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!
Dot Hack is a franchise from the early 2000s that tells the story of an online game that over it's many iterations features it's players falling into a coma and the mysterious circumstances behind it. However the franchise is a mixed bag of mediocrity but it could've been so much more if a better writer was allowed to create it.
A New Freedom for the Disabled
Subaru from the Hack Sign anime is disabled in real life, the game acts as an immersive virtual reality that gives her the ability to walk, allowing the possibility for a storyline in which the technology could help her walk again, Angelic Layer did do this in their anime iteration.
Helping the Abused Find a New Life
Spoilers in play for Hack Sign and Belle.
Tsukasa is revealed to be a girl in real life with an abusive father, by the end, Bear becomes her legal guardian with Subaru and Mimiru becoming her best friends, elements of this plot were later reused for the film Belle.
Balmung's Rise to Admin
I'd be down for a spinoff of Balmung's rise to administrator, something like "My Senpai is Annoying" would really work.
Mistral and Mireille's Family Life
A spinoff of Mistral and her daughter's day to day life. I'll call it.
"My MMO crazy daughter took all my rare items"
Go Darker than Sword Art Online
With the reoccurring Coma plot already being quite dark, to go further may feel like copying Sword Art Online but on a grander scale could be closer to Summer Wars where the stakes threaten the real world itself.
Twilight Should've Been More About Shugo and Rena Dealing with Divorced Parents
Foreshadowing for what I think of the Legend of the Twilight Anime I'm finishing tomorrow but I really think they should've used the plot to look into how the siblings use the game to deal with the difficulties brought on by their parents divorce.
Haseo's Player Killing Becomes Darker
Haseo was a known Player Killer early on in Dot Hack, I smell a Death Note plot.
So Many Possible Human Moments
The possibilities that Dot Hack squandered are too many to name and many have been used to better effect by other anime.
Dot Hack has so many human moments because it's always treated it's premise exactly how it should be treated, it remembers that the players of the online game are humans grounded in the rules of real life.
Other stories that use the video game world plot often blur the lines between reality and game, mostly because we never see what that real world is.
Managed to find some more random trivia so here we go.
1. The real life Maid Cafe in Doujin Work
In Doujin Work, Najimi works in Cafe with Cat, a real life cafe in the Otaku capital in Akihabara.
2. Bible verses from Elfen Lied's opening
The text of the OP theme of Elfen Lied is the "Beatus vir", an excerpt from the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible. The passage is from James 1: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."
3. You're not the boss of me now
Ever wonder what the anime scene was in the opening of Malcolm in the Middle?
It's from Nazca.
4. Attack on Titan could've been sillier
In the Pilot manga of Attack on Titan, they didn't have the 3D maneuver gear and humans were just jumping 10ft into the air without explanation.
5. Get the rubber on Shinji
Spike Spencer and Tiffany Grant recorded an Aids PSA in their character voices of Shinji and Asuka, it was never broadcast but the recording is still around on the internet, considering some scenes in Eva, this is kind of ironic.
Since the mystery box can often give me anime, I don't have easy access to, a quick fact is more than enough to get it checked off, this will be along with a few novelty facts as well.
There will be five per episode.
1. Parasyte is older than you might think.
Having got an anime in mid 2010s you may think that the body horror franchise is fairly new but the first manga started as early as 1988.
2. Probably the only way you'll know Endro.
This meme of the adorable girl struggling to say no is from Endro.
3. Clannad means family.
Clannad is an Irish word meaning Family, an appropriate title for such a heartstrings tugging anime.
4. Bad ending for you.
The OVA of Dramatical Murder features all the bad endings from the video game, each one very explicit in detail.
5. Flying Foxes.
In the two part finale of Samurai Pizza Cats, The Great Comet Caper, Villain Seymour Big Cheese (a fox not a rat) is seen flying with his tail helicopter style. This episode aired in February 1991, four months before Sonic 1 was released and even earlier before Tails became the Flying Fox we all know today.
Although the concept of animals flying with tails has existed as early as Doraemon among other young children's anime, Big Cheese was the first fox to do it long before Miles Tails Prower did it.
To begin our mystery box series, we start with a guide to Universal Law in anime.
What is Universal Law?
Universal Law is the setting, plot and environment of any given anime, the so called laws are established to keep the story on the right path.
To use Death Note as an example, the setting uses real world physics, the supernatural element are the shinigami and the Death Note itself and no character has immunity to death as the rules of the Death Note are written in a way to avoid breaking the Universal Laws of the story.
How Do You Break Universal Law?
Universal Law is a very fragile tight rope to walk and can easily broken when introducing any story that involves character death or hard to explain stories like time travel or anything that changes fate; power of love and friendship is notorious for breaking this.
Case Study: A Good Librarian Like a Good Shepherd
As an immediate example lets look at this anime.
Based on a visual novel, the plot revolves around a library that sees it's so called Shepherds capable of changing fate but when it comes to a character predetermined to die, they are saved by essentially revealing the secret of the Shepherds meaning that said character is banished and has their memory erased, however the whole thing gets retconned to force a happy ending.
Case Study: Plastic Memories
This is also the same issue with tragic endings, it's often implied that Isla is the Giftia in the epilogue scene when she should've been deactivated, I'll cover this more with my article on Isla.
Decisions That Weren't Meant to Be
Negima has more than a few problems with it's story, everything from constantly making Negi an adult/teen just so he can fight at full strength, to an anime adaption with the same retconned predetermined death that plagues an already bad adaptation. Don't get me started on the fact that Negi marries Chisame Hasegawa
Isn't This Just Jumping the Shark
Jumping the Shark, Nuking the Fridge, yes I suppose it does follow the same concept, although this plagues longer running shows such as Shonen Jump titles, four examples include.
One Piece: Characters that should be dead but not.
Bleach: Fullbring is bull shit.
Naruto: Itachi's convoluted plan as well as Akatsuki's more bull shit Jutsus.
Hunter x Hunter: Gon's utterly stupid rage transformation.
Power of love and friendship is universally hated for pulling a victory out of nothing when it's obvious that a character is about to lose.
Plot armour is another name for it.
This will come as a bit of foreshadowing for Plastic Memories as the story draws comparisons to one of the anime on this list, for obvious reasons, spoiler warning is in effect.
10. Kamina from Gurren Lagann
The larger than life surrogate brother of Simon, died tragically in battle passing his legacy of freedom onto Simon, would be higher if he didn't die so soon into the anime.
9. Nicholas D Wolfwood from Trigun
After finally accepting the ideals of Vash, Nicholas is gunned down by Legato's group, ending his life slumped at the alter of a church.
8. Wizardmon from Digimon
Wizardmon sacrifices himself to save Kari and Gatomon from Myotismon, the sad thing is that because he died in the real world, he cannot be reborn.
7. Master Asia from G Gundam
Considering the franchise normally treats humanity as expendable it's all the more tragic seeing such a powerful man as Master Asia pass on considering his actions can often be seen as beyond human limits, further emphasized by his regret over how the Earth has essentially become a wasteland and was the first to realise this.
6. Sakae from Summer Wars
The 90 year old family head pulls off one of the most organised damage limitation plots as the damage from the virus becomes apparent, she would shortly pass on following a confrontation with a disgraced family member for starting the whole thing.
5. Stoutland from Pokemon
Ash's Litten was raised by the aging Stoutland and showcases that even a series that mostly features a Pokemon fainting after every battle it can still tackle a mature subject such as dying from old age, also the likely inspiration for Scarlet and Violet's Mabostiff plotline which had a happier ending.
4. Minky Momo from Minky Momo
Staged in the most tragic way possible when she is taken out by a toy store truck, made worse by the eerie sirens which sees a toy ambulance roll over to way Momo lies, the whole scene was so shocking it was blamed for causing an earthquake in Japan, how it came to be in first place was even more shocking.
3. Portgas D Ace and Whitebeard from One Piece
The Marineford war was something of a magnum opus for One Piece, a series that up until that point had stayed away from death restricting it to backstory but the impact of Ace and Whitebeard dying kick started the second half of One Piece, you know you've made an impact when Shanks shows up to end the war by presence alone.
2. Mahoro from Mahoromatic
In both Manga and Anime, a timer runs down in how long Mahoro has left to live, her final year spent looking after her late commander's son Suguru, but when she does die during an attack from an enemy force, Suguru becomes a victim as well which greatly changes his destiny, this is the only death that really nails in the impact it has on the person closest.
1. Maes Hughes from Full Metal Alchemist
But I don't think it ever tops how cruelly cut short Maes life was, made even sadder by how his daughter reacts at his funeral, too young to fully understand the situation and you're crying right now reading this.
