OK. This is the new improved version of the Deli. For your nibbling delight, I offer my thoughts and reviews of Anime I have seen on other sites, programs, or my own library. Most of what you see here will be action/adventure, mystery, cyber-world (yeah, I know that’s irony), shoujo, some shonen, and the occasional…
Toshokan Sensou: Library Wars!
Authors/Artist: Kiiro Yumi and Hiro Arikawa Publisher: Hakusensha, 2008- Truth! Justice! And the Librarian’s Way! How embarrassing! I, Purryfur, Do Not Fangirl. It’s like laughing out loud: I don’t do it. No, really. But I’ve followed this series since its 2008 scanlation. And now, all 14 volumes of Viz Media’s English translation are on my…
Nisekoi
Yakuza, Gangsters, High School and Harem Season One: 20 Episodes The four things in the title of the post do not sum up this series. They are the four major elements; the story is another thing altogether. Its focus is the bewildering nature of the minefield that finding first love is from the boy’s point…
Brothers Conflict
SHOUJO ALERT REPEAT SHOUJO ALERT 12 Episodes. There is only one reason to watch this Anime: Thirteen (13!) Hot Guys! (Well, only twelve, really: one is ten years old and only thinks he’s in the running. Umm, things like this might happen with twelve older brothers, the next oldest being fifteen.) There is…
Black Bullet
13 Episodes Once again, this is a short Anime series with concentrated, complex story lines and characters. It is also set in a near future, 2031, in a Tokyo much reduced in size and population. On the surface, it seems not much has changed, but that’s not true. Within the space of ten years, the…
Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East
26 Episodes, on-going A word of advice: Do not look too closely into the legend or the novel this Anime is based on. That way lies the spiderweb of true scholarship. Eight warriors, eight gems, one good princess, and one evil princess in a story borrowed from China are the building blocks reshuffled…
Gugure! Kokkuri-san
Manga Author/Artist: Midori Endo Publisher: Square Enix Co., LTD On-going Anime and Manga are generally divided into four broad categories: shoujo: girls’; shonen: boys’; seinen: men’s; and josei: women’s. Gugure! Kokkuri-san’s category is comedy. It’s presented in an eccentric mix of four-frame gags, one-page jokes, and several-page sketches which contain elements of any and/or all…
Just a note……..
John is my editor, I shall not grouse. He maketh me clear my muddy thoughts And leadeth me toward better prose For my name’s sake. His sight and his mind, they polish me. Yea, though I drown in the sea of the trivial, And get lost in the maze of digression, He will find me…
Witch Craft Works
Takamiya-kun’s In Trouble 12 episodes Witch Craft Works is warm, affectionate, funny, and shonen. Yep, shonen, breast fetish included. Wait, aren’t “warm and affectionate” Shoujo traits? Uh-huh. Witch Works is very well balanced. It never puts anyone down and laughs with more than at. It’s very nearly hug worthy. The main character is Takamiya Honoka…
Pandora Hearts
25 episodes Sometimes, the Japanese treat English children’s stories like English treats other languages: they follow them down dark paths, beat them senseless, and steal the pieces they want. But then, the Japanese take their booty back to the laboratory, cut it into its constituent parts, and graft the donor pieces onto an unrelated story. …
World Break: Aria of Curse for a Holy Swordsman
For all that this is fan service shonen aimed at the twelve to maybe fifteen year-old audience and is a slay-the-monsters-save-the-world story, it didn’t feel hackneyed and I wasn’t offended by the fan service: it was so ridiculous. (I did cringe at the size of the breasts on some of the girls. They would be…
Deltora Quest
52 episodes Long, long ago, in the land of America, there was born a race of card games called “deck builder” or “collectible card” games. The most famous of these is “Magic: The Gathering™”. “Magic’s” success spawned many imitators, among them, Deltora Quest, by Bandai of Japan. Bandai then produced an anime based on…
Maoyu
Maoyu How did they pull this off??? 12 episodes Maoyu seems so simple: just a lovely fairy tale romance story — at first. Then, the densely packed layers in this gently told tale start to unfold. It begins with what Joseph Campbell called “The Hero’s Journey” and proceeds into one of the most lucid,…
Un-Go
Un-Go 11 episodes (2011) I have read that most anime are used as introductions to manga series. Certainly that is true of Fruits Basket and Ouran High School Host Club. It would seem, though I have not seen the title among my manga sources, that this may be true here. The last episode really…
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