One type of anime I enjoy watching beyond my usual slice-of-life fare is anime featuring competitive games. More commonly, people call these “sports anime,” and while I am not the massive fan of them that some others are, I certainly enjoy them, definitely far more than I enjoy watching real sports. That said, I prefer… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: Saki and the Spirit of Competitive Anime
Halloween might be over, but it is not too late for a good ghost story. In fact, Bakemonogatari almost literally translates into “ghost story”, though obake and bakemono more specifically refer to supernatural beings capable of changing forms, with obake sometimes colloquially used to refer to “ghosts”. Semantics aside, Bakemonogatari is the first novel, and adaptation-wise the first anime in… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: Bakemonogatari (Hitagi Crab)
It is October, the month commonly associated with spooky stuff, which means it is the perfect month for me to talk about all those overlooked horror anime! …except that I do not like horror. Personal preference and all, but having the living daylights scared out of me or watching gruesome and disturbing images is not… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: Re-kan!
Is Momokuri one of the best shows this season? Not really. In fact, honestly, of all the shows I am actively following, it is probably my least favorite. However, that just says more about the quality of the shows I have chosen to follow this season, as Momokuri is still quite good. It is mostly a fluff show that… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: Momokuri (and Gender Roles in Relationships)
One of my favorite anime of all time, Humanity Has Declined (Japanese title: Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita) is one of those anime series that reminds you that Japan likes to make some… weird stuff. Based on a light novel series by Romeo Tanaka (who also wrote for the visual novel Rewrite, which has been covered on this… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: Humanity Has Declined
Among this season’s new shows, New Game! is the obligatory cute-girls-doing-cute-things show. And if you know anything about me from my various blog posts, you probably know that I am a sucker for those kinds of shows. However, New Game! has a number of qualities that help distinguish it from other shows of its kind. First of all, calling… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime Auditions: New Game!
ReLIFE is one of the more interesting new anime this summer for a couple of reasons, perhaps most notably how it was released: all 13 episodes of this show were made available for viewing at once. The entire show was made available on the Japanese “comico” website, and Crunchryoll put up all 13 episodes at… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: ReLIFE