Anime roundup 6/2/2013: Graduation Day
Hunter x Hunter #81 – Watch that fight scene in isolation, and it’s just another case of insanely exaggerated martial arts. But watch it with the weight of 80 previous episodes of struggling and training, […]
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Pretty Soldiers: Hotaru Tomoe
Hotaru Tomoe is abused by her father. She suffers from an illness that leaves her breathless, weak and wracked with pain. She is picked on by her classmates. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are planning […]
The Trouble With Definitions; or, Not All Anime Fans Watch Hentai
[Author’s Note: The following post discusses hentai, which is a type of animated pornography. No lewd images are present; however, there is a link to an erotic woodblock print. The author asks that readers use […]
Anime roundup 5/26/2013: In the Long Run We Are All Dead
Hunter x Hunter #80 – The Chimera Ant queen has just collected the brain of a man so misanthropic that he founded an entire country just to give him a base from which to make […]
East vs. West: Comic Book Showdown
Though my position here, such as it is, is that of “anime blogger,” I think that my real interest in media from the Land of the Rising Sun is comic books, otherwise known as manga. […]
Anime roundup 5/19/2013: Ant Misbehavin’
Space Brothers #57 – Everyone caught that piko-piko is the Japanese onomatopoeic equivalent to “beep”, right? So we all know how the author picked Pico’s name? Well then, let’s talk about a slightly less obvious […]
The Real Manga Blues: A “Me and the Devil Blues” Review
Of all the potential stories to succeed phenomenally in manga form, not many people expect a story centering around blues music in the deep American South to qualify. Even less likely is a story about […]
Anime roundup 5/12/2013: Failure Analysis
First, some big news for those of you in Spain and Portugal: Crunchyroll expanded its offerings for you as of May 9th. The specific list of shows involved isn’t accessible outside your countries, so I […]
Interview – The Amazing Art of Anja Uhren
I met Anja Uhren recently at an Easter egg painting event. She was casually painting a face on an off-cut of card and I was immediately impressed by the effortlessness with which she produced a […]
ASM Blog Horde Interview with Zachary Clemente
Welcome to the Amazing Stories BLOG HORDE INTERVIEWS! The ASM Blog Horde is a diverse and wonderful species. I have the privilege of talking with all of them, and I get to share those chats with […]
Hayao Miyazaki and Epic Fantasy
Since taking on this blogging position, I have been struggling to find works that would appeal to the audience that Amazing Stories has, particularly those who are interested in fantasy. I would categorize a large […]
Anime roundup 5/3/2013: Photoeugenic
Hunter x Hunter #77 – Giant ants! Giant mutant intelligent ants! Giant intelligent ants which eat people and then practice Lamarckian evolution! I expect to start hearing a theremin any minute now. I can think […]
5 More Anime and Manga Titles for HBO to Adapt
Between Game of Thrones and the planned American Gods series, HBO has been drinking deeply from the Nerd Money well. This is, of course, part of that much-discussed wave of geek culture we’ve seen ripple […]
Art in Action: A Bakuman Review
I spend a lot of time lately complaining about the state of anime and the series that have been created within the last five or so years. In the course of this tirade, shounen manga […]
The Beautiful Tiny Worlds of Animated Music Videos
Music videos are a strange amalgamation of variant creative forces merging together, all too often used to further market or popularize a song with flamboyant budgets, unnecessary celebrity appearances and overall lame concepts. For […]
Anime roundup 4/28/2013: Tribal knowledge
Hunter x Hunter #76 – Hunter x Hunter was previously adapted for TV in 1998-1999 for a series that ran to the middle of the Yorknew City arc and stopped. Various direct-to-video continuations (none of […]
Characters: Clare of Claymore
Claymore is one of the more interesting anime I’ve seen in a while. It’s a pretty standard story. Monsters, known as yoma, feed on humans, and the only ones who can defeat them are swords […]
The Young Animators’ Project, and What We Can Hope For
It has recently been brought to my attention that every year, the Japanese government pays a large sum of money to a handful of animation studios so that those studios will each produce a half-hour […]
Anime Roundup 4/21/2013: Fee Fi, Ho Hum
More international streaming sites have announced their spring simulcasts, and I’m afraid it looks like the entire world will get to see a couple of high school romantic comedies, but most of the good sf […]
Pretty Soldiers: Minako Aino
Minako Aino revels in frivolity. She loves pop music and cake, she trades shoujo manga with her friends, she wants to be an idol singer someday. She loves fame and glamour and if she existed […]
Acceptance or Exploitation?
Author’s Note: The following post will discuss depictions of sexuality in media. As such, content may not be acceptable for young children. Please read responsibly. In light of Zach’s recent post, I’ve decided to finally […]
Anime roundup 4/14/2013: This Will Be on the Test
A big stack of first looks this week, and then it’ll be time to make decisions about what to add for the regular weekly commentary. Those of you worried about the absence of Attack on […]
The Future of Manga Looks Dire
I tend to avoid bookstores these days – not because I’m opposed to them in any way; quite to the contrary, I have a ravenous book-owning addiction, and I prefer to remove temptation when possible. […]
Anime roundup 4/7/2013: Stop the World, I Want To Get Off
First, a little awards news: Nominees for the Seiun for Best Media (roughly equivalent to Hugo nominees for Best Dramatic Presentation) include two anime series, Bodacious Space Pirates and Eureka Seven AO. E7AO is a […]
Pretty Soldiers: Makoto Kino
The strength of characterization in Sailor Moon is, in my opinion, what has made it such an enduring series. When we were children, we chose our favorite and used her to represent who we were […]
Anime As An Art Form
One of the greatest things that anime ever did for me was give me the desire to create. I was a really bookish kid, and the idea of writing had always been pretty appealing to […]
Spring 2013 Anime Preview
Every three months, like clockwork, Japanese TV remakes itself. A bunch of shows end, a bunch more start, and many continuing series bring out new opening and closing sequences. Most anime series run for only […]
Anime roundup 3/31/2013: You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Plotlines
From the New World, end – If there has been one theme running through every episode of From the New World from the beginning, it’s been that there is always another way to make the […]
The Pros and Cons of Comicon
It is the day before the first day of spring. As I sit in my office chair, working at my computer, the giant snow thrower passes by and deposits a massive blast of snow onto […]
Sex and the Senshi
(Author’s Note: This article deals with issues regarding sex and sexuality in a non-explicit manner. Regardless, it might not be safe for work.) Usagi, the titular character of Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, is a great […]
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