It's nternational Blog Against Racism Week. For more details, go to the ibarw or refer to the explanatory post. IBARW has motivated me to finish writing up some old posts ( Read more... )

AfterEllen, a website geared towards lesbian/bi content in Western (primarily United Statesian) media, is streaming Aoi Hana, a yuri anime. I never thought I'd see streaming anime be offered to a non-anime audience, let alone have niche yuri anime make the crossover ( Read more... )

Venus Versus Virus is the Goth Lolita version of the teens fight against energy/soul sucking spirits/monsters/youma manga trope. In this series the monsters are called viruses; Venus Vanguard is an antique and jewelry shop that also doubles as a virus fighting agency; Sumire is the schoolgirl who's got latent psychic powers, is appealing to viruses ( Read more... )

( Spoilers are very general, and mostly about how good this manga is. )

( Spoilers show their affection through violence, and ridiculous displays of yakuza honor. )

When reviewing volumes 9 - 11 of Claymore, oyceter wrote about shounen bodies:

"I also want to formulate some sort of thesis about monstrous bodies and strength in shounen: how strength is directly tied to monstrosity, particularly in the villains, but how even heroic strength is frequently tied in with bodily abuse or breaking down your body to build ( Read more... )

My library had the first volume of After School Nightmare, I keep reading good reviews of the series on LJ, so I decided to pick it up again even though parts of it made me uneasy. The manga is still gorgeously surreal, with strange symbolism reminiscent of Revolutionary Girl Utena, and has pretty artwork. At least in volume 1, the stuff that made ( Read more... )

A while ago, I read worldserpent's post listing all the anime/manga series with female protagonists s/he liked. It was in reaction to mistful's post on some reasons why people find it hard to like female characters, and on some of the comments to the post. Reading the latter post made me puzzled over some of the reasons mistful brought up, and like going around pointing out ( Read more... )

When I read Hellsing, I vacillate between "OMFG, why am I reading about a Gary Stu vampire who pwns all?" and "Wait, wah? Hm...moar plz." I have similar feelings about Hellsing as I do about Yami No Matsuei: addictively stylish crack, has potential, and a lot of problems ( Read more... )

You start thinking that you've seen it all in manga, that you can spot the cliche and tropes, and serials from ten feet away, and then you come across:

"Don't you think you should stick to either reanimating dead tissue or creating a killer robot? I mean, one project at a time?!"-Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service volume 7, on the subject of robot ( Read more... )