Now THIS Is How You End a Great Series

Anime Old Home Week! Big Naruto News, Bleach Rewatch, and More!

It's been nostalgia week for me since the big Naruto announcements. Suddenly, I find myself as I was twenty years ago, feeling like a new fan of Naruto and Bleach again with all the new news.

First, the big stuff. At New York Comic Con, it was announced that Naruto is getting a new manga. It's being authored by Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto's original creator, and the story is set between the end of Naruto Shippuuden and the beginning of Boruto, during what is known as "the Blank Period" in the timeline.

There was other news too (more on that later), but this was the main thing. After Shippuuden ended, there was a timeskip ahead to where the characters had married and had children. But we never saw what happened right after the big battle, the huge climax when they defeated Kaguya.

From what we can tell from the images that have been released, this new manga entitled Shadow Rising (folks are even trying to decipher what the name might mean, lol) covers, among other things, Naruto beginning his rule as Hokage, Sarada's birth, and a final (friendly?) rematch fight between Naruto and Sasuke.

All the other announcements paled in comparison to this one, but here they are. A new four-episode anime will be released, and it's a crossover between Naruto and a popular Japanese children's anime called Ninku. It's set when Team 7 were kids. Also, the Naruto mobile game that has been successful in China will be released worldwide. A Naruto tabletop card game is forthcoming.

In addition, there's a different four-episode anime series celebrating Naruto's 20th anniversary, postponed from 2023, that will be released by the end of 2026.

More announcements about the Naruto universe are slated to be made at Jump Festa in December.

All of these announcements and the buzz they've generated have brought the franchise back to life. It brings to mind for me that time when I was new to anime and just head over heels for Naruto, Bleach, and loads of other series, and everything anime was fresh and new to me.

It put me in that mood so much that I'm now rewatching Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War from the beginning. I've been binging it when I have a few hours here and there, and I'm at episode 18 now. It's the first time I've rewatched any of the episodes and I'm impressed by the level of storytelling and all the little details I missed the first time around.

Bleach's final two episodes will air on Oct. 19 and Oct. 26. It's going to be huge! Also, there are rumors of a new Bleach anime called the Hell Arc?? We'll have to wait and see about it...

I'm sure I've said it before, somewhere in the seventeen years I've been writing this blog - but for me, Naruto has the most complete story universe in manga/anime. The ninja world, Konoha, the Kage, the ninja training academy, all the people of Konoha, Naruto's life journey, Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry and relationship, the life-or-death battles, Gaara and his tragic story and eventual triumph... there's so much there, and when you watch even an average Naruto or Naruto Shippuuden episode you feel like you're right there in Konoha with them. You are totally enveloped in the landscape of the ninja world, in the village of Konoha and its history.

As each new anime season debuts, and the rush of new series comes in, it's easy to forget the great old stories. The funny thing is, since I've been watching the Naruto announcement videos and everyone's reaction videos on YouTube, the great YT algorithm has taken note and I'm now getting flooded with Naruto and Sasuke videos. Maybe the franchise never died and it was just me that was out of the loop?

Watching those videos, I feel like I'm back in 2007 and the world of anime has just opened up to me again. It's a lot of fun.

I'm assuming a legal way to read the new Naruto manga, which begins next year, will be available to us in the U.S., so I'm preparing myself to take on a new paid subscription, lol. I don't want to be left behind for this one. This one is worth paying for, for immediate access to this series.

As people have been saying on the internet, we Naruto fans are eating good. ;-) It's great to return to the old feelings of excitement over shounen anime, and it's good to still be an anime fan in 2026. :-)

The Amazing End of Bleach

Bleach's Thousand-Year Blood War arc is turning out to be a fantastic ending to one of anime's top shounen franchises.

In case you haven't been watching it - this concluding arc to Bleach has aired in cours spread out over the past few years, just like the ending arc of Attack on Titan. It's required a lot of patience, but what we've gotten is honestly some of the most memorable episodes of the entire series.

So much so, that I'm planning to rewatch the whole arc once it's finished. Which will be in two more episodes, delayed by a few months.

Some are screaming about the wait. The last-aired episode, Episode 48, aired on September 12. It was then announced out of the blue that Episode 49 would air in October and Episode 50, the final episode, would air in November.

I am fine with the wait. If the production team needs more time to make these last two episodes special, it'll be worth it.

This arc is following the usual shounen grand finale mold. There's a big bad villain, like the ultimate villain, that Ichigo and the others must defeat, or else not just earth but the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, that twilit world of sand where the Hollows reside, will pass into dust.

Hueco Mundo's visuals are so fascinating. Bleach has a complicated storyline and I'll confess that while I've always enjoyed watching the show, I don't remember the details of each arc. But I've always found the show's great visuals and character designs to be very memorable.

This is the final cour that we've all waited for. Tite Kubo, the creator, has also thrown in a few curve balls that even the manga readers weren't expecting. One such huge curve ball involved Orihime.

This was in Episode 45, which featured such intense scenes that it's now famous in the Bleach fandom, and is simply referred to as, "the Orihime episode."

While Bleach's ending is epic, I don't feel the same sense of impending loss as I did when Naruto Shippuuden ended. I was so emotionally invested in the world and characters of Naruto that I really felt it when the series concluded. I really enjoy Bleach, but it's not the same.

So I'll look forward to the two killer final episodes, along with millions of other fans. It's the end of another great shounen series and I'm glad to be here for it.

The Winter 2025 Anime Season

It’s a good start to 2025 with a solid winter anime season! Not only are some excellent series continuing on from fall 2024, but there are some choice new titles arriving soon.

But first... a wrap-up of the fall season.

Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War arc concluded with a bang-up episode. This was the third cour of four and it featured some of the best fight scenes in the series, including one with creepy Mayuri and an electrifying (pun intended) Yoruichi scene right at the end. And in case anyone actually thought a certain character had betrayed Ichigo and crew (... as if!), the final episode put that idea to rest.

The fourth and final cour of the Thousand Year Blood War arc, “The Calamity,” doesn’t have an air date set as of yet.

Blue Exorcist finished its Beyond the Snow Saga arc and last Saturday launched right into the new Blue Night Saga arc. Finally, the story is delving into Rin and Yukio’s parentage, a subject that has been a mystery up to now.

I’ll admit that I don’t normally find Blue Exorcist deep or hugely absorbing, but this arc will likely be an exception to that. The brothers’ relationship is the story’s most compelling element and what happened in their family’s past will explain a lot about their dynamics.

Alas, The Prince of Tennis II: U-17 World Cup Semi-Finals ended and the next season doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. PoT is an old favorite and I hope the next season won’t be too far off in the future.

I am slow-watching the Shinsengumi anime Blue Miburo, and I just finished Yakuza Fiance, which I wound up liking more than I expected. The characters are all violent and weren’t easy to relate to at first, but the main couple is engaging and there’s even a bit of love triangle energy between the girl, Yoshino, her yakuza clan’s big-brother type Shoma, and Kirishima, the semi-psychotic teenager from a different clan whom Yoshino is engaged to. There’s clearly more to the story than what was covered in 12 episodes, so there should be a second season coming along at some point.

And Dragon Ball Daima is continuing into the winter season! It’s wonderful to have a fresh Dragon Ball episode each week.

Which brings us to the new anime season.

Anime stories with tons of cute girls isn’t usually my thing, but I’m making an exception for Momentary Lily.

The reason is the animation studio. GoHands made K (aka K Project), one of my all-time favorite series, and on that basis alone I’m happy to at least give it a try. K featured a beautiful use of color in its production art, as well as some of the best male character designs I’ve ever seen in anime.



But the winter anime I’m looking forward to the most is...

Unnamed Memory was my favorite series of spring 2024. A romance story between a crown prince and a powerful witch set in a fantasy world, it featured solid romance, gorgeous character designs, interesting side characters, basically everything I enjoy in a story.

The anime’s first season reached its climax in episode 11, which should have been the happy ending, and it would have been if not for the episode that came after. I don’t want to spoil anything, but as a reminder magic is an element in the story and let’s just say that certain complications arose in episode 12 that necessitated at least a second season to put everything back the way it needs to be.

And finally, there’s a movie being released at the end of this month that I hope Crunchyroll or somebody has the good sense to license.

The original Rose of Versailles series has been on my to-watch list for about twenty years, or as long as I’ve been an anime fan. It’s a classic and I put it on my list because everyone said it was good, but I never knew until recently what made it different from any other shoujo/romance story.

The story description from Udon Entertainment for the manga:

“Oscar François de Jarjeyes is a young noblewoman raised as a son by her father. As commander of Marie Antoinette's palace guard, Oscar is brought face-to-face with the luxury of King Louis XVI’s court at Versailles. Joined by her servant André, Oscar is privy to the intrigue and deceit of France's last great royal regime.”

Yeah. Oscar is a woman masquerading as a man. It’s not just the gender-switch aspect that attracts me but also the seiyuu casting.

Oscar is being played by Miyuki Sawashiro, the sexiest female voice in Japan (as voted by the fans), and Marie Antoinette is played by Aya Hirano, one of my favorite seiyuu. She was Haruhi Suzumiya in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kaoru in Zettai Karen Children and its fantastic spinoff series The Unlimited, and Misa Amane in Death Note, among many other roles.

I’ve always admired Hirano’s talent and drive. She studied voice acting in New York and had her own rock band for a time. In recent years she has decentered voice acting, but hopefully Rose of Versailles will put her seiyuu career back on the map.

There are other new and newish anime series that are maybes to add to my currently watching list, but we’ll see how much time I have for them. I’ve got plenty to watch as it is. ;-)

The Fall 2024 Anime Season and What I Will Be Watching

The Fall 2024 anime season starts next week - and it looks like it’s going to be a very good one. :-)

First, I basically skipped the summer anime season. I was busy writing and publishing a new book, Daredevil Prince, and getting ready for GayRomLit, which took place the week after Labor Day Weekend.

I may have to go back and see what I missed. But here comes fall season, and there’s going to be a lot to watch starting in just a few days - so here is my watchlist.

Part 3 of Bleach’s Thousand Year Blood War arc returns on Oct. 5. It’s been a year since Part 2 ended and I think we’re all ready for this one.

I haven’t read the manga so everything that happens is a surprise to me. I mean, I’ve heard a few things about how the characters end up (... and who with) but that’s it. I’m especially looking forward to this part because there’ll be more of Ishida in it. Uryu Ishida is one of my favorite Bleach characters and I always thought he was underutilized in the story, so more Ishida is a good thing.

Dragon Ball Daima is a new canon story set soon after the end of Dragon Ball Z. Something has happened to Goku and friends and now they’ve all turned into children!

Just... just look at this image of little kid Goku and LITTLE KID VEGETA.

There’s not a lot of story description available yet but those who are going to watch the series (which includes me) don’t really care, because... LITTLE VEGETA!!

Blue Exorcist returns on Oct. 5. I always enjoy watching the brothers Rin and Yukio, along with their friends from the exorcist academy, fight demons and that shadowy organization of villains. This fall, the series will cover the “Beyond the Snow Saga” arc, and in January 2025 we’ll be getting “The Blue Night Saga” arc that will finally reveal the secrets of Rin and Yukio’s birth (they’ve never revealed this up to now). So it’ll be six months of nonstop Blue Exorcist and I’m on board for it.

Believe it or not... The Prince of Tennis is coming back!

I’ll freely admit that I’ve lost the string as far as where the series is now. Years ago - and years after the original manga/anime ended - a new series, The Prince of Tennis II, began. If I remember correctly it’s about a competition that takes place the summer after the original series ends (in other words - they’re still not even in high school yet), but I don’t remember anything else about it really, even though I watched it.

Still - it’s Prince of Tennis - and even if I can’t remember much about this continuation story I still love these characters, so I will be there on Oct. 2 when Prince of Tennis II U-17 World Cup Semifinal begins airing on Crunchyroll. :-)

And finally... the description of this one initially put me off. Even though I write romance and “dark romance” is big now (dark romance usually meaning Mafia characters or biker characters with intense, violent, or otherwise dark elements to the plot), personally I don’t care for it.

... Until I heard who plays the main character in this anime.



IT’S HIM THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN VOICE

It’s Kaworu from Evangelion

Athrun Zala from Mobile Suit Gundum Seed

Cho Hakkai from Gensomaden Saiyuki (this is the role that made me fall in love with him)

Gaara from Naruto

... and Katsura from Gintama

It’s Akira Ishida, one of the OG seiyuu of the grand era of long-running shounen series and owner of one of the best voices in all of anime.

Even after all these years, it only took about three seconds to recognize THAT VOICE. And so despite my qualms about the story (and that old old character design - seriously, look at the art!!), I will be there on Oct. 7 to give Yakuza Fiance a chance. It’s Akira Ishida, I can’t help myself.

Funimation Is Finally Redundant and Fall Season Update

Hello again! It feels like a long time since I’ve posted.

I was distracted from the end of September until mid-October getting ready for a convention where I was one of the official authors. I had to order promo cards and arrange for my books to be sent to the convention, etc.

Now I’m back... and just today I took care of some leftover business with my anime subscriptions... namely Funimation.

Last year I wrote about the Crunchyroll-Funimation merger and how clumsily Sony was handling the whole thing. It took so long for Funimation’s catalog of titles to be transferred over to Crunchyroll that after a while I literally forgot about it.

I’ve done this before. I paid for a subscription to the Anime Network (anyone remember them?) back when they were the only site that streamed Zettai Karen Children (Psychic Squad). I kept the subscription long after I bought the entire series on DVD until I finally remembered to cancel it.

So after my convention was over and I had the time to take care of some things, I recalled that I still had my paid Funimation subscription and decided to check whether every series I cared about had been transferred to Crunchyroll by now.

I actually hadn’t logged in to Crunchyroll in months. Remember, my mainstay anime Boruto is currently on a long hiatus. The most recent cour of Bleach ended last month, but Bleach is on Hulu now and not Crunchyroll.

For years, logging in to Crunchyroll was a daily thing for me. It felt odd to log in again after months away.

It was a task to compare the Funimation and Crunchyroll catalogs. (It had been even longer since I’d logged in to Funimation.) I looked at my watchlists on both sites and tried to remember if there were other anime series on Funimation that weren’t on my watchlist but that I’d wanted to watch.

I’d kept the Funimation subscription mainly for four series: 1) Dragon Ball; 2) Junjou Romantica; 3) Hetalia; and 4) Heaven Official’s Blessing.

Funimation had all of the Dragon Ball series, while Crunchyroll only had Dragon Ball Super. I was relieved to see that Crunchyroll now has all of the Dragon Ball titles.

After I’d cross-checked that Junjou Romantica, Hetalia, and Heaven Official’s Blessing were now on Crunchyroll as well, I suddenly remembered The Prince of Tennis, one of my old favorites.

The Prince of Tennis has always been on Funimation but not Crunchyroll - or at least not consistently on Crunchyroll. However, the good news is that the whole series is now available on Crunchyroll... for the moment anyway. I get that licenses can and do end, but it’s good to know that Crunchyroll has it for the time being.

So I canceled my Funimation subscription today. I will be saving a whole $5.99 a month (lol). Well, it starts to add up if you include my now-deceased Netflix DVD subscription which was $7.99 a month.

And speaking of Netflix DVD... I was hoping that Netflix would have some kind of offer for loyal DVD subscribers after Netflix DVD bit the dust, something like a special discount for Netflix streaming for example. And then in early October I received an email from them that offered three free months for streaming with ads and $6.99 a month thereafter, which I’d say is a good offer from them. I also have a whole 12 months to accept the offer, which is cool.

Now that I’ve logged back in to Crunchyroll and updated my watchlist to include all the titles ported over from Funimation as well as everything I wanted to watch in the current season, I feel plugged into the animesphere again. And I have a ton of stuff lined up to watch.

I have to wonder when the Funimation site will be shut down for good. I’m not sure what it has these days that Crunchyroll doesn’t have. I hope people who still have paid subscriptions there will do what I did and cross-check their watchlists with Crunchyroll. Honestly, there doesn’t appear to be any reason to pay for both anymore.

Fall 2023 Watchlist, Bleach, and Death of the Red Envelope

It’s fall and this blog is back from its summer hiatus! Hope everyone is well and thriving...

While I was off, I published a new book (The Female Gaze: Through a Different Lens), saw some movies, and tried to speed through my Netflix DVD list (more on that later).

If you read this blog, you know that I’ve been feeling a little distant from the anime scene and re-evaluating what anime and manga mean to me. Except for Bleach’s recent return I haven’t been watching anything regularly.

It got worse when I looked at the upcoming fall anime season and saw that there is still a ton of isekai series in the animesphere. I have to wonder: is isekai really that popular, or is it a trend that I simply don’t get the appeal of?

Regardless, I did find a few series that I think I’ll try out.

Ron Kamonohashi’s Forbidden Deductions
(Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri)

From Anime News Network:

An unusual private investigator and police detective duo team up to solve a series of thrilling mysteries!

From My Anime List:

Despite lacking the skills suited for his role on the Metropolitan Police Department investigative team, Totomaru Isshiki wants to solve murders and help people. Following the advice of one of his seniors, he ventures out to enlist the aid of the reclusive Ron Kamonohashi.

Five years ago, Ron was the most promising detective from the illustrious Detective Training Academy Blue; yet for reasons unknown to the public, he sank into obscurity.

Totomaru expects a well-dressed, composed man; but what he gets is a messy-haired and uninhibited eccentric. After years in solitude, Ron barely resembles his former self and he refuses to even hear out the detective. However, as quickly as Ron rebuffs, he flips on a dime and dives headfirst into the current serial murder case.

The true reason Ron withdrew from the detective world was not from lack of desire, but rather from something out of his control - and Totomaru might just be the key for his return to his former calling. Together, the wide-eyed officer and deranged detective tackle each mystery that comes their way.

My New Boss is Goofy
(Atarashii Joushi wa Do Tennen)

From ANN:

Kentaro Momose’s new job may be stressful, but his new boss is more laid-back than he looks.

From MAL:

Momose, a 26-year-old office worker, recently changed jobs after being harassed by his former boss. He is concerned that his new boss will also use power harassment to make his life miserable. Momose tries to hide his concern about facing a similar situation with his new boss, Shirasaki. To Momose’s surprise, however, Shirasaki’s inherent airheadedness immediately alleviates all of his concerns, giving him a sense of relief.

By the way, there’s no BL overtones at all in that pic - none at all. ;-D

Heaven Official’s Blessing Season 2
(Tian Guan Cifu Er)

From ANN:

Xie Lian reunites with Hua Cheng when he’s sent on a mission in the Ghost City.

... Which reminds me, I still need to finish season one on Funimation. Another first season I need to finish is Spy X Family. The second season starts on Oct. 7, but as of this writing, Crunchyroll hasn’t announced that they have the license yet. I expect that will change soon.

Also, I thought My Hero Academia and Boruto were supposed to return this October. I looked into it and found that My Hero Academia is set to return with Season 7 in Spring 2024, while Boruto has a new manga arc, “Two Blue Vortex,” which began in August. However, no word yet on when the anime will return.

The second cour of Bleach’s Thousand Year Blood War arc, which began in summer, is winding down now, and it’s been great. The episodes have been my only weekly touchstone as far as having a regular anime schedule goes and I’ve had something to look forward to each Saturday because of it. It’s set to end on Sept. 30 with a doubleheader of the two final episodes.

And now for the end of something else. After 25 years, Netflix DVD is closing down its subscription service.

Before Crunchyroll was legit, before almost any anime you wanted to watch was legally available, Netflix DVD was one of the few ways you could watch anime legitimately and guilt-free. For a small monthly fee the whole universe of entertainment that was available on DVD discs could be sent to your door.

I watched more anime movies than series in the early days. (There was nothing worse than trying to binge a series when you had to wait for the U.S. Postal Service to bring you the next disc - it felt like forever, lol.)

But the anime movies more than made up for it. I’m pretty sure I first watched Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal via a Netflix disc, as well as Embracing Love: A Cicada in Winter.

The trend for or against DVDs went back and forth through the years. First, it was streaming will kill off discs. Then it was outsmart the expensive streaming services by rebuilding your disc collection! There was validity on both sides of the argument.

From the FAQ page at Netflix DVD:

Q. When is the last day you'll ship out discs?
A. On April 18th, we announced that after 25 years of shipping DVDs, this will be our Final Season, and we'll ship our last disc on September 29th, 2023.

I found two answers intriguing:

Q. Can I purchase discs from DVD Netflix?
A. We are unable to sell discs from our rental inventory.

Q. Do I need to return any remaining discs after the last shipping day?
A. You will not be charged for any unreturned discs - please enjoy them for as long as you like! If you do choose to return the disc, we will continue to accept returns until October 27th, 2023.

What are they going to do with their inventory of thousands of discs?? My first thought when I heard Netflix DVD was closing down was - Can we buy the DVDs? Apparently the answer is no. I hope that they’ll donate them to libraries, senior centers, retirement homes, etc.

And... “If you do choose to return the disc...” So the last disc is a freebie? I have Doctor Zhivago at home now. If I hurry up, watch it, and return it to Netflix and change my queue, maybe I can get a DVD I’d really like to keep...? I mean... that is what they’re saying, right?

There’s actually a serious consideration here. Besides the doomsday prepper aspect of what if the internet goes down and streaming disappears there’s a certain negative outcome that can be counted on to happen in these situations.

Every time technology changes and a new delivery mode of entertainment takes over, some art gets lost. When cassette tapes replaced vinyl records, not all of the music that was on records got transferred to the new technology. The same when CDs replaced cassettes, and when MP3s replaced CDs.

An example: through the years I’ve rented Kadokawa Mystery & Horror Tales, a series of Japanese short horror tales, from Netflix DVD. Each disc featured several creepy short videos that I would watch with English subs. I’m not saying they were Oscar contenders but I will miss them. Where else will I be able to watch something like this?

It’s not Netflix’s fault. They can close down their business if they want. But the loss of their huge DVD inventory, which included the foreign and the obscure, the indie and the exploitation movies - all the not-so-popular or weird things to watch - will make it more difficult to discover something unusual, or even just something that isn’t American.

Not everything is on streaming. It may feel like it sometimes if you go through Netflix’s or Hulu’s or Amazon Prime Video’s seemingly endless film and video offerings, but everyone who is my age remembers that small indie or foreign film from the 1960s or 70s that you can’t find to watch anywhere now. Maybe it was available on VHS but not on DVD, so it’s certainly never going to be available on a streaming platform. Essentially, it’s gone.

So Netflix DVD closing down isn’t just Netflix closing down its DVD division - it’s a loss of access to certain films and TV series and a narrowing of choice. I really do hope that they don’t simply trash those discs, because even creepy obscure Japanese horror stories have their place.

Summer 2023 Watchlist

Finally summer is here, and I can start watching new streaming anime again...

However, there is nothing that is actually new on my list. There are only new seasons of anime series I’ve watched before. I combed the anime summer offerings for new series I might be interested in and found nothing.

But hey, new episodes are new episodes, and I’ll be glad to have something to watch again each week.

My most anticipated series is Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War – Part II: The Separation. This is the second cour of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc. It’s going to be hard to watch because this is where Uryu Ishida parts ways with Ichigo and his other friends in order to side with the Quincy - his own kind.

The production team did a great job with the first cour last year. I’m anticipating another great season of episodes this time as well.

A couple of things here. First, Rurouni Kenshin is an old favorite of mine, and there are still a lot of fans of the story. As you may or may not have heard, manga-ka Nobuhiro Watsuki was charged with possession of child porn in 2017. This brings up the age-old argument of whether one can separate what the artist produces from who the artist is (see Why It’s Difficult to Separate Rurouni Kenshin from Nobuhiro Watsuki).

There’s no easy answer to that question, and each of us has to come up with his or her own personal answer. The second issue is that this is a remake of the original story as opposed to an all-new story. Which begs the question: do we really need to see a remake of the original? The original series was good, and the prequel OVA series Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal was an absolute classic. I’m not sure why they’re remaking something that doesn’t need to be remade. As such, this probably won’t be on my watchlist.

I remember watching the first season of The Devil Is a Part-Timer! (Hataraku Maou-Sama!) back in 2013. Then I don’t recall hearing about it again until now, when I saw that its third season is about to begin. The second season apparently streamed in fall 2022 and I didn’t even notice.

From Crunchyroll:

Foiled by a hero when he’s inches away from conquering the world, the devil finds himself in modern-day Tokyo. With no real-world skills to speak of, the devil is forced to make ends meet flipping burgers at a fast food joint! To stall any further plans of world domination, the hero tracks the devil’s trail and takes on the lowly tasks of a telemarketer.

It’s been many years since I saw the first season, but I remember it as being a very funny show. I’ll have to get caught up with season two so I can watch the new season.

Finally, Yamishibai is coming back.

Yamishibai is one of my favorite weird little series. Each standalone episode is around five minutes long and most are creepypasta-ish slices of horror in modern Japanese settings.

“Yamishibai” is a wordplay based on the Japanese “Kamishibai” or “paper play.” The animation looks like paper cutout figures in motion against equally crude and unreal-looking backgrounds. The effect is remarkably unsettling.

This will be the 11th season. If you’re a fan, you probably remember the final episode of Season 10 in which Narrator-san broke the fourth wall and became a character in the story. That episode was so much fun and such a surprise that I thought Yamishibai was over; that they were ending it on the perfect note.

I’m happy to be proved wrong. Welcome back, Narrator-san. I’m glad to see you and your paper world again. ;-)

The Death of Long-Running Anime

I’m in a null zone right now in regards to anime.

It happened unexpectedly when Boruto suddenly went on hiatus with little notice. Boruto was my Sunday morning habit until it wasn’t, and that absence really made a difference.

Something else occurred in April this year that brought this home to me. I was on a business trip in the Sea-Tac area of Washington State and had planned a few free days in downtown Seattle after the business part of my trip concluded.

After I checked into my hotel, I was startled to discover that Sakura-Con was being held that same weekend. I went to the convention center to register for the con’s last day, only to find that registration had closed an hour before.

Sakura-Con was on my radar for years as an anime fan. I’d always figured I’d go to it sometime. It’s not on the level of Anime Expo or even Otakon, but it’s at least at Fanime level as far as the numbers go. I’ve been so out of the loop on anime news that I didn’t even know that Sakura-Con was going to take place while I was in the Seattle area.

And that brings up another thought. I haven’t watched any new anime series in quite some time. I don’t care for isekai and unless some old favorite miraculously comes back from the dead like Bleach I find I’m not interested enough to try anything new.

It’s not a quality issue... I think. I think it’s a difference in the types of stories being produced these days.

My favorite anime series have been long-running shonen stories like Naruto, Bleach and Gintama, stories that go for hundreds of episodes where you can really get into the characters and the universe that they inhabit.

There isn’t anything that feels like that kind of story now in the anime world. There’s no brilliant Fullmetal Alchemist or cool Gundam 00 to watch anymore, to look forward to every week.

It could be that that particular kind of manga or anime story belonged to a certain era - and that era is now gone.

This young anime fan puts it perfectly.

Title: The DEATH of Long Running Anime
Creator: Blank Thoughts
Warning: Some salty language



I can’t fault art forms for evolving, and nothing in life stays the same. I do miss this kind of story though.

Ironically... I am attending an anime convention this weekend. I made the arrangements months ago. I don’t know what it will feel like to be at a post-pandemic full-on anime convention again. I’ll post my con report here when I return.

The Winter 2023 Season Ends With a Bang

The winter 2023 anime season is winding down, and the shows I was watching all ended on very intense notes.

Attack on Titan slipped in almost unannounced with the first half of its final final final we really mean it this time cour. The series will conclude with two one-hour episodes, the first of which aired this month.

And it was a marvelous, beautifully-crafted episode, perfectly balanced between action scenes and relationship moments. It may be taking literal years to finish this anime series, but if the concluding episode is as great as this one it’ll be worth the wait.

Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) is usually categorized as a shonen manga and anime. But I think the most applicable category for the series is horror.

When the story begins, we’re introduced to the Eldians who live in three walled cities and their adjacent farmlands. The civilization is medieval with most people either farming or working simple trades.

Outside the walls lurks incredible danger. The Titans are gigantic monsters that nearly wiped out humanity, and only the walls can keep them out. They resemble huge skinless human beings but with strangely floppy limbs and terrifyingly blank facial expressions. They eat humans.

The hero of the story is Eren Jaeger. His mother was eaten by a Titan and then his father, a doctor named Grisha Jaeger, disappeared. Along with his friends Mikasa and Armin, Eren joins the Survey Corps, a military unit that uses rappelling and jet pack-like propulsion equipment on their missions to survey the Titan population outside the walls.

The story is complex, involving politics and secret missions and betrayals within the unit and in the greater society at large. There are many twists and turns. Each turn of the story leads the viewer to ever darker truths.

The scenes where humans are eaten are shown in graphic detail. The horror is visceral and seizes your guts as you watch. Attack on Titan’s creator Hajime Isayama doesn’t mask the characters’ terror in any way; nor does he pull a “fade to black” before they’re eaten. You see it all.

As if that wasn’t enough, we see other gruesome and violent scenes including a child being torn to pieces by a pack of dogs (simply because she’s an Eldian), torture, maiming. The civilization is primitive and human suspicion of “the other” is on full display.

The characters go through a lot and by the end of the story - where we are now - they are spent and bitter. The layers of betrayal and all the awful revelations about who the Titans really are have worn them down. And in doing what they believed to be right, they’ve become killers and worse.

This first of two “special episodes” that will conclude the series includes a quiet scene in which the corps - friends who became enemies who now come together one last time for the final battle - discuss their plans to stop one of their own from destroying civilization.

In the course of the discussion all of their regrets come out. Apologies are made and accepted. They’re aware that it’s unlikely that all of them - or perhaps any of them - will survive the coming fight.

The weight of the past is heavy.

In this episode, one of the main characters sacrifices herself to buy time for the corps to escape the Titans and reach the battlefield.

There is one hour remaining in the Attack on Titan anime series. The second special episode is set to air sometime this fall.

Some surprising news about Boruto - it’s going on a long hiatus.

Boruto’s last two episodes were very intense. Although everyone narrowly survived an encounter with the villains Code and Momoshiki, the series’ first part ended before the much-anticipated timeskip.

The anime has caught up with the manga (more or less... apparently they could have animated a few more scenes from the manga and not stopped where they did, but whatever), so they’re now calling the first 293 episodes “Part 1” of the series. No announcement as to when Part 2 will begin airing.

So my mainstay anime is gone for now. I’ll be honest - there’ve been times when Boruto bored me. It was in fillers the entire year of 2022 and generally the storylines haven’t been as compelling as they were in the parent series Naruto.

But they are definitely leaving it on a high note, having set up the future conflict between Boruto and his adopted brother Kawaki. So I’ll look forward to it whenever it returns.

Finally, My Hero Academia’s sixth season came to a close with Saturday’s episode. This arc was called the “depression arc” by the manga fans and now I see why. After a massive failure by the heroes to defeat or even contain Shigaraki and his legion of villains, the public turned against the heroes.

It was a depressing arc, but public opinion began to turn back in the heroes’ favor by the end. The series returns for its seventh season in October.

Bleach returns in July with the second part of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc. Until then, there’s not much that’s new that I want to watch. I’ve gone through Crunchyroll’s Spring 2023 guide and didn’t see anything that stood out.

So I’m going to finish the other series on my watchlist (Spy x Family, Heaven Official’s Blessing, Bureau of Paranormal Investigation) and then maybe watch some old favorites and then... we’ll see. There are a number of classic anime series I haven’t watched yet. Maybe it’s time to add them to the list. ;-)

2022 Anime Year in Review

For me as an anime fan, the year of 2022 had its ups and downs, with the year ending on a decided upswing.

As well as Attack on Titan (more on that below), the year began with - as always - eternally... Boruto.

I’ve complained about Boruto before... that it hasn’t developed Konoha’s new generation as deeply as the original characters, and the plot arcs aren’t as compelling, and there’s a lot of filler episodes to boot. The filler aspect can’t be helped, as the manga is being created at its own speed and there’s nothing else to be done until the manga gets ahead enough in the story.

Boruto has been in filler episodes for the entire year of 2022. Most of the year we were in a filler arc that actually began at the end of 2021, believe it or not. Briefly, this arc had Team 7 on a mission in the Land of Water that involved a prison break on an island, pirates, a clan war, etc.

So many deaths took place in this arc that it became a downer to watch on top of being filler to begin with. The final episode was a surprise though, as Boruto offered to sacrifice himself in order to stop an ongoing bloody war between factions on the island. His rationale was that both sides - including the one he’d been on - bore responsibility for the conflict and that if his sacrifice would bring an end to the bloodshed, he was willing to do it.

It was a tense and thrilling episode, one of the best I’ve seen in the series. One thing that filler arcs can do is to deepen the characters if you put them in potentially life-threatening situations, and that’s what happened at the end of this too-long filler arc. I’m not sure I can say that it was worth it, but it did bring the character of Boruto further along and showed us his new maturity and leadership.

According to manga readers, when Boruto comes out of fillers we’re in for a treat. At some point thereafter the series will time-skip ahead and the new generation will then be teenagers.

This is exactly what the parent series did when it went from being Naruto to Naruto Shippuuden. Naruto went on a three-year training journey with his master Jiraiya and returned to the village at age 16, and the series’ most satifying storylines came after the timeskip.

If Boruto follows that same formula for success then I’m all for it.

As to movies, the only one I saw in the theaters was Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. It was a fun diversion and a decent addition to the Dragon Ball universe. It was especially nice to see Piccolo and Gohan featured as the main characters as they didn’t get a lot of chances to shine in the DBS series.

I also streamed a couple of My Hero Academia movies. I tend to forget about movies based on anime series, and in fact, there have been three MHA movies released so far.

In autumn two of my favorite series came back: Bleach and My Hero Academia.

Both series returned with really intense arcs. Bleach is covering the final arc of the manga, which includes Ichigo’s true origin story... which makes it even more amazing that it’s taken ten years for the arc to be animated considering its importance to the overall Bleach story.

My Hero Academia is currently in the middle of an enormous battle arc involving all of the superheroes, the students, and a near-unbeatable villain, Tomura Shigaraki, plus Shigaraki’s entire army of bad guys. A city has been destroyed and several heroes have died and the arc doesn’t even appear to be close to its conclusion yet.

This fall I also started watching Heaven Official’s Blessing, an example of Chinese danmei or boy’s love. I haven’t finished the first season yet even though I only have a few episodes left. I think it’s because I know there’s a second season coming and my binge instinct has kicked in. I’d love to roll from S1 right into S2, but that’s probably unrealistic since there’s still no date set for the start of the second season (though a trailer for S2 has been released).

Recently I added Spy x Family to my currently watching list. I’m intrigued by this non-shonen series that appears to be wildly popular. Well, that and the male lead is quite the biseinen, isn’t he? It’s been fun so far.

As to the industry year in review... quite a bit happened.

In-person conventions returned, including Anime Expo and the San Diego Comic Con, two of the largest. Funimation’s anime catalog began to be transitioned into Crunchyroll, a process that is still ongoing.

Kadokawa bought a majority stake in Anime News Network. And speaking of buyouts - Right Stuf was bought out by Crunchyroll. Shawne Kleckner headed Right Stuf for over 30 years and this one surprised me. I know the pandemic was hard on merchants but Right Stuf was one of those vendors that always felt solid to me. They even had their own in-house production company, Nozomi Entertainment. I’m sorry to see them get swallowed up.

The biggest industry news by far was Disney’s acquisition of Bleach. Since then they’ve also acquired the second season of Tokyo Revengers, but so far, nothing bigger than that. It could be that they’re waiting to see how Bleach does before making any greater inroads into the animesphere.

With all these ups and downs, this year is ending on a high note for me as an anime fan. I’m watching a lot of anime each week, just like the old days.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Attack on Titan.

You might recall that around this time last year they announced that the “final cour” of Attack on Titan would stream beginning in January 2022.

Well, it did. Half of it. The final cour was split in two, with the last episodes set to air in January of 2023.

Like everyone else, this past winter I watched the episodes expecting to see the end of Attack on Titan. Instead, rumors began to leak that the second half would be delayed, which was confirmed at the end of the last episode that aired in April.

Other series have had very lengthy delays between seasons: Haikyuu comes to mind and there are others. Attack on Titan though is a premier title and this delay really surprised me. It’s a series that has a huge international audience and the expectation was really high that the series would be concluded this year.

I say that, and yet... here we are at the end of 2022 with Attack on Titan set to stream its final - let’s hope - episodes starting next month. Because next month it’s January again, already.

Another year in the animesphere has passed and it was a good one. Next year looks good as well, so let’s get ready for it. :-)

The Fall 2022 Anime Season – What I’m Watching

It’s been a fun fall season of anime for me, what with the return of Bleach and My Hero Academia, and also with Heaven Official’s Blessing as my first experience with Chinese boy’s love stories.

But first... an update on the Bleach/Disney+/Hulu situation.

I successfully updated my Disney+ subscription to include Hulu (and ESPN, though who cares) in time to begin watching Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War, but it was a bit of a mess, starting with the subscription page itself.

How to add Hulu to an existing Disney+ subscription looked easy at first. I clicked on a button to “Add Hulu,” which took me to another page where things began to get difficult. After reading the instructions a few times, I hit a button that I thought would subscribe me but which instead took me to yet another page.

I eventually had to give in and do live chat. The operator suggested that I go to the Hulu site itself (not Disney+), so I did that.

I began to suspect that signing up at the Hulu site might confuse matters with my already-existing Disney+ subscription, so after looking at the Hulu site, I returned to Disney+ and tried to pull the trigger on a promising-looking “Add Hulu for $6.99” link.

However, just as I was about to get the Disney+ bundle (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN), I noted the fine print: at this price you would get Hulu with ads. The price was $13.99 and an annual subscription - which presumably would be discounted - didn’t appear to be available.

... Which left me with my only real choice – the Disney+ bundle including Hulu with no ads at $19.99/month, with no option for an annual subscription at a discounted rate. The fine print continued on, stating that if I had an annual Disney+ subscription that this monthly amount would be pro-rated against what I’d already paid for the month.

After I upgraded, to my surprise, I immediately received a Disney+ email documenting not only my new upgraded subscription but also the fact that the monthly charge had been pro-rated, complete with the calculation and total amount they’d just charged me right there in the email.

My annual subscription to Disney+ expires on the twentieth of this month. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what happens. Complicating all of this further is the fact that Disney+ is about to introduce an ad-sponsored tier. This should mean that they will receive a lot of advertising revenue - eventually. But they could definitely raise prices for subscriptions in the meantime, because the ad business will take a while to ramp up and show fruit. In other words, the situation remains in flux and no one really knows what the subscription tiers will look like in the near future.

On to the fall 2022 anime season, starting with Bleach.

To say the Thousand-Year Blood War arc is dark would be an understatement. There’s been a huge number of shinigami deaths already and just today, in episode 4, carnage in Soul Society itself.

After Soul Society massacred the Quincys hundreds of years ago, the Quincys are back to return the favor. They have developed the ability to steal bankai from everyone: everyone except for Ichigo, that is. Ichigo is now on his way to rescue Soul Society but much damage has already been done. Four Gotei 13 captains have already had their bankai stolen: Soi Fon, Komamura, Hitsugaya, and even Byakuya Kuchiki.

Aside from touches of humor with Ichigo and little Nel, this arc has been completely grim. It makes sense given the subject material, but still. Ichigo and his friends are now 17 year-olds, but there’s no hint of school-type humor or lightness here.

The action scenes are great. I have a feeling that fights and battle scenes will be the highlight of this arc. There’s also the general intrigue between the shinigami and the Quincys that I’m looking forward to learning more about.

Also very enjoyable this fall season is My Hero Academia, now in its sixth season.

The student heroes, along with the licensed heroes led by Endeavor, battle Shigaraki’s Paranormal Liberation Front at their mountain villa headquarters and at Jaku City Hospital, where Dr. Garaki is tending to Shigaraki’s healing.

Shigaraki awakens and unleashes his Decay quirk, causing the near-destruction of Jaku City. And we’re only on episode 5. The sixth season of My Hero Academia is looking like a real barn-burner and every bit worth the wait.

Finally, a few words about Heaven Official’s Blessing.

The story is about Xie Lian, a prince who ascends to god status. Despite his best efforts, his human kingdom fails and he begins a kind of shuttling back and forth between the heavenly realm, where he is ridiculed for failing, and the mortal realm, where his once-followers have abandoned him.

Despite this, Xie Lian is a good-natured soul who cares about human beings, and he continues to do his best on each mission that heaven gives him. While journeying on earth he keeps coming across a mysterious figure, a handsome man who appears to him in the beginning as a ghost.

Later, this same man appears as a wanderer riding in the same hay cart as Xie Lian. Robed in red, he seems friendly and unassuming, but is observed to have supernatural powers. Xie Lian learns that this being is Hua Cheng, an ancient and powerful ghost king.

So far, Heaven Official’s Blessing has been a pleasant diversion and an interesting introduction to Chinese animation. The animation style resembles Japanese anime, particularly in the character designs. I’ve especially enjoyed the background art of mountainous terrains, small villages, and Chinese dress both opulent and simple.

There’s been little to no hint of physical attraction between the two men as of yet. It may simply be that it’s a slow-burning relationship story, or perhaps what I’ve heard about Chinese stories is true; that they are more conservative in terms of showing sexual content. I would also guess that “boy’s love” or yaoi as such is not viewed as favorably in China as it is in Japan, so maybe the creators need to be more cautious.

I actually have the first light novel so I could check the story myself, but I would prefer to just keep watching the anime (can I call it ‘anime’ if it comes from China?). Like the fall anime season itself, Heaven Official’s Blessing has been a return to the kind of entertainment and storytelling I like best. I don’t mind if it takes a while to get to where it’s going. ;-)