I love snow. The Japan Meteorological Association issued its first Heavy Snow Warning for Tokyo in 13 years today. I feel really lucky to be here for this, because I love snow. I love the way it looks, the way it sounds when shoes crunch down on it, everything about […] Read more
How can a kid with such great language skills have no much trouble with one two letter word? Boy, was that episode ever a tale of two halves. The A-part was very much a continuation of the mostly slice-of-life mode that the series has been in for the second season, […] Read more
Yep, definitely the oddest series of the season… I’m glad I don’t have to work on this series’ marketing campaign for Sentai Filmworks, because I wouldn’t want the job of trying to sell this series for all the caterpillar fungus in China. I have a suspicion anyone still watching it […] Read more
Well – baby steps, I suppose. Nishimura Junji (director of True Tears) is the credited screenwriter for this episode, which should be a good sign any way you look at it. Of course he also wrote some of the most inane episodes of Hanasaku Iroha and some of the best […] Read more
What is it about these Shinto series and 4th episodes? I’m not trying to make Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha into something it isn’t. I recognize that this show isn’t – for example – Gingitsune, or even Natsume Yuujinchou. This is a conventionally plot-driven romance-oriented series with broad comedy that happens […] Read more
That was a new spin on identity theft. Witch Craft Works – 05 The danger of any show whose primary appeal (for me, anyway) is randomness is that when it focuses on plot or character – or, God forbid, starts to make sense – some of the magic is gone. […] Read more
Watching this arc really is the agony and the ecstasy… I wrote a lot about last week’s episode, and I suspect next week’s is going to be impossible not to likewise discuss at length – so I feel as if I really need to control myself now. In my defense […] Read more
Shameless. Utterly shameless. There came a time, about halfway through this episode, when my thought process shifted from “They couldn’t possibly – could they?” to “Dammit – they’re going to do it, aren’t they?” And sure enough the vicious rat bastards did – they ended the episode exactly where I […] Read more
There are many ways to put a puzzle together, I suppose. There have been quite a few revelations in Toaru Hikuushi e no Koiuta, but nothing I’d really call a surprise. All of the exposition has more or less followed the expected course so far, which can either be taken […] Read more
If this season’s Xin had a theme song, I suspect it would be “Lola”. The countdown to the end of Kingdom’s second season continues, and like so many I’ll be hoping for a continuation announcement at the end (or soon after). We may be 74 episodes in but this truly […] Read more