Aniwords

Aniwords – The Best Anime Families of Spring 2017

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I’d been noodling on the family dynamics in Alice to Zouroku for weeks when I suddenly realized, “Hey, there are actually a fair number of shows about family this season! And I’m watching, like, all of them!” Take from that what you like about my preferences, but this week for Crunchyroll I wrote about the interpretations of family in Alice to Zouroku, The Eccentric Family 2, and Sukasuka. It’s basically three mini-essays all rolled into one, so you can read the piece even if you haven’t seen all three.

Here’s the link~

Alice to Zouroku 7-16.jpg

Aniwords – Why I Want to Show “your name.” to Everyone I Know

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If going long weeks between posts is what it takes to put out things I can be this proud of, maybe it’s an okay trade-off…

I don’t know how many of you fair readers have seen your name. (Kimi no Na Wa), but it’s the hot ticket right now like… everywhere. I’ve seen it a couple of times in the last month and finally put together all of my thoughts on it for Crunchyroll. The article’s basically spoiler-free, so even if you haven’t seen it you should give it a read!

Here’s the link~

Your Name Comet.jpg

 

Aniwords – What’s the Deal with Kemono Friends?

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I make my return to writing feature articles for Crunchyroll with an extremely topical question—why the heck is everyone so obsessed with Kemono Friends? If you’re curious about the most popular show of the season that you probably haven’t heard about, I’ve written a nice little introduction to it for you, along with some speculation about what it is about the show itself that’s made it such a hit!

Here’s the link~

Kemono Friends 2-1.jpg

Aniwords – Making Anime New Year’s Resolutions

iblessall 15 Comments

Well, it sure was a good run, wasn’t it?

I close out my time writing the weekly Aniwords column for Crunchyroll with one last plea for my readers to expand their anime watching habits to embrace things beyond their normal tastes. That this kind of point became a recurring theme during my run at Crunchyroll is an obvious thing in retrospect—given a large, far more mainstream-leaning audience than the circles I typically run in, what else was I to do? In the end, who knows how successful I was, but at least I had a lot of fun.

More thought to come on all of this in later days, likely, but for now…

Here’s the link~

Gurren Lagann

Aniwords – Competition Motivation in Scorching Ping Pong Girls & Yuri!!! on ICE

iblessall 5 Comments

Anytime you throw two shows together in a post, you’re limiting your potential audience, but I rather think I’ve outdone myself with this one by comparing the megahit of the season with a sadly underwatched gem that have very different audience-targeting goals.

Anyways, this is kind of a combination post on two ideas I’ve had in my head about things I wanted to say about each of these shows, and somehow it all came together. Even if you’ve only watched one (or neither!) of these anime, I think there’s still some good fun to be had here, so I hope you’ll check it out! Also, please, for the love of good anime, at least give Scorching Ping Pong Girls a shot.

Here’s the link~

scorching-yuri

Aniwords – The Evolution of RWBY (Part 2)

iblessall 2 Comments

We forge ahead with our series on RWBY this week, following up on last week’s piece about the show’s evolving writing by talking about how its visuals have grown up over the years. Honestly, I might have bitten off a bit more than I should have with trying to cover a topic as general as “visuals” in a single post, but I think I’ve managed to highlight the show’s evolution in this area pretty well nonetheless.

Here’s the link~

RWBY

Aniwords – The Evolution of RWBY (Part 1)

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As you guys well know, I’m rather fond of doting on shows that are… less than perfectly crafted. This goes doubly true for those rare cases where a show starts out a bit wobbly on its feet and then manages to carve out a distinctive path for itself. I’ve seen this happen a few times, but perhaps no show’s arc from underdog to champ has been as fun to witness as that of RWBY.

This week, the first of a two-parter on the show’s growth over the years—starting off by focusing on its storytelling!

Here’s the link~

RWBY

Aniwords – Selection. System. Memory. WIXOSS.

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Where the original WIXOSS series made a great deal out of obscuring the true nature of the show’s setting, Lostorage has been all about revealing that information to us and letting us stew in it as the show goes on.

In some ways, this post is just me breaking down the show’s full title—which, as you may remember, I have been a very outspoken fan of. I stand by my previous support of it.

Here’s the link~

Lostorage incited WIXOSS