Upon returning from my self-imposed hiatus, the first anime I caught up on was Space Bros. The intent was to do a quick post summing up my thoughts on the latest batch of episodes so I could get back into the groove of episodic blogging. I figured this might be difficult though. Trying to cram in 3 episodes worth of content into one post? Impossible! Well, not really, as it turns out, because Space Bros beats the same gong over and over again.

Let’s talk about episodic blogging for a second, because I feel many people get the wrong impression of what it is. It’s not a summary of what happened in the episode. Nor is it a review of episode. At least, that’s not the approach I take. It’s using the events of the episode as a springboard for further discussion, whether it is relating to this specific anime, the world of anime in general, or larger societal issues. A good story should do this naturally, although often it requires a bit more brainpower on your part to get the most out of it. This is where discussion and episodic blogging helps. It challenges you to think about the episode, and reading someone else’s posts can increase your enjoyment of the anime as well.

The issue comes in trying to come up with something new to say about every episode. A naturally episodic anime means there is always something new with each episode to talk about, but continuous stories often tread the same points over and over again. There’s a reason why my Steins;Gate posts were half the length of my Durarara posts. Steins;Gate was the building up of the same general ideas gradually. It made for absorbing viewing, but difficult to come up with new things to say each week. Meanwhile Durarara’s naturally episodic nature, notably more in the first half than the second, meant there was always a new perspective to see the series through.

And then there’s series like Space Bros. Space Bros has one message it has been beating ours heads with over and over again with. Follow your dreams. Believe in yourself. Try your hardest and you will make it. The American Dream! Except we’re in Japan, but whatever. That’s a lovely story and all, but it’s repetitive and gets dull quickly. It’s also not evolving as it goes on. Now a lot of stories often have one core message going through them that drives the show. Let’s take Infinite Ryvius and say it’s about how teenagers buckle under responsibility (a rather reductionist way of looking at the series, but bear with me). In Ryvius, the characters evolve to reflect this message. In Space Bros, it hasn’t felt like the message has evolved, nor have the characters, to reflect the passing of time. It’s like listening to song that repeats the same few bars over and over again with the same lyrics repeated each time.

…huh, I think I just described the majority of dance music.

This post is an attempt to collate this information into one place to help fans discover where the best place is and what best order to watch these franchises is. I’ve written up a list here on the franchises I’m familiar with, but for a full list I need your help. Leave comments and I’ll update the list with your additions, crediting the person who left the advice as well. You can also disagree and re-write what’s already on the list, because invariably people will have different takes on what’s the best order to watch these things in. I’m also looking for people who read manga to tell people what chapter an anime ends on, so they can carry on the story from where the anime left off.

Aria

Anim­a­tion -> Nat­ural -> OVA -> Origination. Des­pite its name, Ori­gin­a­tion is not a pre­quel or any­thing like that. The ori­gin­a­tion special, or ‘epis­ode 5.5′ as it is known, comes after ep 5 (well, gee).

Credit to Adamar

Birdy

Tet­suwan Birdy and DECODE are two takes on the same story, the lat­ter with a bet­ter exe­cu­tion and was made several years later so has much better animation. DECODE -> The Cypher OVA -> DECODE 02 -> Tetsuwan’s OVAs if you’ve come to enjoy the fran­chise should be the optimal way.

Credit to Yuyucow

Black Rock Shooter

The TV series is based on a single episode OVA that was based on a music video that was based on a song that was based on a bit of character artwork. The OVA and the TV series have the same basic set up. The OVA doesn’t really go anywhere though, so if you want a story you might be better off with just watching the TV series.

Blood

The three different anime versions of Blood have no plot-related connections to each other, so it doesn’t matter what order you watch them in.

Boku no Pico

This is very import­ant and I wouldn’t want any­one to be fooled by the titles. Boku no Pico -> Pico to Chico -> Pico x CoCo x Chico. Now enjoy.

Credit to Yuyucow

Clamp

Clamps’ various stories have a lot of crossover characters and storylines. Often the anime are made to be open to newcomers, but if you want to try follow the crossover plots, here’s a stupidly long and complicated guide of the chronological order:

Card­captor Sak­ura (1−35 -> movie -> rest of the series -> The Sealed Card -> Spe­cials): this a good entry point, but besides that it is abso­lutely neces­sary for both Holic and Tsub­asa. Both assume you’ve read it and are famil­iar with the char­ac­ters, par­tic­u­larly Clow Reed. Then RG Veda manga -> OVA. This sets the mood for what many con­sider to be ‘typ­ical CLAMP’. Then CLAMP School Detect­ives; it occurs at the same time as the manga Man of Many Faces and Dunklyon: CLAMP School Defend­ers, although see­ing as they are not anim­ated I con­sider the two optional. Dunklyon ties into RG Veda and has char­ac­ters appear­ing in Tsub­asa.

Right, now Tokyo Babylon OVA -> X TV -> X movie -> Tokyo Babylon manga -> epis­ode 0 -> X manga: if you’d rather just read the manga and skip watch­ing the vari­ous adapt­a­tions, Tokyo Babylon > X as they are dir­ect sequels. It takes place in the same world as CLAMP School Detect­ives, and the char­ac­ters have a rather import­ant role here. Next is Magic Knight Rayearth (S1 -> S2 -> OVA) -> Angelic Layer -> Chob­its (-> Chib­its); MKR and AL aren’t sequels and take place in dif­fer­ent worlds. MKR is in the same world as CLAMP School Detect­ives. Clover and Wish only have music video adapt­a­tions. Wish needs ought to be read before Kobato, but isn’t strictly neces­sary. Miyuki-chan in Won­der­land is ref­er­enced often, but not in any import­ant way. The Legend of Chun-Hyang has never been anim­ated, and isn’t strictly neces­sary to under­stand the arc of Tsub­asa it plays a large role in.

Okay, now: xxxHOLiC TV and movie -> Tsub­asa Chron­icles (see entry); xxxHOLiC Kei should be last. Then Kobato., Blood-C and Gohou Drug. Kobato. should only be watched after TRC, as it spoils the end­ing. Blood-C ref­er­ences xxxHOLiC, but can be watched whenever, prefer­ably after RG Veda and X as their storytelling relies on you know­ing they are incred­ibly sad­istic. Gohou Drug can be star­ted dur­ing xxxHOLiC, but should be left until after as the recently released chapters take place dur­ing Kei. Gate 7 is still pub­lish­ing, so it would be prudent to leave it last.

Credit to Anca

Clannad

Start with the Clannad TV series. Then it might be best to jump into the two alternate world spin offs after that, the Kyou Chapter and the Tomoyo Chapter. After Story is the sequel to the original TV series. If you loved Clannad, just watch all of it. However, if you got sick of Clannad, or weren’t huge on it anyway, it is perfectly reasonable to skip the entire first 8 episodes. They’re just a bunch of filler. The part of After Story that is so revered in certain corners of the internet only starts on episode 9. In fact, I’d also hazard to say that if you don’t like the Clannad TV series but still want to see what the fuss about After Story is, it’s easy to jump into After Story at episode 9. As for the alternate world Clannad movie, it’s some­what of a for­got­ten child com­pared to the rest of the fran­chise. It’s gen­er­ally cri­ti­cized for its shoddy char­ac­ter design, anim­a­tion, and diver­gence from cer­tain ele­ments of the ori­ginal story. How­ever, the diver­gence is con­sidered to be a good and a bad thing, so the movie comes out as a decent work as long as it’s not too closely com­pared to the TV series.

Credit to Appropriant

Code-E/Mission-E

Code-E and Mission-E, sea­sons one and two respect­ively. No OVAs, no movies, no fluff. Just sea­sons one and two in order chro­no­lo­gic­ally, and they just hap­pen to have dif­fer­ent names.

Credit to blazingdead

Cowboy Bebop

The Bebop movie occurs between episodes 22 and 23. Most people just wait until they’ve finished the TV series to watch it.

Crest/Banner of the Stars

Start with Crest of the Stars. Then there’s Crest of the Stars: Birth, which is a prequel to Crest of the Stars, which I’d recommend slotting it in here. Then watch in straight chronological order, Banner of the Stars I, then Banner II, then Banner III.

Darker than Black

Start with the original TV series. Then watch the side story special episode. Then move onto the Gaiden OVA and finally onto the second season. The second season originally aired before the Gaiden OVA, but the OVA comes first chronologically and clears up a lot of the confusion that arose from the second TV series, particularly the change in Hei’s character.

Detective Conan

If you don’t mind being spoiled for something very small, you can jump right into the movies, they make a good start­ing point. I recom­mend movie 12. Otherwise, or afterwards, watch the TV series. Lupin III. vs Detect­ive Conan is as friendly to new­comers as any other part of Lupin fran­chise, so that could also be a good starting point if you already like Lupin III.

Watch the movies at least after these epis­odes. Movie 1 — ep 10; Movie 2 — ep 32; Movie 3 — ep 129; Movie 4–12 — ep 147; Movie 13 — ep 345; Movie 14 and 15 — ep 365. About the OVAs, all except num­ber 1, 9 and 11 are sup­posed to be seen after ep 147. First OVA should be watched after epis­ode 50. It has some minor spoil­ers about epis­ode 129, but those only con­sist of one char­ac­ter appereance. Ninth OVA includes great spoil­ers for epis­odes up to 200. Elev­enth OVA takes place in Japan dur­ing the Lon­don arc (616−621), when most of the char­ac­ters are (sur­pris­ingly) in Lon­don. A cer­tain char­ac­ter from epis­ode 509 appears there, but almost noth­ing is revealed about him. Since movie 11, movie spe­cials called Magic Files were sold on DVDs as well. For movies 11, 12 and 13, they provide a sort of back­story that has very little to do with plots of the cor­res­pond­ing movies. How­ever, Magic Files for movies 14 and 15 have minor spoil­ers, so they should be watched after their movies. Magic Kaito is a series of DC spe­cials based on a dif­fer­ent manga by the same author. They have noth­ing to do with DC and only provide a back­story for pop­u­lar Kaitou Kid char­ac­ter. There are also sev­eral cameos by DC char­ac­ters.

If you really want a stupid level of detail, see here.

Credit to Meonlyme1845, Anca

Dominion Tank Police

Watch the original OVA and then stop. Do not watch New Dominion Tank Police and do not, under any circumstance, watch the TANK S.W.A.T. CGI thing.

Durarara!!

Watch the first 12 episodes of the TV series, then jump into the first episode of the special. Then go onto the rest of the TV series, and finally back onto the second special episode. Then watch the second season WHICH WILL BE MADE! Also it would be wise to watch Baccano before watching Durarara, as some Baccano characters make cameo appearances in Durarara.

Evangelion

Evan­gelion TV series -> End of Eva. The movies are retell­ings and should be watched after the ori­ginal series and movie. Altern­at­ively if while watch­ing the TV series you get com­pletely sick of Shinji’s whin­ing, it might be best to cut your losses and jump straight to the altern­ate retell­ing movies as they make his character less of a hopeless whinger there.

Fate/whatever franchise

This one’s awkward. The ideal starting point would be the Fate/Stay Night visual novel, but the level of wordiness in the VN would be incredibly intimidating to anyone who has never played visual novels before. There’s the anime adaptation Fate/Stay Night, which isn’t a particularly good adaptation. Then there’s the prequel Fate/Zero which, despite not being written by the original author, is widely considered to be the best part of the Fate/whatever franchise. MAL splits Fate/Zero into two seasons, but that’s because MAL is retarded. The so-called second season was just an unusually long break between episodes 13 and 14. Thing is, both Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night spoil stuff for each other, so it’s difficult to say which to start with. If you can handle visual novel word-vomits, start with that. If you can handle mediocre anime, try the Fate/Stay Night anime. If you just want a quick fix for a good anime, watch Fate/Zero.

There’s also Unlimited Blade Works, which is an alternate version of the TV series. There’s Fate/Prototype, which is just a short window into what nasu originally planned Fate/Stay Night to be. Finally, there’s Carnival Phantasm, a piece of goofy fanservice for fans of Type Moon’s work. It  has characters from places other than the Fate/whatever franchise, but if you’ve liked all that you’ve seen so far, by all means track down everything by Type Moon. They did make a Tsukihime anime, but it differs wildly from the game to the point that many Type Moon fans claim there is no Tsukihime anime.

Fireball

First watch the original TV series. Then watch the Fireball Special. Then go onto Fireball Charming. Charming is technically a prequel, but it was made after the original and it makes more narrative sense to watch Charming last.

Fist of the North Star

Possibly the definitive example of “it gets better I swear!”. The first story arc of the TV series has some filler and time wast­ing. I’d recom­mend watch­ing epis­odes 1–5, then you can safely skip right to epis­odes 18–22, which fin­ishes the first arc. Everything between is largely unne­ces­sary and gets extremely repetitive.

Credit to Antz

Full Metal Panic

Chronological order would be the easiest way around this. Full Metal Panic followed by Fumoffu followed by The Second Raid followed by The Second Raid OVA. The only weird case here is Fumoffu. It’s a comedy spin-off from the original series with a completely different tone. I’d argue that you will find Fumoffu funnier once you’ve seen the original TV series, but plenty of people watch Fumoffu before the rest of the franchise and love it. So if you’re not feeling the TV series, or just want a very solid comedy anime, you can start with Fumoffu.

Fullmetal Alchemist

The two TV series, the original and Brotherhood, start off the same way but then veer in completely different directions. What happened was the original anime was made before the manga had finished, so the creators took a completely different direction with their adaptation. Several years later they then made Brotherhood, which followed the manga right the way through. The original has a stronger character focus and deeper messages and themes, but Brotherhood constructs a much more coherent story that actually ends properly. I believe popular opinion swings towards Brotherhood being the better of the two, but they are both fantastic series. I personally think that it’s better to start with the original TV series though. My reasoning is that Brotherhood assumes you have seen the original and barrages through its early content to get to the New Stuff, diminishing the effect of some considerably important plot events. If you watch the original TV series, make sure to follow it up straight away with the Conqueror of Shamballa movie. If you’re watching Brotherhood, you should watch the special spin off episodes whenever, either once you’re done with the TV series or about 40–50 episodes into the TV series. They tell neat little side stories. Just do not watch the Sacred Star of Milos movie, unless you want Full Metal Alchemist degenerate into generic shounen pap.

Futakoi

Ignore the first series and just watch Futakoi Alternative. They have barely any relation to each other and Futakoi is total rubbish.

Credit to Yuyucow

Genshiken

Easy chronological order. Original TV series -> OVA -> second season. There’s spin-off material, Kujibiki Unbalance or Ramen Tenshi Pretty Memna, which are animated versions of the anime the characters in Genshiken watch. However they add almost nothing to the TV series and are routinely regarded as being terrible.

Ghost in the Shell

The original Ghost in the Shell Movie and Stand Alone Complex do not have any connecting plot threads, so you can watch whichever first. It’s probably best to start with the movie, as it’s the least intimidating place to start. The second movie, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, is a direct sequel to the first movie, but isn’t generally considered to be that good, so you can skip that if you want and jump straight into the TV series, Stand Alone Complex. Stand Alone Complex has a whole load of different spin offs, but they are mostly just re-tellings of the same story with re-used footage. Simplest order is go Stand Alone Complex, then Stand Alone Complex Second Gig, then the movie Solid State Society.

Gintama

The first few episodes of the Gintama TV series are fairly poor and do not give a good account of the rest of the show. I haven’t seen anyone else suggest this before, but I think the ideal starting place for Gintama is the Jump Festa OVA. It’s a microcosm of the sense of humour you will find in the TV series. If you liked that, then go wild because you’ll probably love the TV series too. If you didn’t, then don’t bother. As for the Benizakura movie, it’s a retelling of episodes 58–61, but does have some new scenes at the start and end.

Gundam

The first thing you must understand about Gundam is there’s a main timeline, the Universal Century (UC) timeline, and then there’s Alternate Universe (AU) series that don’t connect to the main timeline at all. If you aren’t averse to old school animation, you can start with the UC timeline as outlined below. However a better starting spot may be one of the more recent AU Gundam series. The most recent ones are Seed, 00 and Age. Gundam fans will never agree which ones are worth watching, So I’m just going to go out on a limb and say I think 00 is the best of them.

UC Timeline

Start with the 0079 Gundam trilogy. These are recap movies of the original TV series and generally considered better than the actual TV series. From there it’s 0080 war in the pocket (also a favor­ite for christ­mas watch­ing) -> 08^th MS team -> 0083 Star­dust Memory -> Zeta Gun­dam (the actual direct sequel to the original trilogy, as the others are more spin-off OVAs) -> ZZ gun­dam (can be a bit jarring as the tone shifts from the super dark Zeta to light and goofy ZZ) -> Char’s coun­ter­at­tack movie -> Gun­dam Uni­corn -> Gun­dam F91 movie -> Vic­tory Gun­dam. Then there’s Turn A Gun­dam, which was sup­posed to be the last UC is thing but feels more like a spinoff and could even be called an AU Gundam.

Credit to R1CK_D0M, Fadeway

Gundam 00

Straight release order. Season 1 -> Season 2. The sequel movie Wakening of the Trailblazer is widely considered to be a total mess and probably not worth watching, lest it spoils your opinion of the TV series.

Gun­dam Wing

OVA/Movie sequel: You should be fine watch­ing either ver­sion since the movie only includes a few extra scenes which aren’t ter­ribly neces­sary to the plot. Don’t read the pre­quel manga until after watch­ing the TV series and movie sequel since the pre­quel does have a lot of tie-ins to events that hap­pen dur­ing the TV series/movie sequel. There are a couple manga that try to explain the year gap between the series and the sequel, and you can read either of those before/after watch­ing the movie sequel, but the gen­eral con­sensus (even though the char­ac­ter relationships/dynamics are por­trayed VERY dif­fer­ently in both stor­ies) is that Blind Tar­get occurred before Bat­tle­field of Paci­fists. the glor­i­fied doujin “Ground Zero” is said to occur right before the sequel.

Credit to gw_kimmy

Hellsing

I am probably the only person on the planet who thinks the TV series is far better than Hellsing Ultimate, so I’ll have to bow to popular opinion on this one. Go straight into Hellsing Ultimate and ignore the original botched TV series.

Hidamari Sketch

It’s straight order of when they were released, but since the naming conventions for the franchise are a bit all over the place: S1 -> S1 Spe­cials -> x365 -> x365 Spe­cials -> x Hoshim­itsu (☆☆☆) -> ☆☆☆ spe­cials -> SP (spe­cials) -> x Hon­ey­comb (upcoming).

Credit to Adamar

Higurashi

The chronological order is as follows: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (26 episodes) -> Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Spe­cial: Nekogoroshi-hen (1 episode) -> Higur­ashi no Naku Koro ni Kai (24 episodes) -> Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei (5 episodes) -> Higur­ashi no Naku Koro ni Kira no (4 episodes). Only Koro ni (1) & Kai (3) are the vital story arcs. Both the Neko­goroshi ova (2) & the 5-part Rei ova con­tain a mix­ture of fan-service & new story ele­ments, but are not vital to the main plot. Kira (5) is pretty much noth­ing but tacky fanser­vice, & should be avoided!

Credit to fathomlessblue

Kino’s Journey

The spin-off movies should be watched only after you’ve completed the TV series. While Life Goes On is technically a prequel, it would spoil important reveals for the TV series.

Kara no Kyokai

The movies aired out of chronological order. If you were to watch them chronologically, it’s 2–4–3–1–5–6–7-OVA. However it’s advisable to stick to the order the original creators intended them to be watched in.

Credit to Chipp

Kurenai

What happened with Kurenai is Brains Base took a rather different interpretation of the source material when they made the TV series. Later they came back and made a short spin-off OVA more in the spirit of the original material. Popular opinion sides with the TV series being better, but they’re both worth watching so long as you remember they have very different feels to them.

Last Exile

While you can watch Last Exile Fam without having seen the original (different characters, different setting, only loosely connected to the original), you’re better off watching the original first. For one, it’s a better series, and there’s a recap episode during Fam that will spoil all the events of the original in the sequel.

Legend of the Galactic Heroes

The movie My Con­quest is the Sea of Stars is gen­er­ally con­sidered the best start­ing place, just before jump­ing into the 110 OVA that make up the main series. Over­ture to a New War is a retell­ing of the first epis­odes you can either watch right after ~5 OVA or just leave until you feel like revis­it­ing the fran­chise. Once you’ve fin­ished the series, watch the two remain­ing movies (Golden Wings and A Hun­dred Bil­lion Stars; A Hun­dred Bil­lion Lights) and the pre­quel by the name of Spiral Labyrinth.

Credit to Yuyucow

Lupin III

The great thing about Lupin III is that every new thing they produce is made to be open to newcomers. The only struggle is knowing which ones are actually good. Popular opinion sides with Castle of Cagliostro, the movie directed by Miyazaki himself. Its more whimsical depiction of Lupin isn’t a very good representation of the rest of the franchise, but it’s still a damn fine movie whether you care about Lupin or not. From there, you can really go anywhere. First Contact has a good reputation amongst Lupin fans. I think Alcatraz Connection is a good movie. The new TV series A Woman Called Fujiko Mine is interesting if you want a really artsy take on Lupin. Finally, if you aren’t put off by old ass animation, you can always jump right back in time to the original TV series.

Macross

Start with the original TV series, Macross SDF. From there you can sorta go anywhere. Macross Zero is a prequel but works better with knowledge of the original. Do You Remember Love is a retelling of the original TV series, but in a rather unique way. Macross Plus is the sequel to the original TV series. Then comes Macross 7, which is a deliberate mockery of the entire Macross franchise. Might work for you, might not, so no worries if you dump it. Finally, there’s Macross Frontier. So in short: Ori­ginal series -> Do you remem­ber love movie/Macross Zero/Macross Plus -> Macross 7 -> Macross Frontier.

However, if you are adverse to the old-school animation of the original SDF Macross (we’re talking very old school here), both Plus and Frontier are accessible as stand-alones, even if you don’t get the full appreciation.

Credit to Shinmaru, Adamar, R1CK_D0M

Macross Frontier

The movies, The False Song­stress and The Wings of Farewell, retell the Macross Fron­tier TV series but are dif­fer­ent enough to be worth­while and are awe­some visual spectacles

Munto

Munto was first released as two movies (Munto and Munto 2) and then a TV series with the very long name of “Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai” was released later. How it pretty much works is, you can com­pletely ignore the two movies that were released first as the first 6 epis­odes of the TV series are as good as com­pletely identical. From 7–9 you have an in-series art style update and new story where it con­cludes (yes, at the odd num­ber of 9).

Credit to Sarukah

Negima

As it is, there’s no stan­dalone anime if you want to enjoy Negima. Xebec first adapt­a­tion loosely cov­ers the first volumes of the manga and then jumps off a cliff for a laugh­able ori­ginal end­ing. It’s a really cheap show and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who’s fond of the fran­chise recom­mend­ing it. SHAFT’s Negima?! (and its Haru/Natsu OVA) took the char­ac­ters and threw them into a dif­fer­ent set­ting where abso­lutely dif­fer­ent stuff happened. The res­ult is a PPD Lite — not that bad, but def­in­itely not Negima. Might be some­thing to look at if you’re already a fan and like the char­ac­ters, but noth­ing else. The Ala Alba OVAs (and its sequel, Mou hitotsu no sekai), on the other hand, are faith­ful depic­tions of the manga… start­ing from ch176. You can’t exactly skip 20 volumes and watch those, so it’s quite tricky. And to make it worse, the Anime Final movie that was sup­posed to give clos­ure to those was so bad even the mangaka said it was ter­rible and should be avoided.

tl;dr: Avoid Mahou Sen­sei Negima, read the first 20 volumes of the manga, watch Ala Alba and Mou hitotsu no Sekai, avoid Anime Final. Watch Negima?! if you like the girls and Shinbo.

Credit to Yuyucow

One Piece

Kind of a com­mit­ment to make with about 450 epis­odes and 650 chapters at this moment and still ongo­ing. Unfor­tu­nately, it starts of kind of slow and not very inter­est­ing. Gen­eral con­sensus is that it really starts pick­ing up dur­ing the Arlong arc, start­ing from epis­ode 31 and chapter 69, and only gets bet­ter from there. The only prob­lem is that the earlier epis­odes intro­duce a lot of the major char­ac­ters. So I can’t really recom­mend to skip them. You could read the manga, since that is usu­ally quicker.

Like most long run­ning anime, it has a bunch of fillers, but not nearly as much as say Bleach or Naruto. I could write them all down here or just give you this link: http://onepiece.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_Guide. It includes the fillers, OVAs, movies and TV spe­cials and between which epis­odes they fit. Epis­ode 55, although part of a (not so good) filler includes some import­ant canon inform­a­tion. You might want to watch that epis­ode or read chapter 101. Also the G8 filler arc ( epis­ode 196 — 206) is actu­ally very good. Def­in­itely watch that one. You can skip all the other filler arcs. They aren’t that bad, but they don’t add much to the story.

Most of the movies are okay. They pre­sume you know the char­ac­ters, so you can’t really jump in without know­ing any­thing about the series. The only ones I def­in­itely recom­mend are the 6^th and the 10^th. The 6^th one is directed by Hosada (Summer Wars) and has a dif­fer­ent anim­a­tion style and a much darker story that the rest of the series. The 10^th was actu­ally writ­ten by the mangaka and fits into canon. Movies 8 and 9 are recaps of the Ara­basta arc and the Drum island arc, but they try to fit too much into too little time. The 8^th one is also more of a ‘what if’ story and includes some heavy spoil­ers for the rest of the series. So don’t watch them as a sub­si­tute for the series.

All the TV spe­cials are for­get­table. Also, the first OVA was done by a dif­fer­ent anim­a­tion stu­dio and before the anime. It also has com­pletely dif­fer­ent voice act­ors. I don’t recom­mend to watch this an intro­duc­tion to the series. It’s not very good. Watch the other two OVAs though.

Onegai Teacher/Twins

Onegai Twins is a spin-off series from Onegai Teacher. Some characters from Teacher appear in twins, but it’s not necessary to watch them in order. There’s also Ano Natsu, which is a spiritual successor to the Onegai series, but again doesn’t require knowledge of the previous two.

Cheers to blazingdead

Patlabor

First timeline: Mobile Police Pat­labor OVA (7 episodes) -> Pat­labor 1: The Movie -> WXIII Pat­blabor 3: The Movie -> Pat­labor 2: The movie. The TV Series and New Files are an alternate story with the same characters. It’s -> Pat­labor TV series (47 episodes) -> Pat­labor ova 2/New Files (16 episodes). Best place to start is probably the first Patlabor OVAs.

Credit to fathomlessblue

Please Save My Earth

The last OVA epis­ode (6) tries to wrap up a story only half-done. There’s no need to skip it, but it won’t make much sense. Instead, start the manga at volume around volume 9.

Credit to Dan

Precure

Only two Pre­cure series are actual sequels (Futari wa -> Max Heart, YPC5 -> YPC GoGo) so you can jump in pretty much any­where. Dozens of magical girls meet every year in the All Stars movies, so you can use that simply to pick whichever cast you prefer. Heartcatch is widely considered to be The Best, so that’s probably the best starting point. However, if you know you’re going to watch a lot of the fran­chise you prob­ably want to go Splash Star -> Fresh -> Heart­catch -> Suite -> Smile, then return­ing to watch Futari Wa/Max Heart if you really want and Yes 5/GoGo if it’s fin­ished being subbed by the time you get there. Main point is that Splash Star is a fairly dir­ect remake of Futari Wa, so you don’t want to watch them one after the other, and Splash Star is prob­ably a bet­ter start­ing point.

Credit to Yuyucow, lmm

Raildex

A Certain Scientific Railgun relies on your knowledge of A Certain Magical Index, so it’s advisable to get that done first. Index S1 -> Index S2 -> Rail­gun. Alternatively Index S1 -> Rail­gun -> Index S2, the broad­cast­ing order. Both work fine.

Credit to Yuyucow

Redline

This is actu­ally pretty simple but a lot of Redline fans haven’t watched its spinoff by the name of Trava like they very well should.

Credit to Yuyucow

Revolutionary Girl Utena

The movie, Adolescence Apocalypse, is an alternative version of the TV series. You’re better off watching the TV series first. Not because it has any important plot details, but because it will at least prepare you somewhat for the sheer weirdness of that movie.

School Rumble

Start with the original TV series. Then jump onto the OVA. Then onto Ni Gakki. Do NOT watch San Gakki. It is complete bullshit.

Slayers

Here’s a handy graphic to understand Slayers with.

Spice and Wolf

Straight chronological order. I’m just reminding you here to make sure after you’ve watched the first season to watch the first Spice and Wolf OVA before you start watching the second season.

Super Robot Wars OG

First off is that the SRW anime are all based off the OG line of video games and con­tain no licensed series(no Gun­dam or Macross etc..) — everything is original. As of writ­ing there are 3 shows to chose from: Super Robot Wars OG The Anim­a­tion — A 3 epis­ode OVA released in 2005. Super Robot Wars OG Divine Wars — A 26 epis­ode TV series released ’06-’07. Super Robot Wars OG The I.nspector — A 26 epis­ode TV series released ’10-’11 In terms of chro­no­logy the order goes — SRWOG:DW > SRWOG:TI > SRW TA OVA. A word of note is that the OVA has been sup­planted by the events of one of the video games(SRW OG Gaiden [2008]) which took story ele­ments from the OVA and made them no longer canon. So while you can watch the OVA, when you play the video game or if there is another sequel, the events of the OVA will most likely be ignored or supplanted.

Cheers to Kraker2k

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

The order of Haruhi is all over the place. They aired the first season out of chronological order. Later they aired it in in chronological order, but threw a second season in the middle, then finally the movie Disappearence of Haruhi Suzumiya. The Wikipedia page lists the broadcast order and the chronological order. Taking the first season by itself, it’s better in the original broadcast order. Take it from someone who watched  it first in chronological order, it completely messes up the pacing and narrative the creators were going for. However taking the franchise as a whole, it perhaps works better with Disappearence as a finale to the entire thing. Depends on your personal preferences, whether deliberately confusing stuff gets on your nerves or not.

The second season gets doubly confusing with the whole Endless Eight fiasco, where they made 8 episodes of basically the exact same content. While there may be a special pride for those who can sit through all of Endless Eight, I wouldn’t recommend it. For the same narrative structure they were attempting to achieve, watch the first, second and eighth episodes of Endless Eight (so technically episodes 2,3 and 9 of the season). Trust me, you’ll already start to get frustrated by the time you watch the third episode. There’s also the dumb flash animation spin-off stuff, which you can watch if you’re a super fan.

Tenchi Muyo

The Tenchiverse is way bigger than you probably realise. In sorta chronological order: Ten­chi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki OVA 1 -> The Night Before the Car­ni­val OVA -> Ten­chi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki OVA 2 -> Ten­chi Muyo: Ryo-Ohki OVA 3 -> Mihoshi Spe­cial -> Man­atsu no Eve (Ten­chi Muyo Movie 2) –> Tenchi Muyo Dual (really for those determ­ined to watch everything in the Tenchi­verse, as its rela­tion is slight and it just isn’t that great of a show) -> Ten­chi Muyo GXP –> Ten­chi Muyo TV/“Tenchi Uni­verse“ –> Ten­chi Muyo in Love (“Ten­chi Muyo the Movie”) –> Ten­chi Muyo in Love 2: Dis­tant Memor­ies (“Ten­chi Forever! The Movie”) –> Magical Girl Pretty Sammy OVA –> Magical Girl Pretty Sammy TV/“Magical Pro­ject S“ –> Sasami: Magical Girls’ Club –> Shin Ten­chi Muyo/“Tenchi in Tokyo”.

Isekai no Seikishi no Monogatari/St. Knight’s Tale falls somewhere within the timeline encom­passing the OVAs, The Night Before the Car­ni­val, Mihoshi Spe­cial, and GXP. Just pop it in there wherever.

Credit to A Day Without Me

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Start with the TV series. From there, you can jump into some of the side stuff. The Parrallel Works are cool little music videos with alternate takes on the TV Series. Then there’s the retelling movies. Now normally I’d say ignore retelling movies as they’re lame, cut down versions of the original. This is certainly the case with Gurren-hen. But Lagann-hen is fantastic, so much so that I’d call it better than the TV version. Skip Gurren-hen and watch Lagann-hen. It starts at the midway point of the TV series, so you will have to have watched the TV series originally to understand what’s going on.

To Heart

Weirdly, To Heart and To Heart 2 have the same settings but different characters. To Heart and its sequel My Memor­ies are much more decent pieces of anim­a­tion, if any­thing because they set many galge tropes that would be ter­ribly executed by count­less shows and games after­ward. Both have some spe­cials that are meant to be watched after their cor­res­pond­ing seasons. For To Heart 2, chro­no­lo­gical release order, which would be To Heart 2 -> To Heart 2 OVA -> To Heart 2 AD -> To Heart 2 AD Plus -> To Heart 2 ADnext.

Credit to Yuyucow

Touka Get­tan

Aired in reverse chronological order, but as always with these cases, it’s better to watch it in the order the original creators intended it to be watched in.

Credit to A Day Without Me

Tsubasa Chronicle

It’s gen­er­ally agreed upon to watch the series in chro­no­lo­gical order (sea­son one, sea­son two, ovas), but upon get­ting into sea­son two, unless you like filler, skip epis­odes 18–26. Instead, go straight to the Tokyo Rev­el­a­tions OVA (which is way darker than the TV series, but faith­ful to the manga). Then read manga volumes 18 — 21 before watch­ing the Shun­raiki OVA. If you skip the manga, you will be com­pletely lost. Actu­ally, even with the manga, you might be com­pletely lost… Also, some­time before the Tokyo Rev­el­a­tions, you can squish in “The Prin­cess in the Bird­cage King­dom” movie, though skip­ping it won’t hinder the story at all. After watch­ing the Shun­raiki OVA, start read­ing the com­ics at volume 24. If you’re reading the manga for Tsubasa Chronicle, try read it alternatively with XXXHolic as they will spoil each other.

Credit to Dan

Votoms

The chronological order is as follows: Red shoulder doc­u­ment: Roots of Ambi­tion OVA > Pailsen Files OVA > (Mel­lowlink is a spinoff ova. It’s pretty good, but it’s per­fectly skip­pable. It’s just a guy being really angry at everything and killing people for revenge) > TV series ep’s 1–13 (First arc in Uoodo) > Last Red Shoulder OVA > TV series ep’s 14–52 (2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th arcs in Kum­men, Sunsa, and Quent respect­ively) > Big Battle OVA > (this is tech­nic­ally where the second half of 52, the last ep, goes, but I wouldn’t recom­mend stop­ping the ep halfway through just for big battle) > Shin­ing Heresy OVA > Alone Again OVA > Phantom Chapter OVA. Just watch it in that order.

Credit to R1CK_D0M

X

Start with the Tokyo Babylon OVA, then move onto the X TV series. The manga and TV series are faith­ful to each other until the last five or so epis­odes. From there, if you want more angst and lack of an end­ing, start read­ing the manga at volume 16 or so. The TV series has a con­clus­ive, and much more hope­ful end­ing. The movie is to be avoided at all costs, unless you like beau­ti­ful anim­a­tion with no plot (or are a fan of terribad anime). For hard­core fans, there’s also a set of music videos. Also, do not watch “Epis­ode 0″ first. Watch it at least 3/4 through the TV series. Oth­er­wise, you’ll be spoiled on pretty much everything. When you’ve done all that, you can go back to the Tokyo Babylon manga, which is a prequel to X. It starts really slow though, so you’re better off going to it after you’re done with X.

Credit to Dan, Anca

XXXHolic

Watch the “A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream” movie after the the first half (or so) of the first sea­son. While the movie was made before the TV series (and thus the art is a bit dif­fer­ent), it does require know­ledge of the main char­ac­ters and dynam­ics before being watched. Note that mix­ing the manga and the TV series+Movie is dif­fi­cult due to whole plot­lines that aren’t trans­ferred through adap­tions, but if you feel up to it, after sea­son 2 of the TV series, being read­ing about volume 14 on. After volume 15, you can watch the Ro OVA. Some­where between (or after) volume 19, watch the Ro: Aday­ume OVA. There’s also an OVA called “Shun­muki” that can be fit in any­where around sea­son 2 of the TV series. If you’re reading the manga for Tsubasa Chronicle, try reading it alternatively with Tsubasa Chronicle as they will spoil each other.

Credit to Dan

Yu-Gi-Oh

Sea­son 0 -> Sea­son 0 movie (rather ter­rible, can be skipped) -> Duel Mon­sters (skip the arcs between the end of Battle Tower and epis­ode 199) -> (manga) Yu-Gi-Oh R (if you want, this one is gen­er­ally for­got­ten, and it takes place between Battle City and Ancient Egypt) -> Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. The dubbed version is a 4kids dub, so liberal changes everywhere. Pyr­amid of Light can be safely ignored, but if you do want to sub­ject your­self to it hunt down the Japan­ese dub, as they changed the plot and rearranged some scenes, because it was just that stupid. GX takes place after Duel Mon­sters, but barely ref­er­ences it. 5D and Zexal are entirely altern­ate uni­verses. Cap­sule Mon­sters does not exist. Bond Bey­ond Time belongs after GX and 5D.

Credit to Anca

Simple release order

These are the series that follow a straight, no-nonsense chronological format with no confusion. Just watch these in the order they were released. Leave comments if there’s any franchises that fit this list too.

Arakawa Under the Bridge, Baccano, Baka to Test, Big Windup, Black Lagoon, Break Blade, Candy Boy, Eden of the East, GaoGaiGar, Honey and Clover, Hare Guu, Ichigo Marshmallow, Initial D, Invasion Squid Girl, Kaiji, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Minami-ke, Natsu no Arashi, Natsume Yuujinchou, Rozen Maiden, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, Shakugan no Shana, To-Love-Ru, Vandread

For the record, I haven’t watched anime in over a week, so I’m at least one episode behind on everything.

A Grade

A– Sankarea

Episodes 1–3

The fact that this rather standard romcom with a morbid twist was any good came as a surprise to me. That it was this good blew my mind. It’s all down to the directing. What could have been a bland Yuji-Everylead comes off as relatable and human with flaws and dreams. Rea could have come off as a demeaning and voyeuristic handling of child abuse, but instead appears as a real person who is naive yet sympathetic. I never thought I’d say this, but bravo Studio Deen. You’ve elevated average source material with your excellent adaptation.

B Grade

B+ Minori Scramble

Thank god something good came out of Ufotable’s attempts at OVAs. Minori Scramble is a fantastically goofy slapstick comedy, one I haven’t seen done as well as this since Hare+Guu, and that was over 10 years ago. What I have to praise more than anything is that, while it’s cute, the cuteness is used as a means to create comedy, rather than relying on the cuteness itself to be the only draw. Genuinely charming and laugh out loud funny, I thoroughly recommend this. I also hope they make more, because it seems a shame to let this die at one short OVA.

B+ Aquarion EVOL

Episodes 13–17

I did not think Aquarion EVOL had taken the right direction at the start of this month. The show revels in its goofy cheesiness, and having something that downer happen didn’t mesh with the aim of the show. And yet Aquarion EVOL defied me. It both handled the drama incredibly well, all while keeping within the same goofy cheesy constructs that makes it so entertaining. It came out the other side a stronger show in which I cared about the characters even more. The banana robot mixed hot springs episode also proved that it hasn’t lost its craziest side either.

B+ Kids on the Slope

Episodes 1–2

Kids on the Slope is basically perfect. All the directorial cues hit their mark. The characters are well-defined and likable yet with proper flaws. The animation is amazing and meshes perfectly with the music. It’s pretty much bang on the mark. My only problem at the moment is that it’s all a bit too nice. I’m waiting for some sort of real drama to occur that makes me eager to tune into new episodes, because as of now I’m just not getting as excited as I probably should be for it. But apart from that, it’s perfect.

B+ Tsuritama

Episodes 1–2

I love Tsuritama’s approach to telling its story. It’s got this loopy, happy-go-lucky nature that makes it infectious. The directing is a little bit all over the place, leaving some stretches of episodes having remarkably little happen in them, leading to some rather dull stretches. But the wilder segments easily make up for that. I’m now waiting to see how all these seemingly disparate elements tie together to form some kind of overall narrative, but I’m certainly enjoying the ride it’s taking me on.

B Jormungand

Episodes 1–2

Jormungand’s plot doesn’t make a whole lot of sense at the moment, mainly because it’s non-existent. A whole load of people selling weapons and shooting and so on. But I don’t really care because the characters (well, mainly just Koko) make this show inherently enjoyable. I originally compared it to Baccano/Durarara style of introduction, but a closer comparison is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. These guys are just doing their jobs, you’ll pick up what they’re like along the way. Which is great, because this show has Koko. She is rather mentally imbalanced if I do say so myself. Oh no, is what I said.

B– Future Diary

Episodes 24–26

Barmy, loopy, crazy, nuts, tossing logic out the window and barreling towards some sort of psychotic conclusion. These are all ways I thought I would be describing the final episode, but instead it was an oddly low-key affair. OK this is still low-key by Future Diary standards, so there was still a re-writing of the entire universe, but it left me feeling oddly underwhelmed. Still, it was a fitting end to the series, and this month also included the fantastic episode 25. Totally batty anime, and I loved it for that.

B– Space Bros

Episodes 1–4

Space Bros has a bit of a problem with banging on and on with the same subject. Chasing my dream blah de blah we get it. The show will probably always be inherently enjoyable because Mutta is fun to watch. He’s like Kotetsu from Tiger and Bunny except cleverer and therefore less irritating.

B– Fate/Zero

Episodes 14–16

For a show that’s supposed to be about Rider and Waver, they’ve gotten rather little screentime these past few episodes. I mean, these side characters are all right. They’re rather too in love with their own voice, saying nothing in one sentence than can be said with 5, but isn’t that par for the course for this show. At least their stories are pretty interesting. Still though, I’d rather like to see the main attraction take centre stage again.

B– Lupin III: Fujiko Mine

Episodes 1–3

The quality of this new Lupin III series has been a bit all over the place. I loved episode 3 with Goemon. It’s story was well told and endearing. On the other hand, episode 2 was a mess. Trying to fit the larger-than-life Lupin characters into a noir style story simply doesn’t work. You need more subtlety, which this show simply doesn’t have. Also there’s Fujiko’s tits, which just get silly with them flying all over the place. When it hits the mark, it’s a pretty damn great show. I just hope it realises how silly it is and sticks to doing that.

B– Mysterious Girlfriend X

Episodes 1–3

I genuinely like the story Mysterious Girlfriend X is telling. This alternatives take on teenage romance, challenging the social norms of what you should do in a relationship, is something I appreciate. But the drool. Oh god the drool. After the first episode, I thought the drool fascination would slowly die down, and my reaction to it would become increasingly tepid until I barely noticed it was there at all. Instead, the reverse has happened. It’s gotten to the point where I actively push my screen away, shut my eyes and cover my ears when the drool appears again. I probably wouldn’t be anywhere near as bothered by it if they didn’t revel in it so much.

C Grade

C+ Eureka Seven Ao

Episodes 1–2

Eureka Seven Ao hasn’t quite clicked with me yet. I haven’t found a character to latch onto yet, so all I’ve gotten from the show is a whole load of technobabble I can’t make sense of. The scub coral has arrived, quick unload the MXP-Fighter Unit 01 to unleash the seventh swell with the aliens swearing off the Japanese from unleashing the defence force from invading the potato fields on the last christmas on Tuesday. It’s all dramatic and beautifully animated, but I just haven’t found any reason to care yet.

C+ Buta

Buta is part of the Young Animator Training Project, which they decided to have another round of in 2012. Buta was just like any of the four from last time round. Decent story that doesn’t have a whole lot to it. Some pig helps little fox dude save his map or something. It had a pretty clear Porco Rosso influence, what with the old warrior pig who acts indifferent towards people but actually has a heart of gold. I guess it’s worth watching for that if nothing else.

C Kuroko’s Basketball

Episodes 1–3

I’ll probably get bored with this show eventually, but for now at least I’m engaged. The characters  have distinguishing personalities and the lead two play off each other quite well, as they do with the female manager. Shame the animation quality is probably the shittest all season, which makes the basketball matches turn into be a bunch of still frames and speed lines, but I like the show’s over-exuberant shounen energy. The part where they stood on top of the building and yelled out to the school was entertaining.

C Medaka Box

Episodes 1–3

There is one thing about Medaka Box that keeps me coming back. Even though it has terrible animation, dull set-ups, an atrocious opening song, a measly attempt at a Kyon-ripoff, constant obsession with Medaka’s tits…well, OK there’s a lot of problems. But I keep coming back because of Medaka herself. She’s basically Jesus with tits. There’s something fascinating about watching the entire world warp around her presence, and how each character is defined by how they act around her. The show is trying to depict her as a force of nature, and certainly achieves that. It doesn’t really achieve anything else, but Medaka alone is somehow enough to keep me watching.

D Grade

D+ Gakkatsu

Episodes 1–3

I suppose in the field of shitty 5 minute comedy flash shorts, Gakkatsu is probably the best I’ve seen. That’s obviously not saying much, but hey, baby steps. It’s about a class sitting around and discussing some aspect of life. It’s set up is similar to Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, except without the imaginative artstyle, the satirical characters, the social satire…well, maybe there’s a bit of social satire, but not enough to keep my interest. It is only 5 minutes per episode though, so at least it avoids the Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei problem of running its single set up into the ground. Yeah I had to get in my dig at that show in here somehow.

D Saint Seiya Omega

Episodes 1–2

It’s weird how something so colourful and so extravagant could be so bland and forgettable.. From what I can tell, most of it is fighting for fighting’s sake. The characters aren’t interesting. I don’t think I’m a fan of super sentai stuff. Not that I’ve seen much, but I was never into Power Rangers as a kid. Nor Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who I think might count as a weird form of super sentai. Or any western superhero comic book stuff. Or even the entire Precure franchise. I dunno, but dressing up in a silly costume and fighting dumb bad guys never appealed to me as a kid, and that doesn’t appear to have changed.

D– Dusk Maiden of Amnesia

Episodes 1–2

The completely obvious and inevitable happened. The gimmick of the first episode was just a flimsy shield hiding what was a thoroughly generic romcom. The main character is a Yuji Everylead. The female lead’s ghostyness doesn’t appear to have any interesting commentary on something or other. You know,  the way the irregularities of the female leads in Sankarea and Mysterious Girlfriend X are commentaries on something, I saw nothing of the sort in Dusk Maiden. That’s the kind of thing that gets me interested, because I happen to be a pretentious prick like that.

E Grade

E+ Polar Bear Cafe

Episodes 1–2

Your characters are animals. Har har har. Now what? Is that it? Do you expect to carry the entire show on that? That’s one joke! You can’t carry an entire show on that. Polar Bear Cafe fails because it hasn’t got a clue how to tell jokes. Its comedic timing is pot anyway, so it’s not like the jokes would have any impact even if they were funny. I’ve heard people describe it has one of those ♥~healing~♥ anime, which I’ve always read as ♥~nothing interesting ever fucking happens~♥, so that probably explains why I’m so down on it. OP is still awesome though.

F Grade

I’ve been too busy composing my final year university dissertation, which is focusing on British TV news comedy shows. The main driving force behind the dissertation is that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has gotten massive commercial success, along with huge critical and academic acclaim. It’s brought a welcome critical voice to the compliant media using a satirical format that has brought in the previously political apathetic youth and so on and so forth blah de blah de blah. Does Britain have a Daily Show equivalent in news comedy? The rather blunt answer is yes. It’s called Have I Got News For You and it even predates The Daily Show. But I wanted to use a similar critical eye that academics used when praising The Daily Show to British news comedy programmes and see if they stack up.

This is not the dissertation. What I’m writing here is some sort of attempt to collect my thoughts on the 4 shows I covered, before I write up my findings in a proper academic way. It’s got nothing to do with anime, but I wanted to try collecting my thoughts on what I’ve researched in writing somewhere before I wrote it up properly, and at least putting it here will allow me to see what others think.

Warning: It is a very long post.

A show that I think rather fails at any form of news satire is Mock the Week. Headlines are removed from full context with the mocking of appearance in photographs of politicians. The news segment they’re supposed to be covering is stated blankly by centre man Dara with no real conversation of the topic in question. Having 7 bloody people on the panels is part of the problem, particularly when the gruffer laddish humour charges in to make a dumb joke about jerking off.

However I’m inclined not to be overly critical of it not delivering any sort of proper news satire, because its main aim is clearly to just be a comedy. The fact they have an entire segment devoted to a random topic coming up and the comedians rifling through their stand up routines a picking out a part that remotely connects to that subject should be enough of a sign that actual news satire isn’t their priority. They aren’t too bad at being a comedy show. Dara Ó Briain is a genuinely funny man when given the chance, but is too nice to ever really give any political satire. Also he’s the presenter, so can’t really do much anyway. Hugh Dennis is pretty funny too. In fact, Hugh Dennis appears to be the one guy who tries to actually comment on the news items in question, but the sheer amount of people there means someone usually gets in after he’s finished a grand total of one line.

Can’t say much about the rest though. Andy Parsons simply isn’t funny. Frankie Boyle is shock humour for shock’s sake. Their regular guests are pretty shit too. I don’t think there are very many people in Ireland who think much of their ‘national treasure’ that is Ed Byrne. Milton Jones is funny, but his humour is surreal and mainly based off puns, which offers nothing to the discussion. And then there’s Russell Howard…

One of the other shows I covered was Russell Howard’s Good News, and god bless the guy because his heart is in the right place. You can tell what his intention is. He’s sick of fear mongering and brainless coverage in the news and he wants to counteract that. And occasionally he gets it right, such as mocking News of the World’s incessant fear-mongering saying that everything gives you cancer. OK, easy target and low lying fruit, but still worth saying. When you consider we’re comparing these all to The Daily Show, where the political landscape and state of the news networks in America means that you have to stoop just to reach the low lying fruit, this is still worthwhile.

But christ above he can’t cover news properly. Let me run you through a typical Russell Howard piece. Bring up news story. Make joke about the person on screen’s appearance. Explain the news story further. Rubbish the entire story for no apparent reason bar his own scepticism. Instead of explaining why he’s sceptical, show a youtube video of a cat. Make joke about masturbation. Move onto next segment. Instead of satirically tearing apart the logic behind the news story, as Ian Hislop off HIGNFY would do, he discredits it by using a personal anecdote. This leads to a huge amount of his pieces starting with “this one time, right, one of my mates, right”. On Mock the Week, where he has even less time to impose his personality, nearly every single time he opens his mouth is with the dreaded “one of my mates, right”.

Oh right, I mentioned Have I Got News For You, henceforth just the ridiculous acronym HIGNFY. Running for over 20 years, it’s rather set in its ways, which isn’t strictly a bad thing at all. It’s a direct descendent of That Was The Week That Was, which The Daily Show is also inspired by. Well, since it was the first news satire television programme, technically all these shows are descended from TW3, but HIGNFY was set up deliberately to capture the original take of TW3. The show does have clear political influence, particularly since politicians appear on the show. Mind you, the clearest way it has influenced politics is, arguably, getting Boris Johnson elected as Mayor of London. Since I don’t live in London, I’ve never had to care about what his abilities as a mayor are, but he’s funnier than most of the actual professional comedians on Mock the Week. I think he hams up his doddering posh boy persona, which makes him oddly lovable and hilarious as a result.

The easiest way to show how HIGNFY is good is to compare it to Mock the Week and Russell Howard. As I explained before, the people on the show are genuinely interested in taking apart a news story and actually talking about it. Obviously Ian Hislop is the chief at this, but any gaps he misses are invariably filled up by Paul Merton, who is far cleverer than his goofy persona would have you believe. Sitting in on those panels for 20 years would mean he’d eventually absorb enough ability to tackle news satirically. Also for the guests they do bring on, christ is Ian Hislop good at tearing them apart. One of the episodes I covered for my research that was particularly memorable was when a minister for foreign affairs was on. Before the show he had apparently gone on twitter asking for advice, and people told him the “little shit on the end would tear him a new one”, which seemed to cheer Hislop up and do exactly as advertised.

Ian Hislop is indeed a little shit, obviously revelling in political scandals so he can tear them apart, but the show needs him to do so, particularly when you compare to the overly nice Dara from Mock the Week. He makes no concessions for that either, something Paul Merton likes to mock him for himself. What’s odd is Hislop isn’t actually that funny a lot of the time. The jokes often erupt after he has satirically examined the news story in question. It’s not just him obviously, even the folks in charge of putting up words on the teleprompter for the host to read out are really good at what they do. OK their jokes are pretty obvious a lot of the time. I’m convinced they are contractually obligated to make at least one joke per episode about Eric Pickles being fat. But hey, it’s a running gag.

HIGNFY is also more ‘dignified’, shall we say. The humour on Mock the Week and Russell Howard could be described as ‘laddish’. And by laddish and mean blatantly sexist. Russell Howard in particular can’t make a single reference to any woman without commenting on her shaggibility. Mock the Week normally has a full male cast. On the occasion they’ve had the one girl, she rarely gets a word in edgeways. Meanwhile on HIGNFY, there was a particularly memorable segment once where the host asked one of the female panel members what she thought of the royal wedding bride’s dress, and she responded with “could you ask that again, except this time more condescending”. OK, it’s calling out sexism on its own show, but it shows that the one time it could creep in, it was shot out by the panel members themselves.

On the episodes of Mock the Week I covered, there was one girl who appeared twice, who was so forgettable I can’t even remember her name. But the jokes she did do help me segue into my next area: racism. The girl in question was Nigerian, and on both occasions she was called up to do a stand up segment, she did one about her race. Meanwhile HIGNFY had the black American comedian Reginald D Hunter. The only reference he made to being black was when there was a news segment about a Cadbury advert that was perceived as racist. When the host asked if Reg accepted the apology Cadbury gave, he said “let me ask the Black committee board and see what they say”. Again, it’s calling out the own show for a touch of racism, but the fact they called out the one time it happened speaks for it all.

Both the issues of sex and race are rather interesting in comedy as a whole. My kingdom for a black comic who does not base half of their fucking routine off them being black, you’re even less original than the comics who base their routine off air travel. The total lack of female comics is a rather touchy issue, particularly since there isn’t an immediately apparent explanation for it. It doesn’t appear to be institutionalised sexism so much as its society not valuing women with a strong comic ability as much as they do for men, which speaks to a much wider sexism problem that gets into a big auld feminism debate. But my point is that HIGNFY both comments on these and rises above them

And now 10 O’ Clock Live. The newest kid on the block. The one with the big talent behind it. The one that claims itself to be trying to bring a satirical look at the news, exactly like that present on The Daily Show. Does it succeed? Short answer is not quite, but a damn good effort regardless. The show received a lot of critical damning on many fronts while it was airing, which may be partly because of the hype that surrounded it. Particularly comparisons to The Daily Show seem to be damning, although I’d argue people put The Daily Show up on a pedestal, and is hardly perfect all the time itself. Maybe I’m being kinder because I came off watching several seasons of Mock the Week and Russell Howard, but 10 O’ Clock Live was a breath of fresh air next to those shows.

Easiest way to cover the show is cycle through the 4 presenters, starting with Jimmy Carr. His quick coverage of the news segment that each show starts off with is similar to that HIGNFY does with its witty quips after each news item, except Carr is even more direct about its satire of the story. He has made quite a name for himself being a shock comic. Now I do think there is a place in comedy for shock comics. Even though I dismissed Frankie Boyle earlier, he was at least more interesting than the other panellists on Mock the Week. However Carr’s barbs are often more barbed and less nasty for the sake of it, which makes them easier to laugh at without feeling like a horrible person. You are actually laughing at the joke rather than the intent of the joke. Well, most of the time anyway.

His sketch segments don’t work quite as well though. I feel rather harsh criticising individual ones, as the nature of sketch comedy like these is that they don’t always work. Every sketch comedy, from Monty Python to Daily Lives of Highschool Boys, has had sketches that simply don’t work. Heck, even a lot of Jon Stewart’s segments don’t quite work. He does sometimes brute force his way through them by being an inherently funny comic, as does Jon Stewart. Also I’m easy to please and Jimmy Carr in a dress is sometimes enough to make me laugh. But enough of them don’t work for me to sometimes feel just a bit silly to be watching them at all.

Charlie Brooker is the kind of guy who attracts rabid fans of his style of ranty satire, but I think his ability is limited. For example, he’s a complete failure at talking about anything that requires nuanced coverage. But in full rant mode against something that’s clearly wrong, such as Gaddafi or media coverage of the Japan Earthquake, he’s the star of the entire show. Thankfully the show seems to realise this, even going so far as to reference his cynical nature about everything when the cast go into their round-table discussions. Just so long as the show remembers that, I think he’s great.

David Mitchell is the one who is clearly the most emotionally invested in the news coverage, and the one who has done the most research of the cast, which is clear when they go into round table discussion. He’s the one that usually brings up the best points. The show realises that, which is why he tackles the interviews and topics that require slightly more nuanced coverage than Brooker can do. But he’s just not very good at these interviews. Jon Stewart feels more earnest when interviewing, and is capable enough an interviewer to force proper discussion from the interviewees. Mitchell just doesn’t have that. He feels genuine and earnest, but interviewing skills means he neither asks probing enough questions, nor is able to control the large debates. When a politician goes onto HIGNFY, they are playing by the rules of the show itself, which is why Ian Hislop always gets one over on them. Mitchell can’t beat politicians at their own interviewing game.

He isn’t helped by the liveness of the show. Frequently a discussion will have to be cut off before the discussion can really get to the heart of everyone’s problems and some sort of agreement, with them having to cut off to an ad break. Also the live studio audience doesn’t bloody help, what with even the guests trying to play up the audience by suggesting they hang bankers. Mitchell even chastises the audience more than once, telling them it’s not a bloody pantomime. I think a lot of this is simply down to practice, because he definitely has the right intentions and is going about it the right way. Also since I’m mentioning some other problems with the show, christ is this show ever the most left leaning thing on television. This is coming from someone who had the Guardian website as their homepage for a few years. Yes the Tories are in power and satire should be largely directed at those in power, but christ above is it ever overly liberal.

Then there’s Lauren Laverne, who simply does not belong on the programme. I get her roll. She’s supposed to be the presenter to get the other guys talking, but she just doesn’t fit next to 3 professional comedians. She simply isn’t funny. Her comedy segment feels forced. As much as I talked about the lack of women in comedy earlier and how terrible that is, I can’t shake the feeling watching her that she’s simply here because she’s The Girl. She’s a good presenter, but she doesn’t fit with the show’s format. I mainly covered the first season for my dissertation, but I did see the final 2 episodes of season 2. They cut out a bunch of the content to fix the problems of having ads cut halfway into segments. No more of Mitchell’s rants, which is a shame but it made sense when Brooker is better at them anyway. Plus they cut down Brooker’s rants to one per episode, which works because it means they focus on one thing Brooker to cover per episode. But Laverne seems to have gotten even more comedy content to do. Either focus on being a presenter or get an actual comedian in.

Honestly speaking, I think the show is pretty great. I think it’s often more daring and cutting than HIGNFY is, and often even more so than The Daily Show is, although Daily Show is operating in a different environment. It produces some brilliant satire at times, and I hope it doesn’t get cancelled because they appear to be ironing out the kinks. What’s oddly one of my biggest criticisms is I don’t really see why it has to be Live. The one time watching it where they got breaking news in was the No Fly Zone instated over Libya, and all they did was go “ooh boy is there going to be a war”. The sketch nature of it means they’re better pre-recorded anyway. The only other signs of it being live were the cast occasionally fluffing their lines and Jimmy Carr improving occasionally, along with an irritating audience. Ditch the liveness, and change the name to 10 O’ Clock Late or something.

So umm yeah, good job reaching this far, you crazy person who read all this. This is a layman’s version of my dissertation. I’d be really interested in hearing opinions on what people think of the shows in question.

You may have noticed my blog hasn’t been in the healthiest state lately. I exceeded my monthly bandwidth limit, which in my initial panic meant “oh shit oh god oh golly I’ve been DDoS’d”. Turns out I was just too popular for my own good. I contacted my hosts asking what it would take to get my website back online for the month. They promptly replied with $115. For the rest of this month. So thanks wpwebhost (visit now if you want to be horribly ripped off but at least have decent customer service!) for all your hard work, but I hiked my blog off to another hosting service. Fucking arduous process if there ever was one, but everything seems to be back working again.

Now allow me to make this the shortest return back to blogging since Epic Win Anime Blog and announce a hiatus. I’m on the final stretch of my final year at university, with my dissertation due in on the 10th May. So don’t expect any posts between now and then. I might do a monthly roundup, if only because I haven’t missed the past 21 monthly roundups and I’d hate to break the tradition, but don’t bank on it. I’ll catch up swiftly with Space Bros episodics when I come back. Hopefully. Cheers to more than one person who offered their blog as a platform for me to write when mine was down. It’s nice to know I have all these digital couches I can crash on in the blogosphere.

In the meantime, I was on some of the latest Bakacasts over at Project Haruhi, so you can go give them a listen. You can also visit the Aniblog Tourney for other anime blogs that aren’t quite as good as mine, with the possible exception of Ogiue Maniax for whom I have a raging stiffy for.…errr, don’ tell him I said that.

The dad in Sankarea wants to monopolise his affection for his daughter. The main character in Kids on the Slope really likes this girl and wants to appear cool in front of her. These are two distinct character traits for two characters, but what I really like about both of these traits is how they are presented to us with little cues about how the characters act.

Whenever Rea’s dad goes to touch Rea, he removes his gloves. It’s a very deliberate act too. For every other instance in the anime, he keeps those gloves on. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wore those gloves on the very rare occasions he actually talks to his wife. We already know his wife doesn’t take too kindly to her husband reserving all his affection for his daughter. The gloves are just another visual cue to add to how he reseves this right for only his daughter.

In Kids on the Slope (which is a really dull name), the main character Kaoru takes off his glasses every time he talks to Ritsuko, the girl he likes. Considering he’s already painfully aware of his total lack of coolness, he does everything in his power to appear more attractive in front of her. He also only does this when he’s alone with Ritsuko. Whenever the brasher Sentarou barges into their conversation, the glasses go straight back on again.

These are both very small touches, but clever ones that use the visual medium to help characterisation. I think both Sankarea and Kids on the Slope have fantastic directing, so these small pieces build up. While people tend to pinpoint specific scenes when they talk about great directing, it can be hard as a reviewer to talk about great directing when its the build up of such minor points like this. So this post is dedicated to the little directorial touches. Which is why it’s a small post. Yeah, I’ll pretend that’s the reason why this post is so short.

More than anything else, I’ll miss these shots of Yuno’s crazed eyes. For any other problems Future Diary had, the one area you can’t deny it excelled at was depicting Yuno as a psychotic lunatic.

I was expecting something a bit crazier from Future Diary’s finale. The final few episodes kept ramping up the lunacy from episode to episode, starting with an apocalypse, going through character revivals and Dragonball Z fight scenes, time travel and alternate worlds, only for the actual final piece to keep at the same level. I’m not sure what I was expecting, beyond that it would defy those expectations. Maybe that’s my problem? I expected it to defy expectations when my expectations were already for it to defy them? Getting a bit overly meta there so let’s put that aside.

So what happened? First Yuki broke the separate ideal universe that Yuno had stuck him in through sheer willpower. Or he broke it by yelling Yuno’s name really loudly. Same difference really. Back in the real world, which is in fact the third world (christ this is confusing), the mayor had a diary that told him exactly what happened in the game and proceeded to change a bunch of things so the game wouldn’t occur. How that works I’m not really sure. Why did he suddenly have that diary in this world and not the last 2 worlds?

I mean, I get what they’re doing. The world has been re-created so that all these terrible things don’t happen to each of these characters. But why does that happen? Isn’t Dues going to have to find a successor anyway? He is still dying in this world, just as he was in the last. He may not do it through a diary game, but isn’t an apocalypse still on its way in a few years? Look at me, 26 episodes and I still haven’t learnt that trying to apply logic to Future Diary is never going to work. Instead I should just be focusing on the characters and how their new world looks, since that’s what Future Diary has always excelled at.

Apparently Minine was able to get together with her cop lover. Not entirely sure how she achieved that. A mono-eyed, mono-armed terrorist that you are personally searching for in your investigations comes to you and proclaims that you proposed to her in another world? I’d be a little bit sceptical, albeit maybe less so when she picks me up and flies me over the city, Peter Pan style. Also judging by the floating baby in that screencap, it would appear that Minine’s new godly powers are inheritable.

It all ends with Yuki trapped in a dead world, with nothing but a phone (that must have unlimited battery or something), a battered old manga, and Murmur for company. I did rather like this final twist on his character. The rest of the ending was on the overly positive side, so I liked seeing something that was darker and more in tune with the tone for the rest of the series. Plus it’s not all bad. He does get a sweet cape.

I should probably stop moaning, the ending was fine. It didn’t muck with story in a way that damaged what came prior to it. It ended decisively, and we know what happened to all of the characters. I did still find place to stick it in my top anime, albeit only just. It even supposedly improved on the manga by leaving out the last few pages. I don’t know, I was just expecting one final insane twist. Maybe I’ll just read those last few pages of the manga to discover what really happened. Maybe third world Yuno crashes through the space-time continuum to be with Yuki.

Or maybe I won’t have to read the manga. Maybe I can just wait a little bit longer…

I’m getting kind of used to this happening once I finish episodic blogging something.

That old beast, The Aniblog Tourney, has started up for the second time. The aim is quite simple. Smash the egos of bloggers who get crushed under the weight of voters from well-established blogs who barely register the tourney’s existence. Actually the aim of the tourney is to provide a tool for people to discover new blogs in the form of a competition. This early on with a full 168 blogs, it can be a bit intimidating to jump in and start checking everyone out, but it will give you a good idea of the general standard of quality in anime blogging (ie not very high). If you don’t follow many blogs, or were barely even aware that there were this many, I might recommend leaving it for now and coming back a month later when the group stages come around. By then you should have a *cough* slightly higher quality selection of blogs to check out and possibly add to your reading list.

My blog is the last blog out of every single one in the tourney to actually get a chance to compete, being the very last group leader in the very final bracket. As one of the tourney admins, I’m not particularly bothered whether I do well or not, although I have to admit a potential rematch against Sea Slugs does sound appealing. However really I’d just like for people to visit, vote, and hopefully find new blogs that they like.

In this episode of Space Bros, Mutta gets various items shoved up in his arse, proves he can blow for the longest (but gets narrowly beaten by The Girl) and dreams about his brother taking his clothes off.

In short, a considerable improvement on the last episode.

In all seriousness, this was a substantial improvement on the second episode. We didn’t get quite as much of the ‘follow your dreams’ shtick beaten down our throats anymore. OK there was still some of that, but considering that’s the entire point of the show, that’s to be expected. Instead we got more of how Mutta’s life until then has helped or hindered his prowess and progression through the JAXA programme. I genuinely did like the trick of Mutta being able to blow for so long (oh shut up you immature twat) because of his trumpet playing. My guess is the girl who beat him was a didgeridoo player so has mastered the skill of circular breathing. I’ve played a didgeridoo before. Well, ‘played’ meaning ‘made rasping noises down the pipe’, which is all there really is to it, but if you want to play it properly you have to master the skill of being able to breath in while also breathing out. Christ knows how you do it, but that’s why I’m not an astronaut.

It’s a good thing Mutta doesn’t get to read her diary. She ticks all the boxes so far. Fit, attractive, similar hobbies, a good blower, intelligent. The one area she lacks is her utterly banal existence. When one of the most important things she can add in her diary is how oishii~ her salad is, you do not have the most riveting thoughts worth sharing with the world. Then again, neither of them have actually said anything to each other, what Mutta’s only form of interaction being to gaze lovingly across a room full of sweaty men at her running and to occasionally blush. I suppose it’s for the best that he doesn’t talk to her. The guy gets flustered at the tiniest little thing. Don’t want his performance dropping further because he spends the entire exam replaying his last conversation with her over and over again in his head.

I should add again that these Space Bros posts will be short. I have to pace myself. I’ve already used up my quota of oral sex jokes.

BREAD

MUTHA FOOKIN BREAD

LIKE WOOOOOAAAAAHHH MAN, IT’S BREAD

Sorry, but when I reach the end of first impression posts, my brain starts to melt out of my ears as I struggle to come up with something new to say. Especially when it comes to something as utterly banal as BREAD: THE ANIMATION.

The story in BREAD: THE ANIMATION is about this guy called Rick. Everybody loves Rick because he has the best goddam BREAD in town. I’m not quite sure what it is he puts in his BREAD to make everyone so thrilled by it. Since everybody seems to be enraptured by the smell of them, so much so they can smell the bread from miles away, I’m going to assume the secret ingredient is petrol. That would also explain why the mental capacities of all the citizens in the town are damaged. The three girls who help him with that jaw dropping, drool inducing BREAD do not have the brain capacity between the three of them to outwit a hedgehog. They seem to only ever think about BREAD as well as how wonderful Rick is, mainly because he is the one with that delicious BREAD.

Not that the entire episode is of the main character and his three dimwitted lady friends carting his amazing BREAD around the town. Oh wait, yes it is! That’s the entire fucking episode. OK, so at one point they go into the forest, but they’re still delivering BREAD to everyone. They revitalise a wounded Precure plushy with some of Rick’s revitalising BREAD. They get really angry when an elf insults Rick’s awe-inspiring BREAD. Those girls got really pissy at that. They have been sampling large portions of Rick’s BREAD all their lives, so they know its glories more than any stupid elf. Also there was some other wolf girl or something, who also wanted some of Rick’s juicy BREAD, saying it’s nowhere near as good as the BREAD from the other person in town.

The only way I got through the anime without gnawing at my own arm was replacing the word BREAD with PENIS. I advise you to go back and re-read this post with that in mind.