With Crunchyroll having just picked up Shiki’s streaming rights, I felt it was pretty much required for me to write an article hyping the show. Shiki’s one of my all-time favorites, and also one of the shows that’s least-known among those favorites. The show winds up being one of the smarter “ugly nature of mankind” shows I’ve seen in anime, but its immediate strengths were more my focus for this article. Check it out!
Why It Works: The Soul of Horror in Shiki
Aw hell yeah, let’s get crafty. This week’s Why It Works basically uses Tsuredure Children as a jumping-off point to talk about how exactly stories bring dialogue to life, with handy examples from our silly children. Hope you enjoy the piece!
Tsuredure Children and the Mechanics of Dialogue, Part One
This week on Why It Works, I took the opportunity to rep this season’s terrific Tsuredure Children. The show’s consistently excellent dialogue allows it to get away with sequences that would almost certainly feel sterile in a lesser show, and I’m happy to have a chance to show it some support. Anime shorts tend to get ignored by a lot of the community (myself included), but Tsuredure Children is just as strong as any full-length I’m currently watching. I hope you enjoy the piece!
Terminal Fuzzy Wuzzies in Tsuredure Children
Today on Why It Works, it’s time for my regularly-scheduled Crunchyroll recommendations for the season. Amazon picking up the season’s actual highlights did make this one a bit tougher to write, but my tastes are very specific anyway, so it’s not too hard to find shows other people might enjoy. Here’s the piece!
Hell yeah I wrote an article about Symphogear. FUCK yeah. The new season’s streaming situation is still up in the air, but it still felt like the appropriate time to hype the hell out of the previous three seasons. Symphogear is a treasure, and more people deserve to be introduced to its brilliance. SYYYYYMMMMPHOOOOOOOGEAARRRRRRRR.
The Wild Brilliance of Symphogear
Today I took advantage of Crunchyroll’s Hero Week to rep some of the best goddamn shows of the last few years. Gatchaman Crowds, Samurai Flamenco, and Concrete Revolutio are all near and dear to my heart, so I was happy to get a chance to celebrate them, and hopefully turn a few more people on to some of the most compelling stories in recent memory. Everybody deserves a little Nice Justice in their life.
Why It Works: The Stunning Highlights of Anime’s Hero Renaissance
Today I finally dedicate an article to Benten, something long-time readers have presumably been waiting for all season. Look, My Hero Academia has been super good and fun to write about, I’ve been busy. I generally tend to favor the shows I’m not actively writing about for ANN over at Crunchyroll, but when it comes to general season-long topics like a character profile, Why It Works is a wonderful venue. Benten has certainly earned a spotlight article, and I hope this one does her justice. Please enjoy the piece!
Why It Works: The Lonely Queen of The Eccentric Family
This week on Why It Works, I found a very good excuse to fan out about Yutaka Nakamura’s kickass animation. His work on the Deku-Todoroki fight was both terrific and clearly emblematic of his recent output, and so it seemed like a perfectly good excuse to poke at his catalog and general style. I’m certainly not an expert when it comes to critiquing animation, but man, the guy can make some awesome scenes.
Todoroki’s Secret Weapon: Studio BONES’ Yutaka Nakamura
For this week’s Why It Works, I had fun with a pretty specific deep dive, poking at the various dramatic pillars that made Uraraka’s battle so interesting. My Hero Academia is pretty much bulletproof when it comes to shounen storytelling fundamentals, particularly in this arc, and so it hasn’t been all that hard to keep finding new topics to explore. A classic concept executed well is a very fine thing!
Why It Works: Building Uraraka’s Battle
Today on Why It Works, I basically let myself geek out and do all that in-universe theorizing that really isn’t actually criticism. I’ve already read through the whole sports festival arc, but I tried to just rely on exactly what we know so far to inform this article, which meant my terrible memory actually came in handy for once. I really enjoy doing more flavor-focused articles, and I hope you all like them too!
Why It Works: My Hero Academia Quarterfinal Roundup
