Spring is busting out all over. Golden Week continues – here are some pics from Rikugien Garden, a landscape garden in Bunkyou (five stops from my apartment) that was built at the beginning of the 18th Century. It’s amazing how the massively crowded metropolis of Tokyo is riddled with beautiful […] Read more
“You Can (Not) Redo” When I posted my thoughts about Eva Q after seeing it raw in a Japanese theater last December, I opened with “What the heck did I just see?” After seeing the movie subtitled, I have two further thoughts on that. First, I sure as hell don’t […] Read more
I see a lot of hopeful signs for Arata Kangatari, but the road ahead is still a puzzling one. The basic trend continues unabated – Arata Kangatari is being adapted at the rate of about 4 chapters per episode, and there are no signs that entire major plot elements will […] Read more
Why is is that the little ones are scarier than the big ones when it comes to mushi? Haiyore! Nyaruko-san W – 04 I must confess I find the episodes focused around Tamao and Yoichi to be consistently boring, and this one was no exception. More so than with almost […] Read more
“Kissed by Fire” Is it really possible that this season is half over? The deeper into this series we get, the more convinced I am that 10 hours is nowhere near enough time to tell the story the way it deserves to be told. But given the time constraints it’s […] Read more
I think Suisei no Gargantia is a good answer to the question, “What if an anime basically did what’s been done a thousand times before – only way, way better?” It would be hard to overstate the affection I’m feeling for Gargantia after watching that episode. Truly, it was wonderful […] Read more
I’m thinking it might be better if we skipped straight to the BD extra eps now. Is that possible? For balance’s sake, I’ll start this post by saying something positive about this episode. Ria isn’t as annoying as I thought she’d be. I’m really surprised at how little the second […] Read more
“Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” “Journey” is a pretty solid episode on the whole, with its share of intriguing moments, but I’m afraid Neil Gaiman has ruined for me TARDIS-centric episodes. I’ve noticed an interesting trend this season, or at least this second half of one – Doctor […] Read more
Only two episodes in, it’s clear that “Chimera Ant” is nothing like what’s come before. Welcome to the dark side of Togashi Yoshihiro’s mind. And since we’ve already seen some dark places in Hunter X Hunter, the fact that this arc seems such a dramatic tonal shift should give a […] Read more
Three weeks in, Spring 2013 looks pretty good. My take going into this season was that it looked solid – much better than Winter, but not as loaded with intriguing series as Spring of 2012* (the best season in five years, probably). At this point that’s still where I stand, […] Read more