The critical evaluation of anime (and media in general) is driven by comparison. This is only natural since we base all our opinions off of previous experiences. If this wasn’t the case we’d have t…
Jan 25, 2018 • Subscribe
DARLING in the FRANXX, Sword Art Online, The Seven Deadly Sins
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Why It Works: Animating the Impossible, the Breathtaking Works of Kou Yoshinari
This week, I actually took my Why It Works inspiration from an airing show, though not one I’m actually watching. It turns out Kou Yoshinari showed up to…
Batman & DBZ Were Made By The Same People
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Why It Works: What Does It Truly Mean to Be “Over 9000?”
I had a whole lot of fun with this week’s Why It Works article, as it fell into one of my favorite categories of criticism: thorough explorations of…
P.A. Works: My Favorite and Least Favorite Studio
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Rent-a-Girlfriend – 01 (First Impressions) – This Is How It Works
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Why It Works: The World is the Game: Designing Worlds After Breath of the Wild
For this actual week’s Why It Works post, I ended up writing an article I’ve been meaning to write for years, and gushing a whole lot about how Breath…
Ladies on Top – Is it wrong to get done by a girl?!
I’m still on the fence if manga Instagram is the best or worst thing I’ve ever chosen to get myself involved in. That’s neither here nor there since…
Review: Frau Faust vol. 1 – In which I really, really try to not compare it to The Ancient Magus’ Bride
Frau Faust is real good. It’s an enjoyable read, and it scratches a different itch…
Why It Works: Hope Lights the Way Through Desolation in To Your Eternity
For this week’s Why It Works piece, I wrote a response to To Your Eternity’s phenomenal first episode. I haven’t been cross-posting my Why It Works pieces, since…
Yu Yu Hakusho (Netflix): Somehow, It Works
I haven’t talked about this in a while, but Yu Yu Hakusho to this day remains one of my favorite shonen battle series of all time. I do…
Obscusion B-List: Games Ported Over to the Same System... Multiple Times... By Different People
Game development & publishing has, more or less, long become a rather standardized thing over the decades. If you see a game released on a p...
Darwin’s Game is not the same as King’s Game
Genre : Action, romance, violence, Bottle Royal Episodes: 11 Studio: Nexus Mobile games are turning into a real bane. You think it’s all lighthearted casual fun,…
Why It Works: Sing “Yesterday” For Me is this Season’s Must-Watch Drama!
The title for this one pretty much covers it – Yesterday’s premiere was fantastic, and also happened to be on Crunchyroll, so today I wrote an expanded article…
Dragon’s Dogma: Compare And Contrast
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Why It Works: Introducing the Incredible Director of the Horimiya Adaptation!
This week (well, last week, technically), I ended up springboarding off the Horimiya anime announcement to ramble about Masashi Ishihama. Ishihama is one of the industry’s unsung greats,…
Why It Works: Not Born to Be a Hero: My Hero Academia and the Road to Greatness
Today I’ve got a fresh My Hero Academia article for you all, largely inspired by the show’s recent provisional license retakes, as well as Mirio and Nighteye’s additions…
Rainbow Book Fair Today
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Why It Works: The Madness of Hunter x Hunter’s Hero
Hey everyone! For this week’s Why It Works, I dove back into Hunter x Hunter, that seemingly infinite well of potential storytelling topics. This time, I explored the…
Why It Works: The Quiet Lessons of Laid-Back Camp
Laid-Back Camp is friggin’ back, meaning I can once more wax rhapsodic regarding the meditative, life-affirming qualities of the best slice of life anime. That basically covers this…
Why It Works: What Are the Best Anime About Anime?
This week I’m once again diving into Eizouken-adjacent articles, as I use the show’s unique production focus to shamelessly promote some of my other favorite anime, like Shirobako…
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Anton Arnault has finally come of age. Unfortunately, his celebration isn’t all that fun. Since he is a child of mixed blood, most attendees (the upper crust) don’t…
Did Anime ‘Ex-Arm’ Censor a Same-Sex Kiss, or is it Just Completely Incompetent?
Visual Flights’ television anime adaptation of Shinya Komi’s Ex-Arm has been making waves in the industry recently with bold choices like putting a poorly animated 3D CGI character…
It Walks By Night
It Walks By Night is the debut novel of John Dickson Carr, and much better than the other one . It features one of Carr’s recurring detecti...
Why It Works: Kaiju Are Making a Comeback!
For this week’s Why It Works, I took stock of just how generous our current era is in terms of kaiju productions. We’ve got the Anno-Higuchi films, Legendary’s…
Why It Works: Why You Absolutely Need to Check Out Pokemon: Twilight Wings!
As is often the case for Why It Works posts, the title says it all here. The new Pokemon shorts they’ve been producing to promote Sword and Shield…
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Why It Works: Chihayafuru is Back! But Where Do Its Heroes Go From Here?
Did you really think I wouldn’t also be rambling about Chihayafuru over on Crunchyroll? Considering it’s easily the platform’s strongest pickup of the season, I expect to be gushing…
This is Why All Schools in Anime Look the Same
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Why It Works: What Are the Fundamentals of Great Horror Anime?
This week in Why It Works, I capitalized on Halloween’s approach to write a general article about how tricky it is to make animation scary, and what tools…
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Why It Works: Let’s Celebrate the Birthday of A-1 Pictures!
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![Featured image for [Otome Watch] JACKJEANNE “Global Version” considered in the works by Broccoli](https://cdn.aniblogtracker.com/live/20210317/1616012260.6450.29706.jpg)
[Otome Watch] JACKJEANNE “Global Version” considered in the works by Broccoli
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For this week’s Why It Works, I pulled together an old-fashioned “philosophy of storytelling” essay, centered on the relationship between worldbuilding and dramatic structure. As …
Why It Works: Worldbuilding, Storytelling, and Weaving a Song
For this week’s Why It Works, I pulled together an old-fashioned “philosophy of storytelling” essay, centered on the relationship between worldbuilding and dramatic structure. As …
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