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Anime Editorials

Can anime do horror?

Truly good horror anime is hard to find. Anime tends to use many elements of horror, but it rarely adds up to something that’s scary.

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Anime Reviews

Is it more painful to wait? Or to keep someone waiting?

Writing, even anime blogging, can be hard. We all have ideas about what makes good writing and that’s why, sometimes, I have trouble doing it for this blog. I want to write posts that are, in their own ways, perfect. I know that’s an unrealistic goal, but I try anyway, and this whole process gradually becomes a huge weight for me to carry. I’m insecure; I’m rarely happy with how any given post turns out, but I keep trying anyway, because I hold out the hope that you will want to read these words, flawed as they may be.

This was all dragged up by the Run, Melos! arc of Aoi Bungaku, two of the loveliest and most emotional episodes of anime I’ve seen.

Categories
Anime Editorials

No DVD drive on your Macbook air? No problem.

Free.  Legal.  And released within a week of the show’s Japan air date.  Streaming video is something that I have craved ever since I started watching anime.  I always feel guilty about not doing enough to support the industry, even if I do buy more anime than a normal person should.  Watching streaming anime gives me a way to offer my support without needing to shell out $30 for 13 episodes.  The biggest (legal) services right now are Cunchyroll, Netflix and Hulu.

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Anime Reviews

Good morning, angels.

In honor of Aniplex’s recent announcement of a new Read or Die (“ROD”) Blu-Ray box set I thought it was high time to review the television series.  The box set itself deserves a mention, all 26 episodes of the Read or Die TV, the 3 part OVA and a booklet, all supposedly identical to the Japanese Blu-Ray box version.  Then there is the price, $159.98 for pre-orders!  A few years ago I thought $80 for a series was horrendously expensive, but this is just ridiculous.  As another fan mentioned on Aniplex’s facebook page, “the year 2000 called and it wants its single season anime pricing back!”  So unless you own the Geneon DVD release (you’ll have to pry mine from my cold dead hands!) be prepared to order it on Netflix.  And order it you shall, because this is honestly one of the best anime out there.

Categories
Anime Editorials Reviews

Autumn ’10 impressions

batesziWelcome to yet another autumn run-down! Everything is loosely ranked into a makeshift top 10 and we’ve tried to keep our impressions short and to the point, but if there’s anything you want clarified, feel free to question us (and our opinions) in the comments. We’ve missed out certain series because they are sequels to things we haven’t seen (or indeed, dropped in the past,) but I hope this at least gives you an idea of where we stand with the new anime season (don’t forget to vote in our poll, too!)

Categories
Anime Reviews

Am I looking at the sky, or the sea?

Though it borrows from the mythos of the (very real) city of Venice, there’s something pleasantly unreal about Aria. Rather, not unreal so much as there is a disregard for the idea and constraints of reality. Perhaps Aria seeks not to undermine reality as we know it, but in its ‘New Venice’, create its own sense of reality.