As much as I like “Food Wars!”, it can get too much for its own good, with those foodgasms and the overweening prats that infest the school. So when another dining series cropped up, I wanted to check it out. This is the bailiwick of “Isekai Shokudō” (“Restaurant to Another World”). (more…)

Since I have really committed to anime, I notice trend after trend. This one is the “Envelope Push”. How far can we take ecchi and not have it fall into hentai? This particular offering, “Seven Mortal Sins”, or “Sin: The 7 Deadly Sins” (or “Shin: Nanatsu no Taizai”) put a real challenge to ‘Ikki Tousen’ for over-the-top, out-in-the-open perversity and right from the get-go. (more…)

This is another iteration series, although rather than putting a date on it, they dub it as ‘new’, but this is a reboot of a series that came out over 25 years ago. Some might call this a black comedy, but I feel it is in the horror genre, akin to the old “Night Gallery” shows, where people get what they deserve. But let us look deeper into “The Laughing Salesman” (“Warau seerusuman” or “Warau Salesman”). (more…)

Considering the sheer amount of manga out there for this franchise, as well as one season of anime and a movie (two movies?), plus that this tale isn’t told out, it was no real surprise that “Blue Exorcist: Kyoto Saga” (“Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen”) came out. It had to be. (more…)

This was a show that started off with a lot of promise, but dissolved into standard tropes and traps of a girl-heavy anime. This is ”Gabriel DropOut” (“Gavurīru Doroppuauto”). We are in Heaven (but I can’t seem to find the gift shop!), attending a graduation ceremony. (more…)

Some tales and genres really lend themselves to be translated over to shows; others are not so friendly. I have found that 4-komas and video games can’t always make the jump to light speed, so to speak, and they betray their origins. This is never more so than in the offering “Gyakuten Saiban: Sono “Shinjitsu”, Igiari!” (“Turnabout Trial: I Object to That ‘Truth’!”), as the problem is, no matter what they call Naruhodō Ryūichi, we know him as ‘Phoenix Wright’ (and he is referred to as such on more than one occasion). (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…)

This is what I call the “Semi-Colon Series”. It is a grouping of shows that use a semi-colon in the title, and then they run the title all together. The other three are “Chaos;Head”, “Steins;Gate” and “Robotic;Notes”. The shows all share similar characteristics: they are very dense, plot-wise, things are never as they seem and you’ll get the information you need to make sense of it when it is decided you can handle it. I guess it is a bit like life. (more…)

I have to assume that anything related to dealing with the spirit or yokai realm is a huge amount of hassle. I guess they are rather unpredictable and since many of them are scary/ugly/hideous (to our scale of thinking) most folks shy away from it or have zero idea as to what is really happening (like being in Washington D.C.). The story we have here, “The Morose Mononokean” (“Fukigen na Mononokean”) elaborates on this theory. (more…)

It’s time to notice new trends! What is the new trend that I am seeing? “Episode #0”!

You may call them ‘one-shot’ or ‘test balloons’ or ‘toss-offs’. They are NOT OVAs, as there has to be a series tied to it before it can be an OVA. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. We can argue that an OVA has honestly nothing to do with any given series, so, in an open sense, it is an OVA. But I have seen them tied to a series, so I consider them part and parcel of the whole series effort and not just some one or two episode escapade to see what can be done with a story. (more…)