A lot of genres seem to eventually get into a groove of sorts. Writers figure out what works and what doesn’t and they adjust their stories to fit the mold. That’s fine and will create many amazing stories. If I’m completely honest with you, that’s for sure what I’m doing with my own story, Hesitant Hero, that’s being posted here weekly (shameless plug activated). Of course everyone gives their spin to it, myself included, but there’s safety in following the norms. But when all is said and done and all cards are on the table sometimes all you need to do is flip the table, yell at everyone else in the room and leave to go do your own thing. Who needs certainty and a working formula when you can instead have an utterly ridiculous setup and execute on it brilliantly.
I love her, she’s the best!
Ladies, gentlemen and others, I am of course talking about the recently finished Paripi Koumei (Ya Boy Kongming). Zhuge Liang (Kongming) is a famous tactician from the three kingdoms era. After living his life advising his lord he is about to die. His only wish is for his next life to be a more peaceful one. A moment passes and Kongming suddenly finds himself in a completely unfamiliar place surrounded by all sorts of strangeness. It turns out his wishes have been heard and he was transported, as a younger version of himself, to modern day Shinjuku. That’s right, our esteemed tactician finds himself in the party center of Tokyo with no idea what’s going on. Luckily his wit is quick and he manages to fit in almost immediately.
This scene somehow reminded me of Carole & Tuesday. The quiet musical moments are the best ones.
Making fast friends with the local drunks and quickly figuring out this is the future, he finds himself in a local club where he hears the bar staff, Eiko, perform a song live. Kongming is enthralled by her music and vows to help her conquer the world. And of course the manager of this club is a massive history nerd, because why wouldn’t he be. The two hit it off and Kongming makes quick friends with Eiko. Together they set off to perform on bigger and bigger stages with the goal of world peace.
This show has to be the easiest to take screenshots from, just the opening more or less suffices.
To do this they must first get some recognition. Kongming is an expert strategist when it comes to war, but do these skills also translate to managing a singer? Well, Eiko is talented but she’s far from done with her career. There’s some things they’re going to need and Kongming is on the job. Each episode gives us a little bit of three kingdoms lore, which is a neat addition. Kongming is a quirky person that is just a joy to see on screen every single time. Eiko’s design is gorgeous and I like her singing a lot although she does keep singing the same song over and over again. One thing that a different musical anime; Carole & Tuesday, did really well is add in new songs regularly. I understand that this would take a lot more effort, but I feel like it would have enhanced the show.
Nanami Kuon is one of many amazing supporting characters and has an amazing voice.
The second half introduces several fun characters and a competition to get a ticket to a big stage. I won’t talk about it much more than that because of spoilers. The animation and art are fine, nothing to write home about but some of the dance scenes are pretty decent. Idol shows do it better, but this isn’t a show you watch for the crazy animation quality so I’ll allow it. What really, really stands out, and is the main reason I picked up this show in the first place (and I’m sure I’m not the only one) is the opening song. The song “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” by Queendom is an entrancing eurobeat inspired song that just makes you happy. I’ve linked the song here because unfortunately I’m not a talented enough writer to put into words how amazing this song is. It’s accompanied by beautiful animation and just steals the show. The ending is amazing too and it just wrap this show up in a blanket of musical awesomeness.
We can’t forget about the history lessons put here and there to supplement the story.
If Spy x Family wasn’t airing this season, Ya Boy Kongming would have been my pick for anime of the season without a doubt, so I’ll give it an honorary anime of the season award instead. Easily an 8 or 9 out of 10 show for me, and if you haven’t seen it yet I hope this review has convinced you to go watch it. This isn’t a show you’ll forget about, but one you’ll keep thinking back to years after you’ve seen it. Thanks for reading!
Hello and welcome to the second installment of my series on the anime Bleach. If you missed my introduction you can find it here. You can skip it if you’re just here for the recaps and don’t care about my sappy introduction but I would appreciate it if you checked it out as well. Today we’re going to be talking about the first part of bleach, spanning the first 20 episodes of the anime. Like any good story, we start at the beginning. The first arc of Bleach mainly covers the basics and introduces us to the cast of characters. I’ll quickly go over the story and then I’ll talk about each of the characters and their powers a little bit, because that’s the important part.
Kurosaki Ichigo and his inconveniently large sword.
Kurosaki Ichigo is a high school student with orange hair, who is able to see ghosts and spirits. He has a father who is a doctor and two younger sisters. His mother died tragically when Ichigo was still young and during this first arc it is revealed she was killed by a rather infamous Hollow; Grand Fisher.
The one who set everything in motion, Kuchiki Rukia.
Ichigo then meets Kuchiki Rukia, a soul reaper, or shinigami. Rukia is wounded and grants him substitute soul reaper powers so that Ichigo can protect his family in her stead. After this fight she stays around. The story then follows Ichigo and Rukia as they fight several Hollows. Eventually Rukia is apprehended by two soul reapers from the illustrious Soul Society. Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya. Rukia is to be retrieved and put on death row in Soul Society. This first arc ends with Rukia gone and Ichigo gravely wounded. Now it’s up to him and his friends to solve this. Speaking of his friends, let’s introduce the characters I’ve not mentioned yet.
On introduction, Ishida is this very cocky guy who hates soul reapers, but he’s actually a good guy.
Uryuu Ishida is a classmate of Ichigo and is a quincy. Early on in the story we do not learn a lot about what the quincy are, but we get a few tidbits. The quincy are a group of humans who kill hollows. They were at odds with soul reapers and were eradicated a long time ago. It seems like Ishida’s master was able to avoid this. Quincy use a bow that is created from a cross to fight hollows and kill them, whereas soul reapers purify them. Ishida is fairly arrogant and challenges Ichigo to a duel by using Hollow bait. This quickly gets out of hand and leads to the two of them fighting a Menos, which is a huge and terrifying Hollow.
Sado always worries about others before worrying about himself. He’s the definition of a Chad.
During this fight, Yasutora Sado (Chad) awakens his own powers. His arm is coated in a strange armor and he goes from being able to see a vague shape of the hollows to seeing them fully. He already has beastly strength as is demonstrated early on, but he’s a kind soul. His arm makes him even stronger. The armor looks similar to the material a Hollow’s mask is made out of, and it’ll be no surprise to hear that the power has a somewhat similar origin. Also, both Sado and the Hollows have a Spanish origin, with the Hollows coming from a place called Hueco Mundo.
Unfortunately Inoue becomes more and more annoying as the show continues and is frustratingly powerless most of the time.
Another classmate of Ichigo, Inoue Orihime, awakens to strange powers as well. Her hair ornament turns into six small fairies. The fairies each have a name and a power. Three of them make a shield that protects something and rejects everything outside of the shield. Two of them can reject things inside a shield, which amounts to healing power and rejecting damage. The final one rejects things on both sides, basically counting as an attack of sorts. It’s not really explained too well where this power exactly comes from. The fairies say it’s because Ichigo’s spirit power rubbed off on her, but in my opinion it’s one of the more wacky powers in the show. Either way, this power allows Orihime to protect her friends and defeat the Hollow that’s attacking the school.
Captain Kuchiki Byakuya and Lieutenant/Vice Captain (both names seem to be used in the subs I have) Abarai Renji.
Let’s talk about the remaining characters really quickly. Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya are both sent by the Soul Society to retrieve Rukia from the human world. Renji and Ichigo are fairly evenly matched in a fight but Byakuya is so much more powerful than the both of them that Ichigo is on the ground bleeding out before he realizes what’s going on. Urahara Kisuke is a local vendor who is probably more than he looks, he helps out here and there but mainly just watches as things happen. He has Soul Reaper powers as well, but isn’t shown to use them. Tessai, Ururu and Jinta are working with him at his store as well. He also has a black cat named Yoruichi, who is able to talk.
The entry into Soul Society rejects Urahara.
Urahara trains our protagonists to get ready to enter Soul Society. Where Ishida is off on his own training his quincy abilities, Ichigo is approached and healed by Urahara and his group. He’s now a normal human again. Urahara has absolutely zero chill when it comes to training and it’s rough right from the start. Sado and Orihime are approached by Yoruichi (the black cat that’s friends with Urahara) and the cat leads them to where Ishida is training. They want to help out too and improve their budding spirit powers. Ishida works better on his own though, and he has some secrets of his own. Seeing the two of them definitely motivates him though.
The squad in all its glory. The fate of Rukia is in the hands of these teenagers. I’m sure everything will go great.
And there you have it, a summary of the first 20 episodes of the Bleach anime. The gang’s all ready and powered up to travel to the Soul Society and get Rukia back. I’m sure things will go swimmingly when they arrive and there won’t be any roadblocks. But all of that is for the next installment of this post, when we’ll be talking about the next arc that follows our heroes into Soul Society. I hope this is helping you all up to speed, I’ve been having fun rewatching this show so far and I’m looking forward to the rest of it. Thanks for reading and see you all next time! Leave a like or comment if you enjoyed it.
My oh my it’s here and I still don’t know how to feel about it. I recently finished this arc of Made in Abyss in the manga, seeing that the English volumes are a little bit behind the Japanese ones for obvious reasons. I think Made in Abyss might be the only manga I’ve ever read where I’m not quite sure what I read but I am sure it made me feel something. Immediately hopping into the episode we’re introduced to our three sages: Wazukyan, Belaf and Vueko. One thing to note, in the manga these characters are introduced in volume 8. The Made in Abyss anime season covers volumes 1-3, where the movie covers volumes 4-5. This means the anime is changing the order of things a little bit, but I think it makes sense to have this introduction at the start of a season. It’s at the start of a new volume as well in the manga. We’ll see how it pans out in the long run though.
This scene has definitely been toned down in anime, it felt more brutal in the manga for sure. I think we’ll see that a lot.
Vueko has quite the traumatic past, being abused by the man she lived with, before joining up with Wazukyan and his people after giving him the compass. The man who was with her had this compass and found it on a charred ship with strange corpses. The compass points somewhat down and the theory is that if you get to where it points straight down you’ll find the golden city at the bottom of a large pit. Wazukyan sets out with a fleet of ships to find the island the Abyss is on and after losing every single other ship their ship luckily makes it to the island where they find a massive pit at the center of it. This is of course the Abyss we know from the previous seasons that Riko, Reg, Nanachi and Prushka are traveling down into.
Introducing the remaining two sages; Belaf(left) and Wazukyan(right)
After the title card we find ourselves with the locals on the island, trading and talking with our travelers. Vueko trades her compass for help from the village chief. Here we learn that the Golden City is also called The capital of the Unreturned (Shourou). The villagers tell the sages that the city exists but you can’t return from it. On the edge of the pit they’re joined by a little girl who’s seemingly been exiled by the tribe. She has tattoos that indicate she can’t bear children and is thus exiled to the pit. Vueko pleads to allow the girl to travel with them and Wazukyan seems to be high most of his life and doesn’t really care. Not long after the first victims start to fall and we learn that the abyss has a curse. This refers to not being able to go up as soon as you go down into the abyss. Scary place.
We travel past some of the highlights we saw in season 1, which is cool to see. And then we hard cut to Reg and Riko in the same place. I didn’t see that coming, but what a great cut. Going back to my first paragraph I think they made the right decision to move things around a bit. The entire first 17 minutes of this episode cover just a single chapter but I think it’s done well. I remember thinking in the volume that it was going super fast and I wasn’t following along properly and it seems like they tried avoiding that here. In the volume we also see more of the sages’ journey at this point, but it seems like we’re back at volume 6 now.
Poor thing.And we’re back to the main cast.
I’ve missed these little rugrats and I can’t wait to see them return to their journey in an animated form. Riko now has Prushka with her in whistle form. She’s now officially a white whistle although down this deep I suppose no one really cares if you should or shouldn’t be there. We descend through the sea of corpses which immediately gives off that creepy vibe that Made in Abyss is famous for. I can’t stress enough that this series is hauntingly brutal. As to highlight the insanity we immediately jump to a scene of Riko pooping. I can never tell if this series is messing with us or not, it’s just weird as hell all the time. We see Meinya again, who was Prushka’s pet and is now traveling with the group. And just like that we reach the exit of the sea of corpses and are well and truly in the thick of things. We’ve made it all the way to the so-called golden city, the capital of the unreturned. I’m going to wager a guess and say this anime covers up to the end of volume 10, which is a total of five volumes. Doing that in 12 episodes seems unlikely, so I’m guessing there will either be 24 episodes or two separate cours of 12? I couldn’t find a concrete answer to this on google, but otherwise they would end season two in the middle of a story arc.
The haunting sea of corpses
And there we have it, episode one of the new season of Made in Abyss. It’s been a little while since I did one of there episode review series, but they seem to be popular on other bloggers’ pages and although I didn’t want to just do this for any random show, because there’s already people who do this better than me, I did want to do it for a show I’m this invested in, because I have the manga sitting right behind me. Let me know what you think of the first episode, and if you like that I’m talking about the manga alongside it. Don’t worry, I’ll not put any spoilers in here and only talk about changes from the manga and which volumes/chapters things line up with. As always thanks for reading and I hope to see you all again here next week!
From the very first moment this show started I was immediately transported back to my early anime watching days. In particular I was reminded of one anime that is very near and dear to my heart and I should definitely rewatch in the near future; Barakamon. The setup is similar in a way, but very different in other ways. A young man goes (back) to the countryside to work on a craft and ends up having to take care of a young child. But I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. Let’s talk a little bit about this season’s standout slice of life anime: Deaimon.
He’s a little bit over the top, but he’s a good egg.
Nagomu has been living and studying in Tokyo for a while but returns home to his family’s Dagashiya – traditional candy store – when he learns his father has been hospitalized. Ready to finally take over the family business, he finds that this position is going to someone else. A young girl called Itsuka, who has been left with the family to take care of by her father. Nagomu doesn’t let it get to him and instead slowly – and with slowly I mean blink and you miss it, this man’s optimism knows no bounds – becomes a father figure for her. The story follows the two characters and their bond that’s slowly growing over time as well as several fun and interesting side characters.
Deaimon hits that sweet spot where it can be dramatic and griping without ever feeling oppressive. Some drama slice of life shows can feel oppressive in how dramatic they get. That isn’t a bad thing per se, but not always what you want out of a show. Sometimes it’s nice when you know any problems get resolved pretty quickly. Nagomu is a very likable character, Itsuka is a likable yet also believable character (children in anime can often feel overly mature for their age which takes me out of the story). The side characters are fun and it’s just a nice watch. I highly recommend this one folks.
Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road
It’s the Isekai flavor of the month, ladies and gentlemen. In a world where otherworlders are considered a plague because they end up getting too powerful and go crazy after a while, the church of the land spends its time killing any new people summoned to avoid future catastrophes. Menou is one such priestess and she’s tasked with killing the two newly summoned high schoolers. The first boy gets killed very quickly and efficiently. The second girl gets fatally stabbed without much issue too. Except this girl has the power of time control. And when she dies, time just reverts to before she is killed. She can revert time for herself and for the entire world, from the looks of it.
The real stars of the show
Thus we end up following Menou as she tells Akari that she’s bringing her to the central church and then a sanctuary where she’ll be safe, while secretly she’s trying to find a way to kill her. This show often feels like it’s trying to do something interesting but doesn’t do it well enough for it to actually have any impact. If I were to venture a guess, the heroes didn’t go crazy on their own and caused catastrophes but instead were driven to do so by an outside force. But since this is a 12 episode show, we don’t ever get to that point. I found Momo and the princess’ little side story that we’re presented with from time to time a lot more interesting than the main story. Momo being Menou’s understudy and the princess just being a wildcard trying to figure things out on her own. All in all I stuck by this anime for the entire season because I knew it wasn’t going to overstay its welcome too much. If you’re on the fence about this one, I recommend just skipping out on it, it’s not all that great in my opinion.
Love after world domination
If it isn’t Romeo and Julliet for the millionth time. Fortunately for us, this version of the tale is done surprisingly well and is highly enjoyable. Fudo is a member of the prestigious super hero organization of Gelato 5. He is the Red Gelato, which is clearly a spoof on the power rangers. Meanwhile Desumi is a member of the evil organization Gecko, where she is known as the merciless reaper princess. These two organizations often clash in spectacular battles that the media covers regularly. What’s not covered is that during a lot of these fights Desumi and Fudo sneak away to go on a date together. Sometime after they first met they ended up liking each other and started dating while hiding it from everyone else. Hilarity ensues.
Oh my god I love her design so much.
These shows ride or die on how likable the cast is and how witty the humor is. This could have very well been an extremely underwhelming show but because both of the main characters are lovable idiots but not so dumb that it gets grating, the show instead just becomes fun to watch. There’s your regular misunderstanding, there’s people finding out and there’s even some interesting side characters, mainly on Desumi’s side of the story, that help flesh out the entire story. The main focus is the romance of the two main characters which is growing steadily. They secretly go on dates, learn more about each other and Desumi even invites Fudo over to her dorm room which is in the center of Gecko territory. There’s hijinxes at school where several of Desumi’s coworkers also go to school, and we even have a visit from Desumi’s family, which includes a sister who used to look up to her but is going through a phase right now. All things considered this fun, light hearted anime does what it set out to do pretty well and doesn’t overstay its welcome at all. I highly recommend it if you’re look for a rom com this season.
I promise you that you’ll fall in love with these two very quickly, they’re such fun characters.
And there you have it, folks. Three more shows reviewed, with a few more coming. Let me know if there’s any other shows you’d like to see a quick review on. I have some shows planned for a longer review instead, so this might be the last one for this season, but I expect to watch more shows next season. I’ll probably have enough room to do two of these for just sequels alone, the season is going to be absolutely stacked with Overlord, The devil is a part-timer, Rental Girlfriend and even more Dr Stone. Are there any new shows I absolutely shouldn’t skip out on? Please let me know in the comments down below and as always, thanks for reading.
I probably should have started my rewatch of Bleach a lot sooner. I wanted to include all of the fillers in my rewatch as well to make sure I see all of it again before the new season starts in October. Unfortunately, there are only about three months left, which means I have to consistently watch four episodes a day. On top of weekly anime and other shows I’m following, this is going to be a challenge. Nonetheless, it’s a challenge I am up for. So starting with this post, let’s take our time to talk about the Bleach anime, and why it was once part of the illustrious big three, before seemingly falling to the wayside completely.
Let me start off by talking about when and how I first encountered Bleach. It’s a story in two parts, really. I remember back in early high school, when I would visit a friend of mine once. She invited me over with some other friends to play Guitar Hero. On display in her living room was a figure and a few drawings of some cool looking cartoon characters. Mind you, this was long before I ever knew what anime was. I thought it was cartoons for goth kids. With Bleach I suppose that is not completely inaccurate, but I learned later that there was much more to it. When one of my best friends recommended me to watch One Piece, I did so very rapidly and when I finished all of that show, at least what was out at the time, I needed something else to watch. This is when I came across a familiar name; Bleach. I vividly remember that my parents went on holiday that year and my brother went with them. I didn’t like going on holiday back then, because I am very autistic and young me didn’t know how to cope with that. Instead I dragged my entire computer setup to the living room for two weeks and played games and watched anime. This is where I first watched the initial episodes of Bleach.
Inject this nostalgia straight into my veins. Look at that aspect ratio. It was a simpler time.
Bleach is an anime that aired from 2004 till 2012 and was animated by studio Pierrot. It is based on the manga of the same name by Tite Kubo, which ran in Shonen Jump from 2001 till 2006. It tells the story of Kurosaki Ichigo, a high school student who is turned into a substitute soul reaper. Together with actual Soul Reaper Kuchiki Rukia he goes out and defeats hollows which are like corrupted soul monsters. As the story moves on, he ends up butting heads with the powerful soul society. The early arcs are often described as teenagers rebelling against a system that feels oppressive and unfair. A message that holds true to this day. One of the unfortunate truths about Bleach is that towards the tail end of the manga it drastically lost popularity. As a result of this, the final arc felt extremely rushed and wasn’t very good. I’ve heard a rumor (emphasis on it being a rumor) that there might be some adjustments to the story in the anime, which could possibly improve the rushed story which has me excited for it.
I will be watching the new season of Bleach every single week once it’s here, and to get everyone else up to speed I will summarize and review the different arcs in the anime. I might include the filler arcs in this as well, depending on how quickly I can make my way through the story. I hope you’ll join me here for future posts as well and perhaps watch along with me. Because for all its flaws and problems, Bleach is an extremely memorable show with some fantastic characters, fights and music that I will always hold dear as an adrenaline inducing action show that brightened my day whenever I watched it. I hope you’re as excited for this as I am.
Whenever I do (quick) reviews I tend to exclude sequels. Mainly because most people have either chosen to watch or not watch the original of the series. This time around I had an opinion on three sequels this season that I wanted to get out, so I figured I’d combine them. I’ll try and avoid major spoilers for all of the titles involved but I will have to talk about some things to convey my opinion. These reviews are of the series so far and if I think they’re worth watching. Now without further ado, let’s get to it.
Kaguya-sama: Love is war – Ultra Romantic
The third season of Kaguya-sama feels very similar to the first two seasons, which is good or bad depending on how much you liked the first two seasons. A quick anecdote about myself. I watched early Kaguya-sama right after I got rejected by a girl. I wasn’t very good about dealing with that situation and felt very sad at the time. At that time, watching this convoluted romantic comedy was extremely painful so I dropped it early on. When season 2 was announced I gave the anime another chance and found the first season to be pretty decent. I was in a different headspace at that point so it was fine then. This isn’t particularly relevant to anyone, but I just felt like sharing it.
I know that this image says nothing about the show per se, but it’s a nice shot and has no spoilers. It’s from the ending, which is very good as always.
Kaguya-sama tells the story of Shinomiya Kaguya and her fellow classmates and friends. She’s going to a very prestigious academy where most students come from affluent backgrounds. Kaguya has fallen for the school president, Shirogane Miyuki, who in turn has fallen for her. The story is set up around the thought that whoever confesses their feelings first loses the war. Hence the title. The characters spend three seasons dancing around each other in an attempt to not share their feelings while desperately wanting to share their feelings. Misunderstandings galore. What makes the show bearable for me are the characters of Fujiwara Chika and Ishigami Yu. The main cast isn’t really that interesting to me. It gives me a similar feeling to the TV show Friends. It’s fun for a little while, but eventually you realize everyone’s just being a terrible person. No one is particularly likable and I find myself not really rooting for anyone. Chika is mostly comic relief which is actually quite funny at times and Ishigami’s pessimism, although very extreme, does kind of resonate with me. I think my favorite character over all is Hayasaka, who serves as Kaguya’s maid and gets embroiled in a lot of her bullshittery.
The titular Kaguya. Her design is very well done and absolutely adorable, but half of the show I just can’t stand her as a character.
The show does end on a high note, and I did enjoy the final episode more than I expected. To be honest with you, I’d already written my review of it and had to go back to add this tidbit in. The final episode surprised me and it seemed unfair not to mention that. All in all, I’d say Kaguya-sama does what it wants to do extremely well and if you like season 1 you’ll like the sequel seasons just as much. It’s not my cup of tea per se but it’s good enough for me to keep watching it. If you want a solid romcom with interesting characters then you should give this one a watch. Also, the opening themes are certified bangers and extremely memorable.
Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part III
I first discovered Bookworm when a good friend of mine recommended interesting Isekai manga to me. The one I ended up picking up was bookworm and I read it for a little while before dropping it. The manga felt a bit slow. The anime on the other hand has a better pace going for it. Bookworm follows Myne, a young girl who has a dangerous sickness that only nobles can help cure. It’s more complicated than that, but let’s keep it simple. Being a bookworm in her past life, even going so far as to die when bookcases crushed her, she felt bad not being able to read books in this new world. So the young girl set out on a quest to make her own books in a world where they’re not readily available. Things unfortunately don’t quite go as easily as she would hope. Many things stand in Myne’s way. Luckily she quickly finds some allies along the way but when the people who wield a lot of power are the ones in your way, maybe things won’t go as you planned. Her childhood friend becomes a close ally and so does her father and a local merchant. Myne has taken over from the real Myne, so to speak, who died of her illness and then Myne’s soul from our world took over the body. Really sad when you look at it that way.
Myne is regularly casting strong prayer magic since she has such talent for it. I wonder if the story will eventually see her become her own person as opposed to a tool for the people around her. I think that would be a cool direction to go but I doubt it.
Still, Myne is determined to succeed in her quest to make books. I think what I really enjoy about Bookworm compared to other Isekai shows is that it’s really unique and that in a lot of situations the main character is fairly powerless. Not always, and when Myne is at her best it’s super satisfying to watch, but in many situations a small child is only going to be able to do so much. Myne is likable and the complicated political structure of the world she lives in is very interesting and well thought out. With this show I think it’s safe to say that it gets better as the seasons continue. The scale in season one is quite small but as things progress everything gets more intertwined and by the end of season three we’re at the center of a political mess that’s not easy to escape. The political aspect of this show really sells it for me so the fact that we keep seeing more of it is a definite boon for the series. If you like drama, isekai and politics this is the show for you. The artstyle and animation are not great in my opinion, but it’s not too distracting either. I think anyone who is at least curious after this description should give the show a watch.
The Rising of the shield hero 2nd season.
I was listening to the Trash Taste podcast on spotify while I was working the other day. The episode in question had a guest; Kevin Penkin. For those of you unfamiliar with him, he’s an Australian composer who is most famous for doing the soundtrack for Made in Abyss as well as Rising of the Shield Hero. Except I’d forgotten that he also did Shield Hero. So needless to say I went through some of the OST and it’s really good. Which is fortunate for my opinion on the show because the rest of it is not really good. Let’s dive into the third and final show for the day.
The rising of the Shield Hero follows Iwatani Naofumi, who is summoned to a fantasy world as the Shield Hero. One of four Cardinal heroes tasked with saving the world from waves, which are enemy invasions. Early on in the show, Naofumi gets betrayed by the princess of the kingdom and very quickly becomes alienated and ostracized by everyone. With a useless shield as his powerful weapon he quickly starts despairing. Fueled by anger, Naofumi decides that buying up slaves is his best plan to get stronger and thus he comes across Raphtalia, a young demi-human who becomes his first party member. He trains with her and she quickly becomes stronger and they develop a bond. They’re joined by several other female (see the pattern?) party members which includes an angelic bird lolicon character who is extremely annoying. The first season of Shield Hero isn’t even all that bad. I suppose in hindsight the signs were there already but back when I watched season one I didn’t think it was a bad show. I enjoyed the first half a lot and although the second half felt a bit more forced, I was excited for season 2 to start.
Yeah, it’s like that I guess. It’s one thing to have the slave owner try and moralize their actions as being one of the good ones (which is still a very false narrative) but to have people just say they want to be slaves is psychotic and bad writing in my opinion. If it were explored as a serious mental health issue on her end later it’d be different, but it’s not.
Then season 2 started and I realized very quickly that this wasn’t a good show. At least not the kind of show I enjoy. The characters weren’t particularly interesting to me and I realized that the show really struggles with figuring out if slavery is good or bad. I think the show thinks it’s good, which is really weird to watch unfold. It does that thing in anime that I hate, which is constantly taking characters away from the main party. It can be done well, like in One Piece’s Enies Lobby arc, but most of the time it just feels forced, annoying and is done to create tension knowing it’ll all end up alright. Shield Hero falls very flat on several points this season and at this point I think there’s just better Isekai shows out there. It’s hard to suggest the second season but I still think season 1 is worth a watch. Early Shield Hero was quite enjoyable and like I said early on, the soundtrack is very good.
I just wanted to highlight that this has to be the dumbest person I’ve ever seen in anime, it’s impressive how stupid this guy is.
And that’s all I have to say about that. I considered putting Komi-san in this review too, but now that I’ve gotten to this point the review is already super long and that just feels like overkill. Komi-san is really good, just go watch it. I already talked about it here. As always, this is my opinion, I know people like different things, so if you’re unsure watch the shows to see for yourself. Thanks for reading!
When looking for pictures to use for this review, I thought for a moment this was Lucy from Fairy Tail, but instead it’s Rebecca from Mashima’s current manga: Eden’s Zero. She has cat ears on so I decided to include it anyway.
When I first started watching anime as a teenager, and I mean watching anime while realizing what it was I was watching as opposed to seeing pokemon appear on television, there were a few shows I remember starting with. One of which was Nyan Koi, which my good friend (back then and to this day) recommended me to watch. When I was just getting into anime. It’s an anime about catgirls. He knew what he was doing. Another one was One Piece, the discussions of its weekly episodes by my classmates being the trigger for me asking what anime even really was. A third one is a little show by the name of Fairy Tail. Written by Hiro Mashima, who is also the author of both Rave Master, which I want to one day read, but haven’t yet, as well as Eden’s Zero which I’ve talked about a multitude of times on this blog. When I got into anime, Fairy Tail had released four episodes. Fairy Tail may not be an amazing manga. Its characters’ power levels may be all over the place and borderline offensive to the audience at times. Its fanservice was appealing to teenage me and grating to adult me. I’m not above fanservice, but it has to be done tastefully, which it’s not in Fairy Tail. Its story may not really go anywhere in the second half. But to this day I still feel a fondness for Fairy Tail. And that is why, today, we’ll take a look at Hiro Mashima’s second big manga and its accompanying anime.
I’m not even mad that Mashima reuses characters to an extent if they’re this vibrant and exciting.
Let’s make one thing very clear. Early Fairy Tail is some of the very best shonen in the business. It’s not edgy like Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer, nor is it well rounded like One Piece or Naruto. What Fairy Tail shines at is fun. When I review a show I like to put on music from the show, so as I’m writing this as well, the early openings are playing on my second monitor. In the comments I see people talking about how fun Fairy Tail is and I 100% agree with them. Natsu, Erza, Lucy, Gray, Wendy, Happy and everyone else at the Fairy Tail guild is so fun. I want to be in the Fairy Tail mage guild. I don’t want to be a Jujutsu sorcerer per se, I definitely don’t want to be Demon Slayer or have to deal with the bloody fights in Bleach’s society. But I would love to be a part of a guild like Fairy Tail. I think it’s the one story that nails the bond between friends even more than One Piece does. And that’s the highest of praise I can give anything. Fairy Tail is damn fun.
I mentioned earlier on that the story in Fairy Tail isn’t great. It often feels like Mashima had a plan for Fairy Tail, and once he started getting close to the end of his plan, which I assume the Tenroujima arc was, he panicked and started improvising. I could be very wrong on this, but everything up until the time-skip was great and then it just felt like it went downhill fast. The Wizard Tournament is an insult to power scaling and the final two villain groups are just not interesting at all. Eden’s Zero seems to be doing this better so far but I don’t feel like it’s as fun as Fairy Tail was.
So we’ve established that the story isn’t amazing, but the characters are a ton of fun. There’s two things I haven’t really talked about yet, and those are more production qualities than the original story; Animation and Sound.
The animation for Fairy Tail never stood out to me as particularly good. It wasn’t bad either, but I can’t really think of any of the fights looking impressive or good. I’m neutral on both animation and artstyle for this show.
What I’m not neutral about is the sound. Fairy Tail’s openings reflect the show amazingly. From it’s inquisitive first opening “Snow Fairy” by Funkist giving you that wanderlust that the show wants you to feel in its first arc to the celebratory “Fiesta” by +plus sounding in the end of their fight against the Oracion Seis to the hauntingly melancholic “Evidence” by DaisyXDaisy ringing in a new era of Fairy Tail where things slow down once again for our main cast.. You’ll notice I’m mainly talking about the early openings, since that’s the best part of the show. Although I think all of Fairy Tail is fun enough to watch, if I were to recommend it I’d stop at the Tenroujima arc personally, but that’s up to you all fine folk. But even more than the opening themes of the show, can we talk about the OST. Oh my word, the Fairy Tail OST is amazing. And I don’t mean that it’s above average. To this day it’s possibly my favorite OST out of any anime I’ve seen. Maybe second to Kekkai Sensen, but it’s definitely close. A quick google search tells me the music is done by Yasharu Takanashi who has an impressive resume. But why tell you about it when I can link you to the most iconic song in the show right here Give it a listen and let me know what you think.
The main crew of Fairy Tail. Looking at them here, I think Shiki, Rebecca and Weisz look different enough from them that I don’t feel like Edens Zero copies Fairy Tail too much.
In conclusion I think I have the following to say: Fairy Tail is very much an imperfect story. It’s got issues left and right and it slowly declines in quality as time goes on. It’s also one of the most nostalgic stories out there for me. It’s very near and dear to my heart and the first few arcs are some of the most fun I’ve ever had watching anime. Just stupid grin on your face levels of fun the entire time through. If you were to ask me if it’s a good anime I would say it’s not particularly good. If you asked me if I would recommend it I’d say it comes highly recommended. It embodies what I think shonen should strive to be. When life is tough and you get home tired, nothing beats watching a bunch of friends beat up some bad guys and everything ending up okay. If a show makes you desperately want to be a part of their world, then they’re doing things right. Thanks for reading.
There have been a lot of romantic comedy shows that follow a similar template lately. There’s a guy and a girl, and the girl almost always has a quirk of sorts that makes her unique. It’s a pretty simple concept that’s fairly popular. Uzaki-chan from Uzaki-chan wa asobitai is constantly teasing our main character, Nagatoro from Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san is flat out bullying her senpai, Aharen san from Aharen-san wa Hakarenai speaks at an extremely low volume and Komi from Komi-san can’t communicate has a communication disorder that makes it so she can’t speak and gets social anxiety.
Now I won’t argue that any of these shows is better than the others. I have my opinions on this, but I also feel like a lot of it depends on your personal preferences. I know that Nagatoro is very popular and well received but I couldn’t stand watching the show at all. I’ve also heard some reviewers say that Komi-san gets boring quickly which I would disagree with. But seeing as that’s the show we’re talking about today I figure that doesn’t come as a surprise to you.
It’s a very strange feeling to have, doing something perfectly normal but worrying that you somehow did something wrong.
Komi Shoko is a beautiful high school student that everyone looks up to. Her presence changes the entire atmosphere in a room. She’s so impressive that she doesn’t even have to speak up for people to understand what she’s trying to say. Well, it’s of course not as simple as it seems. Komi-san can’t speak because of her communication disorder. It’s kind of similar to a form of social anxiety which makes it so that she can’t speak at all and gets anxiety when spoken to. There are many disorders in this vein and it’s a different experience for every person, but I think for those of us who have struggled with social contacts in the past, Komi can be very relatable.
The story follows Tadano-kun, Komi’s classmate who is the first one to really figure out what Komi is struggling with. Komi really wants to make friends in high school, at least a hundred, and Tadano-kun is her first friend. Not only that, he’s completely committed to helping her make even more friends. They quickly add more people to the group which include the hyper social Najimi-kun, the sociopathic popular girl Yamai Ren and the masochistic girl Akari. From there on out their high school life continues and they start adding more and more people to their friend group. The school they’re a part of only allows interesting students, whatever that means. Most of the students we meet during this show are quirky at the least and insane at the most. There’s a guy who’s just a ninja, there’s a girl that wants to compete with everything and as the story progresses we also meet Katai-kun who is very intimidating looking even though he’s super shy on the inside and looks up to Komi as a paragon of social skills. Yeah, the show has it’s fair share of misunderstandings, but in my opinion it never gets overdone to the point where it becomes annoying.
The driving forces that make this anime shine, at least in my opinion, are the relationship that slowly develops between Tadano and Komi, as well as the depictions of the situations that Komi struggles with. I want to dive into one of the scenes the anime covered because as someone with social anxiety that one hit a little bit too close to home.
This is not okay, and you know it.
As many of you who read my blog regularly know, I’m autistic and social skills didn’t come naturally to me. I’d like to think I’m reasonable at them now, I’m teaching high school so I need to at least have the basics down right? In this particular scene, Komi is going to the library to pick up a book. She’s however unsure about the procedure for checking out the book and taking it with her. So instead she just kind of wanders around while thinking up a plan, unsuccessfully. I legitimately felt my heart sink during that scene, since I’ve been in the exact same situation when I was younger. Wandering around a place gathering up the courage to talk to someone or deal with a situation is one of the most relatable experiences I can think of when it comes to my social anxiety and I just feel like Komi-san nailed this feeling. I’d like to think the author themselves has experienced some form of this social anxiety because I’d find it very impressive for someone who’s never gone through these kinds of feelings to write something that feels so real and accurate.
There was no need to call me out like that, okay?
Unfortunately, not everything about this anime is great. I mentioned the sociopathic popular girl Yamai Ren earlier during the review. She’s very much obsessed with Komi and for me the character definitely crosses the line several times. To give an example, early on during the series she kidnaps Tadano to keep him away from Komi. There’s more she gets up to, but I just find her extremely creepy, annoying and it kind of takes away from the otherwise fun and relatable vibe that the show has going for it. Even though it deals with anxiety, I find it very calming to watch this show most of the time. If you’re like me and you have a history of social anxiety, I highly recommend Komi-san can’t communicate. With its second season being well underway and in my opinion going strong and being even better than the first season at times I think now is a good time to get into this series.
We all did, Tadano, we all did.
But let me know what you think in the comments down below. Maybe you don’t like Komi-san at all and find it very unrelatable, or maybe you even feel uncomfortable watching a story about a subject like this. I’m very curious to hear your opinions. And as always, thanks for reading.
I feel like every time I start a new volume of this novel series I start by saying that this is the last novel that has story elements I recognize from the anime. Maybe with the exception of volume 4. Now that we’re in volume 5, I found even more characters I remember. I really need to rewatch the anime before the new season is released. I suppose the creators of the anime didn’t expect a third season to ever happen so they just skipped the parts of the novels they found less interesting. I’ll stop talking about the anime. Volume 5 follows Holo and Lawrence as they travel further north to the city of Lenos where they try to find out more about Holo’s past, the story of Yoitsu and whatever else they can find out. Let’s dive into it.
Lenos is a northern town and in the universe of Spice & Wolf that means that it’s closer to the pagan lands. The church has less power here, but that also means it’s more romanticized here. Lenos is currently encountering a bit of a problem though. There’s normally a big military operation each year that goes through the area and makes for lots of commerce. Unfortunately it has been canceled for this year which means a lot of the items that are normally sold with ease are now stuck. The council of fifty, a council of the influential people in Lenos, are currently deciding what to do about the fur trade. While they’re having his discussion, the merchants are lined up on the outskirts of town with their wares. Lawrence is there for other reasons of course, mainly to find out more about Yoitsu, but his merchant ways might get him sucked into trouble again.
In the local inn, Lawrence meets fellow traveling merchant Eve Bolan, who is a woman and a merchant which is quite rare apparently. The innkeeper there was also once a part of the same merchant guild as Lawrence and they got a room there to stay for a while. First thing Lawrence needed to do was find a way to talk to the guy in charge of the history books. The problem with that was that the chronicler is also a member of the council of fifty. It’s going to be difficult to get a hold of him. Unless it wasn’t a big problem and Lawrence was about to find an in. Eve Bolan knows Rigolo, the town chronicler and is willing to introduce Lawrence to him. Glad to have a way in, he visits quickly so he can get the information he needs as well as the books he needs.
Rigolo has a cool house. He has a garden hidden behind a glass wall that’s hard to see from the outside. The vibe I got from it was kind of like a sunroom. I remember a friend had this room that was just all windows in their house when we were growing up and in early summer it was great to just sit there. We played pokemon on our nintendo DS/game boys back in the day, looking out at the grass behind his house. Good times. Regardless, Lawrence points out that here the books are stored below ground as well, guarded by stone in case a fire happens. Probably smart, I cleaned my books recently and there were the little insects called silverfish on some of my books. In my defense, I have a lot of books so taking all of them off the shelf and properly cleaning them takes a very long time, but I suppose I do have to clean them more often than I do.
After talking Lawrence goes back to talk to a barmaid he met the other day. I neglected to talk about her, but I knew we’d get to her. According to the internet her name is Helena in the anime but I don’t believe we ever get her name in the novels. I also thought of her as older than she’s listed in the anime, where she is around 16 to 18. She sounds more mature, but a lot of manga and light novel writers struggle to write believable younger characters. Looking at you, your lie in april. Those are not 10 year old kids. Either way, she reveals to him that the discussion is coming to an end and that the city has decided to buy and sell furs, but only in real money and not in medieval IOUs.
Back at the inn, Lawrence, Eve and Arold hatch a plan to make a lot of money. Holo is going to be sold off as a noble’s daughter and the money they can make through that will be invested. Then with the profit they’re going to buy Holo back and live happily ever after. Holo doesn’t see much problem with this because, well, she’s Holo, even if she does get taken by slavers she’ll just turn into a wolf and murder them all. But the slavers don’t know that. The book pretty quickly lets us know that the slaves are unlikelable. Most people decide on if slavery is good or bad and Spice & Wolf has decided it’s bad (looking at you, Shield Hero). That’s actually something I’ve been thinking about a lot and why my Necromancer’s Daughter series is on hiatus for so long. I think slavery can make for very interesting plot points but I also think it’s a very difficult topic to get right. I don’t want to romanticize it or make it seem like it’s not an evil thing and the people involved in it aren’t terrible people. It’s one of those things where even saying it’s a product of the time isn’t a good defense. Either way, let’s move on and talk about the conclusion of this volume.
Holo realizes that there are some problems with her growing relationship with Lawrence. She’s an ancient wolf god and he’s a merchant in his twenties. Even if they stay together for a while, their paths have to divide at some point, right? After this deal they’ll probably go their own way. Except that’s obviously not going to happen since there’s another dozen or so volumes after this and I know some of those contain side stories but I doubt all of them do. And sure enough, Lawrence and Holo visit Rigolo one more time while the man isn’t home. The nun lets them in and allows Holo to look through the books in the basement again while Lawrence once again looks at Rigolo’s marvelous garden. Here he looks at the statues Eve has been selling and notices an oddity. Either way, he decides to continue with the deal, knowing Eve has been smuggling in rock salt.
After selling off Holo and going back to the inn he finds Eve there. This is where she finally shows her true colors and betrays Lawrence. They have a scuffle, both physically and with words, and Lawrence ends up with the short end of the stick. What’s really good about this scene is how Eve makes Lawrence realize what is more important to him. After you make all that money and you get so rich, what’s the end goal? More money? And then what? Lawrence is slowly realizing happiness can’t be bought and I like the direction the story is taking. After being betrayed by Eve, she does leave him with the deed to the inn which, luckily, is worth as much as Holo was sold for. So Lawrence goes to get his traveling companion back, and the two are reunited again, and they’re not quite ready to stop journeying together.
This volume’s review turned out a bit long compared to the others, but that’s okay from time to time. I’ll try to keep the next one shorter and sweet. Emphasis on try. Thanks for reading.
Maybe 13 or 14 years ago I watched a video of a strange cartoon that I’d never seen before. The song Until the day I die by Story of the Year was blasting from my pc speakers, you know the built in ones that sounded like total crap but you were glad you had something, and the characters on screen were fighting and casting what seemed like magic. Back then I had no concept of what anime was, let alone Naruto. I didn’t even really understand what I’d stumbled across. This was still a year or two before I got into anime and when I still thought Pokemon was an american cartoon and so was Dragonball Z.
This wave of animations also introduced me to some louder musical genres. Before then I mainly listened to what was on the radio and a lot of hip hop/R&B. These videos were always accompanied by rock, metal or a genre adjacent to those two. For the next couple of years, especially after I started watching anime properly, I would often watch these AMVs or Anime Music Videos.
These AMVs were a big part in spreading anime to a broader audience. Obviously this was all fan content, but these videos got tons of views because they were just so damn cool. The subject of an AMV would often be a specific fight in an anime, like Ichigo vs. Grimmjow from Bleach or a ton of Naruto Vs. Sasuke. The really talented AMV makers would match up certain beats in the fight to the music so it would be even more satisfying to watch.
I’m often reminded about an AMV I watched about Luffy Vs. Hody from One Piece. This is in my opinion the weakest arc in One Piece, but the fight itself is pretty cool. So taking an arc and just bringing it down to a four minute video with a banger song behind it is a great way to still consume it.
Some people even went extra crazy and did some ridiculous things. Take for example Anime’s got Talent. It’s a three and a half minute compilation of a whole bunch of anime, just celebrating the entire genre. And all of this done to the background of it being Anime’s got talent? I wish I had half the creative bones the person who made this video had. It’s probably my favorite anime-related random video I’ve ever seen.
Why am I talking about it today? I guess it’s just nostalgia. It’s a time I’m severely missing. Coming home from school and watching AMVs for an hour or so before continuing watching One Piece for the rest of the day while solidly ignoring my homework. It was a celebration of the anime we all loved so much and brought people together when Anime wasn’t as big a phenomenon as it is in the west now. It’s obviously still growing, but I can’t help but look at the road traveled and see how much has changed. And I have to admit that I got into anime pretty late. I’ve heard people talk about bootlegging VHS tapes with bad translations as their only option. By the time I started watching anime at the very least streaming sites (you know, the definitely perfectly legal ones) were becoming more common and although there would be some stuff missing and a lot of incomplete catalogs compared to now, at least the big shows were decently available. And I think for a lot of people these AMVs were their first introduction to anime. And if not that, they were a big part of their consumption. So after reading this I urge everyone to go to youtube and search for some good AMVs, to celebrate the good old days of anime. Thanks for reading.
