Hanayamata – DVD Review

iblessall 6 Comments

As I promised, here’s my full review of Hanayamata. Or… a close to a full review as you’re going to get, because I honestly didn’t have a ton to say about the series. I have most definitely seen shows in this genre before (I was even thinking about how Love Live!‘s structures follow many of the same patterns), and I honestly don’t think Hanayamata does much to rise above the general motions of the genre. That doesn’t mean it’s bad; in fact, I quite enjoyed most of the show. But it did mean that the show was very reliant on the effectiveness of its characters within the larger superstructure—aka Yaya is good.

Here’s the link~

Hanayamata

Aniwords – Finding the Forest in ERASED

iblessall 1 Comment

ERASED may have fallen in my esteem as of late, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still things about it that I like. In fact, the first part of the most recent episode is probably as much as I’ve liked the show since the end of episode three. And it got me thinking about director Tomohiko Ito’s other work that I’ve seen, Sword Art Online, which is of course a dangerous path to go down. But I walked it nonetheless, and what follows are my conclusions. I hope you guys enjoy it!

Here’s the link~

ERASED 8 Smiling Kayo

Aniwords – Durarara!! and Unhidden Monsters

iblessall 4 Comments

Durarara!! x2 has…not been the best the franchise has ever been, that’s for sure. With a seemingly unending stream of new characters flooding into Ikebukuro over the last two and a half seasons and a plot that’s become tangled beyond anyone’s ability to follow, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking the show had gone entirely bonkers—and not in the good way. And so, believe me when I was it was somewhat to my surprise that I discovered that I had been noticing those elusive things called “themes” cropping up in the show.

What follows is the account of my discoveries. Here’s the link~

Durarara!! x2

Evolution of the Barrel

iblessall 20 Comments

Hello, dear friends and readers! Right now is an exciting and fun time for me to be writing here at Mage in a Barrel. As you all should know by now, the blog succeeded in reaching (and surpassing!) the goal of upgrading to WordPress premium and I recently closed out one of the biggest projects I’ve ever attempted on here with my final episodic post for Hyouka going up last Sunday. As always, I’m hugely grateful for your readership and support—you guys make it a lot of fun to keep this project running.

(If you want to get to the part of this where you tell me to do things, scroll to the bottom of the post.)

Continue reading →