Author Archives: Bobduh

Simoun – Episode 10

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Let’s check back in on Simoun! Episodes eight and nine represented the show’s first major turning point, as an attack on the ship prompted Neviril to finally redon her leadership mantel, and even choose Aaeru as her pair. Aaeru’s uncertainty seemed to be what ultimately tipped her hand, leaving Neviril resolved to embrace her own uncertainty about the world and society they inhabit.

Having finally returned to the skies, Neviril then brought that heretical uncertainty before the holy council, and was ultimately rewarded for her honesty by the shrine guardian Onashia. Chor Tempest live, but the resolution of episode nine also prompted a variety of new questions about how this society functions. Onashia seems to exist outside of the law – while those beneath her are traditional priests and politicians, Onashia appears to be an actual living embodiment of their religion. It’s clear that Simulacrum is hiding a variety of secrets from its own people, and if Onashia is who she appears to be, discovering her nature and motivation will be crucial to uncovering the truth of this world. That said, I’m not even sure right now if the “scale” of this show will involve challenging Simulacrum society – after all, we’re almost halfway through, and we’ve pretty much just spent this time dealing with Chor Tempest’s immediate personal problems. But with Neviril back in the saddle, I’m excited to see the whole team working together. Let’s see what’s next in Simoun!

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Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 4

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I’m gonna watch more Chihayafuru and you can’t stop me! Having devoted the entirety of this morning to writing over three thousand friggin’ words for a different Current Projects article, this afternoon I’m cooling off with Chihayafuru, my designated comfort watch. So far, the show’s second season has mostly been dedicated to integrating Hanano and Tsukuba into the natural rhythm of the karuta club. It’s been a somewhat bumpy ride to get there; the second episode had to rely on some pretty contrived conceits to solidify Hanano’s membership, and Tsukuba’s personality has only really come into focus in the most recent episode. But that episode also effectively acted as the hard sell of their merger into the group, and at this point, they’re integrated well enough that the natural interactions of them and the other members going forward should finish the job.

With Hanano and Tsukuba-related club integration drama consuming the first day of the team tournament, I’m guessing we’ll now be returning to the original five players, and focusing on the actual tactical back-and-forth of them versus their day two opponents. I’m very excited for this; the previous year’s team tournament was utterly overshadowed by integrating Tsutomu into the group, and so this could be the first time we see our five leads compete together in a purely tactics-driven match, uninhibited by some character’s specific arc-related needs. Chihayafuru’s tactically focused matches often tend to be its biggest highlights, so I’m very ready for what today might bring. Let’s get right to it!

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New Game! – Review

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Today I dove into the first season of New Game!, which certainly offered plenty to talk about. New Game! succeeds well enough as a standard slice of life, but its choice of setting means it naturally comes off a little differently from its high school-situated compatriots, and often not in flattering ways. The softening of conflict and character that tends to come along with the genre meshed pretty awkwardly with the brutal realities of game design, leading to a unique overall production. Let’s get into it!

You can check out my full review over at ANN.

Patreon Donation Info

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Management: Here’s an updated/consolidated version of my Patreon info, since the old posts were years old and very confusing. I haven’t changed my system at all, but hopefully it’s a little more clear now!

Hey all! I’m Nick Creamer, also known as Bobduh (@B0bduh on twitter), and I write about anime, film, and basically anything else people will pay me for! I’m a staff critic at Anime News Network and a columnist at Crunchyroll, but the majority of my work comes from you, dear reader, and I’ll tell you how. Every month, I send out a message to my $5+ Patreon contributors, asking what critical projects they’d like me to work on. Every month, their choices push all those projects towards their funding goals (you can check out the current list and completed projects right here), at which point I get to work writing up the best reflection/article/etc I can on that topic. Some people single-handedly support major passion projects, while others group together to push me through whole seasons of shows like Hyouka and Madoka Magica. Some people even ask me just to send their donations to the projects that need them most, which I’m always happy to do. I know the process sounds a little strange, but it’s been running for years now, and you can check out my full list of reader-funded projects right here, with links to all the completed projects at the bottom. As for what those funding goals are, it varies by the scale of the project, so let’s break it down:

Episode Notes: $30

These began their life as the natural notes I take while watching a show for a future review, but have ballooned to essentially be a written watch-along, where I point out and discuss interesting craft elements in a loose format while actively watching the episode. You can check out examples of this style here (for a more serious and critique-focused piece) and here (for a more conversational piece on a lighter, long-term project).

Episode Article: $75

These are my traditional, formal episode writeups, full of meaty paragraphs and thematic analysis and all that good stuff. Different shows prompt different styles of articles, but you can check out a couple of these pieces here and here.

Outside of that split, my articles tend to stay pretty consistent, and prices mostly come down to the scale of the project. Here are the rest of those prices:

Manga Volume: $120

Film: $150

Book: $300

Full (12-13 episode) Show: $450

And of course, keep in mind, for projects people are enthusiastic about, I tend to get a bunch of people contributing who push them through these goals pretty darn quick. I also try to be as open as I can and fair as possible when it comes to other potential projects. Here are some pieces I’ve written about visual novels and videogames, which I’m also happy to write about, and which I’d price based on their length. I’m also available for personal proofreading projects and other commissions, and can be reached for such inquiries at nicreamer42 at gmail dot com. I love doing this work and would love to continue doing it, so if you enjoy my writing, have a favorite show you’d like to see explored, or want to see me branch out into something new, please consider chipping in. You can support me through Patreon, or if you’d like to make a single donation and get a project immediately on the board, you can also donate directly (be sure to also send an email stating what your donation is for). And whether you decide to chip in or not, I thank you all for reading, and hope you enjoy the work!

Winter 2018 – Week 11 in Review

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It’s closing time, folks – open all the doors and let you out into the world. I’d be happy to just quote one hit wonders this week, but the season really is ending, so I suppose we should also survey some cartoons. Given I’ve already dropped everything that seemed to be juggling more narrative balls than it could handle (aka Franxx), I wasn’t surprised to see this week’s finales conclude their shows with general grace, with both Laid Back Camp and A Place Further than the Universe offering not necessarily their best episodes, but fine representations of their overall appeal. And among the continuing shows, After the Rain continues to hone in on a genuinely satisfying endpoint for Kondo and Akira, while March comes in like a lion… well, I mean, it’s March, it’s always gonna do its own thing. All these shows have been consistent enough that I have entirely run out of new things to say about them, so while I’m sad to see them go, I’m also looking forward to whatever fresh madness the spring will bring. Let’s send this season’s contenders off right, and run this week down!

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So Good You Can Taste It: Anime That Make Eating Look Great

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It was time for a recommendation roundup this week on Crunchyroll, and this week we explored great cooking shows! The most fun part of this piece was just trying to find enough of those precise “oh my god this meal looks so good” low-angle reaction shots to fill the article, but fortunately I prevailed, because I am a professional. The people need to know the truth, and the truth is food is good.

So Good You Can Taste It: Anime That Make Eating Look Great

Princess Tutu – Episode 3

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More fragments of Drosselmeyer’s half-finished tale arrive as we begin Princess Tutu’s third episode. We learn that along with his heart, the prince had both his kindness and his memories stolen. We also learn that the shards of his heart found their way to people with voids in their own heart – a classic conceit of the magical girl genre, here applied to a tighter narrative frame where that choice directly ties into the story’s overarching themes. Princess Tutu is well aware of the power stories have to shape our own feelings, and even direct our own lives. As our narrator warns, among those who were possessed by the shards, many found their own tales twisting awry.

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Chihayafuru S2 – Episode 3

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Alright, let’s jump right into some more Chihayafuru! The show’s last episode saddled itself with an almost insurmountable challenge: integrate Hanano into the overall team in a way that didn’t feel completely out of character for her. Hanano is clearly not the kind of person who’d naturally gravitate towards the karuta team; making her entrance a dramatic hurdle doesn’t require any contrived circumstances, because it’s only under contrived circumstances that she’d even want to join in the first place. Instead, the true challenge of her entrance was basically just justifying its end point. Hanano’s personality would greatly help the team’s overall dynamic, but what series of events could possibly bring her to the point where her presence on the team is already an assumed fact?

Chihayafuru settled on “she’s willing to sacrifice in order to pursue Taichi, and she bonds with Kana.” Those choices don’t really result in clean or entirely believable drama, but that’s basically a tradeoff the show is forced to make in order to justify introducing a character who will clearly improve the overall team dynamic, but has no believable reason to be on a karuta team. One episode of slightly unbelievable drama is a fine price to pay for a character like Hanano, and I’m excited to see how she integrates into the group now that she’s truly joined. Let’s get started on the third episode of Chihayafuru 2!

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The Woman Called Fujiko Mine – Episode 1

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Today we’re starting off on a new show, as we check out the first episode of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine! This one’s a pretty interesting property in all respects – it’s ostensibly an entry in the Lupin III master thief franchise, but its acclaimed director Sayo Yamamoto decided instead to focus on Fujiko Mine, the femme fatale who generally plays more of a supporting role in Lupin’s stories. My experience with Lupin III is very limited – I’ve essentially just seen a couple scattered episodes and Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliostro, which I’ve been lead to believe isn’t really representative of the mainline series’ less family-friendly style.

My experience with Yamamoto is a bit less limited, but still pretty far from exhaustive. I watched her breakout hit Yuri on Ice!!!, but didn’t really find it that compelling. I felt the story essentially lost its focus after the excellent first few episodes, that lots of irrelevant skating performances killed its pacing, and that the combination of so-so character writing, a total lack of interest in conveying skating as any sort of tactical competition, and consistent animation issues prevented its big setpieces from really landing with much impact. The show’s success makes sense to me, but as an art object, I wasn’t really that moved.

Outside of that, my experience with Yamamoto is limited to a few of her terrific opening/ending segments, as well as her reasonably solid Space Dandy episode and her other collaborations with Shinichiro Watanabe. As for Fujiko Mine’s writer, Mari Okada is one of the great wildcards of anime, equally capable of stirring character-focused melodrama and godawful character-focused melodrama. She undoubtedly possesses one of the clearest voices in anime writing, but unlike the reliable craft solidity of someone like Gen Urobuchi, her stories’ narrative fundamentals can range from bulletproof to wibbly-wobbly nonsense.

Where these two voices and this particularly property intersect, I don’t really know. Fujiko Mine has a cult reputation, but my experience with Yuri on Ice has left me wondering if Yamamoto is simply not my style of creator, and so I’m interested in checking my own reaction here. Let’s start with the first episode and get to the capers!

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Winter 2018 – Week 10 in Review

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The anime kinda killed it this week, folks. Well, alright, at least one anime specifically killed it, and that anime constitutes a large enough percentage of my weekly quality variance that it alone killing it pretty much lifts the whole ship. To put a finer point on it, this week’s episode of A Place Further than the Universe was absolutely phenomenal, and given all three of my other airing shows tend to maintain roughly the same level of quality every week (barring a climax episode of March), Universe’s success makes for a Week in Review success. Both Universe and After the Rain accomplished the difficult tasks of convincing me they could actually conclude their stories at satisfying points this week – Universe through its graceful return to its initial themes, and After the Rain through its continued detailing of what a glimmer of hope might look like for either of its heroes. In spite of this being a relatively light season in terms of raw show numbers, After the Rain, Universe, and March all fall so squarely into precisely My Jam territory that I can’t really complain. Not one, not two, but THREE melancholy character dramas about quietly unhappy people trying to reach out to each other. My cup runneth over with gentle sadness, and I couldn’t be happier about it. Let’s run this week down!

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