Summer 2015 – Week 9 in Review

Wednesday has come again! It’s time to talk about cartoons and other very serious things.

Uniquely serious things at the moment, it turns out. “Anime is serious business” has lost some of its humor in light of last week being my final week with a day job. Right now, as of this week, anime is my business. My only business.

This is kind of terrifying! I can’t exactly say I’ve reached the point where I can go comfortably full-time on criticism and writing in general, but I can at least fake it for a while. Between my ANN work, my advertising money, and my Patreon support, I’m gonna try to make a go of this. Things are gonna be kinda tight for a while, but this also means I’ll have a whole lot more time to work on writing projects for all you guys, so hopefully this is one big step towards a pretty delightful future. If you’d like to support me in this grand experiment, please feel free to chip in a couple whatevers, though I also accept worried, half-disbelieving “good lucks”, or even confident ones.

A few people have asked if I’d be willing to proofread, edit, or review things on commission, and the answer is definitely yes. I’m going full freelance here, meaning I’m a mercenary with nothing to lose and everything to prove, meaning yes I will take your projects that sounds awesome. I’ll hopefully integrate ways to inquire about such things on the site in a more formal way shortly, but you can message me here, on twitter, on ask.fm, or on patreon if you’ve got anything you’d like to discuss. The one formal project I’m most concerned with getting off the ground is setting up communal support funds for specific shows – like, if ten people want me to start reviewing Eva episodes one by one, they actually have a convenient way to make that happen. I’ve got a whole big to-do list to run down there.

Speaking of formal projects, I’ve got one more surprise! People keep asking me when I’m going to play some videogames again, and that can finally be answered: a couple friends and I have just created 10 Royal Games, a channel where we’ll be playing through all manner of games and shooting the shit on whatever strikes our fancy. We’re starting off with some very classic Zelda and some very fresh Metal Gear (first videos should hopefully be up tonight, and I’ll link them both here and on twitter), but feel free to suggest other stuff we could dive into, or topics you’d like us to bring up. It should be fun!

WELP, THAT COVERS ALL THE WORK STUFF. Now that I’ve sobered everyone up with serious discussion of my financial future, let’s soothe those weary brains with some ramblings about anime. And manga! And maybe some western cartoons! Hell, let’s just randomize the whole damn thing. RUNNING ‘EM DOWN.

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A Silent Voice, Volume 1 – Review

And the manga reviews continue, this time with Oh God This Is So Uncomfortable Why Am I Reading This Why Do I Like Drama What Is Wrong With Me. A Silent Voice was one of the most teeth-clenchingly painful reads I’ve encountered lately, but that was only true because the story was told so damn well. The very strong dialogue paints characters in immediately humanizing strokes, making it all the more painful when awful stuff happens to them. Piercing character drama, why can’t I quit you.

You can check out my review over at ANN, or my chapter notes below!

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Summer 2015 – Week 8 in Review

Ah crap it’s Wednesday. Things were actually looking pretty dire for the week in review this time, considering Gatchaman Crowds took the week off. That’s basically the only show I’m watching weekly that lends itself to more than a shrugging gladiatorial up-or-down thumb, so with that out of the picture, what could I even talk about? Could I really spin Prison School and Monster Musume into four paragraphs of discussion? Maybe I could… maybe I could just talk about my favorite lunches of the week? Actually that’s not the worst idea, but either way, my worries ended up being unfounded, because this week I watched the entire first season of SYMPHOGEAAAAAAR.

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Summer 2015 – Week 7 in Review

Wednesday has come again, and with it one more entry in my increasingly less timely week in reviews. At this point, I’m watching an even four airing shows, which is probably the least since I started this tradition – but on the other hand, I’ve had School-Live, Gangsta, Snow White with the Red Hair, and Rokka all recommended to me with varying levels of enthusiasm, so clearly other people have found a bit more to love in this season. This week, I’ve largely been making up the difference with manga, which has made for a nice change of pace. But let’s hold off on that for now, and start by running down what episodic stuff I actually have seen!

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Fragments of Horror – Review

I reviewed some Junji Ito this week, his first horror stories in a fair number of years. And that kind of shows in the result – Ito’s work has always been strange, and often relied on horror ideas that other people wouldn’t necessarily find horrifying, but some of these stories are just flat bad. There are also some real hits though, and his visual style remains uniquely creepy throughout, so overall I had a good time with this collection. Manga short story collections are fun – I’d dearly love to get some Nickelodeon over here to review, but I’m sure the chances of that are basically next to nothing.

You can check out my full review over at ANN!

Fragments of Horror

A Bride’s Story, Volume 4 – Review

Time for A Bride’s Story! ANN already had reviews for the first three volumes of this one, so I’m picking up where Rebecca left off. Volume four is all about the twins Laila and Leily, whose irrepressible scampishness makes this the most comedy-heavy volume yet. That means Kaoru Mori doesn’t get to indulge in quite as many breathtaking full-page spreads as usual, but the volume’s still a lot of fun. A Bride’s Story is good, you should read A Bride’s Story.

You can check out my full review here!

A Bride's Story

Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, Vol. 5-6 – Review

Back to the manga front, with some more Biscuit Hammer. This story is just getting consistently better at this point, with the story and characters gaining complexity and poignancy as everyone moves towards the endgame. The art is also improving, though it’s still a mix of highlights and lowlights – some of the shots of the horse in particular made me kinda wince. If you can’t draw a horse, it is pretty ambitious to make a Horse Knight one of the main characters of your story. But that’s beside the point – this story is great, and you should buy it. I hear the manga hasn’t been a success for Seven Seas, which is a shame, because they really deserve to be lauded for bringing this one over.

Anyway. Here’s my full review over at ANN, and you can check out my chapter notes below!

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The Ancient Magus’ Bride, Vol. 1 – Review

Manga trawl continues, with another very solid series! This one may go in any manner of weird directions, since its premise is so incredibly loaded, but the story so far is just totally enchanting. It’s basically holding to one of my favorite styles of magic, the one that builds off of old stories and treats magic as beautiful and dangerous and tends to feel vaguely European. It’s a style I strongly associate with Diana Wynne Jones, since her Chrestomanci stories were very formative for me, and it’s used well here. Definitely worth a look.

Here’s my full review over at ANN. Notes below!

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Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, Volumes 3-4 – Review

More manga reviews! Branching out this time, switching from the ever-enjoyable Genshiken to the cult classic Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer. I wasn’t so hot on Biscuit Hammer’s first couple volumes, but it really clicked for me this time – with what seems like the full cast introduced, the story’s gaining a lot of interesting texture while maintaining its great personality. The art’s still crappy, but hey, it’s an endearing kind of crappy. Anyway!

My full review’s available over at ANN. Manga notes below!

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Genshiken Second Season, Volume Six – Review

Genshiken reviews continue! The manga has largely regained its stride at this point, and seems fairly comfortable in its more romance-heavy New Normal. Hato and Madarame are working well as the dramatic centerpieces, the side characters are stepping it up, and everything’s getting more awkward and emotionally loaded by the second. We’re also finally into territory I haven’t read before, so I’m as interested in seeing where this goes as anyone.

Here’s my review of the volume. Notes below!

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