Tokyo Crystal Mew

Tokyo Crystal Mew is fun because the creator was like 10 when it started and I want to say like 16 or something when it ended, and you can really see the artwork improve and the animation grow more fluid. Though it's also interesting how at some points you can still see like storyboard notes, and a lot of the animation was done in black and white outlines to speed up the process. Given the nature of fanime, I can of course "forgive" it and say that it actually is a pretty cool-looking style.

Tokyo Crystal Mew builds upon the source material (Tokyo Mew Mew) really nicely with completely new characters. I especially liked Chi in terms of personality, character design, and voice acting alike. I wonder if whoever Chi's VA was ended up becoming a professional VA? 'Cause Chi's voice reminded me a lot of Brittney Karbowski as Himeko (Pani Poni Dash), God (Maria Holic), Unused Character (Kill Me Baby), and Dekomori (Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions).

Really, though, all the voice acting in TCM is better than I expected it to be. It's a pretty solid show overall. The only shame is that it never got a proper conclusion, and the Toya the Mew Mew shorts weren't anything to ride home about.

Sparkle on, Raven! The Life of DrillGirl

Sparkle on, Raven! The Life of DrillGirl is such a good love letter to fanime as a whole. It stands out as a newer show, and it also stands out how the "low quality" artwork and limited animation are very clearly a deliberate style choice by the creators. It's got some cool uses of Suddenly Extremely Fluid Animation, as well as perhaps Shinbo-esque mixed media in the form of characters like Omen and Guidance Counselor Gentlemen Broncos on Blu-Ray and even some live action footage in the intro. The choice of songs in Sparkle on Raven is exquisite, too, and it's got great character designs and great voice acting (if you can forgive the mic quality, which is, again, a Deliberate Stylistic Choice).

Above all else, though, Sparkle on Raven is just ridiculously quotable, ridiculously rewatchable, it's like a good YouTube Poop, if YouTube Poops were original content with a running storyline. Sparkle on Raven has probably the best specials I've ever seen out of a fanime, too, and I'm looking forward to episode 6, whenever it arrives.

Elemental Goddess and My Jungle Book, Your Year

Elemental Goddess was funnier and better animated than I expected it to be, and it introduced me to the German Sailor Moon OP, so it's got that going for it. I was worried that it was gonna be like really grossly racist and stuff, but it wasn't that bad at all. My favorite part was when the one character said, "I will silence you! HOLY QURAN — PUNISH THE BLASPHEMER!!" and it's like a magical girl attack stock animation with a calligraphic Shahadah in the background, and the character's got a crescent and star on her forehead and stuff as she shoots a fucking laser out of the Quran she's holding. VERY gifable scene, to be honest. Absolute kino.

My Jungle Book, Your Year I really enjoyed because for fucking once it actually had a decent number of episodes of a decent length and the story Actually Came To A Conclusion!! Not a lot of fanime you can say that of!! And it was a surprisingly engaging story with a charming cast of characters. I still think it's funny that there was a character called Fuu Fuu Furi Furi Pupi.

A few others

Akuji Tavarious stands out for its really fluid animation, especially in the lipsync. From the animation quality alone we knew that we had to rank it highly.

Strawberry Moon stands out as the first and only fanime we've seen that mentions menstruation. That doesn't really say much about its quality, but it is something I always make note of when I see it in animation, because the taboo around menstruation means it can be pretty rare to see it mentioned in media, perhaps especially in animation.

Nyan~ Neko Sugar Girls was good to watch for its "historical significance" but it didn't leave either of us impressed. It felt like half of the jokes were just "loud = funny". At the same time, if we had watched it one episode at a time instead of binging it, I wonder if we would've liked it more.

Guilderland Mew Mew was really short and had a hard to follow plot. It ranked dead last on both our tier lists because we didn't really get anything out of it.

Conclusion

The other fanime here (Illusions Dreams, Alfea Chronicles, Gothic Fuzzles, Twinkle Girls, Sakura Ai)… Nothing really stands out for me as things I want to say about them. I guess if anything, it stands out to me how short most fanime tend to be. Like I wish we had more ones the length of My Jungle Book, Your Year where you really get the chance to develop an attachment to the characters. But the nature of amateur animation in a world where average people will only ever have so much free time and energy to dedicate to these sorts of big projects… is that a lot of things will be left short and unfinished, right? At least, unless you as a fan try to make your own conclusion… But who's going to do that, right?

At the same time, though, isn't that sort of the beauty of fanime? How it's an ode to the imperfect and unfinished, to the relationship to art that average people should have, a relationship of being creative for its own sake instead of for the sake of "developing skills" or "being productive", of celebrating amateurity so that people don't get trapped in this sort of perfectionist mentality where they think that it isn't worth it to make animation just because they won't be the next Miyazaki. Fanime is often The Shaggs of animation, I think, and I fucking love "Philosophy of the World".

Do you have anything to add @Redcuban1959@hexbear.net? Any thoughts you wanted to share about the different fanime here, about fanime in general? Maybe the ones I didn't have anything to say about?

I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

• yewtu.be
• inv.nadeko.net
• yt.artemislena.eu
• piped.video