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An Autumn Update

The beginning of Autumn (in the UK) is one of my favourite times of year. There’s just something about the colour of the sunlight, especially in the mornings, like a momentary pause in time, that puts my mind at ease and invites introspective feelings (not to mention, the snoring cat curled up beside me). So, naturally, over a late lunch on this rainy October Sunday afternoon, my mind inevitably drifts to anime, and therefore this anime blog. It has been my muse for so long, after all.

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Anime Editorials

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 it directly with anime du jour Re:Zero, but let’s dig into the complaints a bit more. What exactly is it about this series that anime fans hate?

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Anime Editorials

Re:ZERO vs Japan Sinks: anime for fans vs anime for everyone

A 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, but it’s actually a much deeper story than that!”. I’ve even seen it compared to Berserk, which to me is the highest praise one can laud upon an anime series, and from then on I was like, “Okay, I must’ve been wrong about this!”.

12 episodes later and…

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Anime Editorials

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, leaving behind their lists and blogs as if time suddenly stood still, their scribblings, once filled with such joy and passion, now mere archives for the future generations of warbling young otaku to laugh at and build on, and so it continues. Anyway… before this all becomes a bit too existential, let’s crack on, shall we? Hi, I’m your local anime ghost, also known as bateszi, and here’s my personal anime golden age.

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Anime Editorials

Spring 2020 anime season rankings (and thoughts on anime blogging)

3,112 words later, I’m finally finished with my Spring anime season reviews, and what a promising season it’s turned out to be! I ended up reviewing 9 anime over the last few weeks, and I couldn’t say any of them were even average, let alone bad.

Phew!

Given the state of the things in the world right now, with so many of us living in isolation, we need anime now more than ever, and it’s delivering guys.

We all need escapism, to let ourselves go wander in other worlds. Like dreams, anime can help us process reality in abstract ways, to make sense of how we’re feeling at a deeper level than simply watching the news all day and feeling like the world’s collapsing around us. Read, watch, play: give yourself a break, and take care!

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Anime Editorials Reviews

Winter 2020 anime season: a final say

The 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 how I ended up fairing with the Winter season.

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Anime Editorials

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, that I wanted to make websites. I was never worried about it, I never questioned it, it was just what I was going to do. Like Tsubame drawing on her tablet deep into the night, I’d find myself writing code at every opportunity, my dark room lit by the computer’s screen, totally immersed. This played out again and again. Sometimes without even realising it, you’re doing it because you love it, because there’s a deep part of yourself being nourished, like a sun that’s always shining, it becomes something that you don’t want to let go.

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Anime Editorials Reviews

Tower of God gets an anime: the exciting webtoon blazing a trail

The 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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Anime Editorials

The cancelled ero anime stream: Interspecies Reviewers

When sex and anime collides, something has to give! Interspecies Reviewers is the horny anime that broke Funimation.

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Anime Editorials

Noi Problem: The Awesomely Weird Characters of Dorohedoro

Looking 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 isn’t awesome about that?