The first AI-generated “anime,” Disastrously Not Knowing What to Do and What Not to Do, known colloquially as Always Breaktime, began streaming to Twitch on February 8, 2023. Its goal was to create an endless slice-of-life show that followed the lives of high school students, which was inspired by anime with stories generated by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5. Always Breaktime promised to have “new content every second for the rest of your life”, while brashly claiming “the future of anime is here.” Those boasts ultimately fell flat, though, as the project died shortly after its infancy.  ..read more

All photos for this concert were taken by Samantha Ferreira following Anime Boston’s photo policies, and are used with permission. Table of contents Introduction: Anticipation Overload A Dramatic Opening Unstoppable Power We Are Queen Bee! The Grand Finale Additional Photos Introduction: Anticipation Overload In this day and age, it’s impossible to talk about anime music without mentioning Queen Bee. Founded in 2009, the group rocketed to stardom within the community thanks to their musical contributions to more than a half-dozen prominent anime series. Starting with Tokyo Ghoul:re i ..read more

One day, I was offered a book deal and my life changed overnight. Just kidding. Even today, writers cling to the fossilized misbelief that books are the end-all-be-all of our careers. The problem is, nobody reads books. In 2023, only 54% of Americans read even one. Consequently, as a viral article made it clear this April, nobody actually buys books, either.  I’m making a very likely guess that you, the person reading this article, did not buy my book. That’s because very few people did. I’m speculating, based on photos that people sent me of my book, Cosplay: The Fantasy World of Role Pl ..read more

A huge thanks to Negikitsu for the Patron Article request! This would not have been possible without him. Table of contents Failure To Launch (Early Localization Attempts) A Beautiful Duwang (Cult Success) Diamonds Are Forever (The Boom) Get Back, Jojo (Decline To Present) Works Cited In 2017, I attended Viz Media’s evening panel for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It was a full house, and I almost couldn’t find seating. Once I plopped down with my piping paper platter of okonomiyaki, I was bombarded with two-plus hours of dub news, DVD announcements, and an awkward “pose off” competition ..read more

On March 28, Chris and Steve over at Anime News Network posed a curious question: Is Birdie Wing to blame for the sudden rise in golfing anime? Not only has Sorairo Utility been greenlit for a full series, we also have Rising Impact and Oi! Tonbo on their way to grace our screens with golfing goodness in the near future. Birdie Wing was no doubt popular on top of being a critical success, resulting in nominations for best original anime in both the Crunchyroll and Anime Trending awards. Despite this, it would be reductive to attribute this golf anime renaissa ..read more

Table of contents Reiko Nagasawa Hitomi Kariya Eri Kinoshita Touko Yatabe It’s fascinating to see how the relationships between fandom and anime staff have changed so radically. Around the early 2010s, the names that would usually get thrown around would be typically studio names, as for the people themselves: Urobuchi, Shinbo, and maybe an Imaishi mention if you’re lucky, and even then it was still in vague terms. Fast-forward to the present, and now you have fans feverishly debating between Ryu Nakayama and Keiichiro Saito while Bocchi The Rock! and Chainsaw Man were airing, or One Piece ..read more

Warning: Contains exactly one spoiler for Mobile Suit Gundam Seed FREEDOM at the end of the article. On April 1, I was granted the opportunity to attend the East Coast premiere of Mobile Suit Gundam Seed FREEDOM’s English dub at New York’s Japan Society. The film, which was directed by Gundam Seed TV director Mitsuo Fukuda at Sunrise, continues the story that began more than two decades ago. Much of the original staff and cast returned to work on the project, which feels like a true return to form the classic series. That said, it does expect viewers to be familiar with the series of events ..read more

I never thought breaking my foot would be the ultimate crash course in taking a kid to an anime convention. As it turns out, though, a bum foot and a preschooler aren’t all that different.  Back in 2011, I broke my foot by tripping down a Metro escalator. Katsucon began the next day, and I’d already lined up interviews for my convention reporting. So, I got an aircast boot for my foot at the hospital, and a wheelchair from the accessibility station at the Gaylord Resort. Attending Katsucon in a wheelchair made me think about accessibility more directly. I spent a lot of time waiting for e ..read more

You can get a vibe from the theater before a show begins. Sometimes it can be mellow; other times, rowdy. Even so, the expectations of the audience set the stage long before the curtain goes up. For Dongpo: Life in Poems, I was struck by how fashionable the crowd was. Fine suits, bright red dresses. Even by the standards of the David H. Koch Theater, this was “an event.” Going into the show, I was more familiar with modern choreographer Shen Wei than I was with poet Su Dongpo, himself. Shen Wei Dance Arts (SWDA) has been well regarded in NYC for decades, so I was curious as to how he ..read more

Anime Boston has sought to make cosplayers feel welcome since their very first weekend in April 2003. Back in that inaugural weekend, it felt like one stepped into wonderland, as folks cosplaying as Belldandy, Sailor Moon, Sae Sawanoguchi, and more mingled with one another across the Park Plaza. In the following years, the event welcomed tens of thousands of cosplayers through their doors. Dioramas were set up along the top floor of the Hynes to host impromptu photo sessions, and the event’s Masquerade has become a spectacle that draws the best and brightest artisans on the East Coast every ye ..read more