I think we’re pretty fortunate to have two pure comedies as good as Shinryaku Ika Musume and Soredemo in one season. Straight-ahead comedy is really difficult to pull off consistently, and this show was brilliant. It delivered a terrific batting average over the course of roughly 35 mini-episodes, and even […] Read more
What a fascinating and unexpected series Oreimo turned out to be. Alternately maddening and deliriously enjoyable but almost always addictive, it was one of the more interesting shows of 2010. I was expecting this to be an ecchi series, something along the lines of Kiss x Sis. As any one […] Read more
Looking back at season two of Sora no Otoshimono, I’d have to call it something of a mixed bag – with more good than bad. At its best, it could be both hilarious (the Buddhist retreat episode) and powerfully moving (episode 8, the first “defeat” of Chaos and lots of […] Read more
In reviewing the sixth and final season of “Major”, I suppose I should say a word about the first five – because in many ways, the continuity of the series is such that all the episodes can be viewed mostly as one long season. For my tastes, the first season […] Read more
Seikimatsu Occult Gakuin was the best show of the summer for me, on balance. I loved Mitsudomoe and I’m enjoying Shiki a lot, but for my money Occult Academy had the best overall package. Tremendous production values, courtesy of A-1 pictures. Phenomenal voice cast. The most intricate, clever and challenging […] Read more
Part of me wants to call Giant Killing a sports anime for those who don’t like sports anime – but I think “Cross Game” really fits that title better. That’s a sports anime that isn’t (in a good way) while GK is a sports anime that really is a sports […] Read more
It took me a couple of episodes to catch on to this series, but once I did – and that really started with the brilliant episode three – I was fully hooked. The Kool-aid had been drunk and I was ready to do anything the Marui sisters commanded. This series […] Read more
Asobi ni Ikuyo! was a series that was hard to love, but impossible for me not to like. It was never guilty of taking itself too seriously (thank goodness) and presented the occasional moment of genuine inspiration, an incredibly catchy ED, and some of the best fanservice of the season. […] Read more
In the end, it’s hard to review a series that’s an anime-original sequel to a series that had an anime-original ending. The source material’s relevance in all this is somewhat muddled – neither series really reflects a continuity with the manga. That said, the truth is that, for most of […] Read more
And so, it ends. Was this a bit of an anti-climax? Well, sure – but in the same way Lord of the Rings earned its long coda, so did “Brotherhood”. After 63 episodes of action, intense drama and enough shared pain for 10 series, 22 minutes or so to send […] Read more