Great Unpopular Series

The idea of underrated or under appreciated works always leads think me to question whether a series can actually be under anything like it deserves better. For these things in particular I do realise that it might be a perception that something maybe is seen by a majority of people as not great but to some people it maybe it holds a specific level of quality. It is a interesting debate because we recognise that people have different tastes and a work might not touch a lot of people but it might resonate with some people maybe because it explores a particular theme or had a peculiar premise. So I want to highlight works like these here in this list, works that I enjoyed that are not really popular or maybe people did not seem to like them very much. 

Tetsuko no Tabi - MAL Score - 6,35 - Users - 367

This anime is both unpopular and under appreciated. I am not too surprised at this because it is a niche series. I personally enjoyed it precisely because it is something rather unique. What is unique about it you might ask? Well that is probably the fact that is a series all about the JR, the Japanese railway system.  

The story is about an author that gets tricked into writing a manga about travelling but unbeknownst to her it is quite literally about travelling, and accompanying her is the travel writer/ tetsuko (railway otaku.) So the series is literally about how she, her editor and the travel writer go around Japan using the widespread JR system.  It does not focus on the place they visit but the train stations since they hop from one train to another since their aim is to visit train stations and experience travelling in the JR system.

It is series with a particular focus that obviously means it is not for everyone, in that sense it is a niche series. This niche-ness shows itself in its lack of popularity in all anime sites like MAL and the likes. It is also rather lowly rated in such sites. It is not masterpiece but I feel like it is a refreshing series that can be rather peaceful and also show people a bit of the nature of Japan and its well developed transport system. 

It is not a technically impressive series either and the character designs are not great either. But it does have beautiful scenery and soothing music, so it is a great relaxing series that is probably not seen by many people because of its initial image and setting. 

Binchou-tan - MAL Score - 6.93 - Users - 3.471

Another series that is not very popular, but this one seems to be regarded higher by people who watched at least according to MAL and other sites like it. It a short with only around 12 minutes duration plus it is like Tetsuko no Tabi now an older series. Similarly to it is also a slice of life series but it is a very different one. 

Binchou-tan is a series about a girl that lives  in a forest, who often goes into the city for work. She is rather poor and after the death of her grandmother has been living alone. Throughout the series she meets various other girls and makes friends with them. I do realise this is a series basically shaped around the characters who are all various different types of charcoal. Binchou-tan is one of those but she is the main character and the company that owns the mascot character, alchemist was one of the producers of the anime. 

There is no real story here, its just the daily life of the characters working, making friends and playing together. What specifically captivated me about this story, however, was the soundtrack which is so subtle and fits really well with the natural environment. it is rather quite series in that sense, so it is genuinely an excellent iyashikei work that warms my cynical heart.

Cooking With Valkyries - MAL Score - 6.85 - 1,701 Users.

A strange work to put in this list, I know it is Chinese which means its unpopularity is probably mostly because people do not really know it exists. It is like Binchou-tan a short series in fact its even shorter with run time usually only being around 5 minutes. It however a rather interesting series focusing around cooking with the characters from the game Honkai Impact.

The series is rather simple, there is not story per say but it develops a specific characters in every episode that focuses on the characters as well as a particular dish. It is incredibly healing series with very soothing low key music that masks so well with the series that it hardly noticeable. in addition to that every dish 's recipe is detailed at the end of the episode, so it also has that educational aspect for anyone interested in recreating the dishes in the series. 

It as incredibly appealing series for even people that are not fans of Hounkai Impact like I am. It does make you feel a bit clueless at the start because the series seems to take it for granted that you know the characters and that is probably its only issue. But you do grow to know the characters through the episodes themselves so it does not feel as worse as it could have been. 

The animation for it is also rather well done, unlike the other series in this list it does focuses more on characters so there is less scenery. As a result the world feels much smaller to a series like Tetsuko and even Bichou-tan, even though it supposedly much larger. Of course, this is a consequence of what the series is at the end of the a series focused on a character not on the world. 

Kemurikusa -

An original work by Tatsuki, the director of the first season and surprising hit kemono friends. This is a series that seems to be largely overlooked simply because of the cheap CGI which was also present in Kemono Friends. It indeed looks dated and cheap but underneath that is a incredible story. 

The setting is a post apocalypse world and the main character, who has no memories, finds himself together with a set of sister trying to find resources to survive. It is a gloomy series with things looking rather hopeless as the fights are hard fought and we know there have been deaths in the groups previously and this creates an atmosphere of doom and gloom to the viewer that continues through every episode. 

However, that in itself is not necessarily why this series is great. In fact the reason, I believe it to be great is the story telling, which is natural. It flows incredibly well without any information dumps or poor exposition. The viewer is instead very much like the characters in the series clueless, as to what  happened to the world. Throughout the series there are tiny hints of exposition that gradually form the picture of what happened and this is what Tatsuki and this series excels at. It can actually show a story instead of only tell it to viewer, it can immerse and leave the viewer curious and even perhaps confused as they try to from the hints understand the picture before it is unveiled. If what you want is an interesting story then you will find it here in this series, i guarantee. 

Kamichu -

Another series that is somehow misunderstood, the main character in this series finds that she has become a god. This could be easily misunderstood for western audiences and the idea of god from the western abrahamic judeo tradition that is prominent within western culture. She is a god in the shinto sense, which might be better described as kami instead of using the word god with the connotations it has in western culture. 

Hence, she has become a kami and it gradually unveils how this has happened. However, this is not the focus of the series, the series is about her life and her friends and getting accustomed to this new state. This includes her attempts to get the attention of her crush and her friends using her kami state to boosts visits to their shrine. Alongside all this is her composed friend that has to accomodate to the strange events. I believe the blend of shinto cultural aspects such as the idea of kami means but also what they represent embedded into a slice of life series allows it to be a very interesting and soothing experience for slice of life fans. 

In addition, the animation of this series is excellent. The visuals and the animation are incredibly fluid and stunning. Of course, the pacing and the flow of the story likewise is also natural which is probably one of the benefits of being an original work, so the animation staff and the storyboard and screen compositor and script writer all can work together to create a natural work instead of piecing together someone's else work.  Finally, the music fits incredibly well with the rest of the work, so this a technically impressive work as well as a great slice of life series.

Windy Tales

Windy Tales has a specific artstyle that probably turned many people away in the past but I think it stands out in its unique style nowadays. This series has a very intriguing feeling, its for the most part a slice of life series with supernatural elements. These supernatural elements being that wind users exists who can use the power of the wind to do many things. One of the main characters Nao witness a cat using this power and discovers that her maths teacher Taiki was the one who taught it. 

She becomes interest in learning how to do it herself alongside the other members of the photography club. In this self contained story, we have many stories exploring various issues such as budding romance, familial drama and the likes. How these themes are explored in conjunction with its general daily life feel adds a spray of realism even if the art style of the series is rather surreal. It is an odd but interesting experience to watch this series. 

 

Chinese Anime?

 I do not know how people respond to the increasing prominence of Chinese animated works english subbed appearing somewhat to feature alongside Japanese ones. I do know that there is a polarisation over what the term anime means and whether it only means Japanese animation or anime  inspired animation in the english speaking world at least. I for once find these distinction rather flawed and I want to express here why even the idea of Chinese, Japanese anime itself are flawed.

My first and main criticism comes from how I think these claims that these shows are national in any way are simply false. These shows are very much a transnational effort and it would be wise to recognise that there are other people often outside these countries involved in the process. In Japanese animated works for instance almost always the in-between frames are outsourced work done by studios in South East Asia or Korea. 

If you are do know what in-between frames are, they are the frames in-between the key frames. They are in essence the most laborious work in animation as they are the frames that give motion to the series by padding the space between each key frame. Therefore, any anime episode will be made up of a majority of in-between frames. I believe you can see where I am getting at here, so in the Japanese anime we watch actually the majority of the frames we see were not drawn in Japan or by Japanese people at all. 

Outsourcing in the Japanese industry is also not a recent phenomenon. In fact, outsourcing to Korea and other particular South East Asian countries that has been ongoing since at least the 70s. So it therefore has been a thing since anime has expanded in Japan and it precedes by a lot the explosion of Japanese animated works popularity abroad. Initially the Japanese hid this fact by showing only Japanese names in the credits in an attempt to show anime works as an only Japanese work. 

This is likewise the case for Chinese animation as well, one notable case was the movie Big Fish and Begonia which is notably given as an example of Chinese animation. However, the studio in charge of the animation was Studio Mir, a Korean studio. Likewise many Chinese animated works are also outsourced like Japanese ones.  In fact, Korea also receives a lot of outsourced work by American animated works such as The Simpsons and the likes. We should acknowledge the work these people do instead of trying to simply brand these works as national projects and not what they really are; transnational projects. 

I want to pose a question now. Why would something like Avatar The Last Airbender not be considered anime? Is it simply because it was not produced by a Japanese Company or the characters original dub was not in Japanese? I say this because the animators behind the Avatar had worked doing outsourced work for Japanese animated works for most likely years. So why would their work not be considered anime as well? 

What I want to highlight with these questions is that anime exclusive definition as Japanese is simply a falsehood.  Most people seem to only think anime can only be Japanese because it is seen as something created solely for Japanese audiences and also that the dubs are in Japanese. However,  these frameworks for understanding it are simply poor since anime has a much wider audience than simply Japan and the rise of companies in the production committee from outside Japan prove that. The dubbing voice is also too simplistic and kind of implies only the voicing work matters and the work by animators from other countries do not matter.

I hope we can recognise how anime is transnational and not national and attempts to define it in national terms are simplistic and often mean work by many people are forgotten.