This ended up being a more interesting show than I was willing to give it credit for. I have reched (reached! Reached! Or maybe I have reched a tad) a saturation point; both are equally plausible. It comes to shows like this and the mediæval approach to things. Is there some reason this cannot take place in the American Old West, or France in the 1920s or Russia when Napoleon was a foot? I mean afoot! Or maybe he is only a foot tall (well, they measured things differently.) Anyway, here we are at “Grancrest Senki” (also known as “Record of Grancrest War” or “Gurankuresuto Senki”). (more…)

It is always nice to know that what you personally thought about a show, everyone else personally thought about the show and you aren’t going crazy, at least on that aspect of it. I bring all this up as this turned out to be one of the most frustrating show for me since “Jungre de Ikou” and that was a goodly amount of years ago. We are talking about Märchen Mädchen”,, (“Meruhen Medohen”, “Fairy Tale Girls“). (more…)

This has been one weird series, in how they approach the overall stories. The first two seasons of “Full Metal Panic” were rather grim and unrelenting tales of world terrorism and the steps that the ultra-secret organization, Mithral, engaged in to keep the world safe from peoples and organizations bent on a dictatorial regime or just basically a lot of dead bodies. (more…)

I have remarked that when you see an uptick in OVAs or short runs of a series that completed its first season, it is a prelude to the release of the next season, but they want to let you know it’s coming with more than a notice on the internet going “The second season is coming!” It’s just there was a two-run OVA about a year or so ago and now “Nanatsu no Taizai: Seisen no Shirushi” (“The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of the Holy War”) came out with what they refer to as a TV Special that acts as a prelude to the new season. (more…)

I have frequently remarked about my 40-year flirtation with anime before I finally settled down back in 2004 to accept it. It was during my Third Permutation that I ran into (what it was called then) “Star Blazers”. I had two problems with the show. The first was trying to wrap my head around the concept of a sea-worthy battleship in space (I would later discover that the Japanese flung all kinds of things into space for their animes). The second was the battleship seemed to fire its main weapon, have it break down and take two or three episodes to repair it, fire it again and repeat the cycle. Since I felt the show was going nowhere (and this was at a time when it showed once a week), I abandoned it and thus ended that trial. (more…)

Science Fiction is always a tough genre to work within. You are, in a sense, looking at things that have no real basis in science, but are not completely dismissed out of hand for being improbable or even impossible. But there still has to be a grounding of some caliber so you can project your story from that. I bring up this lengthy explanation as “Kokkoku: Moment by Moment” asks us to look at time in a different manner. (more…)

Well, it came around faster than I imagined, but I realized why. So, we have had the second season of “Gin no Guardian” (or “The Silver Guardian”), which really upped the stakes, but also really left you hanging in the balance. (more…)

Not only is it a sports anime, it’s a driving anime and it is estrogen-heavy! What were they thinking? Well, you know me, I’ll look at almost anything, so I took in the oddness of “Two Car” (“Tsūkaa”). (more…)

I was commenting on the sudden influx of outdoor animes. This is another of those outdoor shows, but, boy howdy, what a place to be going to! “A Place Further than the Universe” (“Sora Yorimo Tōi Basho”) is certainly grand in its scope and reach, although certain aspects fizzled a bit. But, let us venture forth! (more…)

I find myself drawn to crime drama animes, as there is enough going on to garner my interest and the evil guys can get genuinely evil. Such is the case with “Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens”. You may feel it is another hitman tale, but that merely scratches the surface. (more…)