Backlog Marathon #1 - The Temptation of Character Appeal

Backlog Marathon

issue #1

The Temptation of Character Appeal

Character design is one of the strongest tools of the creative arsenal in regards to fictional works. This goes quadruple for animated media and can be squared even further for Japanese pop culture as a whole and all it has inspired. One could say we're having a character design surplus of unforeseen proportions at this very moment. Gacha media as a whole is harboring thousands of character archetypes and chasing each other's tails for relevance. Ensemble casts are rapidly sprouting up for each new school comedy and fantasy life series that tumbles into serialization. New manga and anime characters are probably born every minute. It's tough competition out there to become one of the chosen few to graduate from flavor-of-the-month fodder to a legacy favorite.

I'd be willing to make a fair wager on the theory that a decisive majority of anime viewers have watched at least one show because they saw an appealing character design that plays to their personal tastes. In a culture with a significant focus on fan works, particularly visual art, it's a trivial effort to become exposed to unknown fictional beings with just a cursory glance. This can translate into active interest which then becomes an exercise on learning the character's name and the basic details of the series they hail from. Some remain in the abstract outskirts of fandom - secondaries and tertiary appreciators from afar - while others take the path of primaries to dispel their ignorance and become familiar with the characters and world in which they inhabit.

That being said, visually appealing characters can be a poison of their own. Animation in general is a sum of artistic expressions that includes music, sound design, background art, cinematography, and myriad other forms that allow the illusion of fictional media to be tangible. There's no denying that strong designs can elevate a cast, but it's not enough to look exemplary. Characterization is key, and someone who bears acuity for visual design doesn't necessarily have the prose to bring their characters to life. It doesn't really matter who's holding the pen - character designs cannot compensate for mediocre writing. A good character in a terrible story is imprisoned. A good design for a poorly written character is a trojan horse. Both is the worst case scenario; like Zero Two tricking people into watching one of the worst mecha anime ever produced just to find out her and the entire Darling in the FranXX cast are insufferably vapid mouthpieces for a guy who's desperate to fix the Japanese birthrate.

Watching anime with no frame of reference other than character design is akin to gambling in the sense that one might trick themselves into pissing the time away watching dogshit of the lowest order. But the opposite is true as well; it might lead to greatness. I'm not much of a gambler but I love taking a chance on shows just for the hell of it. Call me a sucker, but that's just the game I play. You could say I've spent my whole career (or lack thereof) wagering my free time on random anime with little to go on other than my own character fixations. It's a temptation I indulge in willingly, because even I have to get my sick kicks every once in a while.

This topic was on my mind as I was scanning through my backlog some months ago. I remembered two particular shows from my list that I added for this very reason and they happened to be produced by the same anime studio. Both shows were aired within a year of each other and my interest in watching them was fueled entirely by the single character design from each cast that I was familiar with. These coincidences gave meaning to my shallow justification for wanting to view these anime in the first place. After some meandering and having to keep up with the demanding Summer 2025 anime season, my watching schedule opened up and I was able to take a look at what both of these shows had to offer.

The studio is Dogakobo - one of the former titans of moe who have largely been occupied with Oshi no Ko since producing its first season back in 2022. Just a few years prior to that in 2019, the studio produced an adaptation of a slice-of-life comedy manga by the name of Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! (An Angel Flew Down to Me), more commonly referred to as Wataten. Just a year later at the dawn of COVID-19, they struggled yet ultimately succeeded at putting out another manga adaptation with Houkago Teibou Nisshi (Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater); a moe edutainment series about a club in a rural seaside town that dabbles in the art of fishing. For the very first installment of Backlog Marathon, it's time to determine whether I invested my faith wisely or if I was shamefully bamboozled by character archetypes into watching subpar entertainment!

 

Exhibit A: Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maiorita! (2019)

Some of the best anime girls are maladjusted, strange beings who have friction with conventional social structures and make funny faces. Tomoko Kuroki of Watamote fame is emblematic of this vision, and the archetype that is sometimes referred to as "girlfailure" in the modern social media landscape has been lighting up ever since Bocchi the Rock graced television. Of course, they don't write them like Tomoko anymore - general audiences have a hard time appreciating a character whose main charm point is how they're good for nothing. That's why many of the modern descendants of her lineage have at least one talent worth mentioning and a personality that isn't always dripping venom. Hitori "Rock of the Bocchi" Gotou's saving grace is that she's a guitarist prodigy who uses music to communicate her honest feelings. For the lowly Miyako Hoshino, only her talent for designing cosplay outfits protects her from being a college-age social pariah.

It might be stretching to claim that Miyako is a prototype of Bocchi, but the similarities are there. Both prefer lounging around at home and always wear a tracksuit. Both have major social and communication issues yet still attend school. They each have a singular passion that is core to their identities. They even share the trait of having a goofy younger sister. The Wataten manga actually predates the serialization of Bocchi the Rock by a year and both of them happened to run in similar magazines with a focus on all girls groups - particularly yuri. Perhaps it wasn't direct inspiration, but the coincidences line up quite a bit. Call it a shared lineage or similar design philosophy, but the clearest way to describe Miyako to the average anime fan is that she's essentially college age Bocchi who is more into fashion than music. She's also far more of a social deadbeat with a somewhat corrupted mind.

But the truth is that Wataten itself is a prisoner the legacy and influences it wears loosely around its waist. Comic Yuri Hime, the publication that serialized the manga, already had a major player that many should be familiar with if they're already keen on the realm of moe anime girls - Yuru Yuri. Namori's zany slice-of-life comedy, much like its namesake, created a casual yuri environment where girls could be stupid together and accidentally kiss each other every once in a while without any lasting consequence. There aren't any real emotional stakes, just fun and games and skinship between quirky friends. It's a comedy before it's much of anything else, and its influence is clear as day within the DNA that makes up Wataten as an experience. 

Miyako, often referred to as "Myaa-nee" thanks to the influence of her little sister Hinata, is a university student with no social life and a modest dream to become a fashion designer. Despite attending classes, she is incapable of socializing with anyone outside of her family. She's also an otaku who grinds out her tailoring skills by making cosplay outfits and, as a consequence, has a slightly twisted personality. This becomes evident when Hinata brings home a friend from elementary school - the sweets loving Hana Shirosaki - and Miyako immediately becomes infatuated with her. After making a fool of herself trying to befriend this ten year old "angel", Miyako uses her secret talent for confectionery to coerce Hana into wearing her cosplay handiwork.

The first few episodes do everything in their power to convince the viewer that this series careens dangerously into taboo yuri territory with a female pedophile lead, but you'll be relieved to hear that Dogakobo already made that show in the same year and it's called Uzamaid. Miyako is no more than a maladjusted moe otaku who has inappropriate responses to cuteness in real life, but the author clearly understood the framing since there's at least one scene where she gets accosted by a police officer while trying to take candid camera shots of Hana while she's in public. This is also a series in a yuri magazine, but much like Yuru Yuri, the romance isn't tangible and primarily acts as a harmless spice to enhance the silly antics of the young cast.

Once the bratty attention-seeking neighbor Noa joins the main cast, the group rounds out to be more reminiscent of a classic series that ran on the tagline of "cuteness is justice" - Barasui's Ichigo Mashimaro (Strawberry Marshmallow). This is further emphasized by the realization that Miyako herself is very similar to Mashimaro's Nobue; both deadbeat older sisters who have their own vices, love moe aesthetics, and socialize exclusively with grade school students. Of course, Wataten is not nearly as calculated and witty as its older counterpart, borrowing far more from the exaggerated slapstick and visual humor of Yuru Yuri and the works it spawned in many a Manga Time Kirara publication. 

Modern art can have something of an impostor syndrome issue where creatives struggle more with masking their influences, and Wataten falters greatly in trying to surpass either of its muses. It's not nearly as funny as Yuru Yuri nor is it close to as charming as Ichigo Mashimaro. Its cast feels like a chimera of characters from both shows with their appearances and personalities shuffled around. Miyako is otaku Nobue with the perverted nature of Akari's older sister. Hinata is an inverse of Nobue's younger sister Chika with the energy of Toshino Kyouko. Noa is a significantly less annoying Chinatsu if she looked like Ana. I could make a similar comparison with Hana if I tried but she's mostly just a recolor of Chino from Gochiusa if I'm being honest. Then there's recurring schoolmates Koyori and Kanon who are legally distinct Ayano and Chitose from the Yuru Yuri student council. 

Wataten also begins indecisive, shuffling elements around often in its first half in an attempt to find stable ground. It ultimately chooses to push toward the social reformation of Miyako with help from her younger friends. Because this good-for-nothing otaku spends most of the first half of the show making perverted old man statements while photographing children in cosplay, they had to shore up her weirdness by introducing someone who is even more of an irredeemable freak than she is. Right at the halfway point of the show, we see Miyako attend college for the first time and come face-to-face with the female stalker Matsumoto. As a former clubmate and secret admirer of Miyako's, the unhinged Matsumoto humbles our helpless protagonist and has her rethinking her behavior toward Hana. Despite how it seems, this stalker and her clueless little sister Yuu are actually the funniest characters in the show. I'd go as far as saying they almost single-handedly save it from the jaws of mediocrity.

This show is cute, even moe at times, but the issue lies with how it does very little beyond that. Once the formula settles in the latter half of the show, episodes mostly spin their wheels passively with recycled gags and scenarios. One episode has Miyako going through a crisis trying to buy new clothes at the mall but it came off as a worse version of a similar episode from the criminally underrated and woefully slandered Kuma Miko. Much of the focus goes into developing the core pairs - Miyako trying to win over Hana's approval and Noa's struggle to pull Hinata's clingy attention away from her older sister - but there isn't a good supporting cast around that beyond Matsumoto's antics. The parents of the younger cast show up but have little presence, and the side duo of Koyori and Kanon is hinged together on a single gag. This series doesn't have nearly the same strength of charm to be carrying its whole weight on a tight knit cast compared to Ichigo Mashimaro which has characters who are brimming with personality.

I will admit that the finale was a pleasant surprise in contrast to the standard Wataten experience. The penultimate episodes build up to a school play that Hana and the rest of the gang get to star in while Miyako makes the costumes. This culminates in half of the final TV episode covering the performance through a fantastical depiction of the characters in a musical which I found to be very imaginative and fun. The second half of the episode pays off on a long running gag involving Hinata fabricating stories about Miyako to the rest of her class which was pleasantly clever. This show did get an OVA episode but it was generally more of the same fare as the television series. Dogakobo capped things off a few years later with an hour long film of original material that serves as a unique ending for the anime, but the unchanged visual style makes it feel more like a long episode without anything special to make it stand out compared to its TV run.

The sad reality is that, while it wasn't as bad as it could've been, Wataten is aggressively okay at best. The even worse part is that the character I watched this show for is one of its weakest links. Miyako is a character who gets pulled between two opposing dispositions - the quirky yet capable onee-chan and the social deadbeat homebody who barely leaves the house. In the same way that this series is split between the influences it heavily relies on, she is a worse version of both archetypes that define her character. A character like Bocchi has clear appeal because her twisted personality is not offset at all by the talent she possesses. Miyako is presented as an abnormal freak, but the truth is that she's actually pretty normal otherwise. It's almost disingenuous! Well, at least Noa was cute. She deserved to be in a better anime than this. Despite what I said about Matsumoto the stalker, she is the character this show deserves.

It especially doesn't help that this is not Dogakobo's best animation effort. As a studio that was long known for pulling out legitimate sakuga in slice-of-life adaptations, Wataten looks like a slightly polished Silver Link joint most of the time. It almost gives me a migraine thinking that most of the animation talent was working on that absolute turd Uzamaid instead. Not that this would've been a glorious alternative. It fails to be anything greater than a dime-a-dozen moe comedy where the "controversial" element is just taboo bait.  I was begging for Wataten to excel at anything, but it can't help but be an inferior version of more remarkable experiences. Hell, even the good ED is just a shadow in the face of the one from Mikakunin de Shinkoukei which was done by the same studio! 

Oh well. At least it's better than Blend S. 

 

Exhibit B: Houkago Teibou Nisshi (2020)

Moe edutainment is a genius methodology in which the appeal of niche hobbies are expressed through the medium of cute anime girls. The recent phenomenon of Ruri no Houseki is a glimpse into this magical process - a tall, well built woman wielding a huge rock smashing hammer can get anyone interested in minerals! Not all hobbyists were born to be teachers, so some became mangaka instead where they have divine right to present their unique fixation as they please and imbue that magic within bishoujo goddesses of school age. This is an expanded form of educational material to the tune of Schoolhouse Rock in the sense that the characters exist for demonstrating topics surrounding the established theme. Animated characters in educational material are simply mascots to attract attention so the viewer's frontal lobe can retain the information via surface level intrigue, but a true Shinto believer in Japan said "fuck that, I want them to be real characters with home lives and friendships and other hobbies too!" and went the extra mile. Now there's enough edutainment shows with moe heroines to drown in with new ones piling on every other season.

One of those pearls is about fishing in a rural breakwater town. Houkago Teibou Nisshi (Diary of Our Days at the Breakwater) is another manga adaptation from our friends at Dogakobo and, like many productions flailing for stability at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic, it had a failure to launch during its original time slot and had to be delayed to the following season with only four episodes on air. As such, the modest twelve episode run it scrambled together is all there is to see. Nothing to worry about though, as Teibou puts all its fishing tools on the table in the first episode to show that this is a relatively simple series and a single cour is more than satisfactory. This simplicity is its greatest strength and further enhanced by a well balanced cast of characters with endearing personalities. They're designed in a pleasantly normal way - almost plain even - which ends up fitting the show's atmosphere like a glove and gives each character an element of surprise in regards to their individual quirks.

A tall, well-mannered girl with glasses and a ponytail isn't a groundbreaking character design but put a fishing rod in her hand and it changes everything! Makoto Oono is a second year high school student living in the seaside town of Ashikita and a member of the school's Breakwater Club. However, the real protagonist of this story is the plucky Hina Tsurugi - a hometown returnee who was raised in the Tokyo urban sprawl and forced to come home to her rural roots as a young teenager. Hina is bound for a frictionless club life sewing plush dolls when her world is completely derailed by her nearly-forgotten childhood friend Natsumi who is trying to save the Breakwater Club from disbanding. Although Hina is a spoiled city girl who lacks affinity for nature and can barely coexist with non-human life forms, the fox-brained club president Yuuki coerces her into trying out the fishing life for a day. Thanks to her bratty and competitive personality, Hina tastes the exhilaration of a successful catch and finds herself as the unwitting fourth pillar to keep the club alive.

It's a classic setup that many great club-focused anime have utilized and it often goes hand-in-hand with hobby focused stories. For high school students, the best place to find fellow enthusiasts or to expand one's horizons is in a club. Hina is the wet-behind-the-ears newbie who has to overcome her distaste for what she's catching under the guise of her other club members who enjoy making a city slicker sprint through the proving grounds. She doesn't just learn to catch stuff with her fishing rod! They also have our poor protagonist learn all the other intricacies of the process such as how to kill her catches effectively and the best way to dismember them for optimal cooking. I suppose it wouldn't be educational if it wasn't accurate procedure.

Through myriad trials and dozens of fainting spells, Hina slowly earns her ticket into the world of fishing and gains acknowledgment from her other club members. It's a cut-and-dry premise driven by character interactions with no particular destination in mind. Really, it isn't much different than your average Bishoujo Girls Doing Shit Cutely program. Yet, its commitment to the simplest elements of the framework ends up being its greatest boon. There's no fat to trim with this one, but they didn't cut it too lean either. A lot of dry slice-of-life work trends toward standard fare iyashikei material which I'm not superbly in love with. Something like Tamayura is a bit too sluggish even for me and that's about photography which is a subject that I have interest in. I wouldn't say I'm in love with fishing but Teibou succeeded at engrossing me in the process. There's meaning in the presentation!

This anime primarily reminds me of Non Non Biyori where it's not quite full iyashikei but the rural setting lends itself naturally to calm pacing with a far tighter cast. Most of the energy goes into the humorous moments and the character banter. The key difference with Teibou is that it actually has a specific subject to address, so much of the discussion goes into fishing concepts. There are very few characters of note beyond the four club members. One of them is the club's advisor who works primarily as the school nurse but would rather be getting piss drunk while eating the spoils from fishing that day. Another is a funny old guy who runs the local fishing shop. That's basically the entire cast right there. Well, other than Hina's dad showing up in a single episode.

 

I feel compelled to mention Ruri no Houseki again as it was another great example of a show that thrives from a smaller cast focus, and seeing it so recently helped me understand that Teibou generates much of its charm from having a strong assortment of personalities in a small group. Hina is the sheltered brat who has plenty of talent but is incredibly gullible and simple minded. Natsumi is the energetic tomboy of the gang but the twist is that she's actually pretty smart, which angers Hina who was convinced that she was just a dumb hick. Makoto is the well-mannered lady who tries to maintain stability in the club but is deathly afraid of fishing without a life jacket on due to childhood trauma. Then club president Yuuki rounds them off as the lazy old man who is wise beyond her years but often tricks the other members into doing her dirty work.

In contrast with Wataten which was scrambling to prove itself in the face of its superiors, Teibou is pleasantly consistent from start to finish to the extent that the later episodes are barely any different than the earlier ones. Other than the subtle improvement in Hina's disposition, most episodes cover an assortment of fishing and safety topics that are loosely connected but not necessarily constructed with any continuity in mind. It's an easy watching experience that simply works its strengths to make for a fun vehicle for fishing instruction and trivia. Character pairs are established quickly, with the first year childhood friends Hina and Natsumi being the energetic younger duo while the older "parents" Yuuki and Makoto steer the club leadership roles.

Visually there isn't much to talk about, which is to be expected considering the several month delay this production endured to reach completion. Dogakobo unfortunately wasted their elite animation squad on Uzamaid the year prior to nobody's benefit. Thankfully, even their average quality output is beating out a Silver Link joint and definitely 2020s J.C. Staff or DEEN. The show looks about as good as it needs to. Most of the extra effort went into polishing up the art for the fish and sea creatures as well as making sure the fishing equipment was being rendered accurately in the show. Its attention to detail is more subtle, so the serviceable character animation is not a huge downside.

I wasn't sure how they were going to conclude the anime even during the penultimate episode. Usually some sort of anime original event is concocted to give the show an excuse to end but all that happens here is that Hina suggests a fishing idea for a change. It's a clear indicator of her character progression for sure, but it's presented so plainly that one might forget the show is even tailing off. When I reached the latter half of the final episode I was pleasantly surprised to see the show pay off on an earlier interaction where Natsumi asked Hina to teach her own to make felt plushies. This leads to a final segment with the whole club that serves as a clever inverse to the first episode where Hina gets to teach her friends about her own hobby instead.

While it isn't particularly exceptional as a whole, Teibou has the consistency and charm to make for a fun watch and that's a fair trade for a single cour of solid anime. It's also a rare example of a show where I left feeling like I didn't have a particular favorite of the characters. I went in for Makoto because I'm a sucker for glasses-wearing heroines, but the charm of her other clubmates became evident to me after watching the show. They work well as a group and each have strengths and weaknesses that complement each other. I was pleased with it all around as a small, underappreciated gem from not so long ago.

I have a crackpot theory that Studio Bind usurped the flame of peak moe anime from Dogakobo around this time and that's why this was the last true CGDCT show they produced. Don't talk to me about that wretched Jellyfish anime they did which had drama so hamfisted that the Mari Okada faithful of the world would burn red at the mere glimpse of it. The torch was passed in 2023 when Onimai took the world by storm and Oshi no Ko followed shortly after. If you ask me, the tradeoff was worth it. Have you seen Ruri no Houseki? If we have a few more of those in our future then we're in good hands. Miscellaneous knowledge hits different when the right kind of anime girl is presenting it to you. Take it from an expert!

 

My verdict? Not so bad! Wataten wasn't fantastic by any stretch but it firmly landed itself into manageable territory. When you've tricked yourself into watching the kind of crap I've seen then you become more willing to let a half-decent experience slide. Teibou was far more enjoyable and, while not a standout in its niche, still managed to feel like a worthwhile viewing. If I met Miyako in a past life I'd probably be more accepting of her into my camp, but in a world with Bocchi and Tomoko Kuroki and Hiyori from Blue Archive I do not find myself lacking in far better flavors of her character archetype. Makoto is a nice girl, though. I think there's room on this planet for more tall meganekko women in anime with their own individual hobbies. Sometimes a winning formula is a proven one.

Writing this post has been an interesting exercise that has gone through a few revisions over the months I spent planning it. I needed more excuses to talk about anime on this blog that weren't just seasonal releases. Everyone knows by now that there's plenty of that to go around and more to come soon. You'll be happy to know that the next Seasonals of the Abyss entry will be mercifully short and probably take a tenth of the time to read through compared to the behemoth I dumped here for last season. There will only be three anime to talk about and one of them is almost guaranteed to be very short for reasons that will become clear when I actually post about it. Do me a favor and send some energy my way so I don't procrastinate on it too long.

Much of my best writing at my previous employer's stronghold, Escape This Planet Dot Com, was born from a drive to watch specific anime on my backlog for inane reasons that happened to be interesting to me personally. Those arbitrary choices would help me tie some sort of thematic concept around my post so it would feel less like writing a review and more like picking a specific perspective on the work and just drilling into it from there. It was in the spirit of that work that I tried again to find a silly topic to tie two completely different shows together, and Backlog Marathon #1 was the result. Character design is a fascinating component of how the illusion of life is imbued into fictional characters, but it's also a dangerous tool that can instead create an illusion of quality in poorly written work. For me, it's a fun trap to walk into. I'll just keep drinking that garbage.

Until next time - stay moe, friends.