We kick off our annual series with a Santa that loves like Jesus
Above Anime: The Beneath the Tangles Newsletter
Dec 14, 2025 • Subscribe
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12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 10: Santa Frieren
If you thought we’d post only one Frieren fanart piece for the 12 Days of Christmas Anime this year…then you don’t know us very well. Hehe. How could…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 1: The Promise of Christmas in Rainbow Days
If you’re looking to anime for the “true meaning” of Christmas, you might want to look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for a story that overflows with the…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 1: Ore Monogatari!!
I…don’t want a lot for Christmas… There’s just one thing I need. I don’t care about the presents… Underneath the Christmas Tree… I just want you for my…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 12: Toradora
My most memorable Christmas was the one midway through my 5th grade year. My dad has been absent the year previous as a soldier at war in the…
Fanart Friday, Too x 12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 9: Taiga + Santa
This scene! Toradora takes you from the absolute aww-ness of Taiga accepting Santa as a giant teddy bear to just a few minutes later, crushing you as she…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 11: Further Than the Universe and Friendship with God
What is friendship? How do you know when you’re friends with someone? The Christmas episode of A Place Further than the Universe grapples with this deceptively complex topic…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 1: Asteroid in Love
[The LORD] determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names. – Psalm 147:4, ESV When the psalmist wrote this verse a couple…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 4: The Idolmaster
“You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. (…) He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 5: The Duke Of Christmas & Friendship
How would you like to spend Christmas in a massive mansion with a butler and a maid at your service? You don’t have to cook since the maid…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 2: Deaimon’s Small Christmas
Most often, Christmas anime episodes are either a light-hearted, slice-of-life-style celebration of established friendships and romantic relationships, or they’re the culmination of some kind of dr…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 2: Kodocha
Greetings everyone! Your Prodigious Cajun Samurai Josh here with my first contribution to the 12 Days of Christmas festivities! This is my first time participating in one of…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 9: Nichijou
“…the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 1: The Angel Next Door Knows the Christmas Blues
A study from late last year discovered something many of us know intimately to be true: Christmastime can be incredibly lonely. The survey indicated that 55% of Americans…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 6: Communicating Christmas to Komi and the King
Like many of you, I spend the week between Thanksgiving and Christmas each year struggling to find just the right gifts for my loved ones. Sure, I could…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 1: Martian Successor Nadesico’s Epiphanies
It’s the year 2199. The bright future of humanity is frustrated when alien invaders unleash radioactive meteorite bombs, poisoning Earth. But a message arrives from Mars: There’s hope…
The Power of God and Anime (Ep. 13) x The 12 Days of Christmas Anime (Day 6): Happy Lesson
It’s the crossover episode! Today, Mike joins the 12 Days of Christmas Anime countdown by discussing kindness and caring through a Christmas episode of Happy Lesson. But before…
Azumanga Daioh: The Animation, Heavy, How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?, The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
The 12 Days of Christmas Anime
What do you think of when you think “Christmas?” Santa Claus? Snow? Presents under the tree? Romantic dates, Christmas cake, and KFC? Wait…KFC? If the Colonel came to…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 8: Throwback Thursday and Favorite Christmas Posts
Welcome to a spirited edition of Throwback Thursday! Yes, we’re joining the “Spirit of Christmas Past” today as we cross TBT over with our 12 Days of Christmas…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 12: R.O.D the TV’s Slow, Strange Christmas Miracle
The Christmas episode of R.O.D the TV centers on a classic Christmas miracle, where a little orphan girl on the verge of freezing and starving is adopted into…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 5: Anne’s Perfect Christmas Gift
Christmas is all about gifts, but not just in a superficial way. No, as the Christmas episode of Akage no An reminds us, the joy of giving and…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 8: Christmas Dandadan Art Stream!
If you didn’t join us last night for our livestream, you’re in luck—we’ve got it recorded posted here just for you! Whit chatted with our subscribers last night…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 3: Sing Christmas For Me
Sing “Yesterday” for Me is one of the moodier anime of recent years, but it is also a thoughtful one, particularly when it examines the hold that longing…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 9: Horimiya and Relationships of the Season
In episode 12 of Horimiya, the manifold relationships are bouncing in all different directions. Some are growing toward romance, some are in a weird in-between state, and some,…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 7: Space Brothers
Greetings everyone! Your Prodigious Cajun Samurai Josh here with my second contribution to the 12 Days of Christmas festivities! Originally, I had volunteered to do the mini-episode from…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 8: Usagi Drop
Season’s Greetings everybody! Your Cajun Samurai Josh here bringing the Christmas cheer once again with another contribution to the 12 Days of Christmas festivities. This time around, I’ll…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 5: K-On!
I remember when I was younger, I would always wake up on Christmas Day and the first thing I would do was open the curtains to see if…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 7: Yuki Yuna, Santa Claus & a Gift to Change the Ages
Christmas celebrations in the broken, besieged world of Yuki Yuna is a Hero provide a welcome respite for the bruised and battered girls of the Hero Club—an afternoon’s…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 4: Kimi ni Todoke and a Vulnerable Christmas
Does anyone think of “vulnerability” and “trust” when they think of Christmas? Perhaps not, especially when we turn toward anime, which emphasizes the holiday as an occasion for…
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[12 Days of Anime] Day 1: ODDTAXI
Was there ever any doubt? One episode into ODDTAXI and I knew that what we had here was a masterpiece in the making, an anime we’d be talking…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 5: A Very Merry Christmas Kaiju!
Evolving into a better, perhaps more spiritual person can make you unrecognizable. This might be a hardship initially, but transformation can carry much beauty—life and the people around…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 10: Nagatoro, Senpai, and Seasonal Distractions
It’s December 24th, a day of romance for high schoolers in Japan. Even Senpai, who never likes to get his expectations too high, can’t help but dream of…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 11: The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya
“Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” Haruhi Suzumiya, this bossy, unpredictable…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 3: The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki
The Disappearance of Nagato Yuki is a charming spinoff full of amusing nods to the better-known anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. But although Haruhi gets booted from…
12 Days of Christmas Anime: Patlabor
Day 11: Victory May all of our dear readers be enjoying a happy and penitential Advent in preparation for the feast which—to quote the carol “God Rest Ye…
12 Days of Christmas Anime (2021)
Last Christmas, we posted 12 timesChristmas anime right up to the DayThis year to save you from tearsWe’ll keep doing this Christmas special (to the tune of Last…
12 Days of Christmas Anime (2019)
Christmastime is a season of anticipation and celebration, of looking forward to an event that already happened, one which brought hope to the world, and rejoicing in the…
12 Days of Christmas Anime (2022)
Christmas is just a few weeks out, and as we anticipate its coming, our staff at Beneath the Tangles wants to encourage you to consider how meaningful the…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 3: Rent-a-Girlfriend
Rent-a-Girlfriend is a trainwreck of an anime—but not in a bad way. In fact, it’s a lot of fun, even if it’s often full of cringe, most of…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 9: Log Horizon’s Resurrections
Christmas happens in the second season of Log Horizon, but it’s just an incidental part of a multi-episode arc (or maybe it’s two parallel arcs, depending on how…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 2: Echidna Figure Giveaway!
From the very beginning, gift-giving has been a feature of Christmas (see Matthew 2:1-12). In that spirit, and with our ministry’s focus on anime, we have a gift…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 9: Tsuki Ga Kirei
Hey guys, your Blue Socked Samurai Josh here, with day nine of the Twelve Days of Christmas Anime! You know, when I was going through the large list…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 5: Sword Art Online
Because I’m a hopeless SAO fanboy, I’m writing about Sword Art Online’s Christmas episode…again. I did so last year, and others have done the same three and five…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 4: Kids on the Slope and the Christmas That Went Wrong
Jazz is an odd choice in Christmas music, don’t you think? Perhaps a carol or a classic piece that everybody in the family knows, one that speaks of…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 12: The Many Christmases of Kurau: Phantom Memory
For Ayaka Steiger, Christmas is awful. When she was still a child, the conflicted antagonist of Kurau: Phantom Memory lost her entire family on Christmas Eve to a…
Fanart Friday x 12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 2: Classics Club Christmas
Welcome to day two of this year’s 12 Days of Christmas Anime! Instead of a regular article today, we’re crossing over into our Fanart Friday series and this…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 10: Is the Order a Rabbit?
Christmas is swiftly falling upon the wood-framed town in which Cocoa and her friends live. That means Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, and Christmas shopping—and Cocoa’s ecstatic. Sin…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 4: Of Christmas Dates and Being a Girl – the Trials of Tomo-chan
In the wonderful realm of anime, we get to experience Christmas from the perspective of the Japanese, who view Christmas primarily as a holiday for couples. Perhaps this…
The 12 Days of Christmas Anime Begins Thursday!
Christmas is just around the corner, which means…anime? Well, for Beneath the Tangles it does as we being our annual “12 Days of Christmas Anime” series starting this…
The 12 Days of Christmas Anime Begins Saturday!
Christmas is just a couple of weeks away and that means it’s time for our annual tradition: the 12 Days of Christmas Anime! For those new to it,…
12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 3: Sword Art Online, Death and Birth
Yo ho ho, piratical Christmas?! I’ve kind of made it a personal challenge as to how many posts I can write out of “Red Nosed Reindeer,” the third…