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.

The Anime Recap Episode – # 6: January 2018

New year, new season of anime, and a new group of finished series that people will either quickly forget having existed (Juuni Taisen) or will be relieved are finally done (Children of the Whales) so they can finish wasting their time waiting for these series to “get good” or were part of the select few that were good enough people will spend the upcoming months/years hoping for a sequel to be made (Houseki no Kuni). I hope to get to a proper look back at the best anime of 2017 soon; for today, we are focusing on the new anime that began airing for the Winter 2018 season.

Traditionally, the winter and summer seasons are considered the weaker seasons of the year with winter being the weakest overall. Outside of a couple obvious must-watch series it looked like the Winter 2018 season was going to follow the narrative and I would be able to do some catching up on my anime backlog. Then, as it has often occurred in the past, when I started watching the series I thought I would be able to write off, I discovered many of these series could not be so easily dismissed.

I don’t think I’ll find the time this season to tackle my anime backlog and I have the feeling that I still am missing a series from this season I should be watching. So, instead of asking the people reading this to recommend an old show, I’ll be asking which series I should be watching this season. Read on to see which three series the potential pick-ups.

Secret Santa Project Review – Memories

Surprise!

It feels like an age has passed since I’ve last written something here to justify the “and anime with a little written SF thrown in blogger” part of the mental description I have for myself. Actually, it has been an Age since I last wrote here – meaning – just a few months ago, in September, was a time when Hillary was going to be the next President and now we’re living in a decidedly different future age. And just think, 2017 could turn out to be even more absurd than 2016. Thank goodness there will be Natsume Yuujinchou season 6 to turn to when 2017 gets too crazy.

The Best Anime Of 2015 – Part 3: VMA Awards

There’s a running joke in Shirobako about how the director will tell every department involved in making the anime that they are the most important in ensuring that the anime turns out good. They play it for laughs but the director is more right than not; each department and person is needed to give their best or else it will show in the final product somehow. I wish I had the expertise to cover all the departments that deserve recognition but I don’t and until I do, I’m not going to pretend I otherwise.

So, let’s see who’s won this year’s VMA Awards.

This Might Be the Strongest Anime Season in a Long Time

If asked, that would be how I would characterize this season so far. Look at this line-up: Noragami Aragoto, Haikyuu Season 2, Owarimonogatari, and One Punch Man – aka sequel to my #11 anime of 2014, sequel to my #5 anime of 2014, sequel to my #2 anime of 2009 ~ #7 anime of 2012 ~ #7 anime of 2013, and an anime that seems destined to finish at least in my top 10, if not higher for 2015. Sequels can be a bit touchy but all of these three sequels have started very strongly and seem set to be worthy additions to their respected franchises. Or looked at from another direction we have series from Bones, Production IG, Shaft, and Madhouse; we’re short just Kyoto Animation from being able to say this season has basically all the established top quality animation studios. (Waiting for the Sunrise fans to say something 🙂 .)

Anime Quiz 13 Answers

Once more into the breach. I couldn’t really summon the energy to get this done early, hence the tardiness of this post. I’m glad for the time that’s being freed up – I want to focus on writing a look back at the winter season next week, for example – but I already miss doing these quizzes.

I’d drag my feet a little longer here, but, there’s a lot of ground to cover with these questions.