Some Housekeeping and Introducing a New Subtopic

Hey guys.

I’ve done some tinkering around with the menu, and as you can see I’ve added links to all of my different blog posts I have been making here. Clicking on any of those will send you to where you want to go if you are looking for my Shallow Dives, Lists, or Seasonal Discussion.

I recently did a 3-episode check-in on the anime of the fall 2018 season, so in case it was missed in the shuffle, you can find the link here!

Additionally, I’ve added a new subtopic that I want to discuss: Character Dives.

These will be a new type of blog post where I take my shallow dive format and apply it to a character of a certain show. I’ll talk about a certain aspect of that character and how I think it makes them a better character, or helps relate to a theme, idea or something related to the anime. I did something earlier with my look into two of the characters in Shimoneta, (which you can read here.) and I’m moving that post over to Character Dives. I’m looking forward to expanding my thoughts into some of my favorite characters and I hope you’ll enjoy them.

As always, thank you for reading the blog.

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On the Radar for Fall 2018: The (mostly) three-episode check-in.

Hey guys.

The fall anime season is well underway and we are already 3 or 4 episodes deep for many series! Now that enough time has passed, I wanted to check in on the ten anime I have been watching and give my thoughts. Are they still good? bad? Let’s take a look after the cut!

Careful there, or you’ll fall off the rails harder than Conception did.

Quick Thoughts on the Announcement of Date A Live Season 3: Welcome Back!

Hey guys!

I’m nursing a hangover, but I wanted to get out some quick thoughts on the announcement that Date A Live’s third season has been confirmed for a Winter 2019 release! Which means we’ll be getting it in the next anime season!

It’s no DxD, but this show is still great!

Date A Live is a solid entry into the Harem genre, with a great female lead, fun secondary characters, and an ironclad commitment to it’s premise which allows the show’s idea of “dating” the girls to keep their powers in check to work within the universe. With solid comedy and some half decent drama and action, it has remained a popular series that has managed to score multiple seasons. It was up in the air on whether or not the season, which was confirmed in 2017 would actually happen as the animation studio responsible for this (and FUCKING Shinmai Maou) declared bankruptcy earlier this year. However, it seems things have been salvaged and we’ll get to step back into the worlds of Tohka, Origami, Kotori, and Yoshino once again!

Date A Live is an upper-mid tier harem anime in my view, but after this season’s rather lackluster servings, I welcome the chance to watch some good quality harem fun once again. I only hope we get another scene like this.

I heard you liked Lists: My Personal Favorite Anime and Manga of all Time.

Hey guys.

I’m looking forward to doing a three-episode check in on the shows I’ve been watching this season, but as there are a few more to watch this weekend before that can be done. So I thought that today I’ll run through a list of what are my personal favorite anime and manga. The ones listed below might not be the best read or received pieces of work, but they hold a special place in my heart. These range from shonen to shoujo, mecha to action, and ecchi to erotic. Many of these you’ll have for sure seen on this blog before and of course, none of these are in any real order. Let’s get into it after the cut.

ReZero – Starting Life in Another World: The Masterpiece that brought me back to Anime.

Let’s start this off with a story.

In 2016 my attitude towards Anime was that I was pretty much done with it. While I still read One Piece weekly and caught the yearly Gundam show, I was pretty much done and done with the entire industry. I was done with the tropes, the all too similar plotlines, the silly characters, all of it. Mostly because I was in a point in my life where I was figuring out the next steps in my career while working overseas, I just didn’t have time to devote to anime. It was not a feeling of anger or bitterness, but more in that I had taken up my fill of what Anime had to offer me, and I was just kinda over it.

A close friend of mine, however, wasn’t, and he was watching every anime season and always trying to make me watch the shows, something that I rarely ever took him up on. However in the summer of 2016 something changed, and the one-two punch of discovering High School DxD began to reignite my long dormant love for anime. It was then that for some reason I took my friend’s advice and watched the show that we are discussing today.

Needless to say, this anime was exactly the medicine I needed. So after the cut let’s take a shallow dive into Tappei Nagasuki’s ReZero – Starting Life in Another World.

Good lord did this show knock me on my ass.

Bakuman (Manga): A Manga about making a Manga to make an Anime to make a Marriage.

I am a firm believer in the “Sausage Principle” something that was brought up by ‘Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver a few years back. The idea is simple: If you love something, don’t find out how it’s made.

I love anime and manga, and I feel I love it even more because I do not know what actually goes into creating it. I have a faint idea, and if you are around the internet long enough you get a basic outline of how anime and manga are created, and while that is a whole other discussion that involves serious issues, I want to instead talk about a manga that quite possibly is the best glimpse into the industry we have.

Let’s face it, anyone who is a fan of the industry has had those youthful dreams of packing up your bags, flying to Japan and hitting it big as a mangaka (manga artists). Don’t deny it, you’ve had the idea, I’ve had the idea, everyone has had the idea. It’s the joyful dreams of youth and it’s wonderful, but during those dreams did we really have an idea of just how that industry works, and the time commitment it takes?

One such series does, and after the cut let’s take a shallow dive into the manga version of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata’s Bakuman.

It also has some of the best art around. Like holy shit.

How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord: Simple, Superb, Successful

 

2018 has been a pretty solid year for Ecchi. With shows like Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs, the fourth season of High School DxD and recent additions Senran Kagura, and My Sister My Writer, there has been a steady supply of anime titty to tide over fans, which is always welcome, but there has been one show that has stood out from all of them.

I’ve already done my quick thought on this show, but now enough time has passed and my thoughts have solidified enough that I can take a proper Shallow Dive into the series. So join me after the cut as we dive into Yukiya Murasaki’s How NOT to Summon a Demon Lord.

Even well over a month after it has finished. I’m STILL surprised this has been so well received.