Anime Review: Shamanic Princess

I grew up on weird obscure titles found in our small town VHS rental store as well as, a bit later, whatever I could scrounge up from the deep reaches of the early internet. Which is to say, not much, because back then there was no YouTube nor Crunchyroll. At first there were a few websites, then there was DirectConnect, then shitty KaZaA, and, if you were adventurous (like me), there were the archaic-but-useful IRC channels for the various anime fansub groups. Ah yes, XDCC. How you saturated my poor slow internet connection with lovely AVI files. I still have hundreds of CDs burned with those old treasures. Later we would get the wonders of BitTorrent but until it caught on, things were rough. I mention all this because it pertains to the old title I finally, after so many years, got around to.

Anime Review: Shingeki no Kyojin

Well… shit. Where does one begin when reviewing the titan that is Attack on Titan? Yeah, you know the one. Maybe you didn’t see it or still plan to or saw some screenshots and figured it wasn’t your thing. Maybe you watched it every week as it aired. Regardless, you’ve at least heard of it. I know you have. During its run, and long after, you couldn’t go anywhere near Crunchyroll or any anime community and not see an ad, a picture, or a mention. The looming titan face with exposed muscle and bone is now practically iconic (see below). There are several spinoffs and tons of merchandise. AoT dominated everything, at least until Kill la Kill  and then Sword Art Online II dethroned it (but I’ll deal with those behemoths another day). Don’t even get me started on all of the parodies. It was fantastically popular and still is, and the second season is just around the corner now.

Anime Review: Diabolik Lovers

Cool colors, dark vignettes, and high contrast do nothing to innovate yet are certainly appropriate and striking. But alas, the actual result is that of a frustrated high school girl’s fanfic of “dark gothic vampires” that inevitably becomes a masturbation fantasy of her repressed desires for sexy despicable devils to consume her innocent life and literally fight over her body. It would be deplorable in an anti-feminist way, despite the tell-tale trappings and obvious catering to a female-dominated audience, if it weren’t just down-right silly and sad.

The Brony Closet

Leaving a job is never easy. Doubly so if you liked it and/or the people. The obligation to those you leave behind is, at least for me, also a bit daunting and agonizing. I don’t like schmaltzy farewells or half-hearted platitudes. But, I also don’t hold it against folks because I know it’s hard to do well and, frankly, it’s rarely worth it nor is it required in the first place. At best it is a polite consolation.

Recently, another co-worker moved on but, before departing, she dropped an incredibly long and heartfelt bomb on us via email, where she talked about where she was going, why she was thankful, and even went through each of us one by one to give a personal shout-out. It was like a giant wot-i-think about us all and it was very honest and from the heart and also just a tad psychotic but the best humans in life often are. Needless to say, she’s now set the bar super high for whenever anyone else leaves.

Anime Review: Plastic Nee-san

I have long been led to believe that the domain of the three-minute mini-series were for the adaptations and ideas that, well, to be charitable… couldn’t secure real funding. Maybe they’re too risky, maybe too niche (even by anime standards), or maybe it’s sometimes just all the money and talent is busy with other things. So for the rare gag series like Nichijou that lands a full cour with a top studio like KyoAni there’s bound to be dozens of others that fall to the wayside. Such is the nature of the biz, I suppose. But all this means that when I see a new series pop up and find that it has a running time of roughly 3 minutes per episode I’ve learned to scale back my expectations. It’s not that they can’t still be good but just that most tend to be only okay, relatively speaking.

Why I Don’t Assign Ratings

Not that anyone is asking, but there is a distinctly missing feature of all of my many reviews: some kind of rating. I never give anything 8.5 out of 10, 3 out of 5 stars, or whatever system you typically see. I don’t do ratings, man.

Anime Review: Nagi no Asukara

Wow. Well… I should have known once I saw this was a P.A. Works production. It’s beautiful and pushes all of my buttons. The animation is phenomenal (as expected anymore from them), Manaka is adorbs, the osananajimi vs. newcomer storyline hits me right in my vulnerable spots, and the setting is nicely inventive and stylistic and adds to the charm and the presentation. The music is above average, with nice OP/ED themes, and the sound and voice work is equally great. And it’s also a full two cour that doesn't drag? Oh dear…

Anime Review: Kin-iro Mosaic

Super cute, colorful, and charismatic. Do you revel in lolicakes? This show excels in loli by putting on a fantastic presentation. It’s got fairly high production value and it shows by having gorgeous storybook backgrounds, a swelling soundtrack, and more cute little girls being friends and cute together then you’ll know what to do with. Pedobear approved! And did I forget to mention the Engrish? Because there’s lots of it. Part of the setup is that one of the main girls is from England, so… yeah. It’s pretty bad rad. (No, they don’t try for any British Engrish… probably for the best.) A lot of later jokes and conversations revolve around this foreigner shtick particularly with regards to blonde hair… despite the main cast including girls with red and blue hair. Who knows, maybe in this universe Japanese people are limited to a Ro G. Biv palette of follicles.

Anime Review: Golden Time

It seems like every time I review a genuine romance anime (as opposed to one of the many fluff pieces) I’m constantly making comparisons to Toradora! and revisiting my opinion of it. True enough, I keep coming away with the same general conclusion: I was probably too dismissive of its merits in hindsight. Perhaps having seen so many inferior series since then has given me renewed appreciation but I still don’t think it excuses Toradora!’s many faults. And, really, is it that much of a compliment when I’m effectively just saying “Wow, you’re not so ugly compared to these other girls!”