Deca-Dence is an anime of dueling aesthetics: a gritty human world akin to Attack on Titan being bossed by a society of walking toys. Sounds weird? Well, that’s why I’m watching it!
I’ve read more than a few people describe this anime as a “dumpster fire”, but I don’t think that’s fair. In my opinion, it’s one of the best anime of 2020, but one thing’s for sure: it’s now definitely the most underrated. I’ve already talked about how it wasn’t made for anime fans by contrasting it directly with anime du jour Re:Zero, but let’s dig into the complaints a bit more. What exactly is it about this series that anime fans hate?
A few weeks ago, I made a second attempt to watch Re:ZERO. It’s not exactly an unpopular show, so I figured that maybe the first time around it just caught me at the wrong time. People often speak about it with a sense of reverie, suggesting that it “may seem like just another isekai fantasy, but it’s actually a much deeper story than that!”. I’ve even seen it compared to Berserk, which to me is the highest praise one can laud upon an anime series, and from then on I was like, “Okay, I must’ve been wrong about this!”.
12 episodes later and…
For me, a personal anime golden age is any consecutive run of 3 years in which the highest number of your favourites are gathered. 3 years may seem arbitrary, but I’ve chosen this specific range because, at least from my experience, the vast majority of anime fans tend to live and die in that time, leaving behind their lists and blogs as if time suddenly stood still, their scribblings, once filled with such joy and passion, now mere archives for the future generations of warbling young otaku to laugh at and build on, and so it continues. Anyway… before this all becomes a bit too existential, let’s crack on, shall we? Hi, I’m your local anime ghost, also known as bateszi, and here’s my personal anime golden age.
The ending of Sing “Yesterday” for Me was a betrayal. I know that sounds dramatic, but allow me to explain.
I suppose I’m not the only one turning to the comfort of their anime backlog right now? I don’t feel like I have much patience at the moment and would much rather digest a finished story than be left hanging by one that’s still on-going.
Anyway, I figured I’d watch Smile Down the Runway since it seemed like a series with good reviews that I’d overlooked in the Winter season, whilst A Place Further than the Universe, one of the most beloved anime of the past few years, needs no introduction. Why did I wait so long to watch it? I suppose I needed to be in the right mood, and 2020 is definitely that!
Here’s my brief thoughts.
3,112 words later, I’m finally finished with my Spring anime season reviews, and what a promising season it’s turned out to be! I ended up reviewing 9 anime over the last few weeks, and I couldn’t say any of them were even average, let alone bad.
Phew!
Given the state of the things in the world right now, with so many of us living in isolation, we need anime now more than ever, and it’s delivering guys.
We all need escapism, to let ourselves go wander in other worlds. Like dreams, anime can help us process reality in abstract ways, to make sense of how we’re feeling at a deeper level than simply watching the news all day and feeling like the world’s collapsing around us. Read, watch, play: give yourself a break, and take care!
Listeners is a welcome return to the imagination of writer Dai Sato. Just like his Eureka Seven, Listeners is an adventure in a desperate post-disaster world, a world set to be remade by the triple threat of music, love and giant robots!
An anime original from P.A. Works, Appare-Ranman! is the story of Appare, a scientific genius cum adventurer from Japan, entering into a larger than life car (some may say, wacky!) race across the US.
A fun and satisfying debut that feels in many ways like a throwback to late Nineties anime like The Big O and Cowboy Bebop, albeit with a less masculine and more homoerotic subtext for the Noughties.