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Challenge #3: Canon Recommendations

While I tend to think I have a pretty healthy balance of live action and anime/animated fandoms, I tend to be into slightly more mainstream live action canons. I often find that people who generally get into live action stuff are (understandably) put off by some stereotypes about anime and its fandoms, both justified and not particularly justified. Because of that, I get the feeling this list might be a little bit slanted toward anime, especially with a mind to recommend some anime to people who generally do not give anime a second thought but might if given a nudge. However, I will start with the one live action rec that is on my mind lately...

The Society

Netflix Original - Just Renewed for Season 2



The Society is a Netflix original series (like actually, not just the lies they tell about Netflix Originals to mean 'just exclusive in this region actually') that I started to watch one Saturday here in Japan just to kill some time. I did not mean to get hooked, but I watched S1 in two big chunks and then started on a second watch. It fits into a particular niche that I enjoy a lot of the time: stories about young people suddenly trying to cope without the benefit of the societal structures that have both protected and governed them all their lives. Of course, this kind of thing always gets compared to The Lord of the Flies, but personally I blame Digimon for instilling this interest in me when I was a baby fan. This story feels mythological and it is unclear if it is magical realism, science fiction, modern fantasy, or some mix of those things. For the most part, it is an everyday life drama with the extraordinary circumstances dumped on top of it, and I really enjoy that about it.

The story begins in a suburban New England town where nearly everyone is the product of middle class monotony. However, there is a strange, bad smell that has plagued the town for some time. Apparently, the powerful adults in town had paid someone to deal with and remove the smell and it had worked. However, it seems that there was a disagreement about payment for this service, and the smell comes back. While they try to deal with this situation, the high school students 16 and up are put on a bus (literally) to go on a camping trip at a national park. However, there is a sudden "change of plans" and the students are brought back home. Then, the bus drivers abandon them there without an explanation despite the fact that there are no other people to be found in the town whatsoever. Upon further investigation, they learn that they are not only alone but they are isolated in this carbon copy of their cities - the roads just stop with walls of untamed forest. There is nothing but forest around them for miles, and they seem to be the only people who exist. The older teens are then faced with the problems caused by absolute freedom to do whatever they want and what to do about the fact that some people will take advantage of that fact. Some of them are game to build a society from scratch, some are followers, and some range from selfish to truly insane.

This is primarily a character drama, and while the pilot episode had some fairly wooden-feeling acting, by the third episode I feel like I was definitely hooked more than just curious. There are some decent attempts at representation, including some canon gay characters. I would give people a warning that there is a very realistically portrayed abusive heterosexual relationship and an implied animal death related to it that made me pause the thing and go to DoesTheDogDie.com. However, there is not any SHOWN graphic animal violence, and there is some hope that the dog lived. The abused girlfriend, though, is shown to experience a lot of the things that battered women go through. I think that it is a particularly honest portrayal of the problem. I also like the varying viewpoints of other characters. One thing that is particularly meaningful to me is that there is a particularly vocal and devout Christian girl who is not presented as insane or cruel on that basis. I think she is a flawed character, but she struggles with a lot of the things I do as a Christian, and it is nice to see it neither idealized nor degraded.

Check it out on Netflix and let me know if you do!

Type Moon: Fate/stay night & Kara no Kyoukai

Many Fate series available on Netflix, Kara no Kyoukai available on Crunchyroll last time I looked



Type Moon is the name of the company and franchise, but Fate is the most mainstream of the properties within the franchise, so it ends up being used as the shorthand or even only-known name a lot of the time. This is a fandom that has taken a lot of my life and a lot of my love, for better or for worse. Some of the absolute worst fandom experiences and participants I have ever experienced or known have been in connection with trying to participate in this fandom. However, I could say the same of some of the best. If you get into Type Moon/Fate/Kara no Kyoukai, then I would highly recommend carefully curating your fandom experience. I would love to know morep eople who liked these series and wanted to discuss them. I wish there were more fic contributors. However, I will warn you that because this is a somewhat old and complicated franchise universe that you will end up running into mean, misogynistic gatekeeper types if you are not careful.

Also, because of the nature of this shared universe, it can be hard to understand how it works or where to start. I want to give you a very brief bird's eye view of the structure of each of these two properties then my personal thoughts on how you might get into them.

Fate/stay night is the name of a Visual Novel turned several anime adaptations. For those who do not know, a Visual Novel is a type of interactive novel played like a video game. If you want to, you can begin getting into Fate through the VN. Many purists will tell you that you have to do this. However, I think that if you are not sure about the format that this might be a daunting task. To be honest, I still have not read the entire thing. However, one important thing to understand about FSN is that there are three distinct "routes" that are like canon AUs of each other. Given the original genre of the VN, these routes - in some ways - centered around which of the three female protagonists the male protagonist would fall in love with and bang during the course of the story. However, that is far from all there is to them. Even if you do not like a particular ship, there are plot-related things that one learns by understanding the events of all three of the routes. It is an interesting storytelling structure, but it certainly has its barriers for entry.

So far, there have been two complete adaptations of two of the routes. The first was the first DEEN-produced Fate/stay night anime. This was based on the "Fate" or first route of the VN while borrowing a couple of things from the other routes from time to time because they never imagined adapting all three at the time I suppose. I believe that this anime was released in 2006. I have never seen it, and it is certainly a product of its era and as such gets a lot of undue criticism for being ugly or poorly produced. However, I have heard a lot of sensible people say it is a useful adaptation if nothing else. The second route "Unlimited Blade Works" was adapted into a 24+1 anime adaptation in 2014. This is the anime that got me into the series, and it is my favorite route. Finally, the third and final route "Heaven's Feel" has been being adapted into three theatrical release movies because of the very NC17 nature of some of its plot-relevant content if nothing else. The second of these movies came out this year, and there is one more remaining.

Apart from that, there are many different spin-offs. There is a prequel called Fate/Zero. There is a series called Fate/Apocrypha. There are other series that even I cannot name at the moment. There is something for everyone, and there are also abominations that I am not sure should exist. I am far from being well-versed, but I just know that I really like this universe.

A very basic summary of the premise of the original FSN VN and route adaptations is: Every 50 years for the past 150 years or so, there has been a magical ritual held in the magecraft backwater city of Fuyuki Japan. This ritual has been corrupted over time until finally it resembles something like a magical Hunger Games Proxy War between seven magi who fight using the Servants they summon. Servants are copies of the souls of the Heroic Spirits which have been so exalted through the adulation of mankind, though there are also infamous, evil "heroic" spirits who should not exist but do. The Servants are summoned into vessels resembling RPG classes: Saber, Lancer, Archer, Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker. While it would seem that it is a magical battle royale in which one must fight to the death, it is not as it seems when the protagonists - Emiya Shirou, Tohsaka Rin, Matou Sakura, and Saber all have their own stories that may change the future of this too-early and corrupted iteration of the already bloody Holy Grail War.

To get into Fate, I would suggest reading the VN if you really love to read. You can do so through the lp-archive website or by getting your own copy and playing it. If you would prefer to watch an anime, you might want to watch the adaptations in the order of their release, but if you are like me then you might want to watch UBW first. Then, you might watch Fate/Zero, but I would suggest not watching Fate/Zero first. While I enjoy it, I think it often gives people disappointing expectations of the series if it is their entry point.

As I mentioned, Fate is not the only aspect of the Type Moon universe. Another much less complicated part of the shared universe of these stories is a series of Light Novels and anime films called Kara no Kyoukai. I would highly recommend that you watch the movies as I do not think that all the light novels have been successfully translated into English.

The story is told in a nonlinear format, and it follows the character of Shiki Ryougi, often through the eyes of her friend/admirer/possible lover Mikiya. It would seem at times that Shiki is a serial killer, repressing her urges. On the other hand, perhaps there is something even worse going on. There is magecraft involved in this story, but it also involves complex themes of people with psychic abilities both inborn and developed and the existential desires of people and where they come from. It is a very difficult to describe story, and I would warn that it is full of fairly graphic animated violence, but I am not a person who enjoys gore or horror for their own sakes. I would highly recommend these films anyway.

Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes

Robotics;Notes VN and its sequel recently received localization announcements at long last.
The Steins;Gate VN is already available on Steam.
Both series' anime have EXCELLENT dubs if you can find them to purchase or stream.




Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes are the two most recent constituent parts of a slightly larger shared universe called Science Adventure (SciAdv). Personally, I am unfamiliar with the other series that are a part of it, but I cannot recommend Steins;Gate and Robotics;Notes enough.

Steins;Gate has received the most mainstream success and critical acclaim. However, both stories are connected in a shared universe involving a Hidden Hand sort of organization (connected to the fabled Committee of 300) controlling the world from the shadows and shaping the growth of our technologies and how we behave with them. Ultimately, the Committee's goal seems to be to cast the world into chaos from behind the scenes, reducing the total population to about one billion. However, they want to do so in a way that will not implicate them, and they want to them control the forthcoming fate of those who survive to "save" the world and reshape it in their own image.

So... what are a bunch of nerds to do about it? That is basically the key question of any SciAdv series.

Steins;Gate involves time travel and a lot of questions about found family and friendship which are both contrasted and echoed in Robotics;Notes. While from an objective point of view, Steins;Gate is largely regarded to be the "better" and more mature of the time, I cannot recommend giving Robotics;Notes a chance after you finish Steins;Gate and digest it for a few days. What is so beautiful about Robotics;Notes to me is the way in which it is both sort of a breath of fresh air after the ongoing emotional intensity that Steins;Gate eventually reaches and a way of showing that even a happily ever after isn't perfect and that there is still a world to keep on fixing and saving, no matter what.

The series have great characters and great friendships. This is a great series for people who like their ships with a healthy side of gen where every character seems to have a unique and meaningful dynamic with every other one. One thing I will warn for is that Steins;Gate has a character in it that most fans perceive as trans in a positive way. However, the source material itself does not handle this as well as the fandom does, and I think that you kind of have to go in with a mind that you will take the good that is there and disregard some of the culturally enforced homophobic and transphobic undertones (or even undertones) that are not malicious but which exist. However, there is a lot of good not to be thrown out because of these issues in my opinion.


If anyone chooses to check out any of these series or has further questions about finding them or comments or ANYTHING ELSE, I would love to hear from you!!!