I have a long and colorful history of writing fanfiction. Having grown up obsessively watching anime and researching every detail of my favorite shows, it seemed almost inevitable that I would start making up my own stories for them. Most of the ones I wrote were canon-compliant; stories that could fit easily into an existing plot without disrupting it. Other times, I tried to make up original scenarios with my favorites. Either way, my fanfics usually came from a place of wanting more from a plot than what was originally offered to me. Writing fanfiction helped me gain a new appreciation for my favorite shows and how I engaged with them. In that sense, ZENSHU struck me harder than I thought it would. One of 2025’s earliest gems from the hard-working animators at MAPPA, ZENSHU is… sort of an isekai. It follows many of the beats that come with being sent to another world full of fantasy and danger. At its core, though, ZENSHU is a passion project about a nerdy animator who loves an anime so much that she fought hard to rewrite its tragic ending. In essence, she strives for the wish that I, as a fanfic writer, wholeheartedly recognize: creating a world out of one that already exists. ZENSHU follows Natsuko Hirose, a prodigal animator who achieved early success in the anime industry. So confident she is in her abilities, however, that she often works on entire scenes on her own. If a fellow artist’s storyboard or keyframes aren’t up to her standards, she takes it upon herself to redo them by herself, much to the chagrin of her colleagues. Because of this, she tends to work alone and is highly distrustful of anyone she tries to work with. Having already earned recognition as an up-and-coming director, Natsuko is hard at work on her next film project, First Love . Unfortunately, her lack of experience in any romantic relationship keeps her from animating it authentically and she struggles to produce the movie. As if that weren’t enough, she learns that Kametaro Tsuruyama, the director of her favorite childhood anime movie, A Tale of Perishing , had suddenly died of food poisoning. As she deals with the news and tries to wrap her head around her own movie, she retreats to her umpteenth rewatch of A Tale of Perishing . She recalls how the film was received poorly on its release and quickly forgotten thereafter, but it’s still her all-time favorite movie. During her rewatch, however, Natsuko inexplicably suffers the same fate as her predecessor and dies from food poisoning. Then, as these things often go, Natsuko ends up in another world. She awakens in a desert and is attacked by monstrous shades known as Voids. Luckily, she’s saved by a band of heroes called the Nine Soldiers, led by the chivalrous Luke Braveheart. These knights are tasked with protecting the Last Town, the final refuge for the realm’s survivors amidst an impending apocalypse. The Last Town is also the home of the final Soul Future, a magic crystal and the only thing protecting the world from the threat of the Ultimate Void and the end of all things. RELATED: ZENSHU Shows How Creation Takes On a Life of its Own While the mysterious nature of the “isekai” beats would normally stop there, Natsuko is no stranger to this “other world.” She immediately recognizes it as A Tale of Perishing , complete with all of the settings and characters she remembers from the film. What’s more, she even sees the plot progressing as she knows it, which inevitably leads to a tragic ending for everyone involved. Knowing what’s in store for the Nine Soldiers and the Last Town, Natsuko taps into a strange new power to fight back against the Voids. Using her magic pegbar, she summons her animation desk and rapidly animates things and brings them to life so they may come to the Nine Soldiers’ aid. As she settles into this “new” world and her role as an unofficial member of the Nine Soldiers, Natsuko strives to use her new gifts to rewrite the bad ending to her favorite movie come to life. It isn’t long before we learn more about Natsuko and her relationship with what is, for all intents and purposes, a bad movie that she loves. She first watched it at a young age and grew up immersed in the world of the Nine Soldiers. She even became so attached to Luke Braveheart that she can draw him with her eyes closed. She remembers every detail of the movie, and in turn, the lives of the Nine Soldiers with whom she finds herself allied. She loves Luke and the flirtatious stallion Unio and the elven Memmeln and the robotic QJ much more deeply than the film’s reception would suggest. A Tale of Perishing left such a huge impact on her life that she cites it as the inspiration for her and her career in anime. Now, she uses the skills and the passion instilled in her by this movie to save it. Because of that, I can’t see her as anything other than a hardcore fan of an anime writing a self-insert revisionist fanfic to save the people in A Tale of Perishing . And I mean that in a good way. She’s worshipped A Tale of Perishing with such dedication, it would only make sense for her to want more from it. She feels as if her favorite characters never got the chance to do more or live happier lives, and her arrival and newfound powers allow her to do that for them. Watching Natsuko desperately try to save the cast of A Tale of Perishing , I couldn’t help but remember doing the same thing for the shows I watched when I was younger. For one reason or another, my favorite characters in anime were mostly the obscure ones; the ones who barely got screen time and never left as large a footprint on the story as the rest of the cast. Part of the reason why I wrote so many fanfics was to give those characters the depth and the attention I thought they deserved. Whether it was putting a spotlight on them in a gratuitous AU shipfic or giving them the backstory or agency they never received in the series proper, I wanted those characters to flourish in ways that the canon never allowed them to. Natsuko does this same thing in real time. Knowing the terrible fate that approaches her favorite character, she does everything she can to give them their happy ending. She draws (pun intended) from her own experiences in art and anime, helping the Nine Soldiers fight against the Voids by adding her elements to their battles. They don’t always make sense in terms of the original setting — giant mecha and pro wrestler moves hardly fit the high fantasy setting of A Tale of Perishing — but she includes whatever she feels is suitable as long as it means her favorite characters get to survive. Those changes are reflected in the world at large, as many of the original characters become drastically different from what they were in the movie. They’re happier and more confident thanks to Natsuko’s intervention, prompting her to keep changing things. She even does this in defiance of Kametaro Tsuruyama, who was reincarnated as an odd bird into the same world. As she observes Natsuko’s changes, the original creator mocks her at every turn. Though she lacks the same kind of abilities that Natsuko has in this world, director Tsuruyama insists that Luke Braveheart’s story will proceed as she originally conceived it, tragic ending and all. In a sense, Tsuruyama feels as if her original work shouldn’t be defiled and wants things to proceed as she envisioned them. Almost true to her word, the story begins to adjust for Natsuko’s changes. The Voids adapt to her art by mimicking her drawings, turning the tide against the heroes. Shortly after, the other characters begin falling into place as per the original plot. Still, Natsuko refuses to accept this fate for Luke and the others. Despite overwhelming odds and a world that seems to spit in the face of her changes, she pushes back as hard as she can to change the outcome. RELATED: Hesitant To Try Isekai? Watch ZENSHU But I don’t think Natsuko does this because she hates the original story. Far from it. She wouldn’t have every detail committed to memory and let it inspire her animation career if she didn’t like it. She even continues to hold Tsuruyama in high regard upon meeting her in the Last Town. However, she has long resonated with A Tale of Perishing in a way that Tsuruyama likely didn’t expect. Tsuruyama wants her work to be taken at face value and wishes for her movie, however devastating it may be, to be preserved in all of its grittiness. But a fan like Natsuko wouldn’t stop at face value. She loves Luke and the Nine Soldiers and the people of the Last Town too much to leave them with their pre-ordained demise. Like anyone producing a piece of fan art, whether they write a story or draw art for it, Natsuko uses her position as a fan to try and make her own Tale of Perishing , one where no one perishes. In the end, Natsuko manages to do just that. In an uplifting, almost cliched way, she uses her love of A Tale of Perishing to defeat the Ultimate Void and save everyone. Her actions even restore the Soul Futures of the world, ushering in a new era of peace and giving the folks of the Last Town a new beginning. She even manages to do what most isekai protagonists don’t and returns to her world, content in the knowledge that she was able to give her favorite movie the happily ever after she always wanted for it. Back in reality, Natsuko’s first movie has become a smash hit, having been able to get a sense of first love through being up close and personal with her first love, A Tale of Perishing . Interestingly enough, though, we get no sense of how her actions in their world are reflected in reality. The film’s history doesn’t necessarily change, and her ending isn’t a widely accepted fact. Therein lies what I believe to be the essence of producing fan work, one that ZENSHU captures effortlessly. Fanfic and fanart aren’t always meant to have a larger impact on the actual source material. Rather, the act of making it allows us to appreciate a movie or a show or a book more intimately than if we were simply exposed to the work. Natsuko created her version of A Tale of Perishing . It doesn’t have to align with anyone else’s, and no other fan of the movie has to abide by it, not even its original creator, who shows an open disdain for Natsuko’s ending. She simply made a fan work that she’s happy with, one that belongs to her and her alone. ZENSHU ’s ending makes me think of Mark Hamill, who starred in the original Star Wars movies as Jedi protagonist Luke Skywalker. In a 2016 interview , he spoke about a fan who was being bullied at school for being gay. The fan allegedly asked him if someone like Luke Skywalker could also be gay. “I would say it’s meant to be interpreted by you,” he replied. “If you think he’s gay, of course he is!” ZENSHU makes an entire wish-fulfillment epic out of this concept. Fans have the power to make their versions of their favorite stories and characters. Just as Luke Skywalker could be gay for one person, Natsuko made a Tale of Perishing where Luke Braveheart could be happy. And she made this as a fan of the movie, who loves the original work so much that she wanted it to be more. Her reimagining of A Tale of Perishing brings me right back to the days when I would scour through fan wikis to confirm major details of an anime so that my fanfics could be as meticulously crafted as possible. Natsuko is a fan artist through and through, and in ZENSHU , she got the rare opportunity to touch the lives of her favorite characters by producing her fan work with all the knowledge and passion of a fanfic creator.
