A Very GLORIO 2024: Gee’s Year in Review

If there’s a pervasive theme to 2024, I think it’s the constant sense of there never being enough time. This has been a noticeable trend for years, but this year it became impossible to ignore that a lot of anime were materially compromised, either in episode count or fidelity. The age of the 52 episode TV anime is dead, and I think the end of the 26 episode TV anime is not far off. We now live in the era of 13 episode seasons; a frankly inadequate number of episodes for many kinds of stories. Watching familiar stories try to fit themselves into this new format has been awkward to say the least. The shows I’ll be talking about are the ones I think are most significant, either good or ill, to my 2024 anime watching experience.

Look Back – Creative Survivor’s Guilt

I had the opportunity to see the animated film adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s one shot manga. I was profoundly affected by the story when I first read it. The film hits just as hard. It’s beautiful, poignant, and deeply personal. It imbues the characters with animated humanity and warmth. To me, Look Back is about survivor’s guilt.

First Look: Yakuza Fiancé

Somei Yoshino is a friendly, well-mannered high school girl who lives an entirely normal life – other than the fact that her family is yakuza. However, her peaceful days are thrown into chaos when her grandfather sends her from Osaka to Tokyo in an arranged marriage to Miyama Kirishima, the heir of another yakuza family. Although seemingly polite and even charming at first, claiming not to have any interest in the yakuza life, Kirishima is in reality a violent sociopath who at first dismisses Yoshino for being boring… only to immediately fall head over heels in love with her after she sells one of her kidneys to repay a perceived debt of honor.

First Look: Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

In 15th-century Poland, religion is king, and those who suggest otherwise or fall prey to wicked beliefs are burned at the stake for heresy. Rafal, a highly intelligent but arrogant boy interested in astronomy, is sure he will live a life of privilege, lauded for his brilliance — until an encounter with a man who suggests a radical theory of heliocentrism challenges his beliefs and sends him down a far more dangerous path.

First Look: Ranma 1/2

Akane learns she is betrothed to a boy named Ranma, the son of her father’s friend. While waiting for Ranma and his father to arrive, a girl and giant panda appear instead. Turns out Ranma and his dad can transform when splashed with water, and hilarity ensues.