State of the Blog – We need to talk

by Lenlo, posted in Special Articles

Hello everyone, Lenlo here. Lets talks, about the state of the blog, the state of my life, and where things are going. Or well, I’m going to talk, y’all are going to read.

As many of you have noticed, posts have been slowing down for a while now. I’m months late on things like the 2023 Anime of the Year, as well as the Dr. STONE S4 and Undead Girl Murder Farce reviews. Some of you also probably figured out those were never happening. Well I’m here to talk about why, as well as the future of the blog. Simply put, I’m tired. So very tired. I’ve been doing this for almost 7 years at this point, and I’ve enjoyed it a lot! I remember every single series I’ve covered, and I valued every comment. But… I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. Not only can I not handle 3-5 posts a week on top of my  regular life, watching anime in this way, looking for things to praise or criticize, taking notes as I watch it… it’s ruining my enjoyment of them. I can’t do it anymore. So… I’ve decided to follow the rest of the writers and retire, from weekly posts at least.

What does this mean for the site? Well for starters, it’s not necessarily the end. I’ll still write the occasional review or post that interests me, I do still enjoy writing the larger reviews, but I’m going to do it on my time, as I naturally finish a series, without any weekly posts or other deadline considerations to worry about. I’ll also continue to post any guest reviews, such as Firechick’s, for as long as I am able. But basically this means all weekly, almost daily, content is coming to an end for the site. Everything else, we’ll see. As for how long this will go on for, the server is paid for until 2025, so at the very least it will remain up for another 18 months. All the old reviews, all the posts, the comments, those will all stay up until the end of next year. Once that time runs out I’m going to evaluate where we’re at and decide whether or not to pay for the server for another year.

So yeah… That’s the news. I talked it over with the other writers in the discord, and they support my decision. They understand that some day, all things must end. That every dreamer must wake. And while I tried to put it off, I held on to this place as best I could, it’s my time. Effective immediately, for the sake of my own mental health as I finish this last busy summer semester of my Master’s degree, I am retiring. I apologize for the series left half-finished, for the incomplete weekly roundups. I might, hell I probably will, write a review for a couple of them. But those will come out on my own time. So until then, chat with you in discord whenever I can, and I’ll see you around space cowboy.

Ranger Reject – 7 [The Zigzag Road to the Final Exam!]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Ranger Reject

Welcome all, to another episode of Ranger Reject! This week continues the exam, revealing the true secret behind it and driving our cast to conflict, meanwhile in the background a greater threat is beginning to arise. Pretty ominous right? Well lets dive in and talk about it!

Starting with the test itself, the reveal that this wasn’t actually designed to test pairs of two but full teams of five was really interesting. Suddenly a seemingly impossible test designed to fail everyone instead becomes a measure of leadership, team work, and judgement on who you team up with. I still wouldn’t call it perfect, the way Ranger Reject presented it last episode was still very flawed, but this episode was a valiant recovery and may end up saving the arc for me. Shion’s betrayal despite everything Fighter D did for him yesterday, the way Fighter D is slowly building up his team of rejects to steal back the keys they need, as well as everything else going on in the background, was all around pretty good. It still suffers a bit from pacing, but not nearly as badly as the previous episode.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S4 – 3 [Fully Recovered Tanjiro Joins the Hashira Training!!]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome all, to another week of Kimetsu no Yaiba! For how simple the premise is, how little promise the arc seems to have, I’m enjoying myself a shocking amount. It’s nice coming back and seeing these characters again, spending time understanding who they are and what they think of the current situation. It’s what the series needed! I just can’t believe we actually got it. What do I mean? Well lets dive into the episode and find out.

All things considered, this was a pretty straight forward training episode. Tanjiro returned, we caught back up with Uzui and saw what he was putting the Demon Slayers through, had a motivational speech, then moved on to the next Hashira. Nothing big happened, no fights or major revelations, just Tanjiro getting to show off how far he’s come and how great the difference is between him and a regular Demon Slayer. So why am I so happy with it? Well that’s simple, Yaiba executed a basic premise very well. Rather than being about empowering our lead, making him stronger, it was about how our lead can empower and raise up those around him. It showed us the nameless, faceless mooks and made it clear that, even if we don’t see them at the final battle, they will be there. Doing their part.

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Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 7

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Weekly Summary

Hey all, quick note at the top here, apologies for all these delays. Wrote it in the Nana post but I’ve been pretty sick since Wednesday and have been catching up these past few days. That’s all.

Dungeon Meshi – 21 [Egg/The Golden County]

This was an interesting episode of Dungeon Meshi, as we start to expand our scope beyond the dungeon and into the wider world and its history, as well as all the consequences that brings. On the surface, this means we get to meet the Fantasy Cops AKA, the Elves. This squad is… interesting. Every single one of them looks like a sociopath, from Mr. “Covered in magical tattoos” to “I had a stroke and I’m still better than you”. Honestly it’s a pretty cool looking cast, I like how varied their designs are and I’m looking forward to their role in the story. They are obviously gonna be bad guys, we were warned about how the Elves react to Ancient/Dark Magic back when Marcille was doing her thing. So there’s not a doubt in my mind they are going to end up fighting our main party. The question is just whether or not we inevitably team up with them to take down the Mad Mage, or if we fight them after the Mad Mage goes down to secure Marcille/the loot/Dungeon Lordship. Should be interesting! Meanwhile underground we get some history, meeting some more of the ghosts, learning about their Curse Of Immortality, and the source of his power, the Winged Lion, kept further down. We have a goal, a weakness, and a prophecy now! Things are ramping up! All in all a lot of fun, I’m enjoying the slow escalation of the story, it feels like a fantastic home game of D&D with just the right mix of action and comedy. The fact that Dungeon Meshi is a complete story gives me a lot of hope too, I wasn’t aware of that before now.

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Nana – 7/8 [Yasu Appears! Room No. 707/Strawberry Glass and Ren-Lotus Flower] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Nana, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to a late post on Nana! Sorry about that, I’ve been rather sick since Wednesday and have only just recovered. Doesn’t help that this was a rather dull week, giving me little motivation to write about it. Nana has some interesting characters, interesting ideas, but it feels like it isn’t doing a lot with it just yet and we’re about 15% through. Friends keep telling me it’s great, so maybe it’s just taking its time to set everything up and kick off. I don’t know. Whatever Nana is doing though, I hope it starts to liven up a bit soon. Anyways, feeling better, able to write, now onto the episodes!

First up is episode 7, “Yasu Appears! Room No. 707”. All about introducing Nana and Ozaki to each others friend groups, as well as some Nana insecurities, this was easily the more disappointing of the two we’re going to cover this week. The core idea is fine, Ozaki and Nana get to meat each others friends, they start to intermingle and our cast slowly comes together. And when that’s happening it’s good! I enjoyed seeing Jun and Shoji’s reactions to Ozaki and Yasu, seeing who Yasu has become in the past two years and finally progressing things a bit. The issue though is that basically the entire episode was either Nana making up her own issues with Shoji or them standing in the doorway of Nana’s new apartment and then leaving. It was like a first-impressions mixer, where neither side really engaged with each other beyond the surface level. A real missed opportunity if you ask me.

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Ranger Reject – 6 [1 Plus 2 Equals… Threat!]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Ranger Reject

Welcome all, to the halfway point of Ranger Reject This week is another fast one, blazing through content in way I’d rather Ranger Reject didn’t. That’s right, this is another 4-5 chapter episode, meaning we have a lot to talk about and not all of it is good. Lets dive in!

As I said, this episode moved fast and covered a lot. Ranger Reject was running a mile a minute this week as it speeds its way through the Final Exam. And you know what? I can’t say I’m particularly happy about it. We went from just meeting these people, these other cadets, to immediately getting thrown into a big exam where most of them are probably going to fail. The exam itself also serving as our proper introduction to the 2nd-in-commands of the various squads as they act as the “obstacles”, letting us meet characters like Hisui properly. This kind of sucks, because I was hoping we would get more time training and getting to know this large cast of new characters. That the final exam would be the climax of the season rather than the mid-point. Maybe Ranger Reject can make it work? But I’m starting to worried.

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Guest Post: Unearthed Baubles with Firechick – Pokemon Puzzle Challenge (72/100)

by Lenlo, posted in Anime Reviews

Hey Pokemaniacs, remember this game? Because I do! In fact, I bought this along with other mainline games when I had my first GameBoy Color, and I loved it! But back then, I was still very new to video games and never managed to complete all of its content, such as the secret hard modes and the extra Pokemon you can get. But Pokemon Puzzle Challenge is an old game that’s still spoken of fondly. It was readily available on the 3DS Virtual Console for cheap, and I often find myself playing it whenever I need to let off steam. Seriously, this game is such a good outlet for when I’m angry. Basically, Pokemon Puzzle Challenge is a Pokemon game but with the gameplay of the famous Panel de Pon concept, where the main gameplay focuses on blocks falling into a well. You earn points by connecting three or more of the same blocks together, or getting rid of them with creative combos, like swapping them around. In this case, stacking four or more blocks causes damage to your opponent, and if the block piles manage to reach the very top, you lose. You basically go through the various towns and the Pokemon League in the Johto region, but instead of battling trainers traditionally, you fight them with blocks. Yeah.

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Kimetsu no Yaiba S4 – 2 [Water Hashira Giyu Tomioka’s Pain]

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Kimetsu no Yaiba

Welcome all, to episode 2 of the new season of Kimetsu no Yaiba! I got some pushback last week to my disappointment with the series premier, and that’s understandable. Maybe I was expecting a bit much from a double-length premier. So it brings me great joy to report that this week, this episode? Yaiba gave me almost everything I wanted. I’m happy. Let’s dive into why.

So what is it that I like so much about this Yaiba episode? Well simply put, the entire thing is laser focused on a single character and his relationship with Tanjiro, Giyu Tomioka. We haven’t gotten a lot from Giyu until now, despite him being the first Demon Slayer we ever meet way back in episode 1. He’s not very emotional, doesn’t talk about himself, doesn’t really engage with anyone. So spending an entire episode letting us into his head, exploring his feelings of survivors guilt and relating them to Tanjiro’s own in regards to Rengoku, was great. The only misstep I would say would be the comedy. Yaiba likes to end most of it’s big emotional moments with silly faces and one liners, which I feel usually ruins the tension and emotion of a scene. This weeks weren’t terrible, the soba eating contest worked, but it definitely wasn’t needed.

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Spring 2024 What-I’m-Watching Summary – Week 6

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Weekly Summary

Wind Breaker – 7 [Fight to Win]

It’s absolutely ridiculous how close Wind Breaker is to figuring itself out and being great. It already has the shounen stuff down, seriously, Wind Breaker’s fight choreography is fantastic, having some of what are easily the best fights in the season. The way Togame and Sakura’s bodies move, the different fighting styles like Togame’s grapples and stomps to Sakura’s pinwheel kicks and strikes, it’s impossible not to get pulled into the fight. The camera can be a bit ambitious at times, making some transitions look awkward, but Wind Breaker tries so hard to make sure we always see their full bodies as they fight that it generally comes together anyways. The only thing Wind Breaker really needs to work on is the narrative, the core themes of building and maintaining a community and what those communities mean to the individuals within it. Part of why this episode is good is because we get a lot of that with Togame. We see how he gets pulled into the Shishitoren before it got corrupted, how Choji made it feel like home and helped him feel comfortable interacting with others. We get to watch as Choji is consumed by his desire for strength, for freedom, resulting him in kicking out anyone who he doesn’t see as strong, creating this culture of fear. This forces Togame to take on this role of the “villain” within the Shishitoren, performing all of the “skinning” himself, becoming the man every other member fears because, even if they fear him, so long as they love Choji the Shishitoren, the community he came to love so much, will endure. It’s all right there, Wind Breaker has the pieces! Now just imagine if this was episode 10 instead of 7, if we knew more of about Bofurin was like to contrast it against, if we got more time with Togame as an antagonist to understand where this is coming from prior to the fight. It would have been utterly fantastic, a beautiful way to end a season and begin Sakura’s journey in earnest. Instead it’s just one good episode in an otherwise eh team-battle arc. A damn shame if you ask me, but I’ll take what I can get.

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Nana – 5/6 [Ren’s Dream, Nana O.’s Feelings/Snowing in Tokyo! Nana and NANA] – Throwback Thursday

by Lenlo, posted in Currently Watching:, Nana, Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another week of Nana! This week we finish up our flashbacks, finally seeing why Ozaki came to Tokyo, as well as get a small reminder of where everyone is before the story kicks off in earnest. Or at least, I hope that’s what episode 6 was, because if not I’m going to have words for next week. Anyways, on with the episodes!

First up we have episode 5, “Ren’s Dream, Nana O.’s Feelings”. This one continues Ozaki’s flashback, ensuring she gets just as much time and attention as Nana, which I appreciate. We get to her struggle with whether or not to follow Ren to Tokyo, whether to settle for being a housewife and supporting him since she would just be following his career or to stay behind and make her own way, eventually meeting up again as equals. We also get to see how they get together in the first place, that this wasn’t just a fling for them but something more. And you know what? It was all really good! I think Nana absolutely nailed it, from Yasu and Nobu’s conversation around music, their careers and Ozaki’s decision to Ozaki and Ren’s relationship. It’s so similar, yet distinctly different, from Nana’s own story with Shouji and I love it.

Continue reading “Nana – 5/6 [Ren’s Dream, Nana O.’s Feelings/Snowing in Tokyo! Nana and NANA] – Throwback Thursday” →