An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Naked Wolfgirl Economics – Spice and Wolf Spoiler Review

Sometimes a show gets famous for something it’s not about. A particular scene, idea, moment, or mistaken bit of marketing will catch the attention of potential viewers and get spread as what everyone who doesn’t know about the show knows about the show. Heck, maybe a fan even makes a particularly good meme that escapes the bounds of the fandom, using a shot taken out of context. It happens.

Shows that get this kind of strange and spontaneous publicity are sure to garner at least a quick salvo of views… but especially when the expectation created by the popularized snippet is off base, there still has to be something worthwhile to sustain interest. Spice and Wolf, a show that garnered at least some fame off the ‘promise’ of a cute and feisty girl with a wolf’s ears and tail, perhaps even clad in naught but her, ahem, natural pelt, is not particularly risque or ribald, and did well enough to warrant a second season. Why? Because it makes medieval economics downright fascinating and intense.

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E-Waste – In Another World With My Smartphone Spoiler Review

There are a few pieces of media that seem… unreal. Concept or pitches that seem too stupid to be real, the fiction equivalent of satire where the very thought that this is being pitched is, in some ways, an indictment of the genre, studio, culture, or what have you that supposedly spawned it. If I told you that there was a fighting video game called “Attack of the Busty Vixens!”, you’d probably laugh. Sure, there are a lot of fighting games that get mileage out of their well-endowed females, but nothing would be that bald-faced. Similarly if I said there was a sci-fi novel called “Philosophy 101 in SPACE” you’d know I was just making fun of the tendency – legitimate storytelling technique or no – to have alien species or even human groups in science fiction be defined by one all-consuming ideology each.

This was how I felt when I heard there was an isekai harem anime called “In Another World With My Smartphone” – like it couldn’t possibly be real. This had to be satire about how isekai shows would use any lame thing they could grab as a “Cheat Power”. However, I have to report that this one is, in fact, real.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 11

The final episode of the cour (special pending) and if you told me this was the absolute final episode of the show and anything related to 86, I would believe you. In fact, if I wasn’t damn certain that the story goes on from here, what with a second cour announced and a whole bunch of novels past anything we could have possibly gotten to, I would question the sanity of someone who told me that this wasn’t just the bitter end.

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Gods, Names, and Weirdness – Kyousougiga Spoiler Review

I’ll come out and say this at the start: Kyousougiga might be the strangest anime I’ve seen to date. It’s not that any particular element is too far beyond bizarre (though many of them are pretty out there), but it is odd in just about every way. Because of that, I’m not exactly going to be able to look at it with the same linear plot recap I normally do, and will instead have to dig in carefully. It’s a short show, and it is a good show (I think) so if you want to experience the ride for yourself, now’s your last warning that you’re in a spoiler review.

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Trigger Does Social Drama – Brand New Animal Spoiler Review

What do you expect when you’re told that there’s a show, by Studio Trigger no less, about a girl who mysteriously turns into an animal person and so travels to a city fully of animal people in search of the truth, ultimately getting wrapped up in a conspiracy? Sounds like pretty on-brand madness, right?

BNA surprised me. It does, ultimately, have the fingerprints of the studio all over it, to the point where I don’t think that it’s really out of place in their filmography, but there’s ultimately a lot more to it.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 9

The time for the great battle against Shin’s brother’s Shepherd form has come. The episode “feels” short, consisting essentially of two extremely powerful scenes rather than a lot of little ones, albeit with a little support. Let’s take a look.

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