The only thing that was predictable about this ending is that it wouldn’t be a predictable ending. It would certainly be fair to say I have conflicted feelings over the way Kishi Seiji and Uezu Makoto decided to end Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita. Make no mistake, it was a very […] Read more
There are times when a lack of major surprises is a very good thing, and this is one of them. Natsuyuki Rendezvous has been a difficult series right from the beginning – slow to work its way into my consciousness, never eager to make its characters easy to love, always […] Read more
It’s taken us quite a while to get here, but the journey was certainly rewarding. Episode 12 I have to give full credit to Shouwa Monogatari, because episode 12 really felt like a penultimate episode should. It ramped up both the drama and emotion, and managed to recall all of […] Read more
I’m resigned to the fact that this series will never be recognized as the classic it was, but that doesn’t diminish its greatness one bit. Please don’t mistake the fact that I’m not doing a separate series finale and series review post for Nazo no Kanojo X as any indication […] Read more
That was certainly… an ending. I’ll give a lot of credit to TMS for the work they did on this updating of the Lupin III franchise. The soundtrack (produced by Watanabe Shinichiro) was superb, and the visuals were quite unlike anything I’ve seen in the last couple of years. But […] Read more
Any anime fan should fervently hope that Watanabe Shinichiro doesn’t wait nearly so long to direct his next TV anime. As a viewer, my relationship with Sakamichi no Apollon has been a lot more complicated than it has with its NoitaminA stable-mate, Tsuritama. I think Sakamichi’s highs have been the […] Read more
If you distilled pure happiness into 22 weekly minutes of sight and sound, you’d have something a lot like Tsuritama. There was an interesting moment during a Twitter Q & A today where someone asked the Tsuritama staff if they had any belief that the show would be commercially successful. […] Read more
Anime’s fastest-moving adaptation in ages screams to a close with a finale straight out of the Alan Moore playbook. I’ll give you my usual Zetman disclaimer – I really have no idea how much of that ending is from the manga, and how much of it is anime original. Given […] Read more
The cliffhanger of episode 11 left me wondering – was Haiyore! going to stick to its insane guns for the season finale, or sell out and go the conventional route? The answer, I guess, is somewhere in between. There are definitely screwball comedies where warmth is a big part of […] Read more
I never thought all that much about Kimi to Boku during its run, but now that it’s ending I’ve become aware that I’m really going to miss it. Fittingly for a show that never worried too much about plot, KtB leaves the airwaves forever with an episode as thoughtful and […] Read more