It’s been a month since I last published an issue of Worth Reading and there’s been some Good Stuff posted… So, let’s hit the jump and take a look at what’s Worth Reading!
Continue reading “Worth Reading – 09/07/2018”
Category: Worth Reading
Worth Reading – 08/10/2018
Man… it’s been far too long since I published an edition of Worth Reading… I’ve been collecting links, just never got off my butt and edited and published. That error is now rectified and here are a few posts that are long overdue for your reading pleasure and appreciation.
So, let’s hit the jump and take a look at what’s Worth Reading!
Continue reading “Worth Reading – 08/10/2018”
Worth Reading – 04/19/2018
I really should be working on other things, but it’s been a month since the last Worth Reading, and the good stuff just keeps piling up. So rather than delay things further…
Let’s hit the jump and take a look at what’s Worth Reading!
Worth Reading – 3/12/18
It’s been a couple of weeks, and I’ve collected a link or two… So, let’s hit the jump and take a look at what’s Worth Reading!
Worth Reading – 2/26/2018
These links have been collecting on my virtual desk for a couple of weeks, so it’s probably time to get another issue of Worth Reading out. I know I said this would be an irregular features, but on the other hand I don’t want to let them stack up.
(I’ve been building a collection of images I use for similar posts, haven’t been able to find one I like for Worth Reading…)
All that being said, hit the jump and let’s dive in!
Worth Reading – 2/7/2018
I know, I know… back in my anniversary/State of the Blog post I said that Worth Reading was temporarily suspended. But the blogging community insists on publishing Really Cool Stuff, and I just can’t resist sharing. So, I’m starting to collect links again but rather than publishing on a fixed schedule (which was a PITA anyhow) I’ll publish whenever I have “enough”. Enough time to edit and write, enough material to make it worth your while to read.
All that being said, let’s take a look at what’s Worth Reading:
- Recently I came across Jakitauji (Yes Kitauji?) by Jakiba, and a pair of interesting entries:
- Set as Completed: Princess Principal – a fun little review of one my favorites series from 2017.
- Why Anime? – a very personal discourse on why she watches and blogs about anime.
- John Samuel of Pirates of the Burley Griffin took a major vacation trip last year, and visited a number of interesting place… including tank museums. He’s taken his photographs of tanks and produced a series: Meet the Cast: The Tanks of Girls und Panzer. Check them out: Ōarai, St. Gloriana & Saunders, Pravda, and Kuromorimine.
- Stop Calling Everything a Madoka Rip-off! – a strong compare-and-contrast of Madoka Magica and YuYuYu by Zeria of Floating into Bliss. I happen to agree with her, while the two have surface similarities because they’re in the same genre… The similarities end there.
- At littleanimeblog, Dominic posted a fascinating look at drug use in Japanese society and its portrayal in anime: The High Life: drug use in anime.
Living as I do in an area with a large number (and a long history, not all of it happy) of pan-Asian immigrants and first and second generation residents… I take it for granted that Asian ingredients are easily available. Within two miles (give or take) of my apartment there’s five pan-Asian grocers, one of which is a full size grocery store with Asian, Hispanic, and Western (American) departments. (I’m a geek, I actually opened Google Earth, drew a circle, and counted.) There’s easily another half dozen or so in the central and northern portion of the county. (I’m not so familiar with the south end.)
- So I found this account on NPR of how a Toyota factory in Lexington, KY spurred local demand for Japanese grocery products pretty interesting… Especially since the demand isn’t just from immigrants and temporary residents.
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Yes, yes, I should be working on today’s post today… But this happened yesterday, and for whatever reason my mind still refuses to focus this morning. So I thought I’d use my morning blogging time somewhat productively and edit and publish this post.
So, it’s official, today’s normally scheduled weekly post will be delayed until tomorrow.
Now off to housework and errands, will get back to writing and editing this afternoon. One of the errands is to the grocery store mentioned above as they carry some better-than-average instant ramen, and we’re getting low. Time to stock up again.
Thanks for reading! Drop a line in the comments and let me know what you think!
Worth Reading – 11/10/2017
Welcome to a much belated but still very much worth reading! Frankly, at least in the short-term, if it’s worth reading it ages well.
Both older shows and adaptations are ongoing themes here at Worth Reading, and this week we have a veritable feast on offer.
- First up, we have a show that manages to be both – an older show, and an adaptation: over at Anime B&B, Marina reviews Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2199.
This is very timely and very important… because at long last, Yamato 2199 is available as legal stream! Funimation is now streaming a dub, and Crunchyroll is now streaming the sub. Previously it was only legally available as a VERY expensive boxed set.
What is Yamato 2199 and why is it so important? It’s a reboot of the famed 1974 classic Uchuu Senkan Yamato, a seminal show in anime history. It was the first serial anime aimed at adults, and helped pave the way in Japan for anime as we know it today. Over on this side of the pond, it’s dubbed adaptation as Star Blazers helped ignite the passions of the first generations of American otaku.
Forty years on, I can still remember rushing home after school to catch the latest episode… Hurry Star Force, hurry – or the Earth with die. For a young nerd in the midst of the long SF drought of the late 1970’s, those words were magical.
Anyhow, I strongly urge you to at least check out the first few episodes. It’s a crackin’ good adaptation and very good show in its own right. If you like space opera or sci-fi, it should be right up your alley.
- Ayron at Reading Between has been doing episodic reviews of Shirobako. He’s got some very keen insights on the show, and they’re worth checking out. He’s also one of the few ani-bloggers and/or Shirobako watchers that I haven’t seen openly advocating tying Tarō to an anchor and dropping him in the middle of Tokyo Bay.
- The Pantless Anime Blogger has two interesting posts… One, a collection of his top moments of 2014, and another with reviews of shows in his recently completed Summer 2014 lineup.
2014 was my first year of watching current season streaming anime… Both posts tug at my nostalgic heartstrings. With Winter 2018 fast approaching, I have my own retrospective project in the works, looking back four years each quarter.
- Loryn at Loryn Stone writes on her life as a Late-90’s Otaku.
Her’s is a story I’ve heard many times before, different in details but “normal” in the broad brushstrokes. I got lucky. I leapt from 70’s fandom, which was something you stumbled upon if you were very lucky… to 00’s fandom where the ‘net and Google serve up a veritable waterfall. Someday I should write about that early era… shakes cane in the general direction of the kids on his lawn… Which I should be careful doing, though I’ve been around various fandoms for a long time, I’m a relative newb in terms of anime fandom.
- Scott at Mech Anime Reviews tackles fandom by categorizing the weaknesses of different types of anime watchers -breaking down different types and how they relate to the community at large. And reminding us that we should watch non-seasonal stuff too… there’s a lot of stuff out there that’s important for various reasons even if it isn’t current.
- Lethargic Ramblings posts on why he enjoys the isekai genre despite the amount of flack (not all of it undeserved) the genre has taken recently.
Reading his listing of genre shows, something interesting occurred to me… Whenever people list off recent shows in the isekai genre, Overlord is always noticeable by its absence. I wonder why that is? Is it because the protagonist’s form is so inhuman or that over the course of the show he gradually loses his humanity and submerges himself into his character? Is it because he so willingly abandons the real world (where he’s a salaryman) in favor of the fantasy world (where he’s very much living out a power fantasy)? Overlord veers sharply away from the assumptions and tropes common to the genre. Of course, it’s always possible that it simply didn’t make that big an impression on English language fandom… But it is getting a second season.
- With the GhibliFest drawing to a close this month… Karice at Hot Chocolate In A Bowl writes an interesting retrospective – Ghibli: Magic at the Cinema.
Personally, it’s been a blast seeing the classics on the big screen.
And there you have it – this weeks Worth Reading with a healthy serving of random editorial comment by yours truly. What do think? Drop a comment below and let’s talk!
Worth Reading: 10/13-10/20
And here we are for this week’s edition of Worth Reading… Sorry it’s a bit late, forgot we had to take two of the girls to the vet yesterday afternoon, then didn’t feel well when we got home. (Then went to bed early and got up gawdawful early all slept out… and am now finishing this up pre-dawn.)
Hit the jump, and let’s dive in!
Worth Reading: 9/28 – 10/13
Wow… it’s been a busy two weeks with all the finales and premieres. But things are generally returning to an even keel, and so I present this week’s edition of Worth Reading.
This writing thing isn’t always easy. Even good shows can be hard to write about – back in the Spring season, it was so hard to find something to say about Tsuki Ga Kirei that didn’t boil down to “so sweet, so good, so sweet”. Karandi at 100 Words Anime addresses these problems with from the point of view of writing series reviews in Reviewing Mediocre Anime.
Pasta at Plain Pasta and Plain Rice posted an update to his Anime Tracker Comparison. MAL seems to be the most popular and practically the default, but it’s far from the only service out there and his comparisons tell you a lot about the good and the bad of each service. Personally, I stumbled onto Anime Planet (link goes to my profile) early on and haven’t seen anything to convince me to switch.
Dave at Slow Anime presents an interesting take on the potential American adaptation of the insanely popular (and deservedly so) Your Name. (The announcement of which produced an enormous tempest-in-a-teapot on Twitter.)
Remy at The Lily Garden posted an interesting and timely essay – What Makes You Instantly Drop an Anime Series? Instant drops (partial episode drops) are so rare for me that it’s hard to make generalizations about causes. I think most of them are cases where the show is just egregiously bad or cringe-y. First episode drops… there’s a variety of potential causes, but most of them boil down to “this pisses me off or annoys me” or “my time is too valuable to watch this sh*t”. A significant percentage of my first ep drops are basically shows that I don’t necessarily dislike, but which I never manage to find the time, energy, or motivation to watch the remaining episodes of.
Then there’s also the (in)famous Three Ep Rule and the (unique to me I think) Mid-Season Gut Check… But those are topics for another time or maybe down in the comments.
I found Marthaurion‘s post on picking and choosing blog post formats pretty interesting, mostly because I’ve never really thought about it. I don’t think my style is a fixed one, I just sit down and let fly with whatever seems to work that week for that episode… Maybe I should think about it and try for a more consistent style.
And last but not least… ANN has released it’s Streaming Reviews Schedule for this season. Not gonna lie, I read a lot of other reviews, blogs, and forum posts when I’m working on my weekly writeups. Partly for inspiration, partly because I often do my best work when I have somebody to react to. What I never do is read in advance of watching an episode of a series I’m watching. I don’t mind having my perceptions altered afterwards, but I refuse to allow others to direct and control my experience. I specify “series I’m watching” because sometimes those writeups lead me to discover series that I wasn’t going to watch or I thought I wouldn’t like.
Hmm… More editorial comment this week than usual. But actually, I’m liking this format because it lets me talk about things that don’t fit in my episodic review post or which aren’t big enough (or my thoughts aren’t complete enough) to warrant a feature post of their own.
Anyhow, let me know what you think down in the comments. And don’t forget to like or comment on the posts you visit!
Worth Reading: Links, news, and views. 9/21-9/27
Welcome to this week’s edition of Worth Reading! Yes the photo is related to one of this week’s links – but it’s so scrumptious looking I just had to post it first.
Photo courtesy of 5th Luna at Flickr
I seem to keep concentrating on articles about older shows and then this week
Tsuyuki at Anime Corps posts this very relevant article – Rewatch Dilemma. He discusses the experience and the pros and cons of various approaches to rewatching anime you loved the first time through.
Also on the topic of ‘looking back’ , Ace at Humble Ace talks about The (not so) Small Ways Attack on Titan Appealed to 16-y/o Me. I don’t think anyone is surprised that Eren is noticeable by his absence… I can’t think of any other wildly popular anime with a lead character so widely loathed.
Jon at Jon Spencer Reviews takes a look at Summer 2016’s outstanding Planetarian. For me Planetarian was my AOTS that season, a significant vote of confidence considering that Orange and Sweetness and Lightning aired the same season. At only five episodes, it’s a quick watch and well worth seeking out. It’s still available on Funimation and VRV. I’ve had the VN sitting on my computer for months now (Steam had it on sale back in late winter) and I really need to play it soon.
The Weekend Otaku takes a different look at an older series – comparing the anime and live action version of Your Lie in April. He examines how the a slightly different story emerged from the choices made to fit the long and wandering tale into a much more limited run time.
So far we’ve looked at an adaptation of a VN and a live action adaptation… And continuing on that theme, Karandi at 100 Word Anime reviews the first volume of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. There’s not many comparisons with the anime, but she does shed some light on the differences between the two.
Earlier in the week, the announcement that One Punch Man 2 would have a new director and be animated by a different studio caused quite a stir. Scott at Mechanical Anime Reviews posts in response how he is worried about sakuga culture – basically he’s bothered by the concentration on the ‘look’ of the show.
I’ve been dreaming of visiting Japan for years, long before getting into anime… (I refuse to use the term bucket list, it sounds so mechanical and I loathe it.) While there are a few anime pilgrimages I’d like to make, much of what I want to do are either standard touristy stuff or off the beaten path touristy stuff. (Such as visiting Basho’s grave, and other sites associated with haiku and haiku poets.) With that in mind, Yukinocake at The Only Shinyuu Site posted a couple of interesting pieces:
- Why You Should Visit Japan During Autumn! The reason of course is obvious, fall colors! As a photographer and a Japanophile this ticks two major boxes.
- Anyone who knows me well, knows why the next article catches my eye… 5 Quintessentially Japanese Autumn Foods You Must Try. Food and cooking is another of my central interests, and if you’re exploring the season in a country you should go all in and try the associated foods.
Hit the jump for this week’s ‘below the fold’ material and a look forward to my posting schedule for the next few weeks.
Continue reading “Worth Reading: Links, news, and views. 9/21-9/27”
