Chihayafuru is so damn good. The way it turns every match into something that feels captivating and meaningful is amazing, but when it gets to a really important confrontation, it just holds me spellbound.

Kind of funny that a josei makes most shounen look shallow and soulless when it comes to the portrayal of competition. I remember watching Food Wars and just wishing the main character would pull another win out his ass like usual so we can get on with the show. With Chihayafuru, though, I feel like tearing my hair out when the end of an episode hits in the middle of a match.

My last update was 4 months ago, which means probably 10-15 shows worth watching came out and I have only watched 3 from my backlog, and not particularly interesting shows. I should be able to watch some of my more favorite shows soon.

7 Seeds- It had a good start and then it quickly died off. I enjoy interesting premises like this, but the execution is often questionable. The backstory was also cool for some of the events. Since we are talking about modern people here going into a post apocalyptic world fully prepared, I think there should have been a bit more to it. Don't remember OP and ED.

Ingress the Animation- A show based on an odd game. The CGI in this anime isn't terrible for once. The character Jack isn't bad, and the accompanying action isn't bad either. Everything else in this show is mediocre. So that is 3 cop shows with supernatural powers from netflix, and all 3 are mediocre. I look forward to another one next year! OP isn't bad and I really enjoyed the ED.

Clannad (23 episodes)- An older slice of life anime recommended to me by quite a few people. I actually tried this anime a few years ago and couldn't get past the first episode, but I tried again this year. This time I was more in the mood for slice of life and it worked quite well. I enjoyed the comedy in this show quite a bit and this type of comedy seems to be missing from many anime. The plot on the other hand was quite abrupt and did not have very smooth transitions. While I enjoyed the lead very much due to the comedy he added and the way he acted, the female leads were very lacking. The more interesting female characters get sidelined for the more boring characters. The ending to the anime was satisfactory to me, and I will definitely be interested in the next season, but that may take another year. I skipped OP, but the ED was quite good and sometimes I sing it aloud to everyone's confusion.

Edit: Was looking at new anime for the season and Blade of the Immortal is getting another anime adaptation. Awesome!

Guess where I was this week.

Guess where I was today!

Even has cakes set out. Heh.

Next 3 anime watched :).

Attack on Titan Season 3 part 2- Amazing as usual. A satisfying conclusion to the arc, and a setup for a new arc where the survivors will continue to despair. Although the new arc was not what I hoped it would be, I am interested on where things will go. I really enjoyed the humans vs Titans part, but I suppose the MCs became too OP. Speaking of OP the song was too similar to the first season. I forget the ED too.

Hero Mask Season 2- As the end of the final episode drew near, I thought to myself "omfg, I hope there isn't another season of this", luckily the pacing was just that bad in the final episode that it did somehow end. The story aside from the final episode overall was very average, but some things were unfortunate. The sounds and animation were pretty good, but that didn't make the anime good. I look upon Ingress more fondly than this show. I skip both OP and ED.

Hellsing Ultimate OVA- With a runtime of 484 minutes, this could have been 2 seasons worth of regular anime. I originally had seen Hellsing the tv anime, and it was good enough to satisfy me, but people kept insisting that Ultimate was much better and that I should watch it. So finally I do, and it was worth it. The animation is top notch, and although I tend to dislike bloody anime, this show needed it with how over the top the gore is. I will say that it is quite interesting that the creators decided that Alucard would miss out for like 3 episodes straight. You know how long it took them to create 4 episodes? 3 freaking years. I can't imagine waiting that long to see a BA fight with the main character of a BA anime, heck I already refuse to watch anime weekly due to my hatred of cliffhangers. I am glad that I could watch it all in one weekend. Still everything was awesome, although repetitive. The Soundtrack was god tier, with a few of my favorite mid fight music and EDs added to the playlist.

I try to cover at least some anime destinations on my travels to Japan. Last year I went to Itou, which is one of the places where Amanchu takes place.

This year I specifically went out of my way to get to Toyosato (K-On School) and Shirakawa-Go (Higurashi village), which are far off the beaten path. Technically I also went to Nagoya, which would cover Denpa Onna and Yatogame Chan.

I'm very much looking forward to next year, where I'll go to Kyushu, which means I get to see Saga! Gonna try to prepare a bit better next time, so I'm looking for anime destinations in Shikoku, Hiroshima and Kyushu.

I'm still gonna be in Tokyo for the next 2 days. Mostly checking out Yokohama and some Akiba shopping.

I'm pretty excited about this.  Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is an awesome manga, really fun and imaginative.  Masaaki Yuasa (director of Devilman Crybaby and Space Dandy) is handling the anime adaptation.  

It just has so much personality and the humor is very infectious.  It's basically about the most fun thing in the world--pretending.  

Look for a place called Otome Road.  Ask around.

Watched all of Re Creators on my flight back and I'm happy that I got back to it.

It's not deep or masterfully directed. It has way fewer fight scenes than it should have. The plot is a total mess that you shouldn't think too hard about. But I really liked the premise, the characters and the overall message. It had such a Trigger feel that I had to remind myself multiple times that it's actually not a a Trigger anime. I mean they even went to fucking Ogikubo!

I can't recommend it broadly. It's not deep and refined enough for snobs and it doesn't have enough action for shounen fags. It is great for anyone who likes the reverse isekai premise and what it actually means for characters