Seven Christmas Episodes to Wrap Up This Year With

Merry Christmas … er … Eve, everyone. To help celebrate the season and really kick off the end of this year’s blogging I thought what better way than to write about some Christmas related anime episodes. Now of course—as many big anime fans may already know, Christmas in Japan is a bit different from how the West celebrates it, with New Year’s being the bigger, more family oriented holiday and Christmas being a somewhat more intimate holiday for love. Because of that, anime has a lot of great romance related Christmas episodes, but they aren’t all about couples either, so don’t worry. 

Now usually people do “top tens” or “best [blank] of all time” when they make lists, but honestly those are kind of dumb, if I can be so bold. So instead of saying my list is ”the” best, I think I’m just gonna say this is a list of some great episodes, and there's tons more out there as well. Who knows, maybe next year if it goes well I can do another.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Have a great New Year’s, and without further ado, and in no particular order, let’s take a look at—

Seven Great Christmas Episodes!

Toradora! (episodes: 17 - 19)

Toradora! is a J.C. Staff anime from 2008 and in certain circles is considered one of the quintessential romance animes of its decade; and for good reason, as the show is an incredible ride to sit through. The basic premise follows its' cast and their tangled polygonal web of romances. Some end up well, while most seem to always fall apart, but that is true of first love for most people, huh? Ryuji Takasu a good hearted kid who is always mistaken for a delinquent because of his almost yakuza looks and Taiga Aisaka, the biggest bad ass in the school who just so happens to also be pint-sized and not look the part, are the characters at the forefront of the show. Together the two mismatched and misunderstood individuals end up in a bevy of drama, and perhaps the most well known of it all is none other than their Christmas themed story arc.

Honestly, because of that I don’t really want to delve too much into talking about it though, as it no doubt still makes people’s anime Christmas list every year since it aired. What finally accumulates in episode 19: Christmas Eve Party during the school’s … well, Christmas Eve party, is both incredibly touching and incredibly heart wrenching, and the emotions the characters go through will no doubt resonate with younger audiences. 

There’s nothing else more to say, though, other than: if you haven’t seen Toradora! already, get on it. 

Lupin the 3rd Part II/Red Jacket (episode: 64) 

You can’t get anymore classic than Lupin, one of the original animated TV shows meant for an adult audience. The Lupin franchise has had quite a run on Japanese televisions over the last 4 and a half decades with a TV Special (made for TV movie) made every year since 1989, 5 TV shows, 7 movies, and 3 OVAs. It’s pretty easy to say people love this goofy womanizer who also happens to be a world class master thief, and his motley crew. 

And in the second Lupin TV series’ 64th episode: Christmas at Tiffany’s, we finally get to see Lupin and company pull off a heist on Christmas. Being more or less coerced into it by the titular Jewelry Store owner and News-reporter Tiffany, Lupin and crew hafta rob a New York City Jeweler on live television. Can the greatest thief in the world pull off such a heist, or will all the cameras and broadcast finally be what Inspector Zenigata needs to catch him? 

While Christmas at Tiffany’s is more or less an average episode of Lupin at best, that’s still makes it quite a good watch. With a clever trick to beat the cameras, and a good change of pace from the typical Christmas fare, this episode makes for a much needed break from the usual fluff this time of year. Besides when else do we get to see Lupin namedrop Jesus Christ?

Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in Pocket (All 6 episodes) 

The original Tonami Promo in 2002 with voice-over narration by Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime. 

Nowadays the Gundam franchise is no stranger to OVAs (Original Video Animation) but back in 1989 this was the first time it dabbled into this medium and simply knocked it out of the park here. I could really write an entire blog entry just on Gundam 0080 alone and still have things to say about it—it’s without a doubt one of the greatest OVAs in the series and also manages to be incredibly easy for new comers to get into; being one of the few Gundams that manages to make the intimidating Universal Century (or UC for short) timeline of the franchise new-comer friendly. Throw-in stellar animation, and fights that will just make your gut churn with dread and excitement at the same time, and you got yourself an absolutely fantastic 3 hours of material to watch.

As for the story, Gundam 0080 takes the focus away from the current frontline battles being fought and instead examines the everyday life of the people living during these times. The story is set near the very end of the One Year War, and thus is during Christmas season, making it almost Die Hard like. Beneath the exterior involves a plot that almost destroys an entire space colony, one of the first real positive looks the franchise has on a Zeon pilot, and an ending that is guaranteed to make anyone—even the coldest of hearts—cry. 

Gundam 0080 should not be missed, and having the voice of Metal Gear Solid’s Snake as one of the main characters in the English dub is just an added bonus.

Himouto! Umaru-chan (episode: 8)

This was not a show I thought I would like as much as I did, but this year’s (2015) Himouto! Umaru-chan really won me over for much the same reason that it seems to have won over everyone else this year; its relaxed, slower pace made it easy-going viewing—almost completely stress-free, and adorable to boot. There’s just something real sincere about this story of an older brother trying to take care of his younger sister who acts like a model student in public but is in actuality a huge pop culture referencing spoiled brat, and in episode 8: Umaru and Christmas and New Year’s sees our dysfunctional family and friends trying to get through the holidays. 

Different from most Christmas themed episodes however, this is a far more realistic and humble look at the holidays, as it involves coming home late from working overtime and just trying to make the best of what is left in the day. It’s a sweet look at a less than fortunate group of people who manage to somehow still make it all work, and is enough make you wanna say “d’aaahhh”.

Super Dimension Fortress: Macross (episodes: 35 - 36) 

The original Super Dimension Fortress Macross from 1982 is a classic mecha love story, that’s just ridiculous enough to work. These last two episodes see the love triangle at the center of the characters’ relationships is finally put to an end as main character Hikaru has to asks himself this holiday season if he really wants to settle for illusions of a past forgotten, or if he wants to try something else. As the finale to the original Macross, these two episodes bring about equal amounts of action and emotions. By this point it becomes increasingly clear that the characters will never have their fairy tale endings, but that’s what makes it so great—the harsh, more realistic representation of broken relationships, and wanting to just go back to how things were again—even as impossible as it is—is something anyone can relate to. This was a great way to end a famous mecha show. 

Magic Kaitou 1412 (episode: 12) 

The Kaitou Kid series started humbly in 1987 before manga-ka (comic writer) Gosho Aoyoma had his first hit with Yaiba the following year, and then became a household name with his mega-franchise Detective Conan/Case Closed in 1994, which more or less took over his life, and probably prevents him from going back to writing more Kaitou Kid stories. Nowadays the Kid is best known for being a regular returning character in Detective Conan, and one of Conan’s greatest rivals—a genius compromise Aoyoma figured out so that he can work on both at the same time. But in 2014, Kaitou was able to somewhat break-free from just being a regular in Conan with his own TV show Magic Kaitou 1412 that sought to adapt (yet again) Kaitou’s standalone stories from his own manga, as well as mixing in some earlier seen cross-over cases from Detective Conan but this time told from Kaitou’s perspective, as a way to raise up the episode count. 

The result is a pretty satisfying show for both old fans of Detective Conan and people who have no familiarity with the series, and in episode 12: Holy Night: Two Kaitou Kids! the show tackles … you guessed it, a Christmas episode. Much again like the Lupin the 3rd episode, this episode is more or less a standard Kaitou caper but told with some added Christmas flare. It’s a cute heist, with some nice Christmas season love between Kaitou and Inspector Nakamori, the man who has been itching to arrest Kaitou this whole time. What’s more not to love? 

Maison Ikkoku (episodes: 39 - 40) 

Maison Ikkoku is another hugely popular series from famous author Rumiko Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura, InuYasha), and while she has tackled many romance series before what sets this apart from a lot of her usual fare is that Maison Ikkoku happens to skewer a little bit older (being a seinen manga). This is a series that resonated a lot with me when I first saw it, and now happens to be one of my favorite romance animes, so I may be a bit bias when I say these two episodes might also be one of my favorite Christmas stories too. 

These episodes follow Godai while he’s still attending University. Christmas is coming around the corner and so he ends up working himself to the bone doing multiple odd jobs in order to obtain presents for everyone, with big plans to surprise Kyoko that evening at their Apartment's get-together. This beginning is pretty typical, but a few lost belongings later, and things really start to get going. Earlier that day Godai tried to have a stone Kyoko owned identified by someone at his University. As it turns out the stone was the first and only present Kyoko got from her now deceased husband (a former geology teacher), and through some bad luck on the train line, Godai loses it. Already bummed out from being reminded of her previous love, Godai now has to deal with such an important item being missing, and ends up wasting almost the entire Christmas eve night trying to search every train he can that goes through the station for it.

As the Christmas hours dwindle away, and the snow keeps piling up on him outside, Godai finds himself exhausted, and through a series of misfortunate happenings all his hard work even blows up in his face when his present for Kyoko ends up missing as well. Eventually Godai finds himself asking what even is the point of any of this anymore, as Kyoko waits more and more at their get-together, worried about him. Although the night eventually improves, it was never the perfect day Godai wanted it to be, and worked so hard for. It’s an endeavor I think almost anyone can really relate to. Maison Ikkoku always had a great mix of melancholic lows and sincerely sweet highs for its awkward couple, and these two episodes really managed to have both all at once. 

’Tis the season for Yokai

This year on November 30 we lost one of the quintessential founders of the modern manga—one Shigeru Mizuki; the creator of the mega franchise GeGeGe no Kitaro (2 Live Action Movies, 6 television animes, 2 iterations as a manga, its own tourist trap, and still going with rustlings of yet another TV anime to come). The Kitaro series was and still is a huge cultural touchstone in Japan, so much so that Mizuki is actually considered one of the leading experts on traditional Japanese folklore because of it. Besides his work on the supernatural, Mizuki was also a World War II veteran—even losing his arm in the war—and was an established story teller for mature adult comic readers as well because of this—with hit manga such as Shigeru Mizuki's Hitler, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, and Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan. Basically, Mizuki was a rare talent that could balance both young and mature readers alike, all because he wrote what he knew, and he knew the changes Japan went through from war, the horrors of war itself, and of course, he knew Japanese folklore—he knew it better than anyone else. 

To rewind for a moment and help better frame the context of his life, Mizuki lived a long fruitful life and passed away at age 93. Remember, he was a solider during World War II more than 70 years ago now. When he eventually returned to Japan he actually started as a Kamishibai (紙芝居, or "paper theater”), a now antiquated Japanese form of entertainment. The Kamishibai was somewhat akin to a traveling puppet show but done with paper slides instead and had a serialized story, meaning it was done in episodes. The Kamishibai would travel from town to town with their cart, sell treats to the children, and entertain them with their stories. After they leave for the next few towns they would eventually come back to the previous ones with the next episode in their story. Kamishibai were cheap and easily accessible, which helped them during the postwar era of Japan, and can be seen somewhat as a precursor to manga, but when television did become more and more accessible to the Japanese it all but died out. Today Kamishibai is mostly a memory from a simpler time, being at best seen as a forgotten art form, and referenced in entertainment. Most recently a series of animated horror shorts called Yamishibai (or Dark Theater) was created in a similar fashion to the slides used in Kamishibai for the TV Tokyo Network. It has been streamed on Crunchyroll and was just picked up for domestic home video release by Sentai Filmworks.

Mizuki’s early work as a Kamishibai saw him telling the story of Hakaba Kitaro (or Kitaro of the Graveyard), written originally by Masami Itou in 1933. Mizuki was asked by his Kamishibai employers in 1954 to continue this story and so he did. Mizuki rendition of the classic serial was supposedly popular, but the Kamishibai industry itself was quickly on its way out, and Mizuki began work as a Rental Manga creator, at first struggling, until eventually he caught a break with turning Hakaba Kitaro into a manga series in 1960. For the uninitiated, Rental Manga was a concept of its time, since many people in postwar Japan could still not easily afford luxuries; much of their entertainment was actually rented, and not bought, so after paying a very small amount of yen to read a manga you would return it to the store, sort of similar to the library system.It was under a system like this that a lot of famous manga got their early starts. 

GeGeGe no Kitaro circa 1968. The first time Kitaro and friends
made it onto television.

Of course, Rental Manga eventually became an antiquated thing of the past too, and as times changed, Mizuki more or less, kept the serialization going for Kitaro through different publishers and into the more modern concept of manga to be purchased. Throughout those years Hakaba Kitaro would transform into GeGeGe no Kitaro (i.e. Crickity Creak Kitaro or Spooooky~ Kitaro - with GeGeGe (ゲゲゲ) being a Japanese Onomatopoeia meant for scary locations) to better differentiate Mizuki’s rendition of the stories and accent other changes made during that time to the characters and tone of the manga. The name change in 1967 was solidified with the first TV anime in the following year, and the concept of the series from Kitaro being an indifferent observer of yokai and human alike into a full blown hero, and protector of humans from yokai; whose dream is for the peaceful coexistence of the two—made the series more action driven, and children loved it for that. 

But what about Kitaro himself, I’ve written at length about some background info, but some of you may be scratching your head at just what Kitaro is. Well the gist of the story more or less is that it follows a one eyed ghost boy named Kitaro, whom was birthed in a graveyard, and is the sole remaining member of the yurei zoku (or Ghost Tribe). Kitaro is accompanied by Medama-oyaji (or Daddy Eyeball) aka what is left of his father: once a full ghost man (mummy?) himself now all that remains of this spirit is his eyeball, albeit, it is anthropomorphic, at least. 

The two try their best to keep the delicate order of peace between the supernatural yokai (creatures of traditional Japanese folklore) and humans, while making sure the Ghost Tribe doesn't die out. Kitaro is able to fight back when needed through some moderate powers of his own such as shooting his own hair out like projectiles but he mostly gets by through clever gadgets he has. Together they encounter many returning characters such as Kitaro’s best friend and worst enemy Nezumi Otoko (or Rat-man), and others in their large ensemble cast of folklore creatures spanning not just from Japan, but even China, Europe, and America. It becomes a who’s-who of supernatural stories each week, and it’s easy to see how such a simple premise can carry a long way, especially with such rich detail on the folklore and all the creatures present in the series. 

Promotional artwork for the 2008 noitaminA television anime: Hakaba Kitaro. This adaptation
 showed the original, more darker version of the story that had not yet been brought to television.

It’s a bit unsettling, maybe even a bit creepy, but Mizuki’s writing remains a perfect balance of playful yet morbid all at the same time—with a fun sense of humor that never detracted from the overall tone. Perhaps more importantly though, is that Mizuki never shied away from being real in his work. Death obviously plays a huge role in every culture's folklore and Mizuki didn’t try to sugarcoat it, instead he embraced it in his stories. Death was a part of life, and the catchy Kitaro theme song that’s been on TV and in karaoke bars since the late 1960’s joyously boasts about how the characters never have to take tests or quiz, and how they never get sick again. Mizuki's depiction of the undead weren’t in pain, or unhappy, quite the contrary, the afterlife was a never ending party. Even the depictions of the afterlife as well, while true to the classic decor that one might expect out of hell: dark, eerie, otherworldly, and forbidding—wasn't all despair. No, instead the afterlife seemed to stick very close to being just another phase of life; and while we miss those who are separated from us, we all will eventually go there.

I always felt that death wasn’t something Mizuki wanted people to fear—in fact, fear in general seemed oddly missing from his Kitaro series. While it did indeed incorporate horror elements, especially that of American horror comics, and definitely may have spooked younger audiences, the take-away may not be what it seems on the surface, as it was actually the yokai, other supernatural entities, and folklore creatures who were on the end of extinction, not us humans. It was modernity that had weakened them and taken away their homes. Mizuki was the one who famously said that electricity did in the yokai more than anything else, as they can’t stand the bright city lights. This interestingly mirrors real life in a lot of ways as Mizuki watched on to see his country transform to become more western, and more “modern.” The folklore that he loved and grew up with was almost lost entirely to Japan, as it was thought to be more akin to their old, rustic ways of living, maybe even a bit hick-ish, actually. In a very literal sense modernity had all but wiped away the yokai, if not for Mizuki’s love and encyclopedic knowledge of the almost forgotten folklore, and how he brought it back into everyone’s homes with his manga, who knows what culture might have been lost otherwise.

Ushio & Tora, a 1990 manga with a currently (2015) airing anime. One of the many Yokai
anime and manga franchises that follows Mizuki's basic framework.

GeGeGe no Kitaro’s success lead to a boom in horror and yokai related stories in the mainstream media of Japan from then on, and many, many imitators came out riding its coattails in the late 60’s and early 70’s. Some of these imitators were rather good, being fondly remembered even today and have had their own reboots and sequels throughout the years, while others … are probably best left in the past anyways. Even more noticeable however is not the boom in horror/yokai themes that were created back then but the direct effect that Mizuki had left on that genre in total. Even to this day the basic backbone of every modern-day setting yokai story can be traced back to what Mizuki had written. Manga and anime like Kekkaishi, Natsume’s Book of Friends, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Ushio & Tora, and Yo-Kai Watch, just to name a few examples—all follow in Mizuki’s footsteps that modernity has taken away the yokai’s strength and their homes, that humans have overpopulated and almost wiped away their presence, and that even worse, we choose to not believe in them anymore.  

It’s hard to cry when the man who taught you not to fear death passes away; especially when he lived a fascinating and full 93 years, and will no doubt be remembered through his work for generations. Yet I was sad all the same when I did learn of his passing, and ever since then it gnaws at me that I haven’t seen any mainstream English anime or manga site really even do anything about it. There exist some great blog posts dedicated to Shigeru Mizuki for those who wish to read them, but sadly it seems his passing was all about ignored the next day by most. This really is what got me to write about him today, even if it’s the middle of December and doesn’t fit well with the Holiday Season. I do promise that next week will see something a bit more chipper and inline with the season, but for today, let's just remember what Mizuki has done, and be thankful for how much he helped to shape anime and manga, and maybe even a bit of Japanese culture, himself by keeping those old rustic stories alive. I know that while I'm playing my Yo-Kai Watch game in the coming weeks that I’ll feel a bit different knowing that they guy who debatably started it all is no longer with us. May he himself now party on for all eternity, in the afterlife he told us so many times before not to fear.