Welcome to the Fantasy Zone
This Zone is dedicated to the lesser known elements of anime hosted by the cast of Victory Script.
What weapon is the best?
Who will win in this Death Battle?
Is this costume practical?
You name it, it's all covered here in the Fantasy Zone!
Of all the genres in anime, the magical girl genre is one of the most over looked and here are five anime that fell by the wayside.
Saint Tail
The daughter of a stage magician and retired thief steals art to give back to their rightful owners, it takes elements from Cats Eye and functions as the predecessor for Card Captor Sakura, utterly charming with an adorable lead and beautiful setup that far exceeds it's time period, Saint Tail is a must for magical girl fans.
Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne
Arina Tanemura's take on the magical girl genre with her extreme wide eyed style of animation blending heavy moments of psychological themes with a magical thief plot, best remembered for arguably the best transformation scenes in the genre.
Full Moon
Tanemura again this time going heavier on the psychological elements and heavy references to suicide is Full Moon, a take on the magical idol genre, it's worth noting that despite what the audience gets put through, the ending is always a happy one. This was breaking boundaries long before Oshi no Ko.
Pretear
A loose blend of Snow White and Cinderella elements, with pretty boys transforming into the lead girls costumes, (don't think too much about it) the lead is tasked with saving the natural world of leafe with the help of her seven knights, probably one of most fiercely independent leads seen in the genre long before the trend of strong female leads were needed for absolutely everything.
Wedding Peach
Written off as a Sailor Moon clone thanks to the era it came out, Wedding Peach is alot closer to Precure in terms of content, predating it by a decade and it's been referenced more times than Sailor Moon with the wedding dresses and the champagne drinking scene having both been referenced in Pokemon of all things, lead character Momoko is also one of the main reasons why most lead magical girls are pink coloured.
Honourable Mentions
Corrector Yui - Megaman.Exe if it were a magical girl series, it's so obscure that no one remembers it.
Nurse Witch Komugi - A spinoff of a horror anime, it's as silly as it sounds.
Magical S Project - The official Pretty Sammy tv series spun off from the Tenchi Muyo franchise, way better than it has any right to be.
My Wife is a Magical Girl: Bewitched Agnes - An example of an adult magical girl series with an adult lead, heavily influenced by the American 60s sitcom Bewitched, worth your time if you can find it.
Sally the Witch - If only for historic purposes, this is often cited as the first magical series.
One thing you can count on from an anime artist is attention to detail and Kiniro Mosaic produced something extraordinary.
Back in the late 80s, a Japanese couple visited Fosse Farmhouse in the British village of Castle Combe in the county of Wiltshire, they loved it so much that they opened their own British style B&B in Japan, over 20 years later, Kiniro Mosaic debuted and a full artist rendition of that same Farmhouse appeared as the household of lead character Alice complete with the Farmhouse owners car and even an artist render of Kemble Train Station.
The Farmhouse would get a massive increase in popularity particularly with Japanese tourists, at it's peak it even featured on national news and one look on their website references Kiniro Mosaic.
You can even book a room right now although you'll need a taxi or a hire car to get there.
I myself only live about an hour and a half away.
Castle Combe itself is a very traditional English village, attractive scenery, buildings dating back to 1600s and next door to one of the fastest motor racing circuits in the country.
I want you to read this quote from this anime and I'm interested to hear what you think of it, to set the scene, Jurai tells Hatoko, the girl in the picture, that she wouldn't understand, Hatoko snaps back with the following.
"I don't understand. I don't understand! I don't understand a single word you say, Ju-kun! I don't understand what's good about the things you call good! I don't understand! I can't understand! What's so cool about "Bloody"? I don't like blood. Bleeding just hurts! What's so cool about "madness"? I don't understand what's good about being crazy! What do you mean by "sinful"? What's so good about having sin? Is it cool being a criminal? And what's with "chaos", anyway? Chaos? What about it? What about "darkness"? You want it to be dark? Between justice and evil, why is evil better? Why do you prefer evil? Isn't it evil because it's wrong? What's so cool about your right arm aching? "I love the feeling of being unable to control my power"? What's that? That just makes you a fool! It's much cooler when you have control! That's worthy of respect! What's so awesome about hiding your power all the time? That's just slacking off! It's much cooler to face things head-on, at full strength, without hiding anything! Why do you give everything nicknames and aliases? Having so many different names only makes them hard to keep up with! Don't use English or Katakana for everything! I can’t remember those! Don’t write "elegy" and read it "requiem"! Don't write "forbidden" and read it "taboo"! Don’t write "holy war" and read it "jihad"! Greek myth, the Bible, Norse myth, Japanese myth... Don’t start talking about them just because you did a little research! If you don’t properly explain it, I can't understand what you mean! If you're going to teach me, teach me right! Listening to explanations about mythological weapons is not fun! Gungnir, Longinus, Excalibur, Durandal, and Ama-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi all mean nothing to me! I don’t understand what’s cool about them! All your other terminology is confusing, too! Original Sin, Ten Commandments, Book of Genesis, Book of Revelations, Armageddon... What do you mean by "their names are cool"? It’s impossible for me to "feel it by their atmosphere"! Relativity, Schrodinger's cat, universal gravitation... Don’t act like you understand them because you read a little on the net! I can't understand them at all if you give half-baked explanations! Don’t quote Nietzsche or Goethe! When you start quoting people I don't know, I can’t understand what you’re trying to say at all! Talk to me in your own words! I'm begging you, speak so I can understand you! What is "chuuni"? What does "chuuni" mean? I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand, I don't understand! I don't understand! I don't understand a single word you've ever said at all, Ju-kun!"
For the record, the Japanese voice actress did that entire quote in one take, the people recording the voice was so shocked they allowed the actress to take time off before recording the rest of the episode.
In an anime that I could barely pass the first episode on, produced that quote, something I expect from Full Metal Alchemist or Fairy Tail, two anime that wear their hearts on their sleeves not a crappy harem anime with no understanding of it's subject matter.
Guaranteed you've met at least one weeb like this in your career, please share with me your experiences and whether Hatoko's quote resonates with you or alternatively you may not agree with it.
Me personally, I'm surprised no one has said something like that sooner.
I used to do a segment where I quickly cover topics I don't have time for full posts on, time to bring it back.
Monica Rial vs Vic Mignogna
A very ugly fallout that should've stayed private and not spill out so catastrophically in public, Vic is by no means innocent but Monica's Vitrolic towards everyone in the fallout upset me considering I've met her and she was a very nice person, makes it hard to hear her voice characters like Uzaki-Chan.
Never Released in the UK
Viz media made it so we never saw Ranma 1/2 in the UK, the best we got were the two films, in fact it's only now were getting InuYasha and were still not getting Rurouni Kenshin or Sailor Moon.
I doubt Kenshin will ever come out now and the old Sailor Moon stuff that did get released are lost to time.
Sub and Dub Actress
Voice Actress Sally Amaki plays Tomo-Chan character Carol Olston in both Japanese and English, the only known instance of a vocal performance performed in sub and dub, Ikue Ohtani playing Pikachu doesn't count as her original audio is the same in all languages.
So we have five more hot takes, let's dive in.
"All the Sailor Scouts are gay apart from Usagi, any suggestion otherwise is wrong"
I'm sure a few fanatics can out right state this as fact, but unless you've hit every possible form of media on offer from this franchise it really is up to the viewer to decide if the inner senshi follow Uranus and Neptune or not, my opinion is they are more likely to be bisexual.
"Deku is a bad protagonist"
No he's not, it really makes a change to see a protagonist who is not an idiot hero, a delinquent with a good heart or a try hard outcast, Deku is someone who is cautious, insightful and not hiding his weakness, it makes him the perfect character to go plus ultra.
"Near is better than L"
L doesn't agree.
Real talk, we were spoiled by L with his battle against Kira so anyone less than him would be considered inferior but Near is much better than critics suggest.
"Bakugo is a Bad Rival"
Yeah being permanently bad tempered doesn't offer much in the character development department, Bakugo really gets on my nerves.
"Oshi no Ko killed idol anime"
Yes and no, calling out all the bull shit that idols have to put up with on a daily basis was a bold move, the anime even got called out by the family of an idol who took her own life, it certainly made the subject touchy, throw in a bad vtuber agency and the problem escalates but the real killer is that for some time now the top idol anime have stagnated with no chance of recovery and unless the writing improves, the genre will drop off for a while. It did come back after Idol Densetsu Eriko killed it off in the 90s.
