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Anime Reviews Reviews

Shiny New Anime Prep – “Wistoria: Wand and Sword”

Title: Wistoria: Wand and Sword

Episodes: 12

Streaming: Crunchyroll

I often claim that I have very broad tastes in entertainment. I don’t necessarily think that makes me special or a better consumer, but I think my experiences in sampling a large cross section of anime has allowed me to become comfortable when dabbling in many different genres. My criticisms tend to revolve more around the overuse of storytelling tropes, or the use of tropes that just rub me the wrong way. I’m happy to enjoy a fantasy series, but if many of its story beats revolve around slavery dynamics or its heroes are accessing video game style user interfaces, I tend to lose interest, or worse.

However, even stale tropes when wielded by the right hands can become fresh again. What it boils down to, I think, is being able to avoid cynicism when utilizing those story beats and having some amount of respect toward the audience who appreciates them. That, and being able to subvert expectations in other key ways so that the media doesn’t feel like a complete rehash of something else.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Shiny New Anime Prep – “Train to the End of the World”

Title: Train to the End of the World

Episodes: 12

Streaming: Crunchyroll

At the rate that new technologies are developed and released upon the public, it’s natural to feel nervous when yet another miracle invention (which may or may not have been fully vetted by, well, anyone) appears for public consumption. Enter 7G, a communications technology that Japan tech gurus and government leaders alike hope will return the country to the technological forefront. Teenager Yoka finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and is plucked off the street to press the start button for 7G during a ribbon-cutting ceremony. However, immediately after her finger pushes play, reality warps to the point that most places and people become unrecognizable and civilization collapses.

Now two years later the very few settlements that remain are scattered along the Seibu Ikebukuro line, where each stop is now hours or even days travel from its neighbors. Shizuru has spent the last couple of years since the 7G incident living her life in the town of Agano where, due to the effects of 7G, residents transform into animals after they turn 21 years old. Shizuru and Yoka had a falling-out just before the incident, and Shizuru grasps onto any snippet of information she can find about Yoka’s possible whereabouts so that they can hopefully repair their rift. When she by chance sees a newspaper clipping with a photo of Yoka in the now-mutated Ikebukuro, she makes it her mission to pilot an old abandoned train car to make the weeks-long trip into the city. However, she won’t have to make the trip alone – she’s joined by friends Nadeshiko, Reimi, and Akira, who experience this wild new world along with her.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Shiny New Anime Prep – “Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master”

Title: Yatagarasu: The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Episodes: 20

Streaming: Crunchyroll

I’m trying something a little different this year – right now I’m prepping for an upcoming convention, and part of that involves catching up on anime from the past year that I think I may want to include (either featured, or included on our more extensive recommendation list). I’m hoping writing about what I’ve been watching will help me collect my thoughts a little bit better, and treat the media as less disposable – even though I’m watching a lot of in a relatively short time.

The Kingdom of Yamauchi is led by the Kin’u, or golden raven, a singular emperor among a race of Yatagarasu, or three-legged ravens. Though the title is often bestowed down a heriditary line, when the kingdom finds itself in need a true golden raven may be born to help protect Yamauchi and its people.

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Meta Personal

How to Get Yourself to Write More (Maybe?)

People who know me personally know that I spend quite a bit of my free time scrolling Reddit (possibly to my detriment at times, but because I curate my social media fairly well I’d say it’s generally a net positive). One aspect of Reddit that I suppose exists to inspire more engagement is that it will often recommend communities that are related to ones that you already follow. Because I interact with a lot of crafting (knitting, crochet, general crafts, needle felting, etc.) I tend to get a lot of related suggestions, one of which is journaling.

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Conventions Special Features

Anime Detour 2024 – Panel Materials and Convention Thoughts

Hi all! I’m about a week out from Anime Detour 2024, which is my “home” anime convention in Minneapolis. I’m sure there are those of you who have sought out this post for my panel materials and such, so without further ado they’re linked below:

Shiny New Anime: PowerPoint Presentation (please note: this presentation requires a full version of PowerPoint because of the embedded videos. If you’re using the online viewer, please download the clips separately if you want to see them).

Shiny New Anime: Hand Out

Shiny New Anime: Clips

AMV Contest: YouTube Playlist (note that not all entrants list their AMVs on a streaming site and it’s not an entry requirement for them to do so, and sometimes if they do they will wait to “premiere” them until the conventions they’ve entered them in have occurred. This playlist includes entries that were available when I put the playlist together, which is the majority of them but not all).

Now, read below for more of my thoughts and reactions to this year’s convention!

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First Impressions Reviews

First Impressions: Delicious in Dungeon

Streaming: Netflix

Episodes: 24

Episode Summary: Adventurer Laios and his party find their dungeon crawl cut short when one of their party members, Laios’s sister Farin, is chomped up by a red dragon. As her final act, Farin uses magic to whisk Laios, Marcille, and Chilchuck safely to the surface. Now, having lost most of their supplies and looking at pawning their equipment to get the funds they need, Laios turns to an idea he’s been kicking around for a while. Rather than bringing their rations with them down into the depths of the dungeon, why not just kill and eat the creatures who call that dangerous place home? It would hopefully allow them to reach Farin before she’s digested, at least.

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Meta Personal

Happy New Year!

Hey all, I hope everyone had a satisfying end to their year and are at least trying to be ready for whatever unpredictable nonsense that 2024 is likely to throw their way.

Normally I’d want to take after Anime News Network and most of the other blogs that I follow and put together some sort of “year in review,” but the honest truth is that, after about April/May I didn’t watch very much anime at all. I had all these notions that, while on maternity leave I’d have nothing but time to sit in front of a TV with my husband and baby and binge watch shows, but with the lack of normalized sleep, each day flowed into the next and all I had the mental energy for was to keep a constant stream of Seinfeld episodes running in the background. I have since become somewhat insufferable in my use of Seinfeld references in everyday life, but I was always a little insufferable anyway.

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 31: Some You Already Probably Know

Well, somehow I managed to make it to the end of October having put up a post each day about some of my favorite obscure, and less-obscure spooky, supernatural anime. Having gone back to work after having a baby, I consider that quite a feat (especially since I have maybe 2.5 or 3 hours of semi-useful awake time after I get home from work to cram in everything I need to do, including chores and what-not). Today, since it’s now everyone’s favorite spooky Autumn holiday, I thought I’d take it easy and throw out some recommendations for a few series that are more popular and easier to find. I want to throw folks a bone who don’t want to deal with gray-area media legality. I hope everyone has enjoyed this spooky season series, and if you know of a particular spooky series I didn’t cover, feel free to throw the title into the comments. I might do something like this again next year!

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 30: Some Shorts and One-Shots

Have you ever had a memory that you weren’t exactly sure was real? Recently, when I was coming up with the list of episodes and series to cover throughout October, I faintly recalled an OVA I’d seen some years ago. All I could remember about it was that it involved people fighting using calligraphy, and that the title probably started with an “S.” Not very helpful. I first checked over what I had saved on my large hard drive of archived anime, and no dice. Then I tried to Google search based on various keywords. Nope. It wasn’t until I took my entire lunch break today to go through My Anime List year-by-year that I finally figured out what it was. Hopefully the result will be worthwhile to my readers!

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Halloween Seasonal Special Features

It’s Spooky Season! – Day 29: Otherside Picnic

There are relatively few anime series that star adult characters, so when I find one I definitely take notice, even if the end product is somewhat uneven. Take Otherside Picnic, a series that stars two college-aged heroines who become friends (and more). At its best, the series is creepy and unsettling; at its worst, it’s merely enjoyable. But overall it’s a fun ride with some amusing characters who find themselves in some spooky situations.

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