Supergirl Shows “My Adventures With Superman” Gets Anime
Supergirl has taken over the internet. No, I don’t mean the new live-action film starring Milly Alcock (as much as I wish them all the best, and don’t want to get caught up in any online discourse). I’m talking about the iteration of Kara Zor-El from Adult Swim’s My Adventures With Superman animated season, which is currently airing its third season. Since the broadcast of its second episode, my social media feeds have been an endless stream of Kara, as fans fawn over frames of the cinnamon bun, and swearing vengeance against Jimmy Olsen (more on that later). Of course, I’m seeing so much of Kara because the algorithms know too much about me, but the enormity and the sentiment of this response proves true something I’ve always felt: My Adventures With Superman is an anime-inspired western animation done right.
One of the last survivors of Krypton, and the cousin of Superman, Kara was introduced in the show’s second season as the brainwashed herald of Brainiac, who would send her to other worlds under the belief that she was helping them, when she was actually wiping them out. After arriving on Earth and taking a liking to Jimmy “Flamebird” Olsen, Kara fought against her programmed, and joined forces with Superman against her villainous step-father.
In the third season, Kara is now known to the people of Metropolis as Supergirl, and is known well enough to Jimmy that the pair wore matching Halloween costumes, and Kara eagerly tells everyone how much the two have been spending time together. They’re both sweet for each other but not yet an item, largely due to Jimmy’s insecurities as he compares himself to a person he sees as perfect. This came to a head in the second episode, when with the excitement of a Golden Retriever, Kara asked Jimmy to be her “mate” - a couple, like Lois and Clark. Jimmy let her down, saying that he wants her to see more of the world before making such a big decision. While Jimmy was gentle, the internet’s reaction has been anything but.
I have seen so many posts across Reddit, X, Instagram, and so forth about how Jimmy “fumbled”, or people sharing a frame of Kara looking downtrodden with captions like “Jimmy did this”. The people want blood, and the fandom has been rife with discourse about whether Jimmy was right or wrong. However, there is unusually a shared sentiment in both camps: that seeing Kara hurt sucks. Why? Because she’s such a cutie-patootie.
As I mentioned earlier, Kara is the embodiment of Golden Retriever energy. Being new to Earth, there is so much that is second nature to us that she doesn’t know about - from animals, to idioms, and what cash registers are - and she approaches them all with a childlike sense of wonder, while latching onto the first human she made a connection with: Jimmy.
The way that fans have in turn latched onto Kara reminds me of similar behaviour seen from fans of anime, as characters in that medium can feel specifically engineered to be endearing and curry a fervent loyalty (that’s not to say that non-anime characters can’t be likeable, but… have you seen how attached anime fans can get?!). Back in Season 1, the mace used by Rem in the anime Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World can be briefly seen in a vault alongside a collection of other references to anime and similar franchises, and I don’t think that was a coincidence. Kara feels like she has both the charm points of Emilia and Rem, the two most popular characters from the show who continue to drive merchandise sales, even though Rem has been in a coma since ReZero Season 2, which aired six years ago!
The fans yearn for Kara.
Rem’s charm point is how open she is about her endearing love for the protagonist Subaru, while Emilia’s is that despite her power and status as a Royal Candidate, she carries a sweet, childlike innocence. Kara carries a mix of both aspects, combined with the spunky tenacity of a tomgirl - itself a popular character archetype. All of these aspects mixed into the pot together, it’s no surprise that Kara has attracted adoring fans. Even with how busy my feeds have been with people fawning over Kara, there is one image that I’ve seen shared more than any other: Kara, beaming with an adorable smile as she sits at a meet-and-greet surrounded by gifts from fans and would-be-suitors (she took Jimmy’s comment about possibly finding someone better as a challenge, and invited guests of a convention panel to attend her booth).
Just look at how precious she is! Huge credit to Jessica Lin for storyboarding this shot.
It isn’t only the waifu culture of anime that My Adventures With Superman is tapping into with Kara, though. Ever since Dragon Ball Z became a seminal title for western anime culture in the 1990s, Akira Toriyama’s iconic series has been referenced and outright parodied countless times. However, this series takes that inspiration deeper than just surface level acknowledgements. Many have already pointed out that Kara Zor-El’s narrative arc in Season 2 felt especially inspired by Vegeta: a proud alien who was initially a villain manipulated by an enemy, before joining forces with their fellow alien, and settling down on Earth, where they mellow after finding love. Series 3 Episode 3 ending with Superboy travelling back from a dystopian future also has many suspecting that the writers are again taking notes from Dragon Ball Z, but this time with the Future Trunks arc.
What really sets My Adventures With Superman apart from other western media inspired by anime, though, is that it’s still inherently a Superman story. Characters sometimes have more exaggerated reactions that have become characteristic of anime, but it doesn’t feel like the creative talent are trying to copy a style or ride a bandwagon, but rather, they’re recognising elements that work in anime, and make them work in the context of an American Superman series (which the show runners have alluded to before). Of course, there are still plenty of brief visual references throughout the show, but their variety also has a charm in showing off the wider creative team’s depths of appreciation for the medium. Instead of just focusing on those few incredibly popular anime they watched growing up in the Toonami era, we also have mech designs inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion (1996), episode titles referencing Ouran High School Host Club (2006), background characters dressed up like Momo and Okarun from Dan Da Dan (2024) - they “know ball” as the kids would say.
What I really like about these further frames of references, is they show that the My Adventures With Superman team are still very much engaged with anime, rather than feeling like they’re sticking to an outdated image of what anime “is”. This is a trap that other western anime-inspired creators have fallen into, where it’s clear what their formative anime was, but their work ends up just feeling like an attempt to replicate that without really acknowledging that time has moved on, such as with LeSean Thomas’ Cannon Busters, which was by no means a bad show, but is built so much on what came before that it almost felt like it released in the wrong era. Of course, I’m by no means suggesting that someone can’t be inspired by anime of a certain age (I was absolutely delighted when I saw a nod to 1998’s Outlaw Star), nor that I don’t consider people to be anime fans unless I’ve scrutinised their MyAnimeList account, but a varied mix helps to sell their genuine enthusiasm.
It was this enthusiasm that first grabbed my attention during My Adventures With Superman’s first season (well, that and tomboy Lois Lane), and I’ve always felt that showrunners Jake Wyatt, Brendan Clougher, and Rosie Campbell clearly love anime, but seeing and feeling all this adoration for Kara Zor-El has made me realise that they really understand it too.
On the discourse surrounding Kara’s budding relationship with Jimmy, I respect where he was coming from. Kara spent her life being manipulated and is now only just experiencing living for the first time, so it’s admirable that Jimmy doesn’t want to feel like he’s taking advantage of her. However, even though that may be true, it’s clear that his own securities were the main driver of that decision. Hopefully they can learn something from Clark and Lois and actually talk through these issues, because damn it Kara deserves to be happy - just look at her!
My Adventures With Superman is airing on Adult Swim in North America, and streaming now on HBO Max both in North America and internationally.
