Teekyu – Nigorimasen!

Monday Check-In: July 17, 2017 (Teekyu is back!)

By Tom July 17, 2017 - 9:11 pm September 30, 2017 Anime, Columns

Tomarin is angry after losing money at a pachinko parlor in Teekyu season 9

I watched a few more new anime series last week but not as many as I wanted. Teekyu returned for its ninth season with a Tomarin-focused episode and an ending credits sequence depicting the girls as more realistic-looking teenagers with a portion where the camera pans across their towel-draped bodies. I guess the ending credits are a parody of other anime ending credits that have similar shots of their female characters but Teekyu’s credits unnerved me just like those other ones do…

I saw the first episodes of Anime Strike series Made in Abyss and Princess Principal with some online friends and enjoyed both of them for different reasons. Made in Abyss had beautiful landscapes and a fun adventure story setup with its characters. I liked Princess Principal for its dark, steam-powered London setting and background music directed by Yuki Kajiura; its soundtrack reminded me of Kajiura’s previous action series scores including Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Noir. Continue reading

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12 Days 2016: Post #3 – Favorite Pairings of Theme Music & Visuals

By Tom December 31, 2016 - 5:00 pm January 2, 2017 12 Days Project, Anime, Music

I watched one episode of HaruChika. Its opening theme song is not discussed in this post.

Good theme songs and accompanying animations help me enjoy some anime series. There were many opening and ending songs I liked hearing and watching during 2016, some of them coming from the same show.

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12 Days 2016: Day 1 – Five Anime With Episodes Under 5 Minutes Long

By Tom December 14, 2016 - 10:30 pm December 14, 2016 12 Days Project, Anime

I’m participating this year in the anime blogging community’s annual “12 Days” posting spree after taking part in 2014 and skipping it in 2015. The current effort is being organized by appropriant and bloggers involved in the project are invited to use #12DaysOfAnime as a hashtag on Twitter.

Anime series with episodes less than 10 minutes long have become my primary type of anime I watch lately. I sampled many short anime in 2016 and I still need to complete some of them including Please Tell Me! Galko-chan, Space Patrol Luluco, Sekko Boys, and Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro. Here are five short-episode anime series I enjoyed watching this year that happen to all have episodes shorter than 5 minutes.

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Wrapping Up 2015: Five Short-Form Summer Anime Series

By Tom December 23, 2015 - 9:15 pm December 24, 2015 Anime, Wrapping Up 2015

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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Summer 2015 Anime – Initial Thoughts on 13 First (and Some Second) Episodes

By Tom July 12, 2015 - 9:49 pm July 12, 2015 Anime

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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Spring 2015 First Episodes, Pt. 1: Androids, CG Rocking, Spinoffs & Sequels

By Tom April 6, 2015 - 3:50 pm April 6, 2015 Anime

I surprised myself a little this past week by trying nine first episodes of spring anime, including a handful that weren’t in my initial looking-forward-to-watching post.