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.
This month, we get our first meeting with the son of Dio Brando – Giorno Giovanna.
Next month, we finish Golden Wind.
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):
Read moreBefore getting into The Helpful Fox Senko-San, we discuss the nominees for the Crunchyroll Anime Awards.
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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Zenshu, as an anime series, very easily could have been the most self-indulgent of the isekai anime to come out in a while – an anime series about an animator who dies and is sent to another world where their cheat skill is related to animation. However, the show manages to stick the landing, serving as something of a love-letter to classic anime films.
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There’s something of a genre of anime and manga that’s started in the wake of Spy X Family – the Domestic Action Series – a series about characters who are balancing a relaxing domestic life with also working (or having worked) in fields that require them to be spectacularly good at carrying out violence. In the case of this year’s Sakamoto Days, it’s a case of an assassin who had gotten out of the game and settled down for domestic life – but unlike (say) John Wick his family is still very much alive.
Read moreIt’s March, and it’s time for White Day—and with it, time to cover a romantic comedy, or in this case, a romantic dramedy, with ToraDora.
This week, I’ve got an older animer review – Tengoku Daimakiyo (or Heavenly Delusion, as the manga is localized as).
Tengoku Daimakiyo is available for streaming on Hulu/Disney+
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Kimi Rito’s The History of Hentai Manga is something that is not common in general – an academic text aimed for wider audience on the topic of adult materials which does not approach the topic from what I’ll call a sex-negative perspective. On more than a few occasions I’ve accounted works on sex work and pornography which are sex (and sex worker)-negative, or try to take a neutral perspective and end up on a somewhat patronizing point of view. Certainly, I haven’t encountered any which cover the medium from an art-history standpoint. Kimi Rito’s work does provide what I’d almost call a more art-history point of view – not in the form I’d have chosen, but still an interesting form nonetheless.
Read moreInspired by a recent video by ProZD, I give 5 older anime that I’d love to see get a new take.
