It always kind of astounds me whenever someone says that they’re a fan of the Final Fantasy series. Not because any individual entry in the series is that bad. More because the series is so wildly inconsistent.
Your Lie in April and Flags
The kind of people who will read a media blog are, on the whole, the kind of people who consume a lot of stories to begin with. And once you take in enough of them (probably by the time you're in middle school, really), you start to see certain patterns keep showing up.
Digimon Adventure and Togetherness
Digimon Adventure is available on Hulu. Digimon Adventure Tri is available on Crunchyroll. Neither service has them both – aren’t streaming rights fun? One of the worst things about anime is, funnily enough, also one of its greatest strengths: on a whole, the writing tends to wear its heart on its sleeve. It enables everything …
Pokémon and The Drawing Board
I’m a long-time fan of the Pokémon franchise, including one of the longest-running animated series still being produced. Now, the Pokémon anime looks to be lining up the TV-season equivalent of a Greatest Hits album.
Floor Kids and Density
Floor Kids is available on Steam, Switch, PS4, and Xbox One. Our priorities can shift a lot over time. Back when I was in school, I’d play the same video game cover-to-cover a dozen times because that’s what was on-hand and appealing. It’s how I could draw you a full map of the entire first …
Yatterman Night and Re-Interpretation
Who doesn't love spitballing ideas? That's an avenue that anime knows how to walk rather well.
Pokémon Sword & Shield and Concessions
This is only the second time I've talked about a game before it's even released - and both times, it's been about the now-yearly release of a new main-line Pokémon title. I usually prefer to let something sit in my mind before I go back to it with properly-formed thoughts, but this franchise really gets …
Hitori Bocchi and Laughing With
Anime protagonists are, on the whole, kind of losers. That’s not a knock against them – there’s something appealing about watching a person stumble over their own shortcomings.
Tokyo Xanadu and Alternate Takes
Sometimes games playing follow-the-leader actually turns out pretty well for us as consumers. That’s how you end up with something like Tokyo Xanadu, which is nothing if not borrowed ideas.
A Silent Voice and Sympathetic Antagonists
An awful lot of folks will point to "sympathetic" as the hallmark of a great fictional antagonist. Many stories even revolve around this angle explicitly, and few are so thorough about making this a central theme as A Silent Voice.
Kanon and Sentimentality
I may have technically been watching anime way before, but one of the first that grabbed me was the Kanon, and it’s the one that I still credit with getting me hooked on anime in the first place.
Fate/Grand Order and Franchise Faces
Media franchises are bound to shift and change over time. Sometimes, this sneaks in more gradually though a series of slow deviations. And out of this, you get things like Fate/Grand Order.
Run With the Wind and Internal Victories
Throughout the series, the greatest things that the Kansei running team have to overcome are always themselves and each other.
Subsurface Circular and Solvable Games
The idea of a “solvable game” is usually reserved for competitive games, particularly board games. But then there are adventure games and Subsurface Circular.
Shaman King and Gecko Endings
Anime adaptations of light novels and especially manga have a nasty inherent problem to them. Most are made with the intention of promoting sales of their source material – usually a still-ongoing series – which will inevitably have a slower release cycle than the week-to-week release of a TV show. Naturally, this is a tricky business.
