Anime is starting to get the kinks worked out of this short-format anime thing… In honor of Tonari no Seki-kun ending (for now) I ate dinner at Tonari Ramen last night (a local tanmen chain – very delicious). Happily this isn’t really the end, as the DVDs are going to […] Read more
I guess some things really are the same in Japan as they are in America. This week finds the master of killing time engaged in an activity teens everywhere are familiar with – studying the rules of the road and preparing for his road test. Except several years too early, […] Read more
Turns out Mt. Maeda is an active volcano… Witch Craft Works – 11 I guess the message of this episode is that the secret to magic power is in the shirt. Or something. Anyway… We’re still in full-on plot mode with Witch Craft Works, which clearly has a lot on […] Read more
You’ve got the wrong game, Gotou – this is golf, not tennis. Unless you’re talking about Davis there’s no love in golf…. Witch Craft Works – 10 The massive infusion of plot continues with this episode of Witch Craft Works, which is following the pattern many such madcap series do […] Read more
“Sasuga Seki-kun”. If ever the shoe fit… Tonari no Seki-kun – 09 “A boy knitting?” Let’s not get too caught up in old-fashioned gender roles, Yokoi-chan. Especially when the boy is Seki-kun, for whom no art, craft or skill can be limited by something as confining as gender politics. By […] Read more
That was pretty random even by WCW standards. Tonari no Seki-kun – 08 Shogi makes a return this week on Tonari no Seki-kun, with the focus this time shifting to family drama. Not surprisingly a story of forbidden love is even more irresistible to Yokoi than Seki-kun’s usual antics – […] Read more
Even in the wake of possibly the best anime episode in the last year, the rest of the schedule does soldier on… Tonari no Seki-Kun – 6/7 Honestly, an episode like this week’s Hunter X Hunter pretty much ruins me for other anime for a while. It’s so completely on […] Read more
That was a new spin on identity theft. Witch Craft Works – 05 The danger of any show whose primary appeal (for me, anyway) is randomness is that when it focuses on plot or character – or, God forbid, starts to make sense – some of the magic is gone. […] Read more
Sometimes I wonder if studios plan these things in advance. Tonari no Seki-kun – 04 Having mastered the vagaries of Shogi, our intrepid time-waster turns his hand to Go with similarly off-kilter results. I was hoping perhaps for a direct reference or two to a certain Shounen Jump series, but […] Read more
Sometimes the three-episode rule simply isn’t enough. Nobunagun – 03 It was a bit of a thematic change-of-pace for Nobunagaun this week with a training episode, but the series as a whole is in a bit of a holding pattern for me. It’s marginally more interesting in execution than it […] Read more