Novels. The progenitor. The alpha and the omega. So often ignored for its easier to digest kin, Light Novels and Web Novels, yet often containing some of the best stories I’ve ever experienced. In anime, they gave us works such as Run With the Wind, Tatami Galaxy and Fune wo Amu. However sometimes… Sometimes even Novels fail us, as they have by giving us todays topic. Animated by studio Signal MD, directed by Junji Nishumura of Vlad Love fame (?), with music by Kenji Kawai and art direction from Hiromasa Ogura, I give to you the most disappointing show of the Winter 2023 season: Hikari n ..read more

Welcome back everyone, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! This week see’s return of Blue and the Hunter, Darcia makes a new friend, and the gang has a pest problem. Lots to talk about, so lets jump right in! Before we get to deep into that though, I wanted to address some concerns regarding last weeks post. Namely, I think my concerns regarding Cheza were misunderstood. My fear was that Wolf’s Rain would treat her as a sort of McGuffin. That, based on her initial first impression, she would never become more. I wasn’t criticizing Wolf’s Rain, we had just met her after all, it would be ridicul ..read more

Welcome everyone, to the grand finale for Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! Or at least the most finale we are going to get until the movie in October. I won’t lie, this week was a bit of a disappointment for me. Kaina really screwed the pooch at the end. There’s a lot of reasons for that though, so lets dive into them! Starting off, more then anything Kaina’s ending felt rushed. It resolved more plot points in the last 3-4 minutes, from Valghia’s surrender to visiting the Canopy to convincing Ririha’s father of the Great Canopy Tree, than the other 20 minutes of the show combined. Considering ..read more

DanMachi wraps up the second half of season 4 in typical DanMachi fashion…well except the absence of a minotaur fight!  How was the conclusion after the fantastic two previous episodes?  Do we have a new best girl?  Let’s dive in! There’s quite a bit to unpack in these two, so let’s address some of the larger issues throughout the last pair (of episodes that is, not Bell and Ryu lol).  There is A LOT that happens here, plot wise…and “plot” wise if you know what I mean.  Let’s deal with the latter first.  This is DanMachi after all, so the focus is on Ryu’s de ..read more

Wooper: A few weeks ago, I messaged the other Star Crossed writers and signaled my intent to return for the start of the upcoming spring season. The reason? It looked like a promising crop of shows! Sure, there are five titles containing the dreaded I-word (the same number as last season), but there are also a plethora of new manga adaptations from sources both popular and acclaimed. They include two big-name shounen properties (one running in WSJ, the other in Jump+), a teenage romance set beneath the stars, a post-apocalyptic adventure series, an idol-themed revenge tale, and a uniquely comp ..read more

Welcome everyone, to the penultimate episode of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! This week sees some questionable decisions, both in universe and out. What am I talking about? Well lets jump right in and talk about them. Right off the bat, I have to ask… did the people of Kaina not know you could… melt… snow? Into water? Is that going to be how the Sage made as much water as he wanted? He just knew how to put a pot over some fire? I really hope that isn’t what just happened this week, because that would be a massive disappointment if so. Not only does it directly undermine the main conflict o ..read more

Welcome everyone, to another week of Wolf’s Rain! This week is a bit of a lore dump, but it’s an interesting lore dump, which is how it should be. We learn more about Darcia and Cheza while Cheza finally meets up with the wolves, all things I wasn’t expecting to happen for a while yet. So without further ado, lets dive into the episodes! So starting off, the visuals. This is the first week that I really felt some cracks in Wolf’s Rain‘s production. Not due to any scheduling issues yet, more just the limitations of the time in which it was made. I’m of course talking about the CGI airship f ..read more

Another week, another episode of Vinland Saga! This week sees a timeskip, the return of Canute, and the first signs of conflict for the farm. Lets jump right into it! Starting off, time skip! That’s right, 3 years have passed. 3 years on the farm, 3 years of cutting down the forest, 3 years for Thorfinn to figure his shit out. Does this skip over a lot of stuff, is it an excuse for Thorfinn to progress off screen? Yes, a little bit. But do I think it will enable a greater story because we can see these changes through Thorfinn’s actions to future events? Also yes. This sort of time skip, w ..read more

Welcome everyone, to another (late) episode of Kaina and the Great Snow Sea! I really need to get my shit under control, these are taking way to long. Let this be a lesson about doing 4 shows in a season, you just get to busy. Speaking of busy, Kaina has a lot going on this week, so lets just jump right into it! Starting off, lets talk about the war. So far? It’s fine. A pretty standard affair if I’m being honest. The most I can say is that it’s nice Kaina is actually trying to use tactics. Setting up a beach head to prevent ships from landing, cannons to whittle them down from afar, Orino ..read more

Amun: “Wait a second, 2022 was almost a quarter of a year ago?! Where’s our 2022 Year Post?!” Put down with your pitchforks, gentle reader, as we are here with what you need (albeit a little late). With Wooper’s retirement, that writer’s whip has been sitting gently in the corner – leading to some late posts. But, anyways, 2022! What a year for anime – we saw a new franchise born (Chainsaw Man) and one fan-favorite say farewell (Mob Psycho). In between, there were a handful of popular sequels (My Hero Academia, Kaguya, DanMachi (hehe)) and some unexpected highlights (Bocchi the Rock). In fact ..read more