Jul 25, 2023
One of those long-running, oft discussed series you're initially thrilled with that ultimately can't sustain itself, Hiroya failing miraculously in offering up anything but striking imagery and/or edgy, subversive death laced with gore aplenty as he bombards us with frantic, shrieking bystanders and onomatopoeia ad infinitum. MUCH more involving when the stakes are confined to the key players and core mystery surrounding Gantz it/himself that has yet to unfurl, the manner in which full-scale invasion comes to fruition feeling a bit slapdash as the primary means of padding everything out as things trudge along. Once likable characters become detestable, and once detestable characters become worse,
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Jan 12, 2022
Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
(Anime)
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The importance of finishing what you started through employment of selflessness and perseverance of the human spirit, looking to others for guidance but remaining the true hero of your own story. Miyazaki's female protagonists all have this indelible, unwavering air of goodness about them as demonstrated by the obligation they maintain to these worlds that offer nothing but pushback, Chihiro of course shunning greed/materialism and spiritual malevolence as she's innately wont to do throughout her trials and tribulations. Hard to compare Miyazaki's beautiful, richly textured and lived-in environs as you move from one masterwork to the next, but this thing's charm is absolutely off the
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Jan 12, 2022
Absolutely staggering treatise on the futility of avoidance behavior in the face of reality's unflinchingly oppressive mean streak, insisting that it's easy to give up and run away but your naive, dream logic-ensconced worldview will be obliterated regardless. Locked in a cycle of false elation and self-loathing: Shinji's confession that he'd be happy to be desired but remains undesirable, never loving himself but looking for others to love him that don't or won't admit they do, praying for death because hopelessness is the gospel when no one's around to hold your hand throughout the cataclysm you're responsible for is a devastatingly human focal point, the
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Nov 3, 2021
Solid exploitation riff that's unfortunately pretty tone deaf and tries to mask its blatantly misogynistic "guardian" angle by allowing Sawa to flaunt her sense of badass female agency through contract killings, even though said killings are in service of her bullshit obligation to this literal child molester that uses her for sex in between the action bits. Oburi's kinda rendered an afterthought, mostly because he exists merely to bond with Sawa in a freeing/escapist sense as she's only known tragedy and the company of the patriarchal scourge that holds her captive, and the way they do him in during the final moments is pretty fucking
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Sep 2, 2021
My first experience with Nagata's autobiographical oeuvre and, despite the relatable means of self-medicating with alcohol, it's mostly a lackluster cautionary yarn about the too-obvious perils of alcoholism itself with not much else to speak of. It of course takes courage to be as vulnerable as she is throughout, however her transparency in this regard wears itself pretty thin given the singular through line at play and sparse creative wiggle room on either side of her rehabilitative stretch. There's no denying her uniqueness of artistic stylism though, which leads me to believe that I should've just started with either My Solo Exchange Diary or My
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Aug 3, 2021
Juubee Ninpuuchou
(Anime)
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Especially alluring by way of the Devils’ lore, interpersonal subthreads and of course the havoc they wreak as they inevitably meet their maker(s), i.e. Jubei and his squirrely senior companion. It’s because of their very presence that Edo Period trappings involving a clan war and a metric shit ton of gold air on the side of a half-baked, arbitrary through line, because let’s face it: the action set pieces are steeped in the type of imaginative freneticism and ultraviolence that helped root this in “Anime for Adults” history.
Gender politics however are absolutely abhorrent: all females are either sexed up oppai archetypes or – in the ... 
Jul 9, 2021
Cowboy Bebop
(Anime)
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Having slept on this for over two decades to both my chagrin and that of my peers, to say that this was a bit of a disappointment would be one of the crowning understatements of the very same stretch of time. I hear Bebop described as the "least anime" of the medium as a whole which makes sense, what with it ostensibly being just a string of one-offs benchmarked by expository character moments and the occasional bit of filler, all of which vary drastically in terms of overall quality.
All in all, it's not necessarily unfocused as the primary aim's to highlight a wayward band of ... 
Jul 3, 2021
My first work from Junji and as its ostensibly a horror anthology work with a titular unifying curse/element, the quality of each segment varies but not as drastically as films of a similar ilk do on account of several writers' and directors' disparate collaborative approaches to the material. Junji has the reins from start to finish, and its clear that this thrives more on sustained dread, atmosphere and staccato visceral ickiness than out-and-out scare tactics.
The storytelling has a distinctly folkloric tinge to it which is a plus, and Junji really has a way with conveying characters' anguish and distress through their facial expressions. Again, he ... 
Jun 8, 2021
Kanojo, Okarishimasu
(Manga)
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Struggled most with the absolutely appalling characterization of Kazuya as an insatiably horny 20-year-old that catastrophizes literally every aspect of his life and interaction with other key players, namely Ichinose and Mami as he flails about trying - increasingly in vain - to keep his rental habits a secret. Promisingly enough insinuates that Chizuru will probably become something more to Kazuya: a means of him getting over his ex, himself and/or his insecurities or even just an unconventional rebound that turns into something more at the very least, however Kazuya remains firmly unable to get out of his own way, which is relatable, but the
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May 24, 2021
Running in place can often yield disastrous results, and these characters progressively become no strangers at all to the ennui that ensues, what with Meiko's resignation from her job serving as the catalyst for a collective journey of arduous self-discovery that you either can or can't relate to. It's fair to say we've all "been there" in some form or fashion and Asano addresses this on a personal level with a riff on the old adage "it's okay to not be okay," only instead of something wholly hinging upon depression/mental illness, the existentialist desire to know what you want out of life and that of
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