Summer season is in full swing, and it’s time for me to give my learned/authoritative/misguided/wrong/whatever opinion on all the stuff I’ve watched. Winter 2019 was excellent. Spring 2019 was pretty good. Summer 2019... may well blow them all out of the water. There’s just... so... much... anime... I’m barely able to…
So right about now I should be embarking upon a what appears to have become a traditional “My Thoughts on the Current Anime Season” article. You know - about 6 or so episodes in to each series where I can give my opinion on what has been good (or otherwise) so far.
There follows an excerpt from the script of an unproduced OAV/epilogue to the anime series The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. The veracity of the source cannot be confirmed, but its discovery is most timely in the context of AniTAY’s KyoAni appreciation week.
In planning to do a retrospective of the work of Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika, Paranoia Agent), I thought first I’d look at one of his early works - he was the scriptwriter, layout artist and art director for Magnetic Rose, the first segment of Katsuhiro Otomo’s (Akira,…
It’s that time again - another season has finished and before we rush headlong into the shiny, colourful delights of Summer, we should pause to treat the PTSD caused by exposure to the Spring season of anime.
Did you notice? There’s another new anime-themed mobile game on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Surely there are thousands of those things now? I haven’t seen much hype online for this one. Magia Record is a Gacha-flavoured spin-off of the renowned anime TV and movie series Madoka Magica. Initially launched…
Ask any Monogatari fan what the correct order to read or watch this series in is and you will receive a different answer. The first novel published (in two volumes) was Bakemonogatari (Monster Story), the animated adaptations I reviewed here and here. Next was Kizunomonogatari (Wound Story), a prequel that explained…
Let me start with a rant. What the hell is it about the medium of anime and its frequent total disregard of continuity and consistency? This pissed me off with Tenchi Muyo back in the late 90's/early 00's when none of the OAVs, TV series, movies or manga shared any of the same universes. Why bother starting from the…
Let’s get this part over and done with straight away then, shall we? I was warned about episode 8 of Nisemonogatari. Something about a toothbrush. A toothbrush? I thought. What can you do with a toothbrush that would be so objectionable? Does Araragi stick it up his sister’s butt or something? The show itself…
Just for fun, I had a look at the BBFC’s website to see why this and the next volume were rated “18”.
Now that the Spring 2019 season has established itself, general trends suggest that anime fans have already forgotten all of the previous season’s shows, right? Well I’m here to extricate you from Sarazanmai’s moist orifice to turn your gaze pastwards to what may have been the best season for anime in the past couple…
After narrowly surviving my first foray into the bizarre media maelstrom that is the Monogatari series (here), I have returned to relate my experiences from my brave plunge into the second half of the first segment. The Bakemonogatari Part 2 Blu-ray set contains 2 discs spanning episodes 9-15. There’s only 2 stories…
Despite being an anime fan since the age of 6, I have never watched a single episode of anything from the Monogatari series. In fact until recently I knew next to nothing about it, save it has a bizarre naming scheme that makes it difficult to find on alphabetised DVD store shelves, it was apparently broadcast out of…
Well, that woman sure has eyebrows, I thought as I saw the main character’s image on the box. And boy, she sure knows how to wield them, I thought after watching this thoroughly odd movie. Based on a historical manga by Hinako Sugiura, it relates a collection of disparate vignettes in the life of Katsushika Oi (O-Ei),…
Watching Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata’s rightly lauded film about two sibling children’s wartime experiences is an emotionally draining experience. Giovanni’s Island, a 2014 anime movie from Production I.G. is in a similar vein, though in truth it is mostly a post-war tale, also seen through the eyes of two…
So many anime shows are about schoolkids at school, doing schoolkid things. I wonder if that’s a reflection of Japanese attitudes to adult life. Do they really believe that schooldays are the best days of your life? Once you graduate and become a wage-slave to some dark corporate overlord, then your life is…
WARNING: SIGNIFICANT, DETAILED SPOILERS AND GRUESOME IMAGERY AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Another family-friendly choice, this film makes an interesting complement/counterpoint to my recently reviewed A Letter to Momo in that this Chinese-produced animation also explores Eastern concepts of the afterlife from a young person’s perspective. When I picked it up, I didn’t even realise this wasn’t Japanese…
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