Jackaby I’ve seen this series described as “Sherlock meets Doctor Who,” and that is pretty apt. It’s January 1892 and our plucky British narrator, Abigail Rook, has just arrived in New England and needs employment. No one is hiring except for the eccentric investigator, R. F. Jackaby, who is looking for a new assistant since his previous one is “currently waterfowl.” Jackaby’s physical description is evocative of Benedict Cumberbatch in character as Sherlock, and he’s occasionally tactless, but aside from one early demonstration, he doesn’t do much in the way of deduction. Instead, he’s more like The Doctor—a kooky, scarf-wearing fellow who dashes about warning townspeople of supernatural threats while they regard him as “a crackpot imbecile.” Abigail is, of course, the companion—a clever girl who has always longed for...
Feb 11, 2020 • Subscribe
More like this
Books: By Your Side
By Jonathan Clements. The inauguration of Barazoku (“Rose Tribe”), a magazine for gay men in 1971, brought with it a sop to the ladies, in the form of…
If I Stay, Books 1-2 by Gayle Forman
If I Stay Mia has a perfect family (hip parents, adorable younger brother) and a perfect boyfriend (Adam, a sensitive punk rocker) and is a perfect cellist (surpasses…
The Thursday Murder Club, Books 1-2 by Richard Osman
Can I resist a mystery series about a quartet of septuagenarians at a peaceful retirement village solving crimes? No, I cannot. The Thursday Murder Club Coopers Chase is…
Books: By the Grace of the Gods
By Shelley Pallis. And then he died. In his sleep, because of a particularly powerful sneeze. Ryoma Takebayashi wakes up at tea party in heaven with several gods,…
Episode 16 - Dr. William Brecher (WSU)
In this episode, Dr. Brecher (Washington State University) challenges narratives of Meiji modernization from the “top-down” by exploring tourist sites popular in early Meiji Japan and tracing changes…
William Shakespeare | Character Review | Ikémen Vampire
Shakespeare’s route serves as both an intriguing tale on its own, and an homage to the man himself. The more you read of his story, the more you…
Sundome!! Milky Way v. 1-4 by Kazuki Funatsu
A DNF/dropped review
Episode 104 - Dr. M. William Steele (ICU)
In this episode, Dr. Steele questions narratives of the Meiji success story by reviewing modern Japanese history from the bottom-up. We discuss how common people experienced and reacted…
Episode 48 - Dr. Eric Han (William & Mary)
In this episode, Dr. Eric Han recreates the scene of a gruesome murder in 1899 Yokohama to call on the history of treaty ports and extraterritoriality in the…
Outburst Dreamer Boys – The Dangers of Judging Books by Covers
I might be the only one who watched Outburst Dreamer Boys but I think that's your loss. I had a blast with this silly little show!
Episode 29 - Dr. Lisa Yoshikawa (Hobart & William Smith)
In this episode, Dr. Lisa Yoshikawa chronicles how professional historians in the Meiji and Taisho Periods legitimized imperialism as they attempted to elevate the discipline of history within…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Books & Sake
「高円寺古本酒場ものがたり」狩野俊 Story of Koenji Books & Sake, by Suguru Karino The “Story of Koenji Books & Sake” is Suguru Karino’s account of how he started a bookstore and…
Books: Ghibliotheque
By Andrew Osmond. The Ghibliotheque podcast started in 2018, and soon became an institution. It offered a journey through the films of Studio Ghibli, presented by Michael Leader…
Books: Sexiled
By Shelley Pallis. Tanya is twenty-five years old. She’s got half a decade of adventuring behind her, looting treasure from dungeons, spell-casting to protect her friends from goblins…
Books: Orienting
By Jonathan Clements. “My stay here has been so short,” said Rabindranath Tagore to Japanese students in 1916, “that one may think I have not earned my right…
Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James, Books 9-12 by Deborah Crombie
Now May You Weep Gemma is invited by her friend and former landlord Hazel Cavendish to a “cookery weekend” in the Scottish Highlands at a bed and breakfast…
Character of the Month of April: William James Moriarty
Greetings, fabulous people of the Internet! Hanime on Anime here, and it’s time once again to the monthly tradition that is Character of the Month! And yeah, I…
Jon’s Creator Showcase: April Edition Pt. 1 (Anime + Books)
Welcome to May. How’s everyone doing? I’m not sure if this has something to do with our global situation, but the month of March saw a remarkable influx…
4 Best Anime Openings by Kalafina
4 Best Kalafina Anime Openings: Kalafina has sung some legendary anime openings. Here are the 4 best Kalafina anime openings!
Fate/stay night, Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works, Fate/Zero
Books: Leiji Matsumoto
By Jonathan Clements. For all the passion and excitement that the contributors bring to the new collection Leiji Matsumoto: Essays on the Anime and Manga Legend, their subject…
Books: Studio Ghibli
By Jonathan Clements. Producer Toshio Suzuki was entertainingly underwhelmed when he was approached by agents for the pop stars Chage and Aska, who asked if Studio Ghibli would…
Books: Otherside Picnic
By Shelley Pallis. Sorawo Kamikoshi is a loner, a twenty-year-old nerd studying cultural anthropology at a Saitama university, whose hobby is exploring spooky places. Nor are these randomly…
Books: Hayao Miyazaki
By Andrew Osmond. Hayao Miyazaki, published to tie in with the current exhibition about the director at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles, is a whopping big book.…
Books: Terminal Boredom
By Jonathan Clements. “There is something wrong with our present society,” Izumi Suzuki once wrote, “and I can’t stand SF written by people who don’t understand that… Even…
The Best Books
Buying books, especially old books, is a fascination and my biggest weakness. I love the old wear and tear on antiques, and sitting and pondering where the scraped…
Books: Anime’s Identity
By Jonathan Clements. Stevie Suan’s new book, Anime’s Identity, cannot resist telling a story from the production of King’s Avatar (above), a 2019 Chinese animated series that subcontracted…
Books: Tearmoon Empire
By Jonathan Clements. Then she woke up, and it was all a dream. Or was it? The teenage princess Mia Luna Tearmoon vividly recalls being eight years older,…
Books: Spirit Chronicles
By Shelley Pallis. Yuri Kitayama’s Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles has several different beginnings, and to be frank, I am not sure that it has stopped beginning yet, even…
Books: Monster Kids
By Jonathan Clements. In his lively new book Monster Kids: How Pokémon Taught a Generation to Catch Them All, Daniel Dockery talks us through the original plans in…
Books: Hell Mode
By Shelley Pallis. Kenichi is a gamer suffering from that common modern malaise, a frustration with games that make life too easy for him. He’s just spent three…
Books: Japanese Drinking
By Shelley Pallis. Masaaki Watanabe’s anime series Bartender is part of a long tradition of TV shows about smart loners who help others in secret. Its leading man…
Books: Japanese Cinema
By Jasper Sharp. There are many paths one might take through the vast and varied terrain of Japanese cinema. Peter Cowie’s addition to the ever-expanding range of publications…
Books: Rediscovered Classics
By Zoe Crombie. Anime has taken inspiration from Western cultures throughout much of its history, from Astro Boy’s Disney-inspired aesthetics to the gorgeous European locales of films like…
Books: Rebuild World
By Jonathan Clements. When we first see Akira, he is gripped in the jaws of a mutant dog. Nafuse’s Rebuild World ditches the tiresome induction scene of many…
Books: Reading Murakami
By Jonathan Clements. Almost everything that is written about fiction is either reception (what the reader thought of the book) or production (an occasional making-of about the author…
Books: Kyoto Stories
By Jonathan Clements. “Riding on public transportation in Japan makes you feel a part of the general population,” writes Steve Alpert in Kyoto Stories. “One of the people.…
Books: Combat Baker…
By Jeannette Ng. The light novel series The Combat Baker and the Automaton Waitress follows Lud “Silver Wolf” Langart, a former captain and mech-operator who retires after a…
Books: Tatami Galaxy
By Tom Wilmot. Any mention of The Tatami Galaxy usually brings to mind Masaaki Yuasa’s much-loved 2010 anime. The charming series has become something of a modern classic,…
Books: Infinite Dendrogram
By Shelley Pallis. Infinite Dendrogram is the best game ever invented, a “virtual reality massively multiplayer online game” but not a crap one like all the ones that…
Barom-1 by Saitō Takao
Otaku USA just reported that Saito Takao recently passed away at the age of 84, and so I thought I would review one of his manga. He wrote…
Medalist Vol 1 by Tsurumaikada
Tsukasa is a 26-year-old unemployed man, living with his brother’s family. Eh is good with kids and his brother’s daughter really likes him. He stared living with his…
Dump a Week, 1/4 – 7/4
I watch too much anime. If you find a better cure for that than writing about it, give me a note.
Inflating the Tokidoki Balloon
Flowers of Evil, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Karneval, Macross, Mirai
Year 1 Issue 4
Arcadia Dragnet, Year 1, Issue 4 January 22-28 2020 I have finally decided that in order to be…
Jewelpet, Pandora to Akubi, Red Baron, Chihayafuru, Fortune Quest L
Square Enix Manga & Books Reveals New Books Coming Spring 2023
The good folks from Square Enix Manga & Books have sent us their upcoming release slate for spring 2023. Headlining their releases is the Ch...
Hakumei garage kit 1/1 scale by Volks
This is Hakumei garage kit 1/1 scale by Volks. This is a Charagumin kit, meaning parts come colored. However, I did not feel like I was working on…
Books: Japan’s Carnival War
By Jonathan Clements. Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the boggling weirdness of Momotaro, Sacred Sailors, that animated oddity in which the child-hero from Japanese…
Books: Her Majesty’s Swarm
By Shelley Pallis. And then she woke up, and she’d been transported to the world of her favourite real-time strategy engine. These light novels don’t hang about, do…
Books: Cooking with Ghibli
By Helen McCarthy. Les Recettes des Films du Studio Ghibli by cook Minh-tri Vo, with photos by Apolline Cartier and film research by Claire-France Thevenon, is out now…
Books: World of Ghibli
By Zoe Crombie. A gorgeously illustrated guide to stories, characters, and cultures of the films of the beloved studio, An Unofficial Guide to the World of Studio Ghibli…