Category: Anime

  • Movie Review: Weathering with You

    Morishima Hodaka is a 16-year-old high school student fleeing his remote island home. Amano Hina is an orphaned girl with the power to change the weather. Destiny brings them together in a Tokyo deluged in rain. But will destiny tear them apart? Weathering with You has all the elements of a classic Shinkai Makoto anime: gorgeous…

  • Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Harem

    Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata is an anime all otaku can resonate with. Season 1 follows the ups and downs of a high school indie game development group, with a mix of humour, harem hijinks and character interplay. Season 2 exchanges the humour for drama, with interpersonal tension and conflict threatening to tear the group apart.…

  • Anime Retrospective: Record of Lodoss War

    Record of Lodoss War belongs to a different era of Japanese anime, and indeed of storytelling. There are no obligatory fanservice moments, no in-jokes aimed at the audience, no audience surrogates in the form of bland high school otaku protagonists, no injections of unnecessary modern political messaging. Record of Lodoss War does one thing, and one thing only:…

  • Anime Analysis: GATE – Thus the JSDF Fought There!

      GATE – Thus the JSDF Fought There had all the ingredients for awesomeness: modern military technology, high fantasy setting, magic, politics, war. And squandered everything. The anime started promisingly enough. A mysterious gateway opens in Ginza. An army of legionnaires, orcs and dragons pours out. The Japanese Self Defense Force responds decisively, defeating the invasion.…

  • Anime Analysis: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash

    Party wipe in the first five minutes. If the anime adaptation of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash were set in a realistic and unforgiving world, the main cast would have been slaughtered in the first fight scene. Fortunately for them, they somehow blunder their way out and live to fight another die. Unfortunately, the sequence…