There’s a point, in a flashback sequence in The Detective Is Already Dead, where the titular Detective, Siesta, is asked by our protagonist and her sidekick, Kimihiko, why she calls herself a detective when she’s closer to being a spy. Siesta responds that she protects the interests of her client, which what a detective does, so she chooses to identify herself (professionally) as a Detective. This kind of encapsulates the show in a nutshell.
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Many romantic comedy anime series use misunderstandings as the focus of their humor. Something is misheard, or not told, and it sets up a snowballing series of events, like in Maison Ikkoku. Girlfriend, Girlfriend is the exact opposite of that. It is a series based on the fundamental premise of “What if people were maybe just a little too open and direct?”
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Saturn 3 feels like a film coming off of the environmental dystopia films of the 1970s – like Silent Running – combined with a bit of horror. However, having a cast smaller than that of Alien – just 3 actors – ultimately ends up working against the film.
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It Came From Beneath The Sea is the kind of giant monster movie I can enjoy mostly guilt free. No appliances glued or stapled onto animals – just good old fashioned, cruelty-free Ray Harryhausen stop-motion. It’s how Willis O’Brian did it – it’s how the movie industry had done, and at that point in the ‘50s it had worked pretty well so far.
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My Next Life As A Villainess All Routes Lead To Doom X (or HameFura Season 2 for short) – continues the adventures of Katarina Claes. In the first season she successfully survived the events of the otome game “Fortune Lover” after being reincarnated as that game’s antagonist – and in the process got every possible route (and rival, and the game’s protagonist) to fall for her, all without deliberately trying to do so, and she is still unaware of this fact. Now with a bright future ahead of her, clearly it’s all just slice of life comedy, right? Well… not exactly.
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I have been known to enjoy a fan-service anime or two in varying circumstances – even series with premises that, at first glance can be skeezy, can be executed well – as with What The Hell Are You Doing Here, Teacher? I had hoped that Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory would fit into that criteria – and it almost does. However, it has a few points that don’t quite make it work.
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I normally don’t review shows when I drop them, though considering my reasons for dropping Babylon in 2019, I probably should have done so. Considering that, and with how far I got in Night Head 2041, I feel I’ve watched enough of the show to make it worth reviewing. And, much like Babylon, it had done enough to draw me in, in spite of some serious red flags, that I do want to talk about it.
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Silver Hawk is a film that feels a lot like it’s part of various SE Asian countries (not just Hong Kong, but also Taiwan) film industries’ making their own attempts to follow in the footsteps of the superhero films of the early 2000s – X-Men, the Spider-man movies, and the Blade films.
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The next film in the MCU is out, and the first one that really moves the timeline forward. So, it gets a little complicated to review without too much in terms of spoilers, so I’m apologizing about that in advance, as I have a Vlog Review of the movie.
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The latest Lupin the Third movie got a second theatrical run (because the first ran into Lockdown), and I got to go see it.
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I have a video this week recorded the day it was announced that the Crunchyroll/Funimation merger had been finalized. I give my thoughts on the merger, and a couple different directions it could go.
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I’ve gone and seen another recent/new release anime film in theaters, as a Fathom Event – this time the sequel to Shirobako, which I’ve reviewed previously.
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I’ve finally seen the last installment of the Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel Trilogy – which means it’s time to give my thoughts on Ufotable’s adaptations of these routes of the game.
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For the first time in over a year (almost a year and a half), I have gone to see a movie in a theater, which means it’s time for me to do a vlog on it.
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This revived version of Fruits Basket has been a long time coming – the original series came out while the manga was ongoing, and skewed more towards comedy rather than drama, and some of the core themes of the series ended up getting pushed to the side (along with some instances of mischaracterization). At long last, though, we come to the conclusion of the far more faithful adaptation of the manga, and the question becomes whether or not this can stick the landing.
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To be upfront – The World Ends With You is a game that I had no familiarity with going in. I never got around to picking up the DS version of the game, and I’d held off of picking up the Switch version mainly because I’d heard disappointing things about that particular port. So, when I learned that the game was getting an anime adaptation (just in time for a new game in the series to come out), I decided to give the show a watch.
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I will admit, I’m not as familiar with Konosuba as I’d like to be. I’ve watched some of the show in advance of my first Anime Appendix N video, but I haven’t read any of the novels (though I’m planning to rectify some of that). However, the show was very much a success, so it’s not surprising that a different series of novels from the same author – Combatants Will Be Dispatched – has also received an anime adaptation.
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The previous Gridman anime, from Trigger, hid the true meaning of those 4 S’s for that series until the last episode – “Special Signature to Save a Soul.” Dynazenon puts its meaning for those initials right up front – “Scarred Souls Shine like Stars.” The theme of this show is very much self-evident – this is a series about characters learning to cope with trauma and work through trauma, but also acknowledging that trauma is something that sticks around and doesn’t necessarily go away. And the show presents those themes through the framework of high school students working together to fight Kaiju.
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Of the past two cours’ mecha anime, Back Arrow is probably the oddest of the bunch. Like Real Robot anime, it has warring factions with what are, effectively, mass production mecha, with ace customs for more prominent named characters. Like Super Robot anime, no fucks are given as to the mechanics of how this works, to the point of the mechs effectively running on Gurren Lagann-style Hot-Blooded Gumption (fitting since Kazuki Nakashima, who wrote Gurren Lagann, wrote this) And, like Space Runaway Ideon, there are some mysteries about the source of this technology that lean towards the sinister.
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Joran: The Princess of Snow and Blood is a series that grabbed me by its premise – what appeared to be an alternative universe take on Lady Snowblood with some steampunk and supernatural trappings. While the show went off on its own directions from that elevator pitch, it did build up some goodwill that kept me engaged, even with some missteps at the start of the third act. So, the show wrapping up its run with a spectacular face plant was immensely disappointing. I will be getting into spoilers for that ending below the cut – because it strongly tainted my response to the show to an extent where I can’t really talk about my reaction without it.
Read moreThis time I’m starting off talking about some Fantasy anime that are worthy of consideration, and introduce a concept I’ll be revisiting over the course of this series – the Axis of Emotional/Comedic Intensity.
The Legendary Monsterverse has, unlike the last Western attempt at doing a Godzilla film with the 1996 film, has lead from the get-go with the monster fights. Even Kong: Skull Island had the climax of the film be a fight between Kong and the largest of the Skull Crawlers. So, when the film series made it clear that yes, Kong and Godzilla were taking place in the same universe (both with the involvement of Monarch and Skull Island‘s stinger), it was clear that somewhere down the road – Godzilla and Kong were going to have to rumble. And when the time comes for that brawl, you might as well make the main event the title – Godzilla vs Kong.
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The African Queen is what I would describe as a “Man vs. Nature” film in the guise of a “Man vs. Man” film, particularly done as a very claustrophobic character piece. It’s also, unintentionally, the latest in a theme of reviewing World War I movies.
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Much as how Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl was created by legendary manga writer and artist Naoki Urasawa in advance of the Barcelona Olympics having the first women’s Olympic Judo competition, the 2020 (now 2021) Tokyo Summer Olympics has had several sports anime released for the various new sports for those games. I’ve already discussed the bouldering anime, and we also got a surfing anime which I wasn’t really able to get into – at least not enough that I felt comfortable reviewing it. However, arguably the best of these is has been SK8: The Infinity, which wrapped just last season.
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