Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime Review: Magilumiere (Season 1)

It feels weird praising a show about a business – and a startup at that – in the times we’re in, but such is the case with Magilumiere. It’s one of several shows over the past few years that have used the framework of Japanese corporate storytelling to kinda give a discrete middle finger at more toxic elements of Japanese corporate culture, while depicting a framework that could potentially not suck – in this case also, in a weird way, riffing on what a modern Japanese take on Ghostbusters might look like.

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Anime Review: DanDaDan

DanDaDan is an anime series that has a rough start. If someone were to drop it after the first episode, I’d completely understand. As the series goes on it tells a story with a tremendous mix of action, humor, and charm, but I’d also say that some of those rougher risque elements never quite go away.

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Anime Review: 2.5 Dimensional Seduction (Season 1)

My Dress-Up Darling was a show I enjoyed immensely and one I ended up watching multiple times, including for the Anime Explorations Podcast. I appreciated how the show got into the work of creating cosplay costumes. However, it felt like there was something missing, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Watching the first season of 2.5 Dimensional Seduction made me realize what those things were, because this show filled those gaps remarkably well.

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2025 New Year’s Resolutions: Anime

I didn’t quite get through all my shows that I’d picked for my 2024 New Year’s Resolutions this year, and to a degree this is a bit of my own doing, because I’d also not accounted to something that I had at my disposal: the podcast. Several of the shows that I’d picked, honestly, would have been good podcast fodder. Admittedly, some of those were also shows that would have been difficult to do on the podcast due to lack of streaming availability (like Betterman, Freedom, or Teknolyze). However, other ones – including one of the leftover shows, were. So, when it came to doing my list for this year, I put my list together based on two things: what would finish up the AniList Advanced Challenge for me and what would make for good podcast fodder.

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Anime Review: Freedom

By all rights, an anime OVA series made for the anniversary of Cup Noodle feels like it should be bad. However, while Katsuhiro Otomo didn’t write Freedom, the fact that he got involved enough to get into character and mechanical designs should be a sign that this show could actually be pretty good. It turns out that not only is it good, but it’s good enough that I’d consider this something of a hidden gem.

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Anime Explorations Episode 26: Garden of Sinners (Pt. 1-3)

This time we discuss the first 3 films in the Garden of Sinners series of movies, which are available for streaming on Crunchyroll.

Anime Explorations Episode 26: Garden of Sinners (Pt. 1-3)

This time we discuss the first 3 films in the Garden of Sinners series of movies, which are available for streaming on Crunchyroll. Next time we’re watching Animal Treasure Island, which is available for streaming on the Internet Archive, and which also received a physical release from Discotek Media.

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So far, for the Fall 2024 season, I’ve only dropped one show so far – and that was How I Attended an All-Guy’s Mixer. The short version for that is this – I was interested in the show as a sort of gender-fluid BL-lite series. Not quite full on BL, but a series that could play with the tropes in interesting ways. However, the second episode felt a lot like it was relying a lot on “No Homo” jokes – to enough of a point that I basically went “Nah” – and I decided to drop it and pick up a proper BL anime later. So, How I Attended an All-Guy’s Mixer does not get a recommend from me.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime Review: Betterman

Betterman was an anime series I watched a fair amount of on TechTV back when TechTV was a thing and it showed anime, before it became the G4 network. At the time I hadn’t heard about GaoGaiGar, and I didn’t have any form of DVR (and never got around to programming the VCR to tape it when it was on), so I never caught the whole show. However, at long last, in 2024, I have finally watched the show in its entirety and can give my thoughts – finishing it not long after Halloween.

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Anime Review: Dead Dead Demon’s DeDeDeDe Destruction

I have heard very good things for quite some time about mangaka Inio Asano’s work – and I’ve also heard it’s tremendously bleak to the point of absolute nihilism, so for a while, I’ve been hesitant to read his stuff. When I learned his manga Dead Dead Demon’s DeDeDeDe Destruction (henceforth DeDeDeDe) was getting an anime adaptation and that it was one of his more… approachable works, I figured I would give the show a watch. The resulting show is interesting and messy – messy in some intentional ways, and some ways that may not be (and if those other ways are intentional it doesn’t reflect well on him).

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Anime Review: Spy X Family: Code White

Spy X Family has joined One Piece and My Hero Academia in the annals of (at the time of release) currently running Shonen Jump (or Jump+) anime adaptations that have gotten non-canonical (or mostly non-canonical in the case of MHA) anime film tie-ins. In this case, we have Spy X Family: Code White, which sends the Forger family on a weekend vacation to the mountains, leading to some Bond-Film-level shenanigans.

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Anime Review – Texhnolyze

So, the second of the anime series on my New Year’s Resolution list that I’m done with is one I’m dropping – Texhnolyze. I did give it a reasonable try – getting about a cour through the series before I had enough, and because I had the show on my resolution list, I do feel it’s important to talk about why this series failed for me when two other Chiaki Konaka projects – Serial Experiments Lain and The Big O – were fine.

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Anime Explorations Episode 22: My Neighbor Totoro & Akira

This month I’m joined by Blaine of the Babylon 5 30 Years Later and 99 Years 100 Films Podcasts (at Bureau42.com) to discuss My Neighbor Totoro & Akira.

Episode 22: My Neighbor Totoro & Akira

This month I’m joined by Blaine of the Babylon 5 30 Years Later and 99 Years 100 Films Podcasts (at Bureau42.com) to discuss My Neighbor Totoro & Akira. Referenced Links: Akira Production Report Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcY248hbwwU Mythology Behind My Neighbor Totoro: https://www.followthemoonrabbit.com/totoro-mythology/ My Neighbor Totoro is available for streaming on Max in the US and on Netflix internationally.

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Anime Review: Wind Breaker (Season 1)

After having read the manga Crows a while back, I got a new appreciation of the Juvenile Delinquent manga, so when a Juvenile Delinquent anime, Wind Breaker, showed up in the Spring 2024 anime list, I figured I should give it a try. It didn’t have the same degree of character depth as Crows, but I still found it to be an enjoyable show.

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Anime Review: Laid Back Camp Season 3

Laid Back Camp has, consistently, been a chill (you might even say “Laid Back”) anime series about informing the viewer about going camping, while also providing some chill vibes to accompany it, and it has generally succeeded. Season 2 stepped some things up by having some arcs include potential complications you can run into while camping – and the film covered some of the wrinkles you can run into if you decide to make a campground. Season 3 continues with the chill vibes, while also getting into “What might you have to deal with when traveling to your campground?”

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Anime Review: Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included

Often with an anime series, you get the caveat of “Oh, it has a weak start, but it really sticks the landing in the conclusion” or the warning of “Oh, it has a good start, but really fumbles the landing”. Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included has the weird instance of being a series with a weak start, a weak end, but a really strong middle portion of the series. The series, which I’m going to just call Studio Apartment for the sake of brevity – starts out as a pretty standard magical girlfriend series, and ends as a magical girlfriend harem series – but there’s a moment in the middle, where the series really finds its feet as the supporting cast builds up – and where it has some interesting humor to go with it.

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Posted on by Alexander Case

Quick Update on my Anime Holy Grails

Another item on my Anime Holy Grail List is getting a US release – AnimeNewsNetwork has reported that Gkids, in addition to distributing Angel’s Egg in theaters, will also be giving the film a physical release as well. Now, this is just one item on the list, so I’m not going to do a full revision as yet (I’ll want 3 items off the list before I add some replacements), but it’s good to see this title get distribution.

Here’s hoping I don’t have to wait too long for those next two titles to make it off the list.

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