Man does anime love to geek out over oddly-specific stuff. That can be a real trip when, like Silver Spoon, it hits on something personal.
Animal Crossing, Rune Factory, and Intrinsic Motivation
Animal Crossing and Rune Factory both hold my attention long after their objectives run dry. Sometimes, you get to write your own quests.
Guilty Crown, Supercell, and Showcases
Guilty Crown is available to stream on Hulu and on Funimation’s website. I appreciate Guilty Crown quite a lot. I am also acutely aware that Guilty Crown is not a great show. Its plot is a busy, haphazard mess. The characters are outlandishly over-designed (some brazenly feeding the male gaze). Even the title is kinda sorta really stupid. And …
Kindred Spirits and Progress Markers
Kindred Spirits on the Roof is available on Steam and other digital PC storefronts. People still love the look and feel of physical books – they’re just nice objects to see lined up on a shelf to or to hold in your hand. The latter is even practical – crack open a novel and you …
Megalobox and Invented Nostalgia
Megalobox is available to stream on Netflix and Crunchyroll Everybody loves the good ol’ days, huh? Reboots and revisits are nothing new; how many times have we told and retold the story of The Magnificent Seven Samurai? Doesn’t Peter Cullen get tired of being tapped for a new Transformers continuity every other year? Didn’t Fullmetal Alchemist get remade less than five …
Persona 4, Yosuke, and Messaging
Persona 4 is available on Playstation 2. Persona 4 Golden, an expanded version, is available on Playstation Vita and PC (Steam). I’ll be honest; I had very different post brewing back in May, about an entirely different topic. Arguably a more fun one. But a lot has happened since then, both in the world at …
Komi-san, Gokushufudou, and Single-Concept Comedies
I adore Gokushufudou. It's also a remarkably static, one-note comedy. And yet it pulls some clever tricks to get away with that supposedly-narrow thesis.
Superstar Saga and Personality
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga is available on Gameboy Advance, 3DS, and Wii U. I’ve always loved it when Mario gets out of the Mushroom Kingdom for a spell. Sure, his classic platforming feels like comfort food, and – as Super Mario Maker makes abundantly clear – it’s remarkably flexible in its simplicity. But every time Mario steps outside …
Mobile Suit Gundam and On-Ramps
Everybody seems to be picking up an extra hobby right now, after all, and model-kit-building has always struck me as a fun pastime. Except when it immediately becomes a time trap.
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 and Perseverance
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 is available to stream on Hulu, HiDive, and VRV. When the world becomes inherently stressful, people’s taste for fiction tends to gravitate toward one of two directions: Escapism, running pell-mell in the opposite direction from dreary reality (the Animal Crossing approach)Terror or tragedy, leaning right into the stress of it all (the Grindhouse or Grave of the …
One Week Friends and Distancing
One Week Friends is available to stream on Crunchyroll, HiDive, and VRV. Anime has a tendency to pull some weird concepts out of its collective hat. See, for example, the the buddy comedy film where Buddha and Jesus share an apartment. Or the show about an after-school club for piloting (remarkably accurately-drawn) tanks as a …
VA-11 Hall-A and Low Perspective
It’s hard for me to consume stories about war. They always leverage it to say something important, and I deeply appreciate that. But for me, they’re simply too far removed from my own experience. Enter VA-11 Hall-A.
Stars Align and Rock Bottom
Everybody loves a comeback story. They're flat-out inspiring. But like in Stars Align, to get back up again, you have to get knocked down first.
Untitled Goose Game and Expression
Untitled Goose Game is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, and XBox One. Untitled Goose Game is the best role-playing game I played in 2019. Sure, it’s billed as a puzzle and a stealth game. But at its core, it’s the purest form of video-game sandbox that I’ve experienced in years. The point of a …
Pokémon Twilight Wings and Credit
The very first thing to excite me about Pokémon: Twilight Wings was its staff in Studio Colorido. But that’s hardly reflected at all in its international release.
This Thing Is Neat 