Kara Dennison
April 30, 2025 
If you’re watching the current season of Doctor Who, you know things are getting wildly meta. We won’t go into too many details if you’re behind. But suffice to say Lux is just one of many fourth-wall-shattering episodes in this Doctor’s run. Musing about the recent era has brought to mind some of our favorite anime from over the years. Like the sci-fi series, they blur the line between creator and creation, bringing the audience into the world of the show. Read on to find out how!
Re:CREATORS builds parallel worlds
Alternate universes are nothing new to the world of Doctor Who. Even fictional alternate universes are a thing, as seen in the 1968 serial “The Mind Robber.” The Master of the Land of Fiction would have had a field day in Re:CREATORS. In this anime series, everyone who writes a story creates a universe. And all those characters come to life. So, what happens when those characters meet their creators?
Re:CREATORS confronts all sorts of thorny issues about creatorship and fiction. Who “owns” a character once it’s created? What influence does fan perception have over a character? And what about characters who exist without a story? Sadly, Re:CREATORS is not currently available to view by legal means. But if it becomes available again, it’s worth a look.
Anime-Gataris alters the fabric of reality
What happens when animation leaks into the real world? In Doctor Who, we saw that eventuality with the appearance of Mr. Ring-a-Ding. But in Anime-Gataris, it’s on a whole other level. (And given what happened in Lux, that’s saying something.) What starts as a cute series about an anime club eventually turns into a reality-bending battle.
When cartoon characters escape into the real world, they clearly have a good reason for doing it. Maybe it’s to experience 3D life. Maybe it’s to take over the world. Or maybe it’s because they just really hate their name and someone needs to suffer. We’re not saying which of these spurred the meta ending of Anime-Gataris. But we do highly encourage watching it… from the beginning!
Princess Tutu resurrects the author
Doctor Who has featured a lot of surprising characters in this era, from the fourth-wall-breaking Mrs. Flood to the surprise trio in Lux. But what if your author showed up regularly to give you a hard time? Such is the case with Princess Tutu, a 2002 magical girl anime that is far stranger than it looks. At first, it seems like a tragic fairy tale romance from the point of view of a duck-turned-ballerina. But early on, Duck makes a surprising acquaintance: Drosselmeyer, the author who wrote her.
As the series progresses, the lead cast fights against Drosselmeyer’s whims. He wants to tell a fun story, no matter how tragic it is. But the characters want to be in love and, ideally, not die in a flash of light about it. How they conquer their overbearing author is a story that deserves to be witnessed for yourself.
