episode 1

Noragami Aragoto – Episode 1: “Bearing a Posthumous Name”

The Noragang is back after nearly two years away, but it’s like they never left.

Screenshot_2015-10-02-13-18-49The first season of Noragami snuck up on, sucking me into the world and characters a little more each week, and despite a somewhat rocky anime-original final arc it ended up being one of my favorite shows of 2014. I started snagging the manga once Kodansha brought it stateside, so needless to say I was pretty stoked when BONES announced a second season in the works. (Oh, and if you haven’t seen the first season yet, it’s available on Funimation, Hulu, and Netflix in various sub/dub formats, so you have plenty of binge-watching options.)

I’m covering this one over at Anime Evo, so same drill as we did the past two seasons with My Love Story. The posts will also eventually wind up here in their entirety, just so I have them for my own records.

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My Love Story!! – Episode 1: “My Story”

A romantic comedy so adorable its title needed TWO exclamation points!!

I’m guest blogging this series over at Anime Evo this season. I’ll go ahead and include the full posts here too eventually, just so I have my own copies, but for the first several weeks I’ll only be providing a quick blurb and a link to the AE page. But yes, I am planning to do episodic posts on this one, so you’ll get to hear all my reactions and analysis as they come.

…Oh, and just so you know, these will have anime (but not manga) spoilers since I’ll be discussing plot points and character beats in the episodes themselves. I’ll have a spoiler-free meet ‘n’ greet up tomorrow for anyone who just wants to get the basic stats and find out if it’s any good (hint: it is). The rest of you can hit that jump and get ready for one delightful little shoujo.

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Yurikuma Arashi Recap – Episode 1: “Never Back Down on Love”

From the director of Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena comes a show about magical bears, invisible storms, and some of the least subtle imagery in anime history.

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So I’d planned on doing weekly posts on Yurikuma Arashi this season, and as of right now that’s still happening. This first episode was concerning in a lot of ways, but also pretty darn fascinating, so it’s not as if I don’t have a lot to talk about. Besides, I’m a huge fan of Ikuhara’s past works (Utena is both a masterpiece and my all-time favorite anime, and I quite liked Penguindrum, for all its flaws), so he gets at least a few episodes to prove to me that he knows what he’s doing.

I really hope he knows what he’s doing.

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