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Tragedy and Healing: Why Maquia Makes Us Cry
Recently, Crunchyroll got in touch with me to ask if I could put together a review for Mari Okada’s directorial debut, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms. Any long-time readers of the blog will...
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12 Anime Things that Made Me Happy in 2018
2018 was yet another year of evolution in my journey as an anime fan. Throughout the year, I spent less time watching anime and less time engaging in anime-related activities like doing freelance...
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The Top Anime of 2018
There’s something to be said for putting down a more permanent record of your favorite anime of the year. I didn’t do it last year and I realized I regretted it—so this year, although I said I wouldn’t...
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Eggs and Admiration: A Reflection on Liz and the Blue Bird & Ririka Kenzaki
When you meet someone like this, you’ll know they’re not the same as anyone you’ve met before. When I was in my second year of high school, there was a senior I admired. He had a beautiful tenor voice...
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A Story of Reasons: My 2019 Anime Year in Review
There will be a few confessions made, and some resolutions declared. It’s the end of the year after all! It’s time to look forward, even as we reflect on the past. As I said last year around this...
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One Human Sacrifice: Weathering with You's Great Question
Drown the city to save yourself and your love. Spoilers for the entirety of Weathering with You/Tenki no Ko. I have to applaud Makoto Shinkai. After producing what could arguably be called the most...
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Winter 2020 Anime Midseason Check-In
“So,” she asks. “You said that you were going to try to do better about watching anime this year. How’s that coming along? After all, we haven’t seen a blog post since Weathering with You, and that’s...
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"Perhaps Our Lives Are More than Conflict"—Pondering Sora no Woto
In which soldiers do un-soldier-like things. In Sora no Woto, all five of the main characters are soldiers. Despite the comfortable, relatively untroubled lives they lead from day to day, reminders of...
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Yesterday wo Utatte, Episode 1
I’m just happy about this thing—and I hope I have more reason to be in the future! At about the ten-minute mark of the first episode of Yesterday wo Utatte (Sing “Yesterday” for Me), I was starting to...
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Some Thoughts on the Winter 2020 Anime Season
A quite reasonable season to get back into watching anime more regularly, I’d say. As you may remember, back in January I said that I was going to be getting back into watching seasonal anime—and,...
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The Millionaire Detective’s Daisuke Kamba: A Playground of Attraction
A short post on the fun of enjoying the extremely awful main character of The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited (Fugou Keiji). In my little corner of the anime community, the extremely wealthy...
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Yesterday wo Utatte, Episode 2
They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but misery’s one that could rival it. Two episodes in, I think it’s fair to classify Yesterday wo Utatte (Sing “Yesterday” for Me) as a visual marvel. At...
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Yesterday wo Utatte, Episode 3
Never expected to be saying this after last week’s rough going, but that was rather pleasant (in the end), wasn’t it? I was kind of expecting Yesterday wo Utatte to pivot to letting us see a little...
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Yesterday wo Utatte, Episode 4
Ah, teenagers. After three engrossing episodes focused on individual characters, the fourth episode of Yesterday wo Utatte splitting its focus between Shinako and Rou felt like a bit of a letdown....
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So… I Started Watching Anime Again | Summer 2022
A few months ago, I told a friend I was getting back into watching seasonal anime. Although it’s something that sounds a bit like a joke, I was serious. After about a year and a half away from the...
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Is “Bocchi the Rock!” Mean to Bocchi?
Something I’ve been considering almost since the start of Bocchi the Rock! is the central source of the show’s comedy and how that intersects with a compassionate understanding of mental health....
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An Objective* and Comprehensive** Look Back at the 2022 Anime Year
* Not objective ** Not comprehensive It’s been a good number of years since I’ve watched enough yearly anime to make an annual retrospective post make sense, but it finally happened. Not only did I...
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The Only Good Anime of Winter 2023
WARNING: Many words ahead. More than I expected. Watching seasonal anime these days feels much different than it used to for me. While I’m still good at picking up shows that I’ll enjoy and have...
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I’d Like to Apologize to These Two Spring 2023 RomCom Anime
It turns out there is still room in this heart for cute romance. Some of you might not know this, but I have this tradition on Twitter where I post my own little seasonal preview as a screenshot of a...
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Don’t Let All the Joyless Hacks Who Only Hate on Things Distract You from the...
GoHands does it again (unironically). In way, the furor over the premiere of The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses (hereafter, SukiMega) has been refreshing. The episode has divided opinion—perhaps a...
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