You Should Watch Ace Wo Nerae And Galaxy Express 999 (Also Includes A Big Part About Heaven Burns Red)

Asalam aleikoum how's it going. There is a longer, more personal version of this article on ko-fi for tier 1 subs.

Table of Contents (I gotta add links later lol)

• First, let's talk about my newest favorite Ace wo Nerae reference
• You probably heard about how Ikeda Masako passed away
• If you wanna watch//play something just do it
• I'm not an "old anime good, new anime bad" person

First, let's talk about my newest favorite Ace wo Nerae reference

The feature picture is Date Akari from Heaven Burns Red. That's her profile from the official site, where she's just standing there looking dismayed. She wears a tennis uniform with a skirt and cap and has purple twintails braids. She's always carrying her racket. She's one of my six favorite characters in the game, with, in no particular order: Ichiko, Isuzu, Saki, Inori, and Maria. Maria is probably my number one favorite.

I first got interested in Akari because her Seraphim Code to summon her weapon is a reference to Ace wo Nerae, and Ace wo Nerae is one of my favorite series, and part of why I really like "sports shoujo" series like Pretty Rhythm. Similarly to every character in Heaven Burns Red, Akari looks extremely stereotypical at first glance, but is really well written.

I usually don't like perpetually depreciating themselves, perpetually depressed stereotypes, but she's an exception. And needless to say, the depressed aspect is only the surface level of her story and personality. (I actually still haven't played her event yet lol. One awesome thing about Heaven Burns Red though is that everything is connected really well, with some characters sometimes playing a big part in the main story / events not focused on them. So I still do know a few things about her).

There are over 50 playable characters in Heaven Burns Red (57 in total if you count the Angel Beats characters. Yes, that Angel Beats, see this article and this article for details. I need to properly import all these old ko-fi articles in here...), so it took over a year for each character to get a first SS Style (the game's equivalent of SSR versions).

As a meta joke related to how she's always thinking of herself as unnoticeable trash, Akari was the last character in Heaven Burns Red to first get an SS Style. Akari's SS Style was announced on the July 13 2023 stream, which was hilarious as the staff acted as if all characters had an SS and that they forgot about her. You can check it out for yourself starting the 51:40 timestamp, and her reveal is at 53:14.

Her EX Skill is also really funny and cool since it's a direct reference to the Ace wo Nerae anime (and other old anime) where they'd show the same scene three times for dramatic effect. Damage calculation-wise, It actually hits the enemy three times too, as if she's actually bending reality and smashing the same ball thrice. Mixing comedy elements and story elements into gameplay rules is one of Heaven Burns Red's biggest strengths.

If you aren't already playing sociage (gacha games) then it's best to keep it this way. Most notably, you should never spend money for pulls, it's never worth it.

If you're really interested in a sociage's story, you can just watch let's plays on YouTube. Heaven Burns Red is one of the few sociage I can genuinely recommend though, especially with how it vastly improved over the years. Even if it's primarily a visual novel, playing yourself means there are many ways your experience with the game's story will be personalized in a way that can't be reproduced by watching a YouTube let's play.

If you speak JP and do wanna watch a let's play, then I recommend mine lol. I only starting doing it with Chapter 4 Arc 2 though, and not all videos are public yet.

You probably heard about how Ikeda Masako passed away

She voiced Maetel in Galaxy Express 999 and Ryuuzaki Reika / Ochoufujin / Miss Butterfly in Ace wo Nerae, two of the most influential characters of Japanese pop culture. Whatever your favorite games and series are, there's definitely a character in there that's partly inspired from these two. If you add to the mix a few others like Fujiko, Doronjo, Lady Oscar etc, you have the basis for literally every single anime character ever. All of pop culture discussion as a whole would get much better simply by making everyone watch Ace wo Nerae. And also if black people especially with various backgrounds were actually getting hired. Black people not from USA, black muslims, black queer people, black disabled people, and crossovers of all of these groups.

I think you should watch the first TV anime adaptations and their contemporary movies. But at the end of the day just watch what you want. Like I always say, you gotta stop thinking like

• "uh what is the right way to watch X "
• "I want to enjoy this series the correct and best way"
• "what is the best SRW game to start with"
• "I can't play this fighting game because of motion inputs"

If you wanna watch//play something just do it and it doesn't matter where you start. You can always play past games in a series after the fact. But don't make up reasons that never bothered people in the past. And you don't have to watch 50 episodes in a week you can just watch when you can. Stop being Netflix brained. There's so many series and games I picked up midway and sometimes ended up watching/playing the first way later. Especially back when VOD didn't exist.

Another point that I always repeat is, I don't wanna be a historian (or rather the youtube and current internet era of historian), and I don't equate influence with quality. If anime boomers like me are still talking about Ace Wo Nerae and Galaxy Express 999 it isn't only because they're influential, it's because they're genuine masterpieces and probably among the best anime you'll ever watch.

I'm not an "old anime good, new anime bad" person, but one has to understand the realities of how badly the anime industry worsened

A lot of issues now, like anime series primarily being used as ads for the source novel/manga, animators being overworked, etc, already existed in the past, but they're exacerbated now. And there's a lot more anime being made now, so it's harder to find the good ones.

And instead of believing people who always say "50+ episodes anime are all too long and have filler and recap episodes, especially sports anime and mecha anime" just try watching a few and make your own opinions.

Just try watching the series that anime boomers like me always bring up, as the best series are the ones which are remembered. (Needless to say there are some exceptions though, and there are some shows no one talks about in English, especially if they weren't popular in USA. Youtube algorithm doesn't care about it, so people don't talk about it, the usual vicious circle)

I really don't like the phrases "X aged poorly/well" for a bunch of reasons. And in my opinion if something was good in the past it's often still good now. Simultaneously, this doesn't mean that one has to completely ignore the context of which the thing was initially released. Understanding that context can help you enjoy the thing more.  

Anyway, you can just try things. And if you don't like it, you can just stop and simply say you didn't like it instead of making up reasons for it like "the characters have no drip" "the controls are bad and unplayable."