My Favorite (Anime) Things (2020)

The Eizouken girls will get it all done,
Go, Ishigami! Go finish the run!
Confidence men—even heists on the wing!
These are a few of my favorite things

Tea time with witches, you just can’t escape them,
Love all the girls but wait, who is Rem?
Stories of Sohmas and tears that they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things

When COVID strikes
Anime’s delayed
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

Anime crows in romance and Haikyuu,
Magical girls return—Mami, too!
Missing a limb? That won’t stop these cute queens,
These are a few of my favorite things

Bakarina making everyone friends,
Odin (or Hina?) with laughs to no end,
For Tsukasa, he would give anything,
These are a few of my favorite things

When Yui cries,
When Rachel lies,
When I’m screaming mad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad

—

References

Verse 1

Line 1: Perhaps the year’s best anime was Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, an endlessly creative and uniquely crafted series about three high school girls who form a club to create an animated film. They work like crazy to figure out how to do it and actually get their short film completed. The New York Times recently named it as one of 2020’s best shows. We wrote a number of posts related to the series this year, including this article about community.

Line 2: Kaguya-sama: Love is War, a romantic comedy about student council officers who are unwilling to admit their romantic feelings about one another, returned for a triumphant second season. Although 95% about humor and romance, one particular episode this season was dramatic and quite well done, focusing on Ishigami, who had been made into a pariah in middle school and was once again retreating into himself after a school race makes him face those memories again, but is lifted out of it by his fellow club members and comrades on the cheer squad as he competes in the competition.

Line 3: Netflix streamed Great Pretender in two “seasons” this year, just recently releasing the second half of a tale about con men and women whose heists are meant to turn the tables again rich, evil people and organizations, and restoring what was loss (not just financially) to victims—themselves included.

Verse 2

Lines 1 and 2: After a several year absence, Re:ZERO returned this year. One of the most interesting concepts introduced in season two was the influx of new witches, including Echidna, the Witch of Greed, who has protagonist Subaru over for tea in her personal dimension. Echidna’s popularity makes her one of the year’s top “waifus,” inheriting the role from Rem who had a diminished presence this year. In fact, her storyline has her sleeping for 98% of the season and forgotten by everyone except Subaru, including even her sister, Ram. Thus was born the “Who is Rem?” meme.

Line 3: The Fruits Basket remake returned for a second season, and it nears it’s completion, delivered so many moving and painful storylines about the Sohma’s curse.

Chorus 1

Line 1: Self-explanatory (let’s look forward to a better 2021!)

Lines 2: Because of COVID, many anime series were delayed or were halted during production. It remains a difficult environment, at least for ADR directors, engineers, and actors, to develops recordings and anime productions in this socially-distanced environment.

Verse 3

Line 1: Crows are commonly featured in anime, including in two particular series this year: Haikyuu, where the main team, Karasuno, is represented by the bird, and Sing Yesterday for Me, where Haru, one of the protagonists, takes in a crow as her pet.

Line 2: Magia Record, based on a mobile game, continues the story of Puella Magi Madoko Magica, a magical girl story that was boundary-breaking when it first premiered. A number of the original character played small parts in this spin-off, including my favorite, Mami, whose return might have been most anticipated due to the circumstances surrounding her original exit in the PMMM. We did posts about every episode of Magia Record when it aired.

Line 3: More and more characters with disabilities are playing prominent roles in anime. Two from this past year are Iwanaga from In/Spectre, who is missing and eye and much of one of her legs, and Deca-Dence’s Natsume, who is missing a forearm and hand. At Beneath the Tangles, we’re especially excited about seeing more such characters in anime, as we launched a disability initiative this year, which we’ll be expanding in 2021. Stay tuned!

Verse 4

Line 1: Katarina Claes is just trying to avoid execution or exile in the isekai story, My Next Life as a Villainess, but in her absent-mindedness and authenticity, does one better than that—she becomes close with all the characters that would potentially lead her bad end, who in turn also become friends with one another.

Line 2: I’ve had mixed feelings about Jun Maeda’s latest anime series, The Day I Became a God, but I’m not at all divided when it comes to Hina, a hilarious girl who speaks in lots of “thee’s” and “thou’s,” which is natural since she declares herself to be Odin, a god.

Line 3: I’ve been enjoying both the Tonikawa anime and manga this year, in huge part because of how sweet the relationships is between the boy, Nasa, and his wife, Tsukasa, whom he loves selflessly.

Chorus 2

Line 1: Oregairu‘s final season was full of heartbreak, for none more than poor Yui.

Line 2: Of the many mysteries in Tower of God, perhaps the most compelling had to do with Rachel, the sweet girl whom Bam was chasing after. However, all the feedback I’d heard from our followers was about how much they hated her. The reasons became apparent as season one ended and her betrayal—which only brought up more questions—occurred.

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5 thoughts on “My Favorite (Anime) Things (2020)”

  1. Where did you find that song? Or did you write it? If you did write it, wow, that’s a great job! I didn’t know you wrote anime lyrics 🙂

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