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Reviews

What I’m Watching – Carole & Tuesday (Eps. 1-12)

Note: This post contains some spoilers for the series through episode 12.

This past weekend I got the opportunity to speak at GalaxyCon, a multi-media fandom convention in my hometown. We capped off our weekend presenting “Shiny New Anime,” a panel where my husband and I share thoughts about and clips of some of our favorite anime from the past year (on a roughly 12-month rolling scale… sometimes stuff a little bit older sneaks in there if it has a second season or we missed it the first time around). In the lead-up to a convention, I generally try to catch up and finish at least some of the series on my plate; my general viewing habits aren’t that great, and while I’m sure I’d get more done if I kept up with anime on a weekly basis, the reality is that aside from a few shows where being caught-up is pretty necessary (Attack on Titan comes to mind), I tend to watch anime in multi-episode chunks after-the-fact.

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Conventions Special Features

GalaxyCon Minneapolis – Panel Materials

Hi everyone! We had a great time at the inaugural GalaxyCon Minneapolis, and appreciate that they allowed us to run some of our anime programming there. Below are my panel materials from Shiny New Anime. There are only minor differences between this version of the panel and the one that we gave at Anime Fusion, but I was able to swap a couple of things out and added in a clip for Carole & Tuesday, which I was able to watch in the interim (well, the first half at least… thank you, Netflix).

Feel free to download these, share them, and enjoy them. If you re-purpose them in any way, please provide me credit. While I obviously don’t create the anime that are featured in the presentation, I do write up my own descriptions, put together the slide presentation, and cut all the clips which can get time-consuming! Mostly I just want to share my love and enjoyment of anime with the community, though, which is why I offer this stuff with pretty much no questions asked.

Shiny New Anime – Handout
Shiny New Anime – PowerPoint Presentation

Please let me know if there are any broken links, and thank you!

Categories
30 Day Anime Challenge Special Features

30 Day Anime Challenge #8 – Favorite Anime Couple

I’m sure some of you will recall that I was attempting the “30 Day Anime Challenge” at some point, right? Personally I just use the prompts when I can’t think of things to write about on my own; I’m not hung up on the 30 days being consecutive, obviously. In any case, while I catch up on some of my anime-watching behind the scenes, I thought I’d try to tackle some more items off of this particular list.

This subject is actually a little bit difficult for me, to be honest. I wouldn’t say that I seek out much anime where romance and character couplings are the primary concern of the story. Anime romance, like other genres, tends to center young people. While teens definitely have the potential to experience the full range of emotions that come along with love and loss, many anime stories focus more on overcoming the hurdle of confessing one’s feelings than the subsequent development of a relationship -and I’m honestly more interested in the latter. Keeping that in mind, it seems like that would narrow the potential pool quite a bit.

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Conventions

Galaxycon 2019

Hi folks. It’s with great pleasure that I’m able to let you all know that J.C. and I will be serving as panelists at the first ever Galaxycon Minneapolis. Our convention leadership at Anime Detour invited us to help provide some anime programming for this convention, and so we’ll be there on Friday and Sunday doing just that! This will be a new experience for us, both due to the location (the Minneapolis Convention Center – I’ve attended conventions there in the past, but never participated in one) and the type of convention. It’s more of a broad fandom event with lots of high-profile guests from TV, film, comics, anime, etc. It promises to be a fun time!

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Gaming Personal

Just For Fun – Minecraft

My cat.

The other day I heard one of my Facebook acquaintances complaining about their kid’s obsession with Minecraft, and how they just don’t understand it. I can relate, but maybe not in the way they might expect. In my household, I’m the one obsessed with Minecraft – although I do have a pretty good handle on why it appeals to me. Though, at almost 38 years old, I might be a little bit of an anomaly, or at least outside the “average.”

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2019 First Impressions – Shorts

The most horrifying fried rice.

I usually like saving short-form anime impressions for later, since that leaves enough time for a couple of episodes to arrive, offsetting the lack of content. There seem to be far fewer anime shorts this season than in previous ones, so I wonder if the form is falling out of favor with creators or broadcasters. In any case, below are impressions of this season’s selections.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Promare

30 years ago, a cataclysmic event destroyed half the world in a fire and caused a mutation that created a new race of people called Burnish. Burnish are able to create and control fire.The “Burning Rescue” fire squad put out fires caused by Burnish. The new rookie of Burning Rescue is Galo, a hotheaded man who wields “Matoi-Tech,” named after the “matoi” banners that Edo-period firefighting units used. Galo’s encounter with Lio, the leader of a Burnish terrorist group called Mad Burnish, sets the story in motion. – ANN

Availability: Theatrical Release

Episodes: 1 film + 2 ONA episodes

Source: Original

Review: Note: This review may contain mild plot spoilers for the film.

Theatrical showings of anime films aren’t exactly the “events” that they once were. In the past they were so uncommon that I’d expect to see many of the people I knew from anime fandom in the theater. Nowadays, while anime films still don’t typically get a wide release, there are enough of them shown during limited theatrical runs that I can afford to be choosy and support the ones I’m truly interested in. Still, on occasion, there’ll be an anime film that seems to appeal to a wide enough audience that they manage to capture the electricity inherent in a theater full to the brim with enthusiastic fans. The showing of Promare I attended was nearly sold-out, and the bustle of the otaku fan base definitely added another dimension to the experience of viewing this film, which is definitely what I’d call an “experience” to begin with.

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Anime Reviews Reviews

Anime Review – Given

Ritsuka played guitar but has lost interest in the instrument. One day, he meets Mafuyu, who is holding a broken guitar. Ritsuka unwillingly starts teaching Mafuyu the guitar, but when he hears Mafuyu’s voice, things suddenly begin to change for Ritsuka. – ANN

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Episodes: 11

Source: Manga

Review: Note: this review may contain mild spoilers for the anime series.

When I was in high school I played flute in the concert band. I enjoyed it so much that I even took outside lessons and participated in the annual solo competitions put on by the area schools. I didn’t have a great time in school overall, but being able to express myself through music is one of the better memories I have of that time in my life. I came to the realization at some point that when your emotions operate outside what other people are willing to tolerate on a regular basis, it’s life’s other more artistic avenues that serve as an alternative outlet for those complicated, powerful feelings.

Given is the story of a budding relationship between two high school students, a tale it heartily accomplishes through sensitive, slow-burn character development. But it’s also a peek into the life of someone dealing with trauma and the shame that seemed to crop up in its aftermath. Unsurprisingly, it’s music that seems to tie everything together.

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2019 First Impressions – Part 6

Well folks, it looks like we made it to the end of this season’s new anime (well, excluding shorts and sequels… of which there are a ton this time!). While I’d say it hasn’t really been a mind-blowing season so far, it’s at least been kind of interesting. But I’m getting ahead of myself – there are still a few more new series to take a peek at before passing any major judgments.

And this is probably something that I should have said at the outset, and definitely bears repeating – these are just impressions based on 1 episode, so by definition can’t necessarily speak for the entire series. However, one thing I always look for is potential, whether that’s the potential to entertain or the potential to offend, and that’s something that can often be gleaned just by determining how a series puts its best (or I suppose first) foot forward.

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First Impressions Reviews

Autumn 2019 First Impressions – Part 5

Well folks, now that J.C. and I are finished with convention prep for like… maybe a week or so (we have another one coming up in early November… why do we keep doing this to ourselves?), I’ve got time to hopefully finish up the Autumn seasonal first impressions. I should note once again that these posts don’t include the (many, many) sequels airing this season, nor the Netflix-only series since they’re on their own schedule (at least in the United States). I may do a small sequel round-up at some point (though I don’t intend to review any sequels I’m not familiar with), but that will depend on time and motivation.

In any case, there appear to be six series left to look at, so to avoid awkward-sized posts I’m going to split them up into two groups of three. Look for part 6 sometime in the next couple of days (once I sleep off my convention bad habits).

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