In yesterday’s post I talked about the gdgd shows as a whole, today I want to focus in on what might just be the most interesting of the lot, and also the most obscure; Minarai Diva. So what’s so interesting about Minarai Diva? What makes it entirely unique and pushes it beyond its cohorts in terms of meta weirdness? It’s live. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 12: Run Diva Run – Minarai Diva and Pushing Nonsensical Boundaries”
Over the years short anime have kind of become my thing. I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for them but it’s only in the last few years that I’ve switched to “watch nearly every short every season” mode. Because of that there are naturally some gaps through which shows which are extremely my sort of thing have slipped. This year I filled one of those gaps. Despite Straight Title Robot Anime; one of my favourite series ever being a part of it I had previously missed out on the rest of the gdgd series.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 11: Atarashi! – Exploring the gdgdverse”
Having only been following Precure for a few years now I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the franchise at times. At my current rate of one older series per year It’s going to take me a full decade more to be caught up. With so much of the series history still outside my experience I wasn’t really sure how well Hugtto’s giant 15th anniversary crossover episodes were going to work for me. As it turns out they were fantastic.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 10: Precure All For You”
Show By Rock!! is a series with a lot going on. Juggling half a dozen secondary sets of characters around central band Plasmagica, and it manages for the most part. An issue a lot of shows this crowded run into however is that individual events can often feel rushed, as the story tries to hit the beats it needs to while not sidelining any of the extensive cast. Show By Rock definitely runs into this at points, with the most noticeable example being Chuchu’s turn to the dark side in episode 11, which happens and is resolved in about 5 minutes. In any other series that probably wouldn’t work, but I think it actually adds to this one.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 9: That time Chuchu was evil for about five minutes”
The episode opens with Maki visiting her father in Tokyo about Maiko’s missing brother. Weirdly enough she questions him as if he were dead, even though Haru would presumably have told everyone that he was actually alive after last episode. She did tell everyone… Right? Oh dear. Continue reading “Between the Sky and Sea episode 11: Arbitrarily not telling people things”
Overman King Gainer has a lot of characters. It probably has more characters than are strictly necessary for its central story, but they sure are important to its secondary one. While the main crux of the story is protagonist Gainer getting his life together and coming to terms with his parents death while defending the Yapan Exodus in the titular mech King Gainer, it’s also a show about the Exodus itself. While Gainer takes center stage King Gainer is at its heart about the journey the people of the Exodus are on, searching for a new home in a world of seemingly endless frozen wastes.
Viewed from this angle the many seemingly superfluous characters are actually integral to the series, because it’s as much about the people living within and interacting with the moving city as it is about Gainer. However this extensive cast of characters does mean that many of them have very little screen time, and the show puts in a surprising amount of effort to ensure this time is used well, background characters have their own things going on, rather than just existing to interact with Gain, Gainer and Sara. All this is exemplified by one character, who isn’t even a character, Mammo the stuffed Mammoth. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 8: Mammo’s Journey”
Continuing my slow and meandering trip through older Precure series this year I watched the franchise’s second entry, Max Heart. A rare direct sequel (I believe there’s one more a few entries on) Max Heart has something of a mixed reputation, with most of what I’d heard about it beforehand leaning towards the negative. Honestly though I liked it a fair bit, while it dragged a bit early on it more than redeemed itself in the second half. I liked Hikari, I liked (most of, Baldez sucks) the new villains, and I particularly liked what it did with Porun. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 7: Porun Defence Squad Assemble!”
Recurring feature time! In previous 12 days runs I’ve used day 6 to highlight a few of the most interesting short anime to air during the year, it’s a good tradition so lets keep it going.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 6: Short Awards 2018”
So last year I wrote about my return to Higurashi after a few years and how doing so really rekindled my love for the series. Since then a few things have changed. I still love the series to bits but the last post is somewhat incomplete now. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 5: Last Period is more Higurashi than Higurashi”
Every now and then you stumble across a series which fill a space you didn’t even know was there, but which you can’t imagine how you went so long without filling it. This year I discovered Utawarerumono. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 4: Utawarerumono”
The Anime Duck Compendium 