Welcome to 2021 here at The Land of Obscision, the start of a brand new decade for the blog! For those unfamiliar, I have indeed been putting out new pieces at this blog focused on the obscure & forgotten for just barely over 10 whole years, which often seems to surprise people. Because of that, I have done traditional reviews for, as of the start of this year, nearly 257 different anime & manga (there are some multi-part reviews, hence the "nearly"), as well as video games & "other" adaptations of anime/manga. Therefore, after an entire decade, I think it's time for me to finally look back & pick twelve review subjects that I feel were the best of them all! Before we start, though, some ground rules. First, this is for anime only, as they make up ~83% of the counted reviews. If you're curious what the best manga, games, & "other" reviewed are, though, it'd be (in no order) B't X (Manga), Ring ni Kakero 1 (Manga), Bastard!! (Manga), Otoko Zaka, Super Robot Wars GC/XO (Game), Fuma no Kojirou (Live-Action), & Team Astro (Live-Action). Second, like what I just did, this isn't a numbered list in any way, though I will be saving the "best" of them all for last in Part 2. Finally, while I could certainly include more, this will be only a list of twelve (though multiple reviews will count together in some instances), as that's my standard amount for lists like these. Why? Because I like to go one step beyond "one step beyond", and it also can still be split up evenly.
With that out of the way, let's start with what is easily the oldest review in this list!
Dororo [1969]
For most, if you were to ask them what their favorite Osamu Tezuka creation is, I'm sure the most common answer would be either Astro Boy, Black Jack, Phoenix, or maybe one of his gekiga-esque works. Personally, though, my favorite is definitely Dororo, which is admittedly amusing since Tezuka had admitted that the only reason he even made the manga was because he saw how successful Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitaro was doing, and Tezuka's competitive nature made him jealous; to no surprise, Dororo barely ran for a whole year before getting cancelled. However, it's that very short-lived nature that has allowed Dororo to have a long life in the annals of Tezuka's vast catalog, as literally every single adaptation of the manga goes into its own direction, especially when it comes to giving the plot a proper finale, which Tezuka was never able to. The first of these adaptations was the 1969 TV anime adaptation done by Mushi Pro, Tezuka's original anime studio, and it's just outstanding.
Though a pilot was produced in color, Fuji TV ordered that it be produced in black-&-white in order to air, due to the blood being considered too visceral in color, which resulted in this being the final anime to be produced completely in B&W. That being said, the monochromatic visuals wound up being used to amazing effect, helping give the entire series a generally dour & bittersweet mood to it, and the amount of bloodshed seen is actually rather shocking at points for something that didn't air in late-night; it's amazing what you're allowed to show without color. About halfway through, a new sponsor signed on, making the original Dororo anime the first show in what would later be known as World Masterpiece Theater, giving this just even more historical relevance. Finally, the staff at Mushi Pro in 1969 was filled with young & hungry talent ready to work, which results in Dororo being some of the earliest (episode) directorial work for people who would go on to revolutionize anime, including Osamu Dezaki, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Noburo Ishiguro, & Ryosuke Takahashi, all lead by the legendary Gisaburo Sugii as series director; there was even a 19 year old Yoshiaki Kawajiri doing in-between animation! While I haven't seen all of the Dororo anime made by MAPPA in 2019, though I did extremely enjoy what I have seen, there's no doubt that the 1969 anime was something I had wanted to see for a long time, and when I finally had the chance to do so it more than exceeded my expectations.
It honestly boggles my mind that it still isn't available via streaming, even through RetroCrush, and remains only available via Discotek's DVD boxset, but it's more than worth the asking price.
I feel like this is cheating, because Legend of the Galactic Heroes is often considered one of the greatest anime ever made. Also, yes, I did indeed write about a small portion of this franchise back in 2012, a little over three years before Sentai Filmworks did the impossible by licensing the entire original anime adaptation in 2015. Specifically, I reviewed the two movies, 1988's My Conquest is the Sea of Stars & 1993's Overture to a New War, as well as the 1992 prequel OVA Golden Wings. While the OVA was definitely a big disappointment, though, the movies were & remain just astounding, and are literally the way to introduce yourself to the entire LOGH epic. Movie 1 is actually the proper start of the entire story, establishing the two sides of the galactic war taking place & the dual protagonists working for each, Reinhard von Lohengramm of the Galactic Empire & Yang Wen-li of the Free Planets Alliance. While one can certainly start watching LOGH with Episode 1 & understand what's going on, Movie 1 is still something that's required viewing as soon as you can.
Meanwhile, Movie 2 is interesting in that it actually supersedes a small portion of the original OVA. Specifically, it's a complete retelling of the first two episodes of LOGH, showcasing how the first tactical confrontation between Reinhard & Yang comes to pass in greater detail, adding in numerous scenes not seen in the original OVA episodes, and quite honestly makes it so that there's no need at all to ever watch those first two episodes, unless you're just that pedantically curious about what wasn't in there originally. Simply put, LOGH in general is just a grand epic on a scale that's rarely been attempted in anime since it came out, and while there is the recent Die Neue These reboot for those curious (though it's still being produced, so it's nowhere near complete), it is still worth giving the original anime a try, and while I bemoan the fact that Sentai's physical release is guarded behind a (likely Japanese licensor enforced) $800 BD boxset, the fact that all of it, including these two movies, is easily available via streaming over at Hidive is still something to celebrate.
There's a general feeling that the best works are always known to some decent degree, that there's rarely anything remaining of actual astounding quality left that hasn't been already readily known. 2004's Fantastic Children is kind of an example that's caught in between "forgotten to time" & "readily known", as while it did receive a complete DVD release by Bandai Entertainment in 2006, followed by a boxset in 2008, it more or less went by without much fanfare. However, those few who have seen it have generally given it a wealth of praise, & when I finally watched in 2013 I quickly joined those small ranks. The creation of Takashi Nakamura, a well-respected animator & character designer who's been in the industry since the 70s, Fantastic Children is the only TV series he has ever directed & written for (the latter with Hideki Mitsui), and one of only a handful of times he ever actually directed, in general. Its plot is about an orphan boy named Tohma coming across two runaways named Helga & Chitto, and how their encounter winds up corresponding to the mysterious Children of Béfort, a group of white-haired children who have been sighted numerous times throughout history.
While Nakamura's designs hearken back to anime from the 60s, it is most definitely not a "kids' anime", but rather is a slow burn of a science-fiction epic opera. There's a massive cast, most of which do get their times to shine, & the plot eventually does accommodate them all to some fashion, creating a multi-faceted drama that literally stretches across time & space, while also including elements of mystery, romance, drama, the occasional bit of action, and a constant ebb & flow to the plot that never gets old. In an industry where getting to tell your own dream story tends to come with some sort of concession or repercussion, Nakamura seemingly got to have his cake & eat it too, resulting in an anime that feels as though it had no interference in creation (there is one recap half-way through, but that's all), complete with animation that never looks to falter (considering the director, that's no surprise), and even a musical score that matches the grand operatic nature of the plot itself. To see release in the old "single DVDs, followed by a boxset later on" format of the 00s is likely what killed Fantastic Children's chances in North America (the name obviously didn't help, either), and getting a hold of Bandai's release today isn't exactly cheap, as the last DVD single & the boxset both go for ~$100 each.
There is an official streaming option over on YouTube by way of AnimeLog, but as of this piece it's currently only through the English dub, which is a subpar effort that Bandai hired Odex over in Singapore to produce, so I don't recommend it. By far, if there's an anime that I feel deserves a second (real) chance to wow people, it's Fantastic Children. It's more than what the title says it is.
In comparison, however, this anime is a perfect example of how you can't just assume that every anime that's worth a damn has already been mined for English release, and the worst thing of all is that it's technically "half-way there" already. If you were to tell (older) anime/manga fans that iconic Shonen Jump manga Hikaru no Go won the Shogakukan Manga Award for "Best Shonen Manga" in 1999, I'm sure you'd get a reaction of "well of course it did, because it's excellent". However, the truth of the matter is that Hikaru no Go shared that award with another manga, specifically Katsutoshi Kawai's Monkey Turn, a manga about kyotei/mini-hydroplane racing. Throughout all of 2004, Monkey Turn would get adapted into a 50-episode TV anime in late-night, split between two seasons (though there was no break between them), making it one of the last anime to air anywhere near that long at once in that infomercial-focused time slot. I had reviewed the first season back in early 2011, but in 2018 I decided to introduce re-review segment Retrospect in Retrograde by going back & rewatching Monkey Turn, and it was just as outstanding as I remembered it being.
That first season, detailing the rise of main character Kenji Hatano from becoming inspired to take up the sport after graduating from high school to wanting to become the #1 racer within three years of graduating from Kyotei Academy, was & still remains one of the absolute greatest sports anime I have ever seen. While it does look to pull a Ring ni Kakero 1 in that it skips over a good amount of the early manga, namely Kenji's days at the Academy, the anime still explains all of the needed ins & outs of kyotei racing just fine, and we get needed character development for Kenji & his friends/rivals as the story continues on. Combined with a brisk pace that doesn't feel rushed but still manages to avoid falling into the usual pratfalls of this kind of story, decent CG during the races for its time that still hold up respectfully well, a good soundtrack by Daisuke Ikeda (which includes a blatant instrumental cover of "Where is the Love?" by The Black-Eyed Peas), & a mesmerizingly addictive OP theme, the first season ends at a spot that could justifiably feel like a proper finale. Second season Monkey Turn V, then, goes in a direction not often seen in stories like this: What happens after you've become the best? Dealing with things like a career-threatening injury for Kenji, keeping the spot you fought so hard to earn, & even putting focus towards the other members of the cast at points, Monkey Turn V is an excellent follow up that feels as though it covers all the way to the end of Kawai's manga, which ended around the same time as the anime, so it's possible. Without a doubt, with its lack of any English translation for V & only having rough subs from bootleg HK DVDs for Season 1, Monkey Turn is probably the anime that I've covered here that I wish more people knew of & could watch; at least Ring ni Kakero 1 has English fansubs for 3/4 of it.
So what's this "half-way there" stuff about? Monkey Turn's anime was one of many shows that ShoPro Entertainment USA had the "master rights" to, i.e. if anyone wanted to license it they would have to talk with ShoPro USA; this also included more popular shows, like InuYasha. In the 00s, ShoPro USA was merged with Viz Media, giving them the "master rights" for all of those shows, including Monkey Turn. A couple of weeks after I put out the review for Monkey Turn V, I decided to e-mail Viz about whether they still have those rights, expecting nothing more than a basic vague response. While I did get that kind of response by "Michael" from Viz, his response also specifically mentioned Monkey Turn by name, as though it was one of their properties (otherwise, a company wouldn't respond that specifically), which I feel would only be done if Viz actually still has the master rights to the show. Who knows, maybe I'm reading into the e-mail too much, but it pains me that Monkey Turn will likely remain lost to time, possibly because Viz sees no financial point in putting it out, even if only via streaming, and no one else even knows (or cares) about it, so they'll never get into contact with Viz about licensing it from them for an official release.
Without a doubt, Monkey Turn is truly one of the best anime you've never heard of before.
On the final hour of 2020, I made a Twitter thread in which I listed the 20 posts on this blog that had the most views over the past decade, mainly to showcase which of my writings got the most attention. While most of it either made me very happy (Dororo, B't X Neo, DiC's Knights of the Zodiac, a couple of Ages of Jump articles) or at least made sense (the Demo Disc about "banned" anime/manga, Part 1 of the "Eva Clone" article, Cipher the Video), there were also a decent number that honestly dumbfounded me for their (apparent) "popularity". Possibly the most surprising was the third-most viewed post of the blog, which is my review of Niji-Iro no Hotaru, a 2012 movie by Toei. While I did enjoy the movie, there's no way that I'd ever prefer that film over the other "forgotten" movie that Toei released that same year, Asura. Created by the late George Akiyama in 1970, the original Asura manga allegedly was legitimately banned in Japan for a period of time, due to Akiyama telling the story of a young orphan boy growing up during the Sengoku period who had essentially become a savage beast, even going as far as committing literal cannibalism in order to survive. In 2010, Toei Animation announced that it was going to adapt the manga into a theatrical film, which would come out in early 2012 & was directed by Keiichi Sato.
The end result is simply an amazing movie that I feel anyone should watch. The story of Asura himself took the general concept behind Mary Shelley's Frankenstein & made it its own, creating a lead character that you wanted to see become more "human", only to be constantly ostracized by the populace & forced to fight back; Masako Nozawa's peformance as Asura is also a strong highlight. It also showed a side of the Sengoku period often ignored, that of the general populace, who are constantly living a hellish life of death & famine, because of the lack of any unified leadership to help them out. Then there's the interesting "hybrid animation" style, which puts cel-shaded CG animation on top of hand-drawn backgrounds, resulting in it looking wholly unique, even to this day. Finally, the musical score by Norihito Sumitomo, Susumu Ueda, & Yoshihiro Ike perfectly matches the dour mood, one that hopes for things to get better, only for something to always come back & strike it down. I'm not the only one who feels that Asura deserves more attention, either, as ANN's Mike Toole put it down as #78 in his "Other 100 Best Anime Movies of All Time", while most responses in the forums (like mine) felt that it deserved to be higher up the list. The fact that Asura still remains without an official English release, even though it was screened at film festivals & likely already has an English subtitle translation, is just completely saddening, because this is easily one of my all-time favorite anime movies ever, and I'd love to own it.
The Madhouse Gambling "Trilogy"
We end Part 1 with a massive collection of reviews, simply because they all comprise a general theme, even if one of them comes from a completely different creator as the others. In October of 2005, NTV debuted Tohai Densetsu Akagi: Yami ni Maiorita Tensai/Mahjong Legend Akagai: The Genius Who Descened into Darkness, a 25-episode anime adaptation of Nobuyuki Fukumoto's iconic mahjong manga of the almost same exact name; the manga's subtitle is Yami ni Oritatte Tensai, which effectively means the same thing. Even though it ran in late-night, the Madhouse-animated series apparently did so well from the start that the first episode actually made it into the Top 10 highest-rated anime for that week. The story of the rise of the seemingly unemotional risk taker Shigeru Akagi during the 1950s, who was first introduced in the modern-day setting of Fukumoto's earlier manga Ten as a old legend, did astoundingly well for Madhouse & NTV, so director Yuzo Sato, head writer Hideo Takayashiki, & music composer Hideki Taniuchi were all brought back two years later. Instead of making a second season of Akagi, though, it was decided to make an adaptation of another Fukumoto manga, namely his more well known Tobaku Mokushiroku/Gambling Apocalypse Kaiji. Telling the story of how hapless loser Kaiji Itou gets himself caught in a never-ending battle to rid himself of massive debt he signed himself onto to help someone else, this 26-episode adaptation covered the entirety of the 13-volume manga & also did astoundingly well for itself.
At this point, NTV & Madhouse decided for a trifecta, though for the third time around they went to a different source. Debuting a year after Kaiji did, One Outs -Nobody wins, but I!- adapted the first half of Shinobu Kaitani's unique baseball manga, which follows Toua Tokuchi, a pitcher with a love of taking risks who gets recruited to help out minor league team the Lycaons, but has a unique contract: Toua earns 5,000,000 yen for every out he pitches, but loses 50,000,000 yen for every point he gives up. While Sato & Takayashiki returned once again for directing & writing, giving the anime a familiar feel, the music this time was handled by Akihiko Matsumoto, giving the entire series a very jazzy sound to it, befitting a series in which figuring out how to cheat to win a game is just as important as actually being physically talented at baseball. After One Outs finished in early 2009, NTV & Madhouse took a break from the gambling "trilogy" they had created, but in Spring of 2011 Sato, Takayashiki, & Taniuchi were brought back for one more go, this time creating a second season of Kaiji, this time adapting the sequel manga, Tobaku Hakairoku/Gambling Commandments Destroyed Kaiji. This second season details Kaiji having to fight his way back up from the lowest point in his life, with roughly the entire second half of the season being solely dedicated to a massive "battle" between Kaiji & a ridiculously rigged pachinko machine that can reward the player with riches beyond belief, though the only people who had previously won the jackpot were two of men behind its entire creation. Simply put, all four of these anime are absolute masterclasses in character drama & unpredictable tension, whether it's how Akagi will turn a seemingly awful mahjong hand into one that wins him big, how Toua can figure out a way to trick the opposing team to do exactly what he wants so as to help the Lycaons win a game, or how Kaiji can pull himself back from the very brink & prove that winning a gamble is often more about mental skill & nerves of steel than it is about sheer luck. Uniting all four of these shows even more is the fact that the same actor, Masato Hagiwara, voices all three leads in what might just be his career-defining roles... And he isn't even a seiyuu normally!
When I reviewed all four of these shows in 2011, Kaiji Season 2 shortly after it finished airing, none of them had any sort of official English release, but in 2013 Crunchyroll licensed Akagi & both seasons of Kaiji for official streaming, which they still are to this day; for whatever reason, One Outs was ignored & remains without an official English translation. Last year, Sentai Filmworks finally announced that both seasons of Kaiji had been licensed for both streaming on Hidive & a later physical release at some point, and while Akagi's focus on mahjong makes it less appealing, I do hope that it will eventually be given a physical release as well, followed by One Outs finally being given a chance to shine. Since 2011, the only sort of "follow-up" to Madhouse's Gambling "Trilogy" has been 2018's Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues, a comedic spin-off of Kaiji starring one of the villains produced by a completely different staff at Madhouse. Sadly, Hideki Tanuichi has been persona non grata in Japan ever since a May 2012 arrest for owning marijuana, essentially killing his music career, & while Yuzo Sato & Hideo Takayashiki are still in the anime industry, it honestly wouldn't feel the same to make more Akagi or (more likely) Kaiji without Taniuchi's score to go with either; One Outs is essentially done with, too. Still, the four anime that we did get from 2005 to 2011 are absolute must-watches for anyone who wants something different from "the usual".
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And that's it for Part 1 of this look at some of the best anime I've reviewed here at The Land of Obscusion from December 2010 up through the end of 2020. Check back next week for Part 2, where I go over even more of the absolute best that I will always recommend until the end of my life.
Dororo © Tezuka Productions・Mushi Productions
Legend of the Galactic Heroes © Yoshiki Tanaka・Tokuma Shoten・Tokuma Japan Communications・Wright Staff・Suntory © Naoyuki Katoh
Fantastic Children © 2004 Takashi Nakamura/Nippon Animation Co, Ltd.
Monkey Turn & Monkey Turn V © Katsutoshi Kawai・Shogakukan/Monkey Turn Project
Asura © George Akiyama/Asura Production Committee
Akagi © Nobuyuki Fukumoto/Takeshobo・VAP・4Cast・NTV
Kaiji © Nobuyuki Fukumoto/Kodansha, Ltd. © DNDP・VAP・Madhouse
Kaiji: Against All Odds © Nobuyuki Fukumoto/Kodansha・VAP・NTV
One Outs © Shinobu Kaitani/Shueisha・One Outs Production Committee
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