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Aug 20, 2024 • Subscribe
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LiA Bespoke Project – The Tournament Arc
When you've watches hundreds and hundreds of series like I have, how are you supposed to recall all of them on demand?
LiA Bespoke Project: Tournament Arcs Overtime – Best Battles
As a companion piece to the main tournament arcs article, Nicc asked me to include some of my favorite battles from anime.
LiA Bespoke Project: Honoriffic!
It's fair to say that honorifics play an outsized role in the Japanese language. Read more
Protected: LiA Bespoke Project – The Chrysanthemum Taboo
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
LiA Bespoke Project: Omake – Ranking Rumiko
I could easily have gone five deep just with Inuyasha.
LiA Bespoke Project – Hanko? You’re Welcome!
If you want quirky, Japan is the culture for you. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project: Yakyuu For You
It may be American’s national pastime, but baseball is more popular in Japan these days than it is in the U.S..
LiA Bespoke Project – Pachinko: Balls Out
You may think you know pachinko, but you probably don't know the full story. I sure don't.
LiA Bespoke Project – Tying the Knot in Japan
As is so often the case, Japan's relationship with the spiritual is quite unique.
LiA Bespoke Project : The Career of Toriyama Akira
Even if I never felt a personal connection to Toriyama Akira's fiction, I found myself strongly impacted by his passing.
LiA Bespoke Project: Top 10 Mystery Anime
Yes, I know I didn't include that one. I'm just not that much of a fan.
LiA Bespoke Project: Itadakimasu! – Japan’s Food Culture
The Japanese have certainly become quite sophisticated foodies, but it wasn’t always that way.
LiA Bespoke Project – New Year’s in Japan
Akemashite Omedettou. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project: Dessert – The Perfect Dinner (and Companions)
The food and drink is important, but so is the company.
LiA Bespoke Project – Anime Pals From Around the World
Anime may be a Japanese medium, but its settings know no borders.
LiA Bespoke Project: Tying the Knot – Extra Marital Affairs
A series is about more than the protagonists.
LiA Bespoke Project – Truth in Advertising: The Japanese Konbini
Finally, an institution that lives up to its name.
LiA Bespoke Project: Guardian Enzo’s Top 10 Manga
It goes without saying that this list was incredibly difficult to put together. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project: Guardian Enzo’s Top 10 Manga
The people have spoken. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project: Best of the 2000’s in Anime – Project Engage!
Let's get noughty. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project : The Top 10 Sports Anime – Honorable Mention
LiA Bespoke is back. Once again the benefactor is the incredibly generous LiA MVP Nicc. And the commission this time is a straightforward one.
LiA Bespoke Project: Best of the 2000’s in Anime
This project would be really interesting to take on. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project: Guardian Enzo’s Top 10 Manga – #10
In many ways, this is the perfect sports manga. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project – A Crow by Any Other Name
They’re annoying - loud, garbage-strewing, pet-threatening - but we remain fascinated by such fiercely intelligent creatures living in our midst.
LiA Bespoke Project: Guardian Enzo’s Top 10 Manga List
The people have spoken. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project – Anime’s Top 5(ish) Product Placements
The recent overload of Suntory self-promotion in Bartender prompted a discussion of product placement in anime.
LiA Bespoke Project: Automatic For the People – The Japanese Vending Machine
Not all the legends are true, but the true ones are amazing enough.
LiA Bespoke Project: The 2000-2009 Anime Top 10 – Honorable Mention
Any Top 10 list is, by nature, highly personal. Read more
LiA Bespoke Project: Natsumatsuri – the Summer Festival in Anime and Life
Natsumatsuri which have been part of the fabric of Japanese life for centuries and anime virtually since it started. Read more
The Tournament Arc
This post is a very long awaited response to Momomanamu’s post at Anime Hanabi regarding their dislike of tournament arcs. If you read through it, it’s a decently…
LiA Bespoke Project : A BokuYaba Senryuu For Dark Flame Master
With 136 brilliant BokuYaba chapters in the books, how am I supposed to limit myself to 17 syllables and no spoilers?
LiA Bespoke Project – Live-action Anime on Stage and Screen
Anime and manga has another side, little known in the West. Live-action animanga is a huge and lucrative industry in Japan.
LiA Bespoke Project: Short Subjects – Anime’s Best Vertically Challenged Characters
Let's complete the short trifecta.
LiA Bespoke Project: Ayakashi, Mononoke, Youkai – What’s in a Name?
October. Halloween, Beltane - the occult is in the air.
LiA Bespoke Project : The Top 5 College Anime (for Dark Flame Master)
This is another one of those requests that sounds easy but it actually maddeningly difficult.
LiA Bespoke Project: It’s a Rumic World – The Career of Takahashi Rumiko
When you’d almost universally referred to only by your given name, that’s a mark of high status indeed.
LiA Bespoke Review and Project Announcement: Mouryou no Hako – 1-3
A new chapter for LiA begins... Read more
LiA Bespoke Project : That Niche (You Know the One I Mean) – Top 10
You've heard met talk about a certain "niche" on the schedule, and it's easier to give examples of it than to define it.
LiA Bespoke Project: Hello, Goodbye – Anime’s Best First and Final Episodes – #5
The hardest thing about this topic is trying to remember - in this case, all the first and last episodes I’ve really loved.
LiA Bespoke Project: Good Things Come in Small Packages – Top 5 Short Anime
This is a format anime can do extremely well.
LiA Bespoke Project: Hello, Goodbye – Anime’s Best First and Final Episodes (Wrap-up)
As always, whenever one compiles a "best of" (or personal favorites) list, what's not on it draws as much attention as what is.
The Art of the Tournament Arc
Tournaments have long been a staple of anime, with some legendary arcs conducted in shonen classics like Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Yu-Gi-Oh (which is kind…
Welcome to Demon School Iruma Kun 3 – The Tournament Arc
TIruma is back and after all he’s been through, maybe he can finally enjoy his high school life…in the demon realm. It’s actually pretty nice! But it turns…
Why It Works: Chihayafuru and the Makings of a Great Tournament Arc
I finally got to write about Chihayafuru for Why It Works this week, which I’m sure you all saw coming the moment season three was announced. Chihayafuru is…
Anime Ode to the Olympics!
Warning: This is a Shameless Self Promotion Post! Sensitive readers may experience some irritation. At last the multi-week spectacular that is the Olympic games has wound down to…
WEBTOON launches OVERTIME ELITE sports collab webcomic with Overtime
Overtime Elite, a basketball webcomic by Brandon Chen and Laurel Pursuit marks WEBTOON's first brand collaboration with sports brand Overtime.
Indigenous Peoples at the 2020 Olympics
I’m quite a few weeks late on this, obviously. And, frankly, I’m not sure that I have that much to say. But I just wanted to share a…
Scramble for the Throne | A Tournament Arc of Excess | Weekly Shonen Jump Greatest Hits
Power of Friendship? Check. 80s machismo? Yup. Every single battle shonen trope you can imagine? Hell fuckin yeah! Scramble for the Throne is a very long, very dumb,…
The Dark Tournament Is Amazing
Tryina get built like Toguro SUPPORT US ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/totallynotmark FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/totallynotmark FOLLOW ME ON TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@totallynotmark
Tokyo 2020 Olympics Haunted By The Holocaust
Ah, I didn't know about this skit. This is no good. It's like if you did a sketch where the joke was the atomic bombings of Hiroshima or…