Every week, I visit over 200 anime sites looking for posts that celebrate amazing moments in anime or otherwise blow me away with their wit and charm. These are my five favorite posts for the week. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!
You can see a list of the sites I check here: Massive List of Sites!
Analog Housou
Watching Gundam Wing in Your Late 30s: Part 1 – The Hot Stuff
I would like to understand the power of nostalgia. I can describe how it feels. Without much effort, I can see how it sometimes affects my decisions, or pervades my moods. But I really don’t understand why it’s so powerful. Posts written from the perspective of nostalgia are fascinating because of that mystery. As an example, please let me present this post by wahhhhh on the site Analog Housou. In this post, wahhhhh writes about Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (I think that’s the link to the right link!), specifically how watching it now compares to watching it decades ago. I love reading how a writer’s perspective changes with time — it’s the power of nostalgia in action! Go see what I mean!
More Post from Analog Housou
GetMoreXP
Witch Hat Atelier Season One Review: The Attention To Detail Is Marvelous
I often gauge an anime’s quality by how many thoughtful posts a given series inspires. By that metric alone, Witch Hat Atelier was a huge success. Just this week, there were several posts I couldn’t celebrate because I limit myself to five! One post I did choose was this one from Getmoreexp on the site GetMoreXP. Another measure of an anime’s success? It inspires a great diversity of different thoughts. Getmoreexp celebrated many of the same aspects of the show that I do — as well as offering a constructive insight that proves no work of art is perfect. Go see if Getmoreexp talked about the things you liked about this series!
More Posts from GetMoreXP
Hanime on Anime
Witch Hat Atelier: Coco’s Moving Atelier
Yep, Witch Hat Atelier has inspired a lot of posts. This one by Hanime on Anime on the site Hanime on Anime praised some of the same things in the previous article; it even praised other elements of the show. Hanime on Anime went beyond mere praise to discuss something bothered her about the show. And you know what? It was something that bothered me, too — and for the same reasons as she stated! I came away from that post with an even greater appreciation for the show, which proves that a review doesn’t need to be blindly positive. It can also present challenges the work posed to the writer. What did Hanime on Anime talk about? You know what you need to do to find out!
More Posts from Hanime on Anime
Harper Anime Reviews
Is It Still Paranoid When There Is Something Out To Get You? – Paranoia Agent Spoiler Review
I’m lucky. My daughter and my son-in-law live nearby, so every other Sunday, they bring my grandson over for dinner. We often talk about gaming or anime, and one Sunday, my son-in-law asked me if I could help him identify an anime he’d seen before — something about a kid with skates and a bat. We finally figured out it was Paranoia Agent, and he proceeded to talk about how strange it was. When I saw this post by Austin Harper on Harper Anime Reviews, I knew I wanted to get his take on the series. Austin Harper does a great job describing a plot in context, and I’ll tell you what — this series is a challenge in that regard! And Austin Harper made it easy. Go see how he described a series that often defies description!
More Posts from Harper Anime Reviews
Merlin’s Musings
I Finally Saw Grave of the Fireflies
There are some movies and series that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch. One of them is Grave of the Fireflies. I bought it so long ago it’s on DVD. Every time I try to force myself to watch it, I balk. Do you know who’s braver than I am? Merlin, on the site Merlin’s Musings, that’s who. Like me, he found it hard to convince himself to watch. But he did it, and his somber and unflinching review confirmed two ideas in my mind: I really, really need to watch that movies, and I really, really can’t find the courage to do it yet. Whether you’ve watched the movie or not, take a look at this review — it shows the impact art can have on us. In the long run, that’s really a statement of hope.
More Posts from Merlin’s Musings
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Yeah, I remember watching Paranoia Agent when I was first really getting into anime, and it was different. I think that’s what I really liked about it, it was stretching the boundaries of what I thought anime could be. There was no hero fighting evil, there was no tournament arc, there was no hero team. It was also the anime that really got me into Satoshi Kon’s work. I think just about all of his anime pushed that horizons of what anime could be.
I need to pay more attention to who’s involved in any given anime. I didn’t realize the same guy who did Paranoia Agent did Paprika! I really liked Paprika, for the reasons you said — it stretched the boundaries.
And it was more like Inception than Inception was in some places.