An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Category: Anime Reviews

Peace and Fluff – Helpful Fox Senko-san Spoiler Review.

What is fanservice?

When you say the word “fanservice”, I feel like most people think of something very particular – the beach episode, the hot springs episode, panty shots, or anything else that puts cute girls (or beautiful women) in skimpy outfits or less for the viewing pleasure of the audience or otherwise indulges prurient desires. And, certainly, this is a kind of fanservice… but it’s not the only one. I’ve talked about others before; in Granblue Fantasy when a ton of characters we’ve never seen jump out and show their stuff in the final plot episode, obviously to appeal to people who were their fans in the game even though the plot didn’t have room for them, that’s a kind of fanservice.

In short, while there is absolutely one kind that stands heads and shoulders above the rest, fanservice is material that exists to gift the audience with exactly what they believe they want, satisfying some natural viewer desire whether or not it’s actually germane or intellectually fitting.

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Cyberpunk, Magic, and Critical Mistakes – Shangri-la Spoiler Review

Shangri-la is a very peculiar show for me. I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I gave it chance after chance and said time and again things like “they could recover from this”, or “they could still bring it back” or “that’ll make sense if…” only to be, in some sense, disappointed every time. This isn’t a show where every thing is bad, but it is one where critical flaws ultimately produce something of a frustrating experience.

In some ways, I think Shangri-la is best studied in a master class on how to not write speculative fiction. It is so particularly, precisely bad that we really do have to sit down and dissect its failures in order to understand and learn from them. In others, I have to wonder: is there anything worth saving? Well, there’s not much point dawdling, so let’s take a look. Fair warning, this is going to be a long one.

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A Vision of the Old Days: Record of Lodoss War (1990) Spoiler Review

So, what is there to know about Record of Lodoss War? This story is one that, if rumor is to be believed, is basically the creator’s Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and it practically relishes every expectation and convention of the AD&D/OD&D era, to the point where I’ve usually heard it compared to D&D tie-in material, particularly the Dragonlance novels, more than to later anime. At least to western audiences it sort of serves as a bridge between two spheres of nerdy media, Anime and the Western Fantasy/TTRPG scene. Given its age, it may no longer be a true “gateway” to Anime, but it probably served as one for a lot of people who were already into D&D.

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Where Angels Tread – Haibane Renmei Spoiler Review

Haibane Renmei is… actually, that’s probably going to be the hardest part of this review: defining what Haibane Renmei is. As a show it’s a little too plot-heavy to really be called Slice of Life, but also a little too low-key to be called a drama. Perhaps it would be best to term it as a Slice of Life show that evolves into an emotional drama, since there is absolutely a point where the show takes a turn for the dramatic?

It is, without question, a beautiful show. Despite being very down-to-earth, without a ton of places to show off impressive spectacle or visual wonder, I can say that everything looks amazing. The color, lighting, backgrounds, character design, and motion are all quite striking in their own ways, despite being fairly humble. This is a show that takes things that are plain, and makes them memorable and beautiful with its focus and care.

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Would you like Sadism with that? – Blend-S “Spoiler” Review

Here I go, reviewing another Slice of Life show that doesn’t really have much of a plot to spoil. The idea of Blend-S is that a girl, Maika, wants to get a part-time job so she can save up the money to study abroad because she loves everything foreign. However, her employment chances are hurt by her meek demeanor and intense resting death glare. Despondent, she visits Cafe Stile where the manager, an eccentric foreign goofball, at once falls head over heels for Maika. Even once his other employees knock a little sense into him, an offer of employment still stands, because Cafe Stile is a character cafe, where the waitresses act out particular types, and Maika’s absolutely withering unintentional glare makes her the perfect call to become the cafe’s new character: a vicious sadist! Which is, of course, about the farthest thing from what she really is.

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From Sigil with Love – Chaos;Head Spoiler Review

Chaos;Head is another entry in the vaunted Science Adventure series. These shows aren’t always strictly the best (though they do contain some excellent entries), but in my experience they are typically very fun. These shows delve into concepts grounded in urban legend, psuedoscience, or light science fiction and typically do their best to spin them into emotional character-driven dramas. In the case of Chaos;Head the concept on offer is Subjective Reality – that is, the idea that what’s “real” is not an absolute fact but rather a fact that can be determined by the will of the observer or the consensus of conscious thought.

And with that, some of you will get the review title. Hats off to the ones who know that reference.

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Bad End? – In Search of the Lost Future Spoiler Review

If, by chance, you find yourself in Anime High School and don’t want to go on an adventure, apparently in addition to not sitting in the window-side seat second from the back, avoiding mysterious transfer students, and keeping out of any sort of Paranormal or Occult interest group, you should also stay well away from the Astronomy Club, if this show and Brynhildr in the Darkness have anything to say about it.

And that might be the biggest takeaway from the whole show. So, this show… It’s a show. It has episodes and everything. But it’s not exactly memorable or engaging, and in some ways it’s actually strange that it’s not. We’ve got an imperfect time loop, a Sword of Damocles hanging over a lovable character, riddles and mysteries, slow-burn development of the rest of the cast… so why doesn’t this work?

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How do I hate the main character? Let me count the ways – Revisions Spoiler Review

Oh boy, this show sure is… something. So the basic idea is actually one that sounds different and engaging: Shibuya (a city that’s normally a rather busy and famous ward of Tokyo) is transported to a post-apocalyptic future where the people must learn to survive both cut off from the rest of the world and against the new threats that have emerged: giant biomechanical horrors known as the Revisions. Helping them is a contact from human civilization of this time who grants a small group of special young people a set of mechas that only they can use, placing them on the front line of Shibuya’s defense.

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Controversial (?) Gateway Cyberpunk – Beatless Spoiler Review

It happens every now and then that I sit down to watch an anime expecting it to be bad. It’s not often; Like most people, I like to watch good shows when I can. But now and then something can be “So bad it’s good” or mediocre Junk Food, and sometimes that’s what you need. As a reviewer, every so often I need to dive into the world of the terrible so I can analyze how and where it doesn’t work, and as a writer it’s sometimes inspiring to consume bad media because you can look at it and say “Wow. I could do better.” I can stumble on shows I find to be bad without going looking, but when you’re looking for trouble like this, you’re very likely to find it. The masses usually seem kind of easily pleased, so when the consensus isn’t happy you probably won’t be either.

But now and again, there’s a show that seems to have slipped through the cracks, that has a general consensus as to its lack of quality but then on watching it you (or at least I) ultimately enjoy. Most of the time there is some glaring flaw that you can look at and say “Okay, I wasn’t totally put off by this, but I can see why people in general were.” It’s scarce as hens’ teeth to look at something with a poor overall rating and say “Why didn’t people like this?”.

Enter Beatless, an intelligent and accessible Cyberpunk anime with a lousy reputation that I don’t think it deserves in the least. I’m going to take a look at it today, and try to figure out why so many people seemed to hate this show so much.

Strap yourselves in, this is going to be a long one.

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A Lesson in Stakes and Tension – The Promised Neverland Spoiler Review

This week, it bears reminding everyone that what I write are full spoiler reviews. I’m willing to go over every movement in the plot, in order to analyze what makes it good or bad. Usually I think putting the word “Spoiler” in the review title is enough, but when it comes to The Promised Neverland , I feel like there needs to be a more certain and bold message: If you aren’t sure you want spoilers for this show, you are in the wrong place. It’s worth watching and because of its nature it’s probably worth watching unspoiled if you are at all the kind of person who minds spoilers. The review and analysis will still be here when you get back.

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