Sparks of Tomorrow: Japanese Fans React — "This Anime Made Me Choose My College Major"
京アニ『二十世紀電氣目録』メイキング動画に日本ファン「このアニメで進路決めた」
On a behind-the-scenes clip about a single invention scene, Kyoto Animation drew 39 comments from Japanese viewers of Sparks of Tomorrow (二十世紀電氣目録) — and the single most-liked reply, at 41 likes, says the scene made the commenter choose their university major. The rest of the thread follows the same instinct: fans praising the glasswork, the brass-band score, and the transparency of watching the process itself, tracing the music straight back to Kyoto Animation's Sound! Euphonium pedigree. Not everyone agrees on the show's deliberate pace, though — a short, blunt exchange breaks out over whether the slow storytelling is a feature or a flaw. Nobody settles it. But watching Japanese fans respond to raw craft instead of plot says plenty about what actually got them talking.
This titleJapanese reactions to Sparks of TomorrowRead all 2 roundups on the title pageKyoto Animation's YouTube channel didn't just post trailers for Sparks of Tomorrow (Nijusseiki Denki Mokuroku) this summer — it also uploaded a proper making-of breakdown of one specific scene from episode 3: a group of teenage inventors building a glass "electric moon" lantern together. No plot recap, no character intros, just the process, tucked in quietly between the trailer drops. Japanese viewers left 39 comments under it, and almost none of them talk about the story. They talk about the craft. That's the whole personality of this comment section, and it starts with the single most-liked reply on the page.
“This anime made me decide my university major.”
このアニメ見て、大学の進路を決めました。
Forty-one likes, zero elaboration — so naturally, people showed up in the replies demanding some.
“Engineering, I'm guessing? Rooting for you — from a former engineer.”
工学部かな？応援します（元エンジニアより）
“So what'd you pick? Tell us.”
何にしたんだい？いってみ
Nobody ever comes back with an actual answer, so the major stays a mystery forever. But the reaction makes sense once you watch the clip: it's Kyoto Animation walking through exactly how the invention sequence got storyboarded and animated — four kids in period dress arguing over how to fuse glass evenly — and this crowd isn't reacting like anime fans so much as people who remember building something themselves, for a class or a hobby or a job.
“I love this scene where they're trying to make something that doesn't exist yet in the world. It gets me — the things we take for granted only exist because someone put in the effort and the time.”
世界に無いものを作り出そうとするこの場面すき。当たり前にある物も誰かの努力と費やした時間があって生まれたものなんだなって涙腺熱くなる
That's basically the thesis statement for the whole thread: not the plot, the process.
“Making things and running experiments as a student is so fun! The music's lovely too 🎺 — and the way they show the glass changing under heat, the thickness, the transparency, the light, it's all drawn so well.”
学生の時、物づくりと実験楽しいよね！ 音楽も素敵です🎺 ガラスの熱変化、厚み、透明感、光など描写も良いですね。
- “No matter how hard it looks, I can't help but admire "making things."”👍7
- “Excited to see how Kihachi's catalog keeps growing out of this.”👍3
- “I really love this scene. I'm a sucker for watching friends grind through building something together!”👍3
Right underneath it, the chips get even more specific — people singling out the exact texture of a shot, the exact bar of music, the exact effort of it all. Then there's the score, which gets its own mini-tangent, because Kyoto Animation put a full brass band under this invention montage, and a chunk of this audience already knows exactly why that choice lands. The studio built its reputation on a competitive brass-band drama, and viewers keep dragging that show into a conversation that's technically about steam-age lanterns.
“The BGM in this scene is great too! I got into Kyoto Animation through Sound! Euphonium last year, so this feels like a reward of an anime (plus Sora Amamiya's in the cast).”
このシーンにしてもBGMが凄く良くて！ 去年ユーフォから京アニにハマった自分にはご褒美のようなアニメ(雨宮天さんもいるし)
“I thought the music sounded distinctive, and it turns out it's a brass band 😊 — of course it is, this is the studio behind Sound! Euphonium 😅”
音楽が独特だなーと思ったら、吹奏楽なんだね😊 やっぱユーフォの京アニだなと納得😅
Not everybody here showed up purely for the vibes, though. Scroll far enough and there's a small, blunt disagreement about pacing sitting right underneath all the appreciation — the closest thing to a fight this comment section has.
“When does this actually get good?”
いつになったらおもしろくなるの
“Personally I love how understated and slow it is, but I guess that's not for everyone…”
淡々と進んでる感じが個人的には大好物なんだけど、万人受けはしないのかな…
“It IS good, though. What's your definition of "good" anyway? Flashy? Moving? Also — did you even need to post that?”
おもろいだろ お前の面白いはなんだ？ 派手か？感動か？ てか書く必要ある?
“Even inside Kyoto Animation's own catalog, this is a totally different flavor from something like Sound! Euphonium, so I get why it won't land for everyone.”
京アニでもユーフォとかとは全然 テイスト違うから、合う合わないとかはあると思う
Nobody in that exchange walks it back, and honestly that's fine — a making-of video about a lantern was never going to settle whether the show itself works. What it did settle is smaller, and somehow more interesting: put Kyoto Animation's process on screen with nothing else attached, and Japanese viewers stop reviewing the anime and start reviewing the work itself. One of them just switched university majors over it, and nobody in the replies even blinked.
FAQ
- What is the overseas title of 二十世紀電氣目録-ユーレカ・エヴリカ-?
- It streams worldwide on Netflix as Sparks of Tomorrow — the same title Kyoto Animation uses on its own official YouTube trailers.
- Why did Japanese fans react so strongly to a behind-the-scenes clip instead of an episode?
- Commenters said the making-of breakdown of the episode 3 glass-lantern scene made the craft itself the story — several praised the animation process and the brass-band score, and the top comment says the scene influenced the commenter's choice of university major.
- Do Japanese commenters agree on the show's pacing?
- No — one commenter asked when the story actually picks up, and got pushback from viewers who said the deliberate, understated pace is exactly what they like about it, while admitting it won't work for everyone.
Sparks of Tomorrow: Japanese Fans React — "It's Not the Animation, It's the Story"
“What matters isn't the animation, it's the script, structure, and direction. Even a band full of hot guys won't sell if the songs are bad.”
Read this roundupThis is one of 2 Japanese-reaction roundups for Sparks of Tomorrow. See them all →
More from Japan
- #japanese fans
5,815 likesAnimeYouTubeChainsmoker Cat: Japanese Fans React to the Landlord — "Do You Even Understand Your Position?"
Across 650 comments on the official Chainsmoker Cat (Yani Neko) clip where the landlord catches his tenant behind on rent and smoking where she shouldn't, the top comment (5,815 likes) marvels that he lets her off with nothing more than pulling weeds after she desperately offers to do "whatever it takes." From there the section becomes a small celebration of the landlord himself: fans call him a near-perfect gentleman aside from one confessed weakness, joke that he's basically become the show's real father figure, and note he even offers his delinquent tenant tea and snacks afterward. Several say the character subverted their expectations going into the show, and one commenter with cat-owning experience points out how accurately the character's unrepentant "yes nya~" captures real feline behavior. It closes on a small reveal: what everyone assumed was a cup of tea turns out, on closer look, to be a can of cola cracking open.
650 comments - #japanese fans
3,424 likesAnimeYouTubeChainsmoker Cat: Japanese Fans React to Makoto Shinkai's Viral Praise — "The Model Is a Real Person?!"
A YouTube reaction-compilation clip about Chainsmoker Cat pulled 494 comments after director Makoto Shinkai publicly called the show "wonderful," briefly sending it trending — the clip's top comment sits at 3,424 likes, referencing that exact trend. The discussion split between shock that the show's most chain-smoking, off-the-rails character is modeled on a real friend of the author (a claim that drew 1,423 and 861 likes in separate comments), and open admiration for how directly the anime depicts drug and smoking content despite modern broadcast standards — one comment at 389 likes favorably compared it to a 20-year-old manga that only implied similar material. It closes on a joke so on-the-nose it doubles as a genre observation about how many chain-smoking protagonists this single season somehow has.
494 comments - #japanese fans
158 likesAnimeYouTubeSummer 2026 Anime: Japanese Fans React to Their Own Overseas Rankings — "Why Did All These Masterpieces Land in One Season?"
On August 1, the anime-tracking channel TERUちゃん posted an early "overseas reception ranking" for the Summer 2026 lineup, stacking Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia, Mushoku Tensei, Ghost in the Shell, Chainsmoker Cat, and Bleach against each other — and 269 comments in, Japanese viewers had turned it into a thread about how their own season is scoring with the rest of the world. The top comment, at 158 likes, predicted Jaadugar could win awards outside anime circles entirely. From there the thread split three ways: near-unanimous praise for Jaadugar's craftsmanship, genuine surprise that Chainsmoker Cat's very local sense of humor is landing overseas anyway, and a detailed, mostly affectionate breakdown of why Ghost in the Shell's faithfully dense opening episode filters out a chunk of international reactors before it gets a fair shot. Nobody in the comments actually disagreed on much — the closest thing to a fight was over whether that's a flaw or the whole point.
269 comments - ColumnAnime
I Read Both Comment Sections Every Night. Yours Is Louder.
I split every night between two rooms. The English comment section and the Japanese one. Same anime, same game, sometimes the exact same video, and the air changes the moment I walk through the door. You already know your room. What you probably haven't seen is ours, because for once the language lock is working against you. So let me show you around both.