Though many countries have their own versions of holidays to celebrate the dearly departed, Memorial Day being on the last Monday of May is a uniquely American thing. In honor of 2023’s occurrence, I’m going to take a special look at several anime titles which are profoundly influenced (if not completely defined) by the death of a character early in their stories.

To qualify for this exercise, three conditions must be met:

1. The death must happen within the series.
2. After the death, the character in question is absent from the story as a separate entity (i.e., not lingering as an undead or reincarnate) after their death, except in flashbacks.
3. The character must have a regular (if not pervasive) impact on events and/or character behaviors and motivations.

Since ranking these would be difficult, I am presenting them in chronological order by production date.

SPOILER NOTE: It probably goes without saying that all of these entries have early-series spoilers to some degree.

Martian Successor Nadesico

This 1996-97 series is one of the weaker entries here, but it still qualifies. Though mostly a zany sci fi adventure about humans fighting attacking Jovians using the special space battleship Nadesico, it takes a whipsaw turn when ace mecha pilot Gai Daigoji (top right corner in the picture) is unceremoniously and unheroically murdered by escaping officials at the end of episode 3. His death has a dramatic influence on co-protagonist Akito, who not only takes mecha piloting much more seriously in the wake of Gai’s passing but also becomes enamored of the mecha anime that Gai so loved. Gai’s death also becomes a major plot point in certain episodes later in the series and is the foundation of one of the series’ biggest ironies, which involves the exact identity of the invading Jovians.

Le Chevalier d’Eon

In mid-18th century France, Lia de Beaumont was secretly an elite spy for Louis XV when she died during a mission. (The series opens with a coffin containing her body being fished out of the Seine River.) This devastates younger brother d’Eon, whose investigation into her death leads him into a supernaturally-charged spy underworld. Before the first episode is over, d’Eon seems to become possessed by the vengeful spirit of Lia when he’s in a pinch against the preternatural forces connected to her death. This becomes a semi-regular occurrence throughout the series, to the point that d’Eon starts to question his own identity.

Or is that really what’s going on here? This 2006 series borrows loosely from the true story of famed French spy d’Eon de Beaumont, who went undercover as a woman in Russia, later insisted they were born as a woman, and lived the last 30 or so years of their life as a woman. (There was even a long-standing betting pool about d’Eon’s real gender.) In other words, d’Eon was either one of history’s most famous transgenders or else maintained a lie for decades as part of returning to France from exile. The anime heavily leans towards this being an actual case of possession but doesn’t completely discount the possibility that being possess by Lia was all in d’Eon’s head. Either way, most of d’Eon’s actions in the series are, to some degree, influenced by d’Eon’s loss of Lia.

Gurren Lagann

In this bombastic 2007 anime-original mecha series, co-protagonist Kamina was the cool guy who served as both role model and key motivator for Simon, the other co-protagonist. He took the lead in battle and became the leader of Team Dai-Gurren, a group of humans who used a giant mecha to fight against the aliens who had relegated humanity to living underground. His untimely death at the end of a pivotal battle about a third of the way into the series became the defining moment for Simon, who was left with no choice but to become a leader in his dear friend’s stead. Kamina continues to be the inspiration behind nearly everything that Simon does through the rest of the series, even to the point of Simon partly adapting Kamina’s style of dress, and his memory serves as a rallying point for other characters as well.

The Beast Player Erin

In this 2009 fantasy series, Erin starts as a young girl living in a village with mother Soyon, who is an expert veterinarian for the special reptiles that the village is known for raising. Soyon’s death early on (an execution related to perceived misdeeds) forces Erin to travel abroad to learn about and develop both the overt and secret skills her mother possessed, hence forming one of the 50-episode series’ main plot drivers. Soyon also appears in Erin’s memories numerous times to help guide Erin’s development involving animal breeding.

Cross Game

In this 2009-2010 series (which is based on the manga by Mitsuri Adachi, who also created Touch and Mix), 5th-grader Wakaba’s affection for neighbor/classmate Ko initially puts him at odds with Wakaba’s tomboyish younger sister Aoba, but Wakaba’s stunning drowning death changes everything. Four years later, her presence still vividly influences Ko, Aoba, and Akaishi (a one-time bully who also secretly loved Wakaba), and her passionate dream – that one day Ko would pitch to catcher Akaishi as Aoba looks on at Koshien, home to Japan’s National High School Baseball Championship – inspires characters, guides much of the series’ plot, and even affects Ko and Aoba’s gradually evolving relationship.

Despite her death near the end of the first episode, Wakaba was so transcendent a presence, and thus so impactful in the series, that barely any of the series’ 50 episodes go by without either a flashback of her or some reference to her, in addition to the life directions of both Ko and Akaishi being radically changed by her. A lookalike character even plays a big part in the series’ second half, too. Dealing with the lingering emotions of her passing is also such a big factor that I often describe this series as being about “love, loss, and baseball.” Even 14 years later, the series still has one of the strongest and most emotionally affecting first episodes of any anime series I’ve ever seen, has one of the all-time-great final episodes, and overall made my list of the top 10 titles of the 2000s.

to the abandoned Sacred Beasts

In this 2019 fantasy series, a civil war between North and South is ultimately decided by the North’s use of super-soldiers called Incarnates, who can transform into Sacred Beasts (monsters based on mythology). The end of the war leaves the Incarnates at loose ends, including several who cannot resume human form, and some go dangerously amuck. Co-protagonist Nancy Schaal Bancroft’s father is one such Incarnate, and she is enraged when Hank, the captain of the Incarnates, mercy-kills her father in the second episode. That sends her on a quest to pursue Hank and learn much more about the reality of the Incarnates.

In addition to the death of Schaal’s father being her prime motivator and a plot driver, this series also deserves its place here for its running commentary on the difficulties that soldiers have in readjusting to normal life after war, and in particular how some cannot do it.

Demon Slayer

This 2019-originating series does qualify based on a single character, but rather on an entire family. Tanjiro, the eldest son of a Taisho-era rural family who makes their livelihood with charcoal, loses his mother and four of his five siblings to a demon’s attack while in town one day selling charcoal. Their deaths and one surviving sister’s transformation into a demon push him to join the Demon Slayer Corps, which is the basis of the franchise’s whole plot. Either individually or as a group, his mother and deceased siblings pop up numerous times in his dreams and hallucinations through both completed anime series and the move Mugen Train, often at key points where Tanjiro needs an inspirational boost or refocus. They also, to a much more minor extent, impact surviving sister Nezuko, especially at one critical point where she must prove that she’s not a threat that the Demon Slayer Corps must exterminate.

86

This 2021 series is another case where the series qualifies more on collective deaths than the death of a single individual, though one individual does stand out a bit. The series is set in a future where autonomous war machine called Legion threaten to overrun humanity, having overwhelmed the Empire which originally created them and driven the Republic of San Magnolia into a defensive posture. The Republic claims to have developed its own autonomous war machines to fight casualty-free battles against the Legion, but in reality they are piloted by heavily-persecuted minorities (collectively called 86s, after the district they have been isolated in). The series splits its focus between sympathetic Alba (the oppressor race) Lena and the Spearhead Squadron of 86s led by Shin, whom Lena directs remotely as their Handler.

Over the course of the first half of the series, most of the 86s die in battle, with the most impactful individual one being the episode 3 death of Kaie (the short girl roughly in the center, above). Since 86s are not allowed to bury their dead, Shin has taken on the call name of Undertaker and carries scraps of each of their downed Juggernauts with the pilot’s name inscribed on them as mementos, with the intent of taking them with him to their final resting place. These dead (and one later non-86 death early in the second half) occasionally figure into plot elements and frequently appear in the thoughts and hallucinations of Lena and especially Shin, but this title deserves its place here equally for remembering and memorializing the dead being among the series’ most potent thematic elements. It is perhaps the most-suited title on this list to being brought up on Memorial Day.

Oshi no Ko

Though only seven episodes of this 2023 series have aired as of this writing, it is already among the strongest qualifiers on this list. In the series, a rural doctors winds up secretly helping his favorite idol, the immensely-talented 16-year-old Ai Hoshino, through a clandestine pregnancy, only to find himself murdered by one of Ai’s obsessive fans just as she’s going into labor. He then discovers that he has been reincarnated, with memories intact, as the boy of Ai’s twins. He watches adoringly as she moves forward with her career and ascends to the top, only to see her murdered right before him by the same obsessive fan who killed him nearly four years earlier.

The death of Ai at the end of the movie-length episode 1 sets the course of the rest of the series to date, as young Aqua embarks on a path to attempt to discover who their unknown father (whom he believes arranged Ai’ death) is, while sister Ruby dedicates herself to directly following in her mother’s footsteps by becoming an idol, even to the point of resurrecting the name of Ai’s long-defunct idol group. Essentially, nearly everything that both Aqua and Ruby do is in some way connected to their memories of Ai (who deeply impacted both of them in their previous lives). Other characters get drawn into her influence, too, when an actress decides to model her character on a dating show after Ai in order to become Aqua’s ideal girl.

Others

A number of other titles were considered for this exercise, but I ultimately decided these were either weaker candidates or else I just wasn’t familiar enough with them to write about them. The former cases include Claymore, Fullmetal Alchemist, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, K, Madoka Magica, Sword Art Online, and. . . while the latter include Major, Monster, and Touch. Titles that I felt were close but failed on technicalities include The Detective is Already Dead, Summer Time Rendering, and the movie King of Thorn.

Are there other worthy titles which should have been here? Mention them in Comments!

Rating: A

After producing one hell of a hard-hitting ending last time around, the series faced a difficult assignment: find a way to follow through and resolve the problem without cheapening the circumstance which got the show there. Instead of just contenting itself with that, the writing went for the extra credit as well: take a predictable plot development (i.e., Akana falling for – or at least playing up to – the guy who saved and helped redeem her) and give it a somewhat unsettling, thoroughly jaw-dropping twist, and in the process redefine both one of the the established cast members and one of the underlying truths of the series.

The fallout from Akane’s suicide attempt last episode sets the stage for that. A conversation among Kana, Ruby, and Miyako lays out the background for this by discussing how coping with social media negativity can vary from person to person, but even the most well-adjusted aren’t immune to it; I especially liked how dark Kana’s eyes were as she strongly implied that she’s had her own difficult moments with it. (The only minor complaint here was the the comments about attempting suicide seemed a little too on-the-nose when they could not have known at that point that Akane had attempted it.) Seeing the rest of the cast of “Love Now” rally around Akane was gratifying; “Love Now” is not an inherently competitive format (a la The Bachelor) as dating shows go, so a cast of teenagers who are all performers getting chummy with each other off-camera, too, is hardly a stretch.

Just as importantly, all of the cast are savvy in one aspect of media or another, so they make the perfect team to attempt to redeem Akane’s reputation. One knows the music, one (rather literally!) knows the angles, one knows the timing and promotion, and one knows the editing and how to manipulate adults to get what they need. Everyone except the dancer is allowed to not only contribute but show how smart they are about it as well. I have no doubt that their campaign is probably an oversimplification, but the tactics nonetheless feel real.

As satisfying as that is, though, the most interesting part is actually the last quarter of the episode, after all that is done. The story has pitched all along about how lies are a shield to protect the performer, so Akane is pushed to create a role herself to potentially deflect future problems. Surprisingly for this kind of situation, she’s not the one who actually comes up with the idea of tailoring her performance to be Aqua’s ideal, but given how much Aqua has done for her, wanting to please Aqua is hardly strange. But that is also the exact point where the demon gets unleashed.

Viewers have been told that Akane was an actress, but not what type. The revelation that she’s a theatrical actress – and a renowned one at that – explains both how Kana knew her and why she had such trouble adapting to the format. Stage acting is very formalized and structured, so a free-form approach like a dating show, where nothing is set, is in utter contrast to her norm. Of course it threw her for a loop, and her diligent note-taking was all about trying to translate that environment into the structure she’s more familiar with. Given a character to play, she shines – and she’s chosen Ai as her model. The scene where she reveals not only her Ai-based personality but also Ai’s starry eyes is both electric and unnerving, especially given the preceding scenes showing how thoroughly and obsessively she studies Ai and how scarily close to the mark and revealing her analysis of, and insight into, Ai is. I am certain that I am far from alone in having woefully underestimated her over the last two episodes; in her own way, she’s every bit as clever as the other smart characters in the show. Ironically for Kana, she may be even more of a threat to Kana than the latter realized.

Akane’s analysis and copying of Ai also raises one other interesting point: that Ai’s trademark eyes are reflective of her self-confidence, rather than some trait of hers, and thus can be duplicated. That has interesting implications for the way Aqua’s star goes bright (as when he rescued Akane) or turns black. And what, if anything, does it mean that Akane’s stars are yellow rather than Ai’s white?

Sadly, looks like we’ll have to wait two weeks to see how Aqua (and eventually Ruby, too) both react to Akane’s performance, as HIDIVE has episode 8 scheduled for June 7th instead. Assuming that happens, that review may be delayed for a few days, as I will be on a trip where my access to HIDIVE will be uncertain.

Suzume is the latest movie from acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai, and it would be unmistakable as one of his projects even if you didn’t know the director going into the movie. It has all of the hallmarks of a Shinkai project: stunning sunsets, fantastically detailed backgrounds, themes about making connections despite separations by time, space, and/or dimensions (and finding ways to cross those boundaries), melancholy longing which drives characters to action, and a special kind of easily-relatable, not-overly-schmaltzy sentiment that few other anime director have ever been able to deliver even half as effectively as Shinkai does. A complaint could be easily made that it feels too similar to his other recent works, but honestly, I don’t see that as a problem. Shinkai may not vary his formula much, but he has certainly mastered his particular style, and that shows beautifully in this film.

In this particular iteration, Suzume is a 16-year-old girl in Kyushu who gets caught up in a grand problem with interdimensional doors thanks to a chance encounter with a young man who’s preparing to become a teacher. . . while also, of course, fulfilling a long-standing family obligation to keep these mystical doors locked and sealed. Suzume’s unwitting encounter with one of those doors sets in motion a chain of events which could lead to earthquakes and widespread destruction if she and Souta (who soon gets turned into a three-legged kid’s chair!) cannot do something about it. But Suzume’s ability to interact with the doors and witness their effects (when most can’t) may have everything to do with an encounter with such a door during a great calamity she suffered through as a child, a calamity which, in many ways, defined both her life and her relationship with her aunt/adoptive mother. And certainly, going on a cross-country jaunt to deal with the doors (and a mysterious talking cat associated with them) without explaining anything puts a strain on that relationship, too, even as she’s clearly falling for Souta.

One of the more interesting and distinctive features of this particular project is the emphasis placed on abandoned places. This is a device that Shinkai has used before, but not to this degree, as the doors most commonly appear in places that have been abandoned. Whether this has particular meaning is unclear, though it does make a certain amount of supernatural sense that portals to a world for those who have passed on would be found in such places. It’s also entirely possible that Shinkai may have just gotten fascinated by the real-life abandoned facilities scattered across Japan and decided to highlight a few of them as a gimmick. The detail on these settings is just too phenomenal for them to not be based on real-life places. Coupled with this is the imagery of the remnants of catastrophe, both in real-life and in the otherworldly space. The effect of the Great Kanto Earthquake (whose 100th anniversary comes up later this year) is one, and the other, even though it is never specifically mentioned, is clearly the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011; sharp-eyed viewers might also catch a reference to the Fukushima Daichi nuclear disaster associated with that event.

Another point of emphasis is the encounters that Suzume has along her journey, a device which which was also used heavily in immediately-previous project Weathering With You. By any reasonable analysis, the sojourn Suzume goes on is a dangerous one for a 16-year-old girl even without the supernatural element figured in, but as in Weathering, she meets and befriends a number of mostly good-natured people who help her along the way even if they don’t at all understand what she is actually doing and why. These are not complete charity cases, as Suzume does odd jobs and babysitting in some cases and is helped by someone who has his own reason for seeking out a missing Souta in another case. The strain Suzume puts on her aunt (whom she conspicuously refers to by name, rather than ever calling her mother) with these antics and her evasiveness about what she’s doing also gets dealt with. Suzume, by comparison, is a fairly standard Earnest Girl who unquestioningly follows her heart and instincts; as most girls her age are, she’s quite mature in some respects but spectacularly immature in others. However, even without there being much novel about her, she still makes for a fine heroine.

As we’ve come to expect from Shinkai films, the visuals are a thorough treat; this may even be his best-looking film to date. I have already elaborated on the sterling background detail work, but the animation effort is also quite sharp, character and critter designs are inviting without entirely being anime-typical, and special effects impress. A wonderful musical score also delivers throughout, helping to highlight a key late emotional point.

The movie is currently circulating in American theaters in both subbed and English dubbed forms; this review is based on the latter. This is the first significant anime dub for Nichole Sakura, who gives Suzume a somewhat deeper voice but still handles Suzume’s emotional aspects well. Josh Keaton (He is Thomas from Tiger & Bunny 2) also has limited anime credits but is a perfect fit as Souta, whether in human or chair form. Lesser roles are a mix of a few familiar anime voices with relative or complete newcomers, but nothing felt off the mark. In particular, voices that were supposed to be young kids sounded like genuine young kids.

After a slight downturn with Weathering With You, Shinkai is back to Your Name-level form with this one. Despite the familiarity of the story pattern and sentiment, this is still going to be one of the year’s top anime releases.

Overall Rating: A

Streams: HIDIVE on Wednesdays

Debut Rating: 5 (of 5)

EDIT: Also see here for an official music video linked to the debut, though it should be watched after watching the debut since it is spoilery.

Wow. I read the first volume of the source manga a week before, so I knew all of the twists and turns that were coming in this movie-length debut and knew that the whole thing would adapt well to anime form. Even so, I wasn’t prepared for how much of a punch the content would have, or how effective and involved its themes would come across in this format. It gets my highest recommendation, though that comes with a caveat: if you decide to check it out, you must commit to watching the whole 82 minutes, and preferably in one sitting. Drop out early on this one based on any assumptions you might make and you are likely to completely misjudge what it actually is.

That’s because the first volume of the source manga (which this debut adapts in its entirety) is, in some senses, one of the biggest bait-and-switches TV series anime has ever seen, and it takes nearly all of that 82 minutes to accomplish that. All of the advertising for the series has promoted it as the story of up-and-coming idol Ai Hoshino (center above), and the first episode certainly is that. It shows how she rises from small-time to getting acting gigs to becoming a star big enough to earn her group a dome performance. . . all while secretly raising twins she gave birth to at age 16, while she was on medical leave. (She gets away with this by them being passed off as the children of her manager and his wife.) Meanwhile, a rural doctor who’s a fan of hers becomes her attending physician and vows to make sure she safely gives birth when she declares that she plans to keep the kids in the hope of experiencing the family she never had. But he gets stabbed to death by an obsessive fan of Ai’s as she goes into labor and then reincarnates as one of her twins. And he’s not the only one, either.

That’s the first massive twist, and it isn’t the last. I’m revealing it here because it’s crucial to understanding anything else going on here and because the first few minutes of the movie does everything it can to hint that the story is going in that direction. From that point on, Ai’s kids – Aquamarine and Ruby – mostly take center stage, though Ai still has her feature moments, too. This is also the point where the story irrevocably establishes that it isn’t actually an idol series even if it is about an idol. While there are some light-hearted moments, the underlying structure is a more serious, analytical look at the cold practicalities behind the entertainment industry. I don’t mean that in the seedy sense, either, although something seedy clearly happened at some point; Ai’s pregnancy was not a virgin conception, after all. It considers realities like how little most performers earn, how hard it can be for group idols to break out solo, what kinds of actors productions have and what purposes they play, the generally cynical attitudes at the foundation of it all, and so forth, all while offering salient points like how delivering what the director really wants ultimately trumps actually acting well.

But for all of the events that transpire in this content, and the emotion gut-punch that hits at one certain point, the thematic elements here strike just as strongly. The biting recurring theme of the show is that, at its core, the idol industry (and, by extrapolation, entertainment in general) is all about lies. The images that idols portray, and the pandering to fans, is all a lie, but most fans instinctively (if not necessarily consciously) accept that and play along with it. So an idol who does not know love is not a problem as long as she can project that she does and get the fans to buy into it. Smartly, the writing also acknowledges that this isn’t foolproof; fans will pick up on it when the image an idol projects, or her smile, does not feel genuine enough. And Ai is the biggest liar of them all, since she’s also lying to cover up the existence of her kids. She’s so wrapped up in lies that, as cheery as she is, she’s afraid to say “I love you” to her kids for fear that she will acknowledge that as being every bit as much of a lie as when she sings lyrics laced with that phrase. And then of course there are the obsessive fans, who become aberrations by being unable to accept the contract of lies on which all of the industry is predicated, and thus cannot be part of the true spirit of the fan/idol interaction.

And that’s why this debut is supremely ironic. The series is about lies, but the direction it initially seems to be going is a lie, too, and that reset hits more than once. Very little pitched about the series in advertisements is any more truthful than the images projected by the idols in it, and while hints about the big late plot twist are dropped much earlier, the real path will not show itself until only a couple of minutes before the credits roll. (But do stick around for a rather emotional epilogue!) Even after the big twist lands, there’s another awaiting about the motivational direction of one of the characters who will be the series’ co-protagonist going forward, and that puts a very, very different spin on a story which may still continue to be about breaking into the entertainment industry. I can safely guarantee that this protagonist’s motivation is quite different than that of any more stereotypical would-be performer.

Aside from its main themes and twists, this debut also did a lot of other thing well. As much as Ai comes across as a genki girl-type, she has distinct desires and motivations as a girl looking to find love in lies, and the nature of the second twin, while very gimmicky, also has its own deeper angles. The production also works the emotional elements well and packs in some sharp, symbolism-rich imagery, such as a recurring theme of a shining star in the sky being equated to Ai. The stars literally in Ai’s eyes may seem cheesy at first, but they also pack meaning as the story progresses and her backstory is explored a bit more. After using a silent soundtrack for much of the movie’s running time, the somber piano numbers deliver hard towards the end.

If there are any slight complaints here, it’s that one key scene runs on a little too long and some of the foundational logic is a bit shaky. But I will forgive that in light of how well the rest of this is done. The rest of the series may or may not hold up, but for my money, this is a superior adaptation of its equivalent source material and one of the strongest debuts in years.