Before I got into anime, I got into a cartoon series that became a huge hit in the Western world and was based off one of the most popular comic book series ever at the time. X-Men: The Animated Series (1992-1997) was a huge part of my childhood and a transition to more mature stories in cartoons. The series eventually got me into reading comics and later manga. Recently, Marvel announced a continuation of the old series with X-Men ‘97.

I had little expectations from it after watching the 1st trailer. But when I saw the full 1st season, I could not help but be amazed by how excellent it was. The show reminded me why I loved X-Men in the 1st place and I feel that there’s a good amount of anime influence throughout as well.

The 1st two episodes were filled with a lot of tension as the X-Men are trying to figure out what to do after their leader, Professor X, is not there anymore. While humans and mutant relations are getting better, there’s still a lot of tension as some humans can’t tolerate mutants. The X-Men end up taking on anti-mutant extremists, which leads to a bigger plot involving a conspiracy to instigate a war between mutants and humans.

When I first watched X-Men as a kid, I often compared the characters to Dragon Ball Z characters. My imagination was wild. I thought of Vegeta as a Wolverine type of character. Frieza was Magneto. Piccolo was Storm. Goku as Cyclops (hey, optic blasts can be Kamehamehas), etc. Watching X-Men ’97 made me revisit those thoughts.

And I remember a reason why people love anime and manga – the relationships between characters. X-Men does this so well. Every character doesn’t get along well, but they agree to disagree enough to fight for a common cause. When conflict happens, they argue their points, insult one another, and try to convince the other party that they’re right. When genuine appreciation and love happens, the characters really show it in poignant ways. What I’m trying to say is that one of X-Men ’97’s strong points is the talking between characters.

Conversations between characters are a big reason why I love manga too. I love when characters say stuff during fights or talk to one another about all kinds of things. We get to see their personalities in full display as a result. A good amount of manga content revolves around talking. Relationships matter a good amount in a manga’s success. Watching X-Men ’97 made me feel like I was reading a fun action manga.

I strongly feel that X-Men is the closest thing to an anime/manga series in the mainstream superhero world. There’s action, drama, and relationships. It also goes into topics that a lot of other superhero series don’t get into. While the Marvel Cinematic Universe is popular, I think there’s way too much focus on action where you don’t properly know the characters well with some notable exceptions. Everything feels like fanservice in terms of “Look at which celebrity we got to play your favorite character!”

X-Men is the antithesis of that. Since the early-to-mid ‘2000s, the franchise has been ignored by Marvel for a long time in favor of the Avengers due to the movies. The comics haven’t gotten much attention. The X-Men movies (except a few) mostly sucked. In some ways, Marvel treated the X-Men like it was “anime” compared to their other superhero series.

X-Men ’97 totally has an anime influence and it showed in certain episodes – especially Episode 5 (which is considered the best episode of Season 1). I won’t spoil what happens, but the last few parts of the episode made me felt like I was watching Neon Genesis Evangelion. Some of the fight scenes felt like anime battle scenes. Certain key emotional scenes and how they were structured were anime-like as well.

Superhero stories have influenced manga creators throughout the years. Kohei Horikoshi is a huge superhero fan and has used superheroes to make My Hero Academia the series it is. In many ways, My Hero Academia is the anime/manga equivalent of X-Men as every character has a specific power/Quirk. U.A. High School is like Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The League of Villains is the Brotherhood of Mutants. You can also say it’s a series that says “What if the X-Men were the Avengers instead of being total outcast superheroes?”

And over the last 10+ years, we’ve seen Western creators influenced by anime/manga in their works. X-Men ’97 is one of the highest points of this wave. I know people argue over which is better, anime/manga vs. Western cartoons/comics. Both are great in their own way. What’s amazing is that there are people on either side really trying to learn from one another to make some magical works that can touch fans’ lives.

X-Men and anime/manga were both outcasts after boom periods and are now in the forefront again. I love it when creative communities influence each other for the better. This is what fandom should be all about – a celebration of what we can make together via diverse ideas in a world that sometimes hates and fears us.

For more X-Men ’97 and its ties to anime, Anime News Network wrote an excellent feature – Like Magneto, Scar in Fullmetal Alchemist Was Right.