My Top Five Favorite OWLS Posts That I Wrote in 2019

Hello all!

I figured I try to get this post out there before the new year began, so here we are once again to celebrate some of my writings throughout 2019. Can you believe I’ve been with the group since the beginning? That means I’ve written exactly 36 OWLS posts since our founding! As I did in 2017 and 2018, I’ve compiled a short list of favorites from this third round of posts. In the spirit of the New Year and bidding the old farewell, these are posts that represent my journey through anime, and some of the major life lessons I’d like to share with you, the reader!

As I mention every year, *clears throat*, “All of my OWLS posts are my babies—in fact, they’re probably some of the best posts I’ve ever written, if not THE best of what I’ve got so far, and I thoroughly LOVED writing ALL of them.” So, enjoy my reminiscing, and feel free to scope them out if you’re feeling the urge to relive each month’s thought-provoking topic.

On my site’s menu, you’ll see that OWLS has its own tab (and rightly so), so you can find all the other pleasant posts I wrote in 2019 that didn’t make this list. Alright, here we go, a look at Takuto’s OWLS participation in 2019!

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RUNNER UP:

Tour #26 February – A Story That Loves Love: Go For It, Nakamura! | OWLS “Adore”

We open with a sweet one that is near and dear to my heart. It’s Syundei’s Go For It, Nakamura, and is the second manga to be featured as an OWLS post on this blog. Why didn’t this bumbling klutz make the cut? As wholesome as the story was, a single volume doesn’t allow for as much depth as a 24-episode anime might, so it just barely makes the runner-up spot on the grounds of being too short and sweet for its own good. But don’t worry, I feel the others are worthy contenders in their own right!

Life Lessons Learned:

• Love yourself to the fullest capacity that you can.
• Crawling out of your shell is a scary experience—do it anyway.
• Sometimes, we need friendship more than romance.

NUMBER FIVE:

Tour #28 April – Chasing You, Chasing Me: The Heart of Run with the Wind | OWLS “Masculinity”

The first half of the year was arguably full of my better works, but we slide into number five with this little character analysis over my favorite title of 2018, Run With the Wind.  Y’all know I’m a hoe for one Haiji Kiyose, so it shouldn’t come across as a surprise that I’m happy to be able to write about him and this series whenever I get the chance! Plus, I thought he was a less-than-stereotypical choice for a post about “masculinity” (if you catch my drift). Ahh, the whole Kazetsuyo series I did just takes me back to watching this wonderful series!

Life Lessons Learned:

• We are not as tough as we seem—be sensitive to other’s emotions.
• Run with your feelings, not against them.
• Run life at your own pace, but run with others when you can.

NUMBER FOUR:

Tour #27 March – She Flies Again! The Stellar Women of Space Battleship Yamato 2199 | OWLS “Feminine”

Run With the Wind gave us a cast full of incredible men, but March also showed up with  the equally remarkable women aboard the space battleship Yamato. A masterpiece of storytelling and character drama in itself, the “Feminine” OWLS tour allowed me to give special spotlight to some of anime’s most underrated galactic heroines. So much raw talent and spirit flies with the Yamato‘s crew, but were it not for these particular ladies, it is doubtful that the ship would have made it across the stars at all.

Life Lessons Learned:

• Lead with the heart, always.
• One should always value honor in their craft.
• Embrace diversity—it can often be one’s greatest strength.

NUMBER THREE:

Tour #25 January – The Conviction to Change in Bunny Girl Senpai | OWLS “Metamorphosis”

We’re heading back to the very first tour of 2019 with the infamous yet beloved Bunny Girl Senpai. I distinctly remember the first three episodes of this series taking the anime community by storm as it walked us through Sakuta Azusagawa and Mai Sakurajima’s fateful encounter with one another. The sheer emotional drive from this single hour of content was what pushed me to dedicate an entire post to this first mini story arc, and boy has it still stuck with me to this day. Eclipsing intense drama with a quick-witted romance, Bunny Girl Senpai offered more fun, multi-layered character growth than most modern anime could dream of.

Life Lessons Learned:

• Until we open up to others with our problems and allow each other to see why we are hurt, confused, or scared, we’ll never be able to understand one another
• There will always be something we hate about ourselves, something to regret.
• However, we can always try to change ourselves to make our lives better.

NUMBER TWO:

Tour #30 June – Sarazanmai & The Price of Connection | OWLS “Vulnerable”

Back when the heat of the summer first hit us in June, I distinctively recall being nervous to post this one. And yet, here it is as one of my favorites from the year. Despite its wacky narrative and silly premise, I will probably always hold Sarazanmai near and dear to my heart. I resonate so much with each of the series’ characters, Enta’s story particularly being the highlight of this post. Burdened with unrequited love yet the desire to connect with others anyway, Sarazanmai shows us how good things can come to good people, so long as they can stomach the pain of potential loss. It was an odd one for sure, but oh-so full of heart—that I can guarantee you.

Life Lessons Learned:

• So long as we try to reach out to others and form connections, we’ll always be vulnerable to attack, physical or emotional.
• But more importantly, just by trying, we’ll always have the chance to be happy.
• Love yourself, and cherish the bonds you form.

AND FINALLY, NUMBER ONE:

Tour #33 September – Michiko & Hatchin, Two Against the World || OWLS “Lover”

Did my pick for #1 surprise you as much as it did me? Before writing this post, I reread through all of the OWLS posts I wrote in 2019 (as I do every year), and was really caught off guard by how emotionally charged I sounded in this post, haha! I truly meant it when I said “Michiko & Hatchin slaps differently now,” as wow, it really is a wild ride through the messy side of intimate relationships.

So much of this series is full of broken relationships and shattered hearts. In other words, as much as I pride myself on the optimistic values of connection and happiness in Sarazanmai, Bunny Girl Senpai, or even Run With the Wind, at the end of the day, we’re all people. And people, as I’m sure we all know them, make mistakes. We screw up, badly, and often leave certain ties to rot and eventually fade away. Michiko & Hatchin is a story about our failures to develop healthy relationships with people—but also a bold tale of resilience, determination, self-growth, and rebirth for two young women just trying to find love in a world that gave up on them seemingly from the moment they came into it. Perhaps it’s that futile yet noble pursuit of love that made September’s “Lover” tour my favorite OWLS post of 2019.

Life Lessons Learned:

• Love can be a curse that ties people down in the past, entrapping their emotions in the present to those memories long-gone.
• Having a lover can also make us do rotten things to other people to make sure our relationships are protected.
• People will come and go all throughout our lives. Surround yourself with the good ones: those who give love, not take it.

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I WILL Be Catching Up On All Your Posts, Too!

Within the next couple weeks, I’ll slowly be reading through each and every last OWLS post from 2019 in an attempt to catch-up before the new year gets too underway. It’ll be an intense endeavor (as it always is), but I kinda look forward to it as a sort of OWLS tradition I hold to myself. So, be on the lookout for my Twitter spam of your guys’ posts as my way of giving back to you. You’re all fantastic writers, and I wouldn’t be in OWLS were it not for this ever-growing family!

But anyway, that’s my line-up for this year. What did you think? Was there a post you were shocked to see up there, or perhaps one you remember liking that didn’t make the list? I assure you that it was actually pretty difficult narrowing it down to just five, but I’d love to hear YOUR thoughts on my OWLS 2019 tour entries! Thank you all so much for a wonderful year with this group—I eagerly anticipate another set of 12 OWLS posts I can add to my blogging “resume” in 2020! More year-in wrap-ups and updates will be coming before New Year’s, so until then, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

See you back soon!

– Takuto

My Top 10 Favorite Anime of 2018!

Hello!

Happy Friday evening everyone. I’m back with more 2018 clean-up, and although several weeks overdue, I wanted to give each of the Fall 2018 anime a couple more weeks to see how some of them further progressed.

And boy was I glad I did that!

There was a lot in 2018 that I didn’t get around to watching: Violet Evergarden, Laid-Back Camp, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Megalo Box, Wotakoi, Planet With, Bloom into You, and the rest of Revue Starlight to name a few. But while much went unwatched for me, I did manage to watch a small handful of shows each season to compile a list such as this.

Anyway, enough stalling. As the title of this post indicated, listed below are my top 10 favorite anime of 2018!

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NUMBER TEN:

Angels of Death

Despite the incredible flack it got for drawing out the climax another four episodes (only to end in more controversy), the multi-interpretive ending of Angels of Death is actually one of my favorite aspects about it. The impossibly large setting with countless floors of traps and mazes reminded me of my first experience in Danganronpa‘s Hopes Peak High (which simultaneously frightened and amazed me), and for that matter, the mystery elements of the plot were surprisingly entertaining.

Perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if it wasn’t so edgy about death and better incorporated the floor boss villains into the narrative rather than just treating them as sadistic criminals. But alas, for an anime based off an old JRPG horror fave, I’d say Angels of Death was a worthwhile investment.

NUMBER NINE:

DAKAICHI -I’m being harassed by the sexiest man of the year-

I know, I know, it’s SMUT. If there was an award for guilty pleasure anime of the year, DAKAICHI would’ve taken it hands-down. I’m actually somewhat embarrassed to put this BL rom-com on the list, but hey, I should give credit where it’s due, right? And I really did love this silly little anime about much-beloved, A-list Japanese actor Takato Saijou boldly pursuing the love for the first time in his life. Cute characters, nice animation, yup, not much else to say here!

NUMBER EIGHT:

Free! – Dive to the Future

Oh geez, one title full of bishounens after another—Who wrote this list?? Wait, I can explain!! I’ve loved Free! ever since it started airing back in the summer of 2013, and even if they decide to draw out the franchise (and unnecessarily so) for five more years after this, I’ll still love Free!. While this season’s additions of Ikuya and Hiyori brought all kinds of ~meh~ drama into the water, it was nice to still be able to follow these guys in college (cause, ya know, I’m also in college now).

Plus, Rei as Iwatobi’s captain, YASSSS! Since it just kind of “ends” after one of the meets, I’m looking forward to the film to hopefully bring resolution to Haru’s newest rivalry.

NUMBER SEVEN:

Steins;Gate 0

In case you didn’t know, Steins;Gate was my favorite anime of all time for several years in the running. It has one of the best endings of all time, and even though many didn’t care for the film, it only added to my love of this title. When it was announced that we’d FINALLY be receiving an adaptation of the story’s “lost timeline,” the game known as Steins;Gate 0, I was positively thrilled. And for the first six, heck, even 12 episodes, it didn’t disappoint. But there was one episode, episode 18 to be exact, that really ruined the entire show for me. To quote ANN on the matter, “I’ve never been so frustrated and disappointed by an episode of Steins;Gate.”

Now, I’m a firm believer in how one episode cannot ruin an entire series, but when it needed to be strongest—to execute its immense build-up of time-altering tension and deliver shocking plot twists one after another—Steins;Gate 0 absolutely dropped the ball. It’s odd, considering that with every single episode after that, the show only goes up until its thrilling, chilling ending. But man, how tragic it is for the great Steins;Gate to fall flat due to an issue with unusually lazy directing, animating, and adapting.

NUMBER SIX:

Tsurune: Kazemai High School Archery Club

I’m really, really glad that KyoAni has given this series everything it’s got to make it stand out on its own as a fantastic high school sports drama. We’ve seen the studio churn out somewhat lukewarm stories in the past (Beyond the Boundary and Myriad Colors Phantom World as the most infamous ones), and I was definitely afraid of the same happening to Tsurune just because they marketed the series with some cute archery danshi.

With only one episode left to air, I couldn’t have been more wrong—Tsurune is beautiful. Its animation is top-tier, its music is fantastically gorgeous, its direction is powerful, and its characters are more soulful than any of us expected them to be. Can’t wait to see how this wonderful little show ends!

NUMBER FIVE:

Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai

Given that I only just watched this series a week ago, talk about a last-minute pull! I may have covered Bunny Girl Senpai in my latest OWLS post, but all I was able to do was barely skim the surface of its first three episodes. In actuality, the entire series and all of its self-contained story arcs are layered with the same character complexity as its brilliant intro arc, and I highly recommend checking out the series beyond those three episodes if you get the chance.

But yeah, as everyone’s been saying, it’s like Bakemonogatari for dummies, but in many ways better. The stories are easy accessible (compared to the madness of the massive Monogatari franchise) and the comedy is always on-point—what more could you ask for? Most surprisingly-enjoyable series of the year: Bunny Girl Senpai.

NUMBER FOUR:

SSSS.GRIDMAN

Of all the shows on this list, Gridman became the one that I looked forward to each week the most. Although initially turned off by the ugly color palette and clunky CGI kaiju fights, by episode four or so I quickly became ADDICTED to the Gridman aesthetic Trigger creates. If there’s one word to sum up this show, it is “atmospheric.” Shiro Sagisu’s musical score not only plays off both the retro nature of a giant robot anime and the epic, not-of-this-world scenario, but also the subtle, somber, and hauntingly atmospheric moments that require solo piano or mere silence alone. I really appreciate how involved the main trio of high school kids are with the plot—no one is forgotten about, including the lesser of the leads.

To top it all off, we got Akane Shinjo, one of my favorite female characters of 2018! Between the high intensity kaiju fights and the mysterious nature of this very world, SSSS.GRIDMAN knew exactly what kind of story it wanted to be—and it never held back. 

NUMBER THREE:

Devilman: Crybaby 

Since I’ve already talked at length about this wild series in my review way back in February, I’ll keep my reasoning for its top-three spot concise: Crybaby is epic. It is ruthless to its cast and unyielding to the audience. Gory, over-the-top, and emotionally devastating until the very end, there’s rarely a moment to breath. Crybaby also became my entry point into the Devilman franchise, as it did for many others. And like the Yuri!!! On ICE and Banana Fish epidemics, there was—and still is—no end to the amount of Devilman: Crybaby artwork floating around on Twitter. That pleases me immensely.

Crybaby is going to be on a lot of top-10 lists and for good reasons. If you’re willing to stomach the copious amounts of gore and nudity, you should, without doubt, check out this series—it’s an absolute heartbreaker, and often those are the best kinds of anime.

NUMBER TWO:

Run With the Wind

I really, really, really, really wanted to put Run With the Wind in the #1 spot, but for the obvious reason of “it hasn’t finished airing yet,” I couldn’t cheat out the true number one when anything could still happen in the second cour of this amazingly fun and relatable sports anime. Like Welcome to the Ballroom, Production I.G has teamed up with musician Yuki Hayashi to create a well-animated, motivational story featuring a sport. This time, it’s cross country running, and since my sister ran it all throughout high school, I kinda know what’s up.

Simply, I enjoy Run With the Wind because it doesn’t try too hard to make me smile, laugh, angry, heartfelt, or inspired. The ten boys of the Kansei University track team are full of spirit, heart, and their own motives in life. As they each struggle with the daunting goal of running in the great Hakone Ekiden, we quickly find that to say something is vastly different than actually doing that thing. No matter what it is, you have to work for it, and you will encounter roadblocks along the way that must eventually be dealt with if you wish to do whatever it is you’re trying so hard at.

We all get frustrated, jealous, and mad at ourselves and others, but at the same time, we also feel triumphant, proud, and happy when things turn out as we want them to. For an anime about something as seemingly simple as running to make me feel all these emotions and more, I can only hope that Run With the Wind sticks with its greatest strength—its heart—until the very end.

Honorable Mentions:

Violet Evergarden

Because I DON’T HAVE NETFLIX UGH I have yet to actually watch this Evergarden. But if I did, you can bet that it’d be on this list.

Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight

Like some of the others here in this section, I’m only halfway done with Revue Starlight (love it BTW), so I didn’t want to put an anime on this list in which I’ve only seen six episodes of. Makes sense, right?

A Certain Magical Index III

While I was initially STOKED to get more Index, this third season has left me quite, err, confused. Like, Index isn’t known for connecting its arcs together as smoothly as most others, and the burn of abruptly dropping one story arc and diving straight into another really hurts the enjoyment factor. Fellow blogger Karandi even voiced her frustrations with the story so far and has stepped away from this third season, and I totally understand why. I want to like Index III, but is that the mentality I should be having with any anime—or anything for that matter?

Sword Art Online: Alicization

In case you don’t follow my Twitter adventures, I’ve actually been trying to read the Alicization light novels PRIOR to watching the anime so that I can compare/enjoy both mediums. This newest arc covers a whopping ten volumes, from 9 to 18, and I just finished 13 today. This means that in about a month or two, the anime will be caught up to where I’m currently at. Given how volume 15 just released in English, I’m fighting a losing battle, I know, but that’ll make watching all 50-some episodes of Alicization when I’m done reading that much greater of a reward. Of the six episodes I’ve seen thus far, it’s safe to say that had I watched more, SAO: Alicization would’ve made a spot on the list easily.

Attack on Titan Season 3 & My Hero Academia 3rd Season

A LOT of people have taken these two powerhouse third seasons out of their top-10 lists, and it makes sense: they would utterly DOMINATE otherwise. So, I shoved them here with the absolute recommendation to #GetOnThisShitASAP if you’ve been living under a rock. If you were wondering, however, I really did enjoy the new reveals and further characterization/world-building in AoT, and MHA continues to be the epitome of a well-done anime. Looking forward to more of both!

AND FINALLY, NUMBER ONE:

A Place Further Than the Universe

It’s rare for me to switch up my simulcast schedule and jump on a series mid-season. Seriously, it never happens. But once I saw that 2-minute clip of the YoriMoi girls running throughout the city (for unknown reasons at the time), it instantly dawned on me that I’d be missing out on something truly remarkable if I were to pass up this unsuspecting slice-of-life/drama series. Just, man, everything about this series is perfect. Utterly incredible and enjoyable from beginning to end.

I also find it rare for a series to inspire me as much as this. A couple years back it was Yuri!!! On ICE, and in 2017 it was Welcome to the Ballroom. I could argue and say that Run With the Wind would be the next natural candidate, but YoriMoi was able to make me think about things in a way that none of these other wonderful titles could. What does it mean to try? What does it mean to fail? What does it mean to do both, repeatedly, yet keep on going until you make it to the other side of the world and leave everyone else in shock? What does it feel like to leave it all behind? And what does it feel like to find suddenly what you’ve been searching for all your life? 

The reason I never properly reviewed A Place Further Than the Universe was because, at the time I finished the show, I couldn’t. I was pretty much speechless, cathartic, and cleansed. Even now, I still don’t know how to put my thoughts for it in words. At the time of finishing, I wanted to leave parts of my own life behind, in fact, and that caused me to briefly leave blogging until I was ready to reopen the cafe. In the short time ToriMoi was actively was in my life, it changed everything—or rather, it paved the way for me to make my own changes for once: to chase after my own desires, throw caution to the wind, and try something new.

And all this and more is why A Place Further Than the Universe is my irrefutable pick for anime of the year.

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Thanks 2018 for all the great anime!

That’s all I got! What did you think of my top ten anime of 2018? Were some of my picks predictable or even cliche? Probably, haha, but you can’t deny what’s good when it comes for you, am I right? I’ve been doing my best to stay on top of your guys’ top-10 posts, but in case I missed yours, you’re more than welcome to leave a link down in the comments for me to read! I’ll soon be posting a 2018 “watch log” post of sorts detailing everything I watched in 2018 aside from seasonal stuff, so stay tuned for that. Thanks 2018 for all the great anime, and until next time, this has been

– Takuto, your host

The Conviction to Change in Bunny Girl Senpai | OWLS “Metamorphosis”

Chances are that if you were linked here from another blogger pal, then you might be new. To those first-timers, “Hi, I’m Takuto, welcome to my anime cafe!” For the OWLS blog tour’s first monthly topic of 2019, “Metamorphosis,” I wanted to take a look at one of 2018’s best shows (in my opinion), the most unusual tale of a high school boy who encounters many different teenage girls, each of which are struggling with a bizarre phenomenon tied to personal turmoil: the (in)famous Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai.

A brand new year means new beginnings and opportunities. We have a tendency to embrace the new year because it’s a time when we can start fresh. For this month’s topic, we will be exploring our favorite dynamic characters who undergo changes for better or for worse. We will analyze these characters’ transformations and how these transformations benefited or minimized these characters’ potential in becoming “great people/beings.” We will also use these characters as a way for us to reflect on our own lives and who we want to become. Lastly, we would like to say “Happy New Year, everyone!”

Much like last year’s “Revival” tour, January ushers in new beginnings and a fresh start for us all. Here’s to the first in a long line of wonderful months to come, and thanks Lyn for the prompt!

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A brief, spoiler-free discussion on the 13-episode fall 2018 series “Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai,” animated by CloverWorks, directed by Souichi Masui, and based on the light novel series by Hajime Kamoshida. 

Troubles in Youth, the Adolescence Syndrome

Also called “puberty syndrome,” this sickness of sorts rumored on the internet to be caused by sensitivity and instability during adolescence plagues young hearts and entangles several girls in weird experiences beyond the explanation of physics.

Sakuta Azusagawa, a second-year high school student, meets these girls that are experiencing this “puberty syndrome” over the course of one eventful year. The one to stand out the most, of course, is famous child/teen actress Mai Sakurajima, which he encounters in a public library wearing a bunny costume. Although he knows her to be a senior at his school, for some reason, no one else can see Miss Sakurajima in her scantily clad attire.

When did she become invisible? How did she become invisible? As Sakuta earnestly spends more and more time with Mai-san and tries to unravel her mysterious circumstances, Mai’s hidden emotions slowly reveal themselves and a relationship of love begins to blossom.

Mai Sakurajima isn’t the only one changed by Sakuta, though—energetic underclassman Koga Tomoe is stuck in an endless time loop until she confronts her inner feelings; Sakuta’s science club friend Rio Futaba has to deal with a doppelganger of herself running around; hardworking idol Nodoka Toyohama undergoes a sudden body swap with Mai-san, who turns out to be her sister; even Sakuta’s own sister Kaede is still recovering from her terrible past with adolescence syndrome. All the while, a figure from Sakuta’s past—his first love, Shouko Makinohara—makes an incomprehensible reappearance into his life.

Love, Romance, & Schrödinger’s Cat

Sakurajima was a child star, adored by all and a household icon to boot. But following a couple-year hiatus caused by her transitionary high school phase and a conflict with her manager (her own mother), the teen actress fell out of the public eye. She suddenly became invisible, and the Adolescence Syndrome amplified that literal meaning.

Despite his convincingly bored and constantly horny exterior, Sakuta is a genuinely good guy. He’s honest, straightforward (a bit too much sometimes), persistent, caring, and is able to read into people surprisingly well. These qualities make him a perfect agent for change, which he acts upon to improve the lives of those he deems worthy of his friendship.

When going about “fixing” Sakurajima’s invisibility problem, Sakuta appeals to his super smart science club friend Futaba for advice. If anyone can believe him and break down the Adolescence Syndrome’s causes and cures, it’s Futaba. She postulates that the students’ collective forgetting of Mai-san was caused by the school’s atmosphere, and she makes the analogy of Schrödinger’s cat to explain how Mai’s existence cannot be confirmed by those who refuse to acknowledge her. Finally, Futaba proposes that if the atmosphere were to be shaken enough to awaken everyone’s memories, Mai-san’s life would return to normal.

With the school as the box and Mai-san as the cat, the Schrödinger’s cat tie-in helps to create a powerful metaphor for the change process. Unless we open the box and confront its contents, we’ll never know if the cat is dead or alive, thus it is half of both. Similarly, until we open up to others with our problems and allow each other to see why we are hurt, confused, or scared, we’ll never be able to understand one another, and thus our problems will prevail.

In this case, Sakuta persistently sought after people who knew Mai-san’s personal life, including her mother (and sister as well later on), to unravel the reason for Mai’s actions and the consequences pressed by the Adolescence Syndrome. So, what did he find? Sakuta urged Mai-san to return to her acting career. After all, she loves show business. But what made things different this time is that she wouldn’t let her mother micromanage her life. Instead, she’d plant her feet and make the choices she wanted to make.

Just like Futaba the science whiz found, unless the name Mai Sakurajima was put back into the student body’s mind in a way that broke the static atmosphere, nothing would change. Determined not to give up on Mai even though he, too, had almost forgotten her forever, Sakuta came up with a daring last-minute plan to make everyone remember. And while confessing the love of your life to every single person at school by shouting from the baseball field was a bit over-the-top, you can definitely call Sakuta’s efforts in making Mai Sakurajima visible once again commendable. Quite praiseworthy indeed!

Change to Last a Lifetime

On the subject of metamorphosis itself, one characteristic that makes Sakuta Azusagawa stand out as a “hero” type protagonist is his conviction to not only solving each problem plaguing our cast, but his focus on making lifelong changes rather than little remedies to temporary issues. Like, he could have just told Sakurajima to get back into acting or “broke the atmosphere” from the start. Instead, he devoted immense time and energy to reconstructing Mai-san’s mindset geared towards a fresh, new perspective on self-confidence. Considering how that involves rebuilding a mother-daughter relationship, I’d say it’s no small effort whatsoever.

The same could be said about the other girls, though. For Koga Tomoe, he didn’t merely get her to confront her feelings—he willingly went along with her repeated time looping until she felt comfortable being honest about the nature of a one-sided romance. Sakuta helped Koga get her friends back, her reputation back, and all because she was a true friend to him. Even with Futaba, the problem wasn’t just with eliminating the doppel—it was about filling the hole in her heart with friendship, youthful memories, and some good, honest fun.

If there’s one big takeaway from Bunny Girl Senpai, it’s that deep down, we’re all just trying to keep the past out of the future, even if that means giving up on some of the things we love. It’s a romantic notion, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not how we should be living our lives—and Sakuta Azusagawa knows it.

Try as we might, we’ll never be able to completely let the past go. Whether its remnants haunt us in the present, like Mai’s longing to act again and Kaede’s desire to see the outside world, or our feelings keep us from moving forward, as with Koga and Futaba, there will always be something we hate about ourselves, something to regret.

What we can do, however, is do our best to live without said regrets—to think, act, and dream as if we are absolutely owning our lives. And if we don’t like how things are going, we CHANGE what we can such that we create the world we want to live in. The conviction to change is something that ultimately comes from within, and having close friends, even just a couple, can make this exciting way of living all the more within our grasp—we just have to be willing to reach out, change the atmosphere, and when we’re ready, open the box. 

“No matter who you were before, how you look right now is who you are.”— Sakuta Azusagawa

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Afterword

Whew! This one was a bit of a cram watch, but I’m glad I finished it for a post like this one. Despite seeming like a surface-level rom-com with pervy jokes and toilet humor, Bunny Girl Senpai is surprisingly full of complex metaphysical concepts. Through its amazing and mature lead characters, Sakuta and Mai, it’s able to weave in these interesting principles with thought-provoking conversations and an air of scientific wonder. If you’re wanting a harem-ish anime that offers more emotional and intellectual challenge (or Bakemonogatari without the abstract directing style), give Bunny Girl Senpai a shot. You might enjoy the chemistry (and petty banter) between the leads more than you initially think! Plus, the voice acting is great, the animation is pretty, and OP and ED themes are absolute BOPS.

As for the cafe, Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai is certified “Caffe Mocha,” a show from 2018 that’s simply too awesome to miss out on! Seeing as how I focused this post solely a few story/character points, I’d be delighted to hear your thoughts on the rest of the series down in the comments.

This concludes my January 13th entry in the OWLS “Metamorphosis” blog tour. I tried going for a shorter, more condensed and focused form of writing for this OWLS post, so if you have any feedback on that I’d greatly appreciate it. Jack (The Aniwriter) went right before me and wrote about change and the liberation it can offer in Wandering Son, a series I really ought to watch! Now, look out for Megan (Nerd Rambles) with a post about everyone’s favorite tabletop pastime Dungeons & Dragons on Sunday, January 13th! Thank you so much for reading, and until next time, this has been

– Takuto, your host