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Anime Central 2023 Interview: Kubo Yurika and Ichinose Kana
Kubo Yurika and Ichinose Kana were at Anime Central 2023 to promote the game A Light in the Dark. Kubo is best known for her role as Koizumi…
Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury
COVID the 19th—The First: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for June 2023
So it finally happened: I got my first case of COVID-19. I’ve been isolating, but I’ve also finally started testing negative, so I think I’m over the hump.…
Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights May 2023
Kio Shimoku goes back to fulfill one of his old unfinished projects in this month’s tweets. Replying to manga creator Kusada (who just got done selling at the…
Social Connection and Nostalgia for Web 1.0
I have a somewhat rose-colored view of an internet from long ago, and based on my observations on social media, I’m not alone. Increasingly, I see among those…
La+ Darknesss, VTuber Birthdays, and the Ultimate Kayfabe
May 25, is the birthday of VTuber La+ Darknesss, and that means a variety of ways to mark the occasion, as per usual. There are the special streams,…
Evil Doppelgängers in Anime and Manga (or Lack Thereof)
The evil doppelgänger is a classic trope of fiction. I’m drawn to simple stories in this space, ones that revel in what makes these counterparts nefarious, and how…
The Roles of “Characters” in Mecha Anime
Sometimes, you’ll see a wild claim about mecha anime, like “Gurren-Lagann was the first giant robot series to be about characters instead of the robots,” and it inevitably…
Ogiue Maniax at Anime Central 2023
This is just a short post to say that I will be attending my very first Anime Central this May 19–21! Motivated by my wish to see Kubo…
The 2023 Writers’ Strike vs. AI: Fighting Creative Bankruptcy
Even the most uncreative, awful stories are better than a world where AI scripts are the default. The Writers Guild of America officially declared a strike recently—their first…
Oshi no Ko vs. Getter Robo: A Hot-Blooded Killer Combo
Sometimes it takes a meme to put a giant robot anime in the minds of the people. Hot on the heels of “Is this a pigeon?” comes the…
I Finished Reading the Saint Seiya Manga
I can finally say that I am hip to the trends of 20th-Century South American anime and manga fandom, as well as other fandoms worldwide. I have continued…
If You Love ’em, You’ll Let ’em Go: Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution Full Review
Eureka Seven is an anime I love to death. Nearly two decades later, I still hold it up this TV series as one of the best ever. The…
You May Dream: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for May 2023
I find myself in a constant state of worry that I’m not doing enough with anime and manga. It’s not like I’m avoiding it entirely, but I think…
Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights April 2023
Kio Shimoku announces the release of his first original 18+ doujinshi in his tweets this month. Kio made these cool photo/drawing composites featuring his characters sitting on the…
Mecha, Isekai, and the Changing Image of Anime
A while ago, a thought popped into my head: isekai is the mecha of the past decade and change. The comparison is not perfect by any means, but…
The Safe Yandere
I’ve been thinking about what I call “safe yandere,” or alternately “yandere aesthetic.” Yandere character fetish feeds off many things. The notion of a character who’s so in…
Inugami Korone, Taira Isao, and My Fandom History
As a Virtual Youtuber, Inugami Korone has always been known to march to the beat of her own drum. From doing flips and cartwheels during the biggest Hololive…
Trigun Stampede, Cowboy Bebop, and Scrapbook Worlds
When Studio Orange announced that they were making Trigun Stampede, I was pleasantly surprised. Trigun is a title that a lot of anime and manga fans around the…
Omnidirectional Fan Extravaganza: Holocure Version 0.5
The Hololive fan project Holocure is what finally made me try a Vampire Survivors–type game. That’s not to say anything is wrong with Vampire Survivors—I had no particular…
Randori Acts of Friendship: “Ippon” Again!
Anime is no stranger to judo, with titles like Yawara! being perennial favorites in Japan. “Ippon” Again! isn’t quite the same kind of work, but what it does…
Ironmouse, Opera, and a Kung Fu Analogy
Sometimes, the perfect analogy to explain something can come from an unexpected place. For me, I recently found a way to organize some thoughts I’ve been having about…
Memoriam-o-rama: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for April 2023
April is cherry blossoms in Japan, and their fleeting nature is associated with an aesthetic valuing of the ephemeral in Japanese culture. I normally don’t get all poetic…
Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights March 2023
March has been a big month for Kio, as Spotted Flower Volume 6 just came out today, the 31st! Not only that, but he’s been posting lots of…
Rock and Roll Sometimes and Party Never: Bocchi the Rock!
I’m a little late to the Bocchi the Rock! party. I saw the positive reactions every week, from the discussion to the clips of creative animation to the…
Pallet Cleanser: The End of Ash Ketchum as Pokemon Protagonist
This past week marked one of anime’s biggest departures ever, as Ash Ketchum—aka Satoshi—has ended his 26-year tenure as the main hero of Pokemon. It’s amazing to think…
A Movie with a Hell of a Build-Up: They Call Me Jeeg
When I first heard about the film They Call Me Jeeg, its premise intrigued me. Although named after an anime, it’s not actually based on Steel Jeeg, a…
Thoughts I Have After Watching “Raven of the Inner Palace”
Raven of the Inner Palace is an intriguing fantasy anime with shades of one of my favorite shows ever, Twelve Kingdoms, but mixed with the vibes of a…
I Watched Tron for the First Time
I’ve been watching more non-anime films lately, partly with the intent of connecting to influential works of geek culture. Today’s menu: 1982’s Tron. My general image of Tron…
Farewell to One of Anime’s Great Character Designers: RIP Kimura Takahiro
I normally don’t write about the death of anime and manga figures that often, preferring to save it for people I feel have influenced me in major ways.…
Big Brother Denji: Chainsaw Man and Personal Growth
It can sometimes be a struggle to explain why Chainsaw Man is so good, even to those who have become fans of it through the anime. It’s as…
La+ Darknesss: Hololive’s Tiny Dancer Extraordinaire
The 3D debut of La+ Darknesss forever changed her image as a Virtual Youtuber. This Hololive member initially presented herself as a bratty chuunibyou with legit singing and…
A Good Feel for the Game: Fraymakers Early Access Thoughts
I’ve long wondered what it would look like for a platform fighter to be the Smash Bros. of indie gaming. Over a span of two decades, the Smash…
Rediscovering the Sea of Stars: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for March 2023
The end of last month hit with some tough news as the world learned that Matsumoto Leiji had passed away at the age of 85. I’m still thinking…
Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights February 2023
This month’s Kio Shimoku tweets are a real treat, as he’s been posting a bunch of old Genshiken art without any text, including at least one piece that’s…
A Personal Look Back at Matsumoto Leiji
The news of Matsumoto Leiji’s death shocked me. While the passing of an 85-year-old shouldn’t be too surprising, it still makes me contemplate so many things. The number…
Like, Comment, Subvert: Yurei Deco
Yurei Deco is a science fiction anime that takes the idea of social media influence to the extreme. It depicts a world where obsession with “likes” (or rather,…
New Paths: Pokemon Violet
I’ve been a Pokémon fan since before the very first game launched in the US, and I have to say that playing Pokémon Violet is some of the…
I Almost Forgot the Power of Tsundere, or “Ogiue and Me”
It’s been many years since the late-2000s peak of the tsundere archetype, when the girls with prickly personalities all but captivated anime and its fandom. I was no…
Don’t Watch on an Empty Stomach: Delicious Party Precure
As someone who loves to eat (and seeing characters who love to eat), it was all but inevitable that I would enjoy Delicious Party Precure. But my appreciation…
Dearest Dad: The Deer King
An imprisoned veteran of an old war tries to rescue a young girl from a plague said to be brought on by a people’s vengeance. Though he was…
Mashle and the Difference Between Fighting and Self-Defense
In the past few years, I’ve developed a terrible interest in reading and viewing arguments about martial arts, from kung fu to MMA and beyond. There’s a combination…
Rise of the Bread Dogs: Hololive, Precure, and Pokémon
There must have been something fermenting in the collective imagination of 2022. Last year gave us not one, not two, but three different forms of media featuring cute…
Precure Can Drink in Japan: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for February 2023
February has arrived, and that means new Precure, of course. It’s this odd exception in that February debuts have been typical of the franchise, so I have it…
Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights January 2023
In amazing news for people who run blogs called Ogiue Maniax, Kio actually retweeted one of my blog posts this month! He also drew a bunch of Year…
Kio Shimoku Twitter Highlights January 2023
In amazing news for people who run blogs called Ogiue Maniax, Kio actually retweeted one of my blog posts this month! He also drew a bunch of Year…
Ghosts in Them Shells
I’m 20 years late, but I finally finished Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, which I first started watching all the way back in 2002 (!). Its…
“Son Goku” vs. “Sun Wukong”: The Challenge of Translating Chinese Names in Japanese Media into English
Let’s say you’re watching an episode of Raven of the Inner Palace in Japanese. Or maybe it’s Thunderbolt Fantasy. A new character appears and introduces themselves, but the…
“Keiko” Debuts in Spotted Flower with Baby
Last month, another Genshiken side character analogue finally appeared in Spotted Flower: the editor’s sister, Not-Keiko. I’m not sure if her having a kid (named Mani) should come…
A Dream Realized on Hanayo’s Birthday, or “Oops, All Hanayo”
It was almost 10 years ago when I discovered Love Live! and by extension the School Idol Festival mobile game. Koizumi Hanayo quickly became my favorite character, and…
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Season 1—Bold New Steps
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SEASON 1 OF GUNDAM: THE WITCH FROM MERCURY I know I probably shouldn’t do it. Sunrise is notorious for fucking up a good thing by…
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, Mobile Suit Gundam