The first and foremost important thing about food/cooking anime is the food—if you couldn’t guess. While some may assume that food is just a necessity to keep you from dying (well, it is, technically), there is so much more to food than mere survival. In today’s world, especially in second and first world countries, where people are able to attain food more easily, food is a means of meeting new people and catching up with old friends. It is something that people actually enjoy and people may partake in eating as more of a hobby than for just mere survival (oh the life of the priviliged). People will meet together just to enjoy a good meal or try something new, regardless of hunger status. At this stage in our world, food tends to be more of a social activity than just a necessity. People get together and break bread. This is shown in quite a few anime, as well, so let’s just show you exactly what we’re talking about.

Somewhere in the business district in Japan, there is a restaurant with a cat sign called Youshoku no Nekoya. This restaurant has been around for nearly 5 decades and caters to mostly the salarymen and officeworkers nearby. On the same day every week, the restaurant stays closed in Japan and becomes a restaurant only accessible by those in other dimensions. All types of creatures and beings dine at Youshoku no Nekoya, they just have to find their door on just the right day. Isekai Shokudo is one of the best anime to show that food helps connect people and that people just plain enjoy food. at Youshoku no Nekoya, beings from all across the dimensions are joined together to eat at the same restaurant. They all plan their weeks around it so that they can enjoy the good food. They don’t just eat at Isekai Shokudo for survival, which they could easily do by eating in their own worlds, some of these beings go to Isekai Shokudo to eat amazing and foreign dishes that they sometimes take home to prolong the enjoyment. Likewise, some beings will use the restaurant in order to spend time with someone else from another world. Love or friendships can be built so easily over breaking bread together, even when people may not come from the same world, and this is shown in several episodes of Isekai Shokudo. Yet, if that’s not enough to prove our point, keep reading!

Inuzuka Kouhei’s life has been difficult since the death of his wife. He does all he can to take care of his daughter, Tsumugi, but one particular task is challenging: cooking. After feeding her frozen foods for so long, Kouhei is determined to learn how to cook to properly feed Tsumugi! Then one day, he befriends one of his students, Iida Kotori, who offers to teach him how to cook. With Kotori’s help, Kouhei might just be able to feed Tsumugi delicious and nutritious foods that she used to eat when her mother was around. One of the sweetest anime of the 2016 summer anime season has to be Amaama to Inazuma, otherwise known as Sweetness and Lightning. Amaama to Inazuma presents to us an anime in which a father, Kouhei, is able to reach out to his daughter, Tsumugi, through food. While Tsumugi appears to be coping with her mother’s death, it’s not like her relationship with her father has changed since then, until Kouhei decides he’s going to start creating nutritious meals for her. This also presents an opportunity for Kouhei and Tsumugi to build a relationship with Kouhei’s student, Kotori, who feigns knowledge on how to cook in order to befriend them. These three, along with a few miscellaneous characters, form an unlikely bond through their desire to cook and eat good food together.

While there are a lot of anime that revolve around food and people, let’s not forget that there are also cooking anime as well! Cooking anime refers to anime which features cooking—duh! Cooking anime typically show their characters cooking meals or a specific dish while usually discussing some aspect about the cooking process to the viewers. It’s a bit of an information dump, but that does not mean cooking anime aren’t popular! Heck, you may even pick up a few tips and tricks along the way!

Yukihira Souma loves to cook and dreams of taking over his family diner in the future. Then one day, his father decides to close the restaurant and sends Souma to Tootsuki Culinary Academy in order to refine his cooking skills. Souma thinks that there’s nothing to be gained by going to a school for cooking, but at Tootsuki Culinary Academy, only the best of the best will make it and you’re going to have to fight your way to the top in a shokugeki! As a cooking anime, Shokugeki no Souma, also known in English as Food Wars!, is not one you should miss. Featuring a rather impressive plot for a cooking anime as well as a vast array of entertaining characters, Shokugeki no Souma also presents its audience with real cooking techniques that will have your mouth watering. While a bit dramatic, the cooking scenes are real so you can pick up a little something as you watch your favorite characters fight to show off their abilities. If you would also like to copy some of the recipes from Shokugeki no Souma, the manga has each recipe information for you to cook your favorite mouth watering Shokugeki no Souma dish!

Shirou Kamiya is lucky he gets to attend St. Kleio, one of the most exclusive private schools in the country. In fact, the school is so exclusive that the only students allowed are actually clones of really famous people who are being groomed and prepared to continue their original’s work. Shiro, as the son of the school’s director, is the only non-clone student, which makes him both the target of some bullying from the likes of Mozart –who thinks all clones are superior because they have genius DNA-, and incites curiosity in others such as Sigmund Freud, Napoleon Bonaparte, Elizabeth the First, Florence Nightingale, and Marie Curie. It’s that friendship that makes him help Marie Curie to transfer out of the school to study music, but as he’s realizing he misses his friend, he and the other clones watch in horror as the clone of John F. Kennedy, one of the school’s first graduates, is killed on live tv, just as he is giving a rousing speech. Houkago no Charisma is a very intriguing manga that pretty much dares to ask many questions about the differences between nurture and nature, and what it means to be human. Some of the clones are really afraid that they are only there to have the same fate as their originals, and some others at first seem to be completely different from their predecessor –such as, for instance, Hitler’s clone, who is probably the nicest towards Shiro; or Napoleon, who, among other things, is the tallest in the group. But there are many dark secrets in St. Kleio, and the main question here is if society will ever see clones as something more than mere copies of the original, and objects to be possessed.

As World War II ended, Kevin Yamagata, a young Japanese-American comic book writer is starting to have some success in New York with a comic about a bat detective. However, when two detectives need to use his study to investigate a neighbor, one of them recognizes “Billy” as a manga he read back in Japan. Unable to live with himself if he plagiarized someone else, Kevin travels back to Japan in order to find the author of the Bat manga, and unknowingly ends up mixed up with an ancient conspiracy to control the world. Soon, he starts seeing the Bat that foretells a lot of tragedies, as he finds a mangaka who also used to see the Bat, and who asks only one question: “The bat you see, is it black or white?” Billy Bat is one of Naoki Urasawa’s most complex and ambitious stories, as it deals with a plot that starts with the beginning of mankind and teases that, if those touched by the bat don’t do the right thing, humanity will end. Because of the premise that art does affect real life, the story also features a lot of historical events, like the JFK assassination and 9/11, tying them to the greater arc of the mystery of the Bats and the possible multiverse. If you loved Pluto for the mystery behind who was killing the robots and for what reason, Billy Bat will be precisely what you want to read next.

When he was a little kid, Kenji Endo had an amazing group of friends. They would play together in a field not far from their houses, a make-believe story in which they were the heroes saving the world from aliens and the frog empire. As the years passed and they all grew apart, Kenji forgot that game, as well as his dreams of becoming a big rockstar, to end up working in his family’s corner store. But after one of his old friends jumps to his death, Kenji gets a letter from the dead man asking him if he remembers their old game and their friendship symbol, because someone else does, and is using it to create a dangerous cult that has just one goal: the utter destruction of mankind. 20th Century Boys is one of Naoki Urasawa’s best-known works. Same as Billy Bat, it occurs in different eras, and Urasawa masterfully jumps from 1958 to 1999, and to the future, giving us glimpses of what the choices the character makes will mean to the story before fully showing us what is going to happen. Just like Pluto, it shows a large cast of characters, some of which only become important in the latter chapters, and at times it takes a long time following some secondary characters in their own stories, so that no one is left out of the spotlight. If you enjoyed Pluto, 20th Century Boys is definitely a must-read on your list.

Life in an apartment complex can be somewhat complicated. With many different families living in the same place, conflicts can’t be avoided. But when there have been 32 suicides in just two years, the police have no choice but to investigate. There are rumors that the building is cursed, but neither Yamagawa nor his younger partner Tamura want to give credence to those rumors. Still, the door to the roof where the victims have jumped from is rusted shut so, how could any of the jumpers reach that spot? Inspector Yamagawa seems to have the answer, but before he can share his suspicions, he too jumps to his death, leaving Tamura as the sole investigator of a frustrating case with no clear answer. Doumu is, at times, called a sort of prequel to Akira. It is not only done by the same author, Katsuhiro Otomo, but also deals with a lot of the same subjects: the clash between generations, how old people are very similar to children once senility sets in, and how isolation, coupled with overpopulation, can cause serious problems. Same as Pluto, it starts with a murder mystery, and thus, if that was what you loved from the Urasawa story, you are going to adore this Otomo short manga. Of course, both series have breathtaking art, which practically seems to move on the page.

One of the problems that society faces once humans and androids start coexisting is that humans stop reproducing, and thus, human population starts to decline. Unfortunately for Kotaro Shiga, a High school student, one of the solutions to preserve mankind includes putting him and some others in suspended animation for a hundred years, just to make sure we still have human DNA in the future. Even worse for him; once he wakes up, he finds out that now androids rule the Earth and are somehow convinced that they created humans, not the other way around. So now it falls to him, an exiled human prince, and the rest of the “sleepers” to restore mankind’s place in history and rebuild society. One of the most interesting points of Seiheikyuu EX is that androids are shown to have limited memory: it only goes 22 years in the past. What happened before that time, and why the androids can only remember up until then is one of the mysteries of the story, and it reminds us a bit of a small plot point in Pluto, regarding how androids could, and sometimes did, modify their memories to delete some painful moments. Both stories also deal with the problem that is the cohabitation of androids and humans, especially when androids don’t look different from humans. All in all, Seiheikyuu EX is a very good sample of 1990s fiction.

When Dr. Tenma’s son died, he went mad with grief. Trying to get over this loss, he built a small robot, Tobio, to be the replacement of his son. But when Tobio shows that he is not a perfect copy, Dr. Tenma decides to scrap him, forgetting all about the robot. However, as it’s 2003 and Japan has a huge robot population, Professor Ochanomizu, an associate of Dr. Tenma who happens to fight for civil robot rights, rescues Tobio from the scrapheap, renames him Astro, and tasks him to help defend Japan and the world. Tetsuwan Atom, known around the world as Astroboy, is one of Japan’s most popular and important manga. However, a lot of people outside Japan haven’t read it, and instead know it by the anime adaptation. The manga shows an amazing optimism towards the future, and still considers that there would be people who’d try to take advantage of their technology for their own goals. Astroboy also doesn’t ignore that discrimination is not easily destroyed because people, unfortunately, will always find reasons to fear those who are different. It’s a wonderful manga that has aged very well, and that you should read if you have the chance.

As Sawa Konishi was getting ready to enter high school, she wanted to find a school that had a cute uniform. Finally, she decided that she would look the best in the Heaven’s Wing Academy uniform. After arriving for her first day of school, Sawa learns that up until the previous year, Heaven’s Wing Academy had been an all-boys school. With only one other girl in her class, Sawa has a rough time in class, due to all the boys bullying her, especially the son of the academy's director, Ran Matsuyuki. Some of the bullies decide to throw Sawa's shoes into the school's pool. In the process of trying to get the shoes out the pool, Sawa slips and falls into the pool, but she is saved by none other than her biggest bully, Ran. With Sawa seeing a whole need side to Ran, she begins to develop feelings for him only further complicating her new life in high school. Rockin' Heaven has a very similar setup to H3 School. Both manga start out with the revelation that the main girl will be going to a school that was previously a boys only school. Although the reason for Hanabi joining the all-boys school is much different from the reason Sawa joined Heaven’s Wing Academy, both setups end up having the stories feel very similar at the beginning. This also serves as the reason behind the awkward relationship the main characters have at the start of the manga with both Yasuaki and Ran being rude and standoffish to the girls that are coming to the school. Whether it was the great romance story, comedy, or the quirky characters, everything you liked about H3 School can be found within Rockin' Heaven.

Suzuna Ashihara has just begun her life as a college student and has started living on her own. After moving into her new apartment, she meets her neighbor Eichi Uozumi, who is also attending her college. At her college entrance ceremony, Suzuna meets up with her friend Hinako Kaji who also happens to be friends with Eichi. After hanging out with Eichi, Suzuna starts to befriend him and she falls in love with Eichi's best friend and love interest, Shinya Fukami. Suzuna continues hanging out with Eichi, Fukami, and Hinako and eventually decides to join their tennis club to grow closer to Fukami. With Suzuna's new college life beginning, she wants to experience everything from joining a club to falling in love, but things are never as simple as they seem. Venus wa Kataomoi starts out similarly to H3 school with its main character entering a new chapter of their life and the reader gets to experience the start of this new life along with them. Suzuna and Hanabi are very similar characters, with both of them being upbeat, outgoing, and are able to get along with anybody. Both Suzuna and Hanabi are entering into new schools and have had very little experience hanging out with boys and are quick to fall in love. As the stories progress, both girls their relationships, turning their instant crushes into true romantic feelings. Although both manga focus heavily on the romantic aspects, Venus wa Kataomoi has a completely different spin to its romance, but with the similarities between the main character and the major focus on comedy, Venus wa Kataomoi gives off many of the same vibes as H3 School

Kayano Saitou has been enjoying her high school life, but things take a turn for the worse after she accidentally confesses to the wrong person. After she had worked up her courage to confess to her long time crush Yuuichi Kamijou, Kayano wrote a love letter for him, but in the process of giving it to him, she bumped into a different guy. The guy she gave the letter to was Takeru Edogawa, the son of the schools principal and the school’s resident ladies man. Embarrassed by the mistake, Kayano asks for the letter back, but Takeru blackmails her with the letter and forces her to be his gopher. After a few days of doing whatever Takeru wanted, Kayano decides she has had enough and will just confess to Yuuichi so Takeru couldn't use the letter to blackmail her, but things are made even more complicated when she learns her mother has just gotten engaged to Takeru's father. Before she can confess, her love letter is posted for the whole school to see and she initially blames Takeru only to find out that it was her jealous underclassmen. Now Kayano's life has been turned upside down with her soon to be bully brother and her crush both starting to show affection to her. In terms of romance manga, Akuma de Sourou takes a different approach than many of the manga on the list. Although its romance is similar in terms of being the focus of the manga, it goes where H3 School doesn't by incorporating forbidden love and a love triangle. Despite the different styles of romances in the two manga, Akuma de Sourou still has many similarities to H3 School. Both manga have distinct art styles that set them apart from other shoujo manga, and both Kayano and Hanabi are strong female leads that can at times be flustered and act out of character when their love interests pressure them. Both manga also have their romantic relationships build up organically, with the characters at first being at odds with each other, but they build up their relationship throughout the manga.

At the age of 5, Meru Tachibana was taken into a remote area to train with her father. Now, Meru is 12-years-old and has returned home after her father figured out she was a girl. As she prepared to enter junior high, her mother tried to get her to act and look more like a girl. On her first day, Meru encounters a group of students led by Ichiya Ayuzawa, that make it their duty to harass the student council president and do whatever they want at school. During the entrance ceremony, the standing vice president of the student council steps down due to their bullying. After Ichiya's group targets Meru's first friend, Chiyo Yuuki, Meru decides she will stand up to the group by becoming the student council president. Now, Meru must find a way to stand up for her fellow students without blowing her cover as an average middle school girl. Fly-High is unlike any manga in the way it is similar to H3 School on this list. Due to its relatively short length, Fly-High doesn't have a lot of time to develop its romantic relationship like H3 School does. The manga focuses more on Meru and her struggles as student council president. Hanabi and Meru share many character traits with both of them being tomboys and being natural leaders with the ability to connect with anyone. Both Hanabi and Meru also join the student council to correct the injustices done to certain groups within their schools. If you're looking for a manga that matches the more comedic and school-life sections of H3 School, Flying-High will give you everything you're looking for and more.

15-year-old Yuiko Sakuraba has been a fan of the late actor Akira Nanae for many years. When a new actor gets an award meant for Nanae, Yukio decides she is going to steal the award out from under his nose. Yukio has spent her free time training to become a thief and when the day finally arrives for her to steal the award, things didn't go as planned. Yuiko gets caught in the act not once but twice, and during her second time getting caught, she injured her leg. Ryu Eba takes a liking to Yukio and tends to her injury. After hearing Yukio out, Ryu agrees to let Yukio have the award if she can steal it from him again. Now, Yukio must find a way to steal the award while also dealing with her amnesiac mother and her budding feelings for Ryu. The similarities between Wild Act and H3 School are plentiful and stretch from the story to its character designs. Both stories have unique takes on the romance aspects of their stories and incorporate some more serious plot points involving the families of the main characters. The romances in both mangas are creative and there are many twists in the backstories for the Ran and Ryu that go deeper than most romance manga go. Wild Act shares the same mangaka with H3 School giving both manga similar feelings aesthetically. This is also the leading cause for the likeness in both personality and appearance in Hanabi and Yuniko. Wild Act is the perfect manga that captures the same mix of romance and drama that is seen in H3 School.

Throughout middle school, Ai Maekawa was a plain girl who only focused on her studies. As she prepared for high school, Ai decided to reinvent herself and become popular during her high school debut. Ai improved her looks through various methods and upon arriving for her first day of high school, her efforts were instantly rewarded with all the guys being instantly attracted to her, including the most handsome boy in the school So Ichinose. Even though Ai has achieved her dream of being popular, she finds it's not everything she thought it would be, with jealous girls and boys fighting over her. Despite the inconveniences, Ai continues on her quest to find love and make as many friends as possible. While every other manga on this list includes romantic elements, Doubt!! comes closest to H3 School with its romance. Ai and Hanabi don't share many personality traits, but the way they approach their romance is very similar. Both girls have only dreamt of being in a relationship and have little experience interacting with boys, and once they finally achieve their goals of getting into a relationship, they don't know how to act. As Ai and Hanabi continue in their relationships, they start to grow more confident in their relationships and the way they approach both their personal and romantic relationships. Both manga also include humor and dramatic situations that are more risque than any other manga on the list.

Cowgirl isn't given a name, nor can she talk, which really hammers in the fact that she's a 'cow-girl' and not just a girl wearing a costume. She has cow ears, a cow tail, and even a cowbell that rings as the protagonist pounds into her! She's super cute with long pink hair and as you probably already guessed it, she produces milk. She was bought in order to produce milk but her cute appearance and begging for sex gave the protagonist different ideas on how to use her. Definitely a kemonomimi girl for fans of huge boobs, lower intelligence, and lactation.

Lighteus is a very accomplished and impressive animal-eared girl even without the ears. She is a badger girl and leader of the badger tribe; she also serves the princess presiding over the Colosseum. Her size, ears, and tail are indicative of her badger traits. She's smart and empathetic and enjoys sex just because it feels good and she never slacks in her duties. For fans of mature yet loli girls and also badgers, she's great to wank to.

Goku being smarter than many other animal girls isn't surprising as monkeys are known for their intelligence. However, she has a very animalistic nature with her love of fighting and screwing. Her ears are short and pointed and she has a rounded face with sharp teeth indicative of some monkeys, though she does not have a tail. She's not just any monkey though; she's based on the Monkey King of Chinese legend! If you like older women with big boobs and a big attitude, you'll definitely like Goku! And as a bonus, there's also a cowgirl in the show!

While it's not explicitly stated that Nanashi is a wolf girl or god, comparing her ears and tail to other known wolf gods like Holo and known dog girls gives pretty solid evidence. Her standoffish nature is also unlike the stereotypical loyal and eager to please nature of dog girls. She is a god and refers to herself as such, demanding respect and worship from the humans around her. She may like the other girls on her island but she never lets them forget she is their 'leader' and that there is a huge divide between humans and gods. Her long, bushy tail is incredibly sensitive and is enough to bring her to orgasm. She's very cute and childlike and always trying to assert dominance over others, like a young wolf pup trying to move up in the pack.

Ginko is not only a fox girl but an ayakashi, something like a demon spirit. She has a human form she uses to hide this and works as a prostitute to suck life essence out of strangers. Like the foxes in Japanese mythology, she has the power to transform and her charm and beauty make men easy targets. She is cunning and playful, yet very sweet toward the one she loves. She has a very long tail, ears that stand straight up, and tiny fangs. Ginko seems more human than animal but her happy, wagging tail doesn't let you forget her true identity.

Set in Edo Japan, Yasuri Shichika is a swordsman who practises a unique “swordless” style which uses the user’s very body as the blade. He is the Seventh Head of the Kyotouryuu school, living quietly with his sister Nanami. Then Togame, the strategist, sent by the Shogunate to retrieve twelve unique swords called the “Deviant Blades”, asks Shichika to help her in her mission. He accepts, interested by Togame herself, and sets out on a dangerous adventure where they will encounter formidable swordsmen and elites who seek the power of the blades themselves. The main similarity between Golden Kamuy and Katanagatari is their fixation on the adventures the protagonists dive into. Both anime feature a female-male protagonist pairing which is established specifically so that their objective can be pursued and eventually achieved. Both series are set in historical settings, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 for Golden Kamuy, Edo Japan for Katanagatari allow for interesting political nuances in both series. Yes, nuances.

Manji is a swordsman cursed with eternal life. Tired of all the death he brought with his own hands but caught with the dilemma of knowing only how to kill, Manji forms a plan to regain his mortality: he will kill 100 evil men for each good man he has killed in the past. The witch who cursed Manji with his immortality agrees with his idea and thus, Manji sets out to slay 1000 evil men. He meets a young girl named Rin who has vengeance to seek against a sword school whose members killed her family. Together with Rin, Manji travels under constant attack, trying to live their lives without being consumed by the revenge that fuels them. At first glance, the main similarities between Blade of the Immortal and Golden Kamuy lies in the main characters: Sugimoto and Ashirpa’s pairing from Golden Kamuy is seen reflected in the pairing of Rin and Manji. Both stories are set in a historical period of Japan, with Golden Kamuy catching the Russo-Japanese War and Blade of the Immortal descending upon Edo Japan.

Kasumi Fuu is a young waitress who spends her time working at a small teahouse, until her clumsiness causes her to spill a drink all over a customer. The resulting commotion results in the outbreak of a sword fight in the small tea shop – the contestants being the wild Mugen and the ronin, Jin. Their fight results in the destruction of the shop and the death of the magistrate’s son. They are soon arrested and sentenced to death, but they’re rescued by Fuu who decides to hire them as her bodyguards as she embarks on a quest to find a samurai who smells of sunflowers. Initially disapproving of the idea, Mugen and Jin eventually agree to assist Fuu on her quest – all while reminding her that their fight never really ended. Samurai Champloo is a textbook adventure story, featuring a trio of characters all of whom found each other by chance, much like Sugimoto’s meeting with Ashirpa in Golden Kamuy. Both anime have historical settings and explore various elements of the characters’ lives through historical representation for context. Another similarity is the high number of battle-ready characters in both series – Golden Kamuy is filled with characters with military experience, while Samurai Champloo offers us its share in samurai.

Tughril Mahmut is a young pasha, a high-ranking officer serving on the Divan of the Turkiye Stratocracy, in a situation where war looms on the horizon due to the threat of a neighbouring empire. The country’s high-ranking officials split are between those who wish to wage war and those who wish to remain pacifists. Working hard to keep the peace, Mahmut will do whatever it takes; however, the further in he finds himself, the blurrier the lines separating friend from foe become. Based on the real-life Ottoman Empire of the 13th century, the Turkiye Stratocracy of Shoukoku no Altair is the use of historical setting in order to define characters in relation to this point in history, much like Golden Kamuy’s use of the Russo-Japanese War. Shoukoku no Altair also shares Golden Kamuy’s taste for use of foreign words in order to add more markers of historical context, with Turkish words thrown into the mix in a manner reminiscent of Golden Kamuy’s use of the Ainu language.

The Taboo Emperor, Arthur Gaz, ruled the Gaz Empire with an iron fist for well over 500 years, conducting terrible experiments on his own citizens. However, five years ago, his tyrannical rule was brought to a close when the “Eight Heroes”, a set of mighty warriors, defeated Gaz in battle. Present day. Toru Acura is a former war saboteur who can’t quite get used to life after Gaz and struggles to find work that can put his combat skills to good use, at least until opportunity presents itself. A white-haired wizard named Chaika Trabant, sporting a coffin on her back, claims to be searching for the scattered remains of her father in order to give them a proper burial and hires Toru and his adoptive sister, Akari, to assist her. However, they soon realise that Chaika is none other than the daughter of the tyrannical Emperor Gaz himself! Hitsugi no Chaika is an adventure anime much like Golden Kamuy, with both featuring the female-male protagonist pairing. While Hitsugi no Chaika is not necessarily based in any historical arena, it is most certainly inspired by various medieval themes, placing it in the same group as Golden Kamuy with historical influences. Both series contain a fair amount of humour in moderation and ramp up the stakes fairly quickly as they delve into their respective plots quickly. Given Chaika’s status as Gaz’s daughter, she, Toru and Akari soon find themselves on the run from the empire – much like the military’s pursuit of Sugimoto and Ashirpa in Golden Kamuy.

Sengoku period, Japan. An orphan named Kotaro and his dog, Tobimaru, steal from other villagers in order to survive; however, Kotaro must now live on the run when he is hunted by assassins of China’s Ming Dynasty for reasons he cannot quite name. When Kotaro is ambushed and Tobimaru poisoned, they are found by a Ronin named Nanashi, who Kotaro soon enlists as his personal bodyguard, at least until Tobimaru is better and they arrive at their destination. The three set out on a dangerous path as the Ming Dynasty remains in hot pursuit of Kotaro. Much like Golden Kamuy, we are presented with a historical setting: the Sengoku era of Japanese history. Stranger also goes further to include the Ming Dynasty in its setting, further fleshing out the film’s universe. This is similar to Golden Kamuy’s depiction of the Ainu people. Another way in which Stranger is similar to Golden Kamuy is in the way in which the protagonists travel together. Kotaro being pursued by assassins is reminiscent of the consistent brushes with death that both Ashirpa and Sugimoto experience while on their travels as a result of the knowledge the military has on the prisoner tattoos.

Hinamatsuri went really left field this week and got political, and while that is really important since it talked about how homeless people are treated in Japan, this week was really shocking because of how much of a departure from the series it was. Still though, it’s really important to talk about because it hit on so many important things. The episode opens with Niita taking Hina back to his home. Ten thousand lies later, he’s exposed but it’s freaking hilarious. His sister is a drunk and his mother is as abrasive as a cactus. Somehow they make a family and it keeps in line with the theme of how families can be so strange, and yet, so similar at the same time. The meat of the episode is about Anzu though. We get another episode riddled with plot holes featuring Anzu. She’s been living her life as a homeless person and it turns out this week, the city is ejecting the homeless people living in the park rather than helping them get back to becoming productive members of society. While people are protesting, Anzu in her innocence cannot comprehend what is going on. The men manage to run her off and have her be adopted by a family. She has an incredibly heartbreaking scene where she is left in the restaurant and is coming to terms with her new family when she reveals all of the things that the old men taught her. It’s so heartwarming and sweet and is… just such a massive departure from the comedy of the series. Talking about homeless people, which is a growing issue in Japan, and then about a family taking in a orphan is making this anime oddly progressive for a comedy that relies on cheap shots nonstop. I love it.

My hot moment of the week involves Mahou Shoujo Site, a gruesome and dark magical girl anime that just seems to strive for darker and darker with each passing episode, even if my last gripe about it was its inability to decide if it was comedy or horror. This week, I want to discuss the awfulness about Amagai Kousame’s power of healing. Kousame is a self mutilator whose magical girl power allows her to heal others by doing exactly what she has always done, cut herself. Of course, there’s that detail about feeding her blood to the person she wants to heal. Kousame’s magical girl prop is a razor. How appropriate. This completely taps into a different side of the magical girl universe in Mahou Shoujo Site. Originally, your magical powers were supposed to make your life “better,” yet Kousame’s power seems to take advantage of the fact that she harms herself for comfort in order to help others and not really herself. Why is Kousame’s power healing? It must have something to do with her backstory, but it sure as heck does not make things better on her end. I find it a rather gruesome power on top of the other ones. Imagine, being a magical girl already requires the use of your life force in order to use your power, then you have a power that requires you to use your own blood. It just gets more and more morbid as these girls appear to have powers that lead them closer and closer to death.

Comic Girls is not the most popular anime this season, but it’s a good story if you like your typical Slice of Life involving a girl trying to find her vocation in a certain area. Obviously, this being about 4 cute mangaka girls, funny and moe moments are all over the place. This time, however, we got to know Suzu Fuura, a new senpai who happens to be a horror mangaka… and chaos ensued for Kaos, our protagonist. The whole first part of the episode was filled with fun gags related to horror tropes, and it’s nice to have something different once in a while. Reina Ueda did an amazing job voicing her! First she comes as a ghostly woman haunting Kaos while she’s taking a bath, and so we have some jokes that set the mood of the episode. After that, the other girls explain she’s not a ghost but a friend of them, who as a horror mangaka loves a cute girl’s screams. The best part starts with a storm, as many famous horror stories. Who would’ve thought such a scary girl would be afraid of being lonely during a thunderstorm? In the end, Fuura-senpai turns out to be as cute and friendly as the other girls, and I’m sure many more funny and scary moments are yet to come!

In episode 17 of Darling in the Franxx, the children of Team 13 are still abandoned in a broken plantation and taking care of themselves. They’ve managed to do quite well; washing their clothes, getting water from the lake, eating rations, and overall getting along really well. Kokoro jumps Mitsuru while telling him she wants to make a baby, which freaks him the heck out. He’s able to talk to Hiro, who’s been growing horns like Zero Two and spending tons of time in their room with her. Hiro tells Mitsuru about his experience in relationships and tells him that he’s probably in love with Kokoro considering how he feels about her and his confusion. Everyone is chatting in the living room when the Nines show up with Kokoro’s childbirth book that she dropped earlier and Alpha confronts her about it. Kokoro is forced to confess her desire to leave a legacy behind in front of everyone present and Alpha proceeds to berate her and humiliate her by telling her she’s disgusting for wanting to do something that is so animalistic and forbidden. Kokoro argues that there must be a reason why they are male and female and have reproductive organs and argues that humans are like animals and that’s how they are meant to reproduce. Alpha responds that the two genders are only to pilot the Franxx and that it’s a pain, which seems to bother Mitsuru, but before he can say anything, Ikuno steps up angrily and bitch-slaps Alpha, who then says that humans have also evolved past being ruled by emotions because they serve no purpose (not entirely wrong, emotions can get in the way at times), and then Goro pulls Ikuno away because she’s about to bash Alpha’s head in (which would be well deserved, frankly). And then Nana and Hachi show up. Kokoro is taken by them to get reprimanded and they basically continue asking why she wants to do something forbidden and that their genders are only or piloting, and that their team is not special. (Really!?) But Kokoro isn’t taking it and she asks yelling why they still have emotions and why they feel the things that they do. And that’s when Nana cracks. Something happens when she hears those words and she loses control and begins screaming and holding her head. It seems that hit a button… Kokoro is dismissed and Alpha appears around the corner asking the guardians if Nana “reverted to puberty” and commenting that they were supposed to have gotten emotion training when they were first parasites and then leaves. But not before telling them that he’s reporting to “Papa”. The episode goes on but this whole section really brings into view the fact that these kids do have emotions. Not only emotions but strong adolescent ones, which we have not seen from anyone else. We knew their emotions were dulled from previous episodes, but it seems like this team isn’t going through the same. They fall in love, get jealous, succumb to eating disorders, get depressed, offended, etc... This episode was great because, while we’ve been theorizing from the very first episode, we are getting more and more material to try to figure out what exactly is happening! Does that mean team 13 is a team of regular humans? Is that the point? Are they trying to make regular humans? Is the whole “one gender” thing that Alpha mentioned real but was actually a negative evolution that this Papa character is trying to fix? Who is human? Who is a Klaxosaur? Who was created in a lab and who was made the old fashioned way? (if anyone…). This show just keeps getting better!