Welcome to the NHK is one of those things that should remind you of how a medium people think is for children – I mean, it’s a CARTOON, right? – can be used to explore some really ugly things. In Welcome’s case it’s mental illness. What’s interesting to me is what it reveals about the […]
Read more "How Not to End a Series: Welcome to the NHK"Every once in a while I fall into a rabbit hole and can’t climb out. So I have a subscription to Crunchyroll, and there’s an app that gives me access to certain manga they support. And I happened onto this little gem called Silver Nina. Now, it’s kind of dumb and the art isn’t especially […]
Read more "How to Cook a Series: Silver Nina"I was trying to stay away from this one, but Cowboy Bebop has been canceled and the really bad second week numbers made it pretty clear that anyone who wants to see the live action Bebop has seen it. So I can go there. I’ve already talked about two ways the series changed the story […]
Read more "Medium Matters: Cowboy Bebop II"WARNING: SPOILERS Okay, it’s all here and it’s all done. I’m not sure whether to cheer or feel sad. Probably both: Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0, and the entire rebuild, is a heckuva ride, and I enjoyed the heck out of it, which is what one would like to expect from a heckuva ride. Okay, if […]
Read more "Medium Matters: Neon Genesis Evangelion"I got the Princess Jellyfish manga a while back and found it delightful, a sweet, well-told story that spanned nine tankoban volumes. Then I FINALLY found the anime, and you know what? It’s a shorty, only eleven episodes. That’s, like, three or four manga volumes, and did not bode well. Watched it twice and liked […]
Read more "Medium Matters: Princess Jellyfish"I always like a nice case of Stealth Storytelling. Look, in a lot of ways, when you have a really basic story what you’re really exploring is character development, right? Like there’s this novel I’ve been working on. It’s just a Comedy: Girl meets Boy, Girl loses Boy, Girl gets Boy. Like, it’s that simple. […]
Read more "How To Build a Series: Toradora"Okay, the Saiki K. series is a whole franchise built around a gag manga, and like any gag-based show, as long as the jokes keep coming, so do the manga volumes and anime episodes. Right? Just like Lucky Star, it’s good as long as it stays funny. The six-episode Reawakened arc is up there on […]
Read more "How To Build a Series: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Reawakened"I know there’s a Descending Stories anime. I think it’s on Tootsieroll, or whatever that service that Sony just bought is called, but I haven’t seen it. But I just finished the manga, all ten volumes, and as a story it works for me despite the fact that there’s no more than a minimum of […]
Read more "How To Build a Story: Descending Stories"A while back I posted about anime I’d stopped watching, and someone, Irina maybe, said, “You know, it would be instructive if you could tell us why you stopped watching.” Point. That fits into what I do here, looking at anime and manga from my twin perspectives as a writer and animator. Part of telling […]
Read more "Stopped Reading This: Golden Kamuy"Everyone thinks writers start with a plot and write. I don’t. I think about what I want to write about, and then cook up whatever other pieces I need. The last story I wrote was to a prompt: Frozen wasteland. From there I decided I wanted to write about a snow woman, and from there […]
Read more "How to Cook a Series: Demon Slayer"
Confessions of an Overage otaku 