Month: October 2021

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impression – Banished from the Hero’s Party…

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 13

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: Red is a quiet man, well-liked among the citizens of Zoltan, but with a personality that leads many to believe he might be obscuring parts of his past. And in truth, he is; he was once among the hero’s party that was set to confront the demon lord, but though Red’s wide range of skills and blessings as a “guide” provided him with many valuable abilities as an adventurer, he was eventually convinced that his services were no longer needed. As his sister Ruti became well-known as a heroic leader, Red allowed himself to fade into the background.

Now Red lives a slow life in Zoltan, holding onto the modest dream of building an apothecary shop and putting his survivalist skills to good use. When he rescues a village child using his knowledge of medicine (despite the actions of some careless heroes who set fire to the forest), Red works out a deal to get his shop built. When Rit, a well-known loner adventurer stops into town, she seems curious about Red and about the life he’s chosen to lead.

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Conventions Special Features

Anime Fusion 2021 – Convention Reactions

Although it would probably be the wiser choice to continue with my now-belated first episode impression, I thought I’d take a short breather and write about about my first convention experience back in person (as a panelist, at least), Anime Fusion. If I wait any longer I feel like I’ll start to forget the details, and as someone who feels like it’ll be important to know how things were during this Covid time I’d like to ensure I make my own contributions to that historical record.

Anime Fusion 2021 took place Friday through Sunday, October 22nd – 24th at the Crowne Plaza Minneapolis West (which is actually located in Plymouth, a suburb of Minneapolis). Like most anime conventions, it puts on a mix of programming, including fan-run panels, guest-run panels and events, games, shows, and a dance. There are also a couple of video rooms playing both classic and contemporary anime (the con’s stated mission is to fuse together the old and the new parts of anime fandom into a mix that appeals to all sorts of folks), as well as a dealers room and an artist alley. My primary drive for participating in any anime convention is to run programming – primarily discussion panels focused on specific shows or aspects of anime fandom, as well as presentation-style panels where I pretend like I’m some kind of instructor sharing knowledge and opinions. This year my spouse and I put on 5 panels, the materials for which are available in posts that went up over the course of last weekend.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – The World’s Finest Assassin

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: The world’s finest assassin completes his final mission with efficiency and the utmost effectiveness, providing a model for the protégé he’s been forced to drag along by his governing agency. But the mission doesn’t quite go off without a hitch – the duo is spotted by a military drone on their way from the job site and are forced to make other escape plans. It’s during the night that the assassin proves why he’s the best – he’s quieted his emotions and never trusts anyone.

As the day dawns, the two arrive back at base and are provided tickets to Japan; here the assassin will begin a new life training others like him within the organization. But betrayal is in the cards and the plane flight ends almost as quickly as it began, with all aboard being killed as part of the organization’s plot to silence their finest. But the assassin’s frustrated soul is grabbed by the goddess, who offers him a tantalizing deal in exchange for his help in a certain matter. He’ll be reborn in another world, one of fantasy and magic, with his memories and skills intact if he promises to use those skills to murder the world’s Hero.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – PuraOre! ~Pride of Orange~

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Multimedia Project

Episode Summary: The members of the junior high embroidery club are used to turning their stitches one-by-one into small works of art. But when Manaka invites the other group members to attend an information session for the Dream Monkeys, the local ice hockey team, they start to discover a much different way of weaving together their various talents and skills.

The mastermind behind this beginner’s class is Coach Matsunaga, a former player and someone with high aspirations for the Dream Monkeys. Not only is she on the lookout for new team members, she hopes to incorporate a brand new form of entertainment into the games – having the team members perform a victory dance following their wins, thus turning each hockey match into a show. This goal seems questionable on its surface but it just might work; the members of the embroidery club, as well as a couple of students from a neighboring school, all seem interested in giving this new sport a try.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – Tesla Note

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 13

Source: Manga

Episode Summary: From a young age, Botan’s grandfather has trained her as a spy in the ways of the ninja in preparation for a greater purpose to come. Much to her surprise, this greater purpose actually manifests and she becomes involved in “Mission T,” a quest to recover a set of crystalline shards left behind by the famous inventor Nicola Tesla 70 years ago. Time is ticking, however, and she and her somewhat-unwilling new partner, a spy named Kuruma must find these shards before they’re assembled into a full crystal and used for nefarious purposes.

This time-sensitive quest brings Botan and Kuruma to Oslo, Norway, where a train appears to have mysteriously warped from one point to another within the city, causing destruction and bodily harm. As Botan infiltrates the walled-off research area, she discovers the horrifying aftermath of the accident, including mutilated bodies and even a survivor who’s lost his wits. This put their team on the radar of the authorities, so they must make a quick getaway. This helps Kuruma to gain a little bit of respect for Botan as a partner.

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Anime Reviews First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2021 First Impressions – Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut

Streaming: Funimation

Episodes: 12

Source: Light Novel

Episode Summary: With the midcentury space race in full swing, the communist UZSR seems to be in a winning position. Having completed the first space flight with a living being aboard (a dog named Daly), they’re again tasked with reaching for the stars – sending a human being into space during a live broadcast. Such a thing would cement the position of the Union as the world leader in space exploration, but it comes with some complications; namely, that with such prestige at stake, any error would likely spell shame and death to those who had failed their country.

Lev is a failed cosmonaut candidate assigned to the top secret Project Mechtat, which aims to skirt by on several technicalities – namely using a vampire as their cosmonaut test subject rather than a human soldier. Irina, codenamed N44 and the vampire in question, serves as a test subject in this program. Biologically similar to humans, she becomes the vehicle by which stresses on the human body during space flight are tested, and if she dies in the process, well, she was only considered a test object by the standards of the program. Lev is ordered to remain emotionally hands-off as her handler during this mission, but despite the many myths surrounding vampires, he already finds himself focused on her inherent humanity.

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Conventions Special Features

Madoka and Homura: The Trap of Selflessness

And here it is, our final panel from Anime Fusion 2021. This one was primarily J.C.’s work, so the format is slightly different. It’s also a re-versioning of a panel we presented several years ago directly after the release of Rebellion, so we’ve had some years to stew on that (spoiler: both of us liked it) and now with a new movie on the way it’s opened the door to further speculation.

I hope that these posts have been helpful and interesting to people reading. I also hope that they help to partly explain my delayed episode 1 impressions for the past week and some days; we work really hard to put this stuff together and it ends up taking priority over other things. I’ll definitely be back with more reviews and such now that our (very weird) convention season is effectively over for the year.

PowerPoint Presentation

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Conventions Special Features

The Odd World of “ODDTAXI” – Anime Fusion 2021

I’m back again with more panel materials! This time from our Sunday discussion of the wonderful ODDTAXI anime series. Like our Evangelion discussion, this is mostly a presentation to contain our discussion notes and to distract people from directly looking at our faces the entire time(lol), but it may serve some use to folks who are interested in the series. I’m writing this a day ahead of time so I’m not sure how many people are actually going to show up to this panel (I suspect probably the couple of people we know and that’s it, haha) but I hope it’s of use to some people.

I will note that there is a slide devoted to discussion of major end-of-series spoilers, but we don’t mention them directly, so if you’re worried about any final reveals this shouldn’t take that away from you.

For reference, you can check out my episode reviews of ODDTAXI at the link below:

ODDTAXI episode reviews

PowerPoint Presentation

Categories
Conventions Special Features

Anime About Anime 2.0 – Anime Fusion 2021

Good evening (or morning, depending on your time zone). Continuing with the onslaught of panel materials is our presentation from “Anime About Anime 2.0,” which talks about the anime production process as it can be gleaned from watching anime that takes place within that industry. We presented this panel a few years ago but included a few updates and switched things around a bit.

I’d like to note that neither of us is an expert on this topic; we’re both just interested enthusiasts. There are links in the source pages to places where you can learn more in-depth information about anime, its production, and the state of the industry and the staff members. But much like trying to get a sense for the Japanese language through watching anime, if you don’t make it your primary or only source, it can still be helpful for getting a feel for things.

Have you seen any of the series we reference in the panel materials? Let me know!

PowerPoint Presentation

Categories
Conventions Special Features

Neon Genesis Evangelion: A Retrospective

Hello again, friends. Below is the PowerPoint presentation from our Saturday 2:00-3:00 panel “Neon Genesis Evangelion: A Retrospective.” This is mostly just for some visuals to go along with the discussion, so unfortunately there isn’t a ton that’s useful about this outside of the panel itself, but you’re welcome to take it and read our notes (you can tell who wrote which notes because mine tend to be very brief and J.C.’s are much more coherent, heh).

What’s your experience with Evangelion? Have you watched all the movies yet? Are you excited about GKids’s release of the TV series on Blu-ray? Feel free to discuss in the comments 🙂

PowerPoint Slides