I now write at the new blog, the joint-staff blog project, Behind The Nihon Review. Go there instead.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Harem
This is one of those articles where I can’t think up an interesting topic and I’m writing purely to keep up with my self-imposed schedule, so excuse me if it seems uninspired.
I recently watched Amaenaidayo, a rather generic fanservice anime with a mind-numbing plot and cliched characters and, shoot me, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t special, it wasn’t brilliant or intellectually stimulating and most other critics would happily can it, but I found it incredibly fun and entertaining. I laughed at the jokes, I found myself caring about and liking the characters and, hell, I even dug the tsundere romance. And, yet, this is the type of anime that, just a few years ago, I’d have rather killed myself than watch. I think I’m starting to get more tolerant of harem anime as I see more of them, and come to understand the formulae they follow, their tendencies, their strengths and weaknesses. I mean, harem anime get canned by many a critic for various reasons, usually for not being intellectually inspiring or breaking long-set molds and while such criticisms are probably fair, they’re not really intending to be that way in any case. It’s mindless entertainment and as long as it can deliver on that, and actually be entertaining, then I can’t complain about it at all.
Continue reading “How I learned to stop worrying and love the Harem”
Disagreeing with reviews
I haven’t done an NHRV related article for a while, so I figured now was the time.
I think we have a great staff with mature opinions and appreciable anime knowledge, but, as is the case with any review database stitched together by multiple people, there are going to be disagreements. I’m the strange one in the group in that, whenever a review is posted where I don’t agree with the contention, I don’t bother expressing my own opinion in a second review of the same title. I just don’t see the point for various reasons. But, needless to say there are a number of reviews in our database that I don’t agree with. That’s just the nature of things… people aren’t always going to see eye-to-eye on every occasion, even though I do find most of my colleagues to be generally reliable. But, here’s a few of those reviews that I don’t agree with and a few words on where our opinions split.
A ‘Bokura ga Ita’-related aside
Friendly shout-out to all Bokura ga Ita fans (I like to think I’ve converted a few around these parts): check this out.
It’s a vocal album with (I think) all of the OP and ED pieces from the anime, and some of the songs (particularly Sasaki Nozomi’s works) are outstanding. I think all Bokura ga Ita fans would get a kick out of it, hence why I’ve made this post. So, I highly recommend fans to have a listen.
Spring 2007: First thoughts
Spring is traditionally the strongest season of the year, and I can’t see any indication so far why that won’t be the case again this year. There’s a real plethora of entertaining titles out there, and while we haven’t had an entry of the calibre of Suzumiya Haruhi (which really took the anime watching world by storm this time one year ago), what we have seen are a mixed bag of varying amounts of promise, with very few titles that are obviously going to fail. My default optimism in relation to anime makes me think that signs point to a good season. It’ll be interesting to see, no matter how it goes.
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