Anime + Manga Titles

Rule of Three(ish) Review: Summer 2017 Anime Digest

Are you not entertained?!

Waiting on slowpoke Gamers to air its third episode meant a whole bunch of shows had already made it to their fourth, hence the “ish” in that title. Ah, well. Just means more tasty content for you dear readers, right?

I’m not sure this is what I’d call a “good” season, but it certainly is a fun one. Pleasant surprises, ambitious messes, exquisite piles of trash, and (sigh) Welcome to the Ballroom rule my summer watch list. While several of them could fall off a cliff in a hurry if they aren’t careful (and some maybe already have?), overall I’m having a pretty good time. Hit the jump to see who’s gaining ground and who’s falling behind 3-4 episodes into this wild, wacky season.

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Failed Tanuki and Half-Baked Tengu: Identity & Community in The Eccentric Family – Part 1

I always said I’d write a bunch of words about this series someday. Who knew I’d write them all in one go?

“Humans live in the city, tanuki crawl the earth, and tengu fly through the air. Since the Heian era relocation, humans, tanuki, and tengu have maintained a delicate balance. That’s what keeps the great wheel of this city turning round and round. More fun than anything is watching that wheel spin.”

Right from its opening lines, The Eccentric Family establishes Kyoto as a city inhabited by three groups—tanuki, tengu, and humans—with clearly defined traits and domains. Through first-person narration and character dialog, we’re given a general idea of how each group thinks, feels, and acts. The series then proceeds to spend two seasons quietly but systematically tearing those assumptions apart.

As the story progresses, it challenges its characters’ strict ideas about identity by depicting a variety of individuals who either can’t or won’t adhere to the group they belong to, blurring the boundaries both within and between the three spheres so that it becomes less and less clear what it means to be “a tanuki” or “a tengu” or “a human” at all. Through its colorful world and unique individuals, The Eccentric Family asks us what makes us who we say we are—and wonders how we’d find that answer in the first place.

Click here for the full post on Crunchyroll!

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Panning the Stream: Summer 2017 Premieres Digest

Let’s see what sort of treasures we can excavate this time!

A girl wearing a miner's helmet shines her light on a stone relic

I’ve been hard at work writing and editing the full-length premiere reviews for Anime Feminist, so you’ll have to excuse me if the write-ups for my digests have gotten smaller along the way. Writing lots of words about a few series means fewer words about a lot of series, it turns out. The good(?) news is that I actually watched the shows on Amazon Strike this time around (I signed up for the free trial so I could help AniFem–and yes, I feel dirty about it, too), so they’re included for once.

The categories are a little different this time because there were only a couple of shows that “wowed” me but a whole bunch that fell in a “let’s give it a couple and see what happens” range, so I adjusted accordingly. Overall, the Summer premiere week started slow, peaked in the middle, and finished with a rollercoaster of “pleasant surprise” crests and “utter garbage” valleys. I wound up with a lot more balls in the air than expected. Here’s hoping we can all catch a few good ones as they come down.

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An Introduction to the Saiyuki Anime*

*As told by a fan who read the manga almost a decade ago

After being off the air for nearly 13 years, Saiyuki has at last returned to grace our televisions with attractive men beating the crap out of each other while waxing poetic about their dark-and-stormy pasts. But with Saiyuki‘s previous anime seasons scarce and its manga volumes even scarcer, you might be hesitant to check out the new series.

Well, fear not! I, an ardent Saiyuki fan who read the manga as it was coming out almost 10 years ago, am here to provide you with the story exactly as I remember it. Which is to say: Very vaguely! Now you, too, can enjoy Saiyuki Reload Blast as if you were right there with the rest of the fandom, reading the manga in the mid ’00s, selling the volumes to help pay for grad school, and now racking your brain to piece together the semi-existent plot of that gloriously feelsy action series you still love so very, very much.

Come along with me on this journey, won’t you? This journey…TO THE MAX!

Caution: Loving irreverence, questionable accuracy, and spoilers for the Saiyuki and Saiyuki Reload manga below. Content warning for mentions of child abuse.

Click here for the full post on Crunchyroll!

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Glancing Upstream: Spring 2017 Retrospective and Review

Hot sequels, cool tutors, and. Um. Kado.

This is a sparser list than usual, jam-packed with sequels but relatively light on everything else. I took a vacation in early June where I didn’t have time to watch anime, and lemme tell ya, that week away really puts into perspective which series you’re invested in and which you’re just watching for the sake of having something on the TV. At the end of that week, three series were on the cutting-room floor, which I think is the first time my Midseason and Series Review posts have differed so dramatically.

It was the kind of season that started strong and then kind of petered out, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t some great showings along the way (mostly in the form of sequels), a hidden gem or two (mostly in the form of The Royal Tutor), and a show that just… um… what? Hit the jump to learn more about that last one, as well as overall thoughts on all the others, too.

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The Royal Tutor – Episode 12: “The Last Lesson”

Concludin’ ain’t easy.

A series that began with comedy and surprises ends with drama and predictability, and I can’t say I’m too happy with that shift. It’s not an awful finale by any stretch, and there are some worthwhile ideas and a few nice scenes built into it, which we’ll talk about at the end so I can finish on a positive note. But it’s so darn boilerplate compared to the offbeat, effortless charm of the first 10 (and even moments of 11) episodes. It’s hard not to approach this episode with disappointment and a dash (or two) of salt.

…Er, as that intro suggests, this is the most critical commentary I’ve written in a long while. If you enjoyed this episode and don’t want me to yuck your yum, then now’s your chance to close the window and go read something else. I promise I won’t hold it against you. The rest of you are welcome to join me as I do my best to explain where this anime-original ending went awry.

Click here for the full post on Anime Evo!

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The Royal Tutor – Episodes 10-11: “The Professor I Don’t Know”/”The Pair’s Promise”

Flawed but Feelsy.

In the big lead-up to our grand finale, Count Rosenberg shows his claws, the boys show off their growing maturity, and Heine… shows himself out the door?! Sensei, say it ain’t so! Amidst cleaning shenanigans and princely sleuthing, our protagonist’s long-buried past at last comes to light. And it is… well, underwhelming, to tell the truth. But it’s also full of Teen Heine and Teen Viktor Having Emotions At Each Other. So. Y’know. Win some, lose some, eh?

Click here for the full post on Anime Evo!

Did you know? Have you heard? The Josei Next Door has a tip jar!

A Dream of One’s Own: Finding a home outside femininity in Chihayafuru

Cards against gender conformity.

Chihayafuru is one of my all-time favorite anime series, so you can imagine my surprise and delight when Kodansha announced they’d licensed the manga for an English-language digital release. While devouring the first volume, I once again fell in love with this endearing, intense, emotional rollercoaster of a sports series about three friends in the world of competitive karuta–and was also struck for the first time by how insightfully Chihaya’s childhood arc depicts the plight of the “tomboy.”

Sometimes wrenching but ultimately inspiring, Chihayafuru’s first volume quietly challenges traditional gender norms and offers the hope of a supportive community to anyone who’s ever felt like they didn’t quite fit society’s gendered expectations of who they’re “supposed” to be.

Click here for the full post on Anime Feminist!

Did you know? Have you heard? The Josei Next Door has a tip jar!

The Royal Tutor – Episode 9: “The Price of the Past”

Yippee ki-yay, class.

After spending the past few episodes easing us into a more steady blend of goofy and serious, The Royal Tutor ups the ante once again with an action-packed tale of kidnappings and rescues that’s as surprisingly intense as it is utterly ridiculous. This episode really shouldn’t work, and there were times when I feared it wouldn’t, but by the end I was giggling and applauding in delight. This series is uniquely, unapologetically itself, and I’m so very glad for that.

Click here for the full post on Anime Evo!

Like Its Pint-Sized Protagonist, “The Royal Tutor” is More than Meets the Eye

Weekly posts couldn’t contain all my Royal Tutor love, so I wrote an article about it for Crunchyroll, too! All Heine all the time always!

When The Royal Tutor first came out, I had zero expectations. It looked like a fairly standard pretty-boys show, which can be real hit-or-miss, and “an adult teacher who looks like a child” didn’t sound like a promising starting point. Happily, the premiere immediately charmed me with its poker-faced protagonist, liberal use of chibis, and refusal to take its sparkly princes seriously. The Ouran High vibes were strong with this one, and I was cautiously optimistic.

By the second episode, I was hooked, and not just because the series was silly and cute and the characters were all good, good boys (although that sure didn’t hurt). The Royal Tutor also impressed me with the way it quietly wove in themes about judging people by appearances. Between all the chibi antics, the series argues that first impressions are often deceiving, and people are rarely who they initially seem.

Click here for the full post on Crunchyroll!