Continuing my deep-dive into the earlier and less well-known works of TYPE-MOON’s co-founder and writer of Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night, we’re now into the second part of anime studio ufotable’s The Garden of Sinners/Kara no Kyoukai. Most of this series’ stories are blessed with two titles, this one carrying the…

The availability of TYPE-MOON’s founding writer Kinoko Nasu’s work has long been scattershot and inconsistent in the West. His most well-known visual novels Fate/Stay Night and Tsukihime have never been officially available, and apart from anime adaptations of his earlier work and the ongoing mobile gacha game Fate/Grand Order, fans…

In December of 2022, something miraculous occurred. For the first time, a TYPE-MOON visual novel received an official English-language localisation. With no need for potential readers to acquire game files by surreptitious means, nor to rely on the good will (and spare time!) of fan translators, this now-including-full-Japanese-voice-acting remaster of…

I’m no fan of team sports, nor of sports anime (except for the sublimely insane Birdie Wing), so went into basketball anime The First Slam Dunk with minimal expectations. I certainly didn’t predict it would be one of the best anime movies I’ve ever seen. Based on the 31-volume 1990–1996…

When is a sequel not a sequel? When it’s a tonally incongruous and chronologically discordant follow-up like 2005’s Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, a “fan disc” that succeeds TYPE-MOON’s 2004 smash hit visual novel Fate/Stay Night (hereafter referred to as FSN). Last month, I finally succeeded in completing my journey through FSN’s dark…

After covering this otherwise fairly light season’s new shows yesterday, today we’re looking at some very big sequels. There’s a few I’ve deliberately avoided, however — especially Rent-A-Girlfriend Season 3. I suffered through two whole seasons of wheel-spinning plot paralysis caused by the most irritating protagonist in the history of…

That’s us at the halfway point of the Summer anime season, and my overall impression is that it’s been mostly lacklustre, however there are a few shining jewels hidden amongst the lazy, boring isekai sludge. First — a couple of surprising hits from Netflix:

Never say I don’t (eventually) keep my promises. Almost three years since I reviewed the first and second routes of Kinoko Nasu’s seminal visual novel Fate/Stay Night (henceforth referred to as F/SN), I’m finally back to cover the third route, the infamously dark and twisted masterpiece Heaven’s Feel. First of…

Summer 2023’s looking great for anime movies in the UK. Coming up over the next couple of months are: 1) the highly-anticipated (by me, at least) Psycho-pass: Providence movie that promises to explain some of the lingering mysteries left over from the fantastic third TV season; 2) The First Slam…