Worth Reading – 02/17/2019

demichan-01So, let’s hit the jump and take a look at what’s Worth Reading!

Appropriately first up….

One of the hottest ongoing topics in anime discussions is the (in)famous “three episode rule”.  But before you can get to three episodes, first you have to make it through the first episode…  Or sometimes even the first few minutes!  Scott at Mechanical Anime Reviews tackles this topic and discusses the Power of the First Impression.  (Be sure and check out the comments – some great stuff down there.)

Worth Reading has tackled the topic of first impressions/first episodes before, check out the 10/13/18 and 10/20/18 editions.

One of the more fantastic things the anime community does is the monthly Jon’s Creator Showcase – a wide ranging monthly look at the past month’s “best of”.  The moderator rotates each month, giving a wide variety of perspectives.  Jon himself takes up the keyboard again to host the 1st Anniversary Edition of the Showcase.

I bet everyone has a “guilty pleasure” anime or three…  I know I have!  One of them is fanservice anime, especially comedies.  One of my favorites is the hilariously over-the-top Cat Planet Cuties (Asobi ni Iku yo!).

Part alien-invasion spoof, part spy-adventure spoof, part harem comedy…  It’s funny as hell and absolutely unashamed to be what it is.  This kind of show tends to get overlooked in the anime community…  and when they aren’t they’re often reviewed rather dismissively.  (Unless you’re Cactus Matt, who dives in completely unabashedly.)  Thus I was pleased to see a well done review of the first season by Lynn Sheridan.  (And a tip o’ the hat to Crow for showcasing her review.)

Speaking of Cactus Matt – he’s currently taking part in the 30 Day Anime Fan Service Challenge.  Or, more accurately, he’s autoposting while he’s in Japan.  I’m both jealous and looking forward to his next series of travelogue posts.


(Image courtesy of The Moyatorium.)

If you read my post last week you know of the absolutely epic snowstorm we had here in the Pacific Northwest…  I got pretty much nothing done, but Moyatori of The Moyatorium spent her time creating a snow sculpture of Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell.  Fascinating stuff and she also goes into detail on the techniques she used to create the sculpture.

One of my favorite romance/romantic anime is Spring 2015’s My Love Story!! (Ore Monogatari!!).  Why?  Because it gets the confession scene out of the way early on and the vast majority of it’s 24 episode run concentrates on the actual relationship between the lead characters.  I loathe the all-to-common “will-they-or-won’t they” approach the culminates in a confession in the final episode.  (2017’s Tsuki Ga Kirei also took a more balanced approach and is probably my favorite romance/romantic anime.)

This week Karandi of 100 Word Anime turns the spotlight on My Love Story!!‘s male lead – the amiable man mountain Takeo Gouda.  He’s nothing what you’d expect a romantic lead, but that’s what makes him such a great character.

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And that wraps up the latest edition of Worth Reading!  As usual, feel free to comment/discuss here or on the original post – but if you enjoyed a particular article be sure and let the original author know!

18 thoughts on “Worth Reading – 02/17/2019”

    1. Always a pleasure!

      And you know it’s your fault that because of that article I spent a good chunk of the weekend re-watching My Love Story rather than accomplishing anything useful? (I kid, I kid, I’ve enjoyed the heck out of doing so.)

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      1. As long as you enjoyed it. I will admit, the temptation to watch Snow White With The Red Hair was very strong over the weekend. I settled for writing that post with my top 5 Obi moments. It’ll be out tomorrow.

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  5. Asobi ni Iku Yo was fun. (I will never call it “Cat Planet Cuties”; this is one of the English titles I refuse to use: it steals the title from the aliens and gives it to the audience; also it’s not nearly as fun as “We come to play” [actually, I think it’s something they say in Japan when they make a social visit; it probably translates to something like “We just drop in” – in my mind, though, it’s a pun on “We come in peace”: I have no idea if that works in Japanese]).

    And that’s an extremely awesome snow sculpture!

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      1. Ooh, interesting page. Confirms most of what I thought. I loved the comment about “asobi” meaning “to share something”; it’s enlightening in that context and makes sense. (Dictionaries are just word-to-word indexes, and without extensive usage notes can be misleading.) Translation is an art form, really.

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        1. Translation is an art form, really.

          Indeed. That’s why I own any number of translations of Basho… Though haiku poses an even more difficult problem because it relies so heavily on symbology and reference.

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    1. You’re welcome! I didn’t even get out and take any photographs…

      I follow a couple of twitter accounts that post Ukiyo-e, I keep thinking I should post more of them.

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