I took a bunch of photos at Kumoricon 2023 of hall cosplay, the Gunpla competition, and the cosplay contest. I will see about embedding those below the cut.
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Anime Only Connect!
One of the things that I was introduced to while watching the 2023 Desert Bus for Hope was the British game show “Only Connect” – with several fan-made games submitted over the course of the week. So, I created my own anime-themed one – and as of this writing I don’t know if it will get picked. Whether or not it does, I figure I’d post the link to my slide deck here! If it does get picked, I’ll also post the video as soon as the Desert Bus Video Strike team posts the video on the Desert Bus YouTube Channel.
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Film Review: Silence of the Lambs
Very few horror films, and I’d consider Silence of the Lambs in that category (in spite of the book it was based on being credited as having killed the horror genre of novels), have won Academy Awards for Best Picture, never mind the level of sweep that Silence of the Lambs took. So, when I was going for a horror film for Halloween, I decided that Silence of the Lambs was the one to go with, as the last time I’d watched it was on a fairly small TV, and on DVD. Since then it’s gotten a 4K release (which is what I watched), and I have a larger TV to watch it on (and also better speakers), so I felt this was a good time to give it a real re-appraisal.
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Film Review: House of the Long Shadows
In 1983, when House of the Long Shadows came out, it was heavily panned by critics of the time as being derivative of the old film “Seven Keys to Broadpate”, that the ending undermined the story, and it didn’t have much for scares. I would argue that the critics of the time were simply not picking up what this movie is putting down.
There will be spoilers below the cut.
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Film Review: Tenebrae
Now that I’m caught up with the most recent anime reviews, it’s time to get back to the horror with some Dario Argento, and him returning to a more… conventional Giallo with Tenebrae. There will be some spoilers for a 20+ year old movie
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Anime Review: Spy Classroom Season 2
Spy Classroom Season 2 is one that is a lot more serious than the first season. It’s not to say that there isn’t a large quantity of slapstick, some comedy around the members of Team Lamplight’s personality foibles, and more development for some of the other members of the group – that’s definitely there. However, it does make an attempt to be more dramatic than last season, with varying degrees of success.
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Anime Review: Oddtaxi
Oddtaxi is one of those truly unique series – on paper it’s the sort of hyperlink-cinema noir story that fits right in with series like Baccano and Durarara (or, for that matter, films like Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, and Pulp Fiction). However, how the presentation of the story helps make it truly distinct from the other stylistic works that came before. There will be some spoilers below the cut.
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Anime Review: Ayakashi Triangle
So, this anime is a little less “spooky” and a little more “fanservice-heavy”, but it’s a series that also involves the Yokai, which are used in both spooky and silly contexts, so I feel okay including this more recent series, Ayakashi Triangle, into my Halloween reviews.
Continue readingIt’s time for the Spooky Season – so let’s do some horror movies from outside the US – first off is Deep Red, a Giallo film from Dario Argento from before he did Susperia.
Film Review: Tentacles
As far as Jaws ripoffs, especially those of the Italian variety, are concerned, Tentacles doesn’t mess around. Within the first 5 minutes of the film, the movie’s antagonist – a giant octopus – has murdered an infant. And the movie barely slows down from there.
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Anime Review: Synduality Noir
Of the Summer 2023 anime series, Synduality Noir is the other of the series that I’d almost describe as “horror adjacent” – in this case not because of the inclusion of traditional gothic horror monsters (Werewolves, Vampires, etc.), but rather because of a few of the elements introduced later in the series.
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Anime Review: Undead Murder Farce
I’m starting off my October horror reviews with a mystery horror anime – Undead Murder Farce.
Continue readingIt’s time to get further into the weeds when it comes to how anime gets made.
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Anime Review: Aura Battler Dunbine
It feels weird to call Byston Well, the setting Yoshiyuki Tomino created for Aura Battler Dunbine – a series that many Isekai novels draw their lineage from – as a “joke”. However, arguably no creator has so desperately tried to “make fetch happen” with a setting that Tomino has done with Dunbine – not only with New Aura Battler Dunbine, but also Wings of Rean and Garzey’s Wing. Yet, with the degree of traction the original work obtained, there has to be something there – right?
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Anime Review: TONIKAWA: High School Days
Tonikawa: High School Days is a short 4 episode miniseries that basically makes up one miniature arc. I don’t know where the manga is at by comparison, so I don’t know if this is a case where the studio is waiting on the next arc to wrap before continuing with the story, or what. But what I do know is that this is a nice, warm and cozy little morsel to tide us over until we get the next arc.
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Film Review: The Replacement Killers
When Chow Yun-Fat came to the US, he brought a reputation from various Heroic Bloodshed epics, from John Woo and Ringo Lam – a reputation as an action star with a strong acting range. So, it’s unsurprising that his early roles would fall into that same category, with The Replacement Killers doing a film in that style, but with some admittedly more Hollywood sensibilities.
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Anime Review: Memories
There’s sort of a Big Three list of anime anthology films that are frequently recommended, all of which have Katsuhiro Otomo involved to some degree or another – Robot Carnival, Neo-Tokyo/Labyrinth Tales, and Memories. I’ve seen Robot Carnival a couple times in the past (and should probably give it a review here), and I got to see Neo-Tokyo as part of the OVA film festival at the Hollywood Theater in Portland. After that screening, they announced their next event would be a screening of Memories – so I had to finish up the hat trick.
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Film Review: Logan’s Run
On the one hand, Logan’s Run is a pretty straightforward ’70s dystopian SF film – a futuristic society (likely controlled by computers) created in the wake of some form of ecological collapse that is malevolent and oppressive. We’re in the territory of Saturn 3, or Silent Running. However, this builds off of the premise of “What if the people saying ‘don’t trust anyone over 30’ turned 30?” – which isn’t exactly the best premise to build a movie off of.
Continue readingThis month is the last month Netflix will be mailing out physical DVDs, so I give my thoughts on the end of an era.
Continue readingThis month we talk about the Record of Lodoss War OVA – with some tangents to the novels, the Actual Play, and the Chronicles of the Heroic Knight OVA (and also Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth).
Continue readingAnime Explorations Episode 10: JoJo Part 3 – Stardust Crusaders (Battle in Egypt Arc)
It’s time for the final showdown with Dio!
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Anime Review: Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch From Mercury Season 2
This season had the second halves of not one, but two very LGBT-ish anime from Bandai/Sunrise, and a lot of worry about whether these would be able to stick the landing. Let’s start with the mecha series: Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury, Season 2. There will be some spoilers.
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Anime Review: Sorcerous Stabber Orphen – Final 2 Seasons
The last two cours of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen went back-to-back, feeding directly into the other, at a total of 24 episodes (which was the same length as the previous seasons of the show) but with two different subtitles – Chaos in Urbanrama and Doom of Dragon’s Sanctuary. The two series are somewhat mixed in quality, but they go one into the other to such a degree that it’s hard to talk about them in isolation.
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