Anime ONA

Original Net Animation: The Future of Anime?

Today's post is a guest essay by author JD Cowan: Anime in the ’90s was being squeezed out during Japan’s economic bubble popping, but it was still being produced in the highest quality possible. Despite the downturn, anime was still growing domestically and abroad. And it was still aiming high.…
June 12, 202413 Comments
End of Gainax

Anime Ground Zero and The End of Gainax

Despite the overwhelming evidence collected on this blog that anime, like all forms of pop culture entertainment, suffered a fatal blow in the late 1990s, some still cling to that dead art form, hoping for a miracle. Well, if a miracle were to resurrect the Japanese animation industry, the logical…
June 11, 202421 Comments
Fist of the North Star

Fist of the North Star (1986)

Let me take you back to a time before rent-seeking cargo cultists prowled the animation industry shaking down studios. When anime was drawn on cells with rich, hand-mixed paint. Before the dead-eyed, pastel times; before Ground Zero. In those bad old analog days, if you wanted to watch anime, you…
March 11, 202412 Comments
Toriyama Goku Goodbye

Beloved Cartoonist Akira Toriyama Dead at 68

Akira Toriyama, the legendary creator of global phenomenon Dragon Ball, has passed away at age 68. Akira Toriyama suffered an acute subdural hematoma, a type of bleeding near the brain, his studio said Friday. Dragon Ball is hugely popular around the world and the comic series has also spawned cartoon…
March 8, 202420 Comments
Rooster Teeth Logo

Rooster Teeth Bites the Dust

Earlier reports of geek culture cartoon studio Rooster Teeth Productions' demise turned out to have been premature. But now, the Time-Warner subsidiary's general manager has issued a statement confirming that the animation company has indeed given up the ghost. Dear Rooster Teeth, Since our founders created and uploaded their first…
March 7, 202427 Comments
Gundam Hathaway

Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway

If you've read this blog pretty much anytime in the last 5 years, you're aware of my deep and abiding love for classic anime, especially of the mecha genre. And if you've followed my writing - or anime in general - these years, you may have noted that the industry…
November 3, 20234 Comments
Anime by Decade

Anime Ground Zero

You knew it was coming sooner or later. In another blow to the meme of Based Japan, I regret to inform you that anime did not escape the blast wave of Cultural Ground Zero. H/t to author JD Cowan, whose post last week inspired this one. To give an example…
December 26, 202229 Comments
TragedyOfTheAges

Tragedies of the Ages

An important part of being a social commentator is engaging with good-faith arguments that challenge your positions on the topics you cover. That goes double for writers, since it's storytellers who are the new priesthood of our narrative-driven society. That is also why literary critics play a vital if often…
August 8, 202221 Comments
Milo v Beardson2

Milo v Beardson 2

A few months back, I let readers in on the internet beef between professional gadfly Milo Yiannopoulos and curmudgeonly streamer Beardson Beardly. Many were surprised that instead of a slap fight, the two debaters arrived at a détente of sorts over the meaning and gradations of art. It was a…
March 1, 20223 Comments
Attack on Titan

Attack on Titan

Having fallen behind the anime scene some years ago, I didn't know quite what to expect when a friend lent me one of the most popular current series, Attack on Titan. Despite a title that sounds like it belongs to a forgotten A.E. van Vogt military thriller, this series based on…
February 24, 202231 Comments