Reflections of an old anime fan: What has streaming brought us?

I’ve been an anime fan off-and-on for 23 years, but I’m usually on the peripheries of the fandom. I know enough to feel slightly superior to the casuals, but I certainly don’t know as much as the people who live and breathe anime and manga. That is my roundabout way of saying, I’m planning on […]

The Otakusphere: Harsh working conditions, the Ocean Group and strange survival tactics

So today is a SoCo and coke kind of day. I’m cruising into my weekend, and I saw Dominic over at the Little Anime Blog put this post up today and I spotted a similar one at Lesley’s Anime and Manga Corner yesterday. I know that I’m certainly not large enough for my recommendations to […]

Thank you Bonny Frasier. The best character in The Big O

“We old folks have to teach you youngsters that that the sun will never rise over this city again.” — Big Ear, The Big O episode 5 Bring Back My Ghost The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that Bonny Frasier is the most important character in The Big O. He […]

Welcome to the best post-apocalypse

“I constantly reminded myself that the setting is a unique character in and of itself.” — Keiichi Sato about Paradigm City Welcome to Paradigm City — the home of the best apocalypse. For the uninitiated, something happened in Paradigm City 40 years ago that made everyone to lose their memories. Whatever happened has a left […]

Reflections of an old anime fan: Why did I restart this blog?

When I decided to start writing in this blog again, I put up a fun post that made anime references that are a little old, but I thought would give the flavor of who I am. I’m just a guy, who likes to write and I want to write about anime. But I decided I […]

In My View: Enter the Anime?

So for people of a certain age, they will remember an ad from ADV Films that basically started with: “What is anime? Anime is action, sci-fi, comedy, martial arts… ” Netflix put together it’s own answer to that question in the 58-minute-long disaster that is Enter the Anime. It starts like that ADV commercial, and […]

Nightingales, Black Forests and Western symbols in The Big O

“The story I am going to tell you happened a great many years ago, so it is well to hear it now before it is forgotten” — The Nightingale, By Hans Christian Andersen When anime creators slip in references to Western symbols, stories or jobs, they’re either really on the nose — a cross means […]

Batman, Art Deco Robots and Anime History: This is The Big O

“It’s weird to watch a show that so clearly feels like a “lost Toonami anime,” from my perspective of never having seen it before.” — Wrong Every Time In my 25-year-long, on and off again affair with anime, some shows never really disappear. Shows like Evangelion or Cowboy Beebop or Dragonball Z seem to persist […]

The Spirit Never Dies!

I’ll never give up, never give in. The spirit of a boy never dies, and from the barren earth I am resurrecting In Search of Number Nine. I will pierce the heavens with the strength of my drill, and bring new life to this land. The people at r/anime told me that anime blogs were […]

RWBY isn’t anime. Please stop before you ruin everything

I recently read an article in Variety about the Rooster Teeth layoffs, and I was about two-third of the way through when I ran across this line. “… and animated series “RWBY,” the first Western anime series to be distributed in Japan.” This isn’t the first time I’ve run across this dangerous nonsense. So lets […]