Anzu’s three loves in life are her cat Momohiki, video games, and chocolate. When a new game arrives in the mail just as she returns from the combini with a bag full of chocolate treats and a free arm to scoop up her kitty, it’s as if the stars have aligned just in time for… Read More First Impression: Romantic Killer
The day begins with a cheery “Gokigenyou!” as a dark-haired ojou-sama type admires the beauty of the flowers dotting her path and trades greetings with a prince type, bespectacled nerd type and a mildly snooty kawaii type. Just another day at an elite all-girls middle school! Er, until an upward pan of the camera reveals… Read More First Impression: The Little Lies We All Tell
Hitori Goto lives up to her name: “soliloquy”. She’s the girl who never had the courage to join in all the fun and games in kindergarten, who ends up eating with the teacher during school picnics, doesn’t go to after school club, and only has messages from her parents on her phone. She is a… Read More First Impression: Bocchi the Rock!
Welcome to Text x Context, a new Beneath the Tangles feature that explores light novels on a multi-volume scale! With the old Light Novel Club, each post dealt with only one volume at a time and there were often long gaps between posts on the same series, meaning it could take a very long time… Read More The Text x Context of Haruhi Suzumiya, Part I
An intro with awesome music reminds us of the backstory: Demon King Satan tried to conquer the fantasy world of Ente Isla, was defeated by the hero Emilia, and fled through a portal to another world—ours. In the present, a mysterious woman enters the demon king’s abandoned castle to…extract a bubble of light from a… Read More First Impression: The Devil Is a Part-Timer! Season 2
(And yes, it does actually have all those exclamation points.) Ambitious for a life of manzai stardom, budding comedian Yayoi Sakamoto took the entrance exam for Kagetsu High School in Namba, a city known for its steady stream of new talent. There, by sheer coincidence, she ran into her childhood friend Yomogi Takahashi, with whom… Read More First Impression: TEPPEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Laughing ’til You Cry
Three typical slice-of-life girls arrive in the big city. There’s Himawari, the confident blond sporty one, Tsuyukusa, the sleepy-eyed, dessert-loving blue-haired one, and Tsutsuji, the reddish-pink haired one who is so normal she’s special, as befitting an MC. Only, what’s that beneath their hats? Horns?! Oh yeah, they’re oni or the demon-monsters of Japanese folk… Read More First Impression: Onipan!