That was a great day for shounen (and Koyama Rikiya). Shounen really is a great demographic, for its versatility as much as anything. It’s not a “genre” of course – folks often get those two terms mixed up – but i’s certainly as broad a collection of genres as any […] Read more
Nothing I say could improve on simple perfection like that. Ushio to Tora makes a perfect companion piece with Kyoukai no Rinne, Jitsu wa Watashi wa and Gangsta (and I’ll even add a bit of Joukamachi no Dandelion) as a quartet. They provide a kind of sampler platter of old-school […] Read more
Man – we’ve really lost some ground these last two weeks. It’s not too often that I regret a quick trigger with the whole label thing, but I’m beginning to fear I might have jumped the gun with Ranpo Kitan. I liked the first episode an awful lot, the second […] Read more
One think about Worick – everyone he goes, people know the part he’s playin’. I’m not a fan of every trend in modern anime by any means – I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think the medium’s overall body of work since the start of 2013 is […] Read more
OK, this is a turn I didn’t see coming. I’ll admit that when this episode was in its early stages, I thought it was going to be an amusing one-off – entertaining, but not really critical to the long-term plot. Boy, was I ever wrong, as the B-part proved – […] Read more
Release the kraken. As hinted at last time, Kyoukai no Rinne has indeed unleashed the romcom hijinks in full force. And as you’d expect based on this cast and general tone, it’s a perfect fit. This bunch is a perfect vehicle for Rumiko to remind everyone just how good she […] Read more
“Glaring hole”, indeed. We’re in a funny sort of Purgatory in Chihyafuru right now. There’s obviously not just someone but something missing. Suetsugu-sensei acknowledges this openly in the writing, as it’s obviously an intentional development – yet the fact that it’s missing is no less glaring. Right now the series […] Read more
OK, it’s interesting – I’ll give you that. Whatever the threshold Overlord needs to cross in order to be relevant in this extremely played-out genre, I’d say based on the first two episodes it has a chance of meeting it. It’s no sure thing, mind you, but there’s something present […] Read more
This episode was clearly inspired by that classic protest anthem, “If I had a cutting-edge memory erasure apparatus”. You’ve heart Enzo’s Hippocratic Oath of comedy before – “First, be funny”. For all the others things we like our comedies to be able to do, they don’t really amount to much […] Read more
“To Work” I had a thought recently, when the 251st Nisio Isin adaptation was announced. What a wonderful thing it would be if Otoyomegatari got an adaptation, and a bunch of Nisoisin fans watched the premiere thinking it was one of his, and were perplexed and infuriated. Well, a man […] Read more