"Become a critic and you'll never enjoy your hobby again!"
Mar 17, 2022 • Subscribe
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The Manga Critic: Free Comics!
Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day! Among the many publishers participating in this year's event are ABLAZE, Kodansha, Tokyopop, and VIZ, all of which are offering samplers of…
The Manga Critic: Vizion Quest
This week's big story is the launch of the VIZ Manga app. For a monthly fee of $1.99, the app gives subscribers access to a library of 10,000+…
Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, Call of the Night, InuYasha
The Manga Critic: Going Merry
The reviews are in, and One Piece is certified fresh, with an 85% approval rating from critics and a 96% approval rating from audiences. Just about every major…
Who’s a Critic Now?
I didn’t realise Kim Morrissy was a woman. For the longest time, I swore the person who posted about light novels and used the pseudonym “Frog-kun” was a…
Reactionary Fandom And The Myth Of The Snyder Cut, Chapter 5: Zack Snyder, Destroyer Of Myth
“For me, for the filmmakers I came to love and respect, for my friends who started making movies around the same time that I did, cinema was about…
The Myth of Japanese Indirectness and “Subtlety”
Stereotypes of Japan as a land of vague meaning and blunted expression are just straight up Orientalism that obscure a complex reality.
Spy x Family: Disarming the Myth of the Nuclear Family
Hannah Collins examines Spy x Family and the ways the manga, in presenting the Forgers as a fake nuclear family, dismantles its very mythology
Debunking the Myth of Naoko Takeuchi having "no friends".
A popular “wholesome meme” that has been periodically making the rounds over the last few years is a screenshot image of the text “Let's cel...
Star Crossed Myth Department of Wishes Review
Star Crossed Myth – Department of Wishes is a fantasy romance otome game published by Voltage Inc. It was originally released as a standalone mobile app, and has…
Star Crossed Myth Department of Punishments Review
Star Crossed Myth – Department of Punishments is a fantasy romance otome game published by Voltage Inc. It was originally released as a standalone mobile app, and has…
Brief Thoughts On: The Dark Myth
"Show, Don't Tell" is a concept utterly foreign to The Dark Myth. A shame, because its animation is quite alright.
Lotus Eaters and Steam Trains: The Myth of the Galaxy Express
Author’s note: I wrote this after watching the first 10 episodes of the show. If there is anything further on that contradicts this, I apologize. Galaxy Express 999…
How Berserk’s Casca challenges the myth of the “Strong Black Woman”
Black women always have to be strong. Society thinks we have some superhuman ability to withstand trauma. We are depicted this way all over the media to devastating…
success is a myth
Our whole lives, we’re told “work hard and you’ll succeed.” But this is just a myth. Success is deadly. The idea of having a villain arc is thrown around…
The First Korean - Dangun Wanggeom Myth | WooKong
Korean mythology is not very well know by most in the West and it is usually complicated thanks to how intertwined it is with Chinese and Japanese culture…
AKIRA: The 24 Frames-Per-Second Myth
I thought I’d share this on my blog with you all because of how commonly AKIRA is cited at being animated solely on 1s (or 24fps). This video…
BNA: Brand New Animal, Assimilationism, and the Myth of the Model Minority
There are anime where, if you really sit down and try to read deep underneath the surface for messages, you’ll find some surprisingly political messages. Then there’s BNA:…
Good Soil Makes a Good Crop: The Story of Saiunkoku and the myth of meritocracy
Despite its fantastical shoujo setting, The Story of Saiunkoku is no traditional fairy tale, and the sexist hurdles Shurei faces to achieve her dream of becoming a civil…
Framing the Model Minority Myth with Neo Cat
Hi, it’s me, Chiaki, once again thinking too hard about cats in media. Today I’m here to tell you that Aoka’s Neo Cat conveys how being celebrated doesn’t…
Let’s Talk About “Us”: The Myth of a Unified Front and the Sliding Scale of Solidarity
The greatest moment of Left unity in decades happened on April 8th, 2020, the day Bernie Sanders officially announced he was suspending his campaign to become the Democratic…
Reactionary Fandom And The Myth Of The Snyder Cut, Chapter 1: The Nerd Cultural Revolution
It’s not easy being a movie critic these days. Critics who truly understand the purpose of art criticism, or even what criticism is, are a dying species. More…
Turn A Gundam Staff, Production, and Episode Analyses – Episode #32 “The King of Myth”
Turn A Gundam’s thirty-second episode was broadcast on Fuji TV on November 19, 1999. Turn A Gundam’s thirty-second episode was broadcast on Fuji TV on November 19, 1999.
Reactionary Fandom And The Myth Of The Snyder Cut, Chapter 3: The Joss Whedon’s Career Memorial Fund
Previously: Avengers assemble to defeat the critic menace. Since the fandomization of pop culture began, critics have protested the growing and widespread anti-intellectual hostility towards them a…
Case 52 – Guns Are Just A Myth
Despite some audio issues, we finally make a return to finish off volume 17 and start volume 18 of the Case Closed manga as we go over the…
Myth and History: Jujutsu Kaisen's Ryomen Sukuna
For all Ryomen Sukuna's magnificent devilry, the ancient figure whom he's named after is shrouded in a lot of mystery, with some legends even treating this mythical Sukuna…
Third Seat by the Window Episode 5: Everyone’s A Critic (And So Can You!)
The Subtle Doctor joins Buggy and Chris to talk about critical analysis in the anime fandom, how to get into it, and where it’s succeeding and failing.
Yasuke: A Modern Myth From A Little-Known Part of Japanese History
A samurai who hails from Africa tears numerous assailants to shreds in a fluid, yet sterile scene as the crimson blood of his foes dyes the surrounding
Reactionary Fandom And The Myth Of The Snyder Cut, Chapter 2: The Superhero Revolution Will Not Be Criticized
Click here for Chapter 1: “The Nerd Cultural Revolution.” It’s no coincidence that the release of The Avengers in 2012, two years before GamerGate, marked both the beginning…
The Goddess Chronicle: A Woman’s Ambiguous Place in Japan’s Creation Myth
To appreciate The Goddess Chronicle, you need to be familiar with The Kojiki, the oldest recorded mythical origin story of Japan. (Kirino provides a good summary in part II, chapters…
Reactionary Fandom And The Myth Of The Snyder Cut, Chapter 4: Unlike The Snyder Cut, Superheroes Are Not Myths
CONTENT WARNING: DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE, MISOGYNY, ABUSE Previously: how the myth of The Snyder Cut became a reality. Like “art,” “review,” “representation,” &…
New Manga First Impressions: Forging a Myth in KAGURABACHI
The swordplay and sorcery manga has picked up a half-jokey cult following with just one chapter published, but is there more to the story or is this just…
The Ramifications of the Thrill of the Hunt
A reply to Scott’s post. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle […]
The Adventure of the House of Darkness
detective fiction, 推理小説、games, mystery, murder, locked room, Japanese, translations,
The Making of 'The Swallows of Kabul'
The story of a modern, underrated treasure from Europe.
The Roast of Classroom of the Elite
Classroom of the Elite is an anime that I watched. That's not quite the nicest thing I can say about it, but it's close, so here's a new…
1872: The Beginning of the End of the Kingdom of Lūchū (Ryūkyū)
This year has seen numerous events commemorating or marking or otherwise being held in connection with the 50th anniversary of Okinawa’s “reversion” to Japan in 1972, after 27…
The Best of Us, The Worst of Us, The Lot of Us: Rikka
The grand adventurer of delusion: Rikka
The Best of Us, The Worst of Us, The Lot of Us: Saitama
Dicussing Saitama, the bald hero with a dream of…losing?
Banner of the Stars: Thunder of the Empire
By Hiroyuki Morioka and Toshihiro Ono. Released in Japan by Hayakawa Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Giuseppe di Martino. And so we finally…
Manga of the Month: The Rose of Versailles
The Rose of Versailles (ベルサイユのばら) by Riyoko Ikeda July 2015 will probably be remembered as the summer when anime and manga dreams came true. Sort of. The month…
Blood of the Wise, Blood of the Fool
We often want to go back home, but where is home now? As we live, cities change, the mighty of yesterday fall, new players rise, and unthinkable things…
The Impossible Journey of 'The Secret of Kells'
Plus: global animation news.
The Testing of 'Son of the White Mare'
Plus: 'The Storm' and more animation news.
Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
detective fiction, 推理小説、games, mystery, murder, locked room, Japanese, translations,
The rise of sight, the fall of sound
Perhaps we don’t often think on the settings in which people watched older TV anime. But quite basic facets of TV’s nature have changed through the decades, in…
Custody of the Eyes and of the Mind
The misfortune of spending one’s money unwisely always leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth, which can only be alleviated by not having spent much. Buying four volumes…
#101 - Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Put on your masks, it's a toxic jungle out there! This time, Tobias, Austin, and Sully discuss Hayao Miyazaki's sophomore feature, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, an…
The First of 2021 – The End of the Tiny World
I’ve braved the theater once again, for the first time in 2021! I mentioned this series as a highly anticipated one, and it did not disappoint. So now,…
The Performance of Power: The Saga of Tanya the Evil
Power is one of those topics that pops up over and over in writing and in life. For instance, power underlies a lot of the relationship stuff I’ve…
The Origins of Mecha: The Super Robots of the 1970s
Anime Commentary runs through the history of anime's mecha genre, taking a look at the rise of Super Robot anime like Mazinger in the 1970s.