Season

Thank You, My Hero

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Warning: The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Final Season, now streaming on Crunchyroll. Some sections are more spoilery than others, so I’ll try to label when I’m diving into the thick of things for those who might just want my general thoughts on the season as well as the series at large.

This coming April will mark 10 years since the TV anime adaptation of My Hero Academia began at Bones Studio C, the same production house that gave us Fullmetal Alchemist (2003), Soul Eater, and Ouran High School Host Club. And nearly just in time for that anniversary, the series has concluded its eighth and final season – the shortest, in fact, at 11 episodes. 11 episodes of dazzling spectacle, heartbreaking sacrifices, and monumental strides for its world and characters, and not a single week passed that the gravity of it all did not bring me to tears.

When it started, I was in my senior year of High School. I loved all the characters, I loved the animation, and I had a crush on Deku, because he was (and still is) adorable and ideal boyfriend material. Now I’m approaching my 30s, and despite the uncertainty of the future, for which this series’ text aptly latched onto as it progressed, I’m living my best life. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that My Hero Academia contributed to the heights of my life at this juncture, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that its whimsy has helped lift me along the way. It is a story that found me at the right time and grew with me, becoming more resonant than I ever expected.

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An Abridged Summary of My Thoughts on the Demon Slayer Anime For No Reason At All

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Hey everyone, remember in 2019 when I gave Demon Slayer a 10/10?

Probably not, and that’s fine. I mean, I didn’t give it a 10 in the post itself, but that is what I gave it on MyAnimeList.net when I finished it, and honestly, I still stand by that. Season 1 of Demon Slayer was such a fun and jam-packed adventure that really hit all the right notes. Animation, music, performances, heartfelt themes – it had it all, and from when it began to where it ended, it truly felt like we’d experienced an adventure with only more on the horizon.

Fast forward to 2021, and I reviewed Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train almost just as positively. It was kinda the first shonen anime film to prove that studios could feasibly continue the canon story through films rather than just making high-budget theatrical side stories that were dubiously canon at best. Mugen Train was awesome, and later, while writing for GameRant, I would go on to write about what I considered to be the most emotional scene, not only in that film, but in the series at large. That film rocked and made me even more excited for what the franchise held in store for the future…

… That is, until that future came. Now I’m just a bit sad.

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The Profound Hopelessness of Castlevania: Nocturne

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I never reviewed the first season of Castlevania: Nocturne, though I did pen a piece about how it evolved the franchise’s already impressive power scaling through its new cast of characters. Nocturne‘s first season really impressed me, and that’s why I was so shocked to see that it had such a mixed reception – at least according to the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes (take that as you will). I suppose living up to the original series was a tall order, but even so… why?

Looking at this sequel series solely through the lens of its artwork, sound design, and overall aesthetic, it is a joy to behold, and a step above even its predecessor’s greatest heights. Narratively it might stumble in places, so too did the first series, just over four seasons instead of two. But that’s not really what compelled me to dust off the old blog and add another idea to a pile of half-completed drafts. I want to talk about how Season 2 made me feel, and how that feeling allowed me to forgive what few flaws held this show back from greatness.

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An Informal Praise of My Hero Academia

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My Hero Academia is the only long-running Shonen anime that I have watched since its beginning and that I’ve kept up with since. Most other shonen are too long for me to get past the barrier to entry, so getting in on the ground floor was a great feeling. It helped that Bones was producing it and that its premise was so appealing.

80% of the world’s population has superpowers except for our protagonist? And we’re promised that – somehow, despite that – he will become the world’s greatest hero? It’s a great premise with a classic long-term promise of what’s to come. Funnily enough, despite that premise not being entirely accurate, it captured people’s attention in no time. By 2017, it was one of the biggest anime in the world.

… And for some reason I’ve never formally reviewed it until now. And with each passing season, the prospect of rewatching previous seasons to go over them seemed rather ambitious given my already inconsistent binging capabilities. So I had resigned myself to never reviewing the series. But now, five seasons and two movies strong, with the third film in theaters at the time of writing, I find myself tempted to say “screw it” and do it anyway.

So here is my review of all of My Hero Academia before the new movie comes out!

Plus ultra

The Bloody, Beautiful End; Castlevania’s Final Season

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Castlevania Season Four.

Holy. Shit.

I won’t lie. I mean, I wouldn’t be a good critic if I ever did lie, but especially in this instance, I can’t pretend that I wasn’t worried. Season three took some bold leaps to make a story much bigger than just Dracula. For the most part, it paid off. But the finale was mixed. It could feel jarring, and not every story was particularly captivating.

Then came the official trailer for season four, along with the big reveal: this would be the last season. How in god’s name were they going to bring together all of the separate stories together into one 10-episode season? After watching it, it begs questioning why I ever doubted them.

It was a fucking home run.

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‘Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?’; The Best Series You Didn’t Give A Chance

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How many shows have you passed on because you figured they “weren’t worth your time?” What were the factors that contributed to that impression? Was it a lack of interesting marketing? Was it the style? Or did you buy into the narrative being thrown around that a show was “trashy”?

In 2015, I watched YouTuber Demolition D+’s video on the Spring 2015 anime season and delighted in his humorous appraisal of that quarter’s entertainment. The headliner for the video was Is It Okay to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, or, DanMachi as it would come to be abridged. Demo called it an SAO clone and I didn’t so much as bat an eye because I was laughing so much.

But then the second season aired in 2019 and friends who watched it told me about the show’s world and how it was actually pretty fun and that I should give it a chance. By this point, I’d already accepted that SAO wasn’t as bad as we all thought it was, so who was I to turn down an opportunity to prove my misconceptions wrong.

After watching all three seasons of DanMachi, not only am I shocked as to how anyone could have compared this to SAO beyond the leads sharing the same VA, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka. The art styles aren’t even that similar. More than anything, I’m angry that I didn’t watch this sooner.

This is DanMachi, my new favorite fantasy anime.

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[Repost] The Great Pretender Review: Cases 1 through 3

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The following is my review of Cases 1 through 3 of The Great Pretender that I wrote for Anime Quarterly back in September. If you like what you read and are interested in reading more by the AQ crew and me, be sure to bookmark AnimeQuarterly.com and make it your next frequent stop for anime news and reviews. Also, help us grow by supporting us on Patreon.

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Pondering Attack on Titan’s Final Season

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At the end of the much-acclaimed third season’s final credits, a fourth and surprisingly final season of Attack on Titan was announced to be greenlit.

We went from waiting years for a second season to getting subsequent sequels at a reasonable pace to the point that now I’m a little shocked that the end of both the manga and anime are syncing up accordingly. However, long-time fans became concerned as soon as it was suggested that Studio WIT would NOT be animating it.

In the wake of the world burning down, we were blessed with quite a climactic trailer for the final season. And the editors wasted no time telling us who would be helming it.

Studio MAPPA.

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The End of the Game – A Review of Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector

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I finished watching the conclusion to Psycho-Pass 3, titled “First Inspector,” just before writing this. After eight 45-minute long episodes, the story concludes with a “film” meant to wrap up the season’s plot threads that had felt unfinished. My thoughts were a mixture of “ok, cool” and “what the fuck even was that?.”

I should address a mistake on my part right out of the gate. Back in the final part of my Psycho-Pass retrospective, I claimed that First Inspector would be a recap film. I was incorrect. Info at the time led publications to believe that was the case but, no, they wrapped up the story in a neat little bow, which I appreciate.

However, I don’t think I’ll be referring to this as a film so much as a delayed finale. For some reason, Amazon divided the story into three episodes, despite it being marketed as a film and even given a limited theatrical run in Japan. Though, if I’m honest, judging by the production quality, I can’t imagine being impressed by the visual quality magnified on a theater screen, save for maybe the final episode.

If the snark was any indication, this may not be the most positive review. Far be it from me to spoil the verdict before you’ve even scrolled down or clicked “read more,” but if you weren’t the biggest fan of season three, the ending probably isn’t going to make you change your perspective. Regardless, here are my thoughts on how the film tied up one of the most ambitious sequels to Psycho-Pass yet.

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Castlevania Series Review

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Video game adaptations are almost always bad. The best of them excel only on the condition that you overlook large caveats, be they performances, the script, or how faithful the project is to the original. Video games are hard to adapt. You’re either trying to appeal to fans and alienating movie-goers or vice-versa. Both can fail depending on what is being adapted and how.

In the mid-2000s’, Warren Ellis wanted to make a direct-to-video animated film based on Castlevania. While the script was approved by Konami, the work ended up stuck in production hell for years. Adi Shankar, a producer who went viral with his “Bootleg Universe” series of fan-films, eventually was approached about producing an animated series based on Ellis’ script. While he turned down the same idea for a live-action film, believing live-action wouldn’t fit, he was more than happy to work on this one.

Opening Title Rough Animation by Spencer Wan

So eventually, Netflix adapted Ellis’ script into an animated series produced by Powerhouse Animation, an American studio. The first season – all four episodes of it – came out in July of 2017 and took the internet by storm. Everyone, myself included, was instantly clamoring for more. With the release of the second season in the fall of 2018, the show revealed even more of its potential with a longer season, more character drama, and even better animation.

With the recently released and certainly shocking third season fresh in our minds, it might be good to look back on the series as a whole thus far. It’s certainly the best video game adaptation, but is that saying a whole lot? Is Castlevania more than just the sum of its gorgeous animation?

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