While the first season of Call of the Night was a series that was heavy on vibes and less on horror, the second season of the series does delve a little more into Vampire society – and also is something that really gets that while our little low-fi Camarillia is generally very chill, vampires are monsters – and even if the group that Ko is around doesn’t act like monsters, other Vampires can be monstrous.
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My Dress-Up Darling was one of the first shows we did for Anime Explorations, and it was a show we generally really enjoyed. Yes, it was a somewhat horny-on-main romantic comedy anime, but it was tonally light, and didn’t feel leering in the way that other fanservicey series did, combined with a romance between Gojo and Marin that was very sweet, so I’ve been looking forward to a second season, and was quite pleased when we finally got one this year. I already had some high expectations, but this season blew those right out of the water.
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When it comes to the Procedural genre of film, generally these works tend to put their focus on law enforcement – cops and robbers, literally. However, the cops the generally don’t cover are ones who deel with what are considered more “boring” crimes – white collar financial crimes. Smuggling is sexy, robbers are sexy, gangsters are sexy. Tax fraud is still sexy… except people stealing from workers by not properly paying taxes, people stealing from the community by not paying taxes to pay for the services the government provides that they use are still robbers. So, it’s up to a more financial cop to catch them – one like the protagonist of A Taxing Woman.
Read moreAs we go through this season of Formula 1, I talk about the anime series that got me into watching motorsport, rather than just playing racing video games – Overtake.
One of the things about having read Paperbacks From Hell is that Grady Hendrix does a really solid job of laying out that for all the ways that the horror genre can be progressive, it can also be tremendously conservative as well, drawing the root of the threat of the horror from societal prejudices. The same lies with the thriller and disaster genres – a place where The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) falls. When a screenwriter or author succumbs to the temptation to make bystanders and victims into archetypes as a shorthand, what archetypes are used matter.
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With Dune Parts 1 & 2, I wanted to hold off on seeing those movies until the story was complete. Dune was a complete novel after all, and getting half of it without the whole thing would have been frustrating. It’s the same reason why I haven’t watched part 1 of Wicked as of this writing. Part 2 isn’t out yet, so there’s only half the story. I wanted to watch the story – but I wanted to watch the full story. So, once Dune Parts 1 & 2 were released on 4K, I felt it was time to sit down and watch them both together.
Read moreHaven’t done a live-action film review in a while – time to take a look at To Live & Die In LA, another crime thriller from the director of The French Connection.
To Live & Die In LA is property of MGM, footage used under fair use.
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I’ll admit, to my shame, that I’d dismissed My Hero Academia: Vigilantes as a manga originally as something of a nothingburger side story that wasn’t worth paying attention to. This was a mistake. Instead, MHA: Vigilantes serves as a well executed prologue to the core story, giving us a chance once again to see characters we haven’t seen for a while, plus meeting a new cast.
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Kowloon Generic Romance is one of the romance anime airing in 2025, and is a series that felt the most like a shojo or josei, but is instead a Seinen series. It’s also a series that I feel like the art style doesn’t quite work out in animation.
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It’s been a minute since the last music anime I’ve watched. There have been idol anime that have aired, but while I’ve enjoyed some idol music, I’ve never really been grabbed by series like the Idolmaster franchise. However, after watching Bocchi The Rock, I found myself looking for more rock band anime, so when Rock Is A Lady’s Modesty came up in the schedule, I decided to give it a watch. I found myself getting more than I bargained for, in a good way.
Read moreThis month, we take a look at Mamoru Oshii’s Cyberpunk masterpiece, Ghost in the Shell (from 1995), along with giving some thoughts on the live-action adaptation from 2017, joined by Blaine Dowler.
Next month, we take a look at Macross II.
Blaine can be found on the Babylon 5 30 Years Later Podcast (https://shows.acast.com/babylon-5-30-years-later), and the 99 Years 100 Films Podcast (https://shows.acast.com/99-years-100-films)
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In the past few years of anime streaming, we have had escalating forms of “Streaming Jail”. First, there was Netflix Jail, where a show would sit on TV in Japan but was licensed for streaming in English on Netflix, so you had to wait until the show was done. Then there was Disney+ Jail, where the show was licensed on Disney+ internationally, and you had to wait and see if it went on that service in your region. Now, with Your Forma, we have Smart-device Specific Jail, where a series is only licensed for streaming to a service that’s locked to a specific company’s smart devices. Good news for me – I have a Samsung smartphone and tablet. Bad news for Your Forma – it can’t make it to viewers who don’t.
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Gundam Quuuux is a bit of a tricky series to recommend. First, it has the continuation of a problem that appears to have started with Witch From Mercury of series that just didn’t have enough time for their plot and characters to breathe, and not (as was the case with First Gundam) because it was cut short due to poor ratings or sponsors bailing. Second, it’s an alternative universe take on the Universal Century that doesn’t provide a lot of hooks for people who are new to that timeline. I enjoyed it, but I wonder how much of that is due to my own familiarity with the events and characters it’s playing with.
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Wind Breaker’s second season, at first glance, seems like it’s characterization is weaker than the series first season, with protagonist Haruka Sakura taking a backseat to some of the supporting cast. Instead I’d say the characterization of Sakura moves in a different direction, though we do get more development for one of the members of Bofurin’s Four Kings.
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Ghu Bless the Reiwa-era rom-com! We have, with Please Put Them On, Takamine-San!, which I’m just going to call Takamine-san going forward, a fanservice comedy that generally nails the character dynamics. This includes sexual slapstick that has consent (except one bit in the first episode)! This isn’t a bar that you’d think would need to be cleared, but it is, and it has, though its head did strike the bar.
Read moreThis month, the Buccharati Crew takes their shot at taking over Passione.
Next month, we watch the original Ghost in the Shell.
Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein is a film I knew – erroneously – by a presumed reputation. It was credited as the film that ended the long-running Universal Monsters series. Allegedly, it took the wind out of the monsters and made it so no one could take them seriously anymore. Having, at long last, seen the film, I feel like I can say with a degree of confidence that at as far as the film’s intent is concerned, nothing is further from the truth.
Read moreThe show is now available on Netflix, and it’s a pick for the bonus episodes on the Axe of the Blood God Podcast, so it’s time to cover the show here, on my YouTube channel, instead of just on my blog.
The first half of Frieren is available on Blu-Ray from (Affiliate Links):
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Ameku MD wears the legacy of House MD on the sleeve of its scrubs. It’s a show where, in the first episode, someone suggests Lupus while working on our first case, only for it to be dismissed. It generally does an interesting job with its characters and mysteries, but I’m not sure why I don’t like it.
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I’m Living With An Otaku NEET Kunoichi?! is a gag anime that aired in the Winter 2025 season, and was the fanservice show I went with this cour. It’s an okay example of its genre, and the jokes generally land fairly well, but the series is not without some issues.
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I watched some of the original Aquarion series back when it first aired before streaming services were a thing, and if you were watching anime as it came out you were watching it fan-subbed. It was semi-infamous among fandom circles as the show where the pilots’ orgasm when the mechs combine. Having fallen off on most of the subsequent series, the new installment, Aquarion: Myth of Emotions had enough of a gap from the last that this felt like a decent place to jump on.
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Anyway, I’m Falling In Love With You is probably the more melodramatic of the romance anime I watched this winter 2025. It’s a reverse harem that tries to do things with parallel narrative threads, one in the “present” (ostensibly a couple of years in the future) and one in the past. It’s also trying to do a COVID-19 Pandemic story, with varying degrees of success.
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So, in the interest of full disclosure – this is me reviewing a show that isn’t actually officially licensed for a US release yet, so I’m not going to make any comments about the quality of the translation on here (not just due to my lack of fluency). In this case, I’m taking a look at one of the more comedic the romantic comedies of this season – I Have A Crush At Work.
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