Anime Review: Flying Witch

Flying Witch

Manga Review: Spirit Circle

This review is a bit later than I hoped, both in the context of this week and in general since Crunchyroll was a bit slow getting the final chapter up. I'm not sure why, they were fairly up to date with the rest of the chapters, but I have noticed that there are some, less popular CR series that don't update quite as regularly as others (by that I mean, not consistently same day, two days later etc than the Japanese magazine release). I don't think that contributed to the manga's relative unpopularity however, I have just had the hardest time convincing people to try this series so, once more with feeling! This is one of my favorite series from the last few years and dammit if it's never gonna get a physical release you should at least read this digital release since who knows how long CR will hold this release.

Spirit Circle by Satoshi Mizukami

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

Anime Review: Noragami Aragoto

It's a little awkward that I'm just now starting on the fall shows this late into January so let's get started my favorite [one and done] fall show from this past year and one of my favorites of the entire year as well.

Noragami Aragoto

Anime Review: Gatchman Crowds Insight

I, like everyone else, was surprised when I heard that were was going to be a sequel to the 2013 incarnation of Gatchaman since it seemed like the series had tied itself up quite nicely. However, after having seen this sequel it's a must see, that story wasn't complete before which I suppose makes this the best sequel ever in a sense.

But first things first, if you have seen Crowds but not the director's cut of episode 12 you need to see that. Given the half recap episode in the tv run they had to re-edit episode 12 on the DVDs (Japan only, Sentai could not get the license in the US) which includes how Hajime finally defeated Berg Katze and a few other key details. Next, make sure to watch episode 0 on Crunchyroll before going onto episode 1 since it has new stuff as well. And then you're all set for what may be the most decisive anime of 2015!

Gatchaman Crowds Insight

Comic Review: In Real Life

For once I found out about this comic long before it came out (instead of discovering it years later on a library shelf) since publisher First Second made the odd choice to start marketing the book 11 months before it was even out. Like the current American election cycle, starting that early seemed a bit excessive to me, although Cory Doctorow's original short story ( "Anda's Game") had been out on the internet even longer so maybe that was the line of thinking. Regardless, I liked the preview I found on Tor.com and I was already familiar with Doctorow (loved Little Brother, couldn't make it more than a few chapters in For the Win) and Jen Wang (I really liked Koko Be Good) so this was a must-read for me as soon as my library got its copies.

In Real Life story copyright Cory Doctorow, art and adaption by Jen Wang

Radio Drama Review: Tokyo Demons Book 1: You're Never Alone

As I alluded to several weeks back, I like to listen to podcast, audio books, and when I can find them radio dramas when I’m working on big sewing projects, I find it’s a way to actually help keep me focused and look forward to my work. So with nearly everything exhausted pre-Otakon, I turned to Sparkler Monthly, an online “shoujo/josei magazine” of sorts which I knew had a few audio titles. I went for what seems to be their best well-known one, Tokyo Demons, which I remember also received glowing praise from Ash of Experiments in Manga. There is also a prose version of the story but when I first inquired about this story (quite a while ago) I was told that the audio version was the more “complete” one since it also had a few exclusive side stories. I’m not sure you could say that now however since the audio version has only covered one out of the three books in the series. And for a quick plug before I get to the review, Sparkler is holding a Kickstarter to help fund Year Three of the magazine and it’s in it’s final days with a bit more to go. Most of the titles I enjoy on Sparkler are ones I was already familiar with (Knights Errant, Witch’s Quarry) so I’m more than happy to see them return and encourage more people to give the titles a shot.

Tokyo Demons: You're Never Alone written by Lianne Sentar, adapted by Rebecca Scoble, illustrated by Rem

TV Series Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season two)

I blame cosplay for this post going up late but at least at this point it's still before midnight. Let's just go ahead and dive into it shall we?

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Anime Review: Durarara!! x2 SHOU

This was a bit of an odd show to be air. As I think I talked about in my Yuri Kuma Arashi review, studio Brains Base is hardly worth mentioning these days and Durarara!! was their best selling show ever, I think Natsume and the Book of Friends was a close second but DRRR!! sold like gangbusters and everyone expected a sequel to be announced in a year or so. Come five years later and a lot of the core creative staff has moved onto an entirely different studio to produce this show and it makes me wonder what was going on behind the scenes for that to happen. We'll likely never know (short of getting someone important drunk which is always a possibility!) and even odder is a recent episode of the podcast ANNCast with "Aniplex Guy" who says that the US support for the show helped get this second part made. There have been cases before where an American company has helped fund a sequel (like with Big O) and Aniplex of America is special since it's a branch of the Japanese production company but this would be almost the first time simple support for a show has helped make it possible. Plus, I had always heard that DRRR!! DIDN'T do as well as they expected, they even switched over to their more premium releases afterwards so that change in marketing always seemed to support the rumor. So I guess you can say that the story surrounding the show is more confusing than the show itself, although given that this show tends to explain itself fairly well after a point maybe that's the least surprising point.

Durarara!! x2 SHOU

Anime Review: Shirobako

When I first saw the summary for this story I thought "But if I've already seen Animation Runner Kuromi do I really need to see this?" and now having seen the showI would actually recommend seeing that 2 OVA series first! The two shows are actually fairly different but Shirobako drops you into the animation production assuming that you already know a lot of the basics and ARK gives you a great rundown of those missing parts or you can also check out this handy glossary for the show.

Shirobako

Book Review: Nightingale'sNest

As I've said before, I've been waffling over whether or not to continue putting up reviews of middle grade (and adult) books here or if I should try and keep my book reviews more consistent and only talk about YA. That is the majority of what I read but over the past month I requested a number of books which turned out to be MG and they were all rather good too! So I still want to talk about them but these will be shorter reviews, that just tends to happen when it's a shorter work and that's part of the reason why I don't read MG as much, I feel like their shorter length doesn't always develop the story as fully as it could but I thought that the next few books were the perfect lengths.

Nightingale's Nest by Nikki Loftin

Book Review: The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim

Well folks, as I mentioned yesterday, despite my best efforts I have still been unable to remember/find out the name of one of the side characters in this story and I feel very silly about it. If by any chance I ever do find this name again (I believe there is a sequel in the works to this story and I imagine she would pop up again) I will change the name but for the moment; Owen and Siobhan have a classmate who is a girl, if you read the book you'll be able to tell who it is immediately and I will explain in short order why she is a great character.

The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnston

Movie Review: Thermae Romae

As a heads up, since I am so busy catching up with all the anime I've fallen behind on there will NOT be a review next week. Since March kicks off my month of nothing but digital manga and webcomic reviews this means that there won't be any anime reviews until April (which should be when 99% of my shows end which means that it'll get a little crazy around here).

I seem to run into "help I have no more shows to review and no time!" around this time every year actually, usually I pull a short or two out fill the space and that's exactly what I did with the Thermae Romae anime last year (it's since been licensed by Discotek although I'm unsure if it's streaming). I enjoyed it more than I expected so when the JICC announced they were having a showing of the live action movie I couldn't resist. It was a comedy to start with and with how over-acted Japanese live action comedies tend to be I couldn't wait to see how it turned out.

Thermae Romae

Radio Drama Review: Good Omens

Since I enjoyed the radio drama adaptation of Neverwhere a couple of years back I was rather interested to hear that the BBC would be adapting another of Neil Gaiman's works, this time one co-written with Terry Prachett (I have somehow managed to read only one other of both of their works which is almost remarkable by now). Since Good Omens was already on my to-read list I decided last August to go ahead and read it anyway and then, when I could still remember most of the book but not the finer details, listen to the Christmas-timed broadcast, although I ended up so behind that I didn't get to the broadcast until well after the new year....

Good Omens

Movie Review: Wolf Children

Again, sorry for no full anime review on Monday, I've been swamped again and having terrible luck finding some things I really want to review free, legally online without going through a hassle like I don't know, verifying whoever the heck is my cable provider these days.

So I'm a bit late getting around to this movie but when it did come out I saw reviews from reviewers I liked and realized that if most of them were negative about this movie that I was unlikely to love it either, possibly not even like it. But I'm hardly going to turn down seeing a movie for free so why not, I was sure it wasn't going to be absolutely terrible!

Wolf Children

Book Review: Tides

I got this book in a curious way, an author I follow on tumblr reblogged another author saying her second book was coming out soon and she would like to have more reviews of the first book up on Amazon so she'd be happy to send a PDF of the book to anyone who wanted to review it on there. Naturally I was interested so I'll be cross-posting part of this review over there, hope it does some good!

Tides by Betsy Cornwell

Anime Review: Terror in Resonance

Sorry for the delay here, I seem to write two kinds of reviews: quick ones where I can get one done in half an hour and then monstrous ones that take two hours to do a rough draft and usually I need to sleep on it to edit, guess which one this ended up being? So with that, no introduction this time around and let's just get down to Watanabe's latest series that's not Space Dandy, streaming on Funimations's website and hulu.

Terror in Resonance (Zankyou no Terror)

Anime Review: Aldnoah.Zero

In the past I determined that 12 shows is about the max I can watch in one season and this summer season seemed to prove that, I didn't even watch 12 shows every week and my weekends were still too full! On Saturday's two shows primarily competed for my attention, Captain Earth and this one and they were both a bit uneven, I can't actually remember any weeks where they were both strong, and in the end this was the more uneven, and ultimately weaker, of the two which is the exact opposite of what I would have predicted!

Aldnoah.Zero

Anime Review: Mekaku City Actors

A couple of years ago I first heard of the Kagero Project and went looking for information on it, I wasn't even sure what exactly it was, and was horribly confused when I tried skimming tvtropes and wikipedia articles on it. The basic set-up is that an editor, Jin, used the vocaloid program to make a series of songs, which were later put to videos, that sort of told a story and then were later adapted into a light novel series, a manga, and then eventually this anime, think of it as the story becoming more accessible each time it was adapted. So I tried out a few videos and liked some but was just plain confused by others and decided to wait it out until the adaptation to see if the story worked any better here, especially since in an odd twist Jin himself was doing the writing for the series (I can't find a staff listing that credits him with a particular role so I'm assuming he helped with the series composition or scenario instead of writing the actual scripts). So, while this is certainly the easiest version of the story for people to get into and finish, is it the "best" one?

Mekaku City Actors

TV Series Review: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Given how Marvel's superhero films are such big deals these days I doubt this show needs much in the way of introduction. I will note that it does cross over into the films in two places, in episode 8, The Well, we see the gang cleaning up after the effects of Thor: The Dark World and in episode 16, End of the Beginning, we see everything flip upside down as it takes place at the same time Captain America: The Winter Solider is happening. You can see the show without having seen Thor 2 (I saw the episode afterwards and was just fine) but I don't recommend it for the Cap 2 tie in so hopefully anyone interested in checking out the show has already seen it!

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D