Anime Archives - Unwinnable

A photo from the cosplay contest at Anime NYC 2025 with lots of colorful wigs, intricate dresses, some foam weapons, animal ears, all sorts of great stuff

Staring at Japan’s “Fantasy Industrial Complex” at Anime NYC 2025 with Matt Alt

By Luis Aguasvivas • October 2nd, 2025

“Anime is another form of drag for the human race.”

Letter from the Editor

Unwinnable Monthly – February 2024

By David Shimomura • February 19th, 2024

The really weird stuff happens in February.

Transpersonal

Still from the title sequence for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, with an assortment of symbols and shapes in the background and a man in a flashy suit and cadet hat, hands in pockets on the left, a very similar looking man with a big lip of hair on his brow in the middle, and a youger person in a school or military uniform on the right

How to Take a Stand // Transpersonal Defiance in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable

By Aster Shen • October 4th, 2022

Koichi goes to his death without despair, because he believes that justice will be done. He connects to the idea that what he represents cannot meaningfully be ‘erased’ at all: the heart of justice that defies the existence of Yoshikage Kira.

Feature Excerpt

Digital Phantasmagoria

By Phantom • July 6th, 2020

On the art of DataErase – glitch witch, anime porn historian and DIP switch devil.

Carole & Tuesday & Bad Representation

By Gingy Gibson • September 20th, 2019

Bad representation does not count as representation and why are we still having this conversation in 2019?

No Accounting for Tastes

Science, Society, and Steamboy (The Other Movie from Akira’s Director)

By Adam Boffa • March 7th, 2019

Katsuhiro Otomo’s second film celebrates its fifteenth birthday this year. How does it hold up?

Just let Reigen be sexy already

By Kris Ligman • January 29th, 2019

Mob Psycho 100’s beloved con-man got a visual facelift in the anime, but what makes him a good character hasn’t changed.

A skull-faced man behind two very excited men who are looking at walls of boys love comics.

The Radical Positivity of Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san

By Kris Ligman • November 19th, 2018

I’ve been thinking a lot about radical positivity. About how, in a world full of objectively horrible things and an even greater volume of subjective nastiness, the most defiant act is to be kind.

Spilled Ink

A black haired girl reading on her back, another woman behind her.

Be Witched – Flying Witch Vol. 3

By Austin Price • November 22nd, 2017

The stillness of Flying Witch Vol. 3 comes to me as small, almost zen escape. What’s magical here is nothing loud, nothing that demands attention constantly.

Spilled Ink

Serial Experiments Lain, “Listening To The Suicidal Tendencies”

By Austin Price • December 20th, 2016

“What swayed me was how well Lain conveyed the emotions that are attendant with and eventually lead to suicide.”