#he loves manga and considers himself a fudanshi

[edenfire]

hey there, pretty boy🌸

[kabutoraiger]

thinking deeply about which other kamen riders i could conceivably consider to be fudanshi

george karizaki. obviously. into most of the big rider ships and also shipping himself with all his faves.

tezuka might be the first to ever do it in this franchise as one could consider his stint as ren's therapist to be partially an attempt to make renshinji happen.

you know kento was reading so many gay novels during his miserable boy era imagining it was him and touma if only they lived in a world that wasn't doomed to the eternal void 😔

imo there could easily be a lost kabuto episode where tsurugi gets majorly into BL manga like specifically the original stuff from the 70s where all the men are sparkly campy bishounen princes who live in french chateaus. he tries to coerce kagami into reenacting his favorite panels with him to varying degrees of success.

gou secretly likes BL but loudly pretends not to, deeming it "gross" and "cringe". kiriko knows it's a lady doth protest too much kind of thing.

i think yusuke decade likes to watch the tv adaptations of BL and gets really weepy & invested in them and will give tsukasa meaningful glances across the room in the hopes he might start acting more like the caring love interests onscreen (tsukasa is on his phone & seemingly not paying attention) (but actually he is kind of mentally taking notes)

philip has studied the subject intensively of course.

nitou accidentally gets obsessed with a BL manga due to believing the cuter guy in the couple to be a tomboyish woman. the fallout from finally discovering the truth causes him to rebrand as an overzealous "straight ally" of gay rights while achieving no further personal realizations on the matter.

[meowsaidmayaanime]

Summer Simulcasts of 2016

Oh man there are so many anime this season that I can't wait to see more of!! I'm super excited!

Cheer Boys!!

I JUST watched the first episode and i'm already really into it. It's about two University boys who quite Judo Club to start an all-men's cheer leading team. I'm starting to get really into sports anime. I hope this one will be lots of fun!

Final Thoughts: This ended nicely, the focus was much more on the team dynamic and relationships than it was on the sport though. For a sports anime, we saw very little of the actual performances, which was disappointing since I love watching the animation for the cheer routines. But otherwise its a good story about college kids finding and developing themselves through cheerleading.

D.Gray Man : Hallow

I cannot express how excited I am for season 5. I LOVE this anime, and after 8 whole years we are finally getting new episodes!!! I just watched the first episode of Hallow and wow everything looks amazing. I'm just worried because now the anime is moving closer and closer to where the manga left off. I wonder if the animators will need to finish with a non-canonical ending considering the woman who writes the manga has not been releasing new chapters...

Final Thoughts: Wow, this season really caught up on a LOT of content from the manga, all the way up to when Allen visits the family who cared for him as a child. There is definitely going to be more considering they didn't make up any endings or new content, the only question is when??????? Definitely worth the watch if you a D.Gray Man fan.

The Morose Mononokean

Watched the first episode and so far this looks like it'll be pretty fun. It's and exorcist anime and we all know how I tend to love my exorcist anime!!

Final Thoughts: I was sadly disappointed in how the series decided to end. It's really sweet, but I think it was just too sweet for me. The content was too light, as in it felt like it was oriented more for a younger/child audience rather than a teenage one like the cast. I'm not sure if there will ever be a second season considering how many loose ends are left. I can't in good faith recommend this, it wasn't bad, it just isn't suited for older audiences.

Bananya

This is ridiculously adorable. A series of 3 minute episodes showing the lives of cats who live....in bananas! Judging by the narration, I think its target are young children. Which isn't a bad thing, it just means that they wont get too in depth about the plot.

The Highschool Life of a Fudanshi

I found another really short anime at only 3 minutes per episode, but I wish it was a 10 minute episode instead. They could do a lot more with this anime.

It basically follows the daily life of a highschool boy who is really into reading gay manga. Its super cute and funny, at 3 minutes per episode you should totally give this a shot.

Sweetness and Lightning

This is a show about a single father, Kohei, who happens to meet one of his students, Kotori, from the highschool he teaches at while viewing the cherry blossoms with his young daughter. He learns that his students mother owns a restaurant and that Kotori, like him, cannot cook. From their after visiting the restaurant, Kohei promises his daughter that he will learn to make good home made meals from now on, and Kotori asks to help learn with him. I just watched the first episode and damn is this show heart warming.

Final thoughts: This show was great, 12 episodes of the heartwarming tale of a single father trying to cook for his daughter. Throughout the series we watch the father and one of his students learn the basics of cooking, giving the audience real life cooking tips and recipes. Each recipe they follow is shown step by step, and many tips for cooking are given as well. Occasionally we are shown the recipe's themselves allowing us the audience to cook the same food if we wanted to.

But underneath all the beginner cooking, the show is really about trying to connect with each other as a family. It's about the struggles we face when trying to communicate and understand our parents and children, not only between a single father and his daughter, but also between a daughter and a mother who is constantly working and constantly away.

All in all, its an incredibly sweet 'natural' slice of life. I do wish that the ending had been more well defined, but because all the episodes could be stand alone, I don't think any other way of ending it would have worked well.  If your into cooking, heartwarming, tales of growth, slice of life, you will very much enjoy this one.

Days

Another sports anime this season! About a high school boy who wants to join the soccer team but is a complete beginner. Ahhhhh this one looks so good!

Continued thoughts: Days will actually be a 24 episode anime, meaning that it will continue into the fall simulcasts. However, halfway through the series it is amazing. I love this sports anime, and would very much recommend it to anyone, even people who aren't into soccer. I will give my final thoughts later when the series has ended.

Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World

A very good anime, main character Subaru suddenly finds himself mysteriously transported to another world, finds himself in a few sticky situations, and manages to make new friends in the process. While trying to help the girl who saved him find her stolen insignia we learn a little more about the world we and Subaru were so rudely dropped into, and about a mysterious power that surrounds Subaru’s sudden summoning to the new world.

So far it is incredibly good, the main character is really likable and you get to watch him start to change as a person as well and many different sides to the other characters around him. I won’t say too much as I believe it would be spoiling a little bit of the anime, but it is definitely one you should give a shot.

This anime will be extending into the summer simulcasts as a full 25 episode season rather than the typical 12 episodes. So I will reserve the rest of my judgment in my Summer Simulcast list when it has finished!

Bungo Stray Dogs

This show is great. It has magical abilities, detective work, mafia, and LOTS of dark comedy. I love it! Its like a vague mix of Sherlock and Charlotte, but at times darker. The season is extending into the summer being released as a full season of episodes rather than those dumb 12 episode half seasons. So with that said, I will finish my opinion when it has ended. But for now, I highly recommend watching it!!!

Twin Star Exorcists

This anime is just weird. I have a soft spot for exorcist shows but this one is sort of all over the place. It is extending into the summer simulcasts with a full season. It starts out as being about two young exorcists in training who are revealed as the ‘twin star exorcists’. A legendary pair of exorcists who are destined to bring a miko into the world who will defeat the ‘demons’ they fight. It very quickly became a fighting, exorcist, drama, romance, action anime, which is a weird combination of genres. I’m not sure how I feel about this anime either. I supposed I’m rather ‘in the middle’ with this one, it’s not good, it’s not bad, but I want to keep watching it. It’s still amusing, just so far not something I would openly recommend to anyone… I’ll give my final opinion after its finished airing.

addendum: I have dropped this anime. I'm not sure if I will ever finish it or not, but for now I am no longer watching it, you can read more about why I dropped it here.

Re:Life

Would HIGHLY recommend. It was released IN FULL, that is all 13 episodes were released all at once. Needless to say, I've already watched the entirety of it!

And Holy crap this anime turned out vastly better than I ever expected it to. The premise is that 27 year old Kaizaki Arata is unable to get a job after he quite his first job after only 3 months of employment. Now he has become slightly recluse and very much dispirited from being constantly turned away at interviews because of this and is unable to support himself. Until an agent at this company developing the technology to make a persons appearance young again with the offer of paying for Kaizaki’s living expenses for one year while he goes back to high school using the drug in order to turn him into a productive member of society. After reading that I was intrigued but also expecting a total ‘boob-fest’. Instead the show turned out to be very real, down to earth and focuses on many social issues and the development of relationships from classmates, to coworkers, to friends, to even (a little) romance. It’s absolutely fascinating and doesn’t have the stereotypical characteristics of a high school anime. The characters are wholesome and well rounded, following their journey of self discovery and growth.

This series is also the first series on Crunchyroll to be fully released all at once. So while it is technically a 2016 summer anime, the full 13 episodes were released July 1st. Which I think is really cool. I’m sure there will be another season considering this season (from what I heard) only barely scratched the tip of the manga. It did not reach the end of the ‘1 year as a high school student’ instead this season covers only half of the school year. But despite that, the ending of the season was not rushed and came to a wonderful (temporary) close. Because it was JUST released, no one quite knows when the second season will be released or if Re:Life was confirmed for one, but hopefully we will get to see more soon.

This is an anime I would definitely recommend anyone give a chance. Simply because it is very well done. If you like character development/self-discovery, school or slice of life anime, you will love this one. It is not fast paced and does not have fan service (i’m glad), so don’t go into this expecting any of that!

10/10 would watch again. Here’s the trailer.