Is this another in a long line of “Episode #0” shows or just a free form experiment? I can’t really tell, as so much was left out, that it operates no better than a recap show, rather than an origin episode or even an OVA. You have your ticket? Good, come sit next to me; I’ll get two dogs and two brews and we’ll watch “Tailenders” together. I got us some good seats. (more…)

I lie to myself all the time. “The check’s in the mail.” “Yes, I took out the trash.” “I know I told you that.” After getting treated badly by the last JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, “Egypt Hen”, I swore I would never see it again. Well, guess what happened? Yup, yup and more yup. I found myself watching Installment Series Five or Six, “Diamond is Unbreakable”. (more…)

Well, this certainly is a different approach to the horror genre. It’s potentially just as bloody as “Terra Formars” or “Blue Gender”, but it moves it in another direction, so it’s not as cut and dried as you may think, which kinds of frees it up from the standard conventions that bedevil horror shows. (more…)

This is what I call an iteration series. Huh, what do you mean? The reason we have the year in parenthesis is that this show was done before, way back in 1997, but this version of “Berserk (2016)” (“Beruseruku”) is potentially a lot that the previous series was not, like openly bloody and endlessly violent. (more…)

Please do not let the horribly flat and bland art style throw you off. There is a more compelling story in here than you initially realize and you have to watch it. I mean really watch it. Brought to you by the same folks behind “One Punch Man”, this tale, “Mob Psycho 100” (“Mobu Saiko Hyaku^”) looks at people with abilities who may not know what to fully do with them. (more…)

OK, it takes a little while to wrap your head around this series, but once you do, wow, this is a fascinating series. Welcome to “Drifters” (“Dorifutazu”). (more…)

This was a show that was full of promise, but ended up devolving into the usual fight for supremacy genre that seem to bedevil this caliber of show. “Bungo Stray Dogs 2” (“Bungō Sutorei Doggusu” or ”Literary Stray Dogs”) started off the second season with an interesting take. The first season had us dealing with Atsushi Nakajima (dead center), who has the ability to change into a were tiger. He was taken on board by the Armed Detective Agency, a group dedicated to fighting the Port Mafia, a band of outlaws who also have an arsenal of people with special abilities. (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 a bit more than a notice on the internet going “The second season is coming! Sale starts on Friday!” 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…)

There are two kinds of super heroes: those who are born to it and those who are made. Superman and Wonder Woman are examples of those who were born to it; The Flash and Spider Man are those who were made, by some bizarre accident or event. This show, “Taboo Tattoo”, is about ‘ordinary’ people who possess super powers, granted by a special mark that they receive. (more…)

‘Vamp’ is such an odd word, owing to the differing meanings. It can mean, to wit:

1. the part of a shoe or boot upper covering especially the forepart of the foot, or
2. a short introductory musical passage often repeated several times before a solo, or
3. to piece something old with something new, or
4. a flirtatious woman

The word is derived from Anglo-French, alteration of avanpié, from avant- fore- + pié foot, but it can also be shorthand for vampire. In fact, the first vamp, silent movie star Theda Bara, was a caliber of vampire, as she sucked out men’s souls. (more…)