[Season Sampler] Megalo Box 1+2 – I Know the Ride, but it’s Still Fun

April 28, 2018June 29, 2020Selie Leave a comment

If there’s nothing else that should be taken from this article, the tl;dr of all of this is:

Just because I know the destination and can name all the stops along the way doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the ride, especially when the train is this freaking jazzed up.

Megalo Box is a reimagining Ashita no Joe, taking its classic story of the underdog boxer and setting it in a near future version of Japan where the rich live in a beautiful utopia while the poor exist in sprawling slums outside the city and aren’t even considered citizens. Junk Dog, our Joe of this series, makes a living convincingly losing matches to payback his coach’s debts to a crime lord. We see him battered and bruised, sick of this life but stuck without a way to make things better, especially given that as part of the poor class, he’s unable to get a citizen’s license, meaning he’s not even considered a citizen of this world. He spends his days recklessly driving until he accidentally almost runs over the head of a large corporation who is in charge of a new league of boxing sport called Megalonia. Junk Dog, due to his love of old fashioned Megalo Boxing, hates the ideas behind Megalonia and tells off this business woman, causing her prized boxer and devotee, Yuuri, to almost fight him before he is called off. Because Yuuri is still upset about this, he later gets a match with Junk Dog in the illegal boxing ring Dog calls home and defeats him brutally. Junk Dog wants a rematch immediately but Yuuri says he will only fight him again if he can fight him in his own Megalonia ring. This kickstarts the journey of Junk Dog to get into Megalonia and get his revenge on Yuuri.

Continue reading →

Log Time General Podcast #13 | End of Winter 2018 — After the Winter Anime

April 23, 2018April 23, 2018thebackloggers Leave a comment

I really can’t tell you what happened with this one, but this week on the Log Time Podcast, we lose our collective minds and have a ton of fun with this wrap-up of the Winter 2018 anime season. We unintentionally cover what were this season’s big three shows, get *deep* into a discussion of Violet Evergarden, and get hype about a few other solid picks from the season, such as After the Rain and Hakumei to Mikochi. Among other things, we also (sort of) hold an airing of grievances at the end of the cast, and we try to help Matt pronounce “hnnnnnnng”.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

This podcast was recorded on April 6th, 2018.

Violet Evergarden 13 – Letters Written, Burdens Lifted

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018generaltofu 1 Comment

Violet Evergarden’s final episode is an episode largely of catharsis, and it is one that I, and many others, have wrestled with. In many ways, it brings us to the logical conclusion of the show, or rather to the stopping point for this portion of Violet’s story that we receive. In truth, I have watched this episode numerous times over, mulling its events over in my head, and it has been a process of numerous revisions to how I have come to finally view this last piece of Violet’s story (for now, anyway). Through this, I have found that my thoughts have changed significantly in more recent viewings. This final episode, depending on your reading of events, can be quite clear-cut on the surface, or somewhat more muddied as you dive deeper into it. It does give Violet a great sense of closure, a lifting of burdens, a renewed sense of self and purpose, and a renewed vigor to live her life. But that vigor for a life that she has fought tooth and nail for over the course of this season, again, depending on your reading, can manifest as either a genuine sense of moving on, or it can be somewhat tainted, if it is read as a vigor to live her life for Gilbert; no longer in pursuit of him, but to live life waiting for him, should he be alive. I want to talk about the two as we go forward here, because through my viewings of this final act, I have come to see both.

Continue reading →

Violet Evergarden 11 + 12 — An Outburst of Feelings

April 16, 2018April 16, 2018Owningmatt93 2 Comments

Violet Evergarden continues to surprise me on several different levels, pulling out some of the biggest emotional gut-punches that I’ve seen from a single anime in a while. While other anime of Winter 2018 such as A Place Further Than the Universe have also had some huge emotional moments, I think Violet Evergarden has one over every show of the season, especially with some of the previous episodes and how they’ve ended. The show is still far from perfect though, and while I still love the show dearly, it’s obvious where some of its problems lie within these two episodes.

Continue reading →

On Self-Love: Sanrio Boys and Yuru Camp Bucking Societal Norms

April 6, 2018June 29, 2020generaltofu 1 Comment

The Winter 2018 season was, in many ways, a genuine surprise, primarily so because of the sheer volume of genuinely solid shows that were offered in this first bit of the year. What has surprised me beyond this, however, is that not only did we have a number of shows that I am already seeing as possible contenders for anime of the year, but a number of shows, to my surprise, made some concerted pushes in terms of working to buck some norms (or at least attempting to do so) that are fairly present within the general sphere of seasonal anime. For this season in particular, one theme that stood out to me has been that of self-love/self-acceptance, and this came to me most notably while watching Yuru Camp and Sanrio Boys.

Continue reading →

Log Time Podcast #30 | Mawaru Penguindrum Discussion — Initiate the Survival Strategy

April 6, 2018April 15, 2018thebackloggers Leave a comment

This week, we talk about some of the craziness of Mawaru Penguindrum.

Join us as we talk about child broilers, the symbolic representation of penguins, how moray eels can represent our inner feelings of fear, and what those subway trains and “95” may actually mean within the show.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

UPDATE: We do apologize that the future podcasts will not be in the same detailed video formats as the previous ones. The picture in picture version of the podcast just takes too much time for the time being, and we’ve decided to take a hiatus from doing it this way. We hope you still continue to listen to us and encourage others to do so as well!

This podcast was recorded December 9th, 2017.

Fanservice and Differing Opinions

April 3, 2018June 29, 2020Selie 10 Comments

I will go ahead and state that this is a rant piece so I apologize in advance. While everything I write for this blog is from my own perspective, this is going to be a very opinionated article about my personal feelings on this subject. However, I wanted to share this as I thought it might be an interesting read and it was also incredibly cathartic to me to get this out of my head and onto metaphorical paper.

Recently I noticed someone say on Twitter something that caught my interest.

This thread went on for some time, everyone in agreement, and eventually led to:

The first thing that struck me about this is that fanservice is not a genre of anime, or a genre at all for the matter. It’s a method of direction and writing to entice people. It’s using tried and true methods to appeal to what the audience likes in order to keep them invested or liking the show. Usually, this is adding sexualization into the show but this isn’t the only way to use fanservice, as just as easily, the creators could suddenly bring a fan favorite character seemingly back to life for a shocking twist.

However, these ideas can be done in any show, fantasy, sci-fi, slice-of-life, etc. Regardless of genre, anything can have fanservice in it. A Certain Scientific Railgun has multiple bathing/bathing suit scenes but they’re far and few between and I certainly wouldn’t classify it as a “fanservice show”. It’s way more focused on cute girls doing awesome psychic action things. Kobayashi-san has several bits involving sexual humor and Quetzalcoatl is almost a literal running boob joke. However, I’d never call Kobayashi-san just a “fanservice” show. It has fanservice, sure, but it’s a slice-of-life comedy about a gay couple and dragons, blending comedy and sincere moments to hit on deeper ideas about love, relationships, and family. The fanservice is just an element of the show.

Continue reading →

[Season Sampler] Umamusume: Pretty Derby 1+2 — Just Another Day at the Races

April 2, 2018April 2, 2018Owningmatt93 4 Comments

While we as a community are still wrapping up from the absolute craziness of the Winter season and its amount of just amazing shows, the spring season just comes in like a lion right after in another feeble attempt to create after-season/pre-season chaos amidst all the shows that are being talked about at once. One of these new spring shows, which I’m sure you’ve seen countless pictures of at this point, is Umamusume: Pretty Derby, an anime about girls that are also horses, but also idols.

Continue reading →

March 2018 Monthly Content Round-up

March 31, 2018March 31, 2018thebackloggers 3 Comments

Here in the continental United States (at least on the east coast), March has been a pretty frigid, unpredictable season for us. However, it seems that the Aniblogger community has been heating things up to balance that out this month! We’ve got some hot posts about topics from all across the board, it seems, ranging from this season’s big picks like Violet Evergarden and Yuru Camp, to a postmortem for musical group Kalafina, to some important, current discussions about our larger anime community as a whole, and how we can look to shape ourselves and our perspectives going forward. There’s a little something for everyone here, so stay a while, check out our picks for the month, and hopefully find something that speaks to you!

Continue reading →

Violet Evergarden 9+10 – Loss and Learning to Heal

March 27, 2018June 29, 2020Selie 1 Comment

Episode nine was what this whole series up to this point has been building to and honestly, had they wanted to make a shorter series, they could have cut it right here and have had in my opinion one of the best endings of the season, possibly of the past few years. For all of those who may have dropped the show because of the pacing, I ask to please reconsider as episodes 7-9 were exactly what you were waiting for, but they wouldn’t have worked nearly as well without the rest of it. The slow burn up to this point and the character and world-building are what enabled this midseason segment to work so well. To those that were on the fence or those that had written this show off earlier I personally will vouch that this is the proof that it all does pay off and does so beautifully. Because of this, I’ll be interested in seeing what they do in order to continue this onward and what they plan to do for the actual ending, given how final and amazing episode nine was.