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Jul 2, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Revue Starlight wants to be 24 episodes so badly.

Starlight is a very interesting case study when it comes to anime. It's 12 episodes. It's a transmedia franchise spanning anime, manga, and stage shows. There's nothing else quite like it. It's an Utena-like. It's a slice of life drama with low stakes. The fate of these girls are on the line. It only succeeds at some of this.

I think Starlight could have been truly brilliant if it had been given more time to breathe, but it has a lot it wants to say and not enough time to say it. Episode one bombards us with a ...
May 20, 2025
Mixed Feelings
The Rose of Versailles (2025): The Good, The Bad, and The Pop Songs

Okay, let's start with the good.

First of all, it's The Rose of Versailles, so no matter what it kicks ass. Secondly, the animation is absolutely gorgeous. It perfectly captures the beauty of the classic 1970s shoujo art with its meticulous details and sparkles, and I could hope for nothing less in a modern take on The Rose of Versailles. It also contains a few plot points from the original manga that the original TV series didn't adapt, so fans who haven't read the manga will see them, and it shows an appreciation for ...
May 9, 2025
Mysterious Girlfriend X is weird; there's no denying that. It's known less by its title and more by the moniker of "The Spit Fetish Anime." It's an anime I absolutely cannot recommend to anyone.

But I'm going to try anyways.

For a moment, let's put a pin in the spit stuff, because it's actually a relatively small part of the anime when you look at the bigger picture. What Mysterious Girlfriend X really is is a rather honest and true-to-life depiction of coming-of-age and growing into your own sexuality with your equally interested peers who are undergoing all of the same discovery that you are.

If ...
Apr 26, 2025
Mixed Feelings
What made Madoka Magica soar was its clever playing with the pre-established tropes of the magical girl genre and how it created characters with depth and complexity that could not exist outside of the story's darker take on the tropes.

Magia record...does not do that.

There's nothing wrong with the story, per say, but it's really more like these characters just so happen to be magical girls. It does not focus in on the inherent trauma that is becoming a child who fights monsters and having your emotions exploited for personal gain like its parent series does. And why set a story in the Madoka universe ...
Apr 17, 2025
Ano Yoru no Pool (lit. The Pool That Night) is a beautifully profound story of human connection and adolescence, packing so much care and meaning into a short chapter.

It follows two teenage boys who attend high school together—one popular, one not—who bond with each other over the fact that they're both outsiders. Koizumi is bullied by his classmates for being awkward and frail, but despite this, he forms a connection with the popular Hayato, who is something of an outcast within his own friend group due to his disinterest in romance and relationships (which, as I'm sure anyone who once attended high school will remember, ...
Mar 13, 2025
Mixed Feelings
If this anime does anything right, it's that it gives people absolutely no reason to ever play the game it's based on. Not only does it actually answer the biggest question the game left hanging (and the only question fans actually wanted to see answered), but it also fleshes out the original game's adapted storyline. It's kind of crazy how much more depth and complexity it adds to their versions of the game's cases, considering they're about 40 minutes shorter than their originals.

And...that's about it.

For what it's worth, Hershel Layton becoming a father feels like a very natural next step for his character, and seeing ...
Feb 28, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Great Pretender is a manga based on the original anime of the same name. The anime ran for 23 episodes, successfully telling a smashing story of action, mystery, drama, and crime. The manga hit the ground running getting the same thing started, setting out to be a fresh take on this action-packed tale of worldwide spectacle.

And then it...wasn't.

After such a promising start, it was cancelled after three chapters due to the author's health issues.

Well.

I can't say there's much incentive to read this now is there?

The three chapters we did get were great, of course. It's Great Pretender, after all. What a great ...
Feb 26, 2025
Man, remember how in the 2000s companies would just pay fanfiction authors to officially publish their doujinshi? Good times. Bring that back. And if you're in the mood for some officially licensed 2000s fanfiction, oh boy does this have you covered.

This doujin anthology has Capcom's official seal of approval on it, so you can expect that the authors know what they're doing. They have a very good grasp of the characters, and do well mixing the comedic with the dramatic. I found a lot of the stories in this anthology to be very poignant and introspective, and I could tell the authors really loved and ...
Feb 26, 2025
It's absolutely bizarre to me that this manga has gotten little to no attention since its publication in English, because it is an absolute treat.

Sexuality and gender are more fluid than most people would like to admit. Of course, for the vast majority of people—gay or straight, trans or cis, or anywhere in between—those things will not be fluid. Once people realize who they are, it generally stays that way. However, that absolutely does not apply to everybody, and in fact, the opposite is much more common than people often think.

Deborah is my Rival is the story of a fussy okama falling for a sweet ...
Feb 6, 2025
Mixed Feelings
Preliminary (4/12 eps)
On one hand, it's a less complex version of House where the problematic doctor is a cute anime girl instead of a gross 40 year old man.

On the other hand, it's just an ordinary detective story that uses the medical environment as set dressing and in reality has very little reason to be about a doctor.

Neither hand is particularly appealing.

I mean, if you're a huge fan of detective stories, it's not bad. Detective is one of my favorite genres, and I enjoy watching Ameku MD solve the mysteries. However, the sell of the series is the "doctor" gimmick, and it relies on its gimmick for ...


It’s time to ditch the text file.
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