Category: Editorials
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Why do anime fans dislike Japan Sinks: 2020?
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Read More →: Why do anime fans dislike Japan Sinks: 2020?I’ve read more than a few people describe this anime as a “dumpster fire”, but I don’t think that’s fair. In my opinion, it’s one of the best anime of 2020, but one thing’s for sure: it’s now definitely the most underrated. I’ve already talked about how it wasn’t made for anime fans by contrasting…
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Re:ZERO vs Japan Sinks: anime for fans vs anime for everyone
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Read More →: Re:ZERO vs Japan Sinks: anime for fans vs anime for everyoneA few weeks ago, I made a second attempt to watch Re:ZERO. It’s not exactly an unpopular show, so I figured that maybe the first time around it just caught me at the wrong time. People often speak about it with a sense of reverie, suggesting that it “may seem like just another isekai fantasy,…
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What is your personal anime golden age?
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Read More →: What is your personal anime golden age?For me, a personal anime golden age is any consecutive run of 3 years in which the highest number of your favourites are gathered. 3 years may seem arbitrary, but I’ve chosen this specific range because, at least from my experience, the vast majority of anime fans tend to live and die in that time,…
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Winter 2020 anime season: a final say
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Read More →: Winter 2020 anime season: a final sayThe snow outside is melting, the birds are singing and the flowers are blooming. Ever so quietly, even as the world feels like it’s frozen in time, Spring has crept up on us guys, and with us now on the eve of another wave of new anime, I thought it would be fun to rundown…
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Humanity between the lines: Tsubame in Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
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Read More →: Humanity between the lines: Tsubame in Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!“I realised something working on it. That to me, life is about working on stuff like this. And there’s nothing I can do about that, now.” Tsubame on falling in love with animation in Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! I was still at school when I realised what I wanted to do with my life,…
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Tower of God gets an anime: the exciting webtoon blazing a trail
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Read More →: Tower of God gets an anime: the exciting webtoon blazing a trailThe popular webtoon Tower of God is getting an anime series in April, but what is it? Heck, what is a webtoon? Let’s dive into the future of comics!
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The cancelled ero anime stream: Interspecies Reviewers
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Read More →: The cancelled ero anime stream: Interspecies ReviewersWhen sex and anime collides, something has to give! Interspecies Reviewers is the horny anime that broke Funimation.
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Noi Problem: The Awesomely Weird Characters of Dorohedoro
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Read More →: Noi Problem: The Awesomely Weird Characters of DorohedoroLooking like a cross between professional wrestlers and the Cenobites of Hellraiser, the characters of Dorohedoro are awesomely weird. Weird because it’s like watching Pinhead and Freddy Krueger sit down for a cup of tea in-between murdering a bunch of people and stuffing their bloody remains in a bin bag, and awesome because, well, what…
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The Ethical Dilemma at the End of Weathering With You
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Read More →: The Ethical Dilemma at the End of Weathering With YouWeathering With You is another archetypal, gorgeous Makoto Shinkai film, but something about its ending is a bit… off. Allow me to explain.
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From manga to anime: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
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Read More →: From manga to anime: Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is probably the best anime of the Winter season, so let’s review what we can of its manga and learn a bit more about how a certain mangaka came to live out the dreams of his lively characters.
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Hype for Blade of the Immortal
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Read More →: Hype for Blade of the ImmortalTo use modern parlance: Blade of the Immortal is problematic, but that’s fine. I don’t read manga or watch anime to feel clean and like everything’s okay. Quite frankly, I’d much rather be dragged through the mud by a story, and with a guy like Hiroshi Hamasaki at the helm, I wouldn’t expect any less.
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Okay to delete: forgetting meaningful anime
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Read More →: Okay to delete: forgetting meaningful animeAs soon as I’ve finished an anime series, no matter how meaningful it was to me, it’s strictly consigned to the past and starts gathering dust in the parts of my mind marked ‘Okay to delete’.
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Spring status update
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Read More →: Spring status updateAs I reflect on how things have been going for the blog since November last year, I’m satisfied that I’ve been able to post something new most weeks. I feel like I’m into the routine of writing about anime again. The Winter season was good for me: from Dororo and The Promised Neverland through to…
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Spring 2019 anime preview
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Read More →: Spring 2019 anime previewI could end up watching a lot of anime come April.
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A warm heart in the grim worlds of Dororo & Rurouni Kenshin
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Read More →: A warm heart in the grim worlds of Dororo & Rurouni KenshinWatching Dororo has helped me realise that Kazuhiro Furuhashi is one of my favourite anime directors. He is the man responsible for directing the breathtaking Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal (Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuioku-hen) which is a marked departure from Kenshin’s much lighter TV series and tonally has much more in common with Dororo. In short,…
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The (Anti) Shonen Hero
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Read More →: The (Anti) Shonen HeroWhen Dororo begins, Hyakkimaru’s at his strongest. Without nerves, he cannot feel pain, and without pain, what is there for him to fear? He can jump higher and fall harder than any man because there are no bones in his legs to break. In many shonen anime, characters like Naruto and Izuku begin at the…
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The visual eccentricity of Mob Psycho 100
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Read More →: The visual eccentricity of Mob Psycho 100The new Mob Psycho 100 II trailer was released last week and I’m pumped! I admire its story but what’s really pushing me over the edge is the animation. It’s such a weird looking anime, heavily influenced by One’s manga, but brought to life by Bones in a rare and lavish attempt to go all out on a story…
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Surviving as an anime fan
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Read More →: Surviving as an anime fanIt’s easy at first. You just need to watch anime. That’s all it takes. For a few years, that’s all I did. I finished one anime and moved to the next. At some point though, things changed. I became curious and the sub-culture opened itself to me. Why anime? I don’t know. It’s been this…
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When it’s easier to pay than to pirate
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Read More →: When it’s easier to pay than to pirateEarlier this week, Netflix announced that it will begin streaming Neon Genesis Evangelion in April 2019. The 1995 Evangelion TV series is not only one of the most popular anime ever made, it’s also one of the rarest to own on US/UK home video. Since 2005, for various reasons, it has seen neither a home video release nor a…
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Winning & losing, running & writing – Run with the Wind
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Read More →: Winning & losing, running & writing – Run with the WindIf the end goal is to win, how easy is it to enjoy doing a thing? Be it playing table tennis, running in a marathon or just writing for your blog, we do things for complicated reasons that don’t always mean having fun. In Run with the Wind, Kakeru is a talented runner and the…
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Exciting new anime coming out in 2019
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Read More →: Exciting new anime coming out in 2019In the afterglow of last week’s Fruits Basket anime announcement, it dawned on me that 2019 is going to be a particularly exciting year for anime. Enthused, I dug a bit deeper into what 2019 has in store for us and, well, hold on to your hats!
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The balloon scene in Made in Abyss
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Read More →: The balloon scene in Made in AbyssA message in a bottle cast into a bottomless ocean.
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Rediscovering Shonen Jump anime
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Read More →: Rediscovering Shonen Jump animeWatching anime, I go through peaks and troughs. The start of the year was a peak, but throughout February, I’ve been in a bit of a trough trying to find something new to watch and fall in love with. At some point, I remembered that there’s a whole bunch of Shonen Jump anime that I…
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A bright shining future
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Read More →: A bright shining futureI can’t speak for Japan, but right now in England, young adults are having a hard time. Money seems harder to come by than ever for many who are working all hours to afford their month’s rent, let alone buying a home without a mortgage that’s loaded with high interest rates. It’s a scary, often…
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For good anime
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Read More →: For good animeThrough preference as much as necessity, the way I’m consuming anime today is different to how I used to, say, 10 years ago. Back then, I relied on downloading fansubs and watching anime as it aired in Japan, one episode per week. I was in deep. Today, I hardly rely on fansubs at all, because…
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Pure Anime
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Read More →: Pure AnimeHey guys. I know, I know. It’s been nearly 2 years. Putting pen to paper hasn’t been easy. I’ve been a bit jaded and distracted, but still, I think about writing. Every time I walk away, something brings me back. It’s because I love writing. I honestly miss it. This year I put down some…
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Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to see more
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Read More →: Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to see moreAfter a long absence, it is time for me to officially step away from writing here (just me, not the site’s other writers). As a parting post, I would like to share my thoughts on anime that stand the test of time. Even older titles that were created with a Japanese audience in mind can…
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The first rule of Bento Fight Club is: You do not talk about Bento Fight Club
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Read More →: The first rule of Bento Fight Club is: You do not talk about Bento Fight Club(Bateszi reviewed this back in November of 2011, I’m revisiting it in light of Funimation’s upcoming February release of the show) A strong signal that a series is great is that you can easily summarize the concept and get someone to watch it based on that short description. Ben-To is just that kind of show.…
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As long as we stay here in this world all that's awaiting us is death
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Read More →: As long as we stay here in this world all that's awaiting us is deathOn the blu-ray packaging, Funimation trumpets the Eureka Seven television series as “The Greatest Love Story Ever Animated.” Where that series is centered around love, the movie re-imagination, Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers, is all about death. In particular, it is about the fear of death. Even the crew of the Gekko,…
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Ghost in the Shell: The College Years
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Read More →: Ghost in the Shell: The College YearsGhost in the Shell: Arise marks Production IG’s attempt to reboot the classic franchise. With multiple successful superhero and anime reboots out in the wild, it’s only a matter of time before others (certainly Dragonball) get remade. Movie and television producers reboot well loved shows to appeal to modern audiences. The story, the characters, and the special…
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Band Spotlight: White Ash
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Read More →: Band Spotlight: White AshI was first introduced to this wonderful band through “Crowds”, the OP of Gatchaman Crowds (which I still haven’t finished) and instantly fell in love with the edgy, deep voice of the female vocalist. But after looking for the song on YouTube, I discovered that the vocalist is actually a male, a very geeky looking…
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I Can't Think of a Cool Nickname
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Read More →: I Can't Think of a Cool Nickname“Hey, hey! Shizu-chan’s definitely in love with Izaya. Two guys… Like BL!” Wow, writing an introductory post is extremely difficult. I’m quite the talkative person but things like this make me a bit shy. Hello! My name is Kiara. I am a junior in college and am double majoring in Japanese and English. You could…
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Kickstartering the future of anime
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Read More →: Kickstartering the future of animeThis article is my third attempt at writing a piece about crowd funding and anime, each time I’ve tried to do so another development forced me to re-write it, illustrating just how quickly crowdsourcing is reshaping the anime industry. Kick-Heart, the anime kickstarter by Production IG, was the first big crowd funding success. It proved…
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Death to the fantasy
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Read More →: Death to the fantasyOf all the new anime that I’ve seen this season, it’s probably WataMote that has left me with the strongest impression, to the point where I went ahead and started reading the manga straight after watching it. With its English title of No Matter How I Look At It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Unpopular!…
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Power and responsibility in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet
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Read More →: Power and responsibility in Gargantia on the Verdurous PlanetThere’s something of a power struggle going on in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet. Although he doesn’t seem to want it, Ledo could easily become a tyrant. His robot is so powerful that the sheer disparity in strength between him and everyone else is frightening. What will he do next?
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U mad, bro? Fujoshis, Swimming Anime and Kyoto Animation
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Read More →: U mad, bro? Fujoshis, Swimming Anime and Kyoto AnimationWhen I think about Free!, known and loved by all of tumblr and the internet as Swimming Anime, I find myself in a bit of a dreamlike haze.
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Japanese punk
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Read More →: Japanese punkLately, I’ve felt a little empty. Waiting for something to spark a little inspiration in me. So, as I often do, I ended-up on YouTube, listening to music, when The Blue Hearts appeared with their song, Linda Linda. It’s a Japanese punk-rock song that you’ll have heard before if you’ve seen the film Linda Linda…
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Read or Die: One Last Hurrah
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Read More →: Read or Die: One Last HurrahI’ve already reviewed Read or Die (aka R.O.D.), but wanted to provide an update now that Rightstuf is close to selling out of the Blu-Ray version. In my last review review I balked at the price of that edition, but this past December I broke down and bought it. For those on the fence I’ve…
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Say I love you or they won’t want you; sexual capital in Sukitte Ii Na Yo
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Read More →: Say I love you or they won’t want you; sexual capital in Sukitte Ii Na YoI read quite a bit of shoujo manga. As such, I was quite pleased to see that Sukitte Ii Na Yo received an anime adaption this fall. It’s an interesting one, because, while stubbornly about teenagers’ romantic involvements, it really isn’t. If you’re watching Sukitte Ii Na Yo, or if you’ve written it off as ‘just another shoujo show’,…
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Life imitates art: the TED Prize
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Read More →: Life imitates art: the TED PrizeIn a somewhat odd series of events, the TED prize (associated with the eponymous talk-producing website, naturally) – normally $100,000 USD has increased to a total sum of $1,000,000. Moreover, the process by which the prize is awarded has changed slightly. To quote the organization’s blog post: “But, while historically the prize has been awarded to…
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Wanderlust girls: The manga of Tsuruta Kenji
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Read More →: Wanderlust girls: The manga of Tsuruta KenjiHave you ever travelled, my friends? Have you ever packed your bags, left home, returning months later? Or not at all? With a nervousness that travels from the soles of your feet to the soles of your feet to the whites of your eyes, borded a plane, feeling as if every atom in your body…
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Virtual/Reality: Sword Art Online
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Read More →: Virtual/Reality: Sword Art Online“There is no doubt that this is a virtual world, that everything we see and touch is an imitation created from data. But to us, our hearts do exist within this reality. If that’s true, then everything we’re experiencing here should also be true.” Asuna, Sword Art Online I’ve never played an MMO, but I’ve…