Hey ya’ll, welcome to our anime content round-up, a new sort of post that we’re doing!

In similar veins to other anime bloggers, this will be a collection of all the articles, videos, and creators that we wanted to give mention to for their outstanding content and also gives us a way to thank them for the work they’ve put into these pieces. Of course, there’s tons more content and content creators than just these that we’d love to mention, but to keep these posts brief for your sanity and ours, we limited to five for each of us.

Since there’s three of us at The Backloggers, we also will be rotating out who picks the notable posts each time (and also who writes these little intros). There will likely be times where all three of us will contribute to the same month, but that will not necessarily always happen, but we’ll try to provide at least two people’s choices and switch around who does them for variety. These choices will be personal picks, either something we find interesting, thought-provoking, or just unique in terms of their content, and then we’ll talk a little bit about why we chose each article.

Anyway, enough with the obligatory info dump. Let’s move on to our picks, starting with Mythos.

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MYTHOS’ PICKS

Disability Rights with Monster Girls: Why Machi doesn’t need a “cure”

Zeldaru from Anime Feminist wrote a really interesting piece on Interviews with Monster Girls, a show I’m pretty sure I was only one of a handful of people to check out Winter season. I may have thought about the comparison to disabilities in passing but she delves right the heck in, expressing a very personal and wonderful perspective on the subject of disability rights and their representation in the show. Definitely check this out.

Tsuki ga Kirei’s Charmingly Grounded Romance

Okay, so this one is a great dive into Tsuki ga Kirei, one of my favorite shows from last season. This show is just so damn adorable and I love my little dorks in love. JuJu does a great examination, showing how realistic the show can be with its characters while also expressing beautiful charm in its art style and design. S’good reading.

Love, Chunibyo, & Other Delusions: A Silly Yet Heartbreaking Story About the Power of Geekdom

This one I found really interesting, especially since I had been following the hilarious play-by-play from The Afictionado on Twitter as she rewatched this whole series. I thought it impossible for someone to drudge up awkward and nerdy memories of my middle school years and actually make me think fondly of them. I was satisfyingly wrong. The dissection of Chunibyo (or however you spell it in English) in the aptly named Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! was great, especially in relating it to our own formative years and why it’s important to go through our wondrously awkward phases.

Tsuredure Children and the Mechanics of Dialogue, Part One

Tsuredure Children (which is my verbal bane in tongue-twister form) has been just the sweetest and comfiest show for me this season. And like usual, where I am simply just enjoying a show without a thought, the beautiful Bobduh from Wrong Every Time is concisely and perfectly summing up one of this show’s greatest strength; its dialogue. Not that a success in human form needs it, but I send my love his way all the same.

Pasta-chan Check! Anime Fashions of Summer 2017

I’m not gonna lie, I could not begin to tell you the first thing about fashion but I can tell you Pasta (is Pasta-chan too informal?) has you covered. In probably the most unique first impression idea for the season I’ve seen, here’s an article looking at all of the different fashion styles from this season, with an incredibly detailed run-down of how the clothing works functionally and what thought probably went into it, as well as some nice fashion history for shows like Princess Principal that are pseudo period based. This was a joy to read! Also, I completely agree with her: We need more hat diversity nowadays. This is important.

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OWNINGMATT93’S PICKS

Streaming Stumbles: How each major anime service can improve

As someone that is still upset about the current situation with some anime streaming services (looking at you specifically Netflix), I couldn’t tell you a better place to read up on the critiques of each of them. Not all services are equal, but this article by Thoughts That Move highlights each of the major players in the scene with a balanced take on what’s good and what needs to be improved to make these services better for the growing anime community. If you want a comparative analysis of the services, an overview of their charms and quirks, or just want some validation in your complaints, he’s got you covered.

Sakuga Blog — Welcome to the Ballroom – Episode 2

When it comes to animation techniques and breakdowns, Sakuga Blog is always one of my go-to places, but the episodic Ballroom analysis was not the reason this particular piece stood out to me. More importantly, this article covers the recent passing of Kazunori Mizuno, an episode director for Welcome to the Ballroom. Most people know by now about the huge workload and stress put on animation staff, but this article really brings out the reality of these situations to us and how much they affect these people’s lives. You will be missed, Kazunori Mizuno.

People Sure Like to Romanticise Fan Translations

Speaking of the anime industry, Frog-kun has some great experiences to share with some of the light novel translations he’s done in the past and comparing those with certain philosophies behind licensing of these novels and popularity of their official translations. There’s a whole lot to consider in this article, but one thing’s for sure is that light novels are getting more popular, and not necessarily just because of fan translations existing. It’s a unique perspective on the topic, and I’m interested to see how these trends develop as more light novels are licensed.

Knight’s & Magic and the Value of Transparency in Wish Fulfillment

It’s pretty easy to go into an isekai story with a negative attitude due to their popularity and the overabundance of stories with ridiculous premises, but Bless’s article about Knight’s and Magic discovers the real magic (sorry, not sorry) about what makes the isekai genre so appealing in the first place. While I didn’t initially think highly of the show, coming off of this article makes me look at the show differently. It’s definitely a positive piece for a show that really allows us to appreciate some of the aspects that make the genre what it is, and it made me want to give the show a second chance looking at it from this perspective.

YouTubers and Bloggers Should Interact More

And finally, Zeria posts about a topic that’s ever relevant in the blogosphere today. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has pointed out that interaction between bloggers and Youtubers should happen more, and I think it’s something that needs to happen for the community to continue expanding and making new connections with other content creators. This post is all about why these connections are so important, and oddly enough, is one of the main reasons we started this blog: to interact with other anime content creators. It’s an important topic for us, and we hope that moving forward, we can find a way to bridge these gaps between creators.

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Once again, thank you to all to the content creators producing excellent content out there! Lots of good pieces to create some good discussions with, and I hope you guys keep making that content that we at the Backloggers love to read!

If you have any pieces that you think were good from last month that we might have missed or that you want us to check out, feel free to throw them down in the comments, we’ll gladly read and respond to them!

Thanks again for reading and stay tuned for next month’s round-up!

— Owningmatt93