#mari okada

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Parallelisms. “Cherry Magic: Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!” Episodes 1 & 5 ; “Glass Heart,”* Episode 1. Keita Machida’s characters taking care of his costars’ characters (Kiyoshi Adachi and Naoki Fujitani)

* I have to do this. Apologies. “Glass Heart” EP1 screenwriters Mari Okada and Tomoko Akutsu probably incorporated these scenes as a nod / an homage to Keita’s successful performance on “Cherry Magic” as Yuichi Kurosawa in 2020 with Eiji Akaso.

[animefeminist]

Anime Feminist’s Recommendation Backlog: Unusual School Clubs

Anime Feminist has been in operation since Fall 2016, which means nine years! We’ve written about hundreds of shows, and recommended plenty of them, and as the years go on it’s easy for titles to get lost in the shuffle. That’s why we decided to try out a “backlog” series. People are getting into anime for the first time or coming back to it from a long time away all the time, after all!

When putting together this list, we placed the cutoff in early 2021, just to really let comparatively older titles shine. Plus, it leaves some options on the table if decide to circle back to this topic in a few years! We also didn’t include any titles that are already on our pinned recommendation lists.

Have you seen any of these already, or plan to look them up now? Let us know in the comments, along with what you’d be interested in for future “flashback”-type articles–more stuff from the vaults? Staff picks by vintage year? We wanna know!

Read it at Anime Feminist!

[popcultureoverdosed]

Black Rock Shooter is my Mental Health Icon

Being a black rock shooter fan in 2025 is less than ideal. The franchise went from being a popular icon of the early 2010 Era to an all but forgotten relic of the past. Most people who still remember the titular black rock shooter only know her as that mysterious anime girl from all those amvs and nightcore video thumbnails. Despite its plummeting success over the years, BRS is still something I care for deeply and that's all thanks to one anime.

The 2012 Black Rock Shooter anime holds a special place in my heart despite being almost completely overlooked by the masses. Even those who did view it often badmouth it as a confusing mess of pointless drama with hardly any redeeming qualities. I think these claims couldn't be any farther from the truth. BRS offers an avant-garde representation of battling mental health and social relationships. Before I talk about this show, I need to backtrack a bit to 2010

An ova for the franchise would come out that year which laid the groundwork for the later 2012 series. It alternated between the growing friendship between two middle school girls and two other girls engaged in combat in a fantasy world. The ova doesn't spell out what's happening, but it's clear that these scenes are linked together. 

Mari Okada expands upon the concept of otherselves introduced in the Ova. These are supernatural beings that take on the emotional pain of their human counterpart and engage in an endless war for the sake of protecting their other half. The concept of someone shouldering all of your emotional pain sounds beautiful at first glance, but the flaws of this system become apparent as the series goes on. Once an otherself dies, the human loses all memories of what caused them grief. This is a huge issue because this removes the ability to emotionally grow and learn from the experience. 

The first half of the show deals with the toxic friendship between Kagari and Yomi. Kagari is a cruel girl who controls Yomi as if she's her pet. She gets annoyed when Yomi doesn't give her undivided attention and isolates her from others to establish power. Yomi meekly goes along with everything because she feels immense guilt for Kagari’s condition. As a child, Kagari got hit by a car while chasing after Yomi and is now paraplegic. Except that's not the case at all. Kagari is capable of walking fine but she wants to guilt trip Yomi into being devoted to her.

Once Chariot, Kagari's other self is killed, Kagari completely forgets about all the emotional abuse she put Yomi through and acts like nothing ever happened.  This allows Kagari to become less anti-social by comparison but it also means she doesn't understand why Yomi is so troubled. Yomi had depended on Kagari for several years and one day out of the blue, Kagari starts neglecting her to make new friends. Yomi is understandably torn up about it and feels as if she's been abandoned by the one person who previously loved her above all else.

Kagari can't even apologize for the pain she's causing Yomi because she has no idea how much emotional weight her actions have. Yomi once again feels as if she is completely alone in the world. She shuts herself off from everyone, including Mato who desperately wants to lend her a shoulder to cry on. Years of hyper-dependency has resulted in Yomi being unable to function in life without someone needing her. She's convinced that Kagari and Mato abandoned her so now there's nothing left to cling to.

The other source of drama introduced late in the show revolves around Yuu and the mystery of who she truly is. No one except for Mato and Saya seem to know who Yu is despite her supposedly being part of the basketball team. The only time she's acknowledged by others is when Mato directly points her out. When Yu eventually ends up disappearing entirely from school, Mato is the only student to realize that she's missing.

It's weird to think that someone who's always tagging along with Mato, who seems to be generally well liked on campus, could be so easily forgotten. So what's really going on? It turns out that “Yu” isn't actually Yu. She's Strength, the other self of Yu. Saya reveals that she used to be friends with Yu back when she was a student. The girl was often bullied by her peers and was forced to live in squalor with her deadbeat mom and her boyfriend. Saya quickly took pity on her and became fast friends. All was going well until a fire broke out at Yuu's house. This was the final straw that Strength needed to awaken. Once Yuu becomes aware of the other world and her mental self, she decides to switch places with Strength. Yuu now lives in a world of endless violence, free from her tormentors while Strength takes in all of her pain. If Yomi and Kagari represent codependency and Munchausen syndrome, then Yuu represents disassociation. She's withdrawn from reality and lives in a monotonous cycle of physical conflict rather than emotional one. Many people agree that physical pain is easier to deal with than emotional pain because it has a direct solution. Wounds can be dealt with medicine while emotional wounds are much more complex to heal. This mentality is why people choose to self-harm to distract themselves from mental stress and trauma.

Her relation to Saya is also important since she's something of an enabler. She's ridden with guilt for not saving Kagari from her abuse so helps her out by going along with her plan. Saya has a nasty habit of intentionally stressing out the students who confide in her so that the pain will awaken their other selves. This is all a distraction so that Black Rock Shooter won't focus on attacking Yuu. BRS doesn't know/care that Yuu is a human so killing her would mean killing an innocent person. It's up to Mato to enter the otherworld and confront both Yuu and Black Rock Shooter. Mato and Yuu are both similar in the sense they have trouble coping with pain and dealing with the issues of life. While Yuu would rather escape reality entirely, Mato ultimately faces her fears to comfort her friends no matter how painful it may be. 

I love how the show perfectly captures the confusing and melodramatic energy of being a naive middle schooler trying to navigate through life. All the characters have emotional baggage that they deal with in less than healthy ways. The concept of there being someone in the world who shoulders all of your pain out of unconditional love is so incredibly poetic. Black Rock Shooter became a symbol of mental health to me. She was someone who existed inside all of us. Every time I go through a bad day, I imagine her fighting valiantly for my sake. I think it's similar to how Mato finds comfort in reading the Little Blue Bird picture book. It shows how fiction can be used to spark positive change and soothe readers.

[mikyapixie]

𝟙𝟞 𝕪𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕤 𝕒𝕘𝕠 𝕥𝕠𝕕𝕒𝕪 𝕋𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕠𝕣𝕒! 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕖𝕕 𝕚𝕟 𝕁𝕒𝕡𝕒𝕟!!!

[ofallingstar]

The Dark Maidens (2017)

[strawsoldier]

Sometimes I'm just in awe of Mari Okada's ability to just contiounsly write the most messy, cringe-worthy, heart-aching love stories time and time again for over a decade. Like she really went to the most prolific anime studio in current times and said "Imma direct a two-hour feature length film about a love triangle between a man, his hate/crush, and his time-traveling future daughter. Any objections?" and got what she wanted. What an icon. Her writing is so unapologetically unhinged that I always just brain-rot over all of her works, and just agonize for days about her characters and her creative process when it comes to everything her pen touches. I don't think any anime writer has this much of a grip on my brain as she does. Keep being weird, Mari Okada. I wouldn't have you any other way.

[minniiaa]

Maboroshi ticks all the boxes of a solid anime film. Great animation and a killer score breathe life into a world forever trapped in time. But it’s the story that keeps you guessing all the way through. It’s Intriguing, beautiful, heart wrenching, and thought provoking. It explores the fragility of life and the importance of living it to the fullest with those we love instead of resigning to a meaningless existence. Love and hate are two sides of the same coin, heartbreak is just as much a part of life as falling in love.

[leftontheforestfloor]

Watched this today 12/10 I loved it

I love how there's some scenes with the boys that are just vulgar cz boys cz then it explains why I had this sense that something's off--and then it's revealed that they've been in that timestuck for 10 years; they're sexually frustrated and have no outlet

The 'teens' can literally drive they just don't have drivers licenses. Try replacing their teens image with young adults instead

I get why Mutsumi refuses to call Itsumi her daughter; because she is in love with Masamune and because that's literally it, she's not really her daughter; but her maternal instinct could tell that she's hers. That's why she adores Itsumi anyway.

That's why she asked for Masamune's help to take care of her even though she refuses that that's their daughter. It's all very complicated.

Which is further confirmed by how Itsumi falls for Masamune; Masamune may call her his daughter because she is the daughter of his alternate self...but Itsumi doesn't feel that way. She's just a girl who sees a boy around her age. She knows what a dad looks like and it's not him.

I say it's probably a mixture of admiration and comfort; he was nice to her and he's a boy, she's only been around one boy and she's at the age where she's supposed to have crushes

So yes it's a little twisted and weird but c'mon why are you looking for logic or not weirdness when this story literally starts with wolf looking smoke erasing cracks in the sky? And kids who don't grow up ever?

Also yes it weirded me out at first when it turns out that Masamune's uncle is in love with his mum? But then? Who cares at this point lol. Maybe he's always had feelings for her even when his brother was still in the picture; maybe he was only ready to act on it when he knew he was going to disappear

And I adore the friend groups.

Who knew stories in a liminal space would wreck me like this

This was like Your Name if Your Name was a little bit more complicated and more angsty