Blogs

MANGA MONDAYS | One Punch Man and Satire

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This week, I want to talk about the One Punch Man hype train, now that it’s had some time to slow down. But boy, what a ride it was. I’ll spare everyone my thoughts on how awesome the show was, because let’s face it, essentially everyone who calls themselves anime fans (and even a bunch of people who don’t) watched it and loved every second of it. What I will say, though, is that my personal favorite part of the show was the spot-on satire. Yeah, the rest was great, but that’s where I feel the show really shines.

Blogs

MANGA MONDAYS | CGI: The Computers Are Taking Over

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First order of business: if you haven’t checked out Ajin yet (airing this season), then go watch the first episode to see what you think, especially if you

were a fan of Tokyo Ghoul or Parasyte (seriously, this main character is Kaneki and Shinichi all over again). At the very least, check out some GIFs, because my topic for this week is Ajin’s animation style. I was recently talking about Ajin with friends, who told me that they liked the story but dropped the show because they found the entirely computer-generated animation unbearable. So, I thought I’d take some time to discuss the role of CGI in anime.  

 

After all, Ajin isn’t the first out of recently released animes to rely almost entirely on computer generated graphics.

Bill Nye

MANGA MONDAYS | Anime Romance 101: How to Harem

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When you think of a harem anime, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? I’d be willing to bet that, for most people, it’s something like Clannad (or maybe Moster Musume if you’re into that kind of thing). Of all the genres out there, I think this one is criticized more than any other. And with good reason, I might add. Harem shows tend to abuse tropes and character archetypes much more than other genres while failing to apply any interesting development to those archetypes.

Entertainment

MANGA MONDAYS | The Winter 2016 Hype Train

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I’ve written posts like this one for the last few seasons, so I figure I ought to keep up with the trend. Of course, I’ve also been horribly wrong about the things I say in them and had to post revisions to my hype train. So this could be a terrible idea, but I think it’s always good to let people know what’s out there. Speaking of which, I want to point readers to a handy site: Anichart. This is the site that I’ve been using ever since I began watching seasonal anime, and I find the layout super convenient.

Blogs

MANGA MONDAYS | All According to Keikaku

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By MICHAEL MAUER

Translator’s note: keikaku means plan. For those of you who didn’t scroll past this post due to the awful meme in the title, thanks for bearing with me. Before I get to the business of today’s post, I need to mention that this will be my last one for the semester. Finals and whatnot. Anyways, I’d better get around to justifying dredging up such an old Death Note joke.

Blogs

MANGA MONDAYS | Gateway Drugs

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By MICHAEL MAUER

To everyone guessing that this post is about G.A.T.E., please give me some credit. I promise I can make jokes besides cheap puns … sometimes. Anyways, the actual topic for this week:

What anime would you recommend to someone who knows nothing about anime? Perhaps more importantly, what kind of anime would you show to the sort of person who thinks anime is just some bizarre portion of Japanese culture? I think this is an important question to consider because there’s a lot anime has to offer, even for people who aren’t generally fans of Japanese pop culture.

Blogs

MANGA MONDAYS | Attack of the Moeblob

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By MICHAEL MAUER

A few days ago I watched a few episodes of a show called Anime de Training! Ex. And I’m going to be frank: it kind of irritated me. Before I get into this, I encourage you to check it out – the episodes are only about four minutes each, so it’s worth your time to watch it before reading the rest of this. After all, there’s a good chance I’m horrendously biased (or just overreacting) here for some reason, so it’s best if everyone is able to take what I say with a grain of salt.

Now, if you’ve watched that episode, you’ll know that Anime de Training is some kind of strange attempt to get Hikikomori to exercise with the power of moe.

Entertainment

MANGA MONDAYS | Better Than Expected

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By MICHAEL MAUER

A few weeks ago I wrote a post covering this season’s anime and what I thought looked good. My overall impression basically boiled down to “It’s all sequels plus a few interesting shows. But not as good as last season.” Having just caught up on some shows from this season, I need to revisit that opinion. Because there is some pretty awesome stuff coming out right now. Remember how I said not to judge a book by its cover in that post?