Aniwords – Is Rating Shows Meaningless?

iblessall 12 Comments

Sorry I’m late with this one—the internet guys broke my internet on Tuesday night. Anyways, this week’s column is a thesis of sort on why I continue to rate shows, despite knowing all the arguments against it, arguments espoused by many of my fellow anibloggers whose thoughts on art I really respect. But, I like to be a bit contrary sometimes, so here I go~

Charloote

Here’s the link! I apologize for not having any bonus content ready for this week—busted internet has really screwed up my writing schedule…

Anime Weekly: Summer 2015, Week 2

iblessall 11 Comments

The weekly roundup or rundown or highlights (or whatever you want to call them) are back! As it happens, I’m going back to the normal Wednesday release schedule for this season…and you’ll also notice that I’ve navigated away from the clunky “Highlights of the Week” to something a bit snappier (and maybe a bit more SEO friendly): “Anime Weekly.” In the end, nothing’s really changing—this is still going to be the catch-all post for the week that compiles my thoughts on everything I’ve been watching. It’s just easier to type out the title now.

And a good thing, too, because despite my best efforts to cull my watchlist for this season, I’m still carrying 15 shows—5 more than the target set for myself at the beginning of the season.

Rokka

Continue reading →

Summer 2015 Anime: First Impressions (Part 3)

iblessall 29 Comments

By this point, I was pretty burned out with watching new series, but some shows managed to pull through pretty well! It’s both a nice surprise and also kind of bad because I’m at the point where I’m trying to cut shows, not add them.

In any case, here’s the final installment of my first impressions on Summer 2015’s anime offerings! Hope you enjoy!

Charlotte

Lookie all the new animes, onii-chan~!

Continue reading →

Summer 2015 Anime: First Impressions (Part 2)

iblessall 21 Comments

This is the good batch. The eight shows I was most looking forward to out of the whole season. As I begin this post, I’ve not watched a single episode of any of them—and I’ve avoided most reactions to them as well. Come the end of this post, I’ll either be joyful…or miserable, depending on how it all shakes out.

And, for fun, I’m trying something new: live blogging. For the rest of the night, I’m just going to be watching anime and blogging my thoughts on them—one at a time. That rounds out to something like an update every 30 minutes. Strap in—it’s gonna be a fun ride (I hope…)!

Summer 2015 First Impressions Live Blog Header Continue reading →

Overlord, Episode 1

iblessall 17 Comments

Our time here on earth is limited. It’s bound by the inevitability of time, by the temporality and transient nature of human life. Our entire existences are marked by this unavoidable inconsistency—we change, the people around us change, our relationships with them change, and the world itself changes. At the beginning of Madhouse’s adaptation of Kugane Maruyama’s light novel series, Overlord, the main character Momonga finds himself dealing with the reality inside the virtual world of Yggdrasil, a MMORPG in which he’s spent hours with friends, building up a grand castle…a structure which now only stands as a wistful reminder of what once was.

Overlord

Continue reading →

Summer 2015 Anime: First Impressions (Part 1)

iblessall 37 Comments

Hi, hi, sorry I’m late! Let me finish this piece of toast and we’ll get started!

gulp

All better! Anyways, good day all! Are you ready to wade through the cesspool of anime premieres to find a few shows that are actually worth your while? cocks head cheekily/cutely  Good, because it’s finally that time of year. Summer~. And oh geez, why do all the show have to come out all at the same time? It’s annoying… (note: none of the shows covered in this issue were among my top anticipated titles for the season)

Gate Continue reading →

Top Spring 2015 Anime: Final Ratings

iblessall 32 Comments

The start of this season found me scrambling around in the middle of my final semester of college, and the close of the season finds me a couple months into my first full-time job. The beginning of this season feels like it was forever ago, but not simply because of the huge life changes I’ve gone through in the interim. This season also saw me drop what was probably a record number of shows, including a bunch of shows that fell out of favor midway through their runs. But, for all that, the top tier of this season was exceptionally good—which really makes up for a weak middle tier and a pretty distinct lack of super-engaging trashy entertainment.

Blood Blockade Battlefront

Continue reading →

So, Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon or Not?

iblessall 5 Comments

It was a simple question—”Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon?” But simple questions don’t always have correspondingly simple answers, and so it is with Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?‘s ridiculous titular query. And why? Because Danmachi, in specifically calling attention to the issue of how one ought to interact with girls met in a dungeon, actually intiates a strange sort of dialogue with the question. Now, really, watching Danmachi for the answer to the question of whether or not it is morally permissible to attempt to hit on and/or physically pick up girls while traversing the depths of a monster-filled dungeon isn’t necessarily the way I’d suggest watching it, but it does provide an interesting lens with which to view the way the show.

Danmachi

Continue reading →