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Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Asobi ni Ikuyo: Bombshells From the Sky First Impression

Posted by: sidereeldom on: July 20, 2010

When I started watching Asobi ni Ikuyo: Bombshells From the Sky early this week, I tried to go in without any prior expectations. The problem was that my sheer hatred for ToLoveRu (Trouble) tainted the “Cute alien descends to earth, hijinks ensue” formula for me. So imagine my surprise when it turned out that not [...]

The iDOLM@STER 2 Trailer Will Eat Your Brain – Tuesday Tunes

Posted by: sidereeldom on: July 6, 2010

It’s been five years after the first iDOLM@STER game took over arcades, which led to two highly successful Xbox 360 games, 4 portable versions, and a whole ton of concerts and CD releases. Last weekend, Namco Bandai announced the newest installment of the famous music-producing simulation: The iDOLM@STER 2. Interestingly, the sequel is going straight [...]

Kuribayashi Minami – Tuesday Tunes

Posted by: sidereeldom on: June 22, 2010

Today’s target for Tuesday Tunes is the talented Kuribayashi Minami, who was recently announced as yet another guest at Anime Expo by MangaGamer. She rose to fame as the voice of Haruka in the (in)famous visual novel Kimi ga Nozomu Eien (also known as Rumbling Hearts in the States), and purely through the power of [...]

The theme song for the Japanese 25th anniversary of Disney on Ice is Korean pop star BoA’s funk-heavy dance tune “Woo Weekend.” The above video really reminds me of the pop videos that you see during the commercial breaks on the Disney channel, which is kind of a career throwback for BoA after her more [...]

Above is the main reason I’m excited for a new season of Code Geass. I’ve always had an obsession with Spanish guitar, and between composer Nakagawa Koutarou and singer/songwriter Sakai Mikio, they’ve delivered the goods on guitar since 2001′s s-CRY-ed. Sure, the second season of Code Geass was an exercise in shark-jumping until there were [...]

A Look at Spring Anime’s Openings – Tuesday Tunes

Posted by: sidereeldom on: May 4, 2010

It’s a slow news cycle in Japan thanks to the Golden Week holiday, which means it’s time to take a good hard look at some of the music that’s been released for this season, both good and bad. Above is our first topic: the guitar-heavy opening for Ichiban Ushiro no Daimao, “Realove: Realife” by seiyuu [...]

Spring Anime 2010 Week 4: Judgment!

Posted by: sidereeldom on: April 28, 2010

It’s always been my policy to give a series 4 full episodes before making a real value judgment on it – it’s a habit left over from my days of reviewing pre-FUNimation DVDs, where 4 episodes a disc was the norm. So, with 4 weeks of the spring anime season in the books now, it’s [...]

GTO Shonan 14 Days – Manga Mondays

Posted by: sidereeldom on: April 26, 2010

Last weekend, I stopped by the local Kinokuniya book store and noticed the new GTO manga by Fujisawa Tooru: GTO Shonan 14 Days. I remember hearing about its existence last year, but this was the first time I’d seen it in collected form. I snatched it up immediately, because I was a huge fan of the [...]

Spring 2010 Week 1: First Impressions

Posted by: sidereeldom on: April 6, 2010

The first week of April is a hectic time for anime fans, as new shows flood out and people fall over themselves making snap judgments based on the first 22 minutes. I tend to wait four weeks before making final decisions about which shows are keepers, which are casual watches, and which are busts, but [...]

Cross Game – Manga Mondays

Posted by: sidereeldom on: March 22, 2010

If you’ve read any of my writings for an extended period of time, you know that I’m a huge fan of baseball. So it should be no surprise that Viz’s weekend announcement of its upcoming release of Adachi Mitsuru’s Cross Game manga caused me to leap in the air and hoot in joy. I cut [...]