A while back, I was pleasantly surprised to see Jo Walton, the author of Among Others, a wonderful book about the power of books and reading and how that can help us when we’re in a tough space, done through a magical realist lens (and which won a Hugo Award) had gotten a book commentary column on Tor.com, and I was equally pleased to see a bunch of her columns collected into a book – What Makes This Book So Great – which I have finally gotten around to reading.

So, I had COVID-19, which is going to screw with my schedule, so I give some quick thoughts on my experiences.

A long time back I checked out the Spriggan anime film from the library, on the merits of Katsuhiro Otomo’s involvement in the film in a supervisory position. When I learned that the manga series was getting revisited with a new anime series from David Production on Netflix, I figured this was worth checking out. While the series itself is something of a mixed bat, there is some fun to be had here.

Yashahime was a sequel series to Inuyasha that was somewhat unique by the fact that it was a completely anime-original story, with a new generation of characters, that Rumiko Takahashi was not actively involved in. The first season felt somewhat aimless, though, and going in I had concerns that the second season would be similarly directionless. Thankfully, this is not the case.

We take out the enemy commander, cutting the fight short.

Thankfully, the Gatehouse commander has no sense of self-preservation.

We have one last group of undead to contend with.

We’ve had a moderate array of various historical anime coming out – from Demon Slayer being set in the Taishō period, to the Yashahime series, much as with its source material in Inuyasha, being set at an ambiguous point in the Warring States period. What we haven’t gotten in a while is anything set in the Heian period – enter The Heike Story, an anime series that, basically, tells of the end of the Heian period, adapting the Heike Monogatari, and telling the tragic fall of the Heike through both their own hubris, and the machinations of others.