Science Fiction

A Review of DARLING in the FRANXX

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After an incredible midseason finale, Darling in the Franxx kept going strong while taking things a bit slower to focus on the character drama. This part of the story has always been the most engaging throughout the entire program, and my hopes were high for the second cour of this fairly divisive show.

Sadly as it reached the conclusion, I became conflicted about the direction the show took. I waited patiently, knowing I wouldn’t have a solid grasp on my feeling towards the show until it was completed. Now that it is, I can safely say that Darling in the Franxx did not live up to the lofty promises that detractors would argue never bore fruit in the first place.
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A Review of Your Name

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It is ranked number 4 on the list of highest-grossing films in Japan and the single highest grossing Anime film of all time. It has garnered worldwide acclaim and has taken the Anime community and the mainstream audience by storm. For a long, while it even beat out Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood on the MyAnimeList charts and even now sits at a comfortable #2. Yes, I am of course talking about Makoto Shinkai’s breakout success, “Kimi No Na Wa”, or “Your Name”.
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Mid-Season Checkup – DARLING in the FRANXX

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The spring Anime season is upon us and everyone is either watching Violet Evergarden now that it is on Netflix or the new season of My Hero Academia. Meanwhile, I’m over here still watching Darling in the Franxx, the collaboration between Trigger and A-1 that I covered a couple months ago. So before everyone forgets about it, I thought I would cover the show thus far and see how it has been shaping up as it enters the second half of its 24-episode run.
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First Impressions of DARLING in the FRANXX

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Studio Trigger, to me, is the darling (pun not intended) of the Anime industry. It didn’t start that way, mind you. The hype and praise surrounding it was merely built on the staff list and the ridiculous expectations of fans who were bound to be disappointed when Kill la Kill wasn’t perfection. Factor in several other duds like Ninja Slayer or the second Little Witch OVA and it starts feeling like Trigger was all talk.

Thankfully, with shows like Kiznaiver or Space Patrol Luluco, Trigger is starting to really earn the hype it garnered at the beginning. It is a studio overflowing with creativity, exploring new avenues and other genres with every project, even if they don’t always have a ton of money. Perhaps to rectify that specific issue, Trigger has partnered with A-1 Pictures to produce Darling in the Franxx, a brand new mech anime from the director of The Idolm@ster, Atsushi Nishigori.
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A Review of Ergo Proxy

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The benefit of a show like Ergo Proxy is that despite having come out in 2006, most people who watch this show have no idea where this show will go and the bizarre turns it will take with its story. I am no exception as I have been aware of this show and parts of its premise for years. However, upon finishing all 23 episodes, I can safely say that my expectations for the show were proven false after just three or four episodes and I never was truly able to predict where it would go after that.

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What the Hell Happened to Under the Dog?

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[Update (May 13th, 2017): The official Under the Dog website is working again and the creators have posted the “final update” on the Under the Dog project. The blog post can be found here.]

In early 2016 I got really excited about a Kickstarter project that I had already known about for a while but never quite grasped the importance of. Under the Dog is an Anime project that was a Kickstarter success back in 2014, only to be on hiatus until the OVA was finally released on August 1st, 2016. It promised to be a gritty science fiction epic inspired by Akira and Ghost in the Shell. It was a project helmed by industry veterans but now… nothing. More than half a year after the release of the OVA and nothing. So what happened? How did a project with such promise fall so far into the depths of obscurity?

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