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[Eleven] “(You’re) so cool!”— Tsuritama
Many anime series have ruined an excellent start with a mediocre or bad ending. Tsuritama is not one of those series. Instead it’s one of the most well-plotted and tightly-written anime to date....
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[Ten] “Have you heard?”— patterns and history in Magia Record
Have you heard? I’m a sucker for a good Greek chorus element in anime. It’s a rare viewer who will watch Magia Record without prior history of the Madoka franchise. These viewers likely exist — simply...
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[Nine] The Flower Language of Children of the Sea
It’s impossible to describe the plot of Children of the Sea beyond this: a girl named Ruka Azumi goes through puberty. That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t make sense — in a way it’s one of the...
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[Eight] Animating Reg and the monstrous in Made in Abyss: Dawn of the Deep Soul
One of the few, yet common, criticisms levied at the 2017 Made in Abyss television series was at animator Kou Yoshinari’s creature designs and animation. When Yoshinari was given creative control of...
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[Seven] Another return to Gatchaman Crowds
“Bird…go?” Despite including the combination of Gatchaman Crowds and Gatchaman Crowds insight in my best anime of the decade list, I was nervous to return to Gatchaman Crowds for many reasons. I...
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[Six] Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll (Kyoto Animation...
Returning to Violet Evergarden was more difficult and emotionally-affecting than I thought it would be. On July 18, 2019, a man set fire to Kyoto Animation’s main studio, killing 36 people and...
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[Five] The Sailor Moon S movie is pretty bad but it still means a lot to me
At least we’ll always have Mamoru’s comical, “Merry christmas! And a…happy new year!” line. The Sailor Moon S movie really is a holiday classic. There’s a general consensus on which Sailor Moon movies...
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[Four] She and her dinosaur
I’ve always understood why people loved Pop Team Epic, but I never really “got it.” It was too loud and too frenetic. I don’t like things that seem to be shouting at me all the time with excessive...
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[Three] When the Safflowers Bloom (Only Yesterday)
A list of things I enjoyed over this past year includes Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and Isao Takahata’s critically-acclaimed film Only Yesterday. This is not a coincidence. In a...
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[Two] How storyboarding real life inspires the “greatest world” of Keep Your...
The greatest technical and storyboarding triumphs of Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken‘s first episode are not the flights of fancy that take Midori Asakusa, Tsubame Mizusaki, and Sayaka Kanamori into the...
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[One] “My most hated self”— A return to xxxHolic
“You don’t belong only to yourself, you know?” -Yuuko Ichihara, xxxHolic Kei, Episode 3 I don’t believe in much. This is because I find it difficult to trust even what I am able to feel or perceive...
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Is Lucky Star rewatchable? (some thoughts about how anime viewing and...
A few weeks ago I pitched a podcast idea to a few friends. We would revisit an old anime to see if it was rewatchable or not and additionally, as one of the friends’ anime experience was and is fairly...
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Transitioning from a closed stage to open terrain: The Promised Neverland...
The first season of The Promised Neverland ends like this. Emma thinks of Norman and how they finally escaped while Mom Isabella tends to the rest of the children and wishes them luck. Running towards...
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Flower Language in Wonder Egg Priority
Naoko Yamada’s influence throughout the anime industry, particularly with various directors’ use of flower language, continues to impress me. In Shin Wakabayashi’s Wonder Egg Priority, flower language...
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A (relatively) short Ikuhara primer, Naoko Yamada, and the “egg” in Wonder...
This season’s latest critical darling, Shin Wakabayashi’s Wonder Egg Priority, has been described as, if Kunihiko Ikuhara (Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mawaru Penguindrum) and Naoko Yamada’s (A Silent...
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Their (Our) Private Life: Horimiya
The opening sequence of Horimiya, a combined effort from series director Masashi Ishihama and Haruka Iizuka, is stylish and purposeful. It has a similar stylishness that the opening of the...
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You’re the sunflower — Wonder Egg Priority Episode 2
If you were wondering why a shut-in haunted by her past trauma like Ai Ohto was represented by the natural positivity of a sunflower, the second episode of Wonder Egg Priority has the answer....
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How to take a life — The Promised Neverland Season 2, Episode 2
Emma crosses a line in the second episode of The Promised Neverland‘s second season. It’s something that, thinking back on the trajectory of the series, seems inevitable, but is particularly striking...
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I hate you — Flower language in Wonder Egg Priority (continued)
Wonder Egg Priority is a show that knows its flower language. The series has used specific flowers to introduce it’s second and third episodes in previews as a framing device for the events of that...
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The system of Wonder Egg Priority
All Aca and Ura-aca do is play go and lie. Let’s talk about gacha games. With the booming popularity of Genshin Impact as the latest in a long line of gacha games the inevitable discussion of whether...
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