EMN Programming Guide - Anime

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NANA
Year: 2006
Synopsis: After a chance meeting on a train, two young women - one a small-town girl with big dreams, the other a punk rocker, both named Nana - form a bond of friendship that promises to be full of highs and lows.
EMN Notes: This series is just magical. It has an absolutely gorgeous and unique art style and when combined with the high drama and solemn maturity of the writing in makes for something absolutely enchanting. I've mentioned it before, but part of the appeal of EMN is not knowing exactly what tone you're going to end up with when you turn the TV on at midnight. This is something grounded, something unique, and something so easy to lose yourself in that you come away wondering why you hadn't seen it before.


Naruto
Year: 2002
Synopsis: In a village full of ninjas, one orphaned outcast wants to break apart from the pack and become the greatest ninja of all.
EMN Notes: I can't help it, I really do love early Naruto. It's a series that preys on my nostalgia, having read it in Shonen Jump in middle school and having watched it for the first time on bootleg VHS tapes at my brother's friend's house. The Land of Waves arc still holds up, on that note. There's a real charm to it, even if overall it's not a great show, and the fun part has been discovering that the Cartoon Network dub was actually pretty solid despite the musical cuts and changes and toning down the violence. This is a time capsule of specific feelings for me as well as of the anime industry as a whole, and that's enough of a reason to keep it here.


Neo Yokio
Year: 2017
Synopsis: Kaz Kaan, one of futuristic city Neo Yokio's richest bachelors, fights tooth and nail to secure his place at the top of high society.
EMN Notes: A splendidly weird little show packed with non sequitur, incredibly quotable one-liners, and a biting satire of the frivolity of the upper class. Every episode of this show is a journey, and at six episodes there was no reason not to add it because you know you're going to have a very good time no matter when you tune in. It's a great piece of weird art, almost like a public access show in how niche it is, and that's why I like it so much.


Nichijou
Year: 2011
Synopsis: Funny high school girls doing funny high school girl things with a heavy dash of the surreal- Wait, there's a robot in this one?!
EMN Notes: This show lives in excess. It takes everything you come to expect from the funny slice-of-life type shows and dials it up with absolutely stunning animation, a frantic pace, a joke a minute, and also adds in a whole cast of very colorful characters such as a robot named Nano and her child prodigy inventor, a kid obsessed with discovering whether or not the paranormal is real, and the only two people in the world determined to start a "Go + Soccer Club". What makes it work apart from the constant shifts in animation and unpredictable jokes is that at their core the two main groups of characters are absolutely delightful. They're funny, they have lives, hobbies, quirks, and you care about them. They're not just joke vessels, and it culminates in a wonderful second half of the show that is just as funny and twice as heartwarming as the first. One of my favorites, and it makes me laugh every single time. It's another show that is sub-only because the Japanese delivery is impossible to top.


One Piece
Year: 1999
Synopsis: A boy made of rubber sets sail to form a crew of oddballs and hunt for the greatest treasure in the universe - the One Piece.
EMN Notes: One Piece is the one Jump-era Shonen I used to love in my youth that has not only held up but has genuinely gotten better with age. After falling off the manga I recently picked it back up and ended up binging everything I had missed and I love its stories of optimism, rebellion, and integrity. As for the show itself, the redone Funimation dub is top notch, and the early arcs still hit as hard as they did when I was a kid. I can remember so many iconic moments and scenes from the early arcs and I'm happy that they're represented on EMN. It's a show that means a lot to Mandy and I, something we bonded over, and continue to bond over. Seeing an episode and hearing now-familiar musical cues and voices instantly brings peace to my heart.


One Punch Man
Year: 2015
Synopsis: A regular guy accidentally becomes the strongest superhero in the world, able to take down any threat with just one punch.
EMN Notes: This show is hilarious. The idea of a superhero who just wants to play video games and go shopping but just happens to live in a world that is constantly menaced by villains looking to cause carnage is so good, and every single time you're like "so this is the one that's gonna take more than one punch, right?" and it isn't. Saitama and his robot friend Genos have a great rapport, and the cast of other superheroes just gets weirder and weirder and more fun as the show goes on. It's a perfect fit for capturing that retro-modern feeling with clever wit and genuine excitement.


Ouran High School Host Club
Year: 2006
Synopsis: A commoner at an elite high school breaks a vase and is conscripted into the school's Host Club to make reparations. There's just one problem - Haruhi Fujioka is a girl!
EMN Notes: There are a lot of guilty pleasures on EMN. For some reason, though, this is my guiltiest pleasure of all. It's funny how this anime was absolutely everywhere for a while and was to many in the 00s a seminal piece of work. There are a few reasons it's dipped in popularity since then, but honestly I really wish it hadn't. I actually didn't watch this until college and I always really connected to Haruhi herself. The way she plays with gender is honestly inspiring, and these days I want nothing more than to be exactly like her. This whole series is bolstered by Caitlin Glass's absolutely spectacular performance as Haruhi, though the comedy and romance elements don't hurt either. It's a fun show and it fills me with a bizarrely specific euphoria that is hard to articulate and just kind of makes me feel a little embarassed for some reason. But hey, it's here in this write-up, so there you go.


Outlaw Star
Year: 1998
Synopsis: After inheriting an ancient ship harboring a strange secret, troublemaker Gene Starwind gathers a crew and aims to adventure among the stars.
EMN Notes: My favorite thing about EMN is when something comes out of nowhere and truly surprises me. This show is the ultimate surprise, originally added just because we vaguely remembered it from Toonami and liked the art style enough. What I wasn't expecting was a soaring visual treat, a dense world set in outer space with bold and bright colors and deep contrasts of light and shadow. The opening theme is incredible, and each character is so fun and fresh. It somehow feels like the ultimate 90s anime in style and in substance, perhaps only matched by Slayers. It's a gorgeous, exhilerating time capsule that I can't get enough of. It may not be one of my favorite shows, but it is one of my favorite shows to experience in the EMN format.


Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
Year: 2010
Synopsis: Two foul-mouthed angels are stuck on Earth until they kill enough demons to let them back into Heaven, but they're too busy being stuck in a sex comedy to care.
EMN Notes: There is nothing on the air like Panty & Stocking. It manages to be a take on American adult cartoons while combining frantic use of mixed media and completely wild plots and parodies. It is unapologetically filthy, a veritable kinkfest (seriously there is a nonzero chance that at least one of your kinks is represented in this show), and absolutely hilarious to boot. This is the first anime I found subs for as they released, back when streaming anime first started becoming a thing. The English dub may lose the effect of Panty randomly swearing in English, but when every other word is a "fuck" and the dialogue is just as sharp and callous as ever, it's all right in my book. I can't believe this show goes where it goes sometimes, and I've seen it before! It's a riot. A cherryboy riot.


Paradise Kiss
Year: 2005
Synopsis: A bored high schooler finds solace, excitement, and romance as she enters the world of fashion design and modeling.
EMN Notes: Once again, variety is so important when it comes to EMN, and not only does this show have a unique story and aesthetic, it also has a rocking ending theme. Mandy loves this show, and I'm super fond of it as a result. Mixing up all these genres and stories and never knowing what you're going to land on when you turn the TV on at midnight is, as I've said before, what this is all about.


Paranoia Agent
Year: 2004
Synopsis: A child with a bat goes on a string of attacks against people who have given up on life.
EMN Notes: Not counting the minute-long short film Good Morning, this was the final piece of Satoshi Kon's work we had to watch in order to see his entire filmography. What a way to go out. It's every bit as horrifying and moving and arresting as his films, with a Lynchian aspect I adore. The central mystery and the meaning of said mystery and the metatextual nature of it all hit home, especially in the middle of this global pandemic and the pain and malaise it brought. It's an exceptional horror and an even more exceptional allegory, a magnificently beautiful piece of work that feels like all of Satoshi Kon collected into a single series. He was a master of his craft, one of the best of all time, and having this show on this channel is our own little tribute to him. Besides, the symbolic nature of it all is just to die for in an EMN context.


Pluto
Year: 2023
Synopsis: Someone is killing the world's most advanced robots, and one of them - an inspector named Gesicht - has to uncover who and why.
EMN Notes: This anime was a dream-come-true. I love Naoki Urasawa's works, and I've been waiting for another anime adaptation of his manga for a long time. Pluto is my third-favorite Urasawa piece, and the anime adaptation did not in any way disappoint. Fantastic art style, great pacing, and it told the whole story in a single go. This was an easy addition, joining the likes of Monster. If they ever make 20th Century Boys into an anime, you'd better believe it's getting on here too.


Pokemon
Year: 1997
Synopsis: Ash Ketchum wants to be the best, like no one ever was, and become the greatest Pokemon trainer in the world!.
EMN Notes: We added a large chunk of the first season, including a whole bunch of our favorite episodes (yes, they're the Lavender Town ones) because...I mean, c'mon, it's Pokemon. I don't know if there's a single show more nostalgic to a specific age group and generation than Pokemon season one. I got my internet start looking up Team Rocket fansites (check the archives for some of them) and Pokemon glitches. I got in trouble for showing people a funny internet Pokemon parody radio play thing. Pokemon cards were banned at my school. It was a trip. But more than that, this first season is fascinating because of how unique the dub is. Yeah, people talk about the localization, but there's a way the characters speak, the voices used, the quippy dialogue, it feels more like a cartoon than an Anime Dub, and that's because that's what they had to do back then. It's pleasantly raw and messy, and I find that to be the most nostalgic part of all.


Pokemon Concierge
Year: 2024
Synopsis: An overworked salarywoman gets a new job at an island resort for Pokemon.
EMN Notes: Oh. My. God. This show is so cute! I love the protagonist and her Psyduck, and the stop-motion style is loaded with beautiful charm. It's such a sweet show, aand the ending theme is done by Mariya Takeuchi! We binged the four episodes that are available and immediately knew it was getting on here. It's seriously adorable. I want to live there.


Pop Team Epic
Year: 2018
Synopsis: A mashup of styles, gags, jokes, and segments featuring two weird little gremlins.
EMN Notes: So the original Pop Team Epic 4Koma is incredibly funny and quotable, used for edits and reaction images all the time. This anime, however, is completely off-the-wall. They use every style from CG to yarn puppets to entire segments animated by the Galo Sengen guys. Each episode is just the same two halves played one after each other, but switching the voice actors for the protagonists and sometimes adding or removing parts from each half so you're never quite sure what will change. The parodies, references, and bizarre out-of-nowhere jokes will hit you like a ton of bricks in ways you aren't expecting. There are punchlines in here that left me genuinely breathless with laughter and just pure shock that they happened at all. Have I mentioned that it has one of the most gorgeous opening intros I've ever seen? This show is contemporary art.


Princess Jellyfish
Year: 2010
Synopsis: A group of 20-something otaku women learn about high fashion, politics, and romance when one of them accidentally invites a cross-dresser into their sacred space.
EMN Notes: I absolutely adore the Kuragehime manga, and the anime adaptation, while truncated to end at the first arc, is still phenomenal. There's such a light, hopefuly, joyous air that permeates it, and yet it never shies away from the main character's quiet grief in missing her mother and learning to be a young adult. It's also fun because each main character has their own hyperfixations and quirks and are just delightful, funny, and kind. The art style and jokes of the manga are translated perfectly, and the opening theme is one of my favorites in how it makes my heart sing with spectacular parody visuals to go along with a light, airy tune. On a personal level, I truly love Kuranosuke as a character. In the manga you do get an explanation to how he starts crossdressing and it's something that truly spoke to me. A shame this show will never have the later arcs adapted, because this one is a winner and a bright and sunshiney one at that.


Pumpkin Scissors
Year: 2006
Synopsis: A military unit finds themselves listless and offering relief in an uneasy post-war period.
EMN Notes: This show just has an incredible vibe. Alice is such an endearing and cute protagonist, packed with energy, and the show's action scenes are pleasantly absurd. It's incredible that Alice's voice actress has very few starring roles to her name - in fact, this might be one of her few. She crushes it with a performance that has a lot of grit to it and plays so nicely with the visuals and world design. Also, in the first episode the male lead punches a tank off of a cliff. It's awesome.


Ranma 1/2
Year: 1989
Synopsis: After an accident at a spring, a martial artist finds that he switches sexes whenever splashed with water.
EMN Notes: Rumiko Takahashi has such a charming style in her art and her gags and what can I say, this one's one that always stuck with me. I first heard about this show through an article in Wizard Magazine which would often print articles in the early days of anime fandom about all the obscure cool titles you're missing on video. I remember trying to download an episode of Ranma on some filesharing program, probably Limewire but it may have been Morpheus, and it just wasn't happening. I was bummed because damn it, I wanted to know about the character that could gender-bend! I have always been Like This. Anyway, it's old school to the max and a real chill classic, so here it goes. It's best watched early in the morning.


Read or Die!
Year: 2001
Synopsis: Mild-mannered book enthusiast is actually top secret agent The Paper, a woman with a psychic link to the printed page.
EMN Notes: I am so mad to report that this is, like Gunsmith Cats, another three-episode OVA that deserved the world. ROD is a successful enough manga! It got a sequel anime series! But I'm sorry, I don't want a sequel with new characters, I want Yomiko! Yomiko and Nancy are great fun, the superpowered secret agents are a delight, and it's just in general a fantastic breath of fresh air that wouldn't be out of place at the video store. It's just a shame it's another short one.


Revolutionary Girl Utena
Year: 1997
Synopsis: An artistic allegorical series about the trials of girlhood told through the lens of a woman determined to become a prince and marry her Rose Bride.
EMN Notes: It's hard to put how this series makes me feel into words. It's always had an air of mystique about it, a work of immeasurable beauty with character designs and imagery that captivates me. It captivated me growing up and it captivates me now. It's such a seminal historical work in both its original form and as a show that was brought over to the US when it was, and it's no wonder it's survived as long as it has, especially with the queerness now known and on full display to a modern audience. It's an enchanting series, even with the admittedly very humorously dated English dub. "And Some Day, Together, We'll Shine" may be one of my favorite episode titles of anything ever. This is a series that pierced deep into my heart and takes me to a strange and ethereal headspace whenever I watch it, and it's that headspace I'm always chasing with EMN.


Sailor Moon
Year: 1992
Synopsis: A high school girl and her friends she meets along the way gain the power of the stars to transform and fight the forces of evil.
EMN Notes: First things first, after a lot of back-and-forth, we decided to add the newer Viz dub, because as nostalgic and fun as the original localized dub is, the Viz one is more accurate with no censorship or cuts, and honestly it still manages to tick those nostalgic boxes despite not technically being what I watched growing up. That's because it's a classic for a reason, with a great art style, fantastic characters with fun and fresh dynamics, exciting action, and so many recognizable heroes and villains. As a kid, I wanted to be a Sailor Scout, specifically Sailor Sun. I would fantasize about having a cool costume that looked like a space suit. I loved this show so much. And yet I still thought I was cis for 28 years. Weird.


Samurai Champloo
Year: 2005
Synopsis: A group of travelers in the Edo period move across Japan in search of a mysterious samurai that ties their fates together.
EMN Notes: This show is fun because they really did just go to the Cowboy Bebop creator and say "Hey, can you do something similar?". It's fun. It shows, too, as a really fun episodic piece of work with a groovy soundtrack by the incomparable Nujabes. Despite the similar DNA, I find that I appreciate this show best when not comparing it to Cowboy Bebop, and the Edo period and samurai battles help it stand out. This is prime late-night entertainment.


Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Year: 2023
Synopsis: Scott Pilgrim has to defeat seven evil exes to be with the girl of his dreams, but this adventure turns out to be a New Game+ when Scott is unceremoniously defeated by Matthew Patel. Now Ramona has to figure out what happened.
EMN Notes: Mandy and I have issues with this series, and they're ones I don't think we'll ever be able to get over. It isn't as smart as the movie or comics, and the celebrity voice acting direction just never quite clicks. However, it is an undeniably funny, stylish and well-animated way to spend more time in a world we love with characters we love. Divorced of expectation and of episodic weight, each episode is a fun, breezy, often extremely charming thirty minutes loaded with great jokes and character moments, and it feels so right in the linear TV format.


Slayers
Year: 1995
Synopsis: A hot-headed and hungry sorceress explores a fantasy world in search of money and adventure.
EMN Notes: One of the quintessential 90s anime shows, second perhaps only to Outlaw Star in how each part of it perfectly encapsulates a certain 90s anime style. It's a genuinely very fun show at that, with Lina Inverse being a great character, and the dub being one of the stronger ones of the time and having that rough edge that all the best of the era had. The fantasy world it takes place in is fun, and the cast interactions are cute, and overall there's something about the bright colors and rough cels that makes me beam. This was one of my brother's favorites back in the day.


Shinesman
Year: 1996
Synopsis: One of Japan's top businesses has a secret - it's the home base for a salaryman-themed Sentai group known as the Shinesmen!
EMN Notes: An amazingly obscure OVA. The only reason I know about this is because somehow, against all odds, I kept in my possession a random VHS tape from my brother for over 20 years. I finally watched it in 2020 and found it to be a blast. It's such a strange pilot, with a hilarious premise and fun alien designs. How was this selected to be dubbed and released? I've never even heard of the company who did it! And yet, the dub is shockingly competent and fun, with some killer talent in there. I love this one because of how I managed to keep it and how it ended up being nothing that I expected. One day I want to start writing articles about VHS finds, and you better believe this will be the first one.


Space Patrol Luluco
Year: 2016
Synopsis: A normal high school girl realizes she's anything but when she joins with the Space Patrol to rescue her father.
EMN Notes: This show has such a cute main character, each episode is ten minutes long, and it's as wildly frenetic as you'd expect a Trigger show from the time period to be. Why not add it to EMN? It has a really great sense of humor and adventure and a fun sci-fi world that charmed me quickly. I'm not always Trigger's biggest fan, but you can't say they weren't making a lot of really interesting shows around this time.


Steins;Gate
Year: 2011
Synopsis: A group of internet nerds accidentally invent a time machine.
EMN Notes: One of my favorite shows ever made, with one of the best dubs I've ever heard. The original visual novel it's based on is excellent, too. This show manages to deftly weave together high science fiction with incredible, relatable slice-of-life moments between a group of autistic weirdos, all culminating into one of the most beautiful and dramatic stories of love and loss and life I've ever seen. I love every single character in this show, especially the absolutely wonderful Okabe Rintarou (played to perfection by J. Michael Tatum in my second-favorite voice-acting performance ever). This show was a delightful surprise when I watched it on a whim on YouTube and it's one that brings me comfort every time it plays, even when things take a turn for the deadly serious. I just love it.


The Big O
Year: 1999
Synopsis: In a mysterious city, a contractor named Roger and his android Dorothy team up to defend against threats and recover the memories humanity has lost.
EMN Notes: I've said it before, but my favorite thing about EMN is when something plays that surprises us. This was one of the msot pleasant surprises of the project for me. I knew of this show, and I knew its theme song, but what I didn't expect was a visually-distinct, action-packed show with fun characters and a musical score and aesthetic that made me want to get out of my seat and pump a fist in the air. This isn't the deepest show, but it's so wholly unique to the creator's vision and so incredibly memorable for that reason, and it was one of the first shows that made me truly understand EMN as an art project and helped me cement my vision. You have Mandy to thank for that, because they were the ones who added it.


The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Year: 2006
Synopsis: The strange story of an after-school club designed to attract the paranormal, and the girl who can shape the universe.
EMN Notes: How do you talk about Haruhi? It's amazing how this show was once one of the biggest on the planet and yet new audiences barely remember it if they know about it at all. Their loss, I suppose. This show is a modern masterpiece. I initially watched it in a series of arcs that were cut together in a somewhat chronological order, and then I watched it in the airdate order. There's something about this being a show that was aired out of order that makes it perfect for EMN, but more than that this is an astoundingly gorgeous show that takes what you expect from the Funny Slice Of Life show that it pretends to be and turns it around, upside-down, and sideways. This show is Big Feelings personified, one that lulls you into its world, makes you hang on Haruhi and Kyon's every word as you learn more about everything that happens in it. It's intriguing, it's gorgeous, it's funny, it's nostalgic, and it's strange, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The final shot of one of the Endless Eight episodes, where the camera focuses on a clock and turns the frame in time with the seconds hand, is one of the most hauntingly gorgeous scenes I've ever seen. It just sticks with me in deep unexplainable ways, and that's how Haruhi is to me as a whole.


Tiger & Bunny
Year: 2011
Synopsis: In the future, superheroes are celebrities who stop crime on a reality show. In order to prove his worth to his sponsors, an aging veteran is teamed up with a young prodigy and the two must learn to get along.
EMN Notes: I love working on this project with Mandy because sometimes they'll add something I never would have thought to add in a million years that ends up being one of my favorite things on the channel. That is the case with Tiger & Bunny, a show we both love, but in the EMN context has become something comforting and joyful in a way that transcends how special it already is. There's something about the format that allows me to really appreciate it more than ever. And there's so much to appreciate here, from the incredible relationship between Kotetsu and Barnaby, the colorful cast of characters, the fully-realized world of Stern Bild that feels alive and liveable, and the mysteries that unfold as the series progresses. It's a one-of-a-kind show that hits from start-to-finish and ties together EMN like no other.


Trigun
Year: 1998
Synopsis: A sci-fi/western in which two insurance ladies track down the notorious town-leveling gunman Vash the Stampede, only to learn that he's an eccentric pacifist on the run from his past.
EMN Notes: Not counting bootleg Dragonball Z VHS's, this was the first out-of-the-way anime I ever actively sought out. My brother had the entire collection on VHS, as well as some of the manga, and I would sneak into his room and steal them, take them to my parents' room, and watch them in secret. I was definitely too young for this show, but I was entranced. I still own his entire original VHS set, and it's one of my prized possessions. I had never seen anything so beautiful, set in this dusty future world. The story of Vash the Stampede, the killer who never killed, and Wolfwood, the priest who defied God, was unlike anything I was experiencing even in the graphic novels and manga I'd get at the bookstore. I remember taking the first VHS tape to a friend's house during a sleepover and getting him hooked, too. I mean, why wouldn't you be? It had comedy, it had gunfights, it had two businesswomen with super fun personalities on the trail of a wild gunman, and it told gritty human stories that hid a layer of pain under all the laughter and light. It also has one of my favorite scenes in anime history near the end. I think we all have those special little pieces of media we knew about before they blew up and we hold them dear in our heart as a result. This is one of mine.


Welcome to the NHK
Year: 2006
Synopsis: A shut-in NEET conspiracy theorist is convinced a mysterious organization is out to get him until he discovers his life's purpose - helping other NEETs brave the outside world.
EMN Notes: This show is interesting, because I actually read all of the manga and remember really enjoying it, and as a show it's always fascinated me. It sort of occupies a space in my head with Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei as a really unusual piece of media that seemed almost apocryphal at times. It's the strangest thing, because despite having read the manga I remember very little of the actual plot, only the characters and the emotions it made me feel. The show takes a lot of liberties with the source material, to the point that it's almost something else entirely, but its very interesting and experimental in that way too. It has a sense of peace to it, and I think that having spaces for those shows that exist on the fringes of our minds is necessary.


Wild Arms: Twilight Venom
Year: 1999
Synopsis: In a post-apocalyptic Western sci-fi world, a group of bandits find the soul of a legendary gunman in a child's body and break him out of prison.
EMN Notes: Mandy loves the Wild Arms game series. I'm fond, too. The thing about this show is that it really isn't that special, but in a kind of comforting peaceful way. In a lot of ways it feels like an off-brand Outlaw Star in tone, with sprawling adventures and an enjoyable cast of characters. It's just one that takes place in a Wild West-flavored world. It's not really reminiscent of any of the games in particular, but it has enough of their warmth.


Yo-kai Watch
Year: 2014
Synopsis: Ghosts are real. Demons are real. They're small, they're cute, and they can be friend or foe. It's up to Nate Adams to register them in his Yo-kai Watch and use their powers for good.
EMN Notes: This is a very silly children's show. And yet, it's kind of goofy and amusing, and I really enjoy that. It isn't as pleasantly rough around the edges as the Pokemon or Digimon dubs of my youth, but there's a strange exuberance to the gags and heavily localized dub that really charms me. I feel like if I were younger, this would've been my weird little show that I latched onto. Even the theme song is super weird. All in all, it's a cute time.


You're Under Arrest!
Year: 1996
Synopsis: Two lady cops work together with their department to bust criminals and make a right old mess of things.
EMN Notes: This show was recently turned into a meme because of character Yuriko doing a silly face to get out of trouble in a situation. It's a funny moment, and it lead to Mandy and I adding it to EMN Most-Wanted for fun. We hadn't really heard of it, but as soon as it hit on that channel we fell head-over-heels in love with it. It's that perfect blend of great comedy, cute characters, and a fantastic of-the-time ADV dub that oozes with charm. It just made us laugh and kept making us laugh. And the more we learned about the series the more charmed we were by it. The two buddy cops have great chemistry, Yuriko is great comic relief, there's even a trans character who has a shockingly poignant episode about her, and it's just...nice? It's nice. I'm amazed I hadn't run into it before this.


Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Monsters
Year: 2000
Synopsis: After solving an ancient Egyptian puzzle, a young boy from Japan finds himself possessed by the spirit of an ancient pharoah known to be the king of games. Let the card battles commence!
EMN Notes: I actually love the Yu-Gi-Oh manga. I had the first volume and I read it until the pages fell out. I also loved the card game, the show, and I had Music To Duel By which contains a villain song by Maximillion Pegasus that is so much better than it has any right to be. It's so funny, because when this show got dubbed they took the character of Kaiba and through rewrites and edits inadvertantly made him more like his manga iteration than he was in the original Japanese. This dub is held together through sheer exuberance and absolutely hilarious voice-acting, taking some of these characters and infusing them with iconic performances and vocal quirks that stick around in pop culture today. It's nothing like the original manga, but boy does it make me smile. There's nothing like being transported into this passionate, nigh-nonsensical card game world where all that matters is the heart of the cards.


Yu Yu Hakusho
Year: 1992
Synopsis: A young punk is killed and sent to the demon world. Upon his revival he's found he's been granted with great spiritual power and must serve under the demon king.
EMN Notes: Another wonderfully nostalgic show for me, this show is just a really fun time with a great cast set in a world of spirits and monsters. Kurama was the blueprint. This show hits aesthetically, and I had so many fond memories of getting home from school to watch it on Toonami with my brother. It's also got a good story, with suitable dramatic action sequences, wickedly weird fights, and an incredibly distinct set of powers for each character. Also, the music is wonderful, with the English-language versions of the opening and ending themes being just as good as their Japanese counterparts thanks to the singer's beautiful voice. This show just puts me in a mood to watch the channel.


Yuri!!! On Ice
Year: 2016
Synopsis: Following a crushing performance at nationals, figure skater Yuri is ready to quit, but that changes when his biggest skating inspiration shows up at his family's inn unannounced and offers to train him.
EMN Notes: Every so often a show comes along that feels perfectly tailored to you, to the point that you forget anyone else knows about it. Mandy and I watched this show together on a whim when going through that year's season and it hooked us immediately with beautiful art, even more beautiful music, the focus on Victor and Yuri's relationship, and the focus on the beauty of figure skating. Whenever we would watch a new episode it felt like the world would melt away, and it's around that time that I realized we would always be together. It's strange to think that this show is actually popular because of how deeply personal our relationship to it is. It was the first time I saw my own feelings on love reflected in a show, but not actually in what happens on the show (even if I do love Victor and Yuri). It's more in how the characters move, how the music swells at key moments, the lingering glances each character gives one another, how the figure skating scenes are shot. It's an intangible beauty I can't get enough of. On that note, I will say that the English dub completely changes the tone of the show from something elegant and beautiful to something more comedic, but that's not a bad thing. It's not like the show wasn't humorous before, it's just more obviously so in English, but the performances are great for what they're aiming for.