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How to Build a Series: Classroom of the Elite
Due to popular demand, we return to our anime-writing friends Salvati and Simplicito. You know, the guys Galileo used to explain how the Earth goes around the Sun.…
How to Start a Series: Dragonball
And I do mean Dragonball, the original series, because it was the start of it all. If the first one doesn’t work, Z and Kai and whatever others…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Idol Girl
There are a lot of idol girls in anime. It’s almost unavoidable, right? The purpose of anime is to get eyeballs on the screen, and a key way…
Non-random Aside
Boy, it’s been a while since I did one of these, hasn’t it? But here it is, just a few hours after 12:00 AM November 1st, and I’m…
Character Analysis: Kanna Kamui
Look, as cute as it is, there’s a fundamental problem with Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. Put simply, Tohru and Kobayashi form a complementary pair of characters that’s too…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Metastable Relationship
I’ve talked about metastable relationships in passing so many times it occurs that there’s something bigger going on there. And sho ‘nuf … The term metastable comes from…
How to Build a Series: Death Note
Death Note is one of those anime stories that tries to be deep by asking deep questions. There are others. Ghost in the Shell asks “What does it…
One-Punch Man, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Death Note, Ghost in the Shell
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Ugly Duckling
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Ugly Duckling Okay, you know the story of the Ugly Duckling and I know the story of the Ugly Duckling. It’s from Hans Christian…
The Power of Three: Ghost in the Shell
Okay, we all know who the most interesting character in Ghost in the Shell is, and it’s the Major, Motoko Kusanagi. She has the choice between her human…
Oh, so Trope-ical: Too Cool for School
One of the things you typically look for in kids’ media … and remember, the target audience for most anime is slightly nerdy Japanese high school boys ……
Character Analysis: Tomo Aizawa
Okay, I’m going to say it right up front: Tomo-chan is a Girl is pretty damned dumb. The hero, Tomo Aizawa, is dumb, the boy she’s hot for,…
Oh, So Trope-ical: The Broken Girl
It sure seems like the number of anime where the kids belong to/come from a complete nuclear family with a mother and a father is pretty small. There…
Killer Ending: Steins;Gate
Okay, the “gimmick” of Steins;Gate is that it’s adapted from a videogame and for the last third of the series – right, the third act in a three-act…
Character Analysis: Ai Hoshino
There are a couple stories where a character who is the real driving force in the plot is behind the scenes for most or all of the series.…
Week Off!
I’m still here. I’m just taking a week off for REASONS. C ya next week.
How to Build a Series: TP Bon
Okay, I write science fiction, so I’m a sucker for stuff like time travel as long as the writers can convincingly deploy handwavium. You know handwavium: “We can…
Blue Eye Anime
Okay, I THINK I’m coining a term here, and if I am I want credit for it. Blue eye anime. Take note. It’s mine. Let me call the…
Killer(?) Ending: Fruits Basket
Fruits Basket is not the sort of story anyone’d expect to talk about when they talk about killer endings, an ending that no one saw coming but makes…
Medium Matters: The Ancient Magus’ Bride
Way back a long time ago, as an experiment I started tracking The Ancient Magus’ Bride manga in real time, picking up the new books as they came…
Oh, So Meta: Excel Saga
I’ve always been interested in things that are self-referential, or meta, if you prefer. This goes back to my college days, where we studied cybernetics. Sure. The Basic…
Oh, So Trope-ical: Raised by Wolves
Well, no, I don’t literally mean raised by actual, you know, wolves, since, you know that doesn’t really happen, the myth of Romulus and Remus aside. But what…
Gender Bender: Alice Murata
Shuzo Oshimi is my favorite mangaka. I may have mentioned that. He’s been working on a new book called Welcome Back, Alice. Hmm … the title of this…
Gender Bender: Neon Genesis Evangelion
All right, I suspect people are going to expect me to talk about Kaworu Nagisa here. Dude is pretty interested in Shinji, isn’t he? (wink wink nudge nudge)…
Gender Bender: Paradise Kiss
If you weren’t watching, Paradise Kiss is an earlier work by Ai Yazawa, the mangaka who gave us Nana. (It has to be an earlier work since she…
Gender Bender: Mizu
There should be a name for American shows that are informed by anime style but American tropes. After watching Blue Eye Samurai, I think they should be called…
Story Drop
Man, I like writing these. I mean, you know what I do here is write about anime and manga from my perspective as a writer, right? Well, lemme…
Gender Bender: Mei Aihara
For reasons I’ve been thinking about Citrus again. Well, actually the reasons are pretty simple. Mei and Yuzu Aihara are simultaneously classmates, step-sisters, roommates, and lovers, and if…
Oh, So Trope-cal: I Can’t Say “I Love You”
Look, if you’re writing a popular romance manga, or an anime made from a popular romance manga, you often have a big problem: How do you keep the…
Killer Ending: Kids on the Slope
You may not remember Kids on the Slope, the series by Shinichiro Watanabe. You know, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Carole and Tuesday … yeah, THAT Shinichiro Watanabe. Not…
Character Analysis: Kaguya Shinomiya
Kaguya-sama Love is War is one of those shows that knows what it is and isn’t any more than that. Dude it’s a rom-com, with emphasis on the…
How to Build a Series: Knights of Sidonia
There are some shows that are constructed so cleverly that I would give anything to be a fly on the wall during their development meetings. In fact, I…
Character Analysis: Eikichi Onizuka
I tell you no lies: I was watching Great Teacher Onizuka on a relatively unknown streaming service when it dropped on a much larger and more famous service.…
Killer Ending: Your Lie in April
It’s fun to watch something like Your Lie in April that looks on the face of it like a piece of fluff, but when you peel back the…
The Power of Two: Kaguya-sama Love is War
Most of the time when you look at a narrative couple they fall into one of two types: They are symmetric, meaning they have similar strengths and weaknesses,…
Oh, So Trope-ical: Pinocchio
Yeah, yeah, you’re saying to yourself that Pinocchio wasn’t an anime. First of all, that’s not entirely true. In fact, there have been TWO Pinocchio anime series, one…
How (Not) to End a Story: Love, Chunibiyo, and Other Delusions
There’s something so cute about Love, Chunibiyo, and Other Delusions that make it close to irresistible, isn’t there? Yuta is basically such a nice young man, so earnest…
The Power of Three: Darling in the Franxx
Everyone loves a good mecha story. Well, at least the manga/anime target audience – slightly-nerdy teen-aged Japanese boys – loves a good mecha story. Consequently, there are lots…
Rotoscope and You: Onimusha
Onimusha is something I wouldn’t ordinarily watch. I don’t like stories that are based on demons, or based on fighting demons with magic artifacts, because once you get…
Oh, So Trop(e)ical: The Dirty Old Man
It seems like just about every anime comedy with a romantic plot or subplot has at least one dirty old man. Well, not ALL of them. Those that…
Animation: How Many Fingers?
Sometimes things come together in weird ways. Like, really weird. So in my Intro Communication class this week – Which was weeks ago as you read this but…
Character Analysis: Takeo Goda
If you look at My Love Story!!, the first temptation is to look at the main characters, Takeo Goda and Rinko Yamato, as a pair. For instance, she…
Character Analys(e)s: Loyd, Tor, and Anya Forger
In certain ways all three main characters from Spy X Family are really simply constructed. Watch me now: Loyd is a heartless spy but isn’t really heartlessAnya is…
Story Drop!
Man, it’s been a while! Damn COVID … ANYWAY, here’s the flash fiction anthology 99 Fleeting Fantasies. It includes my piece Nidus of Alms. It’s available starting today…
The Power of Three: Welcome Back, Alice
I’ve made my appreciation for the work of Shuzo Oshimi very plain at times. Oshimi is the magaka behind The Flowers of Evil, Inside Mari, and Blood on…
What’s in a Name? Seihu High School
I always let myself do something stupid for an anniversary post, and since my anniversary was Feb 2, here ya go: Last year at this time I didn’t…
What Did I Just Watch: If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budukon I Would Die
Look, first of all, I’m not writing out that whole title again. From now on this show will be called My Favorite Pop Idol, and if the author,…
The Power of Three: Steins;Gate
I was thinking about Steins;Gate for a different reason when I hit on why it works narratively. Because it shouldn’t, you know. Steins;Gate is really kind of a…
Character Analysis: Honey Kisaragi
Let’s start with this: Honey Kisaragi, the android star of Cutie Honey, is an artifact of her age. She was born back in ’73. That was a turbulent…
Same Stage, Different Story … Or Not: FLCL
The original FLCL was a blast, a swirl of smoke and mirrors, of red herrings and mixed animation styles, that hid a very simple story, the tragedy of…
The Power of Three: Nana
Like a lot of media, not just anime, love of various sorts plays a large role in Nana. Well, it could hardly not, after all. You can call…