Perhaps the greatest honor of all in a Urobuchi Gen series is to be allowed to die with dignity. The good news and the bad news is plentiful here. We had one of the very best episodes of either season, full of GAR and martial spirit and pathos. But the […] Read more
“Out of the Past” Damn, things sure move fast in this series, don’t they? It’s certainly a marked difference to the first series, which spent much more time on world-building and character development in the first season. There are pluses and minuses to each approach – the major drawback to […] Read more
I enjoyed watching it, but please don’t ask me to explain it. I don’t think I can really do justice to the weirdness of this episode by trying too hard to write a blog post – so I won’t try too hard. It seems we’ve entered the final phase, and […] Read more
The classic introduction of an anime villain is surely, “Hey – you’re that guy from the toilet!” If there were any doubt that this world is not the one we live in 13 years in the future, it was pretty much dispelled this week beyond any reasonable doubt. There have […] Read more
Sometimes the good guys win after all. Of all the sequel announcements that have happened since I became an anime fan, this just might be my happiest moment. In the face of an upcoming season full of unworthy sequels representing the dumbing down of anime in the worst way, a […] Read more
Sankarea is a show that stubbornly refuses to behave the way I expect it to. I confess, I’m really not sure what DEEN and director Hatakeyama are are planning – maybe there’s a second season green-lit already for all I know. But the series has undeniably taking a weird and […] Read more
Dammit Watanabe, why do you insist on making it look so easy? This was an amazingly simple episode of Sakamichi no Apollon, really. Basically four main scenes, plus a few supporting ones, spread out over the winter holidays as Kyushu is covered by a light blanket of snow. I can […] Read more
Though the plot is really heating up, I can already see Tsuritama returning squarely to its roots for the final arc. I’m hard-pressed to think of a show that’s been as consistent as this one has. Though there have certainly been stylistic changes, the overall quality has been remarkably stable […] Read more
Short intestines? Kawaii!! A little change of pace this week, with the entire episode taken up by one chapter – “Mr. Handa’s Group Blind Date” (apart from a tiny segment about pot stickers at the beginning). Actually, the pot sticker mini and the blind date chapter did have a common […] Read more
What is first shall be… First. What – is it summer already? OP: “Pride” by Nothing’s Carved in Stone Seems like every anime season lately has a series that debuts a month before the rest of them. This time around, it’s Kingdom, from Studio Pierrot. There are several reasons this […] Read more