A blowout isn’t just about the final score. It doesn’t turn on a choice of strategy. It’s not when two opponents start out trading even blows only for one to decisively pull away after a series of power-ups. It’s not when one person gets his ass kicked, learns a new technique, and comes back a [...]

Intrigued by the power of the fade-in? Shakugan no Shana III has all your answers. If an ending transition exists, Shana III has used it (spoiler warnings): 1. No fade-in, standard ending sequence: episodes 5–7 and 9. The kind of ending you’ll find in most shows, and, unfortunately, the only kind of ending you’ll find [...]

Higurashi can make as many filler episodes as it wants. Lazy premises, cheesy jokes, plot holes, rampant pedophilia—who cares? I will watch every one, buy all the merchandise, and then burn it when I find out the seiyuu aren’t virgins. Only Higurashi can get away with an opening theme called Happy! Lucky! Dochy! The Higurashi [...]

Die already Two things irk me about this scene. First of all, words beginning with a vowel should be preceded by the indefinite article “an”. Second of all, anime characters talking about how they’re like anime characters is lazy, cheesy, unclever bullshit. It happened all the fucking time in the Daily Lives of High School [...]

**Spoilers for Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night** Masters in Fate/Stay Night Name Gender Competent? Emiya Shirou Male Matou Shinji Male Souichirou Kuzuki Male Kotomine Kirei Male Tohsaka Rin Female Ilyasviel von Einsbern Female Caster Female Masters in Fate/Zero Name Gender Competent? Emiya Kiritsugu Male Kotomine Kirei Male Tohsaka Tokiomi Male Kayneth Archibald Male Sola-Ui Sophia-Ri Female [...]

You know what hurts people more than telling them their favorite show sucks? Telling them their favorite show is simply ok. They react as if I threw their kittens in a wood chipper. Perhaps I’m being insensitive since it’s morally impossible for someone of my refined taste and unbridled honesty to praise mediocrity. But isn’t [...]

As much as I like this manga, I’ll be the first to admit it’s not for everyone. If any of the following applies to you, don’t read Liar Game. If you’re stupid, don’t read Liar Game. I don’t want anyone crying to me because it’s too hard for them to understand. If you’re a pussy, [...]

The manliest song without an AMV? Anything worth doing is worth doing alone. Can’t exercise by yourself? See if I care when you get a heart attack. Don’t want to eat alone? Go ahead and starve. People who need others to hold their hands to get them to do things they already want to do [...]

You do not live in Japan. A new season of anime means new anime airs on TV in Japan, which is a country you do not live in, unless you’re a disillusioned expatriate who has yet to learn that watching anime all day makes you a loser no matter where you are in the world. [...]

Warning: this post is 100% spoilers. If you haven’t seen both FMA series, pay very close attention to the next two lines before deciding whether to read any further. Full Metal Alchemist (plus Movie): +++ Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood: +++ FMA:B has too much to cover, so instead of reviewing the whole series, I’ll just [...]

Slam Dunk Originally aired: 1993-96 Began watching: 2004 Ran out of subs: 2004 Number of Episodes: 101 Episodes missed: 89-101 (training for the national tournament) Thoughts: Too many crappy jokes. At times it’s worse than Lucky Star, no exaggeration. Picking up the series during a filler stretch was painful. The game is portrayed fairly realistically. [...]

1. The final boss is the Qwaser of Gold The philosophers among you might appreciate the symbolism of gold being the ultimate evil and iron overcoming it. Productive people realize that gold is one of the most industrially useless elements on the periodic table. The Qwaser of Oxygen suffocated people. The Qwaser of Sodium caused [...]

The Ichigo 100% ending sequence might seem ok if you don’t have any rhythm. Otherwise it’s painfully off-beat. The strawberries are off, the marching is off, and the marching doesn’t even sync up with the strawberries. Did they think we wouldn’t notice? Did they think we wouldn’t care? I don’t know anything about hand-drawn graphics, [...]

I like anime. Japan isn’t anime. Q.E.D. Like most people, I enjoy a good story. Anime has consistently delivered better stories than any other form of entertainment I’ve ever come across. That’s why I’m a fan. There’s nothing uniquely Japanese about it, nor do the brilliant stories that drew me to anime exist in Japan [...]

Behavioral and psychological studies have repeatedly shown that people value first impressions and final impressions a lot more than anything in between. Not me. I’m a middle man. Some of favorite shows have beginnings or endings that flat-out suck, but none of my favorite shows are anything short of brilliant in the middle. To account [...]

90% of all betesticled anime characters look like girls. Many have six-pack abs yet act like complete pussies. Only one part of the body never lies: sideburns. In this dark age of androgyny and pedophilia, sideburns are the only reliable indicator of manliness. Thick, thin, long, short, neat, sloppy, straight, tapered—as long as you have [...]

Naraku is too damn brave. He needs to wuss out of more fights and try manipulating third parties from afar, thereby subjecting Inu Yasha’s gang to a profound test of character: will they kill the innocent or be killed themselves? Too many power-ups are the well-deserved fruits of arduous training. Once in a while, it [...]

All it took for Queen’s Blade to win my endorsement was a single episode. Twenty-three episodes later, I’m doubling down. I wouldn’t watch Queen’s Blade if it had a shitty story. Forget for a moment the stereotype that hentai/ecchi/fanservice anime have flimsy plots. A plot that’s “not bad for an ecchi anime” still wouldn’t cut [...]

Seitokai no Ichizon chronicles the hijinks of a five-girl student council. Each girl represents a different fetish: one is a loli, one is a sadist, one is a tomboy, one is a pussy, and one is a male. Every day in the student council room, these five girls continuously screw around and drop references until [...]

Cromartie High School? Slice-of-life? Holy shit, that would kick ass! I would do anything to live in a world where it’s plausible, let alone ordinary, to go to school with a sentient robot, a sushi-making gorilla, and Freddie Mercury. Unfortunately, Cromartie High School is the least realistic anime I have ever seen. That’s not to [...]

A lot of bloggers have recently posted their Top N Anime of the Decade lists. I’ve never cared to write these kinds of trendy posts (though I’m more than happy to criticize them). Even if I did get in on the posts, the vast majority of my readers wouldn’t care that it was part of [...]

(From Maddox’s Comic) Last season I was watching this lesbian show called Aoi Hana. It started off pretty slow, but approximately halfway into the series, one of the girls got dumped. Perfect. All the slow-moving drama would pay off tenfold if that goody two-shoes lesbian kid were to transform into a rancorous and psychotic distortion [...]

In episode 24, a female sniper is assigned the task of killing Golgo 13. It’s impossible to beat Golgo 13 in a fair fight, and women in general fight dirty, so she plots to mess up Golgo 13′s eyesight by exposing him to the sandy Sirocco/Ghibli winds of Morocco. Little did she know that Golgo [...]

This is a slice-of-life picture. If you don’t get it, you’re looking it at wrong. Ever notice how Lucky Star is a comedy? Ever been told that if you’re not watching it as a slice-of-life anime, you’re watching it wrong? Ever wished that Baka-Raptor would write a post on how that’s the stupidest shit in [...]

I was recently thinking about how much I suck at drawing, image editing, web design, and other forms of useful art, when I realized there’s a simple way to turn that all around: training in the mountains. Mountain training is a surefire way to get better at anything: martial arts, kendo, ninjutsu, homosexuality, mountain climbing, [...]

No. Not again. I refuse to accept this. Why must all the tough guys in anime get stalked by little girls to show they have a caring side? Who’s next, Golgo 13? If I were in charge of writing the new FMA series, Scar’s encounter with May Chang would go something like this: To think [...]

Endless Eight was a waste of time, money, human resources, natural resources (e.g., oil, gas, animal pelt), bandwidth, and chakra. Good thing I didn’t watch Endless Eight—I watched Finite Five (skipped eps 5-7). It was only five-eighths as pedophilic. You just read the most flattering review of Endless Eight on the internet. Come on guys, [...]

At least the English intro is bad enough to be good I want to like everything I watch. You might not get that impression from all the bashing I do on this site, but really, I give every show a fair chance. In fact, I probably try a lot harder than you (otherwise I wouldn’t [...]

A few posts ago when I claimed that Asu no Yoichi is the best harem anime ever, various commenters contended that the following were better: Clannad Kanon Suzuka Ranma 1/2 High School of the Dead I cannot agree, not because these shows are (all) bad, but because they’re not harems (with the possible exception of [...]

Hey, look at me, I’m Mr. Perfect. I never lose sight of what’s truly important in life and always believe in the goodness of the human heart, no matter how unfounded or irrational it may seem to the objective bystander. I’m so comfortable with who I am that my ludicrously flamboyant wardrobe doesn’t make me [...]