I will never understand the Japanese mind, especially in the anime way. It’s that a lot of shows I see tend to reinforce the idea that the government is going to take care of you, but it comes off as quite authoritarian. So, you have no say in how the government takes care of you. It’s good for society, but not necessarily for you. Despite this rather dour opening, we look at the dramedy of “Koi to Uso” (“Love and Lies”).
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When you were in high school, there was a ton of stuff to worry about: getting into college, being popular, seeing your name in the school newspaper. But the most important one was having a girlfriend. And if you didn’t have a girlfriend, what’s wrong with you, man? Well, I have a girlfriend, but she doesn’t know she’s my girlfriend. *sigh*. Yeah, we’ve all been there. But what if you got one of the popular ones? Such is the thought behind “Hajimete no Gal”, (“My First Girlfriend Is a Gal” or “Hajimete no Gyaru”). (more…)

There is a scene from the movie “A Fish Called Wanda”, where Kevin Kline cracks open a safe, hoping to find a ton of pelf within, but is greeted instead with silent emptiness. Screwing his face up with disgust, he loudly proclaims, “OK… OK… DISAPPOINTED! Son of a bitch.” I know how he feels, when I got the letter from Anime Expo, letting me know that there will be NO AX for 2021. *sigh* OK… OK… DISAPPOINTED! Son of a bitch. (more…)

Slapstick is a harder genre to master than one thinks, as you have to balance the mayhem with the results. It doesn’t succeed as well as it should, and so “Aho-Girl “(“Aho gāru”, or “Stupid-girl”) kind of dissolves into sit-com madness. I say ‘kind of’, as it doesn’t grasp the elements correctly and comes off as more vicious than it needs to be. Let me explain….. (more…)