Harem romances are fairly common in anime and light novels. That is, many of these stories feature a male protagonist with several female love interests (only two love interests is merely a love triangle, not a harem). A harem story may or may not involve the guy marrying all the girls. I’m not a huge… Read More On Harem Romances
Domestic Girlfriend is a hard show to recommend seriously. The very premise reads like the trashiest of soap operas: a high school boy, depressed that the teacher with whom he is in love has a boyfriend, has a one night stand with a random girl at a mixer, only to find out that his father… Read More Domestic Girlfriend and the Idol of Romantic Love
Valentine’s Day isn’t a happy holiday for everyone. In fact, it can be downright depressing. To avoid the misery, some run away from the love stuff on February 14th (out of sight, out of mind), but for me, even when I was a lonely single, I still always embraced the day as I drowned in… Read More Five Anime Couples to Warm Your Heart on Valentine’s Day
I just finished watching WorldEnd: Etc. (Who would ever scribble out the entire title?) This stood as my favorite anime of the last season. (Though, my selection of anime series from the last season was quite small.) The author of this series did a wonderful job of world-building. Digressions on the world’s past did much… Read More WorldEnd: How Reincarnation Ruins Romance
At lunch today, I was talking to a friend, someone who’s a mentor to me, and he mentioned the idea that it’s been shown that we make bad decisions under duress, due to things like stress, bad health, tiredness, and hunger. I agreed, and in fact, I explained that I’d shown the worst side of… Read More Tsuki Ga Kirei, Episode 10: Bad Mood, Bad Decisions
So you have a dating sim/visual novel with six main girls, and you’ve been greenlit for an anime adaptation. You have 24 episodes to showcase your game’s girls and stories, appealing to game fans as well as attracting new fans. How do you make that transition from the branching story paths of dating sims to the… Read More The Secret Stars of Anime: Amagami SS Kaoru’s Arc
This year, I actually entered Reverse Thieves’ Secret Santa Project in time! I like being forced to watch an anime I might not have chosen myself—or one I’ve been procrastinating on. In this case, my Santa recommended three shows that fit in one or both of those two categories. Out of the three, I chose to watch… Read More Secret Santa 2016: Love Lab
Relationships are hard. I’m not just talking about romantic ones, either. I’m talking about relationships in general – from family to friends to dating to marriage. Relationships are incredibly hard. Despite the popular belief that “love’s all you need,” so many relationships fall apart. Now, I’m no Sherlock, but to me, that suggests that love’s… Read More “Say ‘I love you’ ”? *“Say ‘I trust you’ ”
“Don’t give up what you want most for what you want right now.” ~ Lynn Mitchell Self-control’s a cruel irony. It demands we die daily to immediate desires in order to live fully in the dream we aspire toward. That’s like saying “we die so that we may live,” a notion that Christians are no… Read More Between the Panels: Hotaru’s Temperate Touch
If there’s one complaint that has arisen more than any other regarding Ore Monogatari, even from our own writers, it’s that the show’s characters are undeniably one-dimensional. As much as I enjoy and look forward to watching a new episode each and every week, not even I can deny the predictable nature of each personality.… Read More Anime Today: Childlike Innocence