Idol no Akahon – Review

13-year old Shiho Iida is one of those girls who always wanted to be an idol. When she finally received the call that a company wanted to book her, it turned out that a miscommunication caused the group to book three separate talents at once. Rather than turn down the girls who worked so hard to get there, it’s decided that the three of them will form an idol group, the uncreatively titled Triple Booking.

Toriko – Review

As I’ve read more and more series from Weekly Shonen Jump, I’ve come to realize how they can make amazing series out of the most ridiculous premises imaginable. Just among their well known manga, we have the story of the rubber pirate who wants to rule the ocean, the intense mystery case of the magic killer notebook, and the gun-crazy extortionist who dreams of making the world’s greatest football team. After a while, nothing they came out with could surprise me, which is why I’m glad I first heard of Toriko so long ago.

Food is the most important thing in this world by far. It’s what 90% of the world’s economy revolves around, if not more. One of the most highly respected jobs in this world is that of the Bishokuya, or “food hunters” who gather the special ingredients that are too tough to be obtained through normal means. Our protagonist is one of these people. Armed with only his intense love for delicious food – and the hundreds of millions of yen he’ll make – Toriko and his new chef Komatsu go out in search of rarer and rarer ingredients. With luck, they’ll be able to get their hands on them before the criminal organization the Bishokukai can use them to manipulate the hungry citizens of the world.

Psyren – Review

Tell me if this has ever happened to you. Someone gives you a recommendation of a particular series, and a big part of why they recommend it is because of how dark the series is. Hearing this, you get very excited about it at first, only for that excitement to quickly decrease when you think about it and realize you have no idea what the other person meant by “dark”. Take, for example, Hunter x Hunter. I’ve often heard that series described as a darker shonen, but if you actually looked at a lot of popular shonen series, you’ll realize they can be pretty dark as well. So is Hunter x Hunter on that level, or is it closer to something like Deadman Wonderland? If all you hear is “dark”, that’s a tough question to answer.

You see, there are a lot of factors that can go into a series being qualified as dark, and which of these factors a work contains can be crucial to the viewer. What is the overall mood of the series? What are the characters like? Is there death, and if so, how much? Is there war? Is there rape, and how is it handled? What other personal issues are discussed? Does it have an apocalyptic setting? Does the universe run on the angst of children? The answers to any one of these questions can be a serious deal breaker for some readers, so it’s important to know where the manga stands.

Invasion! Squid Girl – Review

I keep referring to the series as Squid Girl and the character as Ika Musume. Is that weird?

I’m a little more nervous about this video than usual, both because it’s my first review made with Audacity and because I’m discussing a gag series. It’s difficult to come up with much to say about something like this, but I think I manage it fairly well all things considered. I really liked how well some of the pictures fit together in particular.

The World God Only Knows – Review

The story of the classiest otaku you’ll ever meet.

I ended up getting a new microphone for this review. It sounds similar, although it’s considerably more quiet than before. This mainly affects the beginning, since I wasn’t used to how far away I should be from a standing mic.

As mentioned previously, I’ll be away from home for the next few days for personal reasons. Luckily, I’ll be bringing my laptop with me to the place I’m going, but I can’t currently say how much access to it I’ll have.