Speaking of writer Chris Boucher, isn't he the one credited with taking Terry Nation's already-bleak Blake's 7 and basically turning it into "Zapata in space" in its later seasons?

I saw The Wind Rises in theaters and got the Blu-Ray for Christmas, but haven't watched it again yet, because the mood hasn't been right. It's the kind of thing where you want to afford yourself some downtime after the movie to just think about it.

My limited-edition copy of the visual novel ef - a fairy tale of the two (link NSFW) arrived on Saturday, and with some tips from @mac_eroge I got it working in Wineskin on the Mac instead of having to drop into a Windows VM.

Are the Baccano! OVAs the ones that Funimation considers episodes 14-16, i.e., the ones the feature wrench-wielding Ladd Russo fanboy Graham Specter? At any rate, any Baccano! is always welcome, especially whenever the delightful idiot pair Isaac and Miriya are on screen.

My wife drops into the Dexter voice at least once a week, usually when scorning the pets in the same tone Dexter would address Dee Dee.

I did listen to NPR's All Songs Considered for a while, but about the time I gave up, I posted a review to iTunes that went something like "Bon Iver, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, Bon Iver, TV on the Radio, Bon Iver. There, I just saved you 30 minutes."

This year, I'm going to find a new way to discover new music I like. For years, I had depended on Grant Lawrence's CBC Radio 3 podcast, which turned me on to all sorts of great Canadian indie music (Joel Plaskett, New Pornographers, Bend Sinister). But the show went from weekly to monthly to irregular and now seems to…

When I was a kid, he went by the pen name "Jovial Bob Stine" and wrote the humor magazine for 5th graders that you could get with the Scholastic book orders. He also put out a humor collection called The Absurdly Silly Encyclopedia and Fly-Swatter, which I still have because, as you say, he's hilarious.

God, I hope she got a gift receipt.

With a stable job and actual office-closed holidays, plus my book in copy-editing and temporarily off my plate, and no conference sessions to prepare until March, I almost don't know what to do with myself. Last night, I started getting back into a long-stalled project to create a weekly livestream of creative digital…

The thing everyone says about the Fate stuff is "wow, this is great, but the mythology is so intricate". I bailed on Fate/Zero after that first episode (which literally starts with two guys walking around each other in a circle and info-dumping for five minutes about the Holy Grail War), but so many people are so into…

I was blown away by RKives last year, discovering that even Rilo Kiley's leftovers are great (except "Dejalo", which I always skip because I hate it). Actually, Blake Sennet's songs on that are really good, and it's a shame he gets overlooked in all the attention paid to Jenny Lewis.

Gainax has largely lost its way over the years (fan pandering, tax evasion), but some of its core creators spun off a new studio called "Trigger", so if you like old Gainax's distinctive style of animation, you might want to check out Little Witch Academia and Kill La Kill, although these call back to Evangelion more…

I discovered Kagerou Project, a 22-part song cycle sung in Japanese by vocaloids (synthesized singers, including Hatsune Miku), released between 2011 and 2013, which tell stories about a group of troubled teens with psychic powers. Obscure, right? Too much to explain in a comment, but I did blog it for #12daysofanime.

And Bebop just got a really nice re-release on Blu-Ray.

I believe Palmer said in the liner notes to his "Addictions" collection that "Johnny & Mary" was inspired by UK expat couples he met in the Caribbean where the husband had climbed the political ladder, and the wife had to keep up public appearances, and once they'd gotten as far as they were ever going to, they found…

Interesting that you sought out Bakemonogatari, apparently Japan's best-selling anime series of the decade, but a hard sell here with the aforementioned wordplay and cultural references. If you're seeking out the peculiar style of Akiyuki Shinbo, who directed Bakemonogatari and Madoka Magica, maybe check out his…

Oh episode 3 of Madoka Magica… do let us know after you watch it.

I drove over to Detroit (~2 hrs from Grand Rapids) to see the anime feature Expelled from Paradise with my anitwitter tweeps liuwdere and zero_action. The film is written by fan favorite Gen Urobuchi (Madoka Magica, Fate/Zero) and directed by Seiji Mizushima (the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist).

And hopefully a music video for "I Am Lorde (Ya Ya Ya)"