More 3x3s

Had fun making my 3x3 recently, so decided to make more specific 3x3 for different mediums. All of these were harder then expected and required some thought, and many of the things here are liable to change but I hope you like it regardless and perhaps learn about me.

Anime 3x3

Saint Seiya: Part of this, not gonna lie, is just nostalgia. However I think Saint Seiya is the really elegant shonen with all the bishonen boys and the sleek armor designs. I really love the grandeur and dignity of the mythological backdrop and I think Saga and Hades are fantastic villains.

Heartcatch PreCure: Don't think this one really needs to be explained, this is the most popular PreCure season, the characters are bouncy and memorable and each member of the 4-person team is one of my top 5 favorite Pretty Cure characters. It melded a funny bouncy style with an elegant grace.

Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt: I still think this show is really funny and especially Panty is such an energetic spotlight stealing character. I also think the series few emotional moments do work pretty well. 

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: I have complex thoughts about the 90s Sailor Moon anime adaptation. There's no other series in this 9 that angers me or saddens me at times, yet it's also got the highest heights of any of them. Overall even if I don't like it as much as the manga, I do still really enjoy it.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Cardcaptor Sakura is a magical girl anime that even non-mg fans like, it's just tons of good wholesome silly fun with a cast full of memorable characters my favorites being Sakura, Kero, Yue, and Ruby Moon. Clamp anime adaptations are difference because they were directly involved in their manga's adaptations and spoiler alert all 3 Clamp series are favorites for both manga and anime.

Puella Magi Madoka Magicka:  Madoka filled the magical girl genre I love with a lot of elegance and gravitas that propels it's tragedy into being both about characters and transcending them, and the series is full of these beautifully archetype moments and characters.

Magic Knight Rayearth: Another Clamp adaptation, the anime is a bit more bouncy and goofy in the first half then then manga, and it's second half is a lot more focused on the world of Cephiro rather then the Pillar System, but I think it really captures the tone of the manga. 

xxxHolic: The Third Clamp adaptation, I think this anime also captures the ethereal feel of the manga that can't have been easy to translate to animated form. Removing all the references to other Clamp series (mostly) leaves it feeling a lot more comprehensible but takes away some of the sense of intrigue and massive things going on that you can't understand so it's a bit of a trade-off. '

Princess Tutu: This series just bleeds elegant and sophistication. Duck and Uzura are so cute and Rue is such an interesting character, plus Drosselmeyer is just really entertaining. The series if fun, cute and has a cool folkloric atmosphere. 

Cartoon/Western Animation 3x3

Justice League Unlimited: Fantastic superhero animated show. The original Justice League series was good but it tended to be weirdly focused on the street levelers, especially Batman, portraying Superman for instance as way easier to take down and much stricter then he was probably supposed to come across. Unlimited really extends the scope of the universe and also gives each character a more archetypal presentation.

The Powerpuff Girls: Really great blend of action and comedy with both, as well as the emotional core of the series being that the superheroes are three young girls. I really like this series and seasons 2 and 3 I definitely think stand up to the best of any of these other series.

Star versus the Forces of Evil: I know that the show tapered off near the end and I wasn't much into the villains, but I still like this show as a really fun western magical girl series it started as, it had some fantastic stand-out episodes, and I thought Star and Marco were just fun characters to spend time with.

Xiaolin Showdown: This is a series that I think really shows how to have a goofy, sometimes even gag-based main plot and cast, while still having mysticism and otherworldly elements and not having them conflict. The heroes and the villains were basically full of great characters and the series hit that sweet spot for me of episodic vs plot-progression.

Danny Phantom: Especially season 2, fantastic merger of two genres near to me; superhero fiction and occult fiction and taking advantages of the best of both with the atmosphere and style of the occult but the idealism and archtypal resonance of superhero fiction.

Wander over Yonder: The first season was a bit weaker, but the series has a continual spirit of wholesomeness and the Dominator was an excellent villain; the more archetypal the series gets, the better. 

Samurai Jack: This show was just cool, and while there were some weaker episodes, some episodes just had this amazing sense of tone and knew how to make a slow burn of an episode enjoyable, which is difficult for me who usually likes things fast-paced. The series was also really versatile, able to do basically anything in an episode.

Over the Garden Wall: Perfect cartoon for the Autumn season, endlessly evocative of an atmosphere, taking inspiration from the greatest writer to ever exist, filled with interesting folklore without ever irreverently quirky. 

Gravity Falls: The series was a cool intruiging mystery with some really sympathetic main characters, and I really like having eldritch abomination type villains like Bill Cipher. The ending is highly well regarded and for good reason. 

Comic Series 3x3

Wasn't really sure how to do comic series since sometimes it's specific arcs but I did my best. Most of these are solo series, I'd like to get into the more team-heavy stories but for some reason I just have trouble with it.

Doctor Fate (1988): Doctor Fate is a character that I just think is cool. The Lords of Order vs Chaos dynamic is really evocative and I like how Fate is trying to balance them. I love this series' balancing of really normal mundane backgrounds and characters with just mind-bending out there ideas.

Superman: I love Superman, and even if I'm not so much a fan of the Silver Age of Comics, I still usually liked Superman's. I really like the last Post-Crisis stuff, like late 00s to very start of the 10s with things like Superman: Brainiac, hence my upcoming Death Analysis. I'm obviously fond of All-Star Superman and Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and could fill up a 3x3 with Superman series, but I wasn't sure how to classify favorite series with comics.

Starfire (2015): This was maybe my favorite of the series during the New 52 Era, although I also really liked Justice League Dark and the Harley Quinn series. Starfire is a character I really love. The comedy surrounding her, about being really open about sexual things, her not understanding a foreign culture (Earth Culture), and her getting overly serious about weird things are like my three favorite types of humor. I really wish more people read this because I think it's my favorite characterization of her, less combatative then her Pre-Crisis Self, more goofy then her Post-Crisis Self and not at all her Early New 52 Self.

Zatanna (2010): The sweet spots in time for DC for me are the 80s with the Vertigo Runs, the late Post-Crisis Era, and the Early Rebirth era. This is a perfect example of the late Post-Crisis Era. Paul Dini clearly really loves Zatanna and his love shines through on every page with Zatanna being portrayed at her absolute best, a paradoxically relatable yet infinitely powerful magician that can rewrite reality to her whim but still struggles to live up to her father's memory. This is definitely the series I would recommened to get the character of Zatanna.

The Sandman: The Sandman is my favorite comic series and I know that's not exactly a very unpopular choice, it's a series that has the critical acclaim of The Watchmen or V for Vendetta but is just slightly more obscure so it doesn't seem like an obvious pick. That said I really do adore the series; the Endless are such fantastic characters with Dream in particular being one of my favorite characters of all time, his internal struggle of being defined by his rules but also wanting to be a person and not just a conceptual law is so cool and so paradoxically mind-bending but relatable. And the series is just full of these cool concepts. 

Wonder Woman: Like with Superman, wasn't sure how to classify this because it's mostly arcs that I like and I could fill up most of a 3x3 with Wonder Woman series. My favorite parts of Wonder Woman are the parts where it learns as much as possible into the mythological stuff as opposed to the more dull mundane enemies like criminals or evil politicians, especially the late 80s stuff right after the crisis with the Gods and Mortals story arc especially the ending where she beats Ares just by showing him his own true nature and the nature of war. 

Harley Quinn (2013): I wasn't sure which Harley series to put on here, I liked the Post-Crisis series and the New 52 Series, I am also liking the Rebirth series. That said I think the new 52 one probably feels the most emotionally complex and interesting and has the most memorable stuff from the insanity of issue 0 to the Amnesiac Power Girl Team Up stuff, to her restoring the multiverse by writing a comic about her mom, it was just great. Harley is just a fun cute character I like reading about.

Spider-Man: Same sort of deal with Superman and Wonder Woman, but this is the only Marvel character on this list. I prefer DC but I have a big soft spot for Spidey. My favorite Spider-Man period was the last 90s to early 00s, the JMS period with the increasing Spider-Mythos going on about the spider and the scientist and Peter trying to balance the two learning about the animal totems, the period that sadly was ended by Peter making a deal with the devil. Spider-Man is such a versatile, entertaining cool character capable of all kinds of atmospheres and storylines.

Final Crisis: I see two common reactions to Final Crisis. "WTF, I don't know what's going on!!!" and "WTF! This is absolutely amazing!!!" and I'm definitely more in the latter camp. Final Crisis is the culmination of the DC Mythos that had been built for decades upon decades and the more I read DC the more I love Final Crisis and it's incredible usage of abstractions and metafiction, it's so cool. It also started my favorite period of DC, the 2008-2011 period, the late Post-Crisis period.

Film 3x3

Wonder Woman: I thought this film really nailed what Wonder Woman stands for, and I adore the final fight with Ares and Wonder Woman basically going full magical girl and power of love-ing him. I so much agree with the film's message that good and evil are not people, they are forces inside of you that no hero can kill and only love can save the world.

Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card: So much nostalgia for this one but even beyond that the film explores the sense of what is not there, with nothingness being literally the villain and the climax being a really sweet representation of how nothingness can be redeemed by finding hope in it. Sakura's character arc is so heartwarming and seeing her and Syaoran finally confess in anime form was just great. 

Princess Mononoke: This is the only film on this list that I might get a little "it's so deep" pretentious about but the characters are all so fleshed out and feel so real, all the conflicts and actions in the film feel so classic. That's how I'd describe this film, it's classic in every regard, everything about it is so perfectly iconic and has meaning that transcends time and space despite the fact that it is paradoxically also incredibly evocative of a time and space.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: I love every single thing about this film, I love the humanism that just seeps throughout it. I think of the statement from this film about Superman "Maybe he's not some sort of Devil or Jesus figure, maybe he's just a guy trying to do the right thing." That is the heart of the Superman Mythos to me, Superman isn't beyond you, he's every person who is just trying to do what's right in all the big and little things we do. It's a lesson of empathy of seeing the humanity in people we're told to dislike. This film is how I want to think, it inspires me everyday.

Sailor Moon R-Promise of the Rose: My favorite work of fiction, this work has influenced me in ways I cannot begin to say. At the climax of this film the ideal that Usagi is, that is what I want to be, someone who will never leave someone alone, someone who represents the ideal of love passing to people you will never know through acts of kindness, the light that sees people for who they are, and who outcasts can find acceptance in. 

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: By far the funniest film I've ever seen, and I don't think that's a particularly unpopular opinion. Every part of the film is insanely quotable, and some parts I still think to myself and laugh a little. It's definitely influenced my sense of humor.

Man of Steel: This film to me captures everything great about the modern Superman, the symbol of hope, the idea that you are not bound to be who society deems you to be. Superman was born not for a genetic caste but naturally, symbolically with free will and a soul, and he chooses to give of himself for humanity because he trusts it will be reciprocated. This film is so full of heroism by normal people, it's exactly what Superman stands for, the idea that anyone can be a hero. 

The Iron Giant: The Iron Giant was such a charming film, filled with a sense of cold-war era atmosphere and style with the characters. Hogarth and Dean are both very non-traditional heroes and the giant is surprisingly cute despite his size and power. The climax is obviously just completely amazing. 

Interstellar: Yeah, yeah I know the climax is a bit cheesy, but if you can't tell I'm all about those wholesome good feel vibes. The film mixes two things I really love; interesting outer space science-fiction concepts with some high levels of romantisized wholesomeness. Also that one scene with the timelapse is just emotionally devastating.

Manga 3x3

Yu Yu Hakusho: Yu Yu Hakusho isn't a series I love for any big reasons, but for a million small good reasons that all add up to it just being great. Great characters (my favorites being Kurama and Sensui), fantastic occult atmosphere, beautiful symbolism, etc. I'm not even much of an action person but I appreciate how cool Togashi draws them regardless.

Saint Seiya-The Lost Canvas: My favorite version of Saint Seiya, it's such an elegant version with more emotional depth, Tenma and Alone's motivations are more complicated then Seiya and Original Series Hades, and while it wasn't a huge factor, I do appreciate TLC for being less repetitive then the original series. 

Yu-Gi-Oh!: This is one of those series that was like my childhood, and while I like the anime, the manga is even cooler. While some of the duels were smaller or taken out from the manga, the manga turns up the occult darkness and mysticism of the series, making it really feel like a manga about people being possessed by creepy ancient Egyptian secrets. It's also the perfectly example to me of how to embed symbolism within the mechanics of combat or games.

xxxHolic: All of the Clamp series have their fans, but this is the only one that I never see have detractors. It's just so atmospheric and cool and stylish, I feel like a super cool genius reading this manga, and that is a rare feeling for me. 

Sailor Moon: My favorite series. I love everything about the manga, I love it's world, it's characters, it's plot, it's themes, it's symbolism, it's imagery. Things I normally couldn't care about in series I love in this manga. There's no fictional series that reflects my tastes and personality better then this series. I just adore everything about it.

Cardcaptor Sakura: This manga is such a great mixture of being both mentally invigorating with all the small mystery elements and wondering how Sakura will capture x card, with being completely adorable and wholesome. This is the manga I go to relax and just feel good.

Puella Magi Tart Magicka: Most of the Madoka spin-offs I didn't feel that strongly about sadly but this was the exception. I love how the creators clearly did lots of research into the actual Joan of Arc history, and this manga is such a cool reinterpretation of both that and the Puella Magi lore to fit together. Tart herself is just adorable, like the banner she drew herself. 

Magic Knight Rayearth: A magical girl classic to me. One of the most fun memorable casts for a magical girls series with cool twists and surprises, and just full of cool moments. Clamp's writing was a bit archetypal here but it was also full of weird out there ideas like a magical spring of water being literally 2-D that the Knights have to go in, or a magical mineral makes leveling up armor that gets stronger as the person wielding gets stronger.

Tokyo Mew Mew: Another example of a magical girl classic. I'm not so keen on the villains outside Deep Blue the Mew Mews are great magical girls and Ryou and Keiichiro are also really fun. The series is another series I go to when I just want to have a good time, but can also be serious and downright full of pathos and emotional drama at times. No other manga makes me feel like a teenager quite like this one.

Video Games 3x3

Bayonetta 1: Some series are style over substance, where there's a lot of flash but nothing underneath. Bayonetta is good substance under AMAZING style. Bayonetta is a fun action-adventure game that takes out a lot of the annoying gameplay parts of other games in it's genre and adds interesting feature instead like time slow down. However it's style pushes it way over the top, being so full of flair and glamous and occult. It has Dante references and it has a cool feminine sexual icon, it's just the epitome of cool.

Okami: Okami is a game that ages like fine wine, where the more I think about it, the more I like it. It's got such a brilliantly made captivating world based off Shinto, and it's got such a positive energy from how everything Amaterasu does is restoring the world. Playing Okami makes you feel good not just from the sense of accomplishment but because you feel like such a benevolent figure.

Sailor Moon - Another Story: This one definitely takes me back. Another Story is a Sailor Moon JRPG and while a lot of spin off games for series not designed for that are pretty bad, a lot of SM games included, Another Story was just a really good JRPG mixed with my favorite series, and not only that it actually does what I think more SM adaptations should do and mixes elements from the 90s anime and the manga. For an SM fan it's just a delight.

God of War 1: God of War 1 to me is just the perfect recreation of a classical Greek Tragedy, right down to us knowing the hero is doomed from the very beginning. God of War's world is unpleasent and harsh and while that's usually a minus to me, here it's so meaningful, purposefully reflecting the tragic nature of Kratos's mission of deicide, and the world being against him. Also in the second part of the final battle, there's a button to hug your family!

Magicka: My favorite game, Magicka is just fantastic. Magicka to me is exactly how wizards should be, these goofy forces of nature whose powers are intuitive and can be understood but also extremely powerful. The game's gameplay feels uniquely suited to me in a way no other game has and it can give me a sense of relaxation, epic dramatic-ness and laugh out loud goofiness that nothing else can balance.

Freedom Force versus the Third Reich: I've never played a game that got Superheroes anywhere close to as right as the Freedom Force series. The idea of a tactical rpg with a squad of characters using weird strange abilities is one of the biggest reasons I got into vs debating, to consider these weird scenarios you would never get otherwise. And it's just such a perfect homage, dipping between parody and loving recreation gracefully. The second game while shorter also feels a lot more cohesive like a singular epic and includes fan favorite characters like Tombstone and the Green Genie.

God of War 4: This game got exactly the right amount of hype it deserved after it released and I'm very glad. I don't think God of War 4 is neccesarily deeper then the other GOW games but it's emotions were often more complex as opposed to the sheer intensity of the prior games. Kratos' redemption and return were crowning moments in gaming for being both heartwarming and awesome and I am very glad Kratos is finally getting the recognition he deserves as one of gaming's greatest icons.

Skyrim: So I'm going to be totally honest, I like Skyrim's base game fine, but it's not why it's on here. The reason Skyrim is here because of just how insanely modular it is, and how I was basically able to remake it exactly how I wanted. Part of this is to Skyrim's credit, I do like the base game, and it was clearly made to be somewhat modular, but also a credit to the incredible amount of work fans have put into making mods for basicallly whatever you could want, even if it involves playing a magical girl.

Super Metroid: Also not a very controversial choice, Super Metroid is well deserved of it's title as a legend, being dare I say the pinnacle of Metroid's ability to tell a story contextually via envionrmental clues and create one of the most heartwarming and tearjerking moments in gaming with a character that's never said a word and is in fact an alien parasite monster. It's also a game that gives you so many options in how to play it, like the fact that you can just turn off your power-ups, even though there's no reason to do that, because lore. Metroid is THE series for downright slavish-appeal to canonicity and background lore.

So what do I like in series? A bunch of things; I like magical girls, superheroes, and occult mysteries. I like mythology and history. I like abstract powers and concepts and strange hypotheticals you wouldn't normally imagine. I have a particualr love for the trope of the character that is a living paradox, where they are both one thing and another thing at the same time, like the trope where there's an evil villain but they're like "hang on, this is too far, I don't do x (don't kill children, don't attack a defenseless enemy etc. something that indicates some moral code) or the trope of a character being weak but strong at the same time (can destroy the world but has familial trouble, or is emotionally vulnerable and cowardly but still tries to be brave to help their friends. I love it dramatically when a character is established as one thing, and then the series tests that, says "ok but how far does that go". 

I like characters that are cute goofballs doing their best and I love elegant grandiose people whose job is to stare out into the distance and mumble cryptic words about poetic stuff, especially when it's about the first group and how there's more then they realize. I like when characters take things completely serious and even my favorite type of comedy is characters taking things really seriously but it's something not serious (think of that YGOTAS joke "Somebody Call the Wahhhmbulance." "Nobody call the Wahhhmblance!" "Hello Wahhhmbulance? My brother's butt is hurting" "Mokuba hang up that phone!").

Speaking of comedy, I like comedy about topics I think are funny like sexuality or history, I like puns and cultural misunderstandings, and I love jokes where characters are just completely dramatic about nonsense. I like my comedy fast-paced but I love everything fast paced. My drama should be changing on an episode/issue basis, and I want my romance arcs to be completed in the first arc. Perhaps I'm just impatient but I don't like to wait.

I like series that I think are wholesome and have a positive energy, that try to embed a helpful lesson in narrative. To me the highest calling of fiction, it's greatest ability is to transmit information, preferably helpful messages, in a form that they can be truly understood by the brain that just saying them wouldn't be able too. I use stories of other worlds to help me learn about this world, to be inspired and to understand what I aspire to be and how to move towards that. That is why I love all of these series.