I’m always ready to go back to Chichibu… As usual with theatrical releases, I’m going to defer my main writeup until I have a chance to sit down with the subtitled version of Anthem of the Heart on Blu-ray. But as always I think it’s important to share a few […] 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
There’s great comfort in knowing some things don’t change. I wasn’t totally sure how I’d feel about returning to AnoHana, some three years after the completion of the TV series. I certainly loved it (I ranked it #2 on my list for 2011), but three years is a long time […] Read more
AnoHana was certainly popular enough to get a sequel (NoitaminA would have loved that) but the story was wrapped up pretty conclusively. So instead, we get a big-screen film in Summer 2013. Looks like a retelling from Menma’s POV. It’ll be interesting to see if Nagai directs and Okada writes […] Read more
To make it simple, I’ll state what stands out to me about AnoHana right here in the first sentence – it’s the best show of 2011 so far, and it isn’t even close. Every season of NoitaminA lately seems to follow the same trend – one show that has a […] Read more
I have so many thoughts running through my head as I think back on the finale of AnoHana. That’s the hardest part about writing this post, probably – that, and trying to be objective about a show that’s so incredibly close to my heart by now. So I’ll begin by […] Read more
As much as I’ve bonded with this show – which is a lot – it’s extraordinarily rare that any entertainment causes me to lose it emotionally. But while I held out for 9.5 episodes of AnoHana, there were a couple of moments this week that finally pushed me right to […] Read more
Well as usual, so much happened there that my head is spinning a little. I really should take a few hours to digest and compose my thoughts before blogging an episode of AnoHana, but there’s so much churning around in my head that I need to get it down while […] Read more
It almost goes without saying that this was a great and emotionally powerful episode of AnoHana – they pretty much all are. But I continue to be amazed by just how much this series gets right, and by how much punch it can pack into 22 minutes. Case in point […] Read more
Working! I really, really love AnoHana. It has so many moments of profound emotional truth that I leave every episode exhausted from the ebbs and flows. But for whatever reason, I find myself feeling very strongly tonight that the show is going to rip my heart out and stomp it […] Read more