Shibuya is at its best at night, when the neon signs and fashionable clubbers sparkle like costume jewelry and the traffic thins out enough to pulsate like a beating heart. Two girls wander around, soaking up the ambiance, unaware that their paths are crisscrossing like the threads of paint in a Jackson Pollock work. Which… Read More First Impression: Jellyfish Can’t Swim in the Night
Blue Giant has been the toast of the animation festival circuit this past year and it’s easy to see why. It takes what can at times feel like an intimidating subject—jazz performance—and explores it in a dynamic, yet accessible way that will have both diehard aficionados and complete newcomers to the music genre tapping their… Read More Blue Giant and Yuzuru Tachikawa’s Jazz
As the episode begins, we are introduced to Tenshi Dei, whose first name means “angel” in Japanese, while his surname means “God” in Latin. Tenshi, though, doesn’t look as imposing as this name suggests. In fact, he’s just a timid boy who used to sing in a church choir when he was little, and in… Read More First Impression: KAWAGOE BOYS SING -Now or Never-
Well, the title says it all, right? No? Okay. We’re fighting the battle of Dunkirk, only this is not the World War II we know. The enemy attacking “Gaul” is not the Nazis: instead, Humanity is facing the enigmatic, alien-looking Neuroi, aided by an aerial force of teenage witches in military uniforms. The valiant effort… Read More First Impression: League of Nations Air Force Aviation Magic Band Luminous Witches
Kongming is more than just a great tactician with a charmingly demure manner and surprisingly decent rapping skills. He’s also the kind of adult I aspire to be, and one I think that all of us—as we hand in our membership cards to “the young generation” (ahem, as we age)—can stand to learn a thing… Read More Ya Boy Kongming Ep. 9 & the Adult I Aspire to Be
In a world much like our own, except with musical magic, Kana is a first-year high school student and a new apprentice healer: one who sings to magically heal illness and injuries. We meet her fellow apprentices Hibiki and Reimi, as well as their master, and see the clinic where they work, getting a taste… Read More First Impression: Healer Girl
Music-hating monsters from space invaded Earth. Pairs, a Conductor and a Musicart, do mellifluous battle with the fiends. Takt (a Conductor) and Cosette (a Musicart) are one such dynamic duet; also, it’s not clear just what Cosette is, but she’s apparently not a normal human. They are traveling to New York from somewhere out west,… Read More First Impression: takt op.Destiny