If you were worried that Chihayafuru was getting a little too melodramatic after episode 5, this week’s effort should be a welcome change. It’s a return to the innocent, childlike exuberance of the first three episodes – and damned if it didn’t actually get me interested in Karuta a little […] Read more
It’s been quite a good season on Nurarihyon. But in terms of cool, sheer GAR and romance, this might just be the best episode yet. To be honest, I’m kind of rooting for Tsuchigumo at this point. Nothing against Rikuo, but he’s obviously not going to lose this fight and […] Read more
The fourth episode of Last Exile: Fam tries awfully hard to please. I think it would be well served to try a little less hard as it develops. As certain of my concerns are being addressed, one by one, my anxiety about where this series is going is decreasing, but […] Read more
Before it got all serious in the second half (sort of) this episode of Majikoi was a phallus-shaped arrow fired directly at the heart of Ishihara Shintaro. I haven’t blogged this show in a stand-alone post for a while, but as this episode was noteworthy for a few reasons, most […] Read more
Everything’s all right now – Amano Yukiteru is in the house. I think it’s pretty safe to say that if you were bored with this episode of Mirai Nikki, this probably isn’t going to work for you. In actuality over half of the surviving diary holders were in the shrine […] Read more
Shakugan no Shana III – 05 Shana is certainly testing my memory. All kinds of faces I haven’t seen for ages are turning up again, and it’s an effort to place them all in context as I frankly didn’t pay very close attention once the second season started to slide […] Read more
Let’s HOSPITAL! Wow, that was eventful, but in a totally different way than episode 5 was. Instead of a breakneck high-speed train ride through a few months in the manga industry, this was an emotional roller-coaster that upended a lot of the foundations Bakuman has been based on, and asked […] Read more
I don’t know about Ben-To, I really don’t. It has the ability to make me love it, and then five minutes later make me hate it. And I’m not sure I find that to be a pleasurable experience. If you follow discussions in places like Animesuki, you know there’s been […] Read more
I almost let myself believe we were going to have a “moment” there at the end of this episode, but this is Working after all – so Inami took care of that with a left hook. If any episode has reminded me of the first season, it would be this […] Read more
While this was more of a “calm before the storm” episode than anything, it was still exciting in that funny way Fate/Zero’s talky eps have a way of being… “Night of Stratagems”, indeed. There was all sorts of interesting stuff happening here, especially for a relative newcomer to the material […] Read more