The Otakusphere: Recommendations, history and a whole lot of reviews

Here we are at the end of another week or the beginning of one depending on how you look at the passing of time. Personally, I’m not thrilled about the hurly-burly of another week ramping up, so I will just take a lazy Sunday for what it is. And like the families of old, who […]

In My View: It’s not censorship, it’s editing

A long time ago, I watched the first section of Sword Art Online. My wife had started the series on Netflix and I viewed it over her shoulder. Overall, the show was acceptable. As someone who suffered through the BeeTrain-disaster that was .Hack//Sign, it was miles ahead of that. But a cat that’s been dead […]

All aboard the Galaxy Express 999

I have a strange love for Leiji Matsumoto. What makes this strange is I’m not from the right generation to have watched Star Blazers as a teenager. Sure. I have vague memories of a concerned hero peering up at the bust of Admiral Okita and wondering if he can ever live up to his memory. […]

The Otakusphere: Living an Oxygen normal life

Well good morning to the Otakusphere out there. I hope that you had a lovely week in the real world. The last of our snow is melting over here and the world is returning to its dismal post-winter/pre-spring grayness. That isn’t going to get me down though. I’ve got myself a fresh cup of coffee, […]

In My View: Was Gatekeeping guy wrong?

So gatekeeping made its way around the AniTwitter circle in a dramatic fashion this week with a tweet that was so hyperbolic that the only non-attention-seeking response is derision. Talking about gatekeeping anime itself is not especially interesting. Gatekeepers are fighting over imaginary cultural real estate for imaginary stakes that only really matter to them. […]

Blog Notes: Haruhi, #TheJCo and why does everyone wonder about Misato?

Hey, everyone out there in Internet Land. I’m still alive. Man, what a year 2020 was. As things seem to be on a trajectory back to normalcy, I figured that I would do one of these “What am I doing with the blog?” posts. I’ve never been a big fan of these. It’s navel-gazing taken […]

The Otakusphere: Censorship, cultural exchange and reckless fire

Good morning and welcome to another beautiful day in the Otakusphere. Today is a great day. First of all, we had snow. I was worried we were just going to have three months of pre-spring instead of an actual winter, It’ll be gone by next week, but for now, I will enjoy it. The other […]

The Otakusphere: Pac-Man Tetris, bad plots and it’s the pandemic, man

Well, it’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m running a bit late for my cruise around the Otakusphere. I wanted to write about Ideon, Eva and influence yesterday, so that’s what I did. The post is doing surprisingly well. I think most of the people who normally read my blog probably have already read it. If you’re […]

In My View: Why Ideon doesn’t matter

For the last week or so I’ve had two discussions bouncing around in my head taking up space. One was this post over at Full Frontal Moe criticizing the idea that Eva is a deconstruction of the mecha genre, and the other is this tweet thread from Thaliarchus about how we judge newer examples of […]