Posted on October 15, 2025
hiroshi kamiya and the tower of youth
recently I was chatting with a friend about old-school fansubs, and we laughingly recalled those heady days of youth where you’d have to wait months at a time for an episode, or how subbing groups might even disappear all together without finishing what they started.
an anecdote of mine rose up from the depths, which I recounted without a second thought: a voice actor in a show I loved had been injured before being able to finish recording his lines and had to be replaced by someone else for the final episode – and how out of devotion, I waited to finish the series until the fansub group was able to tackle the DVD version, with the original actor’s voice.
afterwards, I wondered – this would have been nearly 20 years ago at this point, but – was it even true? read on to find out…
(more…)Posted on July 2, 2025
Detectives These Days Are (driving me) Crazy
I’ve been watching less and less anime as it airs these days – perhaps because I prefer watching things once they’re complete, or maybe it’s because of hype fatigue… whatever the core reason, taste-testing my first show of the summer 2025 season certainly did not fill me with confidence that my viewing habits would change any time soon. if you’ve been round these parts for any amount of time, what piqued my interest about this show should be immediately obvious – a past-his-prime, ex-teen detective, aging out of precociousness while taking on a high school girl as his assistant? sounds like themes I’m interested in as a baseline, certainly, so I was bound to check it out. which, with hindsight, I rather wish I hadn’t! what left me feeling so sour about Detectives These Days Are Crazy? read on to find out!
(more…)Posted on January 11, 2025
I finally finished Xabungle!
it only took me… two years. my stamina for 50 ep anime is so low I kept having to pause, phew! it’s definitely unrelentingly sexist – and the way they incorporate/deal with indigenous populations early on stinks – but I’m not all that surprised, given that it’s a show from 1982. caveats aside, I did still enjoy it – the animation was such a constant barrage of playful kineticism that I couldn’t look away for fear of missing something. I did come to like the characters a lot (I’m especially fond of the character designs!), though that did make the general treatment of the gals that much more frustrating.
I haven’t watched much other anime by Yoshiyuki Tomino (perhaps in avoidance/fear of the ‘greats’), but I think I might take a gander at some of his less famed works after seeing this one!
