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5 Bad Anime That Were Almost Brilliant

5 Bad Anime That Were Almost Brilliant

Mary Lee Sauder
Blog Post

One of the most frustrating things about being an anime fan is having high hopes for a new, promising anime, and then watching helplessly as it craps the bed right in front of you week after week. Maybe it did a terrible job adapting high-quality source material, had a creative concept that got buried under bad production values or studio mandates, or dumped its best story ideas like a sack of disappointed potatoes, but the end result is always the same – a lackluster mess that could’ve been so much more. Let’s check out 5 bad anime that were almost brilliant!

Japan Sinks 2020’s Nationalist Themes - A Squeaky Clean Love Letter to the Land of the Rising Sun

Japan Sinks 2020’s Nationalist Themes - A Squeaky Clean Love Letter to the Land of the Rising Sun

Mary Lee Sauder
Blog Post

Director Masaaki Yuasa is well known for his offbeat and heavily character-driven anime such as Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong the Animation, and Devilman Crybaby. His most recent work, Japan Sinks 2020, is a bold reimagining of a classic 1973 novel about a series of earthquakes that causes the entirety of Japan to sink into the ocean. Yuasa’s version follows a biracial family as they try to escape the country, meeting strange new companions along the way and working together to keep each other alive. It’s gained notoriety online for its heavy themes of nationalism, so let’s take a closer look to see what exactly it’s trying to say about the land of the rising sun.

What We Hope to See in Attack on Titan’s Final Season – Especially for Manga Readers!

What We Hope to See in Attack on Titan’s Final Season – Especially for Manga Readers!

Mary Lee Sauder
Blog Post

So, the trailer for Attack on Titan’s final anime season came out about a month ago and everyone is beyond hyped. We may have lost WIT Studio, but it looks like MAPPA is intent on carrying the torch to the finish line with the kind of love and admiration for the source material that you hardly see anymore outside of JoJo adaptations and Ufotable productions. Manga readers know that things escalate quickly once the action shifts to Marley, so what can we expect to see in this final season? We have some predictions!

Here’s How Fruits Basket’s Second Season is Going So Far!

Here’s How Fruits Basket’s Second Season is Going So Far!

Mary Lee Sauder
Blog Post

The long-awaited reboot of Fruits Basket has finally moved on from retelling the opening arcs in a more manga-faithful fashion to adapting material that’s never before been seen outside the pages of Natsuki Takaya’s classic shoujo manga. The second season recently finished its first cour, so let’s check in on what’s been happening in the world of Fruits Basket!

Kitsutsuki Tanteidokoro (Woodpecker Detective's Office) Review – Poetry in Motion... Sort Of.

Kitsutsuki Tanteidokoro (Woodpecker Detective's Office) Review – Poetry in Motion... Sort Of.

Mary Lee Sauder
Blog Post

This largely overlooked Spring 2020 anime follows fictionalized versions of Meiji-era poet Takuboku Ishikawa and his long-suffering linguist friend Kyousuke Kindaichi as they solve mysteries together and get along like two toxic boyfriends who have nobody else to bother but each other. The jazzy OP is a certified slapper and the pastel animation is consistently charming, but what about the story itself? Let’s see if this literature-infused mystery show deserves more attention than it got.

Kami no Tou (Tower of God) Review – WEBTOON’s Wonder Child Comes Out on Top

Kami no Tou (Tower of God) Review – WEBTOON’s Wonder Child Comes Out on Top

Mary Lee Sauder
Blog Post

Tower of God represents a shift in the anime landscape – it’s the first big-budget, heavily-promoted anime to adapt a Korean manhua, in this case, a webcomic from the popular site WEBTOON. We’ve had foreign co-productions before (such as Radiant from France) and China has its own small animation scene, but Tower of God wants to prove to the world that anime isn’t just “Japanese cartoons” anymore. So, did this show achieve the lofty goals it set out for itself? Let’s find out!

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