It’s nice to have an onsen episode sometimes; I don’t think I could keep up the writing pace last week’s episode demanded for the rest of the show. That’s (of course) not to say that Hyouka entirely took the week off, only that the lower stakes of this week’s episode gave a little more breathing room to the cinematography and general character work—turns out Hyouka Lite isn’t so bad.
First Impressions: Fall 2015 Anime (Part 2)
After the first rush of shows wound up being something less than significantly impressive, we got Sunday. Ah, Sunday, formerly a bastion of peace and no simulcasting shows—now, the unarguable king of the autumn season. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve never had a single day of the anime week on which every single show was good (of course, I’m not counting things I didn’t even bother trying), so this is even more of a welcomed rarity. The Lord’s Day brings its blessings…
Aniwords – Where Do Hot Anime Boys Come From?
Thanks to the influence of a prominent fujoshi friend on Twitter (Mira, if you’re reading, you’re wonderful and yes, this is about you), I’ve kind of been working over the past few months or so at increasing my personal appreciation for good-looking anime guys. Whether they’re cute (you may recall my weekly palpitations over Danmachi’s Bell Cranel) or beautifully hot (shoutout to Kuroko’s Basketball and Kise), I think it’s a good thing for me to cultivate a healthy appreciation for good people aesthetics in both guys and girls.
Happily, the current anime season has had not shortage of cute/hot anime guys to aid me in this quest. So, of course, I spent this week’s Aniwords talking about how glad of that I was.
Hyouka, Episode 6
An episode in which Hyouka shows that it can not only be supremely delicate, sensitive, and elegant, but can also be a whole lot of fun. Unexpected, yes—but probably a wise decision after the subtle tension of the previous two episodes. If episodes 4 and 5 were a solemn navy, episode 6 was most certainly the rose-color Oreki so dislikes. But I’m not Oreki, so I liked this episode quite a lot!
Fall 2015 Anime: First Impressions (Part 1)
I was gearing up for next weekend to be the big rush of shows, but uh…yeah, apparently it’s already happening. And I’ve been watching, as it were—so here’s my rundown of what caught my attention, what disappointed me, and what left me in the aggravating middle between keeping and dropping. Why can’t everything just be very good or very bad! All this middle-of-the-road stuff is hard to deal with!
Tokyo Ghoul Volumes 1 & 2 – Manga Review
You may have missed my recent announcement that I’ll be starting work with The Fandom Post soon, but before that, I’ve got a pair of reviews I recently did for Otaku Review—the first and second volumes of Tokyo Ghoul manga.
Top Summer 2015 Anime: Final Ratings
Another season has passed. Despite being a rather slow season and mostly lacking in shows I would consider worthy of serious superlatives, I was generally amused, entertained, and engaged by the stuff I ended up watching all the way to the end. As always, there were some up weeks and some down weeks, but on the whole I’m pretty happy with the way this season ended up. It certainly won’t go down as one of the best in anime history—but when you come away from a season with an episode of a bubble dropping on Lelei’s head, how can you really complain?
Aniwords – Anime. You. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Alright, this week’s Aniwords is live! Sorry, I’m late posting it over here—I was busy watching the pile of crap that was Charlotte. Anyways, this week I used a sparkly title to talk about getting mad at people’s opinions. This honestly isn’t really even about anime that much, but more about the things that happen around anime watching (or engaging with any kind of media, really).
I’m not sure how much I actually like this post, but it came to me pretty easily, so that’s good, I guess?
Hyouka, Episode 5
In which all of my irritation with Oreki melts away—even if Oreki is constantly putting on an act for his friends, he can’t fool the camera. Unsurprisingly, the sincerity offered therein has given me a whole lot more appreciation (dare I say affection?) for this character and the particular circumstances of the life he’s living.
Anime Artwork Adventures #10 – Fanart Friday Edition
Those of you who have been following me for a while might remember that a while back I tried to do a weekly feature where I compiled cool fanart pictures I found on Pixiv. It fizzled out after nine weeks because it turned out that finding fanart and writing little blurbs about each picture took a lot more time than I was expecting, so I eventually gave it up in accordance my honeymoon period with Pixiv ending.
Well, now I’m temporarily back doing a fanart piece—although this time I’m doing it for Crunchyroll’s long-running Fanart Friday column. As one might expect, I decided my theme for the week would be idols…”Lessons in Idolatry” was the subtitle I decided to go with. So, yeah, check it out and enjoy all the idols!
Mage in a Barrel 