Fantera's Golden Week Special Edition: Shōwa Day!

Hello and welcome back, friends and anime fans, to another exciting issue of Fantera’s weekly newsletter, your friendly source for all things anime! Kicking off starting April 29th with Shōwa Day is a series of holidays in Japan known as Golden Week, a celebration centered around nationwide reflection and typically one of the longest breaks from work the Japanese people will take all year!

After starting the celebrations off with a bang on Shōwa Day, the festivities continue through the week with Constitution Day, Greenery Day, and finally Children’s Day! Cities and businesses experience some of their busiest times of the year during Golden Week, and these popular celebrations often find their way into the pages of the best slice-of-life manga and the plots of our favorite Anime!
If you want to read more about this wonderful week of celebration, check out this informative blog article written by one of our friends at Bokksu!

Fantera’s Top 3 Anime Golden Week References!

These Golden Week holidays are definitely an important and recognizable part of Japanese tradition and culture, so it’s no wonder why some our favorite characters in Anime have celebrated these holidays as well! Here’s our top 3 favorite Golden Week references in Anime history!

3. Fruits Basket Lakehouse Arc

Romance and Slice-of-life anime Fruits Basket makes some great references to the holidays of Golden Week! Read more here!

2. Lucky Star Episode 2

Slice-of-life anime Lucky Star’s entire second episode is themed around the holiday celebrations of Golden Week! Protagonists Kagami, Tsukasa, and Konata spend the entire week lounging, studying, gaming, and shopping.

1. Marianne from One Piece

This adorable antagonist from the hit show One Piece literally goes by the name of ‘Miss GoldenWeek’, a direct reference to the Japanese celebrations of the same name! She certainly embodies the spirit of someone on vacation, often choosing to enjoy a picnic or some tea instead of fighting her opponents!

This week’s biggest Anime headlines!

We hope that you enjoyed your unagi snacks and cherry blossom viewing, now it’s time for the latest and greatest anime headlines of this week!

OVERLORD: The Sacred Kingdom Anime Movie Now Streaming on Crunchyroll:
Following its theatrical release in Japan last year, the OVERLORD: The Sacred Kingdom anime movie is now streaming on Crunchyroll! Click here to read everything you need to know about the release!

DAN DA DAN Season 2 Anime Debuts New Trailer: 
On April 26th, the official channels for the DAN DA DAN anime released a brand new trailer for the upcoming second season, previewing the fight between Okarun and Evil Eye. As previously reported, the latest season of the DAN DA DAN anime will premiere on July 3rd!

Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Art World Tales Puts Opening Movie on Display:
Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Art World Tales, the 44th theatrical anime film based on the popular children's manga series, has published a special video of the opening movie for the film featuring the song “Yume wo Kanaete Doraemon” (“Make Your Dreams Come True, Doraemon”). The film began screening in theaters in Japan on March 7, 2025.

Yuki’s Corner!

Hey fans, Yuki here! Do you like to travel?
Golden Week is possibly the single most popular time of the year to travel in Japan, and with most people free of both work and school, it means entire families can typically travel together! In America, the closest comparisons would be our Spring or Summer breaks, similar in length and time of year. That said however, the typical ‘spring break’ experience found in places like Myrtle Beach or Orlando would be quite different from the Shōwa Day festivities of Osaka, Japan in nearly every way!

What’s YOUR take?

What news item this week are you most excited about? What Golden Week holiday would you be most excited to celebrate? Reply and let us know! We also accept fan-art and will publish it in future newsletters with permission, so send us your best drawings for a chance of sharing your artwork with thousands of fans!

Thanks for reading, fellow anime fans!

That's all for this week's Fantera Newsletter! We hope you found this issue informative and fun. We'll be back next week with more of the anime news you crave! In the meantime, be sure to check out everything we have to offer at https://fantera.online. See you next week!

- Yuki & the Fantera Team