Revolutionary Girl Utena is a magical-girl anime of sorts, about a high-school girl called Utena Tenjou – and, as you might have guessed, she’s no ordinary girl – but perhaps not in the way you might expect. You see, Utena wants desperately to be a prince, constantly getting into trouble at Ohtori Academy for wearing the boys’ uniform. In fact, Utena wants to be a prince so much, that when she sees a girl in distress – that’s Anthy Himemiya – she sees no other option but to go sort out her abusive boyfriend. That’s when Utena becomes drawn in to the secrets of Ohtori Academy and it’s mysterious Dueling Club – and needs to protect her Anthy more than ever.

One great thing about this anime is that, for a shojo series, this has a really damned good story about fighting for what you believe in, for who you believe in, for going against the grain. I love this series for that because I’ve never seen anything like it. Read the rest of this entry →

On a recent podcast, there was a question about where would be a good place to start in the Gundam franchise. There are many movies/TV series that jumped around into continuing stories, side-stories, and alternative universe stories. It makes the Star Trek franchise look simple in comparison. First, let’s lay all the facts on the table. Read the rest of this entry →

As someone who has spent the last three years studying psychology in college, it’s always fun when I can apply what I’m learning to my hobbies. For better or worse, Mitsudomoe allowed me just such an opportunity.

There’s a state of mind called cognitive dissonance where the individual has conflicting thoughts and emotions. Let’s say you’re trying to quit smoking, but the other day you had a cigarette on your lunch break. That guilt you feel is cognitive dissonance. Since cognitive dissonance is annoying, and often times painful, people will rationalize what they’re doing to mitigate the feeling. Sure, you smoked that cigarette, but you haven’t had one in three weeks, and it’s not like you smoked a whole pack.

Now lets apply this to Mitsudomoe. When I saw the opening credits of this show, the cognitive dissonance hit me like a train. I’ve seen a lot of bad anime since I started this site two years ago–The Dark Myth, Spectral Force, Munto–but never before has it psychically hurt to watch a show. Read the rest of this entry →

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Sentai Filmworks lost the Anime Expo War, but they still managed to crush their opponents in the Battle of the Simulcasts. Funimation may have had more simulcasts, but Sentai had the only one that mattered*; proving that no amount of machine guns will ever defeat a freaking tank. Quantity versus quality. High school students versus zombies.

High School of the Dead is every bit as cool as the trailer made it seem. It’s bloody, it’s sexy, and it’s usually both at the same time. What’s it about? Have you played Dead Rising, or, I don’t know, seen any zombie movie ever? Just imagine that it took place in a Japanese high school. Just imagine 20 minutes of the students killing those zombies. It may be a tired premise, but it’s difficult to care when executed this well. Whether High School of the Dead will bring anything new to the genre has yet to be seen, but I can’t say that I would be upset with 13 episodes of mindless violence and fan-service. Read the rest of this entry →

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Usually I would avoid something like Beck Mongolian Chop Squad because I tend to shy away from the so called slice-of-life type shows. There are a few exceptions, of course, but the idea of a show about teenagers going about their regular lives is never a selling point for me. On top of that, you add that this involves kids starting up a band and I couldn’t be any less interested. How many times growing up did you want to start a band? We’ve all been there and done that and that shit never goes anywhere. It’s fun for a while, but then it gets hard, everyone gets lazy, and your rock dreams fade away. It would have been a huge mistake if I had gone with my instincts and ignored this show because Beck ended up being one of my favorite anime series of all time. Read the rest of this entry →