AniFriday Issue #26 – Autumn Manga Special pt2: Bleach

Oh god!  Here I came into this supposedly final arc, expecting answers and revelations.  Instead, I’m seeing a lot of the same stuff that made me hate the previous arcs, and call this series a bloated formulaic mess.  Everything I love and find cool about this show can be boiled down to a few characters.  Any love I once had for this series is dangling from a metaphorical string made of three to four personalities.  It’s almost as bad as when I was watching the original InuYasha anime once it got past the first 60-70 episodes.  At this point, if there’s anything good and memorable to be strung from this series’ last arc, it will have to come from Ichigo – again!

Since I haven’t been able to put together weekly AniFriday posts for most of the summer, I thought I’d take the material that I could and compile it into specific posts for each series.  While I couldn’t squeeze in time for some much desired anime watching, I did have time to read my favorite manga week t0 week.  For this post, I’ll be focusing on the chapters (591 – 603) I read during that hiatus for Bleach and its final major arc, the war with the Quincy.  At the end, I’ve given my general overall thoughts on the material, while on the way there you can see my chapter by chapter thoughts on the series.  Though I think I may have given away some of thoughts in my initial rant.  Pardon me, while many may have abandoned this series, I still hold some semblance of passion for it.

AniFriday Issue #25 – Autumn Manga Special pt1: Hajime no Ippo

It’s been quite a while since I last talked about Hajime no Ippo in length.  And quite happening to be revisiting a discussion about this series in chunks.  It allows for a clearer, elongated perspective where I get to notice trends and not get so distracted by the moment to moment set ups of each chapter.  This post will be covering the final chapters of Ippo’s fight with Alredo Gonzales, the current #1 contender for the flyweight championship of the world, and the only man standing between Ippo and his ultimate goal of the world champ, Ricardo Martinez.  However, I’ll be talking about this fight as a whole at the end, from chapter 1030 to 1071.

I’m so hyped for Ippo!  God, I love this manga!

AniFriday Issue #19 (June 27th, 2014): Chaotic Neutral vs. Neutral Evil

 

Had to adjust my AniFriday schedule a bit, even if it meant pushing back the post a whole week.  I just couldn’t allow to call this series AniFriday, and all my posts go up late on a Saturday night… Damn you JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure!  But I won’t dwell on that.

I will say, it feels great to be in a groove with a couple of series again.  Tokyo Ravens is fun as hell, Chaika is damn near my favorite thing to watch right now, and even though Stardust Crusaders has been a little stale for a bit in my opinion, it’s still better than most shounen battle material I’ve watched or read this year.  As for the manga, I’m pretty much hyped for everything except for Umi no Misaki, and you’ll see why.  I don’t know what it needs more of.  Perhaps more tits and/or plot – wait!  That’s the same thing isn’t ?!

Here are the anime and manga I’ll be covering in this post, in order:

• Stardust Crusaders ep12
• Tokyo Ravens ep18
• Chaika the Coffin Princess ep4
• Naruto ch681
• Bleach ch585
• Hunter X Hunter ch342 – 344
• One Piece ch750
• Team Medical Dragon ch105
• Umi no Misaki ch6

AniFriday Issue #17 (June 6th, 2014): all you can eat buffet of creepypasta

There must be a special on creepy this week.  Almost every anime episode I watched this week had some creepy as hell sh*t in it.  From some guy bragging about how much he enjoys using a toilet that uses a pig to clean your butt, to evil mirror hopping murder monsters, to government lackeys who enjoy being way to far inside an alien girls personal bubble, to a magical familiar who just stares at teenagers with murderous intent.  It’s anime, so it’s a rule that it’s always weird, but even that stuff has its awkward moments among the awkward moments.  And all this crap is obscuring the death of a character I really liked!  Damn you anime weirdness!  You make everything uncomfortable!

AniFriday Issue #15 (May 23rd, 2014): Victory Through Anti-Hype

I dare say that I’m almost getting back on schedule.  I may be two days late posting this (killing my thought out defense that it’s Friday somewhere when I post these), but at least I’m almost regularly watching anime and reading manga now.  I’m still in the process of figuring out where I’m at in regards to the current anime world though.  In the process of doing this, I’ve tried taking up a little show called Captain Earth.  Let’s see how this goes, because I’m not exactly in the mood for a super robot show right now.

AniFriday Issue #7 (December 20th 2013)

This has been a tiring and hectic week for me, but it has also been a week with one of the best moments of my life.  Sunday my sister graduated from the UNC Chapel Hill!  I don’t know what her major is, I think it has something to do with some holistic medicine, witch doctor mumbo-jumbo.  But that doesn’t matter right now.  I’m intensely proud (and a bit jealous) of her.  And if she gets to read this (because I didn’t really talk that much that day), I wish her all the happiness in the world, and a good job, too.

Now then, onto the anime and manga commentary.  Here’s what I’ll be covering this week, in order.

• Tokyo Ravens ep11
• Ms. MONOCHROME ep12
• Valvrave ep22
• Coppelion ep12
• One Piece ch732
• Naruto ch659
• Bleach ch562
• Team Medical Dragon ch90
• The World God Only Knows

Oh, and in case you’re wondering about the change in titling for these posts from being named parts to issues; I’m attempting to go with the magazine theme I love so much.  I know this is a blog, but humour me.  This is a hobby after all, I’m gonna f*ck around and experiment any chance I get.

AniFriday pt6 (December 13th 2013)

 

Man, it has been a tiring week.  It’s not easy for me to keep up with all this anime.  And I can’t help but think I’ve brought this upon myself.  I mean, if I would actually not f*ck around and watch everyone of these shows consistently every week, then I wouldn’t have to worry about these long tiring “catch up” sessions.  Then again, there’s something to be said about the joy of watching a show in spurts like this, as if I were renting an anime DVD from Blockbuster or the old local video rental place back at home.  Ah!  Memories!

For now, I hope you guys appreciate the effort and attention to detail I’ve put into watching and analyzing these shows.  At this point in the season, and the year, I’m really learning to appreciate what has been a very interesting year of anime.  A surprising year.   And maybe even in this post here, that only covers mediocre to average anime I’m currently watching could have moments that are memorable, or that perhaps will last and reverberate forever throughout anime history.  It’s unlikely as hell, but it could happen.

This week I’ll be shaking up things a bit by adding manga to this AniFriday post, because… well because “why not?”  The name AniFriday doesn’t really mean anything, I can barely get these out on time, and I’m pretty damn sure someone’s already using the name Manga Monday somewhere.

Here are the series I’ll be covering in order of appearance:

• Valvrave eps 18 – 21
• Ms. MONOCHROME ep11
• Tokyo Ravens ep10
• Coppelion ep11
• Naruto ch657 & 658
• One Piece ch729 – 731
• Bleach ch560 & 561

If anyone knows a way for me to link to different sections within a blog post to make this quicker, I’d appreciate it.  For now, enjoy the presentation!