500 Follower Appreciation Post + Random Anime Reveal

I thought I timed it so that 500 followers and the blog's third anniversary should happen at about the same time, but looks like we hit the milestone early. Well, you people really rock! I'm still a bit jet-lagged as I write this, so please pardon any less coherent bits. Starting this blog might be…

Personal Update: Traveling During the Pandemic

As the title of this post suggests, I have made the somewhat ill-advised decision to travel to my homeland, Taiwan, during this pandemic. In fact, my flight is tonight. Looking forward to the ~30 hrs of masking and the 14-day quarantine that ensues... It's not an extremely essential trip, but my younger brother already had…

Accepting Random Anime Recommendations

A big thank you to all who contributed ideas in the last post for my 500 follower celebration. After looking at everyone's ideas, I chose Aria's comment as the winning suggestion (but will combine a few other ideas with this): Maybe take recommendations from your followers (anime-only if you want to stick to your theme,…

Anime x Lit Crit: Toradora! 24

Penultimate episode analysis, here we go! I said last episode was intense. Well, I was wrong. Intensity is relative... Primes: So true! This is one of my favorite Toradora episodes! In our last discussion, Primes asked if I thought "[the main characters will] finally see the ghosts and UFOs they believe in." I suggested that…

10 Best Things: Tower of God

It's been forever since I've done a "10 Best Things" post, and I'm not exactly writing one now because Tower of God was more outstanding than anything else I've seen recently, but just because I've remembered how much low-effort fun this kind of post is. You will find that this list consists of oddly specific items,…

Help Me Celebrate You and This Blog

Against all odds, this highly inconsistent blog is close to reaching 500 followers. It is also reaching its third anniversary, though I can't recall when the exact date is until I check. How did this happen? I seriously have no clue. So what should I do? I'm asking everyone now because I was busy last…

[OST Spotlight] In This Corner of the World: Healing with “Migite no Uta”

It was fun doing soundtrack analysis for The Promised Neverland, so I'm back at it again! Technically, the piece featured today is more of an insert song, but it encapsulates the movie so well that I really couldn't choose anything else. "Migite no Uta" (みぎてのうた; "The Right Hand's Song") is the official theme song of…

Anime x Lit Crit: Toradora! 23

Phew! Finally, an episode that builds up to some satisfaction. Primes: Wait, does that mean you were unsatisfied with the previous episodes? I'm going to go cry now... *jk* This episode is among the best emotional moments in the series, for me at least. Well, no, but at the end of most episodes before this,…

What Makes a Spoiler a Spoiler?

This is something I wonder about sometimes, which a certain Tweet caused me to reflect on again: https://twitter.com/spookyredh/status/1262012943144636417 People have different degrees of tolerance when it comes to spoilers. For me, as I'm sure it is for most people, my avoidance of spoilers is dependent on how much I care about continuing a show. I've…

Translation is Hard: 5 Obstacles to a Good Translation

There seems to be a lot of discourse on anime subtitle translation these days. The louder voices on Twitter tend to defend localized, less literal translations. I've been wanting to write a post on some of my own experiences with translation, but I've also been going through a bit of a burnout. Here it is…