The Weekly W: Words Without Ws.

As this semester draws to a close, I am announcing the end of the Weekly W.  After 6 months of weekly posts, I am having trouble coming up with new W words, and anime that use them.  So instead, I will be starting "Where in Japan", a general review of Japan's geography, culture and history.  If you have any specific topics you'd like to see covered, please send an email in, and I will do my best to make sure to work it in. 

This will be starting next Wednesday, so I hope to see you then.

The Weekly W: Wings and Cat Ears Oh My!

Anime tends to have certain things that have become iconic.  From hair (pink, blue, spiky, gravity defying) to clothes (school uniforms, long coats, and wind blowing them tastefully in all situations), some things just scream anime. 

Let's take a look at a couple of other common character traits.

The Weekly W: Wind

From the first episode of anime I ever watched, there has always been wind as an important factor.  From Pokemon to Bleach to almost every other anime I've seen, wind has been used either as part of the plot or as a symbolic gesture or just to make that hair look even cooler. 

Here we go!

Manga Review: Sand Chronicles

As far as manga goes, I haven't read a whole lot.  With the semester in full swing, and my preference for anime or text books over manga in general, I haven't read anything new recently.  A few years ago, I borrowed Sand Chronicles from a friend, and really enjoyed it.  So here goes nothing!

The Weekly W: Why do we watch anime?

Why do we watch anime?  Is it for the adventure? For the romance? For the laughter? For the tragedy?  There are so many reasons to watch anime, and they vary day to day and from person to person.

Fan-made Saturdays: Fanfics

So we'll see what I can find on the internet.

The Weekly W: Wizards!

Magic is a really neat aspect of many fantasy series.  With Halloween right around the corner, it's a perfect week to talk about magic in anime.

Last Time 10/16

This week in our meeting:

Random Anime of the Week: Fairy Tail Episode 1
Finished up Noragami: Episdoes 11 and 12
Voted on the next anime for the first block:

• Princess Jellyfish
• Deadman Wonderland
• Coppelion
• Chronicles of the Going Home Club
• Arpeggio of Blue Steel
• Kotoura-san

Winner: Arpeggio of Blue Steel
 *Starting next week after the random anime*
Cowboy Bebop episodes: 14 and 15

Upcoming events: Movie Night - October 24th at 6pm

Anime Review: Angel Beats!

The first time I saw Angel Beats!, I marathoned the first half with my best friend from home.  We then got together to watch the second half (we have a bad habit of starting things at 10pm or later, which doesn't lend itself to marathoning, since we get tired and fall asleep.

Anyways, Angel Beats! is a fantastic anime.  It has a good mix of comedy and seriousness, and occasional tear-jerking scenes.  The overall concept is really cool, and each episode has a different self-contained plot that brings us closer to a conclusion.

Let's take a closer look!

The Weekly W: What? Miria and Isaac Return!

This week on Durarara! we had a cameo by two lovely characters.  Isaac and Miria are two of my favorite characters from Baccano!.  It's such a good series, and Isaac and Miria are fantastic characters.  Here are some of my favorite things about them (lots of images and gifs in this one).  Possible spoilers for Baccano!.

The Weekly W: Wells

In anime, wells seem to come up here and there.  There are many different kinds of wells, and usually there's a good reason they are present.  The most notable well in any anime is probably the one from Inuyasha, but other anime also have wells or fountains in them. 

Sunday Manga Review: Fruits Basket

One of the first manga I picked up was Fruits Basket.  It was one of the first wildly popular shojo series released in English.  The manga is 23 volumes and the entirety is available in English.  This series was pretty interesting and enjoyable to read, but I found certain sections to be confusing.  Now on to the review!

The Weekly W: Waylaid!

As you may have noticed, I got a little confused this week and forgot that it was Wednesday, so here's a late post.  I would say I was waylaid by something important, but I just got lost on the path of life and never made it to the blog.  So this week, we'll look at some anime characters getting waylaid on their journeys!

Saturday: Fanmade Fun (AMVs)

A few weeks ago I was looking for something new to listen to.  If I don't have anything in mind, I often search for AMV winners from conventions, since they are usually fun to watch, and I occasionally find a new song to listen to.  I happened to find a playlist with some SakuraCon 2014 AMVs (and others as well), so I'll be sharing a few ones that I really enjoyed.

The first video was really, really upbeat.  "Glam Jam by GuntherAMVs"

I didn't know much about this anime, but Idolm@ster seems to be something focusing on singing performances, and if I were to guess is some sort of crazy competition.  The art looks very clean, and it seems like it might be something different from the other anime I've seen (I haven't seen many anime focused on singing performances, although I know more exist). 

Next Up: Toast!  "A Piece of Toast by Baka Oppai"

This AMV is super-upbeat, which is always a good thing, in my opinion.  This one also has 40 different anime in it, so there's probably something that looks familiar.  I thought segments of it were pretty funny too.  According to the description, the song is also a remix of over 50 different songs, so this AMV is mixing things up like crazy!

Finally: "Spiral Ascension by TheMFJuggernaut" *warning for spoilers for Gurren Lagann*

This AMV is really neat.  First off, no AMV I have ever seen with "This is War" by 30 Seconds to Mars has ever been anything but good.  Secondly, Gurren Lagann has some really awesome fight scenes and stuff to make it very awesome.  And thirdly, the editor did a really good job with timing everything just right.

That's it for this week.

Hope Burns Bright

Anime Review: My Little Monster

I was browsing crunchroll about a year ago when I happened to find this show.  One episode later, I was hooked.  My Little Monster (Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun) is a short, funny rom-com.  Slapstick humor, occasional seriousness, and learning about friendship are the main points in this series.

The Weekly W: Writing

It's the second full week of classes.  I hope they're going well.  This week, we'll look at some anime characters and how they write.  It's fascinating to see, since each character has their own style.

The Weekly W: Wacky

Some anime are funny, others are serious.  Some make sense, others don't really explain why things are the way they are.  Sometimes a show seems strange, but turns out to be really, really good.  Let's take a look at some of the wacky shows I've seen!

Manga Review - Death Note

As you may have figured out by this point, Death Note is one of my fall-back answers for the question "what is your favorite anime/manga".  This is partially because Death Note was the first manga I read, and also because the manga and anime were both really good.  In some ways, it's popularity has faded a bit over the years (with oh so many new things to be excited about), but it still seems to be remembered and recommended to those who have yet to see it. Let's get to the manga review now.

 

The Weekly W: Welcome!

 

Welcome (back) for another wonderful semester here at URI.  Welcomes in anime can be varied, from silly to dangerous, but they always start a story and often, new friendships.  Let's take a look at some first encounters!

September Newsletter: Welcome to a New Year!

September is here, and along with it comes the new semester.  We are looking forward to exciting shows, fun activities, and new friends.  For those of you who came out to First Night, I hope you didn't get soaked through, and I really enjoyed getting to talk with you all.  We've got a bunch of stuff coming up, so here's the news!