What struck me as I watching the final episode of Kuragehime was that it didn’t really feel like a final episode. It was fast-paced, but there was never a sense of onrushing conclusion – the mood was that of another bizarre day in the lives of these wonderful characters. And […] Read more
There’s a tendency to let our feelings towards final episodes guide our feelings towards a series in general. But in reality, endings are only one episode of many – in this case one of 22. And while the ending is generally the most important episode, it’s also the hardest to […] Read more
I can honestly say I’m bitterly disappointed that I didn’t like the ending for this series, even if I wasn’t totally surprised. I love this show – I rank it as the second best series of an above-average year, and that’s pretty rarefied air. But as I feared it might, […] Read more
The little omakes attached to the DVD released for “Letter Bee” finally trickled onto the sub lists this week. As omakes go, these are pretty good so far. Animation-wise, they’ve decided to go with a sort of bright, Saturday-morning Mahou Shoujo look (and come to think of it, a Mahou […] Read more
Unfortunately, my very first “First Impressions” of the winter season didn’t make much of one. A Studio DEEN adaptation of an Otome game, this one reads as something of a spin on Fruits Basket – a reverse harem about the only girl student at a previously all-boys school dedicated to […] Read more
In the spirit of the Oscars, here are my picks for the best of the best this year. I’m going to bend my rules for this one and allow series that began airing in 2009 for this one, just because I really want to give Cross Game some of the […] Read more
It’s that time of year again – namely – the end of it – where we look back and take stock of what transpired over the last twelve months. In that spirit, here’s my “Top Eleven” of 2010. A couple of notes: – Why 11? Honestly, the last few shows […] Read more
Move along – nothing new to see here Episode 26 is a recap episode – a “digest” of the Tamazuki Arc. Two recap eps in one season is a bit of a stretch, but at least we’re getting a second season (though at this stage no one seems certain what […] Read more
The big news this week: Masahiro finally emailed Miho. I suppose in the world of Bakuman we have to consider this progress on the Masahiro/Azuki front. I’ve rarely seen an anime generate as many complaint posts as this one does. It makes me wonder – if you hate it that […] Read more
Definitely a setup episode this week, and it looks like next week will wrap up the Croce de Pietro arc. Not too much happened, really – not a lot of humor, not much action – mostly a lot of talking. What was interesting? Well, we had a seemingly extraneous snippet […] Read more