Azure Flame Reloaded

Those with the ability to recall trivial and largely useless information may recall that some time ago, I wrote an article about second seasons that directly followed on from the first, and whether they were always destined to be inferior to their predecessors. The conclusion seemed to be that, actually, despite the stigma attached to them, there was a fairly even distribution of both good and bad second seasons. Nonetheless, at the time, I promised to cover spin-offs and remakes in a separate article to see how they compared, and now, at long last, that time has come. Continue Reading »

In those far-off days when I was a newcomer to the world of anime (I don’t think that my childhood viewing of Samurai Pizza Cats really counts), one of the series that the limited offerings of UK TV brought to me was Tenchi Muyo. Often regarded as the grandfather of all harem series, the tale of a normal teenager living with a group of powerful alien girls may not have been a particularly sophisticated one, but for the most part, it was at least entertaining. Continue Reading »

The new season is almost upon us, and yet here I am, having failed to put together any kind of autumn (or, if you prefer, fall) preview whatsoever- and nor am I intending to. Aside from the fact that many people have already done a better job of it than myself, and that I’m simply too lazy to be bothered, past experience has shown that the series I look forward to the most often turn out to be utterly disappointing. After all, in previous seasons, I was foolish enough to expect something of worth from Black Cat, Jigoku Shoujo, Mai-Otome, Fate, xxxHOLiC, Tsubasa, .hack//Roots, Kamisama Kazoku, Binbou…well, the list goes on. Clearly the only way forward is to ignore the most anticipated shows, and only watch the more obscure or unappealing sounding series (does this mean that Bartender will end up being a good choice?).

Reviewed this week: Black Blood Brothers, Chevalier, Higurashi, Keroro, Ouran, ROTK, School Rumble, Tenchi Special, Utawarerumono, NHK, xxxHOLiC

…and in manga: Furuba, Mai-Otome, Melty Blood, Mushishi, Natsu no Arashi, Tsubasa, Uta, xxxHOLiC, Yotsuba, Zero no Tsukaima novel

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