Today is a blessed day. Hopefully for you, dear reader, but definitely for me, because I found excuses to talk about That time I got reincarnated as a slime – Tensura – again. And if there’s anything I love, it’s talking about this show. In this post that you’re reading right now I will walk you through the plot of the first couple episodes and explain why you should watch this series. With 5 cours confirmed to come out, starting in April, it’s a better time than ever to invest in Tensura stocks. The second post that will go up shortly after this will be a more indepth recap of the first three seasons, and will contain a lot more spoilers than this one. If you haven’t watched the show at all, this post is for you. If you have watched the show before but it’s been a little while and you need a recap, then check out the other post instead. All clear? Let’s get stabbed in the streets of Tokyo and wake up in a dank cavern together.
I don’t think you’re telling the truth here, Rimuru.
32 year old Satoru Mikami has a pretty good life. Work can be tough at times and he’s single, but besides that he’s a reliable salaryman who seems to be doing well for himself. After meeting up with his junior, they suddenly get attacked by a random knife wielder. Satoru protects his young coworker and gets stabbed. After asking for his computer to be scrubbed – wonder what that’s about – he ends up dying. While he’s dying, a computerized voice listens to the thoughts he has while dying and gives him skills to deal with it. Later he wakes up in a cave, completely in the dark and seemingly in a different body. It turns out he’s been reincarnated as a slime and now has to find his way in this new world. He meets the Storm Dragon Veldora and the duo hit it off, becoming friends before Rimuru sets off to explore the world. Outside of the cavern things are turning into chaos as Veldora’s influence on the Jura Forest is gone now that Rimuru has absorbed his friend to try to let him out of his prison. With things out of whack, the goblins that Rimuru – which is Satoru’s new name, given to him by Veldora – encounters ask for his aid, which he gives. This is how they start to become friends and build a town of monsters together.
I was going to put in a more apt picture, but having recently watched a playthrough of Resident Evil 6, this moment made me laugh so hard. He’s channeling his inner Leon Kennedy with this one.
Tensura moves at a slow pace most of the time and takes its time exploring the mundane while the crazier things also loom on the outside. The story focuses on the nation of Tempest as Rimuru and his friends keep getting more and more allies while enemies get dealt with pretty successfully. Some people have compared this show to the Civilization games and that’s very accurate. It’s a city builder anime with some action spliced in now and then to keep things from getting stale. Many episodes are spent on things like keeping the city running, making diplomatic agreements with nearby nations and having lots and lots of meetings. With a diverse cast of characters who all have their own skills and worries, this show does an incredible job at making the city it takes place in feel like a living and breathing city. We know the blacksmiths, the alchemists, the farmers farming herbs in the caves and even the goblin riders who patrol the region. We know the builders and the cooks and we know who all the people within the town center are. It doesn’t shy away from taking its time with things and even despite all that, one of the main criticisms that light novel readers have is that the anime can feel rushed at times.
I am confident that you have absolutely no idea what any of those words mean, Milim.
With all this, you might think it’s a boring show and I think some people have made that argument and I don’t think it’s a crazy thing to say. But I’ve often said that Tensura as a show feels like it was written for me specifically. It has cool action where the characters get put in dangerous situations but ultimately end up coming out the other end victorious. It has a chill vibe to it as it just strolls through life like a good friend that you’re happy to see after a long day at work. This show is about as comfortable as anime gets for me, and it’s no surprise it ended up making it into my top 10 anime last year.
And his name is John Cena…. Okay, I think it’s time to admit that I desperately need some sleep.
If all of this hasn’t convinced you yet, please give the first handful of episodes a watch and decide for yourself. As of right now, there are three seasons which total around 70 episodes all together with another 60 coming up. There’s also a movie as well as a spin-off series that is even more slice of life than the original show. So there is enough content to keep you occupied for a while. As for what it was that happened in all of those seasons… you’ll have to read the other, spoiler-filled post that will pop up shortly. Thanks for reading.
I’ve talked about this series a few times before, and it even made my top 10 anime of all time list, so I’m not going to write another essay about it. But with a new season of Ace of Diamond on the horizon, I wanted to quickly go over the show again and explain why I think it’s one of the better sports anime out there. It’s a personal favorite of mine although I can just as easily see someone preferring Kuroko no Basket, Haikyu or Run with the Wind. I really should rewatch some of those as well, they were all so good. But Ace of Diamond has a layer to it that I feel the other shows miss.
Get used to seeing his cheeky face, cause he’s in this show a lot.
And that is continuity. Ace of Diamond follows Sawamura Eijun, a prodigy in baseball in some aspects, but utterly average in most. He can’t field, he can’t hit a baseball and he can’t really behave responsibly. But he loves standing on the mound and he knows what it feels like to throw some really good balls, although he does not realize why his throws are as effective as they are. And on top of that, once his opponents figure him out, he’s pretty useless. Playing baseball with his middle school friends has been a lot of fun, but yielded no results. Luckily for Sawamura, a scout from the prestigious Seido was at one of his matches and he promptly gets invited to try out for their team. After some hesitation he joins the juggernaut of a school and quickly learns that he is not that special after all. Interesting, sure, but there are tons of great players there who want it just as badly as Sawamura does. Not to mention they have also scouted a monster pitcher in Furuya Satoru. This sets the stage for a season of growth.
Ball is love, Ball is life
As I’ve talked about before, one of the main draws of this series is how it takes its time with its cast. Players leave and join, more than a full year has even passed since the start of the anime and with over a hundred episodes there was more than enough time for the team to experience some serious losses, recover and come back stronger than ever. This allows for a fun show where the main team doesn’t always end up victorious. As much as I love some of the other sports shows, they are a bit predictable at times. Ace of Diamond has the luxury of a very long running series where all sorts of things are possible. At 47 volumes, there’s a lot of material, which explains why we’re getting another season in spring this year.
As is tradition with sports anime, this is Senpai’s last chance at nationals
Second, the story focuses not only on Seido itself, but spends a lot of time developing the other teams as well. I’m not saying that other shows don’t do this, as both Haikyu and Kuroko – as some of the more popular sports shows – spend time developing other teams. The main difference is that in some parts of Ace of Diamond, it’s almost easy to forget who the main team is as you start rooting for some of the other schools. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing, Seido is the most interesting team we visit, but some of the other schools have fantastic casts too and even the manager and coaches and the struggles that happen behind the scenes with replacements and other things add to the fun.
This show can get pretty intense at times.
To stop myself from ranting for another four paragraphs, I think I’ll mostly leave it at this. If you like sports anime, and are looking for a show that really keeps you occupied for a while, definitely check out Ace of Diamond. The cast is fun, the matches are great and always different due to different styles that teams can have and it got me interested in baseball as a sport. Then again, it doesn’t take much to convince me, I’m easily influenced. Thanks for reading!
I originally watched one episode of the Live Action for One Piece and wrote it off as something that simply wasn’t for me. With a second season coming out the other day, some of my friends convinced me to watch the new season with them, and in preparation I ended up binging the entire first season because I’ve always felt weird about not watching a series in full. Not that I don’t know the story of One Piece, but still. Afterwards I wrote a pretty negative review about the show that’s several pages long and mainly just consists of me talking about how much I dislike many aspects of the series. It does a great job with casting, wardrobe, environments and music, but that’s where the compliments end. I thought about what I could do to convey what I dislike about the series so much. It mainly boils down to the writing. A friend of mine said that this was written to be second monitor content and I think that’s accurate. The characters constantly spell everything out and they’ve removed much of the more subtle moments and character development from the original. Scrapping some content is fine to speed things up. I don’t mind them scrapping Django in Usopp’s arc or some of the running around and silly fights in Buggy’s arc. But Baratie was getting sloppy and by the time we reached Arlong Park I was getting angry. So let’s talk about that arc specifically.
Okay I lied, we’re still on Baratie. But only because it leads into Arlong Park. And although my knee-jerk reaction was to dislike the way they handled Krieg, upon reflection I actually don’t think it was all that bad. The only issue is that Live Action viewers don’t really have the same knowledge of Krieg’s power, so Arlong taking him out is not that impressive. I think Arlong showing up earlier and bypassing Krieg is a decent way to cut out some of the material. But it does cause a small problem here and that is the fact that Sanji gets his ass beaten in the arc he’s introduced, which is not exactly a good start to his character. But with Nami leaving for Arlong Park, the crew now needs to go to the island together, without splitting up like they did in the manga. There we had Johnny, Yosaku and Usopp go ahead, which turned into some very interesting scenes with Nami pretending to kill Usopp only for him to end up alive later on, proving that Nami isn’t truly a bad person. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The crew arrives at Coco Village and meets Nojiko, Nami’s sister. Nojiko is angry at Nami for betraying the village to Arlong, and so are the villagers. This marks the first major difference with the manga that I disagree with. One of the most heartwrenching moments in the manga is when we find out that the people all knew what Nami was up to and were laying low to make sure she could try her hardest. It’s the anger they feel when Arlong betrays that hard work that drives them to finally attack Arlong Park. They’re stopped by Johnny and Yosaku who have already gone ahead and lost to Arlong and his crew. A minor nitpick, but Luffy bashes a hole in the wall in the manga while here they just enter through the door.
And man, what a place do they enter. I hate what they did to Arlong Park. This place looks more like a frat party than the gaudy imitation of Sabaody Park that it is supposed to be. The fishmen are all hanging out like a bunch of frat boys drinking and playing carnival games. It looks stupid beyond measure. I’m sorry, but I have to call this out for what it is, terrible. One thing that I think the live action does well normally is the set design, but they missed the mark so hard on this one. Due to the villagers not being involved in this fight at all, we miss the whole ordeal with Luffy being put at the bottom of the pool with his head above the water, but I think that’s probably fine on its own. What’s not fine is how the Fishmen are missing someone. By far the most important character in this arc – although we didn’t know it at the time – is Hachi. Hachi is the goofy octopus swordfighter who joined Arlong and his crew and then later realized the error in his ways. He redeems himself during the Sabaody Archipelago arc and this creates a wonderful circle that completes the pain and hurt that is caused to Nami during Arlong Park. Now I doubt the live action will get that far into the story, but the fact that they’re not even preparing for the possibility feels lazy and insulting to the viewer. Hachi’s shenanigans with Zoro were also one of two comedic highlights in this arc that have been completely removed just to shoehorn Buggy into the story. The second is Luffy picking up Arlong’s fallen out teeth and using them as a weapon to little to no success. Seriously, all the humor in this show is incredibly dumbed down. The silly things Luffy does in the manga that make this arc work so well are just not there. Luffy is a much more somber and serious character here, while his primary characteristic is how goofy he is.
But what does it matter that Hachi isn’t there? Well, it turns the fights into a much less balanced affair. Instead of a wounded Zoro fighting against Hachi and Sanji having to fight against Kurobe under water, we get the duo teaming up against Kurobe and still struggling. Not just that, Kurobe doesn’t even bring the fight into the water, which is why Oda wrote it so that Luffy was stuck underwater. Fishmen are far superior in the water and it was impressive that Sanji managed to hold his own against Kurobe while the two were submerged. All that tension is taken away here and just replaced by some simple choreography of Zoro and Sanji beating a single fishman on land. Elsewhere on the island, Usopp’s fight with Chu is also dumbed down and we do not get the incredible moment where Chu stirs at the end of the fight and Usopp just violently hits him with a hammer repeatedly until he doesn’t get up anymore.
What bothers me so much about this arc is that it’s not like it would be a horrendous arc in a vacuum. But when the source material is so well rounded, it feels weird that all of these decisions were made. Did they think people wouldn’t find the jokes funny? Or that they wouldn’t like the fights with Hachi and Kurobe? One Piece got this popular on its own merit, why did some Hollywood writers think they could do better? I could complain about this arc for hours and hours and fill several more pages, but I think I’m leaving it at this. In conclusion, they cut out all the humor in this arc and simply replaced it by Buggy being comic relief. They simplified the fights making them much less impressive and much less representative of the different characters and their personalities. They made the villagers of Coco Village much dumber than they were and in doing so removed a lot of the stakes that are revealed when they show understanding of Nami’s action as opposed to just being angry at her for betraying them. Nojiko’s wonderful care for her sister is replaced by hate and to top it all off, Garp and Koby show up to ruin the aftermath of the arc as well, which had several tender moments in the manga that are fully replaced by Garp being a complete and utter fucking moron. Seriously, how did they make him so wishywashy? It saddens me that many people are introduced to the story with such subpar writing included in it. Do better Netflix. Thanks for reading, I promise I’ll go back to being positive about something next week, but I had to get this out of my system.
We open to the explanation of what this series is supposed to be all about. When a disaster looms, the goddess calls for six heroes to awaken and save the world. This happened six hundred years before the current story as well as three hundred years before the story. There are always exactly six of these braves. Then why are there seven heroes this time around? That can only mean one thing, there is a traitor among us. But first we need to establish the seven candidates who are claiming to be members of these six heroes.
Adlet as a character is definitely on the more abrasive side at times.
The first one is Adlet Mayer who proclaims himself the strongest man in the world and summarily interrupts a duel in front of the king. He does so by fighting dirty, but putting his methods aside, he is very effective. Then again, bringing a bunch of tricks and poison to what is supposed to be an honorable duel is a pretty shitty thing to do and Adlet soon ends up imprisoned. The second brave is the princess, Nachetanya, who is also known as the saint of blades. When both get chosen as braves, she frees Adlet from his prison and the duo set off towards their destination in the west. There they will meet up with the other four braves. Or five, as the surprise twist of the series ends up being.
Everyone’s favorite sad girl who has a deep secret and is just sad all of the time. Her character felt deep and well developed to me the first time I watched the show, but seeing it again now she seems much more shallow than back then.
The other five braves are an eclectic bunch too. The first two that we meet outside of the princess and Adlet are the princess’ personal knight Goldov as well as the presumed hero killer, the white haired sharpshooter Flamie. Where Goldov is ready to help the princess immediately, Flamie quickly proclaims herself an enemy and does not wish to join up with the rest of the gang. Separating from Nachetanya, Adlet now follows after the mysterious new girl. At the temple where they get stuck they meet the rest. Chamot, saint of the swamp, Maura saint of the mountains and finally a weirdo named Hans Humpty. It’s a colorful cast for sure, but this is the moment they all start to realize something’s wrong. That’s one too many. And all of them have the crest that makes them heroes. This is where the real story starts, a mystery to figure out who is the fake.
The gang’s all here, just imagine Hans off to the left, he’s just off screen after all.
So we have a locked room mystery. The moment Adlet encountered the fiend at the outskirts of the temple, he tried to break open the door, and when he did so, the barrier activated. No one was seen entering or exiting the room after he entered it, and we know that Adlet didn’t activate the barrier. We’ve seen him get his crest, we’ve followed along his journey and he is the only person we know for certain that is accounted for at the time of the betrayal. Knowing what the solution is to this puzzle – as I remembered it while I was rewatching it – makes it seem super obvious, but I remember being fully unable to figure it out the first time around. With all the pieces in play, we now have to deduce who the real betrayer is, deal with them, and then continue on the journey to actually deal with the fiends.
Oh, there’s Hans.
Upon rewatching this show, I found myself having mixed feelings about it. I like the concept a lot, but both Chamot and Goldov were getting on my nerves as characters pretty early on. There are some inconsistencies in the storytelling as well that feel more like red herrings than good writing, but these are minor complaints. Flamie and Adlet, the two we spend a majority of the time on, are both fun characters in all their bravado and teenage angst. It’s a real shame this never got a sequel, as it’s based on a light novel and we all know that most anime fans can’t read. I remember wanting to read the novels back in the day, and I still may one day, but it’s not high enough on my priority list right now to start on anytime soon. As for if you should watch it, yeah, probably. It’s a fun mystery with a colorful cast that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Although the twist at the very, very end kind of sucks and is the main thing people ended up remembering from the show. I do like reading light novels from time to time, and if you’re like me and every time you think back to this show you kind of want to see where it goes from here, at least the novels have been translated to English, although I did see that the physical editions are rather pricey. Ebooks are much cheaper if you’re one of those people, but I’ll leave it up to you. For now, if you like a good mystery, give Rokka no Yuusha a watch and if not, well, at least thanks for reading.
The legendary pirate captain, Rocks D Xebec. The man who was once on equal footing with Roger and who was the leader of a band of fighters which included three of the modern day emperors as well as Shiki the golden lion who we’ve mostly seen in the One Piece movie Strong World, but was a legendary power in the lore of One Piece and could still be lurking somewhere in the world. We learned about Rocks pretty late into the story, but his influence on the world of One Piece has been felt since early on. Garp’s elevation to hero of the marines was due to stopping the rampaging Rocks – although details of that incident were only revealed to the reader very recently – and Roger, Shanks, Blackbeard, Shamrock, Imu and the aforementioned former emperors all have a history with the man. But who was this legendary villain? And what was his modus operandi that got him to captain such a powerful group of pirates? Let’s dive into the life and legend of Davy Jones’s descendant. As the title and this introduction should have made abundantly clear, this post will be full of spoilers, so read at your own discretion.
We have known about Davy Jones for a while, as the Davy Back fight we were introduced to in Long Ring Long island could only have been named after the famous pirate Davy Jones. What we didn’t know until now is the influence this family had on the world, and this influence ran deep, considering one of the major antagonistic forces in the world that has been with us since early grand line is actually Davy D. Teach. And Rocks – the name Davy D. Xebec used – was the legendary pirate captain who perished at the God Valley incident. This incident was finally revealed to us during the flashbacks on Elbaf and it was one hell of an incident. To summarize everything neatly; Figarland Garling found out about the existence of Davy family members on the island and targeted it for the next round of native hunting where a bunch of the World Nobles would hunt down the natives as well as several slaves they let loose on the island and the winner would win the grand prize, the beautiful former pirate captain Shakuyaku. With this prize – as well as the knowledge that his wife and child were on the island – it was no surprise Rocks made landfall as quick as he found out. And his presence caused both Garp and Roger to make their way here too. Fights erupted and after Imu took control of Rocks, he was mercy killed by Roger and Garp, who teamed up to deal with the legendary captain. But this does paint a very different picture of Rocks than the one we knew.
And it got me thinking about his son, Blackbeard. He’s done a lot of antagonistic things throughout the series. He’s fought with Law, he’s the reason Ace was captured in the first place, he tried to attack Luffy twice, he freed a bunch of dangerous criminals from Impel Down, he kidnapped Pudding and he even killed Whitebeard, although the old emperor would have likely died at the Summit War regardless of Teach’s appearance. Yet despite all of this, I still think there is a chance for redemption in Teach’s story arc. For one, Rocks’ story was one of persecution. He was a terrifying pirate captain, sure, but the main reason he was persecuted was his family name. He lost his wife, his freedom and almost lost his son purely because of who he was born as. I don’t think it is Oda’s normal style to have his son follow in his footsteps and meet a similar end. Now I don’t think Teach will be turned into a friend that will be happy and jolly with Luffy in the end as they all sing songs around the campfire, but I do believe that there will be more to Teach’s story than just a fight where Luffy beats him into submission.
What this will look like, I don’t know, but he is the last remaining member of the Davy family, and having the family disappear completely after we’ve learned that Rocks was on somewhat friendly terms with Roger and his crew and also cared greatly about his wife and was a threat to Imu, it feels undeserved that his child – which he gave up everything for – will die a villain just like he did. What I predict is that Teach will end up clashing with Imu somehow and be overtaken by Domi Reversi or a similar ability. Luffy will then defeat him but grant mercy after Imu is inevitably defeated, granting the Davy family a way out of the loop of violence. Perhaps it will end with Teach in prison in some form or something similar, but I would be a bit disappointed if his story ended sadly.
And what we also learned is how Rocks got his powerful crew in the first place. He employed the Davy back fights to gather crew members. Some visionaries in the One Piece fandom have been saying that Long Ring Long island would become a crucial arc for the story, and I think they were right. We’ll definitely see more of the Davy back fights towards the end of the story. Perhaps it’ll be between Luffy and Teach, or Luffy and Shanks, but I think we’ll get one more hilarious round of these games. We have to remember that the original Davy back fights weren’t nearly as long as the anime made them, and they weren’t all that bad. I reckon we can get some fun out of that towards the end, after Imu has been defeated. I reckon it could be a great way to sunset the story too, having Shanks and Luffy and their crews engage in a friendly set of games as the story fades to black. Perhaps Blackbeard joins in on the fun. They will all sing songs around the campfire and… yeah, who am I kidding. I have made so many predictions about One Piece throughout the years and most of them completely missed the mark, so please don’t expect any of what I’ve said here to be even remotely right. But it’s fun to fantasize sometimes, right? Thanks for reading. I’m excited for the rest of this arc and even more excited for what comes after. It’s a great time to be a One Piece fan, and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.
Because I am running out of ideas – not in the long run, but a lot of the ideas I have for anime posts require a bit more time (like this season ending, next season starting and me finding the time to rewatch old shows) – there will be a one week break next week. After that I will be back and if everything goes according to schedule I will be talking about my experience rewatching Rokka no Yuusha. I’ll hopefully see you there!
At the time of watching Orange for the first time, there were not very many drama romance shows I was familiar with. I didn’t really start my (shallow) dive into romance manga yet, and shonen action was definitely still my preferred genre (alongside Isekai). So a really solid drama like Orange – although not my genre per se – was always going to leave a big impression since the comparisons to other shows weren’t there yet. Which got me to wondering, how will I feel about this show if I rewatch it a decade later. By today, shojo romance manga are a staple in my manga consumption with series like The Fragrant Flower, Horimiya and Skip & Loafer all being favorites of mine. So with that all in mind, let’s take another look at Orange.
The cast comes together in the future to read the letters from their past selves.
Let’s start with the two parts of this series that are the most memorable for me. The two things I could still remember after all these years. The first one is the core plot point, which involves the main character Naho sending a letter to herself from 10 years in the past. Apparently their friend Kakeru – who Naho has not met yet when she receives the letter from her future self – was going through a lot more pain than they realized at the time, and ended up dying tragically. Her future self then implores Naho to do things differently, in an attempt to save Kakeru. To prove that the letter is actually from herself in the future, she adds several diary entries about things that have yet to happen, and Naho watches as these events unfold in front of them, the first big one being the new transfer student; Kakeru.
From top left to top right: Hagita, Takako, Suwa From bottom left to bottom right: Naho, Kakeru, Azu
The second thing that has always stayed with me about this show is the opening song: Hikari no Hahen by Takahashi Yuu. The tranquil and melancholic pop song has never quite managed to leave my consciousness completely, coming up in my playlists from time to time or while I’m watching anime opening compilations. It even sometimes randomly pops up in my head simply due to how incredibly catchy it is. The accompanying shots of the main cast are melancholic in a way that fits the music and it does its job of getting you in the mood for an emotional story.
The first thing I noticed that I don’t think registered with me the first time I watched Orange is the backgrounds. This show does take place in a city, but it’s a more rural city than something like Tokyo – where Kakeru is from – and that’s very well conveyed by the backgrounds. Many of the gorgeously drawn shots have trees in them and the surroundings that the cast often finds themselves in feels much more open and tranquil than many other stories with similar settings. Skip & Loafer actually touches on this from a different angle, where we leave the city to visit the countryside later in the story and that really hammers home the difference in lifestyle. Orange is somewhere in the middle of the two.
This is what the town looks like a lot of the time, but also interspersed with more “modern” buildings and city streets, which brings for a very cool looking city that I’d love to walk around in.
Then the characters themselves. We look at this story through the eyes of Naho, but there is a group of six characters that we end up spending most of our time with. Naho is timid and kind, Suwa is popular and athletic, Azusa’s family owns a bakery and she is very outgoing as well. Meanwhile Hagita is much more introverted and spends as much of his time as possible reading, but he usually does so around his friends and joins them in any activities either way. Takako is more stoic and quiet. Lastly, we have Kakeru, the transfer student from Tokyo and the reason this story is happening. Kakeru is an interesting character due to how we learn some of his tragedies without seeing them clearly reflected in the character. Let’s dive into the story.
As mentioned earlier, the future versions of the friend group – minus Kakeru – met up long after the current timeline, and future Naho sends a letter to her past self detailing some mistakes she made due to being timid, that she would like her past self to avoid, in hopes of creating a better future for their friend. Although Naho is very sceptical – and still understandably timid – she quickly realizes that there’s definitely something to this letter, as it’s doing a great job at predicting the things that will happen in the next couple of days. After she fails to do anything different when Kakeru first shows up, the transfer student stays away from school for a while. We later learned that the reason Naho’s future version didn’t want her to invite Kakeru on their day out was because his mother committed suicide that afternoon, and that is why Kakeru was absent for a while.
Yeah, he’s a sad boy
Without going into spoilers, there is a lot of focus on being who you are and then changing that person to a different version of themselves that still includes some of their initial characteristics. In particular Naho is trying her best to become more outgoing and more confident. We slowly learn more as the series continues and later on there is a twist revealed to us that is pretty well foreshadowed, but I definitely didn’t catch it on my first watch through.
I’m not a big fan of time travel shenanigans usually and I mind it a bit less when it’s explained as separate worlds. The reality here is still true, but things are happening different in another timeline. Still, it’s a topic that I struggle to believe in.
Considering all of that, I think it’s safe to say that giving Orange a watch – if you haven’t yet – is definitely worth the time. It’s a well crafted melancholic romantic drama with well written characters and an interesting plot hook in the time travel shenanigans with the letter. It’s not going to reinvent the genre by any means, and it can be a bit slow at times, but I really enjoyed rewatching this series.
I’m slowly working on my top 10 manga list, which has proven to be quite difficult. I haven’t read nearly as many manga as I’ve watched anime, and often the reason for picking up a manga in the first place is the fact that I really enjoyed the anime and wanted more of the same, making it so that a rather large portion of the manga I’ve read are really good. Or at least I really enjoy them. But there are also some manga I really enjoyed that I probably wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) put in my top 10, as they aren’t all that good. I’ve talked about this before, something can be enjoyable without being good (in the sense of being critically acclaimed). I really enjoy Mario Party Lets Plays, but I wouldn’t say they deserve to win an Oscar. All this to say, let’s take some time today to look at a couple of guilty pleasure manga.
Fairy Tail
When I was initially introduced to Fairy Tail (the anime) I was still quite young. I’m too lazy to do the math, but I believe it’s a little over 16 years ago. The anime had just started and I was caught up pretty soon into the story. It was also one of the manga I picked up pretty early on, alongside other shonen series like One Piece, Bleach and Naruto, which were all still ongoing at the time. That’s crazy to think about, having those three manga come out weekly felt like it was almost a guarantee in life, even though two of them ended a decade ago. This shonen series written by Hiro Mashima (Fairy Tail, Rave Master, Eden’s Zero) follows Natsu Dragneel, Lucy Heartfilia and the other members of the Fairy Tail magician guild, as they deal with all sorts of requests. The overarching plot of Fairy Tail is rather weak, let me be upfront about that. Mashima himself has gone on record to say that a lot of Fairy Tail wasn’t very meticulously planned, a habit he deviated from when creating Eden’s Zero afterwards. I’ve always assumed that he had a pretty good idea about the Oracion Seis, the first handful of antagonists that all fell into a single larger group, but lost focus after that arc ended and had to keep coming up with fresh ideas. A secondary problem that Fairy Tail has – that ended up ruining quite a few moments for me – is the power scaling. Fairy Tail used to be the king of what we call “the power of friendship”. Whenever a character’s friends were in trouble, they’d suddenly awaken to some sort of new power without any proper explanation where it came from and through some bullcrap defeated their opponents by a hair. Laxus winning in the tournament is one of the more egregious examples of this, in my opinion.
The main gang in the manga, although many side characters play sizable roles.
Now, having said all that, we’re talking about Fairy Tail because it’s a series I deeply love. Then what are its selling points, if there are rather big problems with it? Let’s start with the big one. Fairy Tail as a guild is freaking dope. Joining a group of eccentric mages who are funny, social, very capable and will walk through hell and back to help out one of their own? Sign me up immediately! There’s a bond between these characters – which you also see in Mashima’s other works – that rivals even the bond of the Straw Hat Crew in One Piece. Where both Bleach and Naruto thrive on conflict within its main cast, Fairy Tail thrives when everyone’s eyes are looking in the same direction with no doubt in their mind that they will do everything for their friends. That’s also why the whole “power of friendship” thing can be a double edged sword. It’s not a very good way of writing an action story, but when push comes to shove, I still find myself very excited whenever an antagonist gets pummeled into next week. Add a fun but shallow world to this and a colorful – despite being black and white – magic system and you have a manga that may not win many prizes, but can be enjoyed without feeling too guilty. Out of the three manga I’ll be talking about, this is the one where I would recommend giving the anime a shot too. It doesn’t really add to the manga on my fronts, but the soundtrack is beyond incredible. The celtic influences are an incredible touch of genius.
Gantz
Oh dear, am I really going to talk about Gantz? Talk about a proper guilty pleasure manga. I almost considered leaving this one out for being a bit on the controversial side. It’s generally not a manga I would be quick to recommend to others. I considered putting Tokyo Ghoul in this spot but despite some of Sui Ishida’s stranger quirks, I think putting it in a post for guilty pleasures would be a disservice to the manga. So here we are, back to Gantz. Truth be told, I’ve read the Gantz manga back to front several times, despite its flaws. Gantz tells the story of two boys who both die in a train accident before finding themselves in a strange room. In this room is a black orb that tells them to fight for survival. They are given super suits and weapons – later on – and have to deal with an invading alien. If they succeed, they live to see another day and if they succeed enough times, they can escape this deathloop and return to life. Gantz mainly follows Kurono Kei and Masaru Kato, but has a large revolving cast of characters, some of which we spend quite a lot of time with. The harsh reality of the world of Gantz is that people die pretty often and pretty suddenly when encountering deadly aliens, and friendships often don’t develop long enough when all your friends are smears on the ground. Alongside the gratuitous violence is a pretty large amount of nudity and sex, which was definitely a part of the appeal when I was younger. As the story progresses we are introduced to more aliens, vampires and we even visit other alien civilizations. All the while things are going from bad to worse for many of the people involved until we finally reach a conclusion that leaves you wondering why you just spent all your time on this series.
This is the type of strange art you will find in the Gantz manga.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room. If violence and nudity were the only “problem” this series had, I would be recommending it a lot more often than I actually am. The truth is, in one of the later arcs of the story, a character decides that he wants to shoot up a mall. And when he does this, he does so in blackface. It’s a pretty awful arc and the implications that a black person shooting up a mall makes more sense than a Japanese person doing so is pretty sickening. The author also used computer generated images as the base for a fair amount of panels which makes for an interesting artstyle. I think it’s not a fantastic looking manga, but that’s the least of my criticisms. If you like stories that are unapologetically violent and can ignore some of the issues, then perhaps look into Gantz. There’s a CGI movie on Netflix that focuses on one of the better arcs in the series and I think it’s pretty well made, so that would probably be your best place to start.
History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi
I’m not certain any of this holds up to science standards, but neither do any of the other shonen manga, so why start caring now.
Let’s move on to a series that is a bit less controversial and a bit more palatable for the average reader. History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi is your classic shonen action series. If series like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man get praise for breaking the mold and doing something refreshing to the genre, Kenichi is the most standard of series. The titular Kenichi is a young high school boy and a bit of a dweeb. He loves reading, has no friends, is weak and gets bullied. One day a transfer student comes to their school and kicks him in the face because he approaches her from behind and that is one of her bad habits. I know many girls who roundhouse kick their classmates in the face just for standing near them, so so far it’s a 100% on the accuracy. Kenichi and Mio – this girl – quickly become friends and when Kenichi gets into trouble with an upperclassman, Mio decides to help him prepare for the upcoming fight. Mio’s grandfather owns a martial arts dojo after all. The story follows Mio, Kenichi and their peers and mentors as they fight against all sorts of people with the stakes quickly increasing. From fighting a local gang to dealing with the members of Yami and Yomi, two dark organizations full of assassins, murderers and their apprentices. This story has your classic plot elements like villains who become allies as the story goes on, tragic backstories, increasing danger and of course lots and lots of borderline nudity. If there was ever a manga explicitly aimed at horny teenagers, this one takes the crown. Of course it has a bunch of shirtless men in peak condition, that’s normal for shonen action, but the outfits some of the girls wear are not very revealing. With some perverted characters among the cast, this is where the story derives a lot of its comedy from and although as a younger man this was part of the appeal to me, reading it back as an old man (I’m 33, so basically one foot in the grave) it gets a bit grating at times. I’m not one to shrink back from this sort of material by any means, but some manga do this just to appeal to their readers and it does nothing to improve the story. Besides that, the story itself isn’t exactly mindblowing. There are a lot of very predictable “twists” throughout and some of the arcs can drag a little bit. Having said all that, I still go back to History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi once every few years as a little treat.
There you have it. Three manga I would never consider to be pioneers in their field – perhaps Gantz has an argument with its interesting artstyle – but I still enjoyed enough to reread at least once. For Fairy Tail I would recommend the anime instead, although I also love the manga itself. In the case of both Gantz and Kenichi, they have short anime adaptations but I found both lacking and ending before things get anywhere all that interesting, so if either of those sound fun to you, definitely pick up the manga. I’m sure you can figure out some place to read it. Thanks for reading.
With a rather large school arc now seemingly behind us, we returned home to the cottage at the end of the last volume, where it’s time to wind down and relax a little bit, having dealt with Philomela’s grandmother and the accompanying corruption. Yet trouble stirs almost immediately again as the actions that Chise took by turning into a red dragon and swimming underneath the land have alerted the church and its allies, who are now investigating the incident to figure out who or what is responsible.
We start off this volume with Torrey giving Chise a bit of a history lesson about Britain and the witch hunts, which of course immediately triggers Chise’s visions and she almost ends up adding another curse to her long list of problems. Her being a Sleigh Beggy will never stop putting her into serious trouble whenever she is near anything even remotely magical, but she has good friends and allies here as Ruth jumps in to protect her. Back at Elias home we meet Jasper, the owner of said home and a long time patron of Elias due to a peculiar curse that runs through his family. His sister in law’s baby is currently the latest victim of the curse and they’re here to ask Elias to fix it. We learn about their history in a fun little side story and I wonder if we’ll return to this at some point with Chise putting a permanent stop to the curse. Oh right, and Zoe grows wings.
Josef and Elias meet at the information market where rumors spread. The aforementioned red dragon has been seen swimming under the British Isles and this is not a good sign, with a red dragon having the power to tear the earth apart into little pieces. Not many people and neighbours would appreciate that, but what they don’t know is that Chise is the one responsible. Josef ponders why he’s been left to stay here despite the horrible things he does and Elias basically informs him that he’s so unimportant that it doesn’t matter to him, which pisses Josef right off. Returning to the home, we learn that the first visitor of the year is underway.
The head of the St. George house is here with the official request for Elias and Chise to investigate the dragon, with Simon present to mediate for the church. Elias considers his options for a bit, which is a clear sign of growth for the mage. What’s even more important is that not only does he consider Chise’s safety, he also considers that of some of the other friends he’s made in recent memory, which is a completely new feeling to him. The duo confer and decide to help out with the investigation as long as nothing unsafe happens to Chise. That’s when we learn that Violet and Jasmine are also present, and Chise quickly figures out that there’s something odd about the twins.
This is where the different storylines start to slowly diverge into a common thread. Chise is likely undergoing a form of atavism. It’s a change in mythical creatures which was demonstrated by the dragon that went berserk as well as Zoe earlier in this volume suddenly growing wings. It’s a rare thing that can happen and it might be what is happening to Chise, allowing her to turn into a red dragon. Alongside all of this chaos, the St. George twins reveal that they have their own weird creature to deal with. It seems to be a newborn creature of unknown origin that has grown fond of the twins. They hid it from their father who found out within seconds, then they all hid it from Elias who also found out within seconds. They’re not very good at hiding things, but they think they are.
Lastly we zoom over to Lindell and the dragons, where a stranger approaches and danger lurks. Fortunately, it does seem like this stranger has no ill intent and is instead coming with a request. Hilda St. George asks him to come with her to England.
It seems like we’re still going to learn more about the different alchemist families, focusing on St. George now. They seem like good people and their house being responsible for dealing with all sorts of dangerous creatures probably means they’re pretty capable too. If only this doesn’t end in a tragedy for the twins or another curse for Chise. We can only hope. It looks like we will not have to wait nearly as long for the next volume, as the breaks around the last few volumes were quite long, but it looks like Volume 22 should be out in February or March. Look forward to another run through that volume when I get my hands on it and as always, thanks for reading!
Welcome to a new series I’m starting in 2026 in which we will revisit old series that I personally remember fondly to see if they hold up or not. This won’t be a weekly series, but there will be regular uploads. We’re starting with Rage of Bahamut: Genesis today.
2000 years after a disastrous battle with the ancient dragon of Bahamut – who was sealed by the angels and demons working together – the dragon stirs once again, and strange machinations are afoot. At the center of this conflict we find a quartet of characters who have to somehow navigate a war between angels and demons. Rage of Bahamut is based on a social card game by Cygames studio and is one of three anime to be made as a promotion for the game. Although the English version of the game shut down a decade ago, the Japanese version is still going and out of the many different anime based on games that I’ve seen, this one definitely stands out to me. Let’s talk about it.
As it has for years, this opening sequence has stayed in mind until today. It always gave me a Pirates of the Carribean kind of vibe and it’s stored in the same memory bank as Jack Sparrow running on the water wheel.
Favaro Leone and Kaisar Lidfard are two bounty hunters who are at odds. Kaisar blames Favaro for the death of his family and his fall from nobility and Favaro’s personality as a drunkard, pervert and general lowlife doesn’t help much with Kaisar’s perception of the red afro wearing bounty hunter. Bounties in this world are put on demons and collected in the form of cards, which only bounty hunters can collect and then hand off to Bacchus, the drunken god of wine and slacking off. Bacchus and his duck companion Hansa are returning characters in the series as well and develop a rather close bond with the main cast.
FAAAAAAVAAAAAAAAAROOOOOOOOOOO
One faithful day when Favaro spends the night boasting, he meets a young woman named Amira, who is trying to get to Helheim to see her mother. Favaro quickly proclaims he can bring her there for coin, with absolutely no intention to actually do so. Unfortunately for Favaro, Amira curses him in return, forcing him to accompany her on the harsh journey to this Helheim place. We soon learn that there is more to Amira than meets the eye, as she seems to possess demonic powers and perhaps even something more. She accompanies Favaro on the journey north, being chased by Kaisar.
Former nobility, reluctant bounty hunter Kaisar Lidfard, one of the four characters that make this show so much fun.
After dealing with Rita, a necromancer who lives in a city of zombies due to an old curse, but is sick of her lot in un-life, the quartet of main characters is complete although they’re definitely not all on the same page yet. Of course we learn more about Favaro and Kaisar’s complex history as the story continues, as well as what is the deal with Amira, but I will not get into spoilers for this.
Rita rounds off the main four and she’s a very fun character.
In the midst of this war between angels and demons for the keys to Bahamut, to either keep him sealed or release him and unleash mayhem on the world, there is a holy knight crowned by the archangels in the form of Jeanne D’arc. It wouldn’t be a fantasy story if there wasn’t a depiction of Jeanne D’arc after all. Hero of the people, chosen of the gods and hellbent on saving the world from certain destruction, she and her army are after Amira as she is a demon with one of the keys to Bahamut’s trap. Betrayal and death are around every corner as everyone on all sides of the conflict converges on Helheim for the finale of the story.
When I decided to pick this anime to rewatch, part of me wondered how well the quality would hold up. I remember enjoying the characters a lot – and even on a second watch the main quartet are an absolute joy to spend time with, Favaro most of all – and I remember it having a surprisingly high quality for a game adaptation. I think that quality definitely holds up after more than a decade. It doesn’t look like One Piece during the latest arc, sure, but the animation is serviceable and the darker than common art style fits really well for the dark themes and foggy and dangerous world we find ourselves in. The rest of the production also holds up, although it doesn’t stand out as amazing at any point, it never detracts from the show and I found myself quickly wanting to watch more of it. I’ll definitely cover the sequel anime at some point in the future as well.
This poor girl has not gotten much luck with her lot in life, but she has good friends at least.
So should you watch this show 12 years later even when you have no desire to play the game it’s based on? Yeah, I’d say so. I never played the game either, but I thoroughly enjoyed every second of the original run and my rewatch. Favaro, Rita and Kaisar are incredible characters with quite a lot of humor to them. I feel less strongly about Amira, but she is also more or less just a plot device given a voice. She’s not bad, but also the least memorable of the quartet. Supporting cast are fun, animations and art are solid, and the ending is satisfying. There isn’t really anything bad I can say about the show, so if you like fantasy stories with angels, demons and talking ducks, then definitely check out Rage of Bahamut: Genesis.
If you came here for another scathing review about the dumpster fire that is One Punch Man season 3, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. While I did watch it, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that hasn’t been said already. Instead I want to talk about another anime that involved punching, which I did enjoy very much: May I ask for one final thing?
Even Saitama is bored with being there.
A young Scarlet El Vandimion has been betrothed to the second prince of the Kingdom of Pallistan since childhood. But her prince turned out to be a real piece of work throughout his youth. That’s what you get for naming your son Kyle, I suppose. At a party for nobles he announces that he’s breaking the engagement with Scarlet, who has been silently bearing with his abuse. Now free from her shackles, she asks for one final thing. To punch both prince Kyle as well as his new girlfriend, Terenezza in their faces. She dons her punching gloves – which have studs on the knuckles because we don’t do things half-assed here – and punches the crap out of the many nobles in attendance as well as prince Kyle and Terenezza.
To the despair of her brother, this is far from the only nickname that Scarlet earns during this series.
This show really shines when it does exactly what it promises at the start. Scarlet punching the crap out of people who are written to be disliked is a very satisfying plot hook that is definitely a breath of fresh air. We have many villainess anime where someone is transported to another world to be the villainess, but to have the actual villainess beat up the person from another world for being a whiny person is a new one to me. Together with prince Julius (Kyle’s older brother) and the weredog Nanaka, this trio deals with all sorts of trouble throughout the kingdom as Terenezza is plotting to take over the entire place with her newly founded religion.
This poor guy can’t catch a break.
Where this show falls off a little bit for me is when we get into the second half and we start to actually develop a plotline about wars, alliances and different gods and powers. If I’m perfectly honest, the storylines surrounding that are rather boring, but the show manages to quickly regain your attention by having Scarlet ignore all protocol and just beat the crap out of whoever is in their path. Julius’ annoying provocations and the despair of Scarlet’s older brother about having to deal with his little sister add some nice light comedy to the show. With solid art, vibrant colors – especially when it comes to Scarlet’s design, who embodies the color that her name suggests – and decent animation, this show stands out above similar shows for me. If you like a show that doesn’t require you to do much thinking, but has some very satisfying moments, then I would highly recommend you check out May I ask for one final thing?. If only to get rid of the bad aftertaste that One Punch Man season 3 left. Thanks for reading.
Do not be fooled by his fake smile, this guy cannot be trusted.That is the correct response.
