---
title: 'The Anime We Can Watch, And Don''t'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=-ZWk4uMDRe0'
video_id: '-ZWk4uMDRe0'
date: 2026-08-20
duration_sec: 1484
channel: 'Glass Reflection'
---

# The Anime We Can Watch, And Don't

> Source: [The Anime We Can Watch, And Don't](https://youtube.com/watch?v=-ZWk4uMDRe0)

## Summary

The video explores why many excellent anime remain obscure despite being easily accessible. It categorizes the reasons into four main areas: misleading art, problematic releases, mispackaging, and inherent difficulty in pitching. The creator showcases about 12 shows, including Odd Taxi, Golden Kamuy, and Princess Tutu, to illustrate these points.

### Key Points

- **Odd Taxi's misleading art** [01:37] — Odd Taxi is a crime thriller with animal characters, often mistaken for a children's show. Its Wikipedia views are only 14% of Frieren's.
- **Golden Kamuy's CG bear problem** [03:36] — Golden Kamuy's CG bear in the first episode has scared off many potential fans despite the show's quality and four seasons.
- **Gankutsuou's polarizing art** [04:58] — Gankutsuou has a unique static texture animation style that is either loved or hated, with no middle ground.
- **Land of the Lustrous's release disaster** [07:25] — Land of the Lustrous premiered on Anime Strike, a service requiring an extra fee on top of Prime, and the service shut down weeks after the show ended.
- **Macross Plus's licensing hell** [09:05] — Macross Plus was made by the Cowboy Bebop team but was unavailable in the West due to the Robotech licensing issue.
- **Moribito's Adult Swim mishandling** [10:52] — Moribito was pulled from Adult Swim halfway through its run, making it impossible to follow.
- **Akiba Maid War's mispackaging** [15:54] — Akiba Maid War's key art suggests a cute maid café anime, but it's actually a Yakuza series, alienating both potential audiences.
- **Princess Tutu's unfixable title** [17:15] — Princess Tutu's title makes it sound like a kids' show, but it's a meta-narrative about stories and characters.
- **Nadesico's bad timing** [18:11] — Martian Successor Nadesico was released right after Evangelion, making it seem like a knockoff.
- **Rakugo Shinju's unpitchable premise** [19:34] — Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju is a masterpiece about rakugo storytelling but has almost no action and a niche subject, making it hard to sell.
- **Aria's early arrival** [20:53] — Aria the Animation pioneered the iyashikei genre but was 15 years early to its audience.

## Transcript

who becomes a magical girl ballerina. It's an exceptional tale about how stories work and about what it costs to be a character in someone else's narrative. The anime is called Princess Tutu and its name is probably the reason
why you've never watched it. At the end of last year, I made a video about anime that you can't watch anymore. Today, we're looking at essentially the going to be talking about in this video is available right now. None of them are
obscure because they are bad or hard to find. They are obscure because of how they were sold, when they were released, or how they were originally made available to people. Today, we're going to be going over four ways that a show
might get buried. Showcasing about 12 shows and then one at the end which uh I'm going to defend even if it breaks my own arguments. So, welcome ladies, gentlemen, and others to Glass Reflection. Today we begin with shows
where the art has told you to leave. The crulest fact about watching anime sometimes is when people, maybe even you, decide in about a second and a half based off of, you know, like one still image that a show is not worth your time
because of how it looks. [music] Take for example this image. Now, this isn't the animation, of course. It's just a still image, but we have flat colors. animals. If you know nothing about this show, you might [music] make one of two
mistakes. You might think that the show is cheap because of its drawings and animations. Or worse, you might think it's for children. Look at all the cozy animals. Obviously, this goes right up next to Bluey under things that I can
let my 5-year-old watch, right? No, because this is Odd Taxi. Odd Taxi is a crime thriller with one of the best interlocking narratives from the last decade. It is not for children and once you actually get into the animation, it
character designs might have someone believe. Despite that, however, it is pretty low on the one pieces of metrics that I tried to find that was somewhat uh objective. It's not like Crunchyroll releases their view figures on these
you know how often something gets searched. There's this weird trend graph where you can see how something is like searched compared to something else. No. What we looked at today is Wikipedia numbers because Wikipedia can publicly
show you how often any particular page is viewed on any given day. And so for I looked up what's the running average over the last 30 days. And in Odd Taxis's case, that number comes out to 9,958
over the last 30 days. But then you got to realize that that's only about 14% of the amount of people that search up Freein on Wikipedia. And even Frein only has half the amount of page views per day as [music] One Piece. Odd Taxi is
pretty far down there. And the thing is, Odd Taxi has been boosted. Why us content creators? Word of mouth is to the best of my knowledge what has made Odd Taxi even slightly watched by a decent amount of people. And if it
wasn't for the word of mouth, you might not even know it exists. Cuz you may have seen it. You may have seen that art and thought to yourself, "Eh, I'm okay." And that would be a tragedy. And that's just one potential out there. Uh, take
for example this next show. Let us say that I wanted to convince you to watch this show. This show that is so good it has almost four seasons, which you know might mean that it's pretty good, right? I finally convince you. I finally got
you sat down. You turn on episode 1 and you sat down. You turn on episode 1 and then you see the bear because fans of the anime Golden Kamoi are haunted by that bear. Golden Kamui
is an amazingly epic series that again has over four seasons. It's got a liveaction adaptation. It's really freaking good. But anytime we finally get somebody to watch it, they see the first episode and they see that damn
bear. There are so many people that bounced off this show because of that goddamn bear. And I hate it because with that bear and how many people freaking out, it doesn't matter that there are four seasons, that CG bear has become
like the public face and the biggest meme about this show. And I mean, I can't directly state that it's this bear's fault that so many people bounced off this show, but it feels like it, man. Thankfully, Golden Comm is like an
from it. It's just one of those things that you just got to get past the bear, become the biggest fan of it, and try to show it to your friends, and when the NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. PAY NO ATTENTION to
once you're past the bear, everything is course, both of those examples so far are showcasing art within shows that uh are legitimately good shows that only if you actually got into it, you would be
falling in love with it more than likely. Um, this next one, you need to fall in love with the art or you're not going to watch this. This is Gutsuo, the Count of Monte Cristo, and it has a very unique animation style as you can see
right here. Yes, the textures of all of the clothing and a bunch of the backgrounds is static despite the characters moving. In still frame, this show looks absolutely amazing. It is like some of the best wallpaper anime
ever created, but in motion things look a little jank. You will find that the you would consider to be the most beautiful thing that you've ever seen or it's going to make you ill in 2 minutes. There is no middle ground there. Now, of
course, Gang Katso did have a couple of other interesting problems as well that Firstly, it was a Gonzo show. A Gonzo from, you know, 2004. They had a bit of a history with uh, you know, not sticking the landing in their final
acts. Hello, uh, Last Exile, Blue Gender, and Speed Graer. I mean, I will defend Last Exile for the most part, but, you know, I always got to throw a caveat in for that ending, and that's what Gonzo's known for. So, some people
to try. The other thing is that this is a like a sci-fi reimagining of The Count of Monte Cristo, which sounds really great, except, you know, if you're a Cristo, you might be uh a little confused as to why we don't follow
Dantes as the main character and instead we're following Albert. So, we spend so much, especially in the early part of this show, not really following the main character of the novel. And so if you came into this expecting the Count of
disappointed until, you know, you get a little bit further in and then my god, away from the art. Right now, we're going to move into the section where you didn't watch this because you never got the chance to. Sometimes it's not the
show's fault. The show may be perfect. Sometimes it's not your fault. You didn't know any better. Sometimes it is the release itself that is the problem. Let us go back to the year 2017. We're going to be going further back than that
later in the video, but for now, 2017. In 2017, a service called Anime Strike was launched. It launched on January 12th. What is Anime Strike? Anime Strike
is an anime specific streaming service from the wonderful purveyors at Amazon. You may not have heard of it because in order to have received Anime Strike, you need to have already been an Amazon Prime subscriber and then you needed an
Prime subscriber and then you needed an extra $4.99 US on top of that. Amazon made you double dip for this service. So, Senti Filmworks went ahead and licensed the anime series Land of the Lustrous for Anime Strike. Land of the
Lustrous premiered on Anime Strike in autumn of 2017. Fun fact, Anime Strike went defunct in January of 2018. So, let us recap, shall we? Land of the Lustrous premiered on a service that people actively resented cuz they had to pay
twice for it. and then it continued to exist on a service that then died weeks after the show ended. On top of which, this was only 2017. In the near 10 years a little bit softer on their opinion on full CG anime, thanks in part to Studio
Orange themselves, the guys that made Land of the Lustrous. We're a lot more fine with full CG anime now. We weren't back then. I mean, I was cuz I watched was amazing, but I understood the sentiment, you know, especially after
other things. So, back in 2017, trying to get people them essentially to like pay twice for something that they might have already decided to hate. Thankfully, now it is available just straight up on Prime. We
got rid of the second payw wall. Go us. Damage has already been done. Speaking go back even further today, shall we? You remember the OVA era? probably not. OVAs is when we had like four beautifully made episodes of an anime
knows how much amount of money. In order to watch these OVAs, you first needed to know that they even existed and then you needed to spend a premium in order to laser disc. And then after you have
watch it and find out whether or not it was worth any of it. And sometimes it was not. And the show from this era that I want to call attention to is Macros Plus. Why Macros Plus? Let me give you some names. Shinichiro Wantonab, Ko
Noamoto, and Yoko [music] Kano. That is the director, headwriter, and composer of Cowboy Bbop 4 years in advance. Macros Plus was basically the Bbop team's dry run. And it's still amazing. And almost nobody who loves Cowboy Bbop
knows it exists because that's the thing. In the West, Macros doesn't mean just means like the first third of roote. Thank you, Harmony Gold. I would
basically a video in and of itself and we don't got the time. But at the end of the day, if you wanted to watch Macros Plus for a very, very long time, you couldn't because Rootech existed. And Rootech is not Macros Plus. I know a lot
of people really like Rootech. They grew up with the thing. They love it to death. But because you guys had Rootech, we couldn't get Macros Plus. And that makes me sad cuz Lacrosse Plus still has like it's handdrawn and it's still some
of the best aerial combat animation that we have ever seen. Bottom text. But now thankfully it's over on like uh Disney Plus. It's four episodes. You could finish it tonight. Put that little break there so that you understand. I want you
to do that. And last for this section, let us also go back to the year 2008. It is 1:30 in the morning Eastern Standard and you are watching Adult Swim. What show did Adult Swim have on at 1:30 in the morning at this particular period of
time? They had an anime series called Mory Bto. [music] Why is it every time I want something good, I don't have it on this shelf? Morito is a wonderful uh fantasy action sort of anime from production IG from a period of time
they've ever been. But the problem with the show is not the show itself. It's that uh Adult Swim decided to uh mess around with things a bit. The show started airing on their channel at the end of August and then about 10 episodes
didn't even get halfway through the show before it was off the air. Now, it did before it was off the air. Now, it did come back 5 months later only to then in another few months get bumped down to 2:30 in the morning from 1:30 in the
Alchemist existed and that had to be first. I guess I mean I love I love FMA. FMA is brilliant, but still the problem with that is that you need to you need to watch Mory BTO in order. And when the release format doesn't allow for that,
no one really cares. People lose the plot. People don't know what's going on have followed that show even if they wanted to. And that's why it is utterly depressing cuz it makes you really sit down and think for a moment, what could
I be missing right now? Because every show that we've looked at so far is one that you've missed. Here's one that you haven't missed yet because this video is sponsored by Anniplex of America. They have one of their very own shows this
season that they would like to shine a spotlight on. Perhaps several spotlights lighting up the big top as it were. A show that I myself put into a tier after ranking all the shows that I watched this season. So, because of that, allow
explain what we're talking about. Because what if you were the daughter of one of the most famous circus performers in the world, a genuine prodigy at the trapze, and you wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Not because you
can't, but because your father, a man you lovingly refer to as parramsium of all things, was so demanding during your childhood that the entire art form is now just ruined for you. So what do you do? Well, you try to leave that world
behind. And just when you thought you were out, they pull you back in because the ring master of a tiny, broke traveling circus holds you hostage over the cost of a meal and a bath. This is Grow Up Show Sunflower Circus, a show
with a protagonist that I love because she's not doing that reluctant hero thing of, "Oh, this is the thing that everybody expects me to be good at and then they come around after, you know, the first handful of episodes, you know,
once she rediscovers her passion. But no, she is actively disengaged and needs to be constantly dragged into the plot at any given time, and I am here for it. She is genuinely uninterested in being here, but she is competent. And the fact
she's being financially manipulated by the ring master is just hilarious to me, and you know, it's somewhat endearing. But then she gets onto the trapeze and automatically slaps on a stiff practice smile that looks like a cheshure cat or
you know, since this is a Japan, it's more like a cat bus. But then A1 goated with their animation as they capture the sheer physical weight and gravity of her on the trapeze in a way that I still cannot believe is
and tell me that no, it's actually not all handdrawn, perhaps. But in either case, the camera work during these sequences makes you feel the momentum, and it is gorgeous. Now, the bonus for me is that the setting here is in 1950s
you over the head with that. to the point where if you actually watched a might not have even known that fact until I told you. And that's okay. But everything because it means that there's a very high likelihood that all of the
girls in this show, all of the girls who exist within this traveling circus are war orphans. They literally cannot quit and go back home. They might not have a home to go back to. So, the circus is their home, is their family, is their
together three meals a day. Our protagonist, Mizuka, may claim that she wants to leave, but she can't, and the success of their circus determines whether they are homeless or not. You do not need to be a fan of the circus to
enjoy this show. In many ways, it is a sports anime that uses the circus as its sport. But even if you have zero interest in that life, as I do, you'll be fine. The show is over on Crunchyroll and it is streaming every Saturday. Go
Antiplex of America for giving me an excuse to talk about this show once more. I genuinely do like talking about my A tiers. Now, our third category is when some part of the anime told you that it was something else. Worse than
an anime being packaged badly is an anime that looks accurate but lies to moment. This is the key art for a show called Ocuba Maid War. What do you think this show is about? Cuz when I and
probably a not insignificant amount of other people first looked at this key art, we all thought, hm, what a wonderful maid cafe anime. If you look at the genre tags for the show, uh, they had comedy and slice of life put onto
it. It was produced by PA Works. You know, the guys that did Shirobako, Hanosaku, Iroa, and Soccer Request, you know, the work shows, the ones about like cute girls doing various different jobs. So, seeing all of that with like
this Maid Cafe vibe gave a lot of us certain expectations about what the show was about, and it's all wrong. Akuba [clears throat] Maid War is not a slice of life made cafe anime. Oh no, this is a Yakuza series with turf wars,
protection rackets, betrayal, body counts. If you came into this with no expectations, you did better than most. If you came into this with some expectations about what you might be getting, you may have been turned off a
bit by it. The problem is is that for the people that would have wanted this heavy action Yakuza anime, they probably got turned away by the key art thinking that, you know, it was some cutesy made cafe anime. And then the people that
tuned into it expecting the cutesy made cafe anime didn't get that and then they also walked away. So, it failed twice over. On top of that, it's an original mouth about what the manga or the light novel was like. All people had to go
with was the show. It was word of mouth only by the people that just happened to hit play. And then when you consider when it came out, which was October of show that looks different from what it seems to be about. You know, in the same
season as Chainsaw Man, Bochi the Rock, Mob Psycho 100 season 3, Spy Family. At the time, it was arguably one of the most crowded seasons of the decade. So even if it was packaged correctly, it might still have been lowwatched. And
that's a tragedy cuz Okabu Made War is freaking amazing. Two more here. Let's bring it back to the top. Princess Tutu. The title here is is unfixable. You're saying that they're watching a show called Princess Tutu. You can't
recommend this show to people without sounding like you're doing a bit. Ask me how I know. I've been recommending this show since 2009, baby. And that's the about this girl called Duck, cuz she is a freaking duck. She's being told by the
writer of the story himself that she is a minor character in his story and she doesn't want to be a minor character. She has her own desires and wants and yeah she is in many ways just kind of playing to the writer's tune cuz the
author of the narrative DSelmeer is the antagonist which is thank you and it's about how sometimes that might not work out. She doesn't get what she wants or does she? You need to watch it to find out. And you're going to do that, right?
This is a show about how narratives can be tyrannical to the characters that live within it. And ultimately, it is trapped by a title from which it cannot escape. And lastly, then we have a show that came out at the absolute wrong
time. This is Martian successor Nesco. And what do I mean by it came out at the wrong time? This came out only about a year after Neon Genesis Evangelion. Cuz much this is a mecca show, but it actually has like real narrative stakes
very much just sounded like another Evangelion. And so if you go into it expecting Evangelion, even the fact that watching it dubbed, you have Spike Spencer as the freaking lead character, which is just hilarious. Even with all
of that, Nadesco is a comedy first anime. Yeah, it's got action to it. It's got homages to like the super robot genre. It is a great series, but a lot AVA knockoff before they even watched the damn thing. And it's not even the
comparison that is bad. Comparing it to Evangelion is worthwhile doing. It just happened to do it in the immediate aftermath of Evangelion being released. And that was a terrible, terrible time for that comparison. But at least in
for that comparison. But at least in that case, you could sell it just being a comedic Evangelion and it would do fine. Our last section today is anime that there was never going to be a good way of selling it. Some anime just can't
be pitched to a wide audience. You should know that. If you don't, now you do. I know that it's not a failure of marketing. There is just a limit to what marketing can do for you. Take for example, I know I've been saying this
example, I know I've been saying this show a lot, Showa Groku Raku Shinju. You want to watch a show about middle-aged men that perform an untransatable Japanese verbal art form across two seasons of theatrical melodrama? I don't
think so. [laughter] How do I know? Because a lot of people just didn't freaking do it. It's got a full a cast. It's got no action. It's about an art form that honestly a lot of people don't care about. It took until
to even pay attention to it. And even that had a painful release that nobody I could blame it on the release on YouTube. Can't do it with this one.
Rakugo Shinju is some of like it's melodrama, right? And but it's freaking amazing melodrama and it's two seasons of it and it's amazing and people just didn't freaking watch it because you can't sell it. You can't sell Rocko to
people. People have tried and that's why its Wikipedia views are sitting at 632 views a day. It is the least searched thing in this entire video and that's just sad cuz it's probably one of the best written. And then to quell my anger
and dissatisfaction over that, we're going to go to 2005 and talk about a much calmer series. This is an Eakushi anime, a genre that didn't even have anime, a genre that didn't even have that name in 2005, and it is called Arya
the Animation. In the many years since Arya the Animation, we have had a plentiful list of shows that fall within the same general style, genre, and feeling. Laid-back camp being a pretty big one for an example, but even within
other shows, like a good chunk of Freerin has this kind of vibe to it. And the show that basically built all of that, I don't think gets as much credit as it deserves. Arya the Animation is this kind of semi-cfi anime taking place
on this planet that just looks like Venice about a bunch of girls that run a gondola company. And it is very slow. It is super chill. It is the sliciest of life that has ever sliced your life. and I love it and adore it dearly. But not
only was it 15 years early to its own audience, are a number of anime that I can name that have multiple seasons that have uh pretty rough first seasons.
thankfully, I'd like to think that because of the slow nature of Arya, its first season is a little bit more forgivable because it is very slow and low stakes. It just got so much better in later seasons because the vibe was
need to get through that first season and then you even need to know that the show exists and then you know you need to watch it which some people did not because it has been proven to me countless times over the years. Despite
me saying that a show is worth watching, some people just don't do it. That feels like it's a thesis for my entire channel. Watch this anime even though I know you freaking won't. Which brings us to our last entry in the video today. It
categories. There wasn't a structural failure with the show. I don't marketed. Arguably, it was not marketed all that much at all. And it could have been marketed more, but you know, that's semantics. It's a small series. I liked
out, and I'm not going to stop today. This one is Dungeon People, a fantasy people that are actually doing it. Want to know what it's like to manage all the what it's like to refill all of the chests for the adventurers that come by
looking for good loot? Dungeon People is the behind the scenes on all of that packed into this wonderful like slice of life cheery package that I just adore. And you know, I complained about how Rakagos Shinju got barely any views. I
a preference. My preference is is that it's amazing and I love it. So, you should watch it. Bottom text. Every show in this video is one that you can go and watch right now. Several of them you should. I know that if you're watching
lot of those, too. And sometimes we don't have the time. I understand that. But that doesn't stop any of these shows from being worth your time. Most of them services that statistically you already have access to. And so, the question you
also need to ask yourself is based on the little information that I've shown you, have you already made a judgment against these shows? Probably. I hope you didn't, though. or I hope that you would at least acknowledge that you have
free to let me know which ones you disagree with. Maybe some of these shows examples that fit within these categories or don't fit in these mentioned anyway. I look forward to seeing you in the comments. But that's
direct place that I can link you to that will redirect you to watch any of these shows, but you should just be able to search the show name, add streaming, and thanks, of course, to all of my patrons who help and support these [music]
videos, even if the video is sponsored, like this one is today. The amount of over on Patreon means the less sponsorships that we will need at any given time. And an immense thank you especially to patrons Omar Showman, Russ
especially to patrons Omar Showman, Russ Emerson, Aiden, Sid, Yamako, Geekwig, and Ryen Bonapart for being especially awesome. And until next time, ladies, gentlemen, and others, watch all of these anime and stay frosty.