Character Spotlight: Kagura

I recently decided that every so often I would write a short post about a character who I really like, explaining why I think that they’re awesome. For me, more than anything else, more than a fantastic, gripping story, even, a brilliant cast of characters can make a show. Even if a show’s story is lacklustre I can still enjoy it if its characters and the way that they interact with each other are fun to watch. It reminds me of times spent with my own friends, not doing much of anything at all, just messing around playing endless games of Uno or watching parody videos on YouTube. So if I know that a show has an entertaining character or cast of characters I’m much more likely to check it out. I’m hoping that these posts will do the same for you.

For my first character spotlight I wanted to talk about my favourite Jump heroine, Gintama’s Kagura.

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Why My Hero Academia Is Not Your Typical Shounen Anime

There’s a tendency within the anime fandom to hate on anything popular – just look at the amount of threads on the MAL forums dedicated to slating Sword Art Online or the backlash that Gintama receives for having six seasons listed in MAL’s top 20 most popular shows. Sometimes this vitriol is warranted, but sometimes it’s simply because it’s considered cool to criticize something that’s popular. The extremely popular show My Hero Academia has also fallen prey to this tendency, with some becoming upset over the number of awards it received at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards this year (seven) and others writing it off as your run-of-the-mill shounen trash. Below I’ll argue why it’s deserving of its popularity, especially when compared to its shounen predecessors.

Shin Sekai Yori review

Shin Sekai Yori is a show I’ve dedicated a lot of time to as a blogger. The task of writing a post on each episode every week was made a lot easier by the fact that I actually really enjoyed it, and always had something to say about it! I actually had too much to say about the show at times, which is why I’ve now decided to write a review on it. I’d like to be able to compile the most important thoughts I’ve had on the show during those 25 weeks into one post. Who knows, maybe it will help someone reading this to decide whether or not they want to watch the show? One can only dream!!

I won’t waste time by giving you a synopsis- if you want one, read it here on MAL- I’m just gonna launch right into it!!!

Why you should watch Gravity Falls

Now that I’ve seen more than enough anime to last me a lifetime, I find I must now approach prospective shows with more of an open mind than before, which is why, more and more, I’m choosing to watch western cartoons as opposed to anime. So when one of my good friends suggested I try Gravity Falls, her latest obsession, it really didn’t take much convincing! Gravity Falls revolves around the bizarre lives of Mabel and Dipper, twins banished to their crazy uncle’s, and who, soon after arriving, experience all manner of supernatural goings-on- and it’s really very good, a lot better than some of the anime I’ve seen, and that’s why I’ve decided to write about it!!

12 days of Christmas- I am taken aback by shows that are better than I thought they’d be

We’ve all been there- we’ve seen so many different shows over the years, so many of what would be dubbed ‘classics’ by the anime fandom, that we think: ‘There can’t possibly be any more gems out there for me to watch!’ I’ve been watching anime for almost four years now, and this is something I remember thinking barely into my second year!! Granted, it may have been a bit early for me to have thought such a thing back then (blimey, I hadn’t even seen Berserk or Ghost in the Shell at that point), but these days thing are certainly a little… thin on the ground in terms of shows…

This year’s been very difficult in terms of deciding what to watch. I’ve mainly stuck to watching fairly new releases, and shows I wouldn’t even have dreamed of bringing myself to watch but a year or two ago. Understandably, given I felt forced into watching some of these shows, my thoughts on them, pre-viewing experience, were, for the most part, negative. However, on more than one occasion, with more than one show, I’ve been blown away this year. Below are three examples of shows that have done this.