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!
This ranking will use the characters English names, it will not include their Digimon and will be subject to change as I go through the Digimon Tri series, so let's begin.
Tai
The very definition of fiery leader and if he stayed that way, his ranking would be pretty awful but something changed at the beginning of Tri, he discovered the real weight and effect of the damage caused by the fighting Digimon, and while Matt was quick to call him a coward, it's a sign of growing up and in character for him considering that his selfishness has caused harm in the past, how Tai overcomes this will be interesting.
Matt
I've never liked Matt, he's so temperamental that you have to question why he has the Friendship crest, this hasn't exactly exited his system come Tri and throwing in a love triangle that involves Sora hasn't helped.
Sora
A lot of people didn't like her shedding her tomboy persona from season 1 but I'm in two camps with this one, her arc was reconnecting with her mother which was fully complete by season 2 but I also see her losing alot of her personality come Tri as her conflict is all romance with her friends.
Izzy
He hasn't changed at all, but I like how his social awkwardness is more on show in Tri, but yet his ability to produce tech on command is still a little too convenient.
Joe
He's somehow become the least reliable of the team in tri but at the same time, he's older and at a point where his actions have changes to his life, this especially prominent where he's actively failing exams, he brings up a good point about the whole Digi-Destined and why they have to be the ones to solve all these problems when adulthood is closer than ever.
Mimi
She started as the team Scrappy but is now hands down the most fun character in Tri, you could argue it's the American effect, but it works for Mimi as her arcs did nothing for her in the early seasons and this more expressive happier Mimi is very much welcome, her approach is rough but it works for Mimi and has made her the most evolved character.
TK
He went up massively in my estimation when he beat the crap out of Ken, now he's Matt's foil as he looks and acts way more mature than his older brother.
Kari
She's a fan favourite and a healthy balance of tomboy and feminine, she's largely unchanged in Tri but doesn't need it.
Davis
Worst protagonist ever, he's dumber than all his contemporaries combined, that includes people like Tyson of Beyblade and Ash of Pokemon, I've never seen a character so content with being that way, he's a waste of space and made season 2 such a weak series compared to even Digimon's worst.
Yolei
Yolei is at least salvageable, a balanced character with a hint of silly and brutal honesty, she's what Mimi is now in Tri and what Sora was in season 1, probably has the best traits of both those characters.
Cody
He's boring.
Ken
A villain turned hero was new for Digimon at the time, but I found that compared to his contemporaries, he really lost alot of his personality when switching sides.
Meiko
Meiko is an interesting one as there really isn't a shy girl amongst the Digi-Destined, so she fills a personality not been done before, however her role becomes redundant after Meicoomon is revealed to be causing all the disturbances.
Tai-8.0
Matt-5.8
Sora-6.3
Izzy-7.0
Joe-7.0
Mimi-8.9
TK-7.9
Kari-8.0
Davis-1.2
Yolei-7.1
Cody-3.0
Ken-6.0
Meiko-5.5
The console wars started back in the 90s when at gamings peak, Sega unleashed Sonic the Hedgehog, throughout the 90s with increasingly catty callouts between Nintendo and Sega through commercials, it would become a three way battle when PlayStation joined, Sega would bow out and XBox would take it's place and the current battlefield has been fought by Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox since but at this moment in time, who is winning?
Let's review.
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo's surprise success with the Wii gave it more than enough momentum to survive the WiiU era and jump into the perfected Switch console at the cost of losing the Gameboy/DS line.
Nintendo has always had a strong IP line up which the other two don't have.
It's also very easy to develop for sometimes getting indie titles even before Steam, it's also the only console to still allow adult games, Sony outright abandoned them, more on that later while Xbox feels they don't need them.
Nintendo however has plateaued for a while, Pokemon being the indicator that the games are really not getting better technical wise with demands that Nintendo release a Switch 2 so it can even stand a chance, it's online gaming history still isn't any better either, but Nintendo can afford to bide it's time as the weaknesses of it's rivals are so much more prevalent than the Switch being underpowered.
PlayStation 5
Sony has had a weird track record since the PS2 became the best seller of all time, PS3 was underpowered and kinda just there compared to 360, PS4 was the best console of the last generation but then PS5 has literally screwed Sony over.
It's a white elephant of over priced hi-tech machinery that is becoming as absurd as a minimalist hyper car, the release of the Pro being the first nail in the coffin, the second being no exclusive games as everything it runs can be played on other consoles and steam, the third nail being the nine figure disaster that is Concord, anymore disasters and PlayStation are just going to crash out of the wars, the sad thing is, it's technically the best console through performance and despite sharing a library with every other console, they run much better on Sony's behemoth, losing the adult otaku crowd to Nintendo hasn't made it any easier either; they dropped easy million sellers like Senran Kagura in favour of Concord an expensive disaster.
Sony, are you okay? I can't tell if this is self sabotage or not because this isn't the PlayStation I know.
Xbox X-Series
Knowing that it needed a different approach, Microsoft decided it was easier to buy game companies to give it more games to play with along with a closer relationship with PC, this also allows it's only asset, Gamepass to thrive.
Technically it's the worse console, many of it's ports of games have a bad track record of not being able to even start and the transition between Xbone and X-series has been a little mishandled. It remains a solid middle ground between it's rivals.
Conclusion
Nintendo has the best IPs but lags heavily in the power department and badly needs an upgrade.
PlayStation is ultra powerful but there's nothing to play on it.
Xbox is pretty much gaming Netflix but is on a fine balance in terms of tech as well as games not feeling comfortable operating on the xbox.
It's easy for me to turn around and say, just get Steam but maintaining a gaming PC is astronomically expensive compared to the consoles.
Time will tell if things really do change as the next great shift in the market will come with GTA6's arrival.
Haim Saban and Shuki Levy are names associated with bringing the Super Sentai genre over to the west rebranded as Power Rangers, with action scenes taken from the original source and dubbed over while civilian themes are filmed and added, during this reign, many of it's original line up became house hold names with Amy Jo Johnson, the original Pink Ranger introducing a behind the scenes look at Saban's latest attempt, Princess Tenko and the Guardians of Magic.
The idea was to promote an idol singer from Japan in the western market, while it was common practice in anime to promote an idol with their own show, Saban hoped the idea would click with Western audiences while they rode a high with Power Rangers.
They went with Mariko Itakura, an idol magician dubbed Princess Tenko, the premise was to make Tenko a Guardian of sacred gems that get scattered all over the world due to a dispute with jealous rivals, the gems give Tenko magical transformations into various forms that grant power, likely a test run to see if a magical girl show would click with audiences with Sailor Moon up for localization around the same time, that's a long story in itself, don't ask.
After each episode, the actual Mariko Itakura will teach you one of her magic tricks.
The show was rough in terms of presentation and about as cheesy as you can get, I admire Tenko for being one of the early pioneers of female led action shows, but compared to the decade earlier She-Ra, lacks the charm that made that cartoon such a success.
As for Princess Tenko, she gained notoriety for her status as a favourite performing artist of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il; as far as I know she's still active as a magician.
I'm not always fond of anime that calls me out as a fan, Comic Party and Welcome to the NHK come to mind, I've heard similar cases with Watamote and Uncle from Another World felt like a personal attack.
But Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan absolutely nailed the experience I'm going through in my 30s work life, the timing of this anime's release 2021, the worst year of my life and many others, it went from calling me out to helping me understand my over complicated mental state in this current era. The only other show that came out where I was the target audience age not including pre-school shows I grew up with is Regular Show back in my twenties.
This S-Tier analysis will go through Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan and why it's such an essential anime for otaku of my age group.
The Premise Only Works as an Anime
The basic premise sees presenters of a popular children's show often drop how hard life really is with the core of it coming from Uramichi and Utano when triggered. A western version would push into darker territory, Japan doesn't really have swear words in their lexicon so everything Uramichi slips out is dark but never crosses red lines and keeps the kids who appear on the show blissfully ignorant, it helps Uramichi's case that some of the lessons he is giving are genuinely good and that he does care about his job even if his team does push him closer to snapping.
Has a Very Accurate Portrayal of Autism
Iketeru Daga, the singer of the group has clear autism, the spectrum is so vast that no two people are exactly the same but there are over lapping traits, for Iketeru he needs direction to do a performance, he can't read the room, he is crazy talented to the point where he is considered a savant, in fact he needs protecting as he is incredibly easy to take advantage of, Kumatani doing so frequently to protect his innocence as well as from older married women.
Utano Tadano is a Clever Reference to it's Voice Artist
Nana Mizuki voices the wedding obsessed Utano who has failed at every music career route possible, Nana Mizuki is not only an idol herself but didn't marry until she turned 40, so perfect casting.
The Dub Just Makes it Better
We have our fair share of versions of Life Lesson's premise, the big one being the Office in both UK and the US, in anime terms, it also feeds off the Aggretsuko anime's mantra, in fact this kind of satire is extremely popular in anime right now as having a voice in an environment that is becoming more and more socially unacceptable, an anime like Life Lessons can be an eye opener.
Uramichi is in constant burnout, clearly manufactured by a tough childhood.
Iketeru can only operate on orders in a world where he is constantly blissfully ignorant.
Utano wonders if her best years are really behind her even if she is in the best position to get out of it.
Kumatani may stay quiet but he doesn't tolerate cruelty and lost a high paying job for punching out his jerk ass boss.
Usahara blows his money on gambling and booze so much that he could be broke at any point but doesn't stop out of his own insecurities, he also has a bad habit of irritating his co-workers.
The director is a man child with increasingly absurd ideas.
And to point out one more character, Kikaku the merch leader is one bad day away from pulling a full Joker arc.
Quite a high number of people have been these characters at some point and on the surface at least, they still manage to cobble together a functional successful children's show, not just that, it's a parody of a real Japanese Children's Show.
A passion project is the type of work the creator wants to do and goes against the norms expected by the studio who runs it, aka full creative control, however this doesn't translate to sales or even quality control in some cases, ask yourself if you value having your creation meddled with by your bosses or refusing it and missing out on eating for a few months until the next opportunity arrives.
There are a few case studies to examine.
1. Oban Star Racers
It's gone on record that the creator of cult French anime Oban Star Racers took it personally when the executives wanted the main character to be male, so said creator published the series under his own company out of spite, it found reasonable success but nothing ever lasting, I always believed this to be the closest thing to Star Wars pod racing.
2. Cans Without Labels
John Kricfalusi of Ren and Stimpy fame crowd funded to get his passion project off the ground Cans without Labels, not only was it dreadful, John himself was facing a harrassment lawsuit from a previous employee, it's a great example of the show runner not being the be all and end all.
3. Twinkle Nora Rock Me
Twinkle Nora Rock Me is infamous for being one of the worst anime of all time for the fact that it's creator really didn't know what he was doing, the animation is only a few frames away from being an expensive flipbook, his main reason for making it is, "I just wanted to draw my waifu"
4. Hazbin Hotel
Indie animation tends to be the purest form of creative freedom going and Vivziepop really nailed that with Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, compare that to Wish, Disney's disaster piece which if allowed more freedom could've been a magnum opus but Disney doesn't exactly have the greatest track record of such freedoms, Treasure Planet comes to mind.
5. The Thief and The Cobbler
No animated feature has had as much of a storied history as Thief and the Cobbler, it took from 1964 to 1989 to complete production as much of the issue revolved around finances as it proved to be extremely expensive, it would eventually get a release in 1994 but it was cut and cobbled together multiple times and beaten to the punch by Disney's Aladdin.
11 actors died before it finally got released and in the end, it's creator completely disowned it, a tragic example of how a passion project can spiral out of control.
6. Daicon III and IV
A group of teenage college students created two anime music videos for Nihon SF Taikai, Japan's national sci- fi convention, nicknamed Daicon III and IV as they were held in Osaka for the 3rd and 4th time in 1981 and 1983.
Daicon III features a young girl travelling through the lands encountering various heroes of sci fi and comics, Daicon IV features the same girl grown up in a bunny costume fighting said sci fi heroes including mecha and Darth Vader to name a couple.
In fact it's considered the earliest example of OVA, original video anime, some would even suggest that this is the birth of Otaku and anime as we see it today.
Those teenagers would later become Gainax responsible for some of the most legendary anime ever created.
So what have we learned? It's a mixed bag to be sure but it's a balancing act, think how different the world would be if Spongebob was made a kid instead of a young working adult, if Miraculous Ladybug was allowed to be traditionally animated 2D instead of CGI or if Sandland came out before Dragonball.
For every creator that gambled their house on the success of their show and succeeded (original 90s X-Men)
There's a creator who thinks Christian cartoons was going to rebuild a damaged reputation (Butch Hartman)
It's great to dream but if those dreams start weighing you down and start chipping away at your life then it's better to let them go, success is never guaranteed especially in a fickle industry like animation.
