Ani-Gamers

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Review
- Namedrops: Nintendo, Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, Super NES, Super Famicom. Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, Tadashi Sugiyama and Yasuhisa Yamamura, Phillips, Sony, Yoshi’s Island, Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
Twitter: Ani-Gamers
Twitch: David & Inaki
Mastodon: Evan
BlueSky: Evan, Inaki, Pat
Subscribe to Evan’s digital manga service Omoi (formerly Azuki).

The Rise and Rise of Fetish Scenarios in Mainstream Manga

Inaki — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

The past few years a friend of mine and I have been discussing the rise of the obvious fetish manga, where what is clearly and unambiguously an eromanga (erotic manga) premise is laundered into a fluffy, broadly acceptable mainstream manga with all of the H scenes taken out. There’s lots to choose from: My Girlfriend Is 8 Meters Tall, Monster Musume, My Wife Has No Emotions, Nagatoro-san, Plus Sized Elf, My Dress-Up Darling… Every time I bring this up with someone, they are able to add another handful I’d not heard of. I don’t think it is the most widespread, or even most notable, trend, being significantly overshadowed by others which are bigger and more popular. There is of course the continued popularity of isekai, and the rise of 2.5D theater productions to name just two. But as a lifelong anime and manga otaku with internet brain poisoning, the rise of whitewashed eromanga premises is a noticeable and persistent trend of the past perhaps 10-15 years, specifically. And that’s interesting! Part of the enjoyment of being an otaku, the thing that keeps people coming back all their lives, is the diversity of stories, and attendant variety of different perspectives and visual styles. But I’m curious as to what led us, as a culture, to this moment: what has allowed people to not only publish their obvious fetish material, with few (if any) adjustments or bowdlerization, but thrive doing it?

First I’d like to acknowledge that there was never a period where people weren’t turning their weird sex thing into art — whether they were obviously and intentionally doing so, or didn’t even notice that they were putting that into their works. Plenty of all-time classic works contain things that you really don’t even need a particularly close reading to interpret as fetish material (to say nothing of their private correspondence. Hi, James Joyce). But most often, those instances are coded, or incidental, or even unintentional. I don’t think anyone would call Gulliver’s Travels an intentionally size-difference fetish work, in spite of that being one of the main plot points of the story. And as much as the 1973 animated adaptation of Robin Hood launched a sexual revolution with its anthropomorphic characters, the truth is animals are just easier to stylize than humans: even more simply than that, it’s just fun, giving your animated work an interesting aesthetic texture it wouldn’t otherwise have. Ranma ½ is a manga famous for being a lot of people’s first exposure to complicated gender feelings, a series where the main character can effortlessly switch genders. But the living primordial goddess of manga that is Rumiko Takahashi seems almost baffled that anyone would read anything into this. When questioned regarding Ranma’s gender change, she always responds that it’s not worth thinking about, seemingly surprised that anyone would project gender politics onto it, and a little annoyed that she keeps getting asked. (I do think there’s a little bit of willful ignorance on Takahashi’s part — if you invent an intriguing scenario you can’t be surprised when people are intrigued by it). By contrast, there is no ambiguity about what the author, and audience, are there for if you read The Dangers in My Heart.

Creators have always had their more risqué stuff either hidden from the general public or published under a pseudonym. But in the digital age that line between the work you want to hide, or were traditionally supposed to keep hidden, has become increasingly flexible. People form niche communities around all sorts of things that a few short decades earlier it was impossible to form a community around. We’re all able to have frank discussions about our sexuality and our niche fetishes, and more equipped with the verbiage to do so. On top of that there are two factors working in favor of manga specifically: Japan’s long history of self-published works, and its encouragement of pseudonymity. It really does feel as if the walls have come down a great deal, and that pseudonymity lets people more fully express themselves without running the risk of getting stopped in the grocery store and asked if you’re the armpit fetish manga artist. And it can make the eternal task of building an audience and honing your craft online a little bit easier, in the same way people often are able to build on the popularity of drawing fan art for broadly popular series to having their own work published.

There is an argument to be made that it’s less revelatory than that. After all, there was never a time where creating a work wasn’t all about laundering your personal paraphilia and turning it into success, whether you had the knowledge and vocabulary to know you were doing it or not. We’ve already discussed Robin Hood. Furries, a longtime undeserved subculture punching bag, found common cause in bright, colorful worlds that transcended limited notions of human bodies as immutable and absolute. Many of the creators of these works were largely indifferent or openly hostile, having made cartoon animals simply because it was what they believed you were supposed to make cartoons about. Osamu Tezuka’s work is filled with weird fetish art (which is to say nothing of the sheer volume of erotic artwork found in his estate after his death), something that belies his status as Japanese baby boomers’ benign, kid-friendly adopted father. As the old joke goes, “if you have a fetish, you have a genre fiction novel.”

But of course, even with outliers like Star Wars or A Song of Ice and Fire that even your Ted Lasso-watching coworkers have heard of, genre fiction is mostly a niche interest. Famously, the commercial and cultural dominance of the MCU has not created legions of comic book lovers or science fiction die-hards, and the audience for the television adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire isn’t picking up Ursula Le Guin. By contrast, My Dress-Up Darling is published by pop culture juggernaut Square Enix under their manga imprint Gangan, and My Girlfriend Is 8 Meters Tall is published in fucking Shonen Jump — although it is exclusive to their Shonen Jump+ app, it shares that honor with bona fide hits like Spy x Family and Chainsaw Man (which is also not shy about being a sex manga for gross perverts). Those examples aren’t universal but even places outside of Japan have seen a massive growth in manga and anime fans in recent years, especially amongst young readers. I also think there is an intentionality to the recent crop of R18 manga turned non-R18 manga, and that intentionally differentiates it from all the times someone made a work where humans gets shrunk down. People know what they’re making and are happy to embrace it, and know their audience will as well.

Because it’s been such a gradual change, it’s hard to point to a patient zero, an inflection point where everything changed in an instant. Of course the ecchi manga of yesterday, titles like Harenchi Gakuen, have a way of seeming quaint and tame by modern standards. A work like Ichigo 100% blew my tiny mind as a teenager, in a way it simply can’t in 2026. Ghost in the Shell bent itself in knots to explain why only same-gender sex worked in its version of the internet, but the manga-ka Masamune Shirow was forced to sheepishly admit that he just didn’t want to draw a naked man (if only that had continued to be the case). Whereas in the horny VRMMO and isekai works of the modern day, being able to fuck in the digital world is a selling point. Perhaps the best example of time and tide changing for manga is the father-daughter manga-ka duo of Keisuke Itagaki, author of Baki the Grappler, and his daughter Paru Itagaki, most famous for Beastars. Whilst both the elder and younger Itagaki are famed for making unhinged and crazy works, Paru’s are a lot more focused and refined, with the touch that comes from finding a community of like-minded individuals. And it’s not a coincidence that Paru Itagaki is a digital native actively, clearly, and unabashedly influenced by internet culture and the universal language of being horny online.

So a lot of factors have brought us gradually to the point where giantess or vomit fetish manga is published in Shonen Jump. It’s building on the timeless tradition of artists making pornography intentionally, and all those many cases where they do so completely unintentionally. In our connected digital society, we’ve found community in niche interests, and we have the extant body of knowledge to identify and put it into words. Both creators and audiences, especially in Japan, are more familiar with and more accepting of laundered fetish premises, and the already existing Japanese culture of pen names and niche communities that has helped it grow. That’s the present, but I couldn’t guess as to the future. It’s possible that “laundered eromanga premise” will just be an identifiable story style going forward, or it may recede and become something for us to look back on fondly as an exemplar this moment in time. Perhaps with platforms increasingly and unfairly hostile to sexual expression it will fade in dominance, or perhaps that will only encourage people to take what was once a good old-fashioned porn premise and sand the edges down just a little. For now, it’s a fun trend and every example I see brings me joy at the limitless possibility of human expression.

I know there’s a lot, a lot, of examples I haven’t named, like Chinchin Devil wo Oe! or Super Weak Bladder Oshii-san, so feel free to mention me with your favorite examples.

Ani-Gamers Podcast #195 – CITY The Animation

Evan Minto — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 22:08:52 GMT

Evan and David are back for Evan’s review of CITY The Animation, the 2025 spiritual successor to Nichijou from the same manga author and studio: Keiichi Arawi and Kyoto Animation. Topics include: production perverts, the short round one and the tall lanky one, and crispy noodles.

Runtime: 1 hour, 7 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Review
- Namedrops: Kyoto Animation, Nichijou, Keiichi Arawi, Taichi Ishidate, Azumanga Daioh, The Daily Lives of High School Boys
Twitter: Ani-Gamers
Twitch: David & Inaki
Mastodon: Evan
BlueSky: Evan
Subscribe to Evan’s digital manga service Omoi (formerly Azuki).

Ani-Gamers Book Club #23 – Victoria of Many Faces

David Estrella — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:39:12 GMT

We are back at it again with the light novels in this fifth episode of AGBC Part V: The Reading Experience. This time, we’re reading Victoria of Many Faces, the story of a former spy trying to start a new life in another country. Topics include inevitable comparisons to Spy x Family, dissatisfaction in the workplace, and Italian grandmothers. Post in the Discord or pop off in the comments below on anything and everything AGBC and maybe we’ll talk about it on the next episode.

Runtime: 54 minutes

Staff Picks: The Best Anime of 2025

David Estrella — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 09:00:00 GMT

We’re back with our second Staff Picks post, following up our video games list with the best anime of 2025!

This year we had a bit of an accidental theme of our contributors trying out series and movies that they didn’t think they’d like, only to come away pleasantly surprised! Who says you can’t teach old dogs new tricks? Keep reading for our full lists, featuring smash-hit action movies, contemplative sci-fi stories, and the triumphant return of some industry luminaries.

David Estrella

#3: Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX

Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX is this year’s hyped-up Gundam release, notable for being a collaborative effort between Sunrise and Studio Khara. The project is overstuffed with important names and talent, promising the world and delivering on almost none of the expectations people had walking in. Basically everyone that likes Gundam did not enjoy this one but I thought it was great, if just to witness the temerity of the meta-narrative challenging the sanctity of the text of original Gundam. More than anything that GQuuuuuuX actually managed to accomplish, I love the idea of the work fighting with the source material in an effort to make something new even while actively crumbling under the weight of legacy. This is the kind of train wreck I enjoy watching, one that I’ll remember long after people move on to grumbling about the next big disappointing thing.

#2: Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

Chainsaw Man the Movie: Reze Arc is the follow-up to MAPPA’s TV adaptation of the hit manga published in Shonen Jump. It’s both a dumb, loud action flick and a tragic love story between a horny dumbass and a totally normal coffeeshop girl that likes him back for real. I went to see it twice and I would have gone three times but the theater cancelled my screening at the last minute. The Reze movie is everything I wanted out of a big-screen adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s weirdo sex pervert manga. Every extra embellishment is earned and deserved, leaving no question about whether or not the anime could do justice to the original manga.

#1: The Colors Within

I’m an easy mark for films about music so when I heard that Naoko Yamada had a new work coming out, I was immediately onboard. It’s been a long time since the K-On! TV series and as much as things have changed over the years, everything about the film felt “right” without leaning into nostalgia. Science Saru steps in for Kyoto Animation on this story about three teenagers from drastically different backgrounds meeting by chance and forming a band to play at a school festival. Countless small actions and events lead up to the climactic performance, ending with the kind of energy that makes one want to run out of the theater and start a band that same day.

Inaki

#3: Medalist

I’ve dabbled in sports anime before but I’ve never considered it a genre I’m well versed in, or even one I seek out. Of everything I watched this year, Medalist surprised me for how quickly and how deeply it sucked me in. I burned through all of it as quickly as possible and am stuck here waiting for the new series. The TV anime pacing, the long stretches of building up tension and then relieving it, are addictive and the characters are extremely likeable and fun. Sometimes you end up in a hobby with a bunch of strangers you might not otherwise have any reason to talk to, something Medalist nails that I can’t remember seeing anywhere else.

Sports anime tends to be hyper youth-focused but part of the charm of Medalist is in its cast being in very different stages of their lives, from the young main cast to former Olympians whose heyday is decades in the past. Even in 2025, cuteness is justice: かわいいは、正義.

#2: Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

I will die with criticism of erstwhile sex pervert and manga-ka Tatsuki Fujimoto still on my lips, but sometimes the biggest, loudest, most anticipated work of the year is actually just that fucking good. I went to go see this film on something of a lark, quickly getting caught up on the manga the day before heading to the cinema, and fell for the film body and soul. This is a running theme in my Staff Picks this year but having seen it, I now totally get it. This film is genuinely amazing, and the film adaptation manages to cover many of Fujimoto’s deficiencies as a creator (even where it adds in some of its own — I will never forgive adding a spider catching a butterfly to the otherwise amazing pool sequence). It packs so much in that I was convinced it was an adaptation of at least one or two entire tankobon and was shocked to go back to the manga and find out it was only a couple of chapters.

It’s amazing that I also got to go see this in the cinema, a world I could only dream of in the recent past. A wonderful reminder of why we fell in love with anime and never left, not just the tits and blood but the artistry, the level of craft you can’t see anywhere else.

#1: Apocalypse Hotel

The best TV anime of this year, a hauntingly beautiful meditation on life in the 21st century that sits at the intersection of capitalism, environmental anxiety, COVID trauma, and resurgent multiculturalism. It uses its science fiction trappings to explore finding your sense of self in a broken world, in the powerfully understated way that is quintessentially Japanese. Every episode has a new, unexpected direction for the show to go in and all of them are beautiful. Apocalypse Hotel also contains some of the most gorgeous cuts of animation I’ve seen in recent memory: I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen anything this year that affected me more than the show’s opening.

Watching Apocalypse Hotel put me through a wide spectrum of emotions, from genuine horror and dread with deep roots in real-world anxieties to simple joy to the gentle acceptance of time’s relentless march. A work that will enter your blood and never leave it.

Evan Minto

#3: CITY the Animation

Kyoto Animation is back with their first non-sequel production since the arson attack that took the lives of 36 staff members at the studio in 2019. CITY adapts the comedy manga of the same name by Keiichi Arawi, creator of one of the studio’s most recognizable productions: Nichijou. And a spiritual successor to Nichijou this certainly is, with the same quirky sense of humor and penchant for drawn-out, hyper-dramatized gags, though this time the cast has widened to include a lot of adult characters and a lot fewer high schoolers. The real star of the show, however, is the art and animation. CITY’s characters and backgrounds are drawn with flat colors and thick lines, and the show is almost entirely devoid of complex post-production effects like lens flares. Instead, KyoAni sets about meticulously recreating the feeling of a hand-drawn marker illustration, complete with hatching to render shading, depth, and even blur. And as good as CITY looks in still-frame, it absolutely sings in motion, bringing Arawi’s designs to life with beautifully expressive character animation in every shot, without fail. CITY is worth the price of admission for the art alone.

#2: Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

I had some gripes with the first Chainsaw Man season back in 2022, which I enjoyed despite it not fully capturing Tatsuki Fujimoto’s zany, punk-rock sensibilities. The Reze movie gets considerably closer to what I love about the original manga while adapting one of the best arcs in the series. Denji’s in love once again, this time with sweet high school girl Reze. But as their budding relationship kicks into gear, our horny teenage protagonist learns a lesson that’s central to the whole series: ”everybody wants Chainsaw Man’s heart, but nobody wants Denji’s heart.” To its credit, Reze Arc spends an inordinate amount of time on human drama, building up the romance and eroticism of Denji and Reze’s connection with sensitivity and a steadily rising sense of dread. And when the big moment hits, the movie explodes — literally. The final hour is a nonstop barrage of blistering fight scenes, propelled by director Tatsuya Yoshihara’s (Yatterman Night) impeccable sense of timing. The Bomb Devil is a terrifying sight, capable of nearly instantaneously exploding anything nearby, and the finale has a real sense of stakes and impact. And to my delight, we get some of the splashes of color and looser, more expressive animation that Chainsaw Man always deserved. If this is the trajectory the anime is on, we’re in for a real treat in the coming years.

#1: New Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt

To start with, a disclaimer: I’m friends with a few folks at Studio Trigger, so it’s a little hard for me to be totally unbiased here. That said, is it any surprise that New Panty & Stocking is my Anime of the Year? The maniacs at my favorite anime studio finally got the rights to make a sequel to one of their most beloved shows and put the full force of the studio behind it. New Panty & Stocking picks up right where the original series left off (five minutes later to be precise). After a rollicking first episode that quickly and hilariously dispenses with the first season’s non-sequitur ending, the new series delivers episode after episode of massive flexes in both concept and execution. A whole episode animated like ’60s superhero cartoons and Jack Kirby comics! An uncle-themed collectible card game featuring the rare “Blue Eyes White Uncle”! A semen-themed Fast and the Furious parody! The team constantly experiments with the show’s visual style, showcasing work from Trigger’s stable of world-class animators and directors, from veterans like Yoh Yoshinari (Little Witch Academia) to rising stars like Kai Ikarashi (director of the upcoming Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2). No anime I watched this year was as consistently surprising or made me laugh as much as New Panty & Stocking.

Patrick Sutton

#3: Momentary Lily (Episode 1)

I was in Japan when the first episode of Momentary Lily aired and just happened to catch it live with my friend Tom Aznable. It was an unforgettable experience of shock and horror as Tom was exposed to the majesty of GoHands for the first time. I haven’t had that much fun watching a single episode of anime in a long time. It was great to see GoHands firing on all cylinders with weird angles and insane spaghetti hair once again. Do I recommend the show to folks? Not really, but that first episode is definitely a future anime con room party crowd-pleaser.

#2: CITY The Animation

I adore Kyoto Animation and Keiichi Arawi so I was excited to see what they could do together for the adaptation of Arawi’s comic CITY. They knocked it out of the park with one of the most imaginative and incredibly animated series in years. There’s at least one segment in every episode that will blow your mind. The colors are wonderful and vibrant. The show is just full of charm and made me happy to watch it every week.

#1: Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl

Yasuomi Umetsu is back baby. The legendary animator and director known for Kite and Mezzo has finally returned with a new “series” and it ruled. Virgin Punk is the story of a young woman working as a bounty hunter who gets tied up with Umetsu’s creepiest creeper villain yet. This first “movie” was only 30 minutes but it was all killer no filler. Umetsu proved that he still has it with fantastic action choreography, animation, and direction. The story still has his signature skeeviness that might turn some off but it’s not as bad as some of his previous works. It’s supposed to be a series and ends on a cliffhanger but the supplemental materials that played after the screening didn’t fill me with confidence that we’ll be seeing the rest anytime soon, if ever.

Check out our video game picks and look out for our “Everything Else” (all of our non-anime/game picks) on Patreon in the coming days!

Staff Picks: The Best Video Games of 2025

David Estrella — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 09:28:36 GMT

Here it is, the first of our end-of-year Best of lists! This year we’re once again doing three lists: video games, anime, and “everything else” (movies, music, etc.), with the everything else list available exclusively on our Patreon. Manga once again didn’t make the cut, since our team members didn’t read enough new manga and Evan still runs a manga publisher, putting him out of the running.

For our first list we’re covering video games! Nintendo nabs a few solid spots on our lists as always, particularly one ape who had a good year in 2025. Plus retro remakes and sequels, indie darlings, and unique mechanics experiments. Read on for the full list!

David Estrella

#3: Silent Hill f

I don’t know about this one, I’m only three hours in but I need three picks and this is one of the only 2025 titles I got the chance to play. Sure looks real pretty, although this combat is only slightly less janky than Silent Hill (1999). I’ll definitely finish it! In 2026!

#2: Pokémon Legends: Z-A

Forget Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. Only the Legends spin-off line of Pokémon games is keeping the promise of decent games alive for the franchise. After Legends: Arceus took us back to the nascent years of Pokémon training in a pre-Sinnoh civilization, Legends: Z-A brings us to present-day Lumiose City, a place that only feels vaguely familiar to the Lumiose from 2013’s Pokémon X and Y. Incredibly, this is the first instance of real-time battling in Pokémon, and while I’ll always hold turn-based combat close to my heart, it feels good to play a Pokémon game that’s trying something new without all the technical issues and overall lack of polish that plagued Scarlet and Violet. It’s a wonderful feeling to renew my faith in the series when it seemed like everything good ended with the death of the 3DS.

#1: Beyond Citadel

Beyond Citadel is the sequel to The Citadel (2020), a Japanese ero-guro indie boomer shooter that melds a cyberpunk anime aesthetic with the twitchy classics of yesteryear. Beyond is a massive rehaul of the basic design of Citadel, expanding and improving on just about every facet of the original. The story is an absolutely bonkers riff on an End of Eva-esque post-apocalyptic future where humanity has nearly been wiped out in the war between angels and demons. While the script is occasionally marred by some iffy translations, you won’t be reading as much as you’ll be shooting, running, and frantically trying to remember how to manually reload and cock your guns. Developer doekuramori put their heart and soul into this game, as it holds a remarkably deep level of polish and a commitment to an artistic vision that won’t be for everyone but deserves to find its audience.

Inaki

#3: Casting Whispers

With a lot of independent games, finding a way to get them out to people remains challenging. For Casting Whispers, a Youtuber I like did a voice in this game, and I don’t know that I would have played it without Greg making me aware of it. A very engaging first person horror game that uses every trick in the book to make you feel like you’re fighting to make progress. The central mechanic of closing the player character’s eyes to listen more intently is something I’m shocked hasn’t been more widely explored, and the use of it in Casting Whispers seems to barely scratch the surface of its possibilities.

I also like that it manages to circumvent many of the things I like the least about the cosmic horror genre, which is no small feat. It put me into a paranoid state of mind where I was questioning everything about what had been presented to me. There are some rough edges and annoying bugs, not unheard of in any game especially small indie releases, but also I was so drawn into the world of the game I was trying to figure out if it was doing it on purpose or not.

#2: Deltarune Chapter 3 and 4

Delta FREAKING Rune, baby. Although Undertale will feature in the first line of Tobias’ obituary, Deltarune might be his actual magnum opus. A richly textured experience where every little part of it brims with personality, filled with fun little interactions, gorgeous art and the solidest of rock-solid game design fundamentals. Deltarune responds to your desire to dig into its corners for secrets like no other game, while scratching the itch for the turn-based RPGs with larger-than-life stories people yearn for. Where Undertale was largely about video games itself, the tropes and fascinations common to the medium, Deltarune exists in the shadow of crumbled economic prosperity and the stifling weight of other people’s expectations, intensely focused on trying to carve your own identity and navigating mirrors within mirrors within mirrors.

Many people self-identify as a “gamer” as an important cornerstone of their identity, and none of them love the rich history of the interactive medium or are as intimately knowledgeable about it as Toby Fox. There was a moment where I was streaming this game and said offhandedly “this level is really good” and friend of the show Billy Denton simply said “we got him.” It took a clear decade but I am finally completely on board with Tobias.

#1: Öoo

Close your eyes, and imagine the platonic ideal, the broadest, most foundational stereotype of a Japanese indie game.

Congratulations, you just envisioned Öoo, an idiosyncratic pixel art puzzle game made in GameMaker with an amazing soundtrack. After months of being told that I needed to play this little game, I was absolutely disgusted to realize everyone was completely right about it being a masterpiece and promptly became an evangelist myself. You hate to see it.

Öoo is a deceptively simple puzzle game, where a lot of the solutions are gated behind your ability to understand (and your experience with) video game puzzles. Every solution makes you go “oh, yeah of course!” in a perfectly satisfying lightglobe moment of contentment. Öoo isn’t the interactive medium at its most complex, it certainly isn’t video games at its most emotionally engaging, but it might be the purest expression of what makes games eternally fascinating. It is perfect, it could not be a better expression of itself. I think this $15 game is a masterpiece and you should download and play it right now.

Evan Minto

#3: Blue Prince

Another roguelite deckbuilder?! Kind of. Blue Prince looks like one and indeed plays like one, in that you spend each run building out a mansion using room tiles drawn from a random pool. But the trick is that the roguelite mechanics are just the surface of the game. In fact, Blue Prince is an intricate clockwork puzzle, more akin to an escape room than something like Balatro. Building never-before-seen rooms gives you an opportunity to read scrawled text on memo pads or emails that read like mere flavor text, all of which provide hidden clues that make sense only when paired with clues from other rooms. One hint early on encourages players to keep a physical notepad; it’s not a mere suggestion, it’s practically required to roll credits, let alone reach 100%. Blue Prince is at its best when you’re scribbling down nonsense into your notepad like a madman, constructing theories that sound insane right up until you get the final clue that puts everything into place. It’s a shame that the aggressive roguelite RNG can sometimes get in the way of the sublime sense of discovery, but my copious pages of notes should be evidence enough that Blue Prince is worth your time.

#2: Öoo

Öoo is the most bang for my buck I got in 2025. Clocking in at just three and a half hours by my count, this is a minimalist 2-D puzzle platformer inspired by the likes of VVVVVV that similarly pares down its gameplay to a single mechanic. In Öoo you play as a little guy (indie games, am I right?) who can drop a bomb with one button and detonate it with the other. (The only upgrade Öoo offers is a second bomb about a third of the way through, and let me tell you, it’s quite a big deal.) Bombs can destroy obstacles and launch your character across the screen, serving simultaneously as attack, jump, and dash. The game is a masterclass in player education, with nearly every challenge serving as an incremental lesson in how to use your bombs. I would occasionally hit a dead end only to return later and discover that I didn’t need an upgrade (a la Metroid), I just needed a technique that I learned in a different room. All with no dialog and no instructions! Top it off with charming pixel art graphics and an earworm of a soundtrack and you’ve got an indie platformer classic.

#1: Donkey Kong: Bananza

Take Super Mario Odyssey and swap out jumping and block-breaking with smashing. Like, a lot of smashing. Donkey Kong is back for his first game developed at Nintendo since 2004’s Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and it’s a delight. You traverse a series of sprawling subterranean worlds, freely destroying nearly anything in the environment as you go. Just like in Odyssey, there are rewards and mini puzzles scattered throughout every world, creating an addictive game loop of finding new stuff, spotting your next goal, and getting right back into it, all while picking up new upgrades and learning how to make the best use of DK’s array of expressive movement abilities. All the while, your sidekick Pauline (yes, the same one, just younger now!) acts as an adorable hype woman and support character, a welcome infusion of charm to a game about smashing rocks. There’s been a lot of frustration from certain corners of the Internet about the Breath of the Wild-ification of Nintendo’s library of franchises (this year also saw the release of the open-world Mario Kart World), but I’ve got no complaints here. Bananza’s world is vibrant and constantly engaging in a way few open-world games manage to pull off. Welcome back DK.

Patrick Sutton

#3: Donkey Kong Bananza

Oh Banana! I loved Super Mario Odyssey when it came out and was eagerly awaiting the follow up from that team. They did not disappoint. Bananza takes the open stage concept from Odyssey and points it down as Donkey Kong smashes everything in his sight to get back his bananas.

#2: Dragon Quest 1&2 HD2D

Did you think this wouldn’t make my list? Dragon Quest is a constant obsession for me. It never turns off in my head and this new era of DQ remakes has been great. The first and second games are classics and very important to Japanese gaming history and returning to them again has been a lot of fun. Part of what made this experience special is the way Square Enix handled the Erdrick trilogy this time around. Dragon Quest 3, which received a remake last year, is a prequel to 1 and 2 and for these new remakes they designed them with this play order in mind. There are additions to 1 and 2 that help them feel more connected to 3. They add a little extra charm to the games, especially 1 which is a pretty thin game on its own, considering its age. They’ve also made some welcome changes to systems from the DQ3 remake; you can turn off all of the new assist options such as quest markers and healing on level up. While some might not mind these changes, they did make 3 much easier, so the ability to turn them off is great. I love Dragon Quest, it brings me so much joy, and I hope others give these games a try. Now it’s time to rest until the DQ7 remake drops next year.

#1: Night Striker Gear

The video game wizards at M2 conjured up a sequel to the Taito arcade classic Night Striker and they managed to make a game truly worthy of the title. Night Striker is an absolute masterpiece arcade game. Think space harrier but you’re controlling a Blade Runner car with rad sprite scaling graphics and a classic Zuntata soundtrack. Gear takes everything that made it cool but now the car can transform into a robot! Gear is such an interesting game. It’s clearly a love letter to a very specific gaming experience (M2 also released an excellent port of the original Night Striker this year), but it mixes in some design concepts from shmups that add a little more variety to play. There are much heavier bullet patterns for bosses that you need to pay close attention to and enemy swarms have bright red leaders that you can target to wipe out the group. Gear, like much of M2’s original output, feels like a game that shouldn’t exist and yet it does. Go play it, and if you know someone with a Cyber Stick make sure to try it that way.

Look out for our anime and everything else lists in the coming days!

Double Decker: Doug & Kirill

Evan Minto — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 09:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Anime Secret Santa, a gift exchange — founded by our friends at Reverse Thieves and currently run by the Taiiku Podcast — where the gifts are anime review recommendations.

Unless you’re a real seasonal anime sicko or a fan of the superhero anime Tiger & Bunny, you probably haven’t heard of Double Decker: Doug & Kirill, let alone watched it. A 2018 spiritual successor to Sunrise’s 2011 series Tiger & Bunny, Double Decker maintains that show’s buddy action-comedy formula, albeit with a cop show spin this time around. It was never as popular as Tiger & Bunny, and when it cropped up on my Secret Santa’s list of recommendations I barely remembered having heard of it.

As I’m neither a Tiger & Bunny fan nor a sicko — or at least not one of the correct variety — I knew going in that I wasn’t likely to enjoy Double Decker all that much. But Anime Secret Santa is all about being open minded so here goes!

The titular Kirill Vrubel is a dim-witted but enthusiastic beat cop in the future city of Lisvaletta whose primary goal in life is to “become a hero.” He gets his chance during a hostage situation where he meets our other title character, Doug Billingham. In contrast to Kirill’s impulsivity and childish dreams, Doug is a laconic detective burnt out from a long crime-fighting career. The two pull off an unlikely victory, nabbing Kirill a spot in Doug’s anti-drug unit Seven-O. From there the show settles into a series of procedural episodes as the team tracks the dealers and users of a dangerous illegal drug called Anthem that grants its users extraordinary abilities.

A text synopsis doesn’t capture the other important feature of Double Decker: that these are some pretty boys, and this is most certainly a show targeted at the largely female core fanbase of Tiger & Bunny. (One can’t help but wonder whether “Double Decker” refers only to Seven-O’s two-man buddy system, as stated in the show, or something a bit more intimate.) Kirill is slender and effeminate, to the point of being repeatedly mistaken for a woman, while Doug fits into a more masculine “cool guy” archetype. There’s a large female supporting cast as well — the majority of Seven-O are women in fact — and zero fanservice whatsoever involving any of the women. Though there are some moments featuring the boys, including a gag in the first episode where Kirill goes commando. For the mission of course!

All this is to say it’s not exactly a show for fans of hard-boiled detective stories. Early on Double Decker’s narrator cuts in to make fun of Kirill and comment on the show’s tropes, the first of many fourth-wall-breaking asides that litter the show. That’s all well and good, and some of them are pretty funny! But the series never settles into a good comedic rhythm. It semi-frequently dips back into dramatic material about the impact of Anthem on its unsuspecting victims or characters’ backstories, only to undercut the drama with a joke.

Kirill is usually the butt of those jokes, but the “Kirill’s an idiot” gag can only carry the comedy so far, and the rest of the cast rarely elicits more than a light chuckle. There are occasional moments that pull off a good laugh, like an episode in the latter half of the series where Kirill reveals he’s secretly the author of an influential academic paper on Anthem, much to the chagrin of his condescending coworkers. Doug and Kirill have a proper level of personality contrast, with Kirill chasing after the cool and collected Doug like a loyal puppy, but the chemistry never quite arrives, even in the finale when I would expect this kind of show to focus on their growth as partners.

Sunrise’s production is mediocre all around. Fight scenes are minimally animated and perfunctory, the cast members occasionally appear off-model, and — most egregiously of all — hand-drawn characters are frequently replaced with CG models, even when they’re just standing around. I suspect this has to do with the costume designs, which consist of tacky, over-designed, and brightly colored battle jackets worn by the Seven-O team. It’s possible the designs were too much for the team to properly draw week after week on a tight schedule, forcing them to resort to jarring CG replacements.

It all comes off as a bit half-baked. When the series exits its procedural formula to gear up for a climactic ending, it stuffs multiple ludicrous twists into the span of three episodes, including a last-minute villain swap. This leaves the story with no time to establish tone or build up stakes, and ironically makes it more absurd than dramatic, at precisely the point when Double Decker is finally demanding to be taken seriously. Series writer Tomohiro Suzuki has an impressive pedigree, writing scripts for series like Frieren and ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Department, but this is one of his first original series, and it shows in the sloppy pacing and inconsistent tone.

Double Decker isn’t really made for me in the first place, but even so, this is a real disappointment. More than anything else it’s a vehicle for its two main boys, and your enjoyment will hinge on whether you find their not-quite-a-couple dynamic charming and their character designs appealing. Beyond that it doesn’t really work as either a self-aware genre parody or a cyberpunk police procedural, and suffers for trying to be both of them at the same time.

Oldtaku no Radio #063 – Ghost Cat Anzu

Ink — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:11:20 GMT

Dropping in for a holiday visit to take part in Anime Secret Santa, Jared and Ink of Oldtaku no Radio talk about the 2024 movie, Ghost Cat Anzu. The movie, based off of a manga by Takashi Imashiro, focuses on a tween, Karen (#NotThatKaren), who is taken away from the city by her widower father and dropped off at a rural temple tended by her grandfather. The movie deals with the processing of loss and grief via a sense of sympathy as well as a nostalgia for youthful mischief, bolstered by supernatural elements, and makes fantastic use of ishōtenketsu structure to nail its finale.

Direct Download – RSS Feed – Spotify – Stitcher – Google Play: Music – iTunes – Send us Feedback! – More episodes

Runtime: 1 hour, 9 minutes

Show Notes

Episode edited by Ink
- (Ink’s computer was dying, so he apologizes for some of his choppier bits)
The Review: Ghost Cat Anzu
- Name drops: co-directors Yoko Kuno (Linda, Linda, Linda) and Nobuhiro Yamashita (The Case of Hana & Alice, select Crayon Shin-Chan movies)
- Ghost Cat Anzu can be streamed via HBO Max and has a North American physical release via GKIDS
Socials: Jared, Ink

Ani-Gamers Podcast #194 – Switch 2 and Mario Kart World

Evan Minto — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 21:31:55 GMT

In this episode recorded shortly after the release of the Switch 2, Evan and David review their new consoles and the launch title Mario Kart World. How does the Switch 2 measure up against its predecessor, and is Mario Kart World enough of a departure from the formula to warrant a sequel to the definitive Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? Topics include: “the bullet bill is also my stand,” Grand Theft Kart, and donkloadable content.

Runtime: 1 hour, 9 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Review
- Namedrops: Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 2DS, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Donkey Kong Bananza, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Metroid Prime 4, Megaman X4.
Twitter: Ani-Gamers
Twitch: David & Inaki
Mastodon: Evan
BlueSky: Evan
Subscribe to Evan’s digital manga service Omoi (formerly Azuki).

Ani-Gamers Podcast #193 – UFO 50

Evan Minto — Tue, 07 Oct 2025 19:01:53 GMT

Evan and Inaki dig into ALL FIFTY games from last year’s retro-styled indie darling UFO 50, from Barbuta to Cyber Owls. Strap in, it’s a long one. Topics include: demakes, From Software’s Dark Souls (of course), and Nintendo Hard.

Runtime: 2 hours, 13 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Review
- Name drops: Nintendo, NES/Famicom, SNES/Super Famicom, Into the Breach, Splatoon, PacMan, Metroid, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Civilization, SEGA, Nights into Dreams, WindJammers, MarioKart, Crazy Taxi, Balatro, Metal Storm, Super Smash Bros., Towerfall Ascension, Wizardry, Ghosts and Goblins (Makaimura), Final Fantasy, Maniac Mansion, Stardew Valley, Harvest Moon, Metal Gear.
Twitter: Ani-Gamers
Twitch: David & Inaki
Mastodon: Evan
BlueSky: Evan
Subscribe to Evan’s digital manga service Azuki.

Despite Everything, It’s Still Toby

Inaki — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 20:46:49 GMT

He’s in the house-like carpet.

You do not need me to explain to you what Undertale is. Over the past 10 years the modern classic by the enigmatic Toby Fox has gone from surprise indie success to foundational pillar of interactive media. And Undertale really is rightly revered as one of the all-time greats, and I’m certain it will be a cultural touchstone for generations to come. A full decade on, we still live in the world that Fox created, and it leaves a fascinating cultural legacy: both for what it was able to achieve as a work and for its impact on the ever-evolving beast that is modern fandom. So what is it about Toby Fox, and his art, and his collaborators, and the way he approaches making a video game that struck such a chord with people? Why is this small indie game by a dedicated team in the cultural conversation with billion-dollar juggernauts like Fortnite and Elden Ring? Why do we still live in the shadow of Toby Fox?

The first and most obvious thing about the enduring popularity of both Undertale and Deltarune is that purely as video games, they are immensely rewarding and deeply satisfying to play. They are so, so much more than the sum of their parts: as a player, you’re constantly pressing at the edges of the experience and looking for feedback, something to further immerse you in the game. When people talk about a video game being “very video game-y,” it’s normally because it’s a hodgepodge of systems and ideas laid over each other that don’t harmonize into a greater whole. Loot systems, multiple in-game currencies, crafting, leveling up, different types of monetization, all with a UI designed in the ninth circle of hell. But when I say that about Undertale and Deltarune, I mean that in the best possible way, because it rewards interaction and exploration like few others.

Undertale and Deltarune are full to bursting with little interactions, whether that’s nibbling on a plot thread that unravels later, a different dialogue choice for completing a task a different way, or just a fun little joke. I know Undertale was a lot of people’s first big, important video game, and I bet for very few of them it was their last. You can easily see what sucked people in and compelled them to go through every little part of the game for scraps of dialogue, unique interactions and hints at the games’ more hidden narratives. The central gameplay mechanic that combines twitchy, shmup projectile avoidance with classic RPG turn-based combat is inspired. What’s more is that both games are constantly coming up with new riffs on it to keep you engaged, managing to easily find the flow state between reaching mastery of the mechanics and having to overcome a challenge. And every area, every segment lasts just precisely long enough so you don’t get bored or sick of it, with every item, every attack fine-tuned to add a little to the experience.

A large part of Undertale and Deltarune’s ability to be such exemplars of the form with such a small team is the iconic lo-fi pixel aesthetic and tightly honed mechanics. To contextualize Undertale, by 2015 disarmingly earnest pixel art RPGs had become something of a cliche as the default indie game style. This is both because that was (and remains) a big inspiration on game developers, but also because it was (and remains) easy to work with on an indie developer’s scale and budget. Which is to say, by 2015 people were already pretty tired of it being the default indie game style and aesthetic, even and especially people who grew up loving Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy and of course, Earthbound.

This fatigue had set in even for an audience who also loved indie games. Undertale can only be understood as a part of that era of indie games, even as its style, humor and the execution of its themes managed to drastically set it apart from its contemporaries. It isn’t a long RPG or the most mechanically diverse, but it is very highly refined because its scale allowed Fox and his collaborators to do so. Jesse Faden’s hair alone in Control is likely more graphically intensive than every asset in Undertale and Deltarune combined (which isn’t a criticism of Remedy, I think Control is a fantastic game). Any indie developer will tell you that they did not make their game in a vacuum, that everyone who contributed was an invaluable part of finishing the game. Game devs, artists of any medium really, often take time to point out that everyone involved in the creation process was important, from primary care givers up to the barista who let you sit there for four hours on one cup of coffee every day. On that note, Temmie Chang’s character animations really stand out, in how she finds the precise angle to give Ralsei’s eyes a look of worry, or Toriel’s perfect, gentle, motherly movement, or giving Sans an air of menace.

I probably should talk about the music which is cited as a highlight of the series, but honestly is probably the thing about Toby Fox’s work that I’m the least fond of. I do think he can be great at writing catchy melodies, but often his work doesn’t resolve in a way I find satisfactory. Fox also has a tendency to kitchen sink seven or eight musical ideas into a single piece of music, which can work well but tends not to to be to my taste. For example I’m a huge, huge fan of Maribako, but that particular track also has the vtuber Houshou Marine’s personality and singing to tie it together. It’s less to my taste in Megalovania, which has all of Fox’s biggest and best ideas from when he wrote in high school, but which I wish was structured and constructed to be more interesting, and I really do not find any of the melodies memorable (I think there’s a reason the famous part of Megalovania is the arpeggiated scale at the beginning and none of the actual melodies of the song). Fox is also famous for his love of the leitmotif, a beloved video game staple as old as the medium itself. Even with all the negative things I’ve said about his music, I do enjoy his implementation of the leitmotif. In Fox’s work it doesn’t simply announce a character’s arrival but moves and changes with story beats, reflecting the journey of the characters in a way that’s genuinely engaging. But I still think Fox working under constraints such as a 90-second battle theme loop brings out the best in him, and my favorite track of his ever is probably still Spider Dance, as basic of a pick as that is.

All of the above is pretty obvious and well-remarked upon about the games, and if that was all there was it would probably still be a beloved modern classic. A large part of being able to execute those more material aspects of the game like systems and animation is that Fox is a true video game scholar, a lover of the medium and believer in its potential who is excited to share that love and pass it on in his own work. And it’s not surprising that a person who loves video games, who is highly literate in video games, would then make a career making video games about the voluminous, overflowing potential of video games. But of course the special spice that continues to set both Undertale and Deltarune apart is narrative, a narrative that impressively weaves every system in the games into it. Undertale’s famous multiple endings play out according to how you resolve combat, its most difficult and most famous one reserved for killing every single creature in the game. It is also a twist that did not work on me, largely because by the time I got around to playing Undertale it was perhaps the most spoiled video game in history. That might have lessened the impact of figuring it out for myself but did not really dull any of the good things about it. And also both games are filled to bursting with heavy foreshadowing, with dire warnings about the consequences of your actions and hints for those who are paying attention.

So the big question you see asked is this: Has Undertale’s seemingly relentless pacifism aged poorly? When it was released in 2015, the world was increasingly simmering under political tension but had yet to boil over into the horrible nonstop hell reality we live in currently. But Undertale perfectly met that moment and the ones to come after it because Fox set out to and succeeded (with the help of everyone on the team!) to make a work that was of and about our world, that centered conflict both as an abstract concept and as a consequential reality. Every part of Undertale serves this singular purpose, demonstrating a unified whole that belies the many unique interactions and different things it is possible to do mechanically and in the narrative of the game. And, I think it’s a mistake to say that Undertale is about relentless pacifism at all costs. Its central theme is not that the answer to conflict is to simply accept ill treatment until your tormentor finally sees you as a fully realized consciousness, just as they see themselves. Instead it’s about cycles of conflict, where the player is thrown into a situation not of your own creation, and then needs to carve out an existence for yourself. You are presented with several different ideologies on the nature of the world and then have to find a way to break the cycles of conflict, find answers to problems, listen to people and be better than the circumstances you find yourself in.

In the true ending, you are forced to fight and defeat the game’s ultimate antagonist Flowey, in a sequence break aesthetically and mechanically from the rest of the game. You do not not love Flowey into submission as he realizes of his own accord that conflict is wrong. In that context it would be really silly for Deltarune to reverse course on this, to say that suddenly violence is good if it’s for a righteous cause, and indeed the game does not double back on anything in Undertale. If you’re looking for a reason as to Undertale’s enduring popularity, it’s not just pure game design or the equally ambitious narrative design, or even the art style. It’s all of these things in a fully realized whole. And the fact that there’s nothing like it, there’s only one and only ever will be one Undertale. You could go boot up Dragon Quest right now and grind slimes ‘til your heart’s content, and Fox would undoubtedly sit on the sofa next to you and talk about how much he loves it and the impact it had on him. But despite its popularity there wasn’t a wave of painfully earnest dad-joke infused games about conflicts, there’s just the one.

I don’t think absolute refusal to discuss your work is a virtue necessarily. I get a little tired of people lionizing David Lynch for it, to pick just one example. Artists talking about their work often provides valuable insight or context, and I think it’s especially important in the present where every single day feels like a media cycle of both endless promotion and endless damage control. But I do actually find Fox’s refusal to answer questions about the themes and ideas of his games very compelling. Because what is he going to say to decode them further? He’s right, all of their themes and ideas are easily within reach, unhidden and unambiguous when you play both Undertale and Deltarune. His work speaks for itself.

When I say we live in the world Undertale created, it’s because it stands alone. Part of the reason for its enduring popularity is its anti-conflict message which was timely and prescient in 2015 has only gotten more needful in the intervening years. It’s easy to get tired of a fandom, and even Fox has talked about Undertale’s inevitable oversaturation. However an annoying fandom is temporary but a classic work is forever. Undertale is deservedly popular 10 years later for how it inspired people, to take up game development or music or something other art, to look at their favorite works more critically, to make porn (and yes that is an important legacy in 2025 and go fuck yourself if you believe otherwise), the fact that I am going to see Sans graffiti-ed on bare walls and Photoshopped as a character into whatever game is currently popular until I’m dead. It is an immensely complete work that matches and continues to meet the times that we live in. Although I still don’t understand why Alphys’ role in horrible crimes goes unaddressed in the game.

I’ll admit I came to Toby Fox late; I first played Undertale and Deltarune in 2024, long after the concrete had set and enshrined these games as cultural touchstones. I have no excuse for buying in at the time other than my less-than-admirable character flaw that I tend to avoid anything going through a zeitgeist. As much as it’s a shame that I missed out on that specific cultural moment (as much as anyone who was online in 2015 could have missed out on Undertale mania) it’s allowed me to approach Fox’s work more on its own terms. Which is why it was so frustrating when I played through both of them and thought they were good. I was nowhere near as down on them as its most vicious critics, but I also didn’t fall head over heels for them the way a lot of people had. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that it was a slow burn. The games really stuck with me, and I found myself thinking about them for months afterwards. I mean here I am: would I be writing a 3,000 word retrospective on the games if my whole take was simply “it’s fine”?

From Undertale to Deltarune

It’s harder to talk about Deltarune because it is, as of writing, unfinished. However, I do love its narrative and systems conceit of disconnecting the actions of the player from the player character, Kris. It ties together the game’s mechanics and its story in the way Fox loves, and is also just plain intriguing. It’s the inverse of how most video games’ deal with the player being an active participant in the story, where the player is either forced into making a bad choice or presented with two or more options, of which one is the bad choice. This has become such a video game cliché over the years where increased fidelity has allowed to games trend towards the language and stylism of cinema, but the “throw the orphans into the furnace/save the orphanage” dichotomy hasn’t gone anywhere. Deltarune, meanwhile, often takes player’s control away when Kris is doing something evil, leaving you to watch helplessly. Many of your choices, such as defeating enemies rather than Pokémon-ing them, end up not mattering. Some things are about the journey, not the destination: you shouldn’t be doing good just for a reward. And the many non-righteous ways to play the game are noticeably less fun and shorter. There’s a particular moment in Deltarune Chapter 4’s Sword Route where the player character Kris plays a video game within a video game, only for their video game counterpart who has been slaying Ralsei-like beings in an attempt to get stronger like a video game character comes out of the TV that I found genuinely unnerving.

In many ways Deltarune is the perfect inverse of Undertale’s main theme. Where Undertale was concerned with your actions as a player, Deltarune decouples the action of the player from that of the player character. This is common enough accidentally to be a bit of a video game cliché, where a video game will stop to show you a cut-scene of something you the player would not or cannot do. Deltarune leans hard into this, and while it’s hard to say anything definitive about it before the game is complete it is fascinating in comparison to Undertale. Every horrible thing in Undertale was a choice you made through the player character Frisk, but Kris in Deltarune often uncomfortably does things you would not and cannot do. Conflict in Undertale was writ large, a world of monsters and a world of humans at war and you caught in the consequences of that. This conflict rests at the edges of Deltarune, and while you fight playing cards brought to life and relics of ’90s economic prosperity in a bizarre alternate dimension questions of conflict in the “real” world of Deltarune remain unresolved. The difficulty of Kris’ adoption into the Dreemurr household, Kris’ difference from the many creatures that inhabit Hometown and sense of alienation (and how meaningful that difference is when almost every person in town is a different shaped being), the unresolved family matter that drove a wedge between Toriel and Asgore and possibly their biological and adopted child, Susie’s implied background as a have-not in what is seemingly a pretty prosperous town, all of this is (as far as chapter 1-4 are concerned) background information that’s easily missed. So where is the conflict that was so central to Undertale?

And also I find it fascinating that Toby Fox’s work is so indelibly tied to the aesthetics and sensibilities of retro games, and his games became an object of nostalgia for people as one of their first important pieces of media, but one of the big emergent themes of Deltarune is that nostalgia is poison. The Dark World is a poor reflection of the Light World because it and its inhabitants are stuck in the past and unable to move on. Ralsei is an analogue for Asriel, the absent big brother to protagonist Kris; fan favorite characters like Spamton and Queen and Tenna all inhabit a decades-ago world gone by; Susie emerges as a character by refusing to be defined by her past and embracing growth and change. The many teenaged characters experienced teenaged problems, but most (not all!) feel like something they’ll just grow out of. Berdly will eventually have some sense knocked into him, Noelle will look back on her teenage years and go “why didn’t I just tell her how I feel,” Jockington will realize that the scraggly pube beard looks terrible and spend the rest of his life clean shaven. And in this context Kris’ role both as player character and as demiurge bringing the Dark World into being is still being written (like a lot of story beats in Toby Fox works it was very heavily foreshadowed).

To speak of my personal experience again I’ve grown to love not only Toby Fox and his collaborators work but the larger-than-life ripples it has made, and it’s cool that Toby Fox specifically has used his success to do cool things like hang out with Zun and produce music for Holopro. This is the year I finally decided I needed to make my own creative endeavors happen because none of us are getting any younger and I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And 10 years of living in a world where a nifty indie game is as popular and influential as it is, with as bad as the world has gotten, is something we can hold onto. Happy 10th anniversary, Undertale.

GQuuuuuuX Designer and Animation Director Hidenori Matsubara on Recreating Iconic Gundam Characters

Patrick Sutton — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 10:13:57 GMT

Last month we had the pleasure of sitting down with animator, character designer, and animation director Hidenori Matsubara. Mr. Matsubara most recently played a key role on Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX, the re-imagining of the classic mecha series from Evangelion’s Studio Khara and director Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL, Rebuild of Evangelion).

The last time we spoke to Mr. Matsubara was at Otakon 2014 when David delved into his animation process in detail. This time, Evan and Patrick were in attendance, and we focused our questions on GQuuuuuuX.

The series is a novel merging of old and new both in terms of its storytelling and its visuals, with both a “modern day” story set in the fictional year UC 0085 and a “past” story set during the iconic One-Year War in UC 0079 (the conflict at the center of the original 1979 Mobile Suit Gundam series, a.k.a. First Gundam). Most notably for Matsubara’s part, while the “modern” sequences use a colorful, squishy visual style led by Pokémon designer Take, the “past” sequences are a remarkably faithful recreation of the work of First Gundam designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. As a designer and animator working on both portions of the series, Matsubara has a unique perspective on how staff at Khara brought the two together into a single show.

Thank you to Mr. Matsubara and Otakon staff for arranging the interview. Enjoy!

Ani-Gamers: Could you expand a little bit on your specific involvement in GQuuuuuuX? Were you working on The Beginning as well as the time skip, or did you focus on one part of the show? Could you mention any of the specific scenes that you worked on?

Hidenori Matsubara: For the “past” part I was specifically the character animation director and I was a key animator on the present day scenes. Some specific scenes I worked on include: when Machu and Shuji first met, and we’re going to skip all the way to the last episode to where Machu and Shuji say goodbye. So those specific scenes were done by me. I also did one shot from the opening animation.

Ani-Gamers: As a character animator, what was your process when thinking through how to incorporate these classic ’70s-style characters into this modern setting? Especially characters like Char and Kycilia Zabi, having them exist and act around more modern and expressive characters like Machu and Shuji?

Matsubara: From my age you could guess that I saw First Gundam when it originally aired. I was 14 years old and I loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I cannot change the characters. So I drew it as closely as I could to how they seemed back in the day. So, although there were some current day arrangements that were made, I tried to best emulate the ’70s style.

With the modern part, since they were focusing on Take’s character designs, I think how they decided to do it was very fun too. I mean, have you seen Char there? He looks very refreshing, doesn’t he?

So, the interesting thing is that Take’s designs had already been decided on for that part of the show. For my part, I wanted to emulate Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s style the best I can. (EDITOR’S NOTE: Yasuhiko designed the characters in the original 1979 series.) After all the dust had settled and everything was done. I kind of wondered, was I really correct in trying to emulate Mr. Yasuhiko’s designs? But, if people liked it then I think so.

Ani-Gamers: What do you mean by that?

Matsubara: With regards to The Beginning, the director Kazuya Tsurumaki and Khara CEO Hideaki Anno praised me for my work on it. You might know that those two are famous for making you do lots of retakes, but they never praise you. They never made me do retakes on GQuuuuuuX. They were happy with it. When I was finishing everything I was expecting them to go “fix this, fix this, fix this.” But that wasn’t the case.

Ani-Gamers: Since you’re a fan of Gundam, were there any particular scenes or characters that you were keeping in mind as you were working on The Beginning? Or scenes that you were excited to have the opportunity to recreate?

Matsubara: I would say all of them. Since I love Gundam, all of the scenes are lovable. But this was also kind of a sad job for me, because the more that I do, the more that I notice that I can’t be Mr. Yasuhiko.

So I have mixed feelings because back when I originally watched Gundam I was 14 years old. I’m 59 right now, and I can’t measure up to Mr. Yasuhiko yet. So I have mixed feelings because I can’t measure up but at the same time Mr. Yasuhiko is so good!

Ani-Gamers: Did you feel like you appreciated his work more after having the job of recreating it?

Matsubara: I can’t really put it into words but “godly” is the best way I could put it.

On top of that, I was very happy about characters like Denim and Dren, who in the original series fell to the wayside very quickly. But then, in GQuuuuuuX, they’re alive and fighting. So that’s something that I was very happy about. I know it’s a war and everything, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Ah, I forgot to mention this earlier when discussing the scenes that I worked on, but in the last episode, when past Char and Lala show up. That part was mine too.

That Char is kind of different from the Char in The Beginning, too. So, I tried to draw him differently from the other two. I used the third Gundam movie (EDITOR’S NOTE: Encounters in Space) as a reference and I tried to make him very distinct from the other Chars.

Being able to draw Lalah was very special for me.

Ani-Gamers: Thank you for speaking with us today.

Ani-Gamers Podcast #192 – Quicksave: You’ve Lost Reputation with Spiders

Evan Minto — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:03:57 GMT

Don’t ask us how long ago we recorded this episode, just enjoy Evan and David talking about Frieren, Balatro, Cowboy Bebop, Caves of Qud, Dungeons & Dragons, and more! Topics include: staying together for the listeners, trading with glowfish, and the Ani-Gamers review of Baseball (The Sport).

Runtime: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
Quicksave
- David watched Frieren
- Evan is playing Balatro
- David is watching Cowboy Bebop
- Evan is playing Caves of Qud
- Evan is playing Dungeons & Dragons
- Evan is playing 1000 Blank White Cards
Twitter: Ani-Gamers
Twitch: David & Inaki
Mastodon: Evan
BlueSky: Evan
Subscribe to Evan’s digital manga service Azuki.

Shinji Aramaki on Virtual Reality and the Potential of AI

Patrick Sutton — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 10:00:00 GMT

Evan Minto (Editor-in-Chief): We’ve still got a big interview backlog we’re working through here at Ani-Gamers, so here’s another treat for you all! At Otakon back in 2023, Patrick Sutton and I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with prolific mechanical designer and director Shinji Aramaki, famous for his design work on Mospeada and Megazone 23, and his directing on Appleseed and the 2019 Ultraman series. These days Aramaki is most well known as a pioneer in Japanese digital animation, and he is currently the Chief Creative Officer at Sola Digital Arts, a digital animation studio he co-founded in 2009.

An important disclaimer: Since this interview was conducted in 2023, and discusses technologies like AI that have seen significant development and discussion since, it’s entirely possible Aramaki’s views have evolved since this interview was conducted.

This is my second time interviewing Aramaki; I interviewed him alongside Ultraman co-director Kenji Kamiyama in 2018. Back then we chatted about his then-upcoming Ultraman project, but this time we got to dig into some larger questions about Aramaki’s relationship with developing technologies like AI, virtual idols, and VR. Enjoy!

Ani-Gamers: So, to start out, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Megazone 23. And specifically, a lot of Megazone 23 thematically, and well, textually, is about living in a virtual world, an artificial world. And also, worshiping or being led by a virtual idol.

I wanted to ask you if you could give your thoughts on the fact that kind of both of those things exist now. People are talking about living in virtual worlds, like the metaverse. And people are watching virtual idols. Some are performers, some of them aren’t. And now, something you guys imagined 30 years ago is coming to life. What do you think of that?

Shinji Aramaki: So, as you know Macross was idol themed, I didn’t do Macross but we had a lot of staff from Macross, so that was sort of also like the sales point for this anime. From the start we were like “Hey let’s do an Idol theme” but if we did it the same way, people would say it’s the same as Macross. So we introduced a new idea, which was the virtual idol. And back then, there was no CG yet, so it was a very novel, futuristic idea. Ishiguro-san, the director of Megazone 23 and Macross, actually came up with this idea.

So, when Hatsune Miku actually came out, I thought, well, it actually really happened. But what’s so interesting about Hatsune Miku is, anyone can produce this idol. And this isn’t what we really thought about in the past.

One or two years ago there was a big project about to start that was about a virtual idol using CG. But, we thought that would be boring since it’s already happened, so that project didn’t become a reality.

I feel like the virtual world hasn’t really been realized yet. They still have the metaverse, but that isn’t really working out that well. I’m really looking forward to the Apple Vision Pro and I believe that it’s really a breakthrough in the category of virtual worlds.

Ani-Gamers: Augmented reality instead of virtual.

Shinji Aramaki: Hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Ani-Gamers: So, actually, related to that, you’ve been an early pioneer of a lot of digital technology in Japanese animation. So, how are you feeling now about the development of AI technology, specifically AI art? And have you tried any of it yet?

Shinji Aramaki: That is a difficult but good question. I think it will get a little bit confusing if we talk about both digital tech and AI at the same time. So, I’ll go ahead and separate the two.

Until about 2010, CGI still felt very novel. So, when I made movies using this new technology, everyone was surprised. But in the last five years or so, a lot of full CGI anime have been coming out. Of course, some of them were good, and some of them were bad. Now, it seems like it’s very easy to make. And I worry that, to a lot of people, CGI might seem a little cheap.

So, I feel like I need to work very hard to get over this challenge. But there are a lot of good movies, like Spider-Verse and Arkane. So, I feel like I need to find this new expression of CGI. I think Slam Dunk, their new movie, is a very good example. Did you see Slam Dunk?

Ani-Gamers: No, we haven’t seen it yet.

Shinji Aramaki: *Laughs* In terms of AI, the technology is just developing really, really fast, so it’s a little bit hard to make a comment on that.

But, I can say that technology that has potential, cannot be stopped. So I sort of want to stop for maybe like two years and see how things progress. But more than fear, I do feel hope in seeing this progression.

I feel more hopeful towards the future. And I look forward to seeing what happens. I haven’t really done that much on my own.

Ani-Gamers: Have you actually personally tried any AI art yet?

Shinji Aramaki: I haven’t done very much on my own. I have sort of played around with Midjourney, but I do like watching people who really know how to use them. So many of my friends share many, many new art from Midjourney or something. And even new movies. That’s very interesting for me. The speed in which they evolve is really interesting to me.

Ani-Gamers: So, I want to talk a little bit more about mechanical design. A lot of your early work in your career was very toy-focused.

Diaclone, Microman, Mospeada, all these kinds of things. And you mentioned yesterday the Garland [from Megazone 23] as an opportunity to free yourself from the chains of having it actually work in real life.

And I was wondering, how do you balance those two things as you continue doing design work? Does that bit in your head still say, this should work in real life, and I need to prove that it will work in real life? Does that ever click?

Shinji Aramaki: So things that we are actually going to make into a product, yeah, we do really think about how it’s going to work.

So my friend is a product designer for Garland toys at Yamato, and I would actually do rough sketches, and I would send it to him. And then he would make it in CAD, and he would give it back to me, and I would just add the details. So this is a really satisfying experience for me, so that’s why I wanted to get back into toy design.

Ani-Gamers: I think we’re out of time. Thank you for speaking with us today.

Ani-Gamers Podcast #191 – Dragon Ball Manga, Part 2 with Dawn

Evan Minto — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 23:00:31 GMT

This is the second and final part of our podcast covering the entire Dragon Ball manga with hosts Evan and Inaki and special guest Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia Podcast. This half of the show covers what’s commonly known in English as “Dragon Ball Z,” starting from Raditz’s arrival and ending with the post-Buu Saga epilogue. Topics include: Vegeta being a nasty little man, the iPod of Frieza, Toriyama trying and failing to end the series.

Runtime: 1 hour, 8 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Review: Dragon Ball (Saiyan Saga until the end)
- Name drops: Akira Toriyama, Dr. Slump, Shonen Jump, Yoshihiro Togashi, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rumiko Takahashi, Eiichiro Oda, One Piece, Hirohiko Araki, Osamu Tezuka, Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi
Twitter: Ani-Gamers, Inaki, Dawn
Inaki and David stream video games every Saturday night on Twitch
Dawn hosts the Anime Nostalgia Podcast
Evan runs Azuki, a manga publisher and subscription app

Ani-Gamers Podcast #190 – 3-D Zelda Retrospective

Evan Minto — Thu, 08 May 2025 08:00:00 GMT

It’s another mega-sized episode as the whole Ani-Gamers gang — Evan, David, Inaki, and Pat — gathers to look back at the pre-Breath of the Wild 3-D Legend of Zelda canon, from the heady days of Ocarina of Time to the franchise black sheep that is Skyward Sword. How do these games hold up now that we’ve definitively moved into a new era for Zelda games? We cover Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. Topics include: Tolkien comparisons, Wind Waker-likes, and spin to win.

Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Topic: 3-D Zelda games
- Name drops: Nintendo, Super NES/Super Famicom, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, Nintendo Switch, A Link to the Past.
BlueSky: Ani-Gamers, Evan, Inaki, Pat
Mastodon: Ani-Gamers, Evan
Evan runs Azuki, a manga publisher and subscription app
David and Inaki stream games on Twitch every Saturday night

Leviathan Staff Discuss International Anime Production

Evan Minto — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 10:00:00 GMT

If you’ve kept up with the spate of anime co-productions in the last five to 10 years, you may have noticed a new name among the credits: Qubic Pictures. Formed in 2018 by Justin Leach — a producer, former 3-D artist, and veteran of Production I.G., Lucasfilm, and Blue Sky Studios — Qubic and Leach himself have served as the glue holding together a number of co-productions between Western creators and the anime industry. This includes the first edition of Star Wars Visions, featuring contributions from studios like Trigger and Science Saru; and Eden, an original sci-fi anime created by Leach himself. And coming later this year is Leviathan, a 3-D animated adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s alt-history sci-fi/fantasy novel series, produced by Trigun Stampede and Beastars’ Studio Orange.

Last summer at Otakon 2024, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Leach and producer Katrina Minett from Qubic, as well as Leviathan director Christophe Ferreira, to discuss their experience bridging the gap between Japan and the West and more. Enjoy!

Ani-Gamers (Evan Minto): Qubic Pictures is not a traditional anime studio in the sense that most fans understand it. Can you explain how Qubic slots into the production process and how it’s different from a typical studio?

Justin Leach: We’re what can be described as a “production planning” or “producing” company. So what we can provide for someone, like in Hollywood, for example, is, if they want to work with Trigger or another studio that they have in mind, and they have some property that would interest said studio, then we can help act as a bridge. We can help produce that for the Hollywood company. Qubic can provide all the translation, scheduling, budgeting, all the logistical producing type of work. We also oversee things creatively with the partners that we are working with. Although our approach typically is more side-by-side, not an outsourcing style. So for example with Orange, they are at all of our story development meetings and we invite them to give comments and notes on Christophe’s work. That’s very important for us. We’re basically a producing company that helps make the anime, and helps connect all the different talent and studios together with whoever is making the show.

Left to right: director Christophe Ferreira and producers Katrina Minett and Justin Leach.

Ani-Gamers: Interestingly, on some projects, you’re more involved in the creative side of it. Justin, you’re credited as original creator of Eden. How did that happen, versus other projects where you’re not as creatively involved?

Leach: It’s really case-by-case. In the case of Eden, I was invited to pitch an original idea. So I did that, and then got the project made. From the beginning it was my original project. And then I hired the team to help make it. In the case of Leviathan, that’s based on an existing property.

In the case of Star Wars: Visions, the Lucasfilm team was leading more on the creative side. It depends on the company and the situation. Each project is different. But yeah, we do pitch our original ideas which we want to develop into shows or features, and then we also adapt existing IP and things like that.

Ani-Gamers: Christophe, how did you get involved in Eden?

Christophe Ferreira: I’m not part of Qubic. I’m a friend of Justin’s. I’ve known him for 20 years and he likes what I do, and the people at Netflix also, like what I do. So when he was looking for mecha designers, he just called me and I was hired to make it.

Katrina Minett: I think there’s a difference for Visions because it was an anthology about highlighting each studio’s individual work. The studio’s creativity was the highlight of that project, whereas for Eden and Leviathan, it wasn’t really focusing on a specific studio. It was more us taking part in the creative side.

Ani-Gamers: Is that something you’re trying to do more of? That seems exciting.

Leach: Yeah, I think it depends on the market demands too. In the case of Hollywood, there’s been a lot of turbulence in the business environment. They’re not taking as much risk as they did before.

Original IPs are very hard to sell. When we were doing Eden there was a hunger for original content, so we utilized that opportunity. But yeah, I would love to. We do have some original ideas that we’re developing that we love to make.

Ani-Gamers: Between all of you, you have like a really diverse set of experiences across different countries and cultures of making animation. How would you compare the creative approach that you’ve seen from Hollywood producers versus Japanese anime versus French animation?

Ferreira: That’s quite a big question. I can’t talk from the producer point of view because I never produced anything in France. I can talk as an artist as an animator and yeah, that’s quite different.

It will be too long to go into details, but basically, in France, until recently at least, they used to think like the Americans in terms of who does what in a project. The separation of tasks.

Let’s take a feature-length movie. In a Disney movie, you have one supervising animator for each character, right? Then you have animators for each character. Sometimes they can switch and do another character, but basically they stick to one. And if you have two characters interacting then two supervising animators will work on that.

But not only that; the layout is done by someone else. All the effects, like if there is water or anything, will be done by someone else. So it’s a lot of people. It’s like constructing a car, a lot of people will have something to do for one cut. (Editor’s Note — Here Christophe uses the common Japanese term “cut” to refer to a shot in animation, roughly equivalent to a single camera shot in live-action film, and distinct from the English use of “cut” for transitions between shots.)

In Japan it’s not like that. In Japan one guy is in charge. One animator is in charge of one sequence. Let’s say it’s 10 cuts, and he will draw everything on it from the background to all the character interactions, the effects. Everything. The shadows too.

In Disney, you have people doing the shadows, different people from the animator. It’s a really strange way of thinking of it. But yeah, basically I learned the Disney way at the Goeblins school, but really I was interested in the Japanese way of doing it.

That’s why I went to Japan and I started the hard way to do the layout and everything. So for me as an artist, that’s the main difference and also the motivation. Because the projects are more interesting for me in Japan.

Ani-Gamers: You were saying the French production methods have started moving toward the Japanese style?

Ferreira: Yeah. Because obviously a lot of people like me were influenced by Japanese animation. And they are starting to produce stuff, and some people came to Japan and went back to France, and they are emulating the Japanese way. Of course, I, when I was younger, when I started working, we didn’t have access to the Japanese method.

We didn’t really know what was going on in the studio, but nowadays, yeah, almost everyone knows how it is done. They see the good points and bad points. So I think in France it’s more an in between thing, like some production are almost like a Japanese production and some are more in between [the American and Japanese style].

Leach: I think one difference between Japan and the West, or at least American production, is specialization versus generalization. So [in Japan] one person wears a lot of hats. Whereas, in an American production, we have one person who just does the hair or the cloth simulation. That’s from a production standpoint.

One difference I noticed from a producing standpoint is that the systems are very different. In Hollywood it’s very producer-driven. They’re usually the ones giving the creative notes. There is a director that is directing but they always have to answer to those notes and if they don’t answer those notes then they might get fired.

In Japan, it’s a more of an auteur system where the director almost has the final say. Everyone gives comments, but the director considers everyone’s feedback and makes the decision. So that’s one difference that I’ve seen. And there are also just different approaches to things like storyboards. The director storyboards the whole episode and no one gives them any comments about what they should change.

But in American studios like Pixar, there’s a group of storyboard artists. They draw and put it up on the wall. They talk about it like, “I don’t think that’s working,” “let’s change that,” “let’s throw it away,” “OK is this working better?” It’s very different.

There are definitely cultural things as well. Japan tends to be more pre-planning-oriented, more about committing to decisions. Whereas on the American side, it’s more like “let’s try this” in the moment. It’s more iterative. “Let’s try this.” “Does it work now?” “Let’s throw it out.” “How about this?” “Let’s change this.” There’s a lot of fluidity, whereas in Japan there’s lots of committing to the decision and executing that, and there’s a lot more careful thought put into it before making the decision. I feel like sometimes on the American side there’s less thought in the beginning. It’s more in the moment, they’re discovering stuff.

Ferreira: And it’s also partly because Americans have the money to do it. Imagine if they didn’t have the money. They would not spend that much time.

Ani-Gamers: That’s true. It reminds me of the stories that came out of the Spider-Verse production.

Ferreira: In Japan, especially for, TV series, basically, you don’t have time or money (which are the same thing) to explore different designs. Usually they’ll use the first design that comes up, and if you do two designs then the second one will be used later on for something else. They don’t have the budget.

Leach: Another example: they do the rough pass and you’re like okay it looks good. Then they do like a more refined pass. And then they do the final pass and you’re like, oh, I noticed this thing that maybe we should change now that I see it’s all there. And it’s like “no, you can’t do that.” You have to go all the way back to the beginning start over. That’s a big no in Japan. But that “no” happens all the time in America.

Minett: My experience is also that there’s a very big difference in flexibility. The first production I worked on was actually a hybrid American-Japanese production, and there were so many misunderstandings that we had to get through. What people’s roles were, what happened at which stage of the process.

So we ended up having to do a class on the differences between the Japanese and American [process]. When do we do this? How many designs are needed? There are a lot more items designed in an American production than in a Japanese production, where it’s left more to the individual artists to fill in the gaps.

And so we had a lot more work that we had to do than the Japanese studio was necessarily expecting in the pre-production phase. There are a lot of different expectations there. And similar issues of “oh, can we like change this line color here?” And it’s like “we already drew the line.”

All: (Laugh)

Leach: Yeah, you missed your chance.

Minett: It was a lot of negotiating through that. Like, how can we adapt to make sure that these changes don’t become an issue? What can we pre-plan, what can the Japanese be more flexible on?

Justin: You basically have to say “we will allow for a specific number of retakes.” It has to be part of the initial plan. Maybe that will be OK, but still there are impacts of changing after work is done.

Ani-Gamers: Christophe, I love that in your panel you shouted out legendary animator Yasuo Otsuka and how you were inspired by him to move to Japan. What was it like learning from Mr. Otsuka?

Ferreira: First of all, he’s a strange character. When he came to France, we had sort of a workshop. During one week, each day we went to a room and he would explain stuff to us and then give us an exercise on how to do it. Really basic stuff, right? Because he just wanted to show us the difference in terms of [Japanese] animation.

He was a really old man. I don’t remember how old, maybe 70 at the time. 2001? Late 60s or early 70s. But he was the guy, Yasuo Otsuka, he was so full of life, like he was in love with animation.

I remember him drawing and saying stuff like, “nowadays? They don’t like movement in animation. They add a lot of detail on on the hair, a lot of stuff,” and he was drawing some kawaii stuff, modern stuff. “No, I don’t like that. I want simple stuff that you can move. You can use it to express movement, because animation is movement.” Things like that. He was a very kind old guy.

And when I got back to Japan and I had the chance to work at his studio, he was always behind us. Always walking around the studio with a big can of Coke. He just loved it. And he would come to us and talk to us. “Are you okay?” And he’d explain stuff to us.

I remember one thing. I’m not proud of it but, you know, in a sense I am proud of it. I had a three-month internship ending with drawing a storyboard. I drew a storyboard for a fake project and I left it on my desk. I was at home at one point working on my in-betweens, and I got a call from Otsuka saying, “can you come to the studio? I showed your storyboard to Miyazaki and I want to talk to you.” I was like, “what? Why?” I went there and he told me what Miyazaki-san felt about it. It wasn’t good of course. But he gave me some feedback. I won’t say what it was, but it was very interesting. That was the kind of guy that Otsuka-san was. Really friendly and very simple.

Ani-Gamers: Thank you, that’s such a great story.

I Wrote Mini-Reviews of Every Game in UFO 50

Evan Minto — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 09:28:22 GMT

UFO 50 is a bizarre and ambitious game design experiment that I got completely obsessed with late last year. Contained inside this $25 Steam game are 50 (that’s right, F I F T Y) 8-bit games developed by the devs behind indie darlings like Spelunky and Downwell, all held together by a shared faux history as the supposed output of a pioneering 1980s game studio.

Since each game in UFO 50 is a complete experience with a title screen, attract mode, end credits, and the like, I decided it would be fun to jot down some notes on each one as I play through the collection. The following notes were previously posted 10 at a time (in “release” order) on the Ani-Gamers Patreon for $5+ patrons, but now I’m putting them all together into one big article available for free on our blog. If you want to support more articles like this, become a patron on our Patreon!

Barbuta

Platforming dungeon crawler. Slow, clunky movement, zero explanations, and lots of secrets. It’s cool that this is the first game. It’s really challenging and initially off-putting, which encourages you to try other games and makes it rewarding to come back to later.

Bug Hunter

Turn-based tactics/strategy game, a little like Into the Breach. It has a deck-builder element too, which makes it feel more modern than I expected. The trade-off of using energy to attack or buy more cards is interesting and adds a lot of tension!

Ninpek

This is really hard! An auto-scrolling platformer/shooter. Lots of tricky, dense enemy placements that require you to replay the level and memorize it. Not really my kind of game, but it feels very period-accurate.

Paint Chase

Really cool concept, a kind of Bomberman-meets-Splatoon. You drive a car around a top-down map and coat the ground with your paint color. Starts simple but quickly becomes a puzzle game requiring clever use of items and obstacles.

Magic Garden

Simple puzzler that’s one of my favorite games so far! Collect slimes and spin inside special zones to get rid of them and get points. Like Snake with some Pac-Man mixed in. I eventually hit a flow state with this one.

Mortol

Puzzle platformer where you spend limited lives to sacrifice your player and help the next life make it through, largely by transforming into platforms. Like many good puzzle games it successfully made me rewire my brain to succeed.

Velgress

I thought it was going to be Metroid, but it’s more like a roguelike Kid Icarus or Downwell. Climb up and shoot your way through a tunnel with collapsing platforms. Great gamefeel but the collapsing platforms are really punishing and require fast reflexes.

Planet Zoldath

Roguelike Zelda 1. Map AND puzzles AND enemy attributes change every run. Not that hard on its own, but every run it’s like learning a new game. Neat! Though I didn’t find it all that fun moment to moment. This is the first game I completed.

Attactics

Some of the most fun and the most frustration I’ve had in this first row. Turn-based tactics that feels a bit like chess, in that you’re lining up attacks across the board. Very satisfying when it works. At level 6 it gets too overwhelming with the number of enemies and the super fast clock forcing you to make your move. I wish I could play this with unlimited time to think and strategize.

Devilition

Really clever puzzler where you get a random assortment of bombs with different explosion patterns, and need to place them to create a chain reaction by detonating only one of them to kill enemies. Later levels get difficult, but success in earlier ones sets you up with extra allies to make subsequent levels easier.

Kick Club

A series of small arenas where you attack enemies by kicking a soccer ball. A nice level of challenge with some unique movement and attack options. Managing the location of the character and the ball at once is fun.

Avianos

A lite version of a grand strategy game (so I’m told) where you take over a map and build buildings and recruit units every turn. There’s some interesting progression where you pray to a dinosaur god every turn to determine your action set, and level them up every time, but you don’t always have access to every dinosaur every turn.

Mooncat

Very strange! An exploration-based platformer controlled with the face buttons instead of the D-pad. I’m still trying to get the hang of it but the unconventional control scheme is a really cool idea, feels way better in my hands than I expected, and genuinely makes it feel like a lost ’80s project.

Bushido Ball

I initially loved this; it’s Pong meets a fighting game, with samurai. (Also maybe WindJammers? I’ve never played it.) The movement and attack options are varied and feel great, but the AI has perfect input reading which makes it frustrating. Probably very fun in multiplayer. I’ve been obsessed with getting good enough to win the tournament, but no dice yet.

Block Koala

Simple and a bit dull block-pushing puzzle game. The only unique thing seems to be that some blocks can combine or push others based on the number on them, but it’s not enough to make this feel special.

Camouflage

Bypass enemy sentries by changing colors to blend into the background. Pretty easy to beat the early levels but there are bonus objectives that get tricky. I love the camouflage stealth/puzzle mechanic. The undo button is greatly appreciated.

Campanella

Clearly one of the flagship games here (and the first prominent appearance of the titular UFO). You navigate levels by tapping a button to generate lift, and you die if you touch the walls. Requires a lot of concentration but very satisfying when you win. Cool, neon visual style. This is one of the most straightforwardly “that’s cool as hell” games in the collection.

Golfaria

A golf RPG?! Kind of. Ironically one of the most Zelda-esque games so far. You navigate an overworld and find holes with characters and challenges inside, all while bouncing your ball over hills and off of walls to traverse. I’m so bad at this. I’ve barely seen any of the game so far. You have a maximum number of strokes and you die if you use them up without landing in a hole, which really impedes exploration.

The Big Bell Race

The movement and visuals of Campanella, repurposed for a racing game. What a perfect concept! It has items a la MarioKart. This is tons of fun. I desperately wish this had more courses. Give me a whole MarioKart universe of games with this movement mechanic.

Warptank

One of my favorites. The gravity-bending platforming of VVVVVV with a little bit of… Megaman I suppose? You can’t jump, but you can warp and shoot directly above your head (including while attached to a wall). Also features a cool, crusty high-tech visual style, a little like Metroid.

Waldorf’s Journey

At its core this is kind of a golf game! A platformer where you jump between platforms by flinging your character in an arc. It’s very hard to get the angle right and funny when you screw it up. Surprisingly, there are upgrades and advanced tactics necessary to succeed.

Porgy

My top game so far. An engrossing Metroidvania that forces you to take greater and greater risks to power up as you dive into an underwater maze. Really satisfying progression and a huge world to explore. I’ve spent five hours already!

Onion Delivery

The controls here aren’t for me but I love the silly theming and car animations. It’s basically top-down Crazy Taxi with controls that don’t rotate relative to your car.

Caramel Caramel

Side-scrolling cute-em-up, seems pretty standard to me other than a fairly unremarkable rechargable “photograph” super move. Hard but fun, with nice speedy movement and satisfying shooting. Great music.

Party House

Very clever! It’s a deck-builder/poker game dressed up as a party invite simulator. Make your party as cool as possible, but invite too many troublemakers and the cops will get called. Requires some tricky planning and predictions.

Hot Foot

A sports game where the modal control scheme gets a little too complex for the limited available buttons. I haven’t quite figured this one out yet.

Divers

A diving JRPG! Haven’t played this much since it really doesn’t explain much, but it’s extremely atmospheric and has complex systems (left- and right-hand equipment slots, some kind of rock-paper-scissors elemental mechanic) with no explanation on how they work.

Rail Heist

Side-scrolling turn-based stealth, with tons of options for how to approach problems. A weird combo but it’s pretty cool. Like many stealth games it manifests as a kind of puzzle game. The Western movie title cards look really cool in pixel art.

Vainger

Metroid meets VVVVVV, though I’m told the closest analog is a game called Metal Storm. You can reverse gravity at will! Very easy to pick up. There’s a cool upgrade mechanic where you can re-spec an upgrade into different slots to get different abilities, a little like the equipment in Porgy.

Rock On! Island

Took me a while to figure out the mechanics of this one. It’s a tower defense where you upgrade your defenses each time a new wave of enemies appear. A lot of the effects of the upgrades are unexplained, which makes it hard to pick up, but it’s satisfying when a build works.

Pingolf

A side-scrolling golf game with obstacles and theming inspired by pinball. The neon-tinged visual design is so slick, and the level design is absolutely devious. Requires multiple playthroughs to build the experience to not fall for the designer’s tricks.

Mortol II

The original Mortol concept, but in the form of a platforming action game rather than a puzzler, with additional character types to add tactical variety. And no lives or save points! I’ve barely made it past the first screen, this is brutally difficult.

Fist Hell

Basically a straightforward beat-em-up. It’s pretty fun for what it is but it’s not a genre I typically love. I like the detail that zombie heads are items you can pick up and throw.

Overbold

Roguelike top-down multidirectional shooter. You fight fixed numbers of enemies each round, then use your winnings to buy upgrades. I like the custom difficulty mechanic of upping the challenge in a round to win more money — it reminds me of the difficulty mechanic in The World Ends with You. Unfortunately I find the actual combat a bit dull.

Campanella 2

This really does feel like the kind of big, ambitious sequel you’d get in this era (or maybe in the 90s: Super Campanella, if you will). Now you have health instead of being insta-killed by walls, and you can leave the ship and do some platforming and shooting. That’s a lot to manage, though, and it feels less immediately accessible than the first game.

Hyper Contender

The second game I beat. A 1v1 platform fighter with a Sonic-style rings system and some unique movement mechanics for most of the characters. Initially the enemy AI felt way too hard, with too much ability to predict projectile trajectories, but I figured out their patterns with some practice. Very fun multiplayer.

Valbrace

A genre I have very little experience in: a Wizardry-style first-person maze-based RPG. (Is there a word for that?) The combat has a fun real-time movement and dodging system with cooldowns that helps break up with monotony of walking around the maze. I enjoyed the limited time I spent with this one, but I’ll have to double back to it to give it a more thorough look.

Rakshasa

OK so it’s Ghosts & Goblins with an Indian coat of paint. Easier than it seems at first glance thanks to the power-up system. But the real star is the death system: when you die you turn into a ghost and have to collect tokens before enemies get you, but every time you die there are more tokens.

Star Waspir

Fiendishly hard! A top-down arcade shooter. Cool mechanics: tap a button to spray bullets or hold to fire a concentrated stream, and power-ups are unlocked by collecting letters and matching three. Too many bullets and power-ups on screen, plus enemy placements designed to put them and their bullets in front of power-ups, but I had some fun trying to get the hang of it.

Grimstone

A Western-themed JRPG! I love the idea of picking your party from a list at the beginning with minimal context, kind of like Pokémon starters. And the timing-based attacks make the turn-based combat more exciting. This is a long one and will need a lot more time before I have full thoughts on it, but it’s impressive that it’s just one of 50 games!

Lords of Diskonia

A strategy game with two levels of zoom: at the top level it has some board game resource-management mechanics, and when you enter battles it becomes a turn-based tactics game (with a hint of golf) about flinging discs into one another. The fights are tricky and require precise positioning and creative use of the environment to win. Not really for me but I appreciate how unique it is.

Night Manor

A point-and-click slasher horror game where you try to escape from a house! I won’t spoil it, but the game includes a unique mechanic to keep you on your toes in what’s otherwise a very slow-paced, thinky genre. I’ve been struggling with a few of the puzzles, but other than some timing-based challenges it’s relatively easy. I’ve been really enjoying popping into this occasionally to make some progress and learn the full backstory of the manor.

Elfazar’s Hat

Visually it looks like a top-down adventure game but it’s basically a multidirectional shmup. Features a match-three power-up system that feels like it’s inspired by Star Waspir — a nice touch for the meta story of UFOSoft. The highlight though: rolling. I’m a sucker for a good dash/dodge mechanic, and this roll with a few invincibility frames is really satisfying when I manage to dodge some bullets and finish off an enemy.

Pilot Quest

I spent an embarrassingly long time playing this before I discovered some of the key mechanics. It’s another spin-off of Campanella, this time as a clicker game mixed with … Zelda and Stardew Valley? It’s all about resource management: collecting raw resources and cashing them in for tools to help produce more resources. The most engaging aspect is the “Wild Zone,” basically a Zelda overworld with a time limit (determined by your resources of course) where dying loses all your stuff. The interplay of exploration and resource management really got me and I’ve spent a lot of time in this game.

Mini & Max

Another genius concept. A huge open world platformer ironically played entirely in a small room. The twist is your character can shrink and grow, so you position yourself around the room when large and shrink down to do your exploration and platforming, meeting a bunch of bugs and other tiny denizens of the room. A bit of Doki Doki Panic, a bit of Minish Cap, with a surprising amount of lore and narrative. One of my favorites in the whole collection.

Combatants

A real-time strategy game with hints of Killer Queen: collect seeds and spawn worker and soldier ants, and command them to beat your enemy queen. The trouble is that the movement is slow and the AI is unresponsive. You can tell ants to follow you, hold, or automatically move, but no matter what they tend to mill around doing not much of anything. I tried to get into this a few times but it’s no fun. The only real clunker in the collection!

Quibble Race

Sports betting! Bet on a different “Quibble” (little alien guys) each race, and spend money to add various cheats like injuring another Quibble or giving your Quibble steroids. Hilarious, and a fun twist to turn an ostensible racing game into a black-market gambling game. Surprisingly, I won on my first try, but I want to give this some more time to explore the surprisingly varied ways to win.

Seaside Drive

A shmup with movement locked to the bottom of the screen and a drifting mechanic requiring you to keep moving while shooting. Moving forward and back also tilts your shots, creating a really fluid and exciting interplay between movement and aiming. And did I mention this is far and away the coolest looking game in the collection?

Campanella 3

The penultimate game in the collection gives us a little taste of faux-3-D shooters a la Starfox. Now the Campanella flies straight forward into the Z axis, and enemies can appear both in front and alongside you. The idea of shooting both in front and to the top/bottom/left/right is really cool and a bit brain-bending, especially since your shots along the X/Y axis are more like thrusters, so you need to move in the opposite direction of your shots. There’s also some really fun pixel art typography in this one.

Cyber Owls

Not satisfied with making 50 separate games, in their last game the UFO 50 team delivers five different genres in one! You play as four bird secret agents, and each one has to complete a level in a different genre: action platformer, shooting gallery, top-down stealth, and side-scrolling driving-themed shooter. If any of them get captured, you can send another one to save them by playing a FIFTH genre: a they-move-when-you-do tactics game! I haven’t beaten a level yet, but I’m so impressed with the creative genre-blending going on here.

And that’s it for my UFO 50 impressions! It was my favorite video game of 2024, and I highly recommend you pick it up if you have any interest in even a couple of the games in the collection.

Ani-Gamers Podcast #189 – Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning- with Tom Aznable

Evan Minto — Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:16:42 GMT

Evan, Pat, and returning guest Tom Aznable just saw the latest Gundam anime in the theater (showtimes still available!), so they jumped on the mics to chat about G-Quacks and what to expect from the full TV series when it airs in April. Big-time spoiler alert on this one, the movie has a twist that we couldn’t avoid talking about.

Runtime: 1 hour, 22 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Patrick Sutton.
The Review: Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX Beginning
- Name drops: “First” Gundam (Mobile Suit Gundam from 1979), Sunrise, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Khara, Trigger, Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki, Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL, Yoji Enokido, Ikuto Yamashita, Animator Expo, The Dragon Dentist, The Witch from Mercury, 0080: War in the Pocket, Gundam SEED Destiny
Behind-the-scenes materials referenced during the show:
- Interview with the staff: Part 1, Part 2
- Design Works artbook (hosted on E-Hentai so the ads surrounding it might not be safe for work!)
BlueSky: Ani-Gamers, Evan, Pat, Tom
Mastodon: Ani-Gamers, Evan
Evan runs Azuki, a manga publisher and subscription app

Seasonal Sampler Hiatus Announcement

Evan Minto — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 12:39:15 GMT

Quick announcement from Evan: Unfortunately, Seasonal Sampler is going on indefinite hiatus. Continuing the host the show solo was getting to be too much work, especially with how Evan’s busy schedule prevents him from keeping up with enough shows every season. Thank you to everyone who has listened to the show over the past four years, and look forward to more anime reviews on the regular Ani-Gamers Podcast in the future!

Runtime: 3 minutes

Show Notes

- Opening/Ending Song: “Dancing & Assuming Consequences (digital edit)” by Llamame La Muerte
- Episode Edited by: Evan Minto
- Twitter: Evan, Ani-Gamers
- Mastodon: Evan
- BlueSky: Evan
- Evan has written for Anime News Network.
- Sign up for Evan’s official manga subscription service, Azuki.

Ani-Gamers Book Club #22 – Record of Lodoss War: The Grey Witch

David Estrella — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 16:17:14 GMT

We are back at it again with the light novels in this fourth episode of AGBC Part V: The Reading Experience. This time, we’re reading Record of Lodoss War: The Grey Witch, the story of a group of brave adventurers on a quest in the land of Lodoss. Topics include the early Japanese tabletop RPG scene, some harsh realities of book publishing, and Inaki’s nasty water receptacle. Many thanks to Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia Podcast for joining the show to talk Lodoss War with us! Post in the Discord or pop off in the comments below on anything and everything AGBC and maybe we’ll talk about it on the next episode.

Runtime: 90 minutes

Ani-Gamers Podcast #188 – Dragon Ball Manga, Part 1 with Dawn

Evan Minto — Sat, 25 Jan 2025 11:20:58 GMT

Last year we lost Akira Toriyama, creator of Dr. Slump, Dragon Ball, and the character designs for acclaimed video games like Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger. To honor Toriyama-sensei, Evan, Inaki, and special guest Dawn from the Anime Nostalgia Podcast got together to look back at the entirety of Toriyama’s most famous manga: Dragon Ball. That’s right, all the way from Goku and Bulma’s first meeting to the final tournament after the Buu Saga. This is Part 1, covering what’s commonly known in English as “Dragon Ball.” Part 2 will cover what’s known as “Dragon Ball Z.” (Confused about the naming? We cover that in the podcast too!) Topics include: getting strong by delivering milk, best girl Lunch, and the Home for Infinite Losers.

Runtime: 1 hour, 31 minutes

Show Notes

Opening/Ending Song: “Blues Machine” by Scott Gratton
Episode edited by Evan Minto.
The Review: Dragon Ball (pre-Saiyan Saga)
- Name drops: Akira Toriyama, Dr. Slump, Shonen Jump, Yoshihiro Togashi, Yu Yu Hakusho, Rumiko Takahashi, Eiichiro Oda, One Piece, Hirohiko Araki, Osamu Tezuka, Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi
Twitter: Ani-Gamers, Inaki, Dawn
Inaki and David stream video games every Saturday night on Twitch
Dawn hosts the Anime Nostalgia Podcast
Evan runs Azuki, a manga publisher and subscription app

Ani-Gamers Book Club #21 – The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess

David Estrella — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 19:00:31 GMT

We are back at it again with the light novels in this third episode of AGBC Part V: The Reading Experience. This time, we’re reading The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess, the story of a hikkikomori-NEET vampire who is forced to get a job. Topics include 6/10 anime adaptations, Type-Moon nonsense, and the key to success in life. Post in the Discord or pop off in the comments below on anything and everything AGBC and maybe we’ll talk about it on the next episode.

Runtime: 45 minutes