My Favorite Posts from the Anime Blogging Community
Welcome to a Crow’s eye view of the posts that caught my attention this week! These are my favorite anime blogging community posts from 2020 Week 26.
How do posts catch my eye? They celebrate amazing moments in anime or otherwise blow me away with their wit and charm. I check hundreds of sites every week, and I can tell you that the ani-blogging community’s quality and quantity of posts is amazing. I hope this helps you find some of them!
Here’s the list of the sites I check!
Review Order
This week, I reviewed the sites in reverse alphabetical order (Z to A).
My Favorite Posts from The Week
The Yuri Empire
421st G-View: My Next Life as a Villainess
You might remember that Irina (from I Drink and Watch Anime) and I reviewed My Next Life as a Villainess. You can read our review of episode 1 here. There were some parts of the show that both of us really enjoyed, with Catarina Claes, the main character, being at the center of the most enjoyable moments. I felt like the plot peaked a little early, and I had some doubts about how it wrapped up. But it’s good to look for diverse opinions. Luckily, I found one in this post by OG-Man on The Yuri Empire. The post is a wonderful overview of the series. Reading it, two things jumped out at me. First, the picture captured “This pic tells viewers all they need to know about Katarina” was so spot on that I couldn’t help but be impressed. Second, the article captured my favorite part of the series. Can you guess what it was?
Starting Life from Zero
Anime Pride Month: Flip Flappers Is Everything I Love About Anime
Apparently, it’s Yuri week for Other Posts to Crow About. I think this is a first for the topic, and I’m wondering why it’s taken so long? Anyway, the next post I’m celebrating talks about that beautiful and wildly imaginative series called Flip Flappers. Its main characters were Cocona and Papika. For some reason that I haven’t figured out, I prefer her “other” name Papikana. There’s probably some psychological thing going on. Speaking of psychological, this post by Mari on Starting Life from Zero talked about a number of reasons the series was so good, and one of those reasons was its references to “Jungian psychoanalysis.” How cool is that? It’s even more cool than it seems, because the series wasn’t obvious about it at all. It just flowed naturally within the drama. Did you have favorite episode? Want to get an idea of which might be your favorite? Then you know what to do!
Never Argue with a Fish
Anime Corner: Maquia – When the Promised Flower Blooms Review
How do you define a successful review? What would a review have to do to make you think, “Wow, I’m really glad I read that?” The more I’ve tried to refine my goal of celebrating anime, the more I think a successful review is one that makes me want to watch or re-watch a series. In some cases, it’s pretty easy: almost any even partially positive review of a series like Re:CREATORS is going to make me want to watch it again! The real test is when the review looks at a series or a movie I’ve never seen before. It’s even harder when the work represents a genre that isn’t my favorite. That was the case for the review neverarguewithafish just published on Never Argue with a Fish. It looks at a movie I’ve not seen, Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms, from a genre, fantasy, that isn’t my favorite. By the time I’d finished the review, though, I was ready to jump onto Amazon and order the Blu Ray. I still might. The night’s young! Take a look at the article and see if you agree.
IN SEARCH OF NUMBER NINE – AN ANIME BLOG
WHY YOU SHOULDN’T TRUST KYON AND WHY YOU HAVE TO
Now you know that I consider a review successful if it makes me want to watch or rewatch a show. That not the only path to success, though. I also really like reviews that can help me see a series in a different light. For example, maybe the review shows how a character relates to another character in classical literature. Maybe the review discusses a clever narrative technique that I didn’t notice. Or maybe it does both, as does this post by Iniksbane on IN SEARCH OF NUMBER NINE – AN ANIME BLOG. It talks about Kyon from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, and it does a great job of connecting some dots I had missed during my first viewing. It pays to pay attention! And, as I just learned, if I can’t pay attention, it pays to find writers who did so I can read their article about it!
Emperor Carnage
All For One’s Master Plan- My Hero Academia THEORY
If I wrote an anime series, I’d watch the fanbase carefully. I’d listen to the fans to compare what they liked to what I thought they would like. I’d listen to the detractors to see if they had valid points. Those would be indicators of how well the series was received. But I’d also be interested in how much the series inspired the viewers’ imaginations. I’d want the show to inspire. I’d want the fans to write fanfic or try to guess what’s coming next based on what I had revealed. Capturing the fans’ imaginations is critical to long-term success. That’s why I like posts like this one by Emperor Carnage from the site Emperor Carnage. It looks at My Hero Academia and tries to project where All for One’s plans are going. The evidence is fantastic, and it’s based completely on canon. The conclusion? Let’s just say that if Emperor Carnage’s theory is right, I’m going to enjoy the daylights out of that arc! See what you think.
