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The swirling nothingness: Shuzo Oshimi’s vampire manga Happiness
Read More →: The swirling nothingness: Shuzo Oshimi’s vampire manga HappinessShuzo Oshimi’s Happiness is a beautiful clusterfuck that I can’t get enough of, but let’s get one thing clear: there’s absolutely nothing happy about Happiness. It all begins when high-schooler Okazaki is bitten by the vampire Nora. She grants him two choices: either live like her, or die. Really, he has no choice.
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The (Anti) Shonen Hero
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Read More →: The (Anti) Shonen HeroWhen Dororo begins, Hyakkimaru’s at his strongest. Without nerves, he cannot feel pain, and without pain, what is there for him to fear? He can jump higher and fall harder than any man because there are no bones in his legs to break. In many shonen anime, characters like Naruto and Izuku begin at the…
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Manga, sweat and tears: Run with the Wind
Read More →: Manga, sweat and tears: Run with the WindRun with the Wind is at a point now where every episode explodes with such a cathartic resonance. The boys are a mere qualifier away from the Hakone Ekiden and to get even this far, they’ve all had to work so hard: some more than others.
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Changing your destiny: Dororo
Read More →: Changing your destiny: DororoBefore he was born, Hyakkimaru was sold to demons.
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Winter 2019 impressions
Read More →: Winter 2019 impressionsWhen it came to writing up my top anime of 2018 list, I realised that there wasn’t much from 2018 that I could really recommend. I would even go so far as to say that 2018 was a poor year for anime. However, in comparison, 2019 is already looking good.
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A game of faces: The Promised Neverland episode 1
Read More →: A game of faces: The Promised Neverland episode 1There are some early visual cues that all is not right for the orphans in The Promised Neverland.
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Dororo episode 1 is superb
Read More →: Dororo episode 1 is superbThis is what I needed. Dororo episode 1 is a visual treat, with its Mushishi esque painterly backgrounds and moody period setting.
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Anxious and otherworldly: Boogiepop and Others first impressions
Read More →: Anxious and otherworldly: Boogiepop and Others first impressionsMy gut feeling is that Boogiepop and Others won’t be a crowd-pleaser.
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The visual eccentricity of Mob Psycho 100
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Read More →: The visual eccentricity of Mob Psycho 100The new Mob Psycho 100 II trailer was released last week and I’m pumped! I admire its story but what’s really pushing me over the edge is the animation. It’s such a weird looking anime, heavily influenced by One’s manga, but brought to life by Bones in a rare and lavish attempt to go all out on a story…
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Surviving as an anime fan
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Read More →: Surviving as an anime fanIt’s easy at first. You just need to watch anime. That’s all it takes. For a few years, that’s all I did. I finished one anime and moved to the next. At some point though, things changed. I became curious and the sub-culture opened itself to me. Why anime? I don’t know. It’s been this…
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When it’s easier to pay than to pirate
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Read More →: When it’s easier to pay than to pirateEarlier this week, Netflix announced that it will begin streaming Neon Genesis Evangelion in April 2019. The 1995 Evangelion TV series is not only one of the most popular anime ever made, it’s also one of the rarest to own on US/UK home video. Since 2005, for various reasons, it has seen neither a home video release nor a…
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Winning & losing, running & writing – Run with the Wind
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Read More →: Winning & losing, running & writing – Run with the WindIf the end goal is to win, how easy is it to enjoy doing a thing? Be it playing table tennis, running in a marathon or just writing for your blog, we do things for complicated reasons that don’t always mean having fun. In Run with the Wind, Kakeru is a talented runner and the…
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Exciting new anime coming out in 2019
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Read More →: Exciting new anime coming out in 2019In the afterglow of last week’s Fruits Basket anime announcement, it dawned on me that 2019 is going to be a particularly exciting year for anime. Enthused, I dug a bit deeper into what 2019 has in store for us and, well, hold on to your hats!
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Existential sci-fi manga! Identity & control in Toward the Terra
Read More →: Existential sci-fi manga! Identity & control in Toward the TerraSet in the infinite blackness of space, where single lives are like grains of sand thrown to the wind, Keiko Takemiya’s Toward the Terra unfolds.
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There’s just no escaping anime, is there? (Autumn 2018 impressions)
Read More →: There’s just no escaping anime, is there? (Autumn 2018 impressions)It’s Autumn in the UK now. It’s cold and wet outside, the nights are drawing in and there’s the first inkling of frost in the mornings. Don’t fret though, a new anime season is here to keep us alive, so pour yourself a hot drink (unless you’re one of those weird people that doesn’t like…
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The balloon scene in Made in Abyss
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Read More →: The balloon scene in Made in AbyssA message in a bottle cast into a bottomless ocean.
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Rediscovering Shonen Jump anime
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Read More →: Rediscovering Shonen Jump animeWatching anime, I go through peaks and troughs. The start of the year was a peak, but throughout February, I’ve been in a bit of a trough trying to find something new to watch and fall in love with. At some point, I remembered that there’s a whole bunch of Shonen Jump anime that I…
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Great romantic fools: The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl
Read More →: Great romantic fools: The Night Is Short, Walk on GirlIn 2017, Masaaki Yuasa directed The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl, which is a film set in the same fictional universe as his 2010 series The Tatami Galaxy. I really liked The Tatami Galaxy. I remember thinking that it was a more conventional (and therefore more accessible) anime than his other works at the…
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A bright shining future
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Read More →: A bright shining futureI can’t speak for Japan, but right now in England, young adults are having a hard time. Money seems harder to come by than ever for many who are working all hours to afford their month’s rent, let alone buying a home without a mortgage that’s loaded with high interest rates. It’s a scary, often…
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For good anime
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Read More →: For good animeThrough preference as much as necessity, the way I’m consuming anime today is different to how I used to, say, 10 years ago. Back then, I relied on downloading fansubs and watching anime as it aired in Japan, one episode per week. I was in deep. Today, I hardly rely on fansubs at all, because…
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Pure Anime
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Read More →: Pure AnimeHey guys. I know, I know. It’s been nearly 2 years. Putting pen to paper hasn’t been easy. I’ve been a bit jaded and distracted, but still, I think about writing. Every time I walk away, something brings me back. It’s because I love writing. I honestly miss it. This year I put down some…
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Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to see more
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Read More →: Perhaps there is a part of me that wants to see moreAfter a long absence, it is time for me to officially step away from writing here (just me, not the site’s other writers). As a parting post, I would like to share my thoughts on anime that stand the test of time. Even older titles that were created with a Japanese audience in mind can…
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The unbearable lightness of Tamako Love Story
Read More →: The unbearable lightness of Tamako Love StoryI had a little crush, recently. He was handsome and urbane, tall and well dressed. We talked late at night over a bottle of whisky. It felt out of control. It felt silly. I let myself be swept away by daydreams. And why not? Is there anything more uncomfortable and enlivening than the feeling of a new love?
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The first rule of Bento Fight Club is: You do not talk about Bento Fight Club
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Read More →: The first rule of Bento Fight Club is: You do not talk about Bento Fight Club(Bateszi reviewed this back in November of 2011, I’m revisiting it in light of Funimation’s upcoming February release of the show) A strong signal that a series is great is that you can easily summarize the concept and get someone to watch it based on that short description. Ben-To is just that kind of show.…
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As long as we stay here in this world all that's awaiting us is death
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Read More →: As long as we stay here in this world all that's awaiting us is deathOn the blu-ray packaging, Funimation trumpets the Eureka Seven television series as “The Greatest Love Story Ever Animated.” Where that series is centered around love, the movie re-imagination, Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers, is all about death. In particular, it is about the fear of death. Even the crew of the Gekko,…
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Ghost in the Shell: The College Years
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Read More →: Ghost in the Shell: The College YearsGhost in the Shell: Arise marks Production IG’s attempt to reboot the classic franchise. With multiple successful superhero and anime reboots out in the wild, it’s only a matter of time before others (certainly Dragonball) get remade. Movie and television producers reboot well loved shows to appeal to modern audiences. The story, the characters, and the special…
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Band Spotlight: White Ash
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Read More →: Band Spotlight: White AshI was first introduced to this wonderful band through “Crowds”, the OP of Gatchaman Crowds (which I still haven’t finished) and instantly fell in love with the edgy, deep voice of the female vocalist. But after looking for the song on YouTube, I discovered that the vocalist is actually a male, a very geeky looking…
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The best decoy ever
Read More →: The best decoy everIs this the era of the sports anime? Without doing the research, it really feels like it, more so than at any other point in recent history, and what’s more, most of it’s really quite good! I’ve already written about Ping Pong the Animation, but in short, I love(d) it. Then again, I always knew…
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I Can't Think of a Cool Nickname
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Read More →: I Can't Think of a Cool Nickname“Hey, hey! Shizu-chan’s definitely in love with Izaya. Two guys… Like BL!” Wow, writing an introductory post is extremely difficult. I’m quite the talkative person but things like this make me a bit shy. Hello! My name is Kiara. I am a junior in college and am double majoring in Japanese and English. You could…
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Blood tastes like iron
Read More →: Blood tastes like ironEven when there’s a guy like Masaaki Yuasa handling the adaptation of one of your favourite stories, there’s always a small worry that something won’t click. In Ping Pong‘s case especially, pairing Yuasa with mangaka Taiyou Matsumoto was almost too perfect, because as any one who has read Matsumoto’s other works will know (Tekkonkinkreet and…
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Just Communication; Rewatching Gundam Wing
Read More →: Just Communication; Rewatching Gundam WingLet’s be honest, here: I rewatched Gundam Wing these past couple of weeks because A Day Without Me was posting hilarious screencaps on twitter, and listening to Just Communication a grand total of once convinced me it was a good idea. When Gundam Wing aired on Canadian TV, in the early 00’s, I paid it no more than passing attention. I…
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Unspeakably beautiful: Devilman anime review
Read More →: Unspeakably beautiful: Devilman anime reviewA belated new year’s resolution for me is to publish more posts this year than last, but rather than try to come up with a bunch of boring editorials, I went through MyAnimeList and picked out twelve anime that I want to try and write about, bringing me first to Devilman (both The Birth (1987)…
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Kill la Kill and (my) great expectations
Read More →: Kill la Kill and (my) great expectationsKill la Kill defies comparison. It’s from the writer and director duo that brought us the beloved Gurren Lagann and it reads a lot like the classic Revolutionary Girl Utena but come into Kill la Kill expecting a series like those two and you’ll be disappointed. It’s its own animal, albeit with a twist of…
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Rin's labyrinth
Read More →: Rin's labyrinth“If you were stronger, I don’t know how this would have ended. But I know one thing. That woman would be dead. Those who gain power must pay a price, something in exchange. If you seek to be stronger than others you may have to lose what you value above all else. Remember this well.”…
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Still warm
Read More →: Still warmIn another life, I may have been a vegetarian, but in this day and age of supermarkets and their aisles of prepared meat, it’s hard to imagine something as generic as a chicken breast once belonging to a living animal. Don’t get me wrong, I’m well aware that it does, but having been divorced from…
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Kickstartering the future of anime
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Read More →: Kickstartering the future of animeThis article is my third attempt at writing a piece about crowd funding and anime, each time I’ve tried to do so another development forced me to re-write it, illustrating just how quickly crowdsourcing is reshaping the anime industry. Kick-Heart, the anime kickstarter by Production IG, was the first big crowd funding success. It proved…
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And Punpun is just fine, today.
Read More →: And Punpun is just fine, today.I spent two days reading up to the latest releases of Oyasumi Punpun. I spent two days kicking myself for not reading Inio Asano’s longest-running work sooner; assuming it would be inferior to the tight, refined narratives of his one shots. I spent two days crying over the fact that no-one picked up the English-language…
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Death to the fantasy
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Read More →: Death to the fantasyOf all the new anime that I’ve seen this season, it’s probably WataMote that has left me with the strongest impression, to the point where I went ahead and started reading the manga straight after watching it. With its English title of No Matter How I Look At It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Unpopular!…
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In the Mouth of Madness: Aku no Hana
Read More →: In the Mouth of Madness: Aku no HanaThere’s a beautiful scene at the end of episode seven of Aku no Hana (Flowers of Evil.) Finally overcome with the guilt of stealing Saeki’s gym clothes, Kasuga asks Nakamura to help him confess and in the dead of night they head to their classroom to do just that. She forces him to write his…
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Ghosts in their own ghost stories: Shokuzai
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Read More →: Ghosts in their own ghost stories: Shokuzai“If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without ever being born. We are the chick-The world is our egg. If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without ever truly being born. Smash the world’s shell. FOR THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORLD!” –Revolutionary Girl Utena Shokuzai (Penance) is…
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Majestic Prince
Read More →: Majestic PrinceEvery season has its dark horses and this one is no different. I’ve been excited about Flowers of Evil, Attack on Titan and Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet since the offset, but I ignored Majestic Prince, which I figured would be as cliché as it looked. I don’t know if it’s just Hisashi Hirai’s dated…