Overpowered protagonists, ugly character designs, excessive gags, anti-climatic narratives. As an anime viewer, you quickly learn to recognize such things as the bane of the genre: They sink so many potentially cool stories! But… what if those things were to work the other way around? To enhance, surprise, and make a tale great? Can you… Read More Mob Psycho 100: The Cunning of the Light
Mia is an exceptional princess—and not just because she’s reincarnated back to her 12-year-old self after being parted from her head, Marie Antoinette-style, courtesy of Guillotine-san. She’s also exceptional on a meta level, as a protagonist in the reincarnation isekai genre. This is because when Mia wakes up that fateful morning after her death, she… Read More Being Born Again in Tearmoon Empire
We’re proud to present a guest post today by blogger and Yale Divinity School student James, who has written series of articles for us in past about Planetarian and Steins;gate. Note: this essay is based solely on the anime adaptation of Welcome to the N.H.K. rather than the light novel or manga, whose stories differ… Read More Welcome to the Gift of Condescension
According to my admittedly rather fallible memory, few anime in the last few years have frustrated me as much as Girlish Number, but I can’t help but feel that this is a good sense of frustration. I’m not angry because the anime is terrible, or even because I wish the characters were written differently, but… Read More Letters from the Editor: I’m Part of the Problem
Disclaimer: COLOSSAL SPOILERS BELOW! (See what I did there?) If you have only watched the Attack on Titan anime and are not caught up to the current manga, please turn away now and save yourself some suffering.
Bungou Stray Dogs is a decent action anime about an orphan weretiger and the “Armed Detective Agency” that gives him a job and a place to belong. Between the quirky characters and the action, it has all the ingredients for a basic, fun show. Still, I found it unremarkable until the seventh episode, “Love for… Read More Annalyn’s Corner: Bungou Stray Dogs and Messy Justice
Oh, the nostalgia I have with Dragon Ball Z. I remember watching it every day after school when it came on Toonami, wondering if the gang would ever get off the planet Namek, questioning if Frieza really knew how long five minutes was, getting aggravated when they would run out of episodes and start the series… Read More Transforming Mercy in Dragon Ball Z
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