Free

Free! – Iwatobi Swim Club Season 1 Review

Back in elementary school, Haruka, Makoto, Rin, and the younger Nagisa swam together in a relay and brought a championship home to their local swim club. Afterward, however, Rin moved to Australia to pursue his swimming at a prestigious school, his sights set on one day swimming in the Olympics. Haruka, who loved the water, stopped swimming, effectively dissolving the relay team; before too much longer, the swim club closed its doors altogether.

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New in Japan

Baby Steps: Episode 05-07 Review

Eiichiro’s first tournament is here, and he’s matched against the fifth seed! He may not realistically stand a chance, but he’s not going to go down without a fight, or without gleaning copious amounts of new information. After the tournament is over, he must determine what to do with what he has learned, both in competition and in practice.

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Investigative Articles

The Recession is Over, and You Should Thank the Fangirls Part 2

It’s also easy to say we should thank the male fans who bought Dragonball Z fifteen times over and buy the premium boob-shaped box sets of harem series, but I don’t believe they were enough on their own to stem the tide of the industry’s downturn, and they certainly weren’t the only viable sustaining customers in the companies’ minds. And this holds true both for North America AND Japan.

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Anime

Short Peace

In “Possessions,” a traveling artisan gets lost in a storm and seeks shelter in an unkempt shrine in the middle of the forest. “Combustible” follows two childhood friends as they grow up and apart. “Gambo” is a white bear demon being hunted by a renegade samurai. When he meets the last daughter of a village being terrorized by a large red demon, the two are able to understand each other and he sets off to set things right. In “A Farewell to Weapons,” a team of weapon diffusers is sent to neutralize and dismantle leftover weapons from a war that has left Tokyo decimated. When the hunt moves underground, an old subway line becomes the crucible to determine what men and machines are really made of.

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Miki

Baby Steps: Episode 02 – 04 Review

I found myself at several points thinking to myself what all the sports anime tropes are. The early ultimatum-based skills test, the final chance to succeed before being forced to quit the sport forever, the academics suffering because Our Hero is pouring himself into his newfound love….Nope. Not here.

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Nanana's Buried Treasure

Nanana’s Buried Treasure: Episode 01 Review

Nanana Ryuugajou was a special girl – she and her friends together tracked down some of the world’s most ludicrous treasures. However, one day, in her apartment, Nanana was killed. Ten years later, Juugo Yama moves to the man-made island Nanana called home and only has enough money to rent her former room…which she still haunts to this day.

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