By Shelley Pallis. He was the greatest swordsman in the world. He advanced through every stage, mastered every trick, and learned every technique. He reached the highest possible levels of achievement, able to defeat elite soldiers without a sword, since he was just as handy with a bit of wood. He achieved a Zen nirvana […]
Feb 24, 2023 • Subscribe
More like this
Books I didn’t finish
My DNF (Did Not Finish) List is short. I don’t usually quit reading a book because I become a little guilt-ridden. However, there are some books that I’ve…
My Favourite Books of 2023
I love to read. Especially Japanese and English novels with good stories. Here are my favourite books of 2023.
Translated Books I Read in 2022
Mini-translation reviews of the nine translated books I read in 2022. A mixture of fantasy, literary fiction, and non fiction.
I Review Another Two Picture Books
The last of the picture book reviews, hopefully.
Books: I Shall Survive Using Potions
By Shelley Pallis. And then she died. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey – a man in a toga who calls himself God shows up to tell Kaoru the Office Lady that…
Episode 654, "Oops, I Dropped My Big Boy Sword" (with @GodswillUgwaJr)
On this week’s episode of The One Piece Podcast we have hosts Zach , Ed & Steve with Godswill Ugwa (VIZ Community Manager), Jill Knight …
Books: I Could Never be a Succubus
By Shelley Pallis. The story of I Could Never be a Succubus begins with a striking Gotterdammerung, as a bold hero and an evil demon lord fight for…
Episode 654, "Oops, I Dropped My Big Boy Sword" (with Godswill Ugwa)
Thanks to Steve for this week’s episode image! Check out all of the alternate images and titles on our Patreon, subscribe today at patreon.com/onepiecepodcast! You can pick up One Piece Podcast…
Episode 654, "Oops, I Dropped My Big Boy Sword" (with Godswill Ugwa)
Thanks to Steve for this week’s episode image! Check out all of the alternate images and titles on our Patreon, subscribe today at patreon.com/onepiecepodcast! You can pick up One Piece Podcast…
Books: My Next Life as a Villainess
by Jeannette Ng. Probably one of the most successful of the fast-growing “reborn as a villainess” subgenre of stories, My Next Life as a Villainess by Satoru Yamaguchi…
Books: In Another World with My Smartphone
By Shelley Pallis. And then he was struck by lightning, and it was a mistake, but it was too late, and he was dead. Well, that’s not a…
Movies and Shipping and Books, Oh My!
Krystallina kicks off the first Please Save My Money of 2021 with an overview of stores and shipment delays due to holidays and COVID-19.
I Review Three Picture Books–Don’t Ask Why.
Why am I doing this?
ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight With My Love and My Cursed Sword, Volume 2
When I was in high school, I had a teacher who would walk up and down the rows of desks in the classroom while we were in his…
ROLL OVER AND DIE: I Will Fight With My Love and My Cursed Sword, Volume 3
There were two surprises for me by the end of this light novel by Kiki, illustrated by Kinta. One was that I made it to the end 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…
Monologue: I wear this Kirito charm on my phone to demonstrate how much I hate Sword Art Online
I figured I should do this now rather than later.
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…
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…
Sword Art Online, Vol. 21: Unital Ring I
By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul. This is the first book in…
The Gospel as the Great Passage, I: On Talking Books
My great-grandfather was born to a peasant family in Spain. At a young age, he spent some time training to become a priest, and although he ultimately chose…
Reincarnated as a Sword (Light Novel) Books 1 – 3 Review: A Not So Wild Ride
Reincarnated as a Sword is pretty much what the title proclaims it to be. Standard isekai beginnings with the gimmick of the protagonist being an intelligent sword. Throw…
Books: My Friend’s Little Sister Has it in For Me
By Jonathan Clements. Playfully beginning with a little Austen pastiche, as in “It is a truth universally acknowledged…” the hero of My Friend’s Little Sister Has it in…
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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…
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: 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: 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: 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,…
I Changed My Username
My old username was cFreeze (or cFreeze9). I want to distance myself from that Cirno-related username I had for nearly 4 years. Cirno has a cult-like following from…
I Lost My Job
Or to be more accurate, I was fired. I have never been fired from a job before and to be honest, this really came out of left field…
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...