Tag: anime review

2019 Retrospective

scottlarouxwritesLeave a comment

2019 Retrospective

There are spoilers ahead. If you see a show title you haven’t watched yet, you might want to skip that section until you have.

Another year of anime lived. I was going to begin this post by apologizing for how late it is, but then I realized I’m actually a couple days ahead of last year! So instead, I’m going to act undeservedly proud. I expected nothing less of myself.

This was an incredible year for anime–I think somewhat indisputably. We had potentially the most impressive depth of good shows all decade, as well as quite a few great shows, all spread across various genres. Obviously what specifically falls into those categories of “good” and “great” will differ from person to person, but the sheer quantity and variety of enjoyable shows really stands out to me. In particular, I imagine this will go down as a legendary year for fans with a taste for shounen or action: Mob Psycho II, Dororo, Attack on Titan S3P2, Demon Slayer, Dr. Stone, Vinland Saga, Fire Force, My Hero Academia S4…these aren’t even my kind of anime and yet that list excites me.Read More »

Advertisement

As Time Changes – Clannad #1

scottlarouxwrites1 Comment

As Time Changes – Clannad #1

Note: I am working with two copies of Clannad: one with lackluster image quality and one with a lackluster translation. The images in this series will be from the copy with less terrible image quality, and as such there may be discrepancies between quotations and subtitles shown.

The first time I wrote about Clannad for this blog, I mentioned how I wanted to give the story the attention it deserved in a series of posts. I wasn’t ready for such a project at the time and–in fact–I’m probably not ready for it now either. Yet, I want to get to work on it. However long it takes me. To be fair, I am compromising a bit. My original plan was to focus on the visual novel–a form that would take me much longer to parse and would make cataloging/accessing relevant quotes and screenshots much more cumbersome. Time just doesn’t allow for that right now.

You’ll have to settle for ~50 individual episodes instead.

clp1

In many ways, Clannad is a story that I have grown up with, and that I’m sure I have yet to finish growing up with. Being able to rediscover the story across multiple media has certainly encouraged that relationship, as has the range of the plot’s timeline itself. I’ve been able to rediscover Clannad as I “rediscover” myself (but more on that eventually). I’ve also found myself discovering Clannad elsewhere–across visual novels and anime. The anime adaptation is perhaps the flagship of the Key and KyoAni collaborations, growing out of and pushing forward the KyoAni style and structure that has proved too influential to ignore.Read More »

2015 Retrospective

scottlarouxwrites1 Comment

2015 Retrospective

There are spoilers ahead. If you see a show title you haven’t watched yet, you might want to skip it until you have.

I tend to stay away from stuff like this because the Internet is suffering enough as it is. Are my opinions really so important that I need to piss them into the polluted waters of the Anime Review Lake? Probably not. Not to mention, most people are too lazy to take enough screenshots to form an analysis article, so the competition stays relatively low on that side of things. It’s way easier to just Google ‘anime memes’ and paste the first K-On/pop-culture crossover you find. Plus Print-screen is in such an awkward spot on the keyboard—who has time for that?

This was going to be a meme but they hurt my soul, so have a Kyoko instead.

Yet, a new year is approaching, and I’ve decided it’s time to put that pessimism behind me. It’s time to subject you to my opinions. Out of the many shows of this past year, I chose five that best represented 2015 for me. This is by no means a top five for the year (it is absolutely not a top five), but simply the five shows I felt I’d remember the most after this year—for better or worse. I chose to exclude shows with seasons that aired prior to 2015 from my list (i.e. Haikyuu, Shirobako, Owarimonogatari,etc. were not considered).

Enjoy.

Read More »