Anime Review: Haikyuu!! Season Two

Apologies for going AWOL, last week was a bit rough, and there was a wedding involved, so I'm just shuffling around my book reviews so that I stay on track. Although, out of all of the material that I review, I have more books waiting to be talked about than anything else so that is a bit of a problem. I really don't have the energy to do additional reviews every week but at this rate it's going to be a race until the end of June for that "best books of 2015" post (yes I know I said initially it was going to be earlier but I'm still reading books!)

To the topic at hand, hurray, more sports anime that's fun above all else.! I feel like Haikyuu is also a really great example of how to make a shounen sports show for women, just give the characters personalities and the fans will flock!

Haikyuu!! Season Two

Movie Review: Miss Hokusai

Sorry for the delay, it's been a week guys. I have decided that the worst part of being an adult is not having breaks anymore, school breaks were really great. I mean, I'm glad I have weekends off now so I can see awesome movies but it's still not the same.

So, Miss Hokusai currently is not licensed in the US but somehow Otakon was able to have a special showing of it as part of DC's cherry blossom festivals (along with Up on Poppy Hill and Letter to Momo). I was pretty thrilled to have a chance to see it and really hope someone picks it up soon (it rather feels like a GKIDS film) so that everyone else gets a chance.

Miss Hokusai

Anime Review: Utawarerumono The False Faces

It's time to dive back into last season's offerings, and this series was a bit of an odd one for me, it's a sequel and I haven't watched the original! The problem is that I got into the show around episode six at which point anime-only watchers still weren't entirely sure how closely this would be related to the first Utawarerumono (and the original visual novel had been out for less than two months so there weren't many game players around to answer questions) so watching the sequel first was totally by accident. I dealt with it by reading a ton of spoilers (the wikipedia entry used to have a really detailed account but it was removed pretty quickly) but I'm not sure I would say I recommend watching the first Underwaterrayromano first since I don't really recommend watching this follow-up either!

Utawarerumono: The False Faces

Weekly Round-UP: April 10th-16th

Just a regular round-up this week! So to go through it quickly, no book review because I got to doing it and realized A) I wasn't 100% sure what the title was anymore (oops) and B) My thoughts could be summed up as "I'm not sure why the author felt the need to include two lines that indicated this was a 1001 Nights retelling and honestly the story was a bit too internal for me to like". Honestly I can sum up 70% of the things I review that quickly but typically I don't want to. This week's book is going to be a good one to talk about though!

So, I managed to get my Spring Anime 2016 Round-UP out on the day I meant to, also posted about the first two volumes of The Wicked and The Divine rather late (just tired and stressed), reposted my Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou review, and posted my Ring of the Nibelung review on OASG.

OH one more thing, I have finally "made it" in aniblogging, I was on my first podcast! Justin couldn't make the OASG podcast recording so I guest-starred with the other host Muse (who I did the "Shojo You Should Know" series last year) and gave "It's Not My Fault The OASG Podcast Isn't Popular!" it's first bleep! I actually swear a lot in real life so I tried to be more careful for the podcast but one shit just slipped though.... And hopefully convinced more people to watch Concrete Revolutio, 90% of my preparation for the podcast was trying to figure out how to explain that show succinctly and I think I did a pretty good job!

Comic Review: The Wicked and The Divine (volumes one and two)

While I haven't been watching a lot of movies lately I am been up to my ears in comics and manga! Part of this is that I on occasion remember that the DC library actually stocks current comic series and I finally had a chance to check out a series I had quite a bit of good buzz about. Actually, I only requested the first volume, as soon as I tore through it I immediately jumped back online for the second volume and I'm hoping they get the third trade soon!

The Wicked and The Divine written by Kieron Gillen, illustrated by Jamie McKelvie

Manga Review: Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou (volume one)

This review originally appeared on OASG

Title: Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou

Genre: Slice of Life

Publisher: Shonen Gahosha (JP), Crunchyroll (US)

Story/Artist: Ruri Miyahara

Serialized in: Young King Ours

Reviewed: Volume 1 of 6

Review copy provided by Crunchyroll.

As I mentioned last time, there are many different kinds of slice of life manga out there. Some rely on character growth to move the story along and others use the passage of time to keep the story flowing. Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou, which was adapted into an anime titled The Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior, doesn’t use either of those methods and in this first volume it’s hard to believe that any time is passing at all since nothing in the story seems to change.

Spring 2016 Anime Round-UP

Initially I didn't think I would have this post out so soon but here we are, nearly every show has premiered and the few that are left don't really interest me (I mean, I am enjoying Magi but Sinbad isn't my favorite character so I don't feel like spending a lot of time on his spin-off right now). So, I have no carry-overs from the winter (barring my backlog) and honestly not much time for watching anime right now so let's be a little ruthless. 

Weekly Round-UP: April 3rd - 9th and thoughts on FEH's book signing

Whew, a bit of a more normal week as far as updates are concerned. No no movie review again but again, I just haven't had a chance to catch anything! I thought I might early in the week but between writing up the Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu review (and re-watching the first episode, you know for research!) I just didn't have any time left for a movie. I mean, if I didn't go to Faith Erin Hick's signing I might have but I'm gonna talk more about that in a minute.

I DID have time to write up my short thoughts on Girl Waits With Gun (Takahashi-san is Listening was written in advance, as was my throw-back review of Josei Kausei obviously) and I've been working on my spring round-up which will be going live tomorrow, much earlier than I expected!

And now, bullet-point thoughts on the FEH talk/signing:

Book Review: Girl Waits With Gun

Well, I wasn't sure I would get this review up on time but I did it, I'm calling that my victory for the week and will get back to working on my spring round-up post I suppose.

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart

Manga Review: Joshi Kausei

This review originally appeared on Organization of Anti-Social Geniuses

Title: Joushi Kausei
Genre: Slice of Life
Publisher: Futabasha (JP), Crunchyroll (US)
Story/Artist: Ken Wakai
Serialized in: Manga Action
Reviewed: 15 out of 26 chapters
Review copy provided by Crunchyroll.

These days savvy anime and manga fans will be fairly familiar with the slice of life genre and the various subgenres in it. Everyday school stories, cute girls doing cute things, and workplace comedies, among others, all fall into the category along with another where the name isn’t as familiar but the premise is, iyashikei or “healing” stories. While they don’t possess any medicinal value, these stories are sweet, simple tales where you simply feel uplifted and happier after reading one and that is precisely the point of Joshi Kausei. This simple, wordless manga (although it does include text and sound effects) follows Momoko through various scenes in her everyday life and these stories aren’t connected by either plot or even character development. The idea is for the reader to relax, smile, and enjoy it.

Anime Review: Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Before the season started I was tentative on this title, it sounded like it could be good but I really hadn't heard much about it. I knew it was about rakugo, knew what the basics of rakugo was, and that it was a josei title. So it was for an entirely unrelated reason that I was optimistic, the last time I was curious but had no idea if a josei title was going to be good was Chihayafuru and we all know how amazing that series turned out to be!

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju

Weekly Round-UP: March 28th - April 2nd and the backlog burner

So, technically only two reviews this week and a repost of an older OASG review (Chronos Haze), why so? Well, this is the second time I've tried to review the comic Wayward and while I have notes prepared I just couldn't, I disliked that much about the story and thought saying "I don't want to say this is everything wrong with American comics set in Japan but it certainly gave me flashbacks to terrible comics I read in the mid-2000s that weren't manga but had manga influences and were the only things my library had" was a bit much. I dislike writing reviews that are pure negative "I see no redeeming qualities" and the only thing I didn't actively dislike about the book was the coloring style (not even the art but the coloring!) and even that I had creative disagreements with in a low-key way. So that review didn't happen, consider that my non-recommendation!

On a more positive (?) note, I struggled with figuring out if I want to recommend Erased to any kind of audience and also struggled with an author's unsettling trend in Walk on Earth a Stranger. Also forgot to note in that review that no, I'm not entirely sure what that title is a reference to since it's a bit overdramatic to describe the lead character's situation. Oh and my update schedule on OASG has gotten a little wonky lately (it's my fault) but I did post my thoughts on the second and final volume of Crown of Thorns which I suppose makes it my most positive post of the week, hah!


Now that we have a brief moment in-between seasons (honestly what I miss the most from having memberships to all of the streaming websites was that I managed to have a full week-week and a half with no new shows, with only partial access it’s not as neat), let’s talk backlog. Since boy-howdy do I have a lot on mine. The winter season was more full than I expected and gdi spring looks like it’s bursting, even if I’m not over the moon yet for any of the shows.

Book Review: Walk on Earth a Stranger

Ack, darn work for getting in the way of my review writing, how dare you make me tired after 8 hour workdays and make it hard to focus! So a quickie for a book I don't have much to say about anyway, that seems fair

Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson