An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Second Quest, First Anime — Blue Reflection Ray Spoiler Review

Let’s talk about feelings.

But not any specific feelings. Feelings in abstract. The idea of feelings. Let’s ride the fine line between deeply exploratory science fiction and outright Care Bears as we treat feelings, categorically, as well-defined things and not aspects of mood, situation, personality, or so on.

And let’s make this talk at least somewhat interesting by having magical girls battle over the outcome. Let’s talk about Blue Reflection Ray.

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What. – Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror Spoiler Review

Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror is a show about a girl called Yohane, who is trying to make it big as a pop idol when… let me start over. Yohane the Parhelion is a show about a girl called Yohane trying to fit in in her small town home, alongside her giant talking wolf… let me start over. Yohane is a show about a fantastical world with mythical beings, talking animals… one talking animal… magic music and… hold on, I think I need to start over again. This is a show about the bonds between a group of special young women and how they can hope to dispel a dark magical calamity threatening their town, and… You know what, I’ll try the simple version.

Yohane the Parhelion: Sunshine in the Mirror is a show. Let’s talk about it.

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(Inter)Planetary Romance – Waiting in the Summer Spoiler Review

Sometimes creators come back to an idea after some time has passed. Whether the world has seen the “old version” or not and however the two stack up to each other in terms of quality, it’s pretty inevitable. After all, most creators tend to create things they would like, and if what you like doesn’t change a whole lot, it’s inevitable that you’d return to certain concepts.

I mention this because Waiting in the Summer is the spiritual successor with a very similar pitch and from the same creator to a property called Onegai☆Teacher. If that sounds somewhat familiar to long-time readers it’s probably because I reviewed the semi-sequel to it, Onegai☆Twins some time ago. While Twins had its own independent story, it did of course have some inheritance from Teacher, so while I haven’t to date taken the time to view Onegai☆Teacher, I am at least somewhat aware of its facts: Alien comes to earth, bumps into boy, and through some more-or-less contrived coincidences ends up both his teacher and his fiancee.

Twins largely dropped the space alien angle, other than with its mascot critter’s presence, while keeping the same setting. Waiting in the Summer, meanwhile, is a new property with a new setting and no in-lore connection to the Onegai series. However, it features a very similar pitch: Alien comes to earth, bumps into boy, is a cute girl who’s really bad at disguising the fact she’s a space alien, romantic comedy ensues.

Viewing this, as is necessary for me, as its own thing and not in light of Onegai☆Teacher, how does Waiting in the Summer do?

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They Identify as Bugs – Blue Gender Spoiler Review

Putting humanity on the brink is nothing new in anime. Threatening our species with extinction at the ends of the various appendages of some menace, alien or otherwise, goes back a lot farther than some people seem to think. As evidence, I recommend breaking out the bug spray, turning on your CRT TV, and preparing to watch anime like it’s 1999 with Blue Gender.

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The Clothes Make the Waifu – Tsugumomo Spoiler Review

So, I think Tsukumogami are a sort of interesting subject. Surprising probably no one, in addition to anime itself I kind of have an interest in the culture and folklore of various regions, including Japan. For those who might not be aware, a Tsukumogami is a sort of supernatural being (usually a sort termed a Yokai, but not always) that is, in essence, the spirit of an artificial item.

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“Twenty-four! Ah-ah-ah! Twenty-four Episodes of this!” – Plunderer Spoiler Review

Anime has a lot of premises that are pretty odd, doesn’t it? Concepts you just sort of have to roll with in order to even start the show, no matter how insane or weird they may appear. The pantheon of weird core ideas includes both epic shows and epic misfires so this is no particular indicator of quality, but Plunderer has got to have one of the strangest setups I’ve seen in quite some time.

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A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Where There Is Only War – Armored Trooper Votoms Spoiler Review

Sometimes I feel like I don’t crack into enough vintage anime on this blog. Before streaming, before DVR, the industry for basically all things television was a different place, and that includes the anime industry as well. I’ve touched on 90’s shows before like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Record of Lodoss War, but I haven’t really taken a deep dive into a show that old that often.

Well, seeing as it’s Mecha March and I’m fresh out of model kit anime to assemble, let’s work to course correct that just a little bit with the 1983 vintage Mecha anime, Armored Trooper Votoms.

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The STL of a Double Feature – Gundam Build Divers & Gundam Build Divers Re:RISE Spoiler Reviews

I love model kits. I have made no secret of that this month, and will probably be happily assembling various mechas and mecha musume into the future. I also happen to have a fondness, from the days when I consumed more Western media, for a little cult classic of a film called Tron. For those who know Tron is – I would say – a delightfully dated little adventure that tries to show what goes on deep inside a computer realm, with some very memorable visuals and basic conceits and characters, it can kind of be considered the granddaddy of the “Trapped in a video game” genre that underscores a lot of the “VR MMO” stories you see these days when, you know, MMOs exist and VR doesn’t seem equally implausible compared to digitizing a person’s entire physical existence.

Naturally, where all this is going is Gundam Build Divers. Along with its sequel, Re:RISE, Divers takes the Gundam Build idea and translates it into cyberspace, and we’re going to be looking at it as a double feature this week.

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The Plamo of a Double Feature – Gundam Build Fighters & Gundam Build Fighters Try Spoiler Reviews

Ah, Mobile Suit Gundam… it’s kind of a marvel that no entries in such a huge and venerable series had made it onto the review blog up until now. But, the very scope and scale of the affair is part of why: Gundam is huge, and that makes tackling it in more bite-sized sections a rather difficult. Of course, it’s not entirely a single continuity, and there are certainly entries that can be looked at in isolation, but if I’m really going to address Gundam I want to do it with some sort of semblance of purposeful direction.

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