I have been blogging about anime for more than a decade. My other interests include sports, legal affairs, and philosophy.

Wrapping Up 2015: Five Short-Form Summer Anime Series

My rate of keeping up with newly-debuted anime series has fallen in the past few years. I had decided to not participate in this year’s Anime Secret Santa project since I figured I might not be able to completely watch and subsequently write a review of a recommended anime within the given timeframe. I also passed on joining other bloggers in the 12 Days project that started on December 14th because I didn’t feel like I had completed enough anime since January to adequately compose 12 posts.

I ended up beginning more series from 2015 than I’ve finished and there are others I would still like to try out, though I likely won’t get through those until the first couple months of next year. (My curiosity in wanting to sample new shows has gradually led to a long list of half-watched anime, especially since the growth of simulcasts has allowed me to easily try out a first episode on a whim.) I’ll attempt to wrap up watching as many 2015 series as I can before year’s end and write about the ones I complete.

The bulk of my current anime watching involves series with episodes lasting less than 15 minutes. Those shorter runtimes mean smaller weekly time commitments for me as a viewer and also mean the shows featuring those shorter episodes sometimes have more focused writing and pacing compared to their full-length counterparts. Over the past few months, I completed watching five such anime from this summer.

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Returning After A Two-Month Blogging Hiatus

Wakaba-san at a water park.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a proper post so I’ll talk about what little I have been watching over the past few months and what I might make posts about in the near future.

I haven’t been keeping up with most of the summer anime series I started watching in July, mainly the ones with full-length episodes. (Here’s a general impressions post from that month with my feelings about 13 summer anime after seeing a couple episodes from each show.)

I’ll finish what I can over the coming weeks and maybe make a short wrap-up post for each one I complete. The same goes for many winter and spring 2015 series that I began without reaching their final episodes, although posts about those may come sometime after I get done with summer shows.

I was happy that Wakako-zake was eventually added to Crunchyroll’s simulcast lineup in mid-August.

The anime I’ve watched the most recently is the Dirty Pair TV series (1985) with the weekly SCCSAV Classics group – we’re about halfway through it after this past weekend’s batch of episodes. It’s been mainly episodic so far and some of the Lovely Angels’ adventures have been more entertaining than others.


Part of the time I didn’t spend watching anime was occupied by listening to music from various anime through the Music in Anime tumblr. I also participated in an episode of the Taiiku Podcast about Cinedigm’s first two-disc DVD set of ’90s basketball anime Slam Dunk. I haven’t listened to that particular episode yet, partly I don’t like hearing my own recorded voice.

We began by discussing some issues we had with the physical release and then moved onto talking about the content of the 14 episodes in that set. I liked what I saw in those episodes enough that I’d like to watch more of the series. If you’re curious about experiencing the English dub for yourself, the same episodes that were on that Cinedigm set are currently on Hulu. Meanwhile, the whole 101-episode series is still available on Crunchyroll with Japanese audio and English hardsubs.

Briefly looking ahead at the new crop of anime set to debut in October, I’m interested in checking out the following shows:

I haven’t made any progress on the Catching Up On Detective Conan project since my season 2 post at the end of May. The next things I need to watch for that are the 1st theatrical film (The Time-Bombed Skyscraper) and then season 3 as arranged by Funimation in North America, which begins with a double episode (The Mist Goblin Murder) and wraps up with a double episode featuring the debut of Kaitou Kid.

Non-Traditional Forms of Fanservice

A feature article called “Five Steps to Better Fanservice” went up on ANN this week. Its author, Paul Jensen, made some good points about moderation and setting audience expectations early on in a series. However, the piece’s focus on the common interpretation of the term “fanservice” with regard to anime – body parts, hot spring/beach trips, etc. – left me a little disappointed after I finished reading it. I began to think about other types of fanservice and remembered an old post of mine that briefly touched on that notion.
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Summer 2015 Anime – Initial Thoughts on 13 First (and Some Second) Episodes

I wrote a post in late June saying I wasn’t looking forward to watching a lot of summer anime, yet I’ve sampled *thirteen* new series so far this month and have enjoyed most of them.
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Prioritizing Books Over New Anime This Summer

Nodoka carrying some books in Negima

Over the years, I’ve collected a number of books I wanted to read and perhaps write about on this blog. However, I have yet to finish most of them or write much about the ones I have completed, such as Dreamland Japan and Beautiful Fighting Girl.

I don’t anticipate watching many new anime in the upcoming summer season so the next three months might be a good time for me to finish reading the books that have stacked up.
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Feeling Less Interested in Attending Conventions As Time Passes

Part of Sacramento Convention Center lobby during Sac-Anime Summer 2014

As anime/manga convention season heats up with AnimeNEXT happening this weekend in New Jersey and Anime Expo & Otakon around the corner in July, I’m seeing many people I follow on Twitter either at these events or preparing to attend one. That got me thinking about my previous convention experiences and my plans for going to any in the future.
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