As I mentioned earlier, there has been a lot of romantic comedies coming out. This one “Wolf Girl and Black Prince” (“Ōkami Shōjo to Kuro Ōji”) is an interesting take on things in the realm of high school love.

The story centers around Erika Shinohara, a 16-year-old girl who tells her friends about her romantic exploits, but she actually has no boyfriend. Well, you had best produce, so she claims that the handsome boy in a candid photo on her phone is her boyfriend, but it turns out that boy is a schoolmate named Kyōya Sata. She has no choice but to make him her fake boyfriend. Unfortunately, Sata may look like a sweet person, but he is actually an ultra-black-hearted sadist. Sata takes advantage of Erika’s weakness and treats her like his dog.

And, I mean, he is really mean. He doesn’t exploit her or really blackmails her, but he is as cold as they come and Erika feels trapped into this all. This is where some of my resentment crops up. A couple of opportunities arise that she could dump him and just write it off as ‘things didn’t work out.’ It also brings up the second question: what if her two friends, Marin Tachibana and Aki Tezuka, are also faking it and they really don’t have boyfriends? Just a thought. (more…)

Well, we have another entry into the magical school genre, but this one tries to be something more than, say, “Negima!” or “The Irregular”. But things get muddled. Welcome to the world of “Trinity Seven”.

Kasuga Arata (do you need help in finding the guy?) lived a normal life together with his childhood friend and cousin, Hijiri Kasuga, in a small town. However, everything changed on the day of the Black Sun, and a magus (mage) appeared before him. The Black Sun caused the Breakdown Phenomenon which destroyed the town where he lived. Because of this, his normal life was artificially reconstructed by a grimoire that his childhood friend had left. The appearance of the magus led him to a new life in the Royal Biblia Academy and meeting the members of the Trinity Seven. And who are these members? I am glad you asked! From left to right, we have: (more…)

“Shiro Bako” (“White Box”) tells the story of five girls from high school who want to make it in anime. Having personally worked in television, radio, movies and theater, I could really connect with the problems that occurred. It’s just that they have ALL the problems happening. You can get a lot of them, but not both complete pages of the menu. Still, it makes for good stories and the overall idea of seeing if you can overcome adversity to attain your dreams.

In Kaminoyama High School, animation club members and good friends (left to right), Misa Tōdō, Ema Yasuhara, Aoi Miyamori, Midori Imai and Shizuka Sakaki, put together a really stunning anime for the cultural festival. All state they want to get into the anime industry. We flash forward two and a half years later. Ema and Aoi both work for Musashino Animation. Ema is a key animator and Aoi is a production assistant. Misa works in 3D animation for computer graphics studio Super Media Creations. Midori is in college, learning to be a scriptwriter and Shizuka is a voice actress for Akaoni Production, but is still trying to land a position. She works as a waitress otherwise. (more…)

The second season of “Sword Art Online” is out, and they did the same thing on this approach as with the last version, and that is to have two full story arcs. The first 14 episodes, “Phantom Bullet”, have Kirito as a kind of cyber cop. There is a new VRMMMORPG called “Gun Gale Online”, a real shooter game. A character walks about named “Death Gun” who shoots another character and they disappear. It later turns out that the real-life person whose character was shot in the game is dead.

This happens two more times and people are scared that there is a way for your avatar to get shot in the game and that it kills the real you. Kirito is asked by Kikuoka Seijiro of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Virtual Division to investigate this. He dives back in and signs up to be in the Bullet of Bullets competition, where he proves himself to be very competent, despite using a light saber…..I mean, a Photon Sword. There is a real funny incident involving his character, but I’ll let you find that one yourself. Kirito is befriended by Sinon, a sniper person in the game, who has severe psychological problems outside the game (can’t reveal; plot point). (more…)