The 12 Days of Anime Christmas – Day 9: That Time I Helped Make Avatar Be a Better Series

Yes, I know Avatar is not anime – the creative decision makers are American and not Japanese – however, one of my most successful posts on The Null Set dealt with how the first Avatar series ended and this is an anime blog, so, the new Avatar series, Legend of Korra, is fair game as far as I’m concerned.

High School of the Dead – Episode 12 – Finding Art and Politics Between the Zombies

EMP Pulse for the win!

It’s time for yet another entry of finding odd things to enjoy in an anime. This time the target is the final episode of High School of the Dead (HOTD). This time I’m limiting myself to mentioning only two small scenes. Any more and I run the risk of going into full rant mode about the problems and observations I had about the show. (I really, really want to complain about how implausible the HOTD zombies would be at causing the level of chaos seen in this show.)

Fall 2010 Impressions – Sym-Bionic Titan

Remember when Cartoon Network made good animated series and not insipid garbage? That far distance time when turning on Cartoon Network in prime time meant always getting an animated show and not an aging, fifth-rate, live action movie. When Cartoon Network executives didn’t mind licensing shows and viewers of all ages were able to watch the best anime coming out of Japan.

I do and I miss it.

Ever hopeful for a phoenix-like return to form by Cartoon Network, when I heard about the new series by Genndy Tartakovsky, Sym-Bionic Titan, I got excited – maybe the long, lean winter is over.

Film Review – Pixar’s UP

I finally had the opportunity to catch Pixar’s latest work – Up. As a fan of Pixar from their very first movie, Toy Story, I had every intention of catching this in the movie theaters but various reasons prevented me at first. When I was ready to go, it had been playing for well over a month and I figured at this point, I should just wait till it hit the cheap movies. So I started waiting and as summer wore on, I continued to wait; sure that if I gave in, it would move to the cheap movies the next week and I’d be out the extra six dollars I would pay to see it in the first run theater. My patience was rewarded and this past weekend Up showed up at the local cheap movies. 🙂

The 5 Personal Most Influential (non-anime) Animation Shows

Awhile back I posted my top 10 influential anime shows. I was happy with the final list but something nagged me about it and I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was until just recently. I mentioned maybe putting up my most influential non-anime animation shows but didn’t really see the importance of this list. The moment of insight came as I was reading another blogger’s reason for dropping a show. I realized that I enjoyed the show for the exact same reasons that he was dropping the show and that long before I was an anime fan, what I liked in animation and entertainment in general was already being shaped. Therefore I thought it would be a good idea to create a companion list for non-anime animation and post it.

Aang the anti-Avatar

I’d like to commend the makers of Avatar for showing that Americans can still turn out a quality animated tv series that has a story to tell and ends itself when that story is told. I felt, though, that they dropped the ball with the ending. (Spoilers ahead.)