Category: Anime
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A cloud prairie
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Read More →: A cloud prairieI’ve fallen behind on anime recently. I’m not sure if that’s down to a lack of interest in what I’m watching or if I’m just not in the mood for anime at the moment, but I’m feeling quite ambivalent about it all. In Celeste’s latest post, she shares the idea of “sticky anime,” positing that…
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Dedicated to all pioneers: sticky anime
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Read More →: Dedicated to all pioneers: sticky animeAt the risk of taking anime too seriously, a part of the reason my fandom has endured for as many years as it has is the idea of “stickiness”. And yes, feel free to leave your perverted jokes in the comments (jerks.)
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No. 6 and homoeroticism in anime
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Read More →: No. 6 and homoeroticism in animeIt’d be hard to watch No. 6 and not notice how homoerotic it is. I’ve now seen up to episode 5 and it’s notable how blunt it’s becoming in suggesting that Shion and Nezumi are in love. This is not a yaoi series though, it’s not a sexual or pornographic thing, I’m not sure it’s…
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Room for dinosaurs
Read More →: Room for dinosaursI saw Outlaw Star when it aired on Toonami back in 2001. I think I was attracted to it because it was a space based show that didn’t have Gundam in its name. What I found was an enjoyable space western that didn’t take itself too seriously. And once you accept that it’s not as…
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There Will Be Blood
Read More →: There Will Be BloodBlood+ landed amidst a resurgence of the vampire genre. It came two years after the conclusion of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 3 days after the release of the first book in the Twilight series. It was beautifully animated and had a decent storyline, even if the pacing crawled at times. Today, almost 5 years…
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Changing the flow of time
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Read More →: Changing the flow of timeTime travel always seemed like a cool concept to me. I could go back in time, make some money and live an easy life. That’s just an immature way of looking at things, though. When I imagine going back, I’m not thinking about the people around me. I’m being selfish, just thinking about material things.
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Reflections on terrorism in Code Geass
Read More →: Reflections on terrorism in Code GeassReflecting on the struggle of Region 11 through eyes not tethered to the real world.
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Trains, classrooms and crazy girls: Mawaru Penguindrum episode 2
Read More →: Trains, classrooms and crazy girls: Mawaru Penguindrum episode 2Japan’s train system fascinates many, but I’m not as taken by the vehicles themselves as by the sheer amount of people shoved into each carriage, to the point where one can hardly breathe. Aside from finding it weird that people would willingly submit themselves to such claustrophobic conditions, it’s also a fertile breeding ground for…
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Bargain Bin Anime
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Read More →: Bargain Bin AnimeMy love of anime means I spend a great deal of time watching it and a great deal of money buying it. But the price of anime can make buying it new difficult. My budget wouldn’t last long if I bought discs with 5 episodes for $30. Happily, the industry model shifted to a wallet…
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I couldn't help myself: Mawaru Penguindrum and a feast for the eyes
Read More →: I couldn't help myself: Mawaru Penguindrum and a feast for the eyesIt’s time to be an anime fan again.
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Allison's Journey
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Read More →: Allison's JourneyAllison & Lillia: Generation 1 had potential. The show was set in a fictional Germanic country and was based on the light novels of a noted author. The two main characters, Allison and Will, explore a pastoral world with WW1 era propeller planes. Their country is in a constant state of conflict with a neighboring country, but…
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Adieu, my beloved Oscar: The Rose of Versailles anime review
Read More →: Adieu, my beloved Oscar: The Rose of Versailles anime reviewWatching anime is like connecting the dots of a picture; one leads to another, forever changing the picture’s shape. Some dots are out on their own, but others are connected to everything else, making the overall picture that much clearer in my eyes. One obvious example here is Mobile Suit Gundam, the first real-robot anime,…
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June 2011: What we're watching
Read More →: June 2011: What we're watchingbateszi: The hope is that this post will be the first in a new monthly feature. I say ‘new’ as if we’re bursting with regular features here, but no, this is more like our first attempt to do anything that isn’t a one-off blog post. Awkward introductions aside, then, welcome to the rare sight of…
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Welcome to the Financial District
Read More →: Welcome to the Financial DistrictThe Japanese economy is currently in the middle of a huge transformation. A generation ago, a Japanese person could finish school and seamlessly transition into a company job. The job might have grueling hours, but in return it offered lifetime employment at a good wage. Japanese men sacrificed their time with their families so that…
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Middle-aged men drinking tea
Read More →: Middle-aged men drinking teaAs any right thinking English gentlemen will tell you, tea is what our great British Empire was built upon and, well, most of what I knew about Hyouge Mono before it aired was that it somehow involved tea.
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Puella Magi Madoka Abstract Subversion Nyanyan Death
Read More →: Puella Magi Madoka Abstract Subversion Nyanyan DeathJust be brave, everyone, but especially you, Japan.
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This isn't how I imagined it; Hanasaku Iroha
Read More →: This isn't how I imagined it; Hanasaku IrohaTeenage girls are a tricky thing to do well in anime. Anime about (and often aimed at) teenage girls is a continually saturated market, making it hard to improve upon. That said, I liked Hanasaku Iroha. In particular, the portrayal of Ohana was intriguing.
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Anime after Madoka
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Read More →: Anime after MadokaLike most everyone else, I’ve enjoyed watching Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica. I haven’t seen many other series directed by Akiyuki Shinbo, but I’m well aware he’s earned a reputation for weirdness. Even still, I’m sometimes taken aback by how abstract and artsy Madoka can get, and yet, in contrast to fellow auteurs like Masaaki Yuasa…
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Much Ado About Blu-Ray
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Read More →: Much Ado About Blu-RayThe holidays are long over and I bet some of you are enjoying brand new anime you received as gifts. For me, this year meant a leap from watching anime on my tiny computer screen to watching it on a beautiful LCD TV. Along with my new TV, I was also excited to pick up…
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Winter Impressions Part II
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Read More →: Winter Impressions Part IISlowly but surely I am getting around to previewing the rest of this season’s shows. For this post I tried to preview some series that people seemed excited about in the comments to my first winter impressions post. That entry is available here.
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Big Robots on the Big Screen
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Read More →: Big Robots on the Big ScreenThe first time I watched Evangelion I I hated everything about it. Most of all I hated the characters and how slowly the series seemed to move. The disconnect I felt with Shinji and his eternal state of depression did not help either. When I heard that the creators’ were rereleasing the show in a…
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Winter '11 Impressions
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Read More →: Winter '11 ImpressionsI don’t have Bateszi’s gift for intros, so let’s jump right into the Winter Preview. This season does not have any wildly anticipated shows, nor have I seen something of Star Driver’s caliber. Still, even if the shows don’t blow you away, anime is definitely still well and kicking.
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The sunset of Astro Fighter Sunred
Read More →: The sunset of Astro Fighter SunredEven whilst it was airing, Astro Fighter Sunred seemed like a pretty obscure series. Indeed, I often felt like I was one of the few people watching it. It’s a hard sell, I guess, because it’s not only a visibly low budget production, but also a parody of Japan’s sentai genre. Apparently people don’t watch…
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Black Lagoon II: Judgment Day
Read More →: Black Lagoon II: Judgment DayBlack Lagoon’s original run impressed me. The show was beautifully animated, included an interesting cast, and had enough violent gun battles to give a child nightmares. I also think it had the best crew of any recent show. What it lacked was length. Its 24 original episodes, stretched over two seasons, were fun to watch…
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A Tatami Galaxy kind of year
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/ AnimeRead More →: A Tatami Galaxy kind of yearOf all the anime I’ve seen this year, probably the one that deserves blogging the most is The Tatami Galaxy. Life imitates art; and looking back on the past year, or the part of my life which, in many ways has abruptly stumbled to an end of sorts I can qualify the title. For me,…
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After Life, Angel Beats! and anime blogging
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Read More →: After Life, Angel Beats! and anime bloggingIf the anime blogosphere is a living purgatory, then the bloggers are the helpers, themselves stuck, but willing to point others in the right direction. As we see our friends come and go, sometimes it feels like there’s only a few of us left, but seeing people change is fulfilling in itself, and there’s always…
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A fatal Attraction
Read More →: A fatal AttractionIn what ended up being one of the cooler mornings I’ve had recently, I stumbled upon Koji Morimoto’s Attraction via twitter. Not knowing what to expect, but hearing it paired with the words “interactive anime”, I clicked. What followed was one of Studio 4C’s latest experiments with the anime medium. Their involvement with the upcoming…
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Watching people destroy their happiness in NANA
Read More →: Watching people destroy their happiness in NANAOne of the saddest things about NANA is that its creator Ai Yazawa (who has been fighting against an unspecified illness since 2009) hasn’t been able to finish it. NANA is a story of dreams and ambition, and the characters have struggled too hard and for too long to be left hanging. I hope Yazawa…
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Girls with guns but not much else
Read More →: Girls with guns but not much elseI started out intending to write a review of the show Noir, but while researching (okay, I’ll admit using Wikipedia) I discovered Noir’s spirital successors, Madlax and El Cazador de la Bruja. Each show was animated by the studio Bee Train. I thought, great, I can do one big “girls with guns” trilogy review, but…
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Because the dawn is beautiful; Future Boy Conan
Read More →: Because the dawn is beautiful; Future Boy ConanWeird as it may sound, I judge an anime by how many screencaps it nets me. I screencap things on my first run-through an episode or movie, and obsessive-compulsively: if something flashes by my eyes and I miss grabbing the screencap, I will jump backwards in the movie as many times as needed to grab…
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I need a job so I wanna be a mangaka writer
Read More →: I need a job so I wanna be a mangaka writerDragon Ball Z, Slam Dunk, Bleach, Hajime no Ippo. Most shonen series are based on physical activities like sports or fighting. Surprisingly, the general shonen formula can also work well with a non-physical activity. In Bakuman, J.C. Staff and NHK successfully tell a shonen-style story about two aspiring manga creators. The result is an interesting show…
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Panty & Stocking with my broken heart
Read More →: Panty & Stocking with my broken heartThe above image is from Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, but one would forgive you if you had to double take; the second half of episode 5 feels like it’s from a completely different series. Not only has the art style completely shifted, so, indeed, has the tone. Gone, for the most part, is the…
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Let's keep what I'm about to sing between the two of us, okay?
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Read More →: Let's keep what I'm about to sing between the two of us, okay?Think of this as a Diary of An Anime Lived post if that tickles your fancy. As much as I love Kuragehime, and as much as I have to say about it, I find it a little bit hard to write about. It hits a little close to home for me, and sweet as it…
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Can anime do horror?
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Read More →: Can anime do horror?Truly good horror anime is hard to find. Anime tends to use many elements of horror, but it rarely adds up to something that’s scary.
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Is it more painful to wait? Or to keep someone waiting?
Read More →: Is it more painful to wait? Or to keep someone waiting?Writing, even anime blogging, can be hard. We all have ideas about what makes good writing and that’s why, sometimes, I have trouble doing it for this blog. I want to write posts that are, in their own ways, perfect. I know that’s an unrealistic goal, but I try anyway, and this whole process gradually…
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No DVD drive on your Macbook air? No problem.
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Read More →: No DVD drive on your Macbook air? No problem.Free. Legal. And released within a week of the show’s Japan air date. Streaming video is something that I have craved ever since I started watching anime. I always feel guilty about not doing enough to support the industry, even if I do buy more anime than a normal person should. Watching streaming anime gives…
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Good morning, angels.
Read More →: Good morning, angels.In honor of Aniplex’s recent announcement of a new Read or Die (“ROD”) Blu-Ray box set I thought it was high time to review the television series. The box set itself deserves a mention, all 26 episodes of the Read or Die TV, the 3 part OVA and a booklet, all supposedly identical to the…
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Autumn ’10 impressions
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Read More →: Autumn ’10 impressionsWelcome to yet another autumn run-down! Everything is loosely ranked into a makeshift top 10 and we’ve tried to keep our impressions short and to the point, but if there’s anything you want clarified, feel free to question us (and our opinions) in the comments. We’ve missed out certain series because they are sequels to…
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Am I looking at the sky, or the sea?
Read More →: Am I looking at the sky, or the sea?Though it borrows from the mythos of the (very real) city of Venice, there’s something pleasantly unreal about Aria. Rather, not unreal so much as there is a disregard for the idea and constraints of reality. Perhaps Aria seeks not to undermine reality as we know it, but in its ‘New Venice’, create its own…
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The heavens are angered
Read More →: The heavens are angeredThe Twelve Kingdoms feels very much like a shoujo anime, but it’s more akin to Utena and Toward the Terra than Escaflowne, and by that what I mean to say is, while there are no melodramatic love triangles here, The Twelve Kingdoms is all about exploring and externalising the feelings of its characters; that’s girly…
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I was made to hit in America
Read More →: I was made to hit in AmericaBeck: Mongolian Chop Squad. Talk about a mouthful. The name may be a tribute to the author’s favorite band, Red Hot Chili Peppers, which also has four words in its name. In any case don’t be scared away by the name, this series about a rising rock band is a treat even for non-music fans.
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Beauty prevails
Read More →: Beauty prevailsAmidst such despair, beauty prevails. Be it in the soft, ever falling of snow, the golden lanterns casting shadows against the concrete walls, or the way the moonlight defies the night. There is a sense of life to be felt; a real, honest human touch, that’s warming to the heart.
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Childhood's end: Naruto and Pain
Read More →: Childhood's end: Naruto and PainTo compare Naruto now to the naive kid he was when this series began tells us of how much he’s grown since. He’s now the person he always dreamed of becoming, and it’s a joy to behold.
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Cherry picking in autumn 2010
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Read More →: Cherry picking in autumn 2010It’s autumn again, and with it comes dozens of new anime series to get excited about. From these, we’ve picked a few that we’re particularly interested in. Marvel at our impeccable taste and insightful opinions! I was thinking you’d come up with something better than that for the introduction. Evidently my expectations were too high.…
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Farewell Satoshi Kon
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Read More →: Farewell Satoshi KonIt’s difficult to express the disappointment I felt when I learnt of Satoshi Kon‘s passing last week. Since then, many heart-felt tributes have been published and half-way through writing this, I started wondering whether it was worth posting at all. Alas, what is blogging if not personal? I liked his films and, at the risk…
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Can you make a giant killing happen inside of you?
Read More →: Can you make a giant killing happen inside of you?This is a show about football (out of respect to Bateszi I’ll avoid using the word soccer…). The featured team, East Tokyo United (ETU), is dysfunctional. ETU’s fans are running away, the team keeps losing managers and players and worst of all, they just can’t win. At this point in the summary, anyone who has…
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The town where nothing ever happens: FLCL & I
Read More →: The town where nothing ever happens: FLCL & IFrankly, I lack the words to talk about Satoshi Kon’s passing; there are others who have said and will say things more eloquently. Instead, I offer you a diversion: FLCL. I meant to write this post a while back, but never go around to it. Somehow, it’s been a very long, and a little bit…