Merry Padorumas! (Christmas Quick Hits)
CHRISTMAS IS HERE, Y’ALL! A Merry Christmas to all, and Happy Holidays to the rest ;) Today is a day for giving, so to you, I give a series of thoughts, comments, opinions, etc., that don’t make up enough for articles on their own — that’s right, this is Matt’s Anime Quick Hits, Christmas Edition! (Apologies if you were looking for anything particularly serious, but, no, not today.)
Welcome to “12 Days of AniTAY 2020”, a writing challenge in which I look to have an article a day for 12 days leading up to Christmas, all centered in some way on anime or anime-related topics. You can find re-posts of my 2018 and 2019 series (posted originally on the late TAY and AniTAY Kinja sites) now here on Medium.
For those who haven’t ready any of my previous “Quick Hits” articles, my schtick (borrowed from others much better at it) is to have an imaginary person asking me questions about the different topics.
I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.
Nope, never. I just had a number of topics that kind of ‘exploded’ on me.
That “imaginary” thing kind of hurts, you know.
You’ll get over it. You don’t technically exist, anyhow.
So, for the new folks: Padoru?
Umu!
From the Fate/Extra video game, when Red Saber sings a parody of “Jingle Bells.” It’s Christmas tradition, Fate-style.
Are… are you going to inundate this article with all the Fate stuff you never got to in the previous articles?
…Could be. I do believe I mentioned that Fate is one of my favorite franchises.
Sigh. Fine. Okay, so. New Fate swag this year?
Some new Nesoberis. Here’s all the Fate ones I have (including from previously):
Nothing else really new, an Enkidu Fate Duel figure from my friend (he buys the boxes for each set, so he gives me the duplicate copies when they turn up), maybe another one from the beginning of the year (can’t quite recall — the beginning of 2020 feels like a decade ago, after all).
Fate/Grand Order. You’re still playing that?
Hell yes. So is Rie Takahashi, voice actress for Mash:
Because it’s more anime-related: Learning with Manga Fate/Grand Order?
“Gudako”, the female protagonist, is the best, and knows it all. Also, Aniplex US recently released an official subbed version on their YouTube channel (may not be available outside the US, sorry, although maybe other Aniplex divisions have their own copies?)
How goes your luck?
(Actually, according to Rie Takashi there, the voice actress for Gudako essentially improv’ed/ad-libbed how this scene went.)
And after almost 3 years, this perfectly describes how I finally acquired OG Saber the other month:
(Scenes from the anime above, but based on this manga strip.) But god, Altera is adorable in this show:
Right. So. FGO Babylonia.
Yes. Mash, Ana, and TWO Rins, as the goddesses Ishtar and Ereshkigal. And one of them is blonde!
Enough about your waifu. Let’s talk heartwarming Christmas episodes.
Right, but I did that a couple years ago.
Okay, but any new ones?
Well, I did miss somehow the Emiya’s Kitchen episode the same year I wrote that. Berserker and Illya being all adorable.
Also adorable: all the female servants dressed up all Christmas-y.
Seriously, I need more of Emiya’s Kitchen. Especially so I don’t get tempted to buy a Nintendo Switch just for when they come out with the cooking game version in the US. (Although I am tempted. Very tempted.)
Fine. Fine. Non-Fate?
Oh man, Toradora! Adorable, moves the plot along, various characters at least partly come to certain realizations about themselves and others, and there’s a Bear Santa suit.
Then, there was the adorable-ness of Cocoa and Chino in the first season of Is the Order a Rabbit? that we’ve been watching here lately. It’s enough cuteness to give you the diabeetus, that’s for sure.
And of course, Sleepy Princess’s last episode earlier this week capped off a brilliant season.
Kakushigoto was cute and fun, with Kakushi and Hime doing Christmas both at home and at an industry party so Hime could see a real fancy chandelier.
Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!? did Christmas in its usual ecchi way, at least when you could see it around Crunchyroll’s censoring.
Gal & Dino definitely did Christmas in both its animated and its live action bits.
Gal & Dino was great. How does it finishing (finally) leave you feeling?
Dino shows it best:
Let’s get back to a lighter note. Are you expecting anything anime-related for Christmas?
Yep, a little bird* told me that Santa is bringing me some anime blu-rays for sure, and I would not be surprised if my friend and I exchanged the same blu-ray based on either a Righstuf or Sentai sale. Not sure about anything else right now.
*Okay, the little bird is me. I bought them alongside the present for my friend to get free shipping, and discussing it with my wife, we decided to go ahead and have that be my “Santa” presents this year.
This is it. The 12th day. (Let us ignore the fact that the actual 12 days of Christmas, to answer the question posed by Bob McKenzie, start on December 25th and end with Epiphany on January 6th.) It’s Christmas Day (it ticked over while writing this, even. The jolly fat man has come and delivered presents at our house, although he still needs to eat the cookies), and I think (I certainly hope) we’ve all got better things to do, so today’s article is deliberately a bit shorter than my others.
Thanks again to all who’ve followed this. I don’t often get to writing up on anime, so I tend to save all my topics up for these end of the year writing challenges. I hope you enjoyed at least some portion of it, maybe learned something new, or at least didn’t think it was a total waste of time.
I wish for each of you and your families health, safety, and security in the forthcoming year, and I leave you with one of my favorite Christmas quotes, from the end of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:
And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
