Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi

Imamiya Satoshi, "Sasshi" to his friends, has grown up in the Abenobashi Shopping Arcade in Osaka, along with his childhood friend, Asahina Arumi. Now, all that was stable in his life is in ruins. His family's bath house has closed and been torn down, and Arumi's family is moving to Hokkaido - and taking her with them. In the midst of all this, something happens to the framework of reality, and Sasshi and Arumi slip into a weird parallel world. It's still Abenobashi, but not their Abenobashi. Strange things are afoot, and Sasshi must find out their meaning, in order to reach a goal that he barely understands.

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Parody, Alterniverse; 13 episodes
	Satoshi (Sasshi) and Arumi are two children who have grown up together in the Abenobashi shopping district in Japan. Unfortunately, the run-down district is in the process of being demolished for a new project, and Arumi burdens Sasshi with the bad news that her family will be the next to move- all the way to Hokkaido (>600 miles)! Sasshi has little time to digest this before a freak accident which disrupts the last of the "Harmony of the Four Gods" statues (located on the tops of stores at the cardinal points of the district) sends he and Arumi into multiple fantasy worlds that each contain bizarre recreations of Abenobashi, ranging from a prehistoric setting to noir gangster, to futuristic sci-fi. In each world, they have to defeat some kind of goblin, who will then use his powers to send them back to their correct world. Or not. The two eventually discover that it's Sasshi's imagination that's creating these bizarre worlds, and his unwillingness to go back that keeps them "Quantum Leaping". Sasshi does his best to create a world that Arumi would like to stay in, afraid to tell her that there is one more tragic reason that he doesn't want to go back to the real world... Several of the parodies are a stone riot to watch, the banter between Sasshi and Arumi is frequently sharp and witty, and I really liked that finger-popping opening theme, even if it was done by Meg Hayashibara. Like Excel Saga before it, Abenobashi is nonstop parody of the archetype situations found in most anime genres or fandom in general, but it had more potential because it had a universal story behind it that could have been developed more than it was: that everyone has to grow up and live in the real world eventually, and sometimes growing up means growing apart from your friends, or losing people you love. Buuuuuuut, this was done by Gainax, and they fuck up the ending to just about everything they do. It was a complete cop-out "Dorothy" choice because spoilerSasshi was allowed to use his full powers as an Onmyou Mystic to find a reality where Abenobashi wasn't going to be demolished, where Arumi wasn't going to move away (and pursue her own dreams), and where Arumi's Grandpa Massa didn't die. Basically ignoring the truth that Sasshi's dad was trying to tell him near the end.

Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi created by Gainax. Anime rights belong to Gainax, Abenobashi Project, and A.D. Vision.