05 May 24
For this week's feature, we have a pair of series that start with the main character dying (or near enough to it). Both dungeoncrawlers, too, albeit in rather different settings. First is one that's been hyped up for a long time and put in motion by the fine folks at A-1 Pictures, Solo Leveling. The other is a more conventional fantasy story, The Unwanted Undead Adventurer. It probably would've made sense to add Undead Unluck to this list, but rather than get caught up on that, I went down a different rabbit hole (one that still just happens to involve death and resurrection shenanigans) with Season 1 and Season 2 of the 2000s mecha series Godannar. Because I had recently purchased the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Edition, I decided to revisit that 90s classic, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. And for our extra movie reviews, we have the 1949 version of All the King's Men and 2015's Aloha... because I thought about going to a Hawaiian hamburger place two weeks ago? (It's just coincidence that I was able to come up with something. As you may recall, I'm going alphabetically through my backlog of reviews.) I don't currently have a theme idea for next week. I can't even promise that I'll get caught up on anything before then, especially since I've picked up the still ongoing Dungeon Meshi (which is really good and I can't believe I nearly slept on it). Anyway, I'll see what I can do there while getting together the next chapter of EM3 amid the flood of work I've got waiting for me once I get back to the office. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 18:47:56
04 May 24
In the States, a lot of things get dyed green for St. Paddy's Day, but I've never heard of doing anything similar for Greenery Day here in Japan. As such, the mascot is white as ever (not that I'd dye her green on any occasion). This might be relevant if I was going to revive the running gag of Ally from the Tico series turning green, but instead this intro is going absolutely nowhere. While the intro may have been a waste of your time, hopefully you'll find Chapter 20 of TWH to be anything but a waste of your time. Look for reviews tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:55:30
01 May 24
It's that special time of year once more, International Ayame Jellybean Day. The lady of the hour thought that the more tangible reward of being cradled for a bit was more important than this little digital tribute. Anyway, I won't say I'm going to work on the mascot's gallery this time, so if it actually ends up happening, it'll be a pleasant surprise. Look for the story update this weekend. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:17:43
29 Apr 24
We have yet another TWH delay, and with me being behind on my viewing for review purposes, we might have been without a review post as well, but thanks to His Majesty the Showa Emperor (with apologies to the aggrieved former members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere), I have Monday off and so have been able to put this post together only a day late rather than a week late. We kick things off with some mecha action in the form of Brave Bang Bravern! and Synduality: Noir. There was a third series I wanted to add to this pile but didn't have time for it, so instead we'll turn our attention to movies. First is the 1935 version of A Tale of Two Cities. Next we have the legendary screen couple Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn engage in the battle of the sexes in Adam's Rib. We then have some fun with the birth of Anglicanism in A Man for All Seasons. Next, surely you can't be serious, but it's Airplane!. (I am serious, by the way, and don't call me Shirley.) Last, and probably least, is a Western from the director of Action Jackson, Aces n' Eights. That being the dead man's hand and all, we can cover a couple of series that start with death next week (and possibly some more if I manage it). Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:55:46
21 Apr 24
Magic is in the air for this week's reviews. First off is Season 2 of The Ancient Magus' Bride from last year, which leads us to two series from this year, Season 2 of Mashle and The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic. Next up is movies. Last week we had one about WWII, one filmed during it, and now one set after it in the form of Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair. We then have A Fistful of Dollars, the first entry in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy, the musical comedy A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the deliberately (and amusingly) anachronistic A Knight's Tale. For next week, I'm thinking we'll have some mecha. Look for more TWH as well. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 15:51:33
20 Apr 24
The time I've spent putting the site back together has delayed this release, but now it's time to get to it. I'm rolling the dice a bit with this one, but I'm going to trust the reader will grant me enough rope to hang myself. What am I talking about? Well, first off, go ahead and read Chapter 2 of RttW and if you're not liking what you're seeing, head over to the blog so you can hear what I've got to say for myself. We'll see how things go from here. Tomorrow's reviews are less likely to spark any contraversy, so look forward to that. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:52:25
14 Apr 24
A minor housekeeping note, but I've decided to delete the site's Gab account. The place had always been a bit of a cesspit, but that's social media for you. Will I replace it with anything else? At this point, I doubt it. If I was that committed to social media engagement, I would've stuck with Twitter and Facebook, but as I ditched them as a matter of principle, it wasn't all that tenable for me to stick with Gab as long as I have. Well, so it goes. Not much is lost. The Cats Group was nice. Anyway, that takes care of that. Now back to work for me.
Posted by: James
UTC 14:02:20
My original viewing goal for this week proved too ambitious for the time I had available, so I opted to take an alternate route that I could put together quicker. We're looking at The Dangers in My Heart, last year's Season 1, the recently completed Season 2 and the ONA short Bonus Dangers (TwiYaba). For movie reviews, we kick things off with a big ensemble war film A Bridge Too Far and then a movie made when WWII was still ongoing, 1942's A Date with the Falcon. Next is crime time with kidnapping in A Cry in the Night and murder in A Bucket of Blood, and singing in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I'll pick up a few more Winter 2024 series for next week, so look forward to that. We'll also have more RttW. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 12:17:10
13 Apr 24
It's time for Chapter 23 of EM3. It's not all that long, but we're getting set up for the final stretch of the story. You excited? Speaking of things to be excited for, my plan for the reviews this week has changed. I didn't have time for the catching up that needed to be done, so we've got something light and fluffy instead. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:16:24
08 Apr 24
We kick off with three of my favorite series that ran from Fall 2023 to Winter 2024. It's Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Shangri-La Frontier and The Apothecary Diaries. Outstanding. I know book reviews are much less common for me, but because I'm such a fan of The Eminence in Shadow, I've got Volume 1 of the light novels. The books are pretty chunky as light novels go, but I'm moving along at a fair clip with them. Last but not least, we have our bonus movie reviews, 1932's A Bill of Divorcement and A Blueprint for Murder. I think I'll pick up some more two-cour series for next week's reviews. Look for more EM3 if I manage to get it done. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 14:13:32
07 Apr 24
A day late and a dollar short as usual, but here's Chapter 19 of TWH. I'll try to get the reviews out tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 12:47:09
01 Apr 24
I've been holding off on trying to get new content out while I've been busy restoring all the old stuff, but at this point, I think I'm going to try running the two pipelines in parallel. One of the main reasons for this is that I've finally gotten to see Dune: Part Two. Now, what I'm thinking about doing with update posts for the immediate future is to provide a couple additional movie reviews from my backlog so I can get them out of the hopper. I do like grouping reviews by theme, and we'll still do things that way for the main part of the post, but these extras will just be me going down the alphabet. For today, at least, we've got two to round out the usual five plus the two bonus ones. First is the 1954 version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I can connect to 5 Fingers via James Mason. Then there's 100 Degrees Below Zero and 8 Million Ways to Die, which I suppose can be connected because both films have a lead actor named Jeff. (That's more connection than I'll be able to have for most of these bonus additions.) Moving on to our manga coverage, we have Volume 6 of Oshi no Ko and Volume 28 of One Punch Man. I plan to start my coverage of the Winter 2024 anime next week and dip into more of the backlog from last year. I'll try to get the new chapter of TWH out as well. I don't have that much more to write on it, so I'll just have to make time for it amid my continued efforts to repost reviews. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 06:34:31
18 Mar 24
I've refrained from doing a blow-by-blow of my reconstruction efforts here on the main page, but if you've been following the blog, you know how things have been going. I'm happy to announce that I've reconstructed everything in the Stories section. I still need to fight with Drupal to get the CSS working the way I want it to and I have to double-check to ensure all the links are working correctly, but the biggest part of the work on the most important section of the site is done. Not only that, but we're going to celebrate with a quartet of new teasers. First is a new addition to the Earth Arc's Arthurian Cycle, The Seeds of Avalon - Volume IV: The Legacy of Arthur. Next is a whole new Earth Arc series, the Japanese school comedy BaraBara Gakkou! with its entries Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. The concept is almost as old as the site itself, but I've just now decided to formally add it to the pipeline.
Now I've got the long road ahead of me putting all the reviews back up, to say nothing of all the stuff under the hood I have to sort out. If you want to keep track of my progress, I'll continue to be updating the blog daily. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 08:15:17
02 Mar 24
After nearly giving myself an aneurysm, I might just be getting close to kicking things off here. It's going to take a lot of fighting to bend this into the shape I want and a lot of time to reconstruct the files, as a simple import isn't going to work. Hopefully, though, all this work will pay dividends with a slightly longer lease on life that what we were looking at before. I imagine I'll be crying tears of blood before it's over, but my pain might just be your gain. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:21:06
25 Feb 24
I haven't been doing proper roundups of movies I've seen on the plane or when I've been hanging with la familia, so I should work on getting caught up on that. We'll bring out the big guns and have the best of the bunch right out of the gate, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. If you haven't seen it yet, correct that right away. Next we have a couple comedies, Dude, Where's My Car? and Walk of Shame, an action film in The Old Guard, and an action comedy in The Man from Toronto. A little something for all moods and demographics. I'll be pulling more films out of my bag of tricks for the next few weeks and I'll mix in more manga too. Barring another head injury, I might just have the next chapter of TWH out by Saturday. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:07:38
24 Feb 24
If you're following the blog, then you know that my skull had a date with the pavement earlier this week, so besides the impact to my cabeza, there's also been an impact on the schedule. I haven't really been able to focus on writing, but somehow I've found myself doing a lot of proofing work, so there are plenty of small changes being done behind the scenes. You'll note that I've taken down the link to the forum. I intend to be replacing it with a wiki, but I've only started to get it set up, so don't expect it anytime soon. I won't be sending you home totally empty-handed, though. I've got a trio of teasers for stories that have been added to the pipeline. First, we've got two more entries in the Welcome to the World series: The Lion's Successor (WttW4) and First in the World (WttW0). There's also another Else Arc story, Take Another Crack at Life. Hopefully this gets you excited for things to come. Speaking of things to come, I'll see if I can't get tomorrow's reviews sorted. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 11:59:46
18 Feb 24
I was planning on having finished Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen and Mahoyome for this week's reviews, but that didn't happen, and I didn't get the intended manga reviews written either, so instead I'm just going to take the remaining 2023 anime reviews I have and just put them out now. I was wanting to split them over this week and next, but so it goes. We'll start off with one from earlier in the year that I picked up somewhat recently, KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World. Next is the two of the heavy-hitters I was promising last week, Season 2 of Spy x Family and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead. Last off, we have a pair of princesses trying to dodge the Grim Reaper with Tearmoon Empire and The Vexations of a Shut-In Vampire Princess. I'm going to be dipping into my backlog of movie reviews for the next few weeks and try to get more manga reviews out as well. I'll see if I can't get the next chapter of TWH while I'm at it. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 14:54:40
17 Feb 24
The mascot is chillin' here and we open today's selection on a rather chill note as well. Of course, if the prologue told you anything, then you might not be expecting the moment to last. It's time for Chapter 1 of RttW. Three more weeks and I might find myself in hot water unless I lose my nerve and do a rewrite. What am I talking about? You'll find out, one way or another. In the meantime, I didn't finish one of the series I intended to feature in tomorrow's reviews, so we'll have to make do with what we've got. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 17:33:41
12 Feb 24
It's two days to Valentine's Day and a lot of folks have romance on the mind, so let's look at some romances. If you think romance is for pigs, well, we've got just the thing for you: Butareba: The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig. If you're in the mood for something a little naughty, there's I'm Giving the Disgraced Noble Lady I Rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness and I'm in Love with the Villainess, or go the half-and-half route with Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and the Inexperienced Me. It's the good, the bad and the ugly of romance, the full set. Which is which? Read on to find out. Last bu not least is our manga coverage with Volume 5 of Oshi no Ko. Next week I plan to roll out some of the heavy-hitters in contrast to some of the more sludgy titles I've been covering. Look for more RttW as well. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 09:23:37
10 Feb 24
Well, I got to enjoy going to work this morning, but because I already had today's chapter in the can and ready to go, it hasn't affected the schedule any. And because a certain fuzzy someone is pesting me at the moment, let's get to it without further delay. We see how Gally's doing in Chapter 22 of EM3. Reviews might be delayed until Monday due to having limited prep time today, but we'll see what happens. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 14:54:52
04 Feb 24
Who's up for some fantasy anime? Well, ready or not, here it comes. First, let's start with non-isekai fantasy. We've got Goblin Slayer II, Helck, and My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer. Next, for isekai fantasy, we've got Season 2 of The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent and Season 3 of The Rising of the Shield Hero. Guess which one I enjoyed more. And that does it for now. Maybe as a primer for Valentine's Day, I'll bring together some fumbled romances (with maybe the odd exception or two). Look for more EM3 as well. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 16:41:10
03 Feb 24
I had quite a time with this chapter not being able to use the words 'squid' or 'tentacle' due to the time, setting and character. What am I talking about? Well, find out for yourself in Chapter 18 of TWH. Maybe it'll put you in the mood for calamari. Look for reviews tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 14:20:37
28 Jan 24
This week we're going to look at one of my favorite franchises back for more with Season 2 of The Eminence in Shadow. And because this is a Kadokawa series, Studio Puyukai not only gives us Kagejitsu! Second but also the fun crossover Ple Ple Pleiades x Kagejitsu! Next up for manga coverage is Volume 4 of Oshi no Ko. Looks for a selection of fantasy anime next week and more TWH, too. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 12:37:28
27 Jan 24
It's been a while since we debuted a new series and what better time than the site's anniversary? It's time for Welcome to the World: Return to the World, starting with the prologue. I might be getting myself with hot water with this one later on, but we'll burn that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, look forward to reviews tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 13:10:44
Once again it's time for the site's anniversary. Seventeen years ago, an expat in a Japanese high school with a little too much time on his hands decided to make a website. Now that same expat once again finds himself in a Japanese high school with significantly less time on his hands, but we're moving forward all the same. As you're well aware, we had significant delays in last year's release schedule and only recently wrapped NagaTen and later today its slot will be filled by Return to the World. I can't say when the two currently running stories will end, but unless we have another spell of massive delays, both should be done by this summer, which means I need to start thinking about what to do next. The shortlist to replace TWH are its prequel The Penitent Priest, The King of Hoards, Broken Vows, and Children of Darkness. I may end up just flipping a coin to decide, but we'll see. As for what will follow EM3, I might actually start The Chronicles of the Æther War or maybe do something like Candidate 03 or The Child of Promise. Then again, I might even set the Cross Arc down for a bit and do something in the If Arc. Again, it may end up getting decided by a coin flip.
Outside of story content, I'm thinking of revamping the code of the website. The appearance may not change all that much, but I'm still using HTML4 well past the expiry of HTML5, so I'd like to get the site to conform to the current HTML Living Standard and also design a mobile version of the site that displays better on smartphones and such. When I'll have the time, who can say? It's good to have goals at least. Beyond that, maybe I'll start work on translating my work into Japanese so I can actually start pursuing publication on this side of the pond. Things to do, things to do. Anyway, I've set out my goals for the year. Now we'll see what actually gets done. Look for the debut of RttW in a bit. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 09:42:48
21 Jan 24
I've ironed out some kinks in the workflow pipeline, so we shouldn't have to worry about delays like what we had last week in the near future. Anyway, let's present the slate of reviews that I had scheduled. We'll start with movies. They're not quite releases anymore, but I was there opening night for Spy x Family Code: White, then later saw Migration with the kiddos. Continuing our Fall 2023 anime coverage, we have Season 2 of Girlfriend, Girlfriend and the show to one-up it, The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You. Last but not least, for manga coverage, we've got Volume 3 of Oshi no Ko. We've got the anniversary coming up and the debut of Return to the World to go with it. As for reviews, I only have this to say: "The moon is red. The frenzy has begun. We're out of time." Those who know, know. ^_^ Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 12:57:16
20 Jan 24
Apologies about the lack of reviews last week. I really have to finish all the prep work Saturday because about all I manage to get done Sunday is the uploading portion. With this in mind, I should be able to square things away in the near future. Anyway, getting on to the main event of the day, we have Chapter 21 of EM3. Those reviews I was supposed to post last week will be out tomorrow for sure this time. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 11:08:04
13 Jan 24
We're well into it at this point, but Happy New Year, folks. I know you're not going to believe me after all the delays, but I actually had this chapter ready to go three weeks ago, but with travel, holiday festivities, a cold, and the hectic start of the new term at work, I haven't had much leisure to put it out until now, but here it is after much waiting. It's Chapter 17 of TWH. Finally. The collection of Christmas specials I had ready three weeks ago are out of season now, so we'll be blending some more Fall 2023 anime with recent film releases for tomorrow's reviews. Stay tuned.
Posted by: James
UTC 07:37:58