I'll freely admit, I watched some fansubbed anime. Okay, I watched a lot of fansubbed anime, but what started as simply trying to soak it all in like some bizarre sponge that needed speed lines and wacky hijinks to survive instead of water, I slowly found myself becoming more and more choosy about what I watched.
It wasn't that the shows that were coming out weren't still good. It's just that I realized there were certain formulas for stories that I could predict as a series went on. It's the same reason I fell out from your standard hour long crime dramas, I didn't need evidence to solve the case, I just had to figure out the formula.
Plus, I kept feeling that there were some really great ideas that Japan seemed scared to explore further than I ever got to see. Every now and again a series would touch on something that I really wished it explored further, because it seemed like a great idea for a culture to explore itself and its own social issues in a way that audiences could understand.
I mean, look at shows like The Simpsons, South Park, The Boondocks, and so many others that are able to address controversial issues in a way that the audience can understand, and while it might feel ham-fisted at times, they can often approach it in such a way as to leave you thinking about it afterward.
Sadly, whether it was an exploration of how modern society further encroached on their traditions, an attempt to understand specific cultural matters from their perspective, or even a simple explanation of things that people in other cultures might find strange and/or bizarre (say, the sheer number of sex clubs devoted to specific fetishes, or simply just why so many things are sold in vending machines).
But my discussion of series that I don't think really got a fair shake is a story for another time. For now, let's look at one that I think did manage to do just what it intended to and explore social issues that would affect both now, in the future, and even explain some of the past.
