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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: 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: Honoriffic!
It's fair to say that honorifics play an outsized role in the Japanese language. Read more


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.


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 – 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: Omake – Ranking Rumiko
I could easily have gone five deep just with Inuyasha.


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 – 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: Best of the 2000’s in Anime – Project Engage!
Let's get noughty. Read more


LiA Bespoke Project: Best of the 2000’s in Anime
This project would be really interesting to take on. Read more
Protected: LiA Bespoke Project – The Chrysanthemum Taboo
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.


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: Good Things Come in Small Packages – Top 5 Short Anime
This is a format anime can do extremely well.


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: 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: 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: 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: Guardian Enzo’s Top 10 Manga List
The people have spoken. Read more


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: Yakyuu For You Extra Innings – Ballpark Food
And no ghost runner either.


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: The Tournament Arc Double-Overtime – The Olympics
You gotta love sports.


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 : 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: Ayakashi, Mononoke, Youkai – What’s in a Name?
October. Halloween, Beltane - the occult is in the air.


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: Automatic For the People – The Japanese Vending Machine
Not all the legends are true, but the true ones are amazing enough.


LiA Bespoke Review and Project Announcement: Mouryou no Hako – 1-3
A new chapter for LiA begins... 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


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 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.
ANIME’S GREATEST CHARACTERS – RENGE INUI
“I would seriously of given Renge either a different voice or give her a permanent mouth gag” “out of all the characters Renge is my least favorite “…
Spring 2022 Anime’s Best Openings (OPs)
Spring 2022 has been full of terrific anime, but also terrific anime openings! Here are five of the best this season: Anime OPs from the video: “Mixed Nuts”…
Ya Boy Kongming!, Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness, Tomodachi Game


Best Anime Characters of 2022
BEST MALE CHARACTER Pluto (Pluto) In a series full of excellent characters who are each a master class in storytelling, the one who stands out to me the…


Best Anime Characters of 2020
BEST MALE CHARACTER Sorano Appare (Appare-Ranman!) Having the protagonist of a racing anime be a serendipitous inventor makes for an interesting dynamic. Appare chafes against the cultural norms…


Best Anime Characters of 2024
BEST MALE CHARACTER Laios Touden (Delicious in Dungeon) Finding characters you can relate to is part of the fun of fiction. Over the years, I’ve found a fair…
Best Anime Characters of 2019
BEST MALE CHARACTER Wataya Arata (Chihayafuru Season 3) I’ve always liked Arata since the original Chihayafuru, but it’s in Season 3 that he’s really won me over. As…


Best Anime Characters of 2023
BEST MALE CHARACTER Pluto (Pluto) In a series full of excellent characters who are each a master class in storytelling, the one who stands out to me the…


Best Anime Characters of 2021
BEST MALE CHARACTER Ikari Shinji (Evangelion 3.0+1.01: Thrice Upon a Time) For as many strong and unique characters as there were this year, there’s really only one right…


Best Anime Characters of 2022
BEST MALE CHARACTER Bojji (Ranking of Kings) In a massively oversaturated field of boy adventurers and princes with great destinies, it’s easy for a hero to get lost…