Turns out “Tari Tari” was Japanese for “That was better than I expected”. OP: “Dreamer” by AiRI It always seemed odd that a premise so seemingly derivative as this one was the only original (not an adaptation or sequel) series of the season. Formula is definitely the formula this season […] Read more
Kids, kids – there really wasn’t any need to get all that upset, was there? Hyouka is a funny series. It can do stuff that would normally irritate me to no end, and I still don’t get angry with it. In fact, I sort of shake my head and smile […] Read more
It was smelling a little stale after the first batch of formulaic season premières, but Jinrui wa Suitai shimashita blew through the room like a breath of fresh – albeit very strange – air. OP: 「「リアルワールド」 (real world) by (nano.RIPE) I’ve liked the chemical composition of this series from the first […] Read more
I’m resigned to the fact that this series will never be recognized as the classic it was, but that doesn’t diminish its greatness one bit. Please don’t mistake the fact that I’m not doing a separate series finale and series review post for Nazo no Kanojo X as any indication […] Read more
That was certainly… an ending. I’ll give a lot of credit to TMS for the work they did on this updating of the Lupin III franchise. The soundtrack (produced by Watanabe Shinichiro) was superb, and the visuals were quite unlike anything I’ve seen in the last couple of years. But […] Read more
If one were to guess a trend for the new season based on this weekend’s premières, it’d have to be “Viva Italia”. The Spanish are hoping, I’m sure, that it doesn’t carry over into football. OP: “Magenta Another Sky” by Hitomi Harada I would say that I liked this premiere […] Read more
Let’s all dance with Mutta wigs! OP2: “Eureka” by Sukima Switch After endless and irritating viewer references to Mutta as “middle-aged”, we finally have a real middle-aged man to worry about as Fukuda takes center stage in episode 14. He’s been an interesting figure dancing around the edges of the […] Read more
It’d be hard to imagine two episodes more different than this one and last week’s Hunter X Hunter, but the series never misses a beat. In some ways, this episode felt almost like a reward for both the characters and audience – a chance to sit back and relax after […] Read more
If any premise ever screamed out “Light novel!” it’s this one. I enjoyed the first episode of Campione!, though my initial impression is that this a pretty generic setup. I don’t necessarily consider “generic” a negative term, as long as a series is well executed and based on initial evidence, […] Read more
With this post, at last we’re caught up with Ginga e Kickoff… It’s nice to see Ginga getting some traction among the fan community, in Japan anyway. There was the Sankakau poll that had it at #19 in the “Series You’re Wasting Your Life by Not Watching” poll. Doujins are […] Read more