I think…it would be pretty easy to despise Houtarou Oreki if you were so inclined. I myself may indeed be inching that way. As our warm-hearted friend Eru Chitanda notes, Oreki is not a nice guy. And that meanness, born out of selfishness, was on full display in this episode.
Month: September 2015
Anime Weekly: Summer 2015, Week 10
As a counterpoint to last week’s gushing praise about watching only a handful of shows, and having them all be shows you like, this week’s anime seemed (especially early on) determined to remind me that the other side of this is that the week can seem kind of drab if a bunch of your shows decide to take an unfortunate week off all at the same time. Of course, it wasn’t everything that this happened to—it just seems like a lot more when you’ve only got eight show that you’re keeping up with.
Translation: Oh geez we have to wait another week before we can become canon?
Aniwords – Don’t Talk About Your Favorite Anime
This may very well be my most clickbait title yet, but I have no regrets because I’m honestly extraordinarily happy with how this post turns out and I want as many people as possible to read it. In a way, I consider this the sister post to the “Open Letter to Anitwitter” Tumblr post I wrote some weeks back; it just comes at the same general topic in a different way. And what is that topic? It’s paradigms of dialogue; that is, how we talk to each other within the anime fandom (although I hope the points I’m making extend in applicability beyond simply this one fandom). And these are all just, as I see it, me working my way up to what will hopefully be my seminal post on media, anime, and identity—my thesis, as it were, on being an anime fan.
But, for now…here’s the link!
Hyouka, Episode 2
Any worries that Hyouka‘s first episode was just a fluke of goodness have been dispelled (not that I was really much worried about that anyways). Episode 2 turned in an excellent new character with Ibara, continued to add nuance to Satoshi, Chitanda, and Oreki’s characters, and episode director Hiroko Utsumi’s focus on body language gave us one big new clue to unraveling the true mystery of Hyouka so far—Eru Chitanda.
Anime Weekly: Summer 2015, Week 9
Man, it sure is a good feeling when you get to the end of your anime week and not a single episode you watched let you down! Once again, it seems I’m experiencing the power of whittling down things to just what I’m really loving—and it’s exciting, fun, and refreshing. I swear I’m going to do this every season from here on out! And I know I said that after last season, but I mean it this time (spoilers: probably not ever going to happen because I’m too much of a sucker for shiny new things).
Aniwords – A Foolproof Guide to Getting Hyped for Next Season’s Anime
You may recall a fairly silly post I wrote a few months back about how to write (and find a good) season preview. Well, with other anibloggers’ season previews starting to come out and more and more trailers for fall’s shows hitting the net, I got back into that same over-exuberant spirit for this week’s Aniwords. I’ll admit it’s a fairly fluffy post to read, but that’s more or less just the way I wrote it. And its core, “A Foolproof Guide to Getting Hyped for Next Season’s Anime” really does walk you through the way I approach each new season.
Mage in a Barrel 