Birdie Wing: Golf Girls’ Story (Part 1) – A Secret Santa Review

In the end, it turns out that participating in the anime Secret Santa project – now in it’s 14^th year, started at Reverse Thieves and continued on the AGC podcast site – is the one thing that will pull me back, dust off the cobwebs, oil the gears a bit, and get me to write something here for my mostly anime with a little SF thrown-in blog The Null Set. I first participated 11 years ago in 2011 and I don’t know which part I enjoy more, the picking of anime for someone else to watch or discovering what new anime someone has chosen for me to watch. Over the years I’ve discovered a number of great anime from participating and I still haven’t been handed a lemon yet – will this year continue the trend?

Let’s find out.

Kachou Ouji (Legend of Black Heaven) – A Secret Santa Review

Oh! Hello again, somehow another year has slipped by again or should I say that somehow only a year has passed by again – I’m not sure which it is or maybe it’s both. The world seems to be simultaneously worse off, better off, and about the same as it was a year ago at this time. One thing that I’m glad is back again is the anime Secret Santa project, which has been going strong for 13 years now. I don’t know which part I enjoy more, the picking of anime for someone else to watch or discovering what new anime someone has chosen for me to watch. Over the years I’ve discovered a number of great anime from participating and I still haven’t gotten a lemon yet – will this year continue the trend?

Let’s find out.

Perfect Blue – A Secret Santa Review

Hello, it’s been awhile. I hadn’t intended to take a whole year off from blogging; I intended last year’s secret Santa review (of the excellent Interstella5555, which I still routinely re-watch) to be the kick start of a more productive year of anime blogging. I’d just started feeling like discussing animation again after 5 months had passed since the Kyoto Animation fire (which I now think of as a foreshock of what 2020 turned out to be). I also had the desire to see if I could increase my stats for 2020 over 2019 as the last time I had a yearly increase in views was 2009. Then 2020 happened … and, yeah …. here we are. The funny thing is I was able to accomplish my goal; with a week left of 2020 and this being my first post of 2020, I’ve increased my views for the year by over 2500 from 2019.

But, one is never done blogging. Something will always bring you back and for me it’s participating in the anime Secret Santa project and I’m excited to see what this year has in store for me. This year marks, I believe, the 12th year of the Secret Santa Project and my ninth year participating. Reverse Thieves started the project and continued it for ten years and this year marks the second year that All Geeks Considered hosts this absolutely enjoyable project.

Interstella5555: The 5tory of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem – 5ecret 5anta Review

This year marks, I believe, the 11th year of the Secret Santa Project and my eighth year participating. Reverse Thieves started the project and continued it for ten years and this year marks the first year that All Geeks Considered hosts this absolutely enjoyable project. I don’t know which part I enjoy more, the picking of anime for someone else to watch or discovering what new anime someone has chosen for me to watch.

My track record in receiving good picks has been very good. Will this year continue the string or did I receive a big lump of coal this year?

Thank You Kyoto Animation

After the horrific tragedy that occurred last July, I knew I needed to write as near a perfect personal tribute to the wonderful people at Kyoto Animation as I am able to before I would even contemplate continuing to write about anime. It seemed like the right and proper thing to do, as well as being the bare minimum I needed to do as so much of the joy that anime has given me in the 15+ years I’ve watched it has been connected to Kyoto Animation.

While the intent as obvious to me, the form of such a tribute alluded me. I almost decided on doing a countdown of my favorite KyoAni works, in part because I’d been thinking of doing one for years now, but realized after further reflection that some clickbaity sounding article was not even close to what Kyoto Animation deserved from me. A better option would have been a long post where I talked about an assorted list of favorites and I almost started blocking such a post out. I realized I still wasn’t happy with this idea since I could really make such a post about any animation studio. As I worked slowly towards the answer, I also realized that I sort of didn’t want to find the answer. Doing so would acknowledge what happened, make it a fact, and remove any space in my brain to retreat to and imagine Schrodinger’s box is still unopened. Incidentally, that’s why I’ve never watched Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue; once I do then there are no more movies of his I can look forward to seeing and I have to acknowledge he’s been gone for 9 years now.

To combat my disinclination to post this, I signed up for this year’s Anime Secret Santa that the website all geek’s considered is continuing from the tradition started by Reverse Thieves. To post my review for that, I need to write this first 🙂 .

And I eventually realized why I’m so uniquely thankful for Kyoto Animation. Episode 0 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina.

Carole & Tuesday – First Impressions

There are only a few director/creators in anime that their mere name is enough to make a sizable portion of anime fandom commit to watching their shows. This blue moon of a season happens to have two such director/creators. The first is Shinichirou Watanabe with his work – Carole & Tuesday – and the second is Kunihiko Ikuhara with his work – Sarazanmai. Of the two, I was more curious about Carole & Tuesday because one kinda already knows what one will get with Ikuhara (interesting story wrapped in a bonkers, memorable, animation style) and I wanted to see if Shinichirou Watanabe can channel his inner Shoji Kawamori.