Milky Subway: The Galactic Limited Express (2025) - REVIEW

“If you don't fix your ways soon, do you think anyone's gonna come to your rescue when you need it?”

Milky Subway is a 12 episode ONA series that was written, directed, and animated all by one person - Yōhei Kameyama.

With each episode only being roughly 3 minutes, it’s an incredibly short series, but it has so much packed into it. A wonderfully realized world with incredible backgrounds and character designs, it’s backed by promising world-building and character dynamics and backstories. While it’s mainly a comedy series, and a hilarious one at that, it manages to squeeze a lot of themes of classism in between all the punchlines.

In the midst of this conversation with classism, Milky Subway also toys with the idea of AI, its place in the world, and its terrifying future potentials.

A lot of the aesthetics of the episodes, from the typography and editing, the jarring cuts mid dialogue to ramp humor, and the setting title cards, feel like it’s borrowing some from the Guardians of the Galaxy movies - but it fits perfectly with the tone established.

Milky Subway: The Galactic Limited Express comes across as a deeply personal story, a truly free creative endeavor from the visionary mind of a single person. It’s able to show so much love and passion in every corner of the frame, and does so much more in such a short run time than most studios could ever reach for, proving that sometimes there are just too many cooks in a kitchen that are all trying to please the most common denominator, when really all that’s needed is a creative expressing themselves. It’s absolutely earned a place on the Definitive Top 100 Anime of All Time List.

My Current MAL Rating: 7/10

Top 100 Contender: Yes

Current Top 100 Ranking: 41/100