Those were the best dumps I’ve seen in ages. Diamond no Ace – 43 It’s no surprise at all that this was the best episode of Diamond no Ace we’ve seen for several weeks. Like any ensemble series it’s better when it focuses on its best characters, but more than […] Read more
Cloudy, with a 100% chance of Kaji. Anyone who saw the weather forecast for Western Japan knows today was a fitting day for Kaji Yuuki to arrive on the scene in Barakamon. Like an approaching typhoon his ominous presence has been bearing down on this defenseless island, its residents helpless […] Read more
Way to sink your own ship there, Inaho – though fortunately not literally. I’m a bit surprised by the markedly hostile turn in the commentary about Aldnoah.Zero of late, because for me it remains a sterling example of how to do popcorn anime right. There are a few factors that […] Read more
A small world, indeed. I don’t think there’s any question Sasasegawa Sasami’s arc is one of the simpler and more straightforward in the Little Busters anime repertoire. And in the end, it’s probably one that depends on the audience having had a familial relationship with a pet – preferably a […] Read more
Did he at least try Ctrl+Alt+Del? The last bubble show of Summer still has me squarely on the fence, with each episode offering just enough upward movement to keep me invested. It isn’t so much the execution here that’s the appeal, but the unusually restrained and realistic style and the […] Read more
I’m not so sure Kuroshitsuji isn’t the best new series of the season. I can’t help but wonder why more people aren’t watching Kuroshitsuji: Book of Circus – or, if they are, why they aren’t talking about it. The series scores highly on sites like Anime-planet and MAL, and seems […] Read more
Color me intrigued (and a bit irked). An interesting thing happened with Zankyou no Terror this week. The series got sillier and less believable, and became considerably more engaging in the process. That whole heart/head equation that I’ve been talking up with this series is by no means an either-or […] Read more
Whatever else one might say about Tokyo Ghoul, you can’t argue that it doesn’t keep itself busy. It looks like Tokyo Ghoul is set to do pretty well commercially. The Stalker numbers look decent, and all of the back issues of the manga have started to chart again – always […] Read more
Mada nai, yo! Scratching another off the list of anime pilgrimages, I headed out to Chichibu today. In part I was hoping to catch a little break from the heat, but no luck there – despite its mountain setting it felt even hotter in Chichibu than Tokyo for some reason. […] Read more
That might just have been as much fun as any anime episode this season. This was one of the real “wow” episodes of the season for me, and there haven’t been many of them. It’s not that I necessarily liked it better than all the others, or that I didn’t […] Read more