An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Sleepless in High School – Insomniacs After School Spoiler Review

Sleep troubles suck. I’m mostly going to leave it at that since the more outre and sensational cases of insomnia become the sorts of things that you end up losing sleep over, but suffice to say that it’s seldom a pleasant condition.

This week’s subject, Insomniacs after school, is about a pair of kids with sleep issues, learning to appreciate the silver lining of the night and getting to know each other in the process. Unlike a certain other after hours show that will not be mentioned again this review, this one features no blood-sucking, but it should be engaging all the same.

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Everything Becomes Locked Room Murders – The Perfect Insider Spoiler Review

It’s no secret, I enjoy a good mystery. Detective fiction is hard to produce, resulting in some very notable misfires, but at the same time when it’s at its best it’s the greatest game between creator and audience there could ever be.

And, one of the greatest staples of mysteries is the Locked Room Murder: a murder committed in a setting where, with the location of the corpse locked from the inside, no culprit should have been able to get in or out of. Locked Room Murder mysteries, done well, always lead to some wonderful, creative, and often sordid solutions.

Without further adieu, The Perfect Insider.

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Terminator: the Musical – Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song Spoiler Review

The future: war between AI and Humanity has devastated the Earth. However, one light is flung into the past in order to set things right and prevent the worst from actually coming to pass. As per the title of my review, this is the pitch for both the Terminator franchise (particularly the first two movies) and Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song.

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Livestream Call of Cthulhu – Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show Spoiler Review

When last season began, I had a decision between Kamitsubaki City Under Construction and this show, in terms of what I wanted to do my seasonal write-ups for. In the end, I decided to go with Kamitsubaki City and leave Necronomico for exactly this moment. So in a sense you could say that it informed my decision to do a Lovecraft month this October at all.

I’ve saved it for last, in part because working ahead meant starting October reviews before Necronomico even finished airing and in part because I feel like digging into this show – that not a lot of people seem to have watched despite it being newer and that tanked itself on debuts thanks to initially airing to Westerners with cruddy AI subs – was going to be a little bigger or perhaps more meaningful than my other entries.

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Apartment Cthulhu – Housing Complex C Spoiler Review

Housing Complex C (sometimes “Apartment Complex C”, or by the Japanese title, C Danchi) is a four-episode ONA. Airing in 2022, it presents as a Lovecraftian horror story, perhaps with a creep kids angle

When it comes to a month dedicated to Lovecraft in Anime, any show that can have its first line stand as “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu” – a fragment of Lovecraft’s most famous alien-speak chant – at least deserves to be here.

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