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”
I’m going to open this one up with a bit of an anectdote. Back in 2007 when I played Pokemon Pearl for the first time, having not played the previous generation in a year or so it felt much the same. Obviously there was a lot new there but at its core it hadn’t changed that much. On a gameplay level the series is fairly incremental but the interesting bit here was that I didn’t really notice much of a visual leap either. It wasn’t until I eventually unlocked the pal park and had to go back and prep my mons for transfer that I noticed just how much things had actually progressed. Because the spirit of the game hadn’t changed it felt like the same game and my memories were filling in the gaps. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 3: Card Captor Sakura, Clear Card and the Spirit of a Series”
Every now and then a sequel pops up to an older series, sometimes it’s expected, sometimes it comes way out of left field. This year we got a new Basilisk for some reason.
The Original Basilisk was released back in 2005 and I haven’t seen anyone talk about it in years. A sequel over a decade later is a hard enough sell as is, especially for a franchise that hasn’t had much enduring popularity. It’s especially weird when said sequel seems determined to actively not be what fans of the original are likely to want.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 2: Ouka Ninja Scrolls and Weird Sequels.”
Somehow it’s been three years. Time flies huh. I started this blog for 12 days and I fully intend to keep taking part every year, because it’s a lot of fun and gives me an excuse to write more. So let’s get started.
Sometimes there are little moments in anime that just manage to perfectly sum up a character. Turn A Gundam’s Guin Sard Lineford has one of those moments towards the end of the series. Having finally completed their grueling journey to the moon the militia begins to unload their ship, leading to the reveal that Guin had his car brought along. As well as being a genuinely funny moment the car symbolises a lot of what Guin’s about.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2018, Day 1: Guin’s Moon Car”
Every now and then a series comes around that in adition to its own strong points is elevated by something entirely seperate. The atmosphere. that rose up around Kemono Friends was one such elevation. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2017, Day 12: Welcome to Youkoso Japari Park”
Rewatching a favourite series can be a great experience. But it can also be kind of scary. While it’s an oportunity to revisit a show you love with a little more experience, and maybe discover some things about it you wouldn’t have picked up on last time around, it’s also inherently risky. What if it sucks? Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2017, day 11: Revisiting Hinamizawa”
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is a bleak show. So bleak that the ending caught me off guard with how weirdly optimistic it managed to be whilst still fitting the tone of the series perfectly.
Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2017, Day 10: Gundam IBO, Victims of Circumstance”
Mahoutsukai Precure’s Mofurun was a damn good mascot. Where many Magical Girl mascot characters can feel like side characters, Mofurun absolutely felt like a major part of the team. And then the movie took this one step further. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2017, Day 9: Cure Mofurun”
Alice & Zouroku is a story about a god becoming human. Initially appearing as a fairly standard “super powered children being manipulated by an obligatory shadowy organisation” series, it manages to avoid most of the trappings of this kind of show and instead dives deep into what it means to be human, and if that fundamental humanity even really matters. Continue reading “12 Days of Anime 2017, Day 8: Alice & Zouroku, Loss Of Divinity”
As a cursory glance at my twitter feed will tell you, I play quite a bit of Granblue Fantasy. As such I was at least cautiously optimistic. While I’m a big fan of how the story is progressing at this point, several years in, the early game’s main quest is… pretty generic.
And then they aired the preview episodes, the whole thing got pushed back 3 months and they ended up releasing the first 2 episodes around the original planned air date as a sort of preview. They were OK, formulaic and unlikely to sell someone not familiar with the game on the premise, but OK. This kind of shot down what minor hopes I’d been harboring of a less than direct adaptation, with the preview eps following the game’s story more or less beat for beat. If I hadn’t already agreed to cover the anime for the wiki I might have given the whole thing a miss when the rest of the series eventually aired. When it actually did come out though? I had a surprisingly good time with it. Continue reading “12 Days Of Anime 2017, Day 7: Granblue Fantasy and Downtime in Adaptations”
The Anime Duck Compendium 