entertainment. You’re mainly interested in shounen battle anime? The fights in this series are amazing and the characters are some of the coolest I’ve ever seen. Oh, you love witty reparté by a large cast of charismatic characters? This is writer Urobuchi Gen (Madoka Magica, Saya no Uta) at his very best. How about a narrative with robust world building that rewards viewers but doesn’t take itself too seriously? Ample opportunities for shipping both queer and het? Great portrayals of characters not limited by gender stereotypes? All satisfyingly covered. Heck, are you really into yandere? Take your pick, because there’s more than one.
Thunderbolt Fantasy may be over in Japan, which means now is a great time to just sit down and watch through it. I hope to see you on the other side!
OGIUE MANIAX 