Watching too much slice of moe

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The real world may have been a scary and distressing place this year, but in anime 2018 was remarkably cozy.

Yuru Camp: Secret Society BLANKET spreads its influence further

This was a good year for slice of moe series, those shows that focus on the everyday life of usually high school girls (rarely high school boys). When I first started watching seasonal anime a few years ago and started watching everything I assumed these series were made for girls, because that’s what you expect from shows populated almost exclusively with women, don’t you, coming from a western perspective? Anime fandom however quickly made it clear that all those “moeblob shows” were aimed at gross otaku manchildren and you shouldn’t admit too loudly to watching them. Luckily that view is slowly changing as more people lose their hangups about what counts as respectable anime. For me this sort of show probably fuctions like a sort of ersatz emotional labour, getting to relax and unwind by watching anime girls going camping or cheerleading or even going on a trip to Antarctica.

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho: penguin love

Sora yori mo Tooi Basho was not just the best slice of moe show this year, but immediately became my favourite anime of the year and despite stiff competition, hasn’t shifted from that spot. What started out as a light hearted adventure about a girl who realises she never had a big dream and she’s already in her second year in high school in the end turned into a study in grief and processing it. Watching it week by week was cathartic, leaving me on the verge of tears almost every episode. For obvious reasons female friendship is a theme in most slice of moe series, but it’s rarely done as convincingly as it was done here, with four girls at first united only by their desire to go to Antarctica becoming close friends over the course of the series, growing up week by week as they tackled the challenges thrown at them. Such a female centered coming of age story is rare and one told as well as this, even rarer. It was also incredibly funny, which is always a bonus.

Winter 2018 was in any case a strong season for slice of moe shows. Besides Yorimoi there was Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san, about a girl who loves eating ramen and her friend/stalker who loves her very much, Mitsuboshi Colors, about three elementary school girls/shitlords playing around and bullying their local police officer, Slow Start, about a girl who had to skip a year between middle and high school and is terrified people might find out and Hakumei to Mikochi, two literal little women being only a few centimers tall living together in a magical world. But the best of them all was Yuru Camp. Incredibly well animated as you can see above, funny, but above all warm and cozy. You have this one girl who likes being on her own, going on solo camping trips meeting another girl, energetic and outgoing who becomes her friend and also takes up camping, joining their local school’s outdoors club. And where most series would’ve the first girl join as well, this never happens in Yuru Camp: her desire to be left alone from time to time is completely respected. Instead you get a much more realistic view of friendship, where not all the characters are friends, but some are friends of friends, people you’re friendly to but not necessarily are friends with. It was great seeing the friendship and perhaps something more bloom up between the two main characters and all the camping related stuff was fun and reminded me of going camping myself.

The rest of 2018 was less strong, but there were still a few standout shows. Comic Girls was a show about an anxiety ridden high school mangaka who on the suggestion of her editor starts living in a dorm with three other high school mangaka. Equally insecure and thirsty, Kaos was actually a thinly disguised, hopefully exaggerated version of the original manga’s creator. Most of the show was well animated, fluffy fun as expected from a Manga Time Kirara adaptation, but Kaos’s anxiety is handled seriously even when it’s the source of much of the humour in the series. The same goes for the attraction Kaos has for one of her dorm mates: she’s incredibly thirsty about it, but that attraction itself is never ridiculed. It’s this hidden seriousness that makes this a better series than something like Slow Start, which may seem very similar at first blush. Not that the latter is bad, it just misses some of the bite of Comic Girls.

Another standout this year was the third season of Yama no Susume, the half length anime about school girls going mountaineering. In the previous season they had tried to climb Mount Fuji, but our main protagonist,Yukimura Aoi, failed; this season was all about preparing to try again, probably next season. What also drove this season was that her best friend Kuraue Hinata was getting jealous of the new friends she made climbing mountains. It had been Hinata who’d introduced Aoi to the sport in an attempt to draw her out of her shell, but now that she was becoming less shy and actually making friends without her, Hinata became a bit jealous, feeling left out. As you can see from the clip, you don’t need narration to understand something is going on between these friends. That’s always been the greatest strength of Yama no Susume, its incredible character animation and gorgeous scenery.

On the other end of the spectrum we have a series like Anima Yell!, another Manga Time Kirara four panel manga adaptation, with decidedly ‘cheap’ animation, proably because the studio responsible, Doga Kobo, was also busy with a higher profile series the same season. Even a showcase set piece like the clip above isn’t as good a similar clip from any of the series mentioned here. There are a lot of static shots, lots of talking heads and other less obvious ‘cheats’ to simplify the animation. It also lacks some of the depth of the other series, this is based on a four panel gag manga after all and in the first episode especially you could almost see the panels. As such it’s arguable a much more representavive example of a slice of moe series than something like Yuru Camp or Yorimoi. But, it’s a fun series with fun characters, a bit of yuribaiting and it was one of the series I’d always watch first the day it came out. And that’s the real strength of slice of moe shows; they’re almost always a fun time, something bright to look forward to each week even when you don’t have enough energy for something more demanding.

This is the tenth post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: Watching too many kids shows.

Watching too many pretty boys

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This year, I’ve watched too many pretty boys and not all of them were as cute and sweet as this high school boy and his absolute unit of a monster husband.

Jingai-san no Yome: the bride is a boy

That’s from this season’s 3 minute short series Jingai-san no Yome, about high school boys becoming monster brides, which was adorable and cute and had more than a hint of queer subtext. It would be great if all pretty boy series are like that, but boy howdy is that not the case. It might just be my bad luck with them, but pretty boy fujoshi bait and reverse harems (sic) and the like tend to be the most cynical cash grabbing minimal possible effort anime series. Even when compared to the sister fucker shows. When I first started watching seasonal anime I made a point to watch everything, but I soon gave up on anything that looked like a cute boys doing cute things show because they were all so dull and pointless.

Hypocritical maybe considering how many cute girls doing cute things shows I do watch, even when they’re not all that good, But again, I’ve seldom found any that were anywhere near as dull as a very many cute boys series are. It’s not that I like girls more than I like boys, it’s that more effort is put into the later. So many series seem to think it’s enough to just throw a dozen or more archetypes at the viewer with little in the way of plot, character or visuals to make it more interesting. That’s why I stopped watching them, but this year I’ve found half a dozen or so decent ones being broadcast. Shoutout here to the seasonal first impression guides at anime Feminist, which pointed me in the way of a few of those.

Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori: pretty boys bringing soup

So for example, spring season’s Rokuhoudou Yotsuiro Biyori might have its complement of pretty boy stereotypes — the short tempered redhead, the big energetic foreign dude, the calm and serious one, the calm and serious one but with glassess — to ship together but it also takes the time to tell actual stories. Working at a traditional sort of Japanese restaurant, these four get involved with the everyday problems of their customers — not all of whom are women — and help solve them, or at least offer a listening ear. It’s all done with a sense of humour and it’s cozy as fuck. If you like iyashikei/healing anime this is a series you’d properly like.

Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi: feeding pretty monsters

Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi also debuted in the spring season and ran for two full cours, a rarity for a pretty boys series. Tsubaki Aoi is a college student raised by her grandfather after her mother abandoned her and like him, she can see ayakashi (traditional Japanese monsters/demons). What she doesn’t know is that her grandfather used her as collatoral for a debt he owned to the Tenjin-ya innkeeper, one of the most respected and feared oni of the Hidden Realm. So one day not long after her grandfather died, she gets kidnapped and taken to the Hidden Realm to marry the innkeeper. All of which is a frustratingly common setup, the normal girl forced into a relationship with an overbearing, arrogant man who she manages to change for the better. A bit dodgy, but once moved past this setup the series is actually quite fun, with Aoi using her cooking talents and quick wit to get herself and her new demon friends out of all sorts of dangers. If you like scenes of cute, fluffy monsters eating food and smart, compassionate heroines this is a good series to try.

Legend of Galactic Heroes: pretty boy fascists

Of course for the prettiest of pretty boys, the ones who put the fashionable into fascism, you have to go to the Legend of the Galactic Heroes reboot, which upgraded both the space battles and the protagonists looks 1000% from the original while keeping the slightly fascist ideology intact. At the very least it got me off my ass and watch the original. The reboot hasn’t quite reached its legendary density yet, but then it’s early days. Hopefully the sequel will not take too long to arrive.

Gakuen Babysitters: merry Christmas

Other noticable pretty boys anime this year were Devils Line, a vamperic mopefest that still held my attention to the end despite its drab colours and animation. There was also Gakuen Babysitters which fell squarely in the cute boys doing cute things camp, in this case baby sitting. This was actually one of the series I was looking forward to because the manga was adorable and luckily the series didn’t disappoint. Ryuuichi and his young brother Kotarou are so sweet together, the other babies are all cute but cutest of all is the tsundere chairwoman who took the two in after their parents died in a plane crash. It’s a good, fluffy series because it has this core of seriousness, of tragedy at its heart. And that’s the common thread with all these series: they have something more than just pretty boys interacting or flirting with each other.

This is the ninth post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: Watching too much slice of moe.

The first boy Precure is genderqueer

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Well, it took Henri until episode fortytwo, but they told you so in episode eight:

Hugtto Precure: maybe I will try to be a Precure too

Hugtto Precure is the fifteenth installment in the Precure franchise, which as Andrea Ritsu explains has always been somewhat progressive and queer friendly, especially for a kids franchise. In recent years this has intensified: the Maho Girls Precure protagonists kissed, while there was a canon lesbian couple among the precure in last year’s Kirakira PreCure a la Mode . In this context it would make sense for Precure to finally introduce a boy Precure as well, something with which it has flirted in the past. Not out of some percieved need to always crowbar boys into something intended for girls, but because “boys can be princesses too”. And Henri is the perfect “boy” to do so. After all, they are:

Hugtto Precure: a refined Japanese lady and a Parisian

From their very first appearance it’s clear Henri doesn’t think of themselves as a boy, but as somebody for whom gender is irrelevant, wanting to be both and lucky enough with how they look that they could pull this off. Henri is self assured, confident and completely open in how they perform their gender. Henri starts off as a bit of an antagonist of the Precure girls, being friendly ice figure skating rivals with one of them and thinking the others are holding Homare back. Once that’s resolved though Henri becomes somewhat of a friendly face, helping Emiru standing up to her far too serious brother Masato, who’s obsessed with propriety. Said brother ends up becoming his somewhat over protective boyfriend not to long after by the way:

Hugtto Precure: precious boyfriend

That’s from episode 33 when Henri blows a kiss to their adoring audience and everybody, men and women both, get hearts in their eyes, except for Masato, whose actual heart lights up. It’s a nice touch. In general I like the way the relationship between those two is shown: it’s never spelled out but it’s clear these are more than just friends with Masato always there to help Henri whenever the latter is getting depressed. And Henri does have problems: a potential injury threatens to derail his skating career, while the simple act of growing up, of getting taller, having their voice changed threatens their ability to have the gender they want.

Hugtto Precure: precious boyfriend

Henri isn’t in a lot of Hugtto Precure episodes, but the ones they’re in are some of the best of the series, laying the foundation for their eventual transformation into a true Precure. His story fits the theme of the series, with Henri’s worries for a future in which they may have to leave behind skating. Not to mention the fear that puberty will put an end to their ability to be “both a refined Japanese lady and a Parisian” as their body grows more masculine. The villains of the series too are obsessed with the future, wanting to stop time because only that way will people be unable to feel any more pain. They try to seduce Henri with this shared fear of the future and almost succeed, until:

Hugtto Precure: Cure Infini

Becoming a Precure doesn’t solve Henri’s problems or fears, but it gives back hope, a way for Henri to fight through his momentary depression at losing his skating career and see new possibilites again. Having Henri, somebody who struggled not with who they wanted to be but with being able to keep being that person as the first ‘boy’ Precure fits with the whole ethos of the franchise. Of discovering yourself, of finding new ways to be yourself if the old way no longer suffices. Had they just plunked in some random guy this wouldn’t have worked, but with Henri you have somebody who is queer enough to be a Precure, who can serve as a bit of a role model for all boys to know that they too can be princesses, without having to fear Precure will be remade to appeal more to boys in general.

This is the eight post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: I watched way too many pretty boy series this year.

Frankenstein Family: normality is overrated

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Anime is lousy with absent or downright evil parents, but the ones in Frankenstein Family take the cake, being mad scientists who genetically manipulated their own children for their experiments. They’re gone by the time the series opens, arrested and in prison, which leaves their children to have to care for themselves.

Frankenstein Family

So from left to right we have the twin sisters, one a flower woman who can photosynthesise and grow all sort of flowers on her, the other a spider woman with artificial arms & hands. The oldest brother in the middle looks normal here, but is a weredog (not wolf) and tends to like his doggo form more than being human. Well, who wouldn’t? On the far left is the youngest sister, a mind reader who can’t turn it off so by necessity is a bit of a NEET. Our protagonist is Tanisu, the youngest brother, relatively normal because he’s ‘only’ a genius. Perhaps that’s why he’s the most obsessed out of all of them with appearing normal, conforming, trying to do all the things a normal family would do. Which is hard to do because none of them really have any idea of how to act this way, having been raised by their asshole scientist parents in what was arguably one huge experiment. What’s more, the rest of his siblings aren’t actually all that concerned about this, prefering to do the things that come naturally to them rather than forcing themselves into some ideal of what the average family should look like.



The desire for normality, for being an ordinary school boy is what drives a lot of anime protagonists just before they get dragged up into some grand adventure. That doesn’t happen here. Instead we have Tanisu coming to terms with his sibling’s nature & behaviour, as they in turn adapt a little bit to living in the outside world. In the end however it’s Tanisu who changes the most. He’s still somewhat obsessed with his brother and sisters passing as human, but less uptight about it, more accepting of their monstrous sides, no longer wanting them to repress them all the time. There’s a little bit of a queer subtext to this, isn’t there? Being seen as something that you are not, perhaps needed to be seen that way to not be hassled, but still living with the stress of having to repress parts of yourself.

What else made Frankenstein Family interesting to me is that it’s an actual Chinese cartoon redubbed in Japanese and then brought over by Crunchyroll. Some of the cultural assumptions and shorthand is just that little bit different form ‘real’ anime and I can’t quite put my finger on it. Also, because this is a half length show, the Japanese dub pads things out by having the actual voice actors do some silly skitches and such after each episode. This also include a visit to the company licensing & publishing the original manga with some neat if surface details about translating from Chinese to Japanese and the challenges that brings. It made for a nice little package each week.

This is the seventh post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: let’s talk about the first boy Precure again.

Kindred spirits under one roof: Himote House

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To be honest, it’s not hard to understand why Himote House hasn’t gotten a lot of buzz. A half length series about five girls with super powers living in a shared house in Tokyo, talking about everyday stuff, with thrash tier CGI animation does not for an appealing series make, right?



And yet it does have its charms, if you can look beyond the CGI animation. This is definitely a series to listen to rather than watch and it helps that the voice actresses have such good chemistry with each other. Something that’s especially apparant in the improvised parts of the show, which take place after the main episode, with several episodes being almost full improv. These bits feel like a real group of friends bullshitting, as they act out random scenarios chosen by the house cat (who talks, because this is anime). They’re actually funny too, which is not something you can say from many other improv anime.

Himote House: sitting around in face packs talking bullshit

It’s also surprisingly fresh to see anime girls sitting around with face packs and scruffy house wear and not have them be caricatures like the usual hard working hard drinking career woman slobs. It all feels more like how real women would live together than the stale stereotypes of other anime. It’s also reminds me a bit of this winter’s Takunomi, which was about four young women living together getting drunk. And speaking of real, episode seven got extra real when they played the Yuri Game of Life and the difference in treatment of gay people in Japan and Europe came up:

Himote House: Yuri Game of Life

You hold a happy marriage in a country where same-sex marriage is permitted by law vs You deliver a marriage form to the city, but you’re shut down by the both sexes clause of the Japanese constitution. That’s pretty real. Usually it’s all a bit more surreal though. So in one episode they play an indoor baseball game because baseball loving girls are supposed to be more popular but every play ends as an out because of obscure rules. In another they wake up in the living room together and have to find out what happened (with a lot of improv), in a third they use neo feng shui to rearrange the house furniture, and so on. The absolute highlight of this so far is episode nine but you need to see it unspoiled to have the full effect. The latest episode, eleven, has them go to a bath house for the obligatory fanservice episode, then spent their time discussing bitcoin & blockchain.

One last fun thing about the series is that the credits have the girls cosplaying characters from classic anime series; there are some real surprises in there and they’re not always easy to recognise either. What other series has Nanoha homages? All in all Himote House isn’t an essential series, but it’s far better than you’d assume and that little bit of social criticism thrown in is the cherry on the top.

This is the sixth post in this year’s twelve days of anime challenge. Tomorrow: Frankenstein Family, an actual Chinese cartoon about, well, a monster family and what it means to be ‘normal’.