Shinobi No Ittoki is probably the most mediocre of the anime series that I’ve watched this season. It’s not bad, it’s kind of “mid”
Read moreAnime Review: Shinobi no Ittoki
Anime Explorations Episode 3: Nutcracker Fantasy (1979)
This month, for Christmas, David, Tora, & I are taking a look at the 1979 Sanrio stop-motion animated film “Nutcracker Fantasy”.
Read moreAnime Review: Godzilla Singular Point
2022 is the first year that I have finally decided to knuckle down and get involved with a thing I’d been meaning to do for quite some time. Well, two things – one being doing a convention panel, the other being taking part in Anime Secret Santa. I’ve been a long-time listener of the Reverse Thieves Podcast, so I’d heard about it through them – and more recently it has shifted to being organized by the All Geeks Considered podcast, with Kate & Alan of the Reverse Thieves still taking part. So, when the call came out for participants (and which was repeated on the Reverse Thieves Discord), I tossed my hat into the ring as a participant. So, I was tremendously pleased to see a series that I’d been meaning to watch for quite some time was among the three series put before me – specifically, Godzilla Singular Point.
Read moreAnime Explorations Episode 2: Boogiepop & Others (2019)
This month, David, Tora, and I look at the 2019 adaptation of some of the Boogiepop light novels – Boogiepop & Others.
Read moreKumoricon Panel Announcement
If you’re at Kumoricon this weekend, come see me! Today! I have a panel – “Anime at 33 1/3 RPM: Collecting Anime Soundtracks On Vinyl” – in Panel Room 5 at 1:30 PM! Don’t be a stranger!
Fuuto PI: Anime Review
We’ve been getting a fair amount of anime and manga spinoffs of Tokusatsu series lately. The main ones I’ve covered have been the Ultraman manga series and its anime spinoff on Netflix, and Studio Trigger’s Gridman universe series – Gridman and Dynazenon – in addition to ones I haven’t gotten to yet, like the Garo spinoff anime series. This fall’s Fuuto PI (or Fuuto Tantei) is another of those – this time tying in with Kamen Rider W.
Read moreAnime Explorations Episode 1: Keep Your Hands off Eizouken
We have the inaugural episode of the Anime Explorations Podcast! I and my friends David and Tora take a look at Masami Yuasa’s 2020 adaptation of the manga Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 241 – Son of the Necromancer I
We finally take on this new Necroprentise, and attempt to save the village’s last survivor.
Read moreBook Review: Vampire Hunter D, Vol. 1
For the Spooky Season, I decided to do something a little different from my usual string of horror films – having picked up the Vampire Hunter D audiobooks from Audible, and since I have a commute again, I decided to get started listening to those on my way to work – and having finished re-reading the first one, it would be appropriate to give my thoughts.
Read moreCall of the Night: Anime Review
Moving belatedly into horror content for the month of October we have Call of the Night, the last of the anime series from the Summer 2022 season that I watched. Okay, frankly it’s not exactly horror – at least not until the back half of the series, but I would describe it as being somewhat horror adjacent. By which I mean, there are vampires.
Read moreKumoricon 2022 Announcement
Come to Kumoricon 2022, Nov 11-13th: https://www.kumoricon.org/
Read moreCyberpunk: Edgerunners Anime Review
There are not a lot of anime series explicitly based off of tabletop RPGs – Record of Grancrest War, Record of Lodoss War, Rune Soldier Louie, and Night Wizard are some of the few that come directly to mind. None of those – I should mention, are particularly based heavily on Western tabletop RPGs (aside from Lodoss starting as a D&D campaign, before moving through Tunnels & Trolls and eventually becoming a Sword World campaign). So, it is impressive to see Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to be perhaps one of the first anime series to wear the western TRPG connection right on its sleeve. Yes, the show is tied in to CD Projekt Red’s video game – but right from the jump the series credits leads off with “Based on a world created by Mike Pondsmith” – showing how much of its influences it wears on its neon sleeve tattoo. Thankfully, Studio Trigger, who animated this, also does right by its source material far more Cyberpunk 2077 did from the jump.
Read moreAnime Review: Lycoris Recoil
Lycoris Recoil is something of a modern retooling of a genre that we haven’t seen in a while – the Girls With Guns anime series. In particular, Lycoris Recoil in this case has a mix of “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” as a recurring B-plot, with the conspiracy thriller elements covering the series A-plots, with action informed now not by the John Woo films of years past, but the modern John Wick films. All of this works tremendously well.
Read moreAnime Review: Engage Kiss
Engage Kiss is one of the lighter fanservice series from the Summer 2022 season – there were much (*ahem*) harder shows (like Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World – which was borderline smut – and also leaned into some of the grosser elements of the isekai genre) – but Engage Kiss was more palatable about it. Even more, A-1 Pictures paired some of that fan-service with some gorgeously animated fight scenes, making for a series that, while flawed, was really enjoyable to watch. Some spoilers below the cut
Read moreAnime Review: Tokyo Mew Mew New
Tokyo Mew Mew was an oversight in my anime viewing when I was growing up. When I was a kid and watched cartoons with any degree of regularity on Cartoon Network or on Saturday Mornings, the main Magical Girl Show was Sailor Moon. When I got older, 4Kids picked up Tokyo Mew Mew as Mew Mew Power – but by that point I was familiar enough with anime, but immature enough when it came to my opinion of my own taste to dismiss almost anything licensed by 4Kids by reflex. Switch to this year, when we get a remake of Tokyo Mew Mew, appropriately titled Tokyo Mew Mew New, released a little bit after the passing of the original manga’s creator – Reiko Yoshida – and I figured now’s as good a time as any to look into what I missed.
Read moreAnime Review: Ranking of Kings
Ranking of Kings is a show that, frankly, I missed the boat on. It was a show that everyone on AniTwitter, everyone on the anime podcasts I listened to were praising to high heavens, but I pushed off watching it. Until now. Now I’ve finally watched it and it’s time to give the show the consideration it deserves.
Read moreAnime Review: Barakamon
These have been a stressful few years, so certainly, now has been a great time for some nice healing anime, so among the ones I’ve been watching has been Barakamon – a very chill series about life in a rural Japanese town.
Read moreKomi Can’t Communicate: Season 1 & 2 – Anime Review
It is to my great shock that I did not review the first season of Komi Can’t Communicate on this blog. Having now also seen the show’s second season, I think I’m way past due to give this show a review, so it’s time to review both of those seasons.
Read moreShikimori’s Not Just A Cutie: Anime Review
Back in May, I gave my early thoughts on Shikimori’s Not Just A Cutie – one of the rom-com anime series I’d decided to watch last season. It’s time to follow up on my early thoughts to discuss how the complete show fits with my earlier assessment.
Read moreBirdie Wing (Season 1): Anime Review
One of the genres of anime I’ve spent the least time with is sports anime – where the number of titles I’ve actually seen is far shorter than the shows I intend to watch – only Magical Girl anime and Music series are lower on the list. None of this is necessarily due to a lack of interest. I’ve found that the sports shows I’ve watched I’ve generally enjoyed (with a few exceptions like Battle Athletes). So, in the Spring 2022 season, when I saw Birdie Wing was airing, I decided to give it a watch.
Read moreAMAIM: Warrior at the Borderline (Season 2): Anime Review
AMAIM is a show where the first half of the series had some questionable issues, but ended on a really strong note that left me coming back for the second season. The second cour of the series, while it does have some strong concepts, has some significant problems with the finale that makes it not quite work.
Read moreSpy X Family Season 1: Anime Review
Sometimes you get an anime series that is so tremendously charming that there’s basically nothing bad you can say about it except that you want more of that series. Spy X Family (which I verbally call “Spy Family”) fits that criteria.
Read moreScience Fell In Love Season 2: Anime Review
When I watched the first season of Science Fell In Love So They Tried To Prove It, I started out by binge watching the show, and I found the show was basically one joke repeated with some variations. Consequently, when I switched to watching just one episode or so a week, I got a lot more enjoyment out of it. When season 2 was announced, I decided to watch this week to week, figuring that that would be the optimal way to get the most enjoyment out of it. It was – but this also lead to me running into a tonal shift brick wall on the last episode of the series, and without any significant foreshadowing. So, this review is going to have to get into some spoilers for the last episode.
Read moreSpider-Man: No Way Home: Movie Review
While Spider-Man: No Way Home was intended to be released after Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, it did ultimately come out before that movie, so I felt it was probably a preferable idea to watch this movie before the next Doctor Strange solo film. So, now that I’ve done that (and just after Sony has announced that an extended cut of the movie will be getting a theatrical release in December), it’s time to give my thoughts some. There will be spoilers for the film’s conclusion.
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