Anime Review: K Return of Kings

Phew, it seems like I'm just barely going to get through the fall shows before it's time to start reviewing the winter ones. I have an over-stuffed winter viewing plate and I certainly don't want to put off talking about my favorites because I haven't finished the fall dredges. That's what we've arrived at by now, the not truly terrible series (I don't have time to watch those) but certainly unsatisfying by the end (and feel free to lump The Perfect Insider in with that group, I think I'll be grumpier about that title than this one/next week's review for quite a while).

Oh, and hopefully it should go without saying but, this is a sequel! And there's a movie! Watch both first if you plan to watch this because that's what you're supposed to do with sequels! (and watch me accidentally ignore that guideline with one of the winter shows....)

K: Return of Kings

Book Review: Uprooted

Ugh, between yet another cold and just a general feeling of "I have ideas but not the energy to write out these ideas" I seem to be off schedule again. Since I posted so little this past week, no catch-up post and in next week's catch-up post I'll talk about the comic review I skipped, Beautiful Darkness.

I'm familiar with Naomi Novik's name and writing due to her "master and commander with dragons fanfic"/Napoleonic-Wars-With-Dragons series and while I am a bit nervous that she took time off from it to write a completely different novel (as I would for any author) I do understand since that series is slated to be about nine novels and she's written at least six of them. So, it's not surprising that she chose to write about something other than dragons but this story is even more fantastical with it's creatures which I found interesting from a meta standpoint ("okay is she more interested in writing historical fiction or fantasy? Well this gives me at least part of the answer!"). Weirdly enough Amazon includes "Temeraire" in the title but I have no earthly idea how these stories could be connected, if magic is added into the Napoleonic Wars I think everyone is doomed, so I can only assume this was done to try and entice more readers and will reassure others that you can make this your first Naomi Novik book and enjoy it just fine.

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Anime Review: The Perfect Insider

I find it funny that even though the noitaminA timeslot has returned to just one show a season that the past three have all been mysteries, it's just such an odd coincidence! So I tried out this one to see if it was any better than Ranpo Kitan and the answer is yes but not as good as I had first hoped.

The Perfect Insider (Subete ga F ni Naru or Everything Becomes F)

Multi-week Round-UP!

So, wow, did not mean to take two weeks off before Katsucon (I had only planned on one) but with all of the stress from still getting used to my new job and cosplay I thought it was best to drop reviews until I could focus on them. I mean, I didn't want to short either Concrete Revolutio or Wings of Honneamise with reviews where I forgot to put in half the things I wanted! I did honestly plan on putting out a book review this week as well but the book, aptly titled Unremembered, was one I barely remembered even reading and figured it was better to just skip it (and I hadn't thought enough about the next title on my list to jump into that review instead, I haven't been reading as much recently so right now everything I'm reviewing I was reading around Thanksgiving). And over on OASG I talked about Samurai Drive before Katsucon (which is the rare manga where the pilot one shot was better than the actual series, by a large margin too!) and then wrote about another series with swords in it this week, Ga-Rei (yep, the series that inspired the prequel anime Ga-Rei Zero!).

I also wrote up an entirely too long post on Katsucon (search "industry" if you want my thoughts on the Aniplex, Crunchyroll, and Vertical panels) and I also put my mid-season anime thoughts until the jump.

Movie Review: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

This is yet another film I saw thanks to the JICC and I went to it since I'd always heard good things about it but people never mentioned details. I knew that there was a struggle in the end with the older characters giving up and the younger ones advocating pushing on (and that I only know because of some folks saying those roles should be reversed) but that was it, people just weren't selling the movie to me! So let me do the job instead and say: this was a fantastic film, everyone shouldn't just want to see it, everyone needs to see it.

Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise

Anime Review: Concrete Revolutio

Wowzer, so I expected to take only the week before Katsucon off reviewing but two weeks ago I realized I just did not have the energy so, blogging had to go! Sorry about that but hey now you have the best ConRevo post I could make which is what I wanted to do from the start.

Concrete Revolutio