Heinzes' 2010s Anime Cleanup Series #2

>Don't you want to have more fun talking about anime?

Honestly, shows that go this hard on metanarrative and intertextuality should be at the forefront as curiosities for industry and subculture admirers, such as myself. And yet, when this show first aired in the Fall of 2017, I watched the first episode, enjoyed it well enough, and then promptly forget about it. This is because, as pointed out by my friend, Anilist user and fellow reviewer planetJane, that the series operates in disguise as a fairly standard school-life comedy for the first half of its run. So ultimately, the show self-sabotaged in terms of building immediate momentum with particularly time-pressed and picky seasonal watchers like yours truly. With the benefit of hindsight, the cat (our mascotesque Neko-senpai, I suppose) is now out of the bag and we can take this series for what it is. Which is, to say it succinctly, a deft comedy which belies a deep love for its extant medium, in all aspects - good and bad - that it contains.

It’s worth noting that, while the show does develop a dramatic core in its latter half, as the world itself crumbles around our heroine, Minoa, it never fully loses sight of its comedic pulse, deeply indebted to industry in-jokes and form-referential sight gags. I think specifically of a very small yet evergreen gag in the 11th episode, wherein Minoa walks into an on-screen subtitle and bumps her head on it; very much the kind of thing you may see were you to watch one of the classic Chuck Jones-directed Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes shorts, maybe “Duck Amuck.” Moments like this demonstrate, among all else, that Anime-Gataris is not only committed to lampooning the tropes of anime as we know it today, but also fostering and expositing an understanding and appreciation of animation as a widespread, global craft.

In keeping with Anime-Gataris’ position as a comedy, all must end well, and it does. The boundary between the real and the fictional collapses, and everything falls apart, yet our bubbly heroine is granted the power to set everything back in its place. A reassuring gesture, that we can separate what is real and tangible from what is story and fiction. Though, it must be said that fiction affects the real too, be it shaping our own mindsets and worldviews, or inspiring us to pursue our goals. Certainly, for the anime club we follow in this series, this is absolutely the case. Taking it further, though, I have to posit the question: What is the difference to us, the viewer, of the show itself and a dream or show-within-the-show? Does the difference matter? Are not all stories-within-stories just stories with some layer of obfuscation added arbitrarily? ~~The film nerd in me wants to tell you that you should watch Close-Up.~~

To wrap this up, if you were to ask me to recommend you one example of metafiction in anime from 2017, well... I would probably go with Re:CREATORS over Anime-Gataris. But, where the former is a more bleak, action-oriented examination of the creator-creation and audience-author relationship, Anime-Gataris provides a light, energetic, and quite thoughtful love letter to an entire industry and medium that is an absolute delight to laugh along with.
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Final Grade: B