Oh, dear – things really hit the fan in episode 10. After the wistful melancholy of episode 10, Asobi ni Ikuyo takes a Seikimatsu-like turn and gives us a non-stop action episode. Things were quite as insanely paced as the latest offering in that series, but still frenetic by this […] Read more
Tonight, I went to a theatrical screening of Makoto Shinkai’s magnificent “5 Centimeters Per Second” at Viz Cinema in San Francisco. It had been a couple of years since I watched it, and I was curious to see if my reaction would have changed. Though I’ve watched it multiple times […] Read more
Hmmm… I hardly know where to begin with that one. Wow – what an episode. First of all, whether it was intentional or not, the contrast with the last two rather sedate, wistful eps could hardly have been greater. It really seemed like three eps worth of, well – content […] Read more
Yawn – another stellar episode of Giant Killing, and another cliffhanger. This might be the most consistent show of 2010 so far. Some of the foreshadowing of last week bore fruit this ep. We saw Kubota have the leave the game, exhausted. Dulfer greeted him warmly and even Sugie (and […] Read more
Mitsuba continued to be at the center of things for a second episode in a row this week, but with what I would judge to be mixed results. Not through any fault of her own – I continue to warm to her character, though she’s still my third favorite sister. […] Read more
Only two episodes to go, and the penultimate one was all about reveals. Lot of questions answered this week, using the very clever premise of a maze that reflected the will of Alois Trancy, through which Claude and Sebastian must navigate to reach him on the clock tower. The rub: […] Read more
Shiki continues its magnificent run with yet another flawless masterpiece of an episode. The pacing was so good and the suspense so artful, it really did seem to last about 5 minutes. The focus this week shifted back to Natsuno, with brief appearances by Akira and his sister. There were […] Read more
The Gyuuki arc finally completed, Nurarihyon seems to be moving on to what the manga readers tell us is the meat of the story. And the first episode in that progression centers around a character who we’ve mostly seen in abstract so far, Kana. The premise of the ep itself […] Read more
You know, we’re nine episodes into this series and I’m really nowhere close to figuring it out. Already, we’ve been switching pretty liberally between action, extreme ecchi, harem romance and clever parody. Now this week brings us easily the deepest and most somber episode of the series, complete with an […] Read more
Ah, the return of the nut-cracking cliffhanger – yet another Major specialty. I thought for a moment that we might get a resolution to the one-game playoff in episode 22, but it looks like we’re headed for another Wold-Cup style extra-innings marathon. The game itself continues to be a string […] Read more