Have you ever been in this situation?

Random Person : Do you watch anime?
You : Of course!! I can’t live without that stuff
Random Person : So whats your favorite anime?
You : Thats a hard one, Death Note probably, although Shingeki and Mushishi are pretty good too.. How about you?
Random Person : Avatar
You : -.-” Avatar isn’t anime..
Random Person : Well then what is it?
You : 

So what is Avatar? And why is there so much confusion surrounding it? (more…)

As a major shonen fan there are not a lot of cute romance type anime, however in my pursuit to give fair chance to everything there are some that I have watched all the way through without becoming bored of the mushy storylines and love triangles. Generally those with comedic value are the ones that keep me interested the best, and to this effect I find myself increasingly drawn to the cuter side of the romantic comedy anime.

Let’s start with Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish) which was reviewed in much more depth already, but which I feel deserves as much mention as any other, even if it means mentioning it multiple times. This is actually an anime that was recommended to me, had it not been I probably would have never sat down and watched it as the synopsis was not something which overly appealed to me. I’m glad I watched it in the end; the story starts with Tsukimi Kurashita, a girl who loves jellyfish but in typical shy nerd style is uncomfortable with just about everything else. This character lives in a house full of other, similarly bizarre characters such as a talking afro with a love of trains.

Things change drastically for everyone involved when a beautiful, stylish young woman suddenly makes friends with the jellyfish obsessed nerd, accept that this woman is actually Kuranosuke Koibuchi; a male cross-dresser. It shouldn’t take long to understand the comedic value here (nerds that struggle around men and beautiful people, a gorgeous cross-dressing man – it just about writes itself). (more…)

2013 was a pretty good year for anime lovers around the world; so many new series released, so many getting started and some new releases from series’ we all loved in the past. One thing that I have particularly enjoyed this year is the number of special Christmas releases; which have been an enjoyable return to shows that I was certain were over for the year.

Other than those I happened to notice on Crunchyroll I have not watched that many of the new series, which I am a little disappointed about, having spent much of the year catching up on some of the older classics I missed, so I will instead be offering reviews on some of the few I have seen, as well as reviews of other anime I happen to have completed this year.

One Piece:

One Piece is one of the biggest shonen anime there is, the three big names in this genre are of course One Piece, Naruto and Bleach. While I have seen the others in the past One Piece had never really appealed to me in the same way, but in spring this year I decided I would start it. To be honest it took me a little while to really get in to it, the beginning didn’t go as quickly and energetically as I was expecting but it didn’t take long and soon enough I was hooked. (more…)

Opportunity is a strange thing, as it just manifests itself and you have to decide to open the door or hide near the torchiere and peer through the curtain, to make certain they have gone away.

I had a marvelous chance to see “Neon Genesis Evangelion 2.22: You Shall (Not) Advance” with the family in tow. Now, I initially argued against seeing it, as I did not really enjoy “1.11” and since they were so behind the curve on things, I was afraid I would be spending huge amount of movie time explaining things. If you thought I was bad coming into this film, they were even worse, but they said they would take the chance.

They lost.

I had to explain about the Second Impact and what these angels were and trying to do and what the EVA units were and trying to do. Now, not a lot of time has passed between the films, so we still have Shinji Ikari, who is more determined than ever to stop being a pilot, partially aided by the fact that Rei Ayanami is back to some degree of health and can reshoulder the burden.They also are given the ‘present’ of a new pilot, Asuka Langley Soryu. Despite her heritage, she is considered American, which means she is brash and rash. Oh, and also has boobs. She takes care of EVA unit 2 and we see all three of them work together to attempt to take out an angel, trying to fight as a cohesive unit. (more…)

So, you have been reading me for a while now, and you should know by this point that the genre in anime I detest the most is Giant Fighting Robot. However, the one that is in second place is sports anime.

This is not to say that all sports animes are terrible; I could name two right off the bat that were very interesting, in that I watched them all the way through: “Bamboo Blade” (Kendo) and “The Big Windup” (Baseball), but they went against the grain to tell their stories. (Another is “Suzuka”, but the track and field aspect is a means to an end and not the core of the show). It’s that some of the shows get so involved in presenting the sporting aspect of things, the plot suffers to the nth degree and one loses interest. If I want to watch basketball, I’ll watch basketball, not a basketball anime.

Here is the problem that I have with the approach to the sporting life story, as it falls into the same tropes and traps:

Our hero (or heroine; mustn’t be sexist) is just a-walkin’ down the street, singing “Doo wah diddy, diddy, dum diddy do” and is called upon to use some hidden talent that is reflective of the sport that we are angling towards. Once this ability is now out in the open, they are asked or blackmailed or coerced or driven into joining the particular club or team to really present his talent (or hers; mustn’t be sexist). (more…)