Reviews

Panning the Stream: Fall 2017 AniFem Premiere Review Digest

Crawling the dungeons for anime treasure.

A young man and woman dressed in fantasy garb face away from the camera; across from them is a small treasure chest and a giant, fluffy gold mouse. They appear to be standing in a dungeon.

I picked up another batch of full-length premiere reviews at AniFem this season. You’ll still get the usual Premiere Review On All The Things post later this week (once I’ve had a chance to sleep a little), but as has become tradition, I wanted to make these available in a nice digest post.

As has also become tradition, they’re organized by how highly I’d recommend them, from “a whole lot” to “not at all”:

  • The Ancient Magus’ Bride – A beautifully animated adaptation of one of my favorite ongoing manga series. That opening chapter sure is side-eye-tastic, though.
  • Recovery of an MMO Junkie – I found it super cute and charming, but YMMV if you’re bothered by its somewhat shallow handling of gender and sexuality.
  • Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ A fun otome VN adaptation with smart pacing, a solid plot, strong aesthetics, and good boys? Folks, we found The Unicorn!
  • Black Clover – A paint-by-numbers shounen fantasy series, but harmless enough.
  • DYNAMIC CHORD – A poorly plotted, cheaply animated, angst-riddled mess. I kinda liked it.
  • KONOHANA KITAN – A neat premise hamstrung by assault “jokes” and fanservice. Sigh.
  • SENGOKU NIGHT BLOOD – The other otome VN adaptation. Almost hilaribad, but alas, not quite.
  • Inuyashiki – Better executed than a lot of the shows above it, but so viscerally unpleasant that I just don’t care.

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

Glancing Upstream: Summer 2017 Retrospective and Review

Replaying the slam dunks, swishes, and bricks of summer.

Sure, we’re neck-deep in Fall premieres, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pause to say goodbye to the summer shows! If you’re wondering why this took so long to go live, blame The Reflection: I got sucked into it and decided to wait to post the retrospective until the final episode had aired.

While this was an inconsistent, up-and-down kind of season, very sparse on shows I always liked, I somehow wound up finishing a whole bunch of them. I even picked up some previous “drops” along the way, with… mixed results, we’ll say. Not a ton of wholehearted recommendations, I’m sad to say, but if you’re interested in my summer season thoughts, you can either listen to the Chatty AF summer wrap-up podcast, or hit the jump for some written mini-reviews.

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AniFem Digest: Con Reports & Corner Reviews

It’s an Otakon Weekend one-two punch!

A girl in a kimono closes one eye and holds out a piece of charcoal, like an artist imagining a snapshot

I attended the Otakon anime convention in Washington, D.C. a couple weekends ago, and then spent the next few days writing about it for AniFem! Three posts in one week! Ain’t I just busy as a bee?

These are AniFem staff articles, meaning we all pitched in a few paragraphs (and then some, because PSHAW, WORD COUNTS) to give our readers plenty of perspectives. I hope you enjoy both my thoughts as well as those of my other awesome teammates!

  • [Review] In This Corner of the World: We had the honor of not only seeing a special screening of the film, but also listening to producer Maruyama and animation director Matsubara talk about it afterwards! I really liked this one, so naturally I spent lots of words discussing its focus on feminine perspectives, “ordinary” strength, and why this story matters now maybe more than ever.

Panning the Stream: Summer 2017 Midseason Review

Beating the heat with some cool summer series.

I’m writing this fresh off an Otakon Anime Convention whirlwind of a weekend, and dear readers, I am T-I-R-E-D. The thought of catching up with and writing 2-3 paragraphs on 11 series sounded so exhausting that I wound up dropping two of the shows I was still kinda on the fence about just so I could make the post shorter (I still talk about them a little, though). As I said after my June beach vacation, there’s truly nothing like a week away from your regular schedule to help you trim the ol’ watchlist.

Even with those dropped shows, my queue is still pretty packed thanks to sequels and surprise successes. Lots of variety too! Hit the jump to find the nice comedy, smart spy drama, or sprawling fantasy that sounds good to you.

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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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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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Panning the Stream: Summer 2017 AniFem Premiere Review Digest

Boldly going where… I go every season, actually…

A boy wearing headphones around his neck stands at the edge of a cliff overlooking a sea of stars

Like I did last season, I tackled some of the full-length Summer premiere reviews over at Anime Feminist. I’ll have my usual Premiere Digest out later this week to give you a quick run-down of All The Things, but for now I figured I’d put these in one easy-to-find place.

To keep things simple for anyone who’s wondering which shows they should check out and which they should sink to the bottom of the sea, they’re organized from Very Best to Literally The Worst:

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

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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Panning the Stream: Spring 2017 Midseason Review

Some of these spring buds are really starting to blossom.

WorldEnd - Willem, Ithea, and Ren

I finished writing this a few days ago, but I held off on posting it so I could roll it in with a neat bonus: I joined Amelia and Peter on the “Chatty AF” Anime Feminist podcast to talk about how this season’s shows are doing! So you can read the check-in or listen to it! Or both if you’re so inclined! The possibilities are endless! (Well, okay, the possibilities are three. But that’s still more than we had before!)

Much like this past Winter season, my favorite shows are returning ones, although I do think this gang of newcomers has more potential than the last batch did. A few are picking up steam, a few are wobbling on the edge of the cliff, and many are chugging along, doing their thing. Hit the jump for the written details, or click this here link for the spoken ones. (And remember that you can always search for Chatty AF on iTunes and Stitcher, too!)

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Rule of Three Review: Spring 2017 Anime Digest

Feels like only yesterday we were talking about the Spring premieres. They grow up so fast…!

It’s a great season for sequels, a good season for fantasy, and a not-too-shabby season for female protagonists. The watch list hasn’t shrunk much at all since the premiere digest (although a few shows could easily drop off in the coming weeks), so this is more of a check-in than a culling. Maybe that bodes well for Spring’s staying power?

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