Despite being produced by the respected Noitamina and Production I.G., Guilty Crown has garnered a lot of criticism from fans, especially amongst bloggers. By the first episode, people were already deriding it as too full of cliches and having an annoying protagonist, many dropping it before the episodes even hit the double digits. But while everyone around me was hating on it, I continued to enjoy it (seriously not mockingly). Throughout its 22 episodes, I tried to see what’s so despicable about it and couldn’t find anything that was that bad. Do I think it’s a great anime? No…but do I think it’s a good, or at least a decent anime? I’d like to argue so…
Nisemonogatari and the art of ambiguity
Nisemonogatari, the anticipated sequel of 2009’s Bakemonogatari, has recently finished airing. I didn’t become as enamored with Bakemonogatari as a lot of others did, but I found it to be a unique and memorable series nonetheless. It was a rather strange and ambiguous anime too, though not necessarily in a bad way. And, much to some fans’ pleasure and other fans’ dismay, Nisemonogatari ups the ambiguity even more…
Finishing up fall ’11 reviews: Working’!!, Fate/Zero, and Haganai
Before the year is over I want to review the three one-cour fall ’11 series I recently finished watching. I don’t have a ton to say about each so I decided to put them all on one post…
Trying to grasp Mawaru Penguindrum
Along with Madoka and Steins;Gate, Mawaru Penguindrum has been one of the most praised anime of 2011. Of course, there are plenty of people who don’t like it, but it seems like the fans of it are the ones making the most buzz. Having seen and loved director Kunihiko Ikuhara’s other famous work, Revolutionary Girl Utena, I had high hopes for Penguindrum as well. I liked the series well enough in its early episodes, confident in the fact that the confusing things would “be explained later.” So now that it’s over, why do I feel so…dissatisfied?
Final spring/summer 2011 anime reviews
Seven anime I’ve been watching this past spring and summer seasons have come to an end. Normally I like to give each series its own review post, especially for the longer shows. But I also like to review anime when it’s fresh in my mind, and if I wait to review each one individually, it’ll take me longer than I’d like to get them all done. So instead I opted to make a single post here for the last four spring/summer 2011 anime I’m going to review. Since there’s four of them, I tried to keep each review concise while still getting out everything I want to say…
Double Noitamina review: No.6 and Usagi Drop
Like last season’s [C] and AnoHana, this passing summer season of anime included a sci-fi and slice-of-life Noitamina series; No.6 and Usagi Drop respectively. With the typical Noitamina run of just 11 episodes, how did the two vastly different shows fare?…
Steins;Gate review
My top 5 anime of the season
For lack of a better post today, I decided to try something new and pick my current five favorites amongst the seasonal anime I’m watching (with inspiration from kevo’s ongoing “Anime Power Rankings” project)…
Double Noitamina review: [C] and AnoHana
The two spring ’11 Noitamina anime (with unnecessarily long names) – [C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control and Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae wo Boku-tachi wa Mada Shiranai – have recently come to an end. With only eleven episodes each, how did they fare? Let’s take a look…
Digimon: from Adventure to Xros Wars
Back in the late 90s/early 2000s when Pokemon was at the height of its popularity, many similar “monster collection” anime and game series were brought over from Japan in the hopes of cashing in on this current fad. While the majority of these franchises simply came and went, arguably the most successful one was Digimon…