So, the second of the anime series on my New Year’s Resolution list that I’m done with is one I’m dropping – Texhnolyze. I did give it a reasonable try – getting about a cour through the series before I had enough, and because I had the show on my resolution list, I do feel it’s important to talk about why this series failed for me when two other Chiaki Konaka projects – Serial Experiments Lain and The Big O – were fine.
Continue readingTag Archives: Anime
This month I’m joined by Blaine of the Babylon 5 30 Years Later and 99 Years 100 Films Podcasts (at Bureau42.com) to discuss My Neighbor Totoro & Akira.
Anime Review: Mysterious Disappearances
It’s been a minute since we’d gotten a particularly good urban fantasy mystery anime series. When Mysterious Disappearances came up on the seasonal Anime List, it looked interesting, and I added it to my watchlist. I was not disappointed with what I got.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Wind Breaker (Season 1)
After having read the manga Crows a while back, I got a new appreciation of the Juvenile Delinquent manga, so when a Juvenile Delinquent anime, Wind Breaker, showed up in the Spring 2024 anime list, I figured I should give it a try. It didn’t have the same degree of character depth as Crows, but I still found it to be an enjoyable show.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Laid Back Camp Season 3
Laid Back Camp has, consistently, been a chill (you might even say “Laid Back”) anime series about informing the viewer about going camping, while also providing some chill vibes to accompany it, and it has generally succeeded. Season 2 stepped some things up by having some arcs include potential complications you can run into while camping – and the film covered some of the wrinkles you can run into if you decide to make a campground. Season 3 continues with the chill vibes, while also getting into “What might you have to deal with when traveling to your campground?”
Continue reading
Anime Concert Review: Bebop Bounty Big Band
I went to see a Jazz Octet play Cowboy Bebop music at the Aladdin Theater in Portland, and give my thoughts.
Anime Review: Urusei Yatsura Season 3
Urusei Yatsura’s 3rd season is the one that wraps up the series – putting most of the cast into varying degrees of relationships, while also finding – in an indirect way – a way for Ataru to express his feelings to Lum without either shedding their stubborn exteriors.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included
Often with an anime series, you get the caveat of “Oh, it has a weak start, but it really sticks the landing in the conclusion” or the warning of “Oh, it has a good start, but really fumbles the landing”. Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included has the weird instance of being a series with a weak start, a weak end, but a really strong middle portion of the series. The series, which I’m going to just call Studio Apartment for the sake of brevity – starts out as a pretty standard magical girlfriend series, and ends as a magical girlfriend harem series – but there’s a moment in the middle, where the series really finds its feet as the supporting cast builds up – and where it has some interesting humor to go with it.
Continue readingQuick Update on my Anime Holy Grails
Another item on my Anime Holy Grail List is getting a US release – AnimeNewsNetwork has reported that Gkids, in addition to distributing Angel’s Egg in theaters, will also be giving the film a physical release as well. Now, this is just one item on the list, so I’m not going to do a full revision as yet (I’ll want 3 items off the list before I add some replacements), but it’s good to see this title get distribution.
Here’s hoping I don’t have to wait too long for those next two titles to make it off the list.
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
A bunch of shows on my old Anime Holy Grail List have been licensed, so it’s time to update the list!
We discuss the start of the Spring Anime season, along with some of the failings of Gundam SEED, before moving into Ippon Again.
Anime Review: Synduality Noir Part 2
I watched Synduality: Noir in a previous season, enjoyed it, and was looking forward to the second season. The second half of the series does do a good job of changing up the dynamic, exploring a few more of the world’s mysteries, and bringing the series to something of a satisfactory conclusion.
There will be spoilers below the cut.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Metallic Rouge
Metallic Rouge is Studio Bones celebrating its 10th anniversary by going back to its routes with an original anime series, with an action show about a pair of ambiguously lesbian characters going on a journey – in this case a science fiction trip through various planets in the solar system, in the process uncovering several mysteries about the world. The problem is that the series, at 12 episodes, doesn’t quite have the time to really do justice to all the themes that they want to cover.
Spoilers below the cut.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Solo Leveling
Solo Leveling was one of the web novel titles that I remember seeing promoted heavily by Yen Press. It was one of the first of these Web Novel turned Light Novel titles that got an audiobook release in the US, and generally it had a fair amount of buzz behind it. So, when an anime adaptation came up on the Seasonal charts, I decided it was time to find out what all the buzz was about.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Brave Bang Bravern!
I don’t know what I expected coming into this show. On one hand, I got drawn in by the Real Robots Meets Super Robot take on the show, combined with the involvement Masami Obari. Obari as a director is someone who I almost became more familiar with through his involvement on the Fatal Fury anime series, animating the Brave franchise, along with creating the Angel Blade franchise – putting him at the confluence of strongly choreographed action, spectacularly done super robots, and a lot of… actively heterosexual fanservice. So, I was a little surprised to see just how incredibly queer – and particularly gay, Bravern is.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Frieren – Beyond Journey’s End
Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End was the anime series in the Winter season that was most able to make me ugly cry. It starts off with some heavy reflections on grief and mourning and every few episodes it manages to slip in another shot in the feels. That said, this isn’t a depressing show – instead, it’s a bittersweet reflection on the fact that we and the people we know will eventually grow old and die, so we should value our time with them while we can. It then proceeds to do all of this interspersed with some tremendous fight scenes.
Continue reading
Anime Review: Chained Soldier
So, we’ve hit the end of the Winter Anime season, so I’m going to take a short break from the Let’s Play to get through some of the anime series I finished this season – starting with the fanservice anime I went for this time – Chained Soldier.
Continue readingWe discuss the current anime we’ve watched, along with the recent passing of Akira Toriyama, before getting into our March Rom-Com, with My Love Story With Yamada-Kun at Lv.999
Anime Review: Nadia – The Secret of Blue Water
I’ve been making a *very* good pace at lopping resolutions off the list – after last month I was able to take care of beating Marvel’s Midnight Suns, this month I was able to finish watching Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
Continue reading
Notes on Watching Anime With My Parents
One of the things you normally don’t think about when talking about watching anime, is watching anime with your parents. It often comes up as something to be avoided – as opposed to something to be embraced, particularly with the amount of sex that comes up in Anime. However, once you get older, it gets a bit easier to talk about watching anime with your parents – and it helps if your parents are long-time fans of Speculative Fiction. So, with that in mind, I figure I’d give an update on how it’s gone, and give some notes on some of the shows we’ve watched.
Continue reading4 New Holy Grails of Anime
Since I did my last Anime Holy Grails video, pretty much most of the works on that list have been licensed in some form or another. So, it’s time to revisit the list.
Continue readingDavid and Tora are out sick, but I’m joined by Tom Merritt (https://www.tommerritt.com/), to discuss the second season of Thunderbolt Fantasy!