Japanimation Station Season 6 - TOMINO-THON!

Our Grand Tour now takes us to the turn of the century, and the dawn of modern comedy anime, with the classic series Azumanga Daioh: The Animation!  Based on the celebrated four-panel manga by Azuma Kiyohiko, which has proven itself one of the most influential series to the last 25 years of comedy manga, the TV series is a landmark in its own right, helping to crack the code of how anime can adopt...

Takahashi Kazuki’s Yu-Gi-Oh!  is a worldwide phenomenon that needs no introduction, since the anime has been airing in one incarnation or another every week for the past 25 years, and the card game is still going strong. But this week, our Grand Tour takes us to the most mysterious corner of the Yu-Gi-Oh!  kingdom, and one many listeners probably haven’t seen before: The original 1998 anime by Toe...

This week, our Grand Tour takes us to one of the most unique series we’ve ever covered: Gonzo’s 26-episode cult classic Welcome to the N.H.K.!  Based on the 2002 novel by Takimoto Tatsuhiko, this 2006 series explores Japan’s hikkikomori  (social withdrawal) phenomenon, modern Otaku culture, internet-era suicide pacts, and many more contemporary issues, doing it all with startling clarity, immense...

Our Grand Tour reaches one of its strangest destinations this week as we complete our trilogy of Tezuka Osamu-themed episodes with a look at the Animerama Trilogy,  a collection of three experimental animated films for adults created by Mushi Productions between 1969 and 1973. Coinciding with the Japanese New Wave movement and the rise of ‘Pink Films,’ these movies are stylistically anarchic, occa...

Fifty years after the original Dororo  aired on TV, MAPPA brought Tezuka Osamu’s Dororo  roaring into the 21st century with a radically different take – and it’s the next stop on our exciting Grand Tour! With a reimagined conception of Hyakkimaru, expanded roles for characters like Daigo Kagemitsu and Tahomaru, and a striking modern animation style, MAPPA’s Dororo  is a worthy reinterpretation of...

Our Grand Tour now takes us back to the first decade of anime, and to the work of the ‘God of Manga’ himself, the one and only Tezuka Osamu! The creator of series like Mighty Atom, Black Jack,  and Princess Knight,  Tezuka’s Mushi Productions pioneered TV anime as we know it today, and Dororo  is one of the towering achievements of their 1960s output. Based on the unfinished manga by Tezuka, and d...

Our Grand Tour continues with the second half of Dragon Ball GT,  which marked the end of the 18-year ‘Toriyama Block’ on Fuji TV, and the end of new Dragon Ball  stories on TV until Dragon Ball Super nearly 20 years later. The first few episodes here cover the ‘Super Android 17’ Arc, which is probably the very worst bit of Dragon Ball  ever created, but the ‘Shadow Dragons’ Saga has always had mo...

Our new season begins with a blast from the past, as we return to the 90s for an in-depth look at Dragon Ball GT,  the 64-episode, anime-only extension of Toriyama Akira’s classic series. While GT  has always proven divisive among Dragon Ball  fans, Sean and Jonathan have never made it all the way through – and doing so turns out to be a bit of a challenge, because as much as we both love all thin...

Gundam  is back, which means Weekly Suit Gundam  returns once more, thanks to this weekend’s release of Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX -Beginning-  in American theaters. The film, which collects the first few episodes of the upcoming GQuuuuuuX  TV series, is the result of an exciting, long-awaited collaboration behind the Otaku madmen at Studio Khara, including Neon Genesis Evangelion  creator Anno...

The latest film from Kyoto Animation veteran Yamada Naoko – known for K-On!, A Silent Voice,  and Tamako Market –  arrived in American theaters courtesy GKids this weekend, and both Sean and Jonathan made trips to the theater to check it out. Now working with Science SARU, Yamada’s voice is as singular as ever, and while The Colors Within  returns to some familiar narrative territory for the direc...

The fourth and potentially final TV season of the hit anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba  aired its fourth season this summer, adapting and expanding on the “Hashira Training Arc” of Koyoharu Gotouge’s manga. We weren’t able to review this season right when it finished due to work on our massive Kyoto Animation project, but now that we’re between seasons we thought it was time to talk once more...

Weekly Suit Gundam makes its triumphant return to review the long-awaited Mobile Suit Gundam SEED FREEDOM,  the film sequel to the first Gundam  anime of the 21st century: Gundam SEED  and Gundam SEED Destiny.  We are big fans of the original SEED  on this podcast, and were driven slightly insane by Destiny,  so seeing director Mitsuo Fukuda and the original cast and crew come back together for a...

It’s the final episode of our Kyoto Vacation  season, an incredibly, unexpectedly long journey that’s lasted almost a full year! For this Season Finale, we thought we’d take stock of all the incredible anime we’ve seen from the incredible artists at Kyoto Animation. We make a Tier List of all the TV series and movies we watched this season, create a KyoAni drinking game based on the most common vi...

It’s the penultimate episode of our Kyoto Vacation  season, and while we wait to board the plane back to America, we’ve got one last show to review: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid,  which aired two seasons in 2017 and 2021. A delightfully silly and surprisingly sweet slice-of-life comedy an office worker and the extra-dimensional dragon who’s infatuated with her, the first season was directed by the...

The 7th and final part of our epic Kyoto Vacation  is titled“Through Rain or Shine: The Life and Times of Violet Evergarden,” and in today’s episode we reach the end of that story with  Violet Evergarden: The Movie.  And what a movie it is. Here is a film that made at least one of our hosts ugly cry, and deeply affected both of us. An outstanding masterpiece of a movie on its own terms, and a trem...

The 7th and final part of our epic Kyoto Vacation  continues with the first Violet Evergarden  film, Eternity and the Auto-Memory Doll!  It is a ‘Gaiden’ side-story that plays like a longer, lusher episode of the TV series, where Violet comes into a client’s life and not only helps them write the perfect letter, but in so doing helps them make a major personal breakthrough. And this time, she does...

The 7th and final part of our epic Kyoto Vacation  is titled“Through Rain or Shine: The Life and Times of Violet Evergarden,” which means we finally get to dive into an anime we’ve wanted to review for years:  Violet Evergarden,  the 2018 series based on the acclaimed novels by Akiko Takase. It is, as you’ve probably heard, a masterpiece, a departure in setting and storytelling from many KyoAni wo...

Part 6 of our Kyoto Vacation  comes to an end today with the third and final season of Sound! Euphonium,  which also happens to be the most recent production from Kyoto Animation, having finished airing just a few weeks ago! This season (and the accompanying Ensemble Contest  OVA) tells the story of Kumiko’s final year in High School and the Kitauji Band’s last shot at taking the Gold at Nationals...

Part 6 of our Kyoto Vacation  continues with the second Sound! Euphonium  movie, and the one that directly follows on the events of the TV show to continue the story of Kumiko in her 2nd year at Kitauji. And it may be the most divisive episode of the season so far, as although Sean loved the film and found it a compelling exploration of Kumiko moving into her role as senpai  to a new group of firs...

Part 6 of our Kyoto Vacation  is titled ‘Yamada Naoko Strikes Back; or, I Have no Voice and I Must Sound! Euphonium,’  and in this week’s episode, both halves of that title meet, and then some. We are discussing the 2018 film Liz and the Blue Bird,  a spin-off/side story to the main Sound! Euphonium  narrative, focusing on the oboe and flute players Mizore and Nozomi as they navigate their unusual...

Part 6 of our Kyoto Vacation  continues with Sound! Euphonium 2,  the aptly titled second season of Kyoto Animation’s beloved adaptation of Takeda Ayano’s novels. This batch of episodes picks up right where the first left off, with the students of the Kitauji High Concert Band working hard to make it to Nationals, but this time working through a lot more interpersonal drama. Where the first season...

Part 6 of our Kyoto Vacation  is titled ‘Yamada Naoko Strikes Back; or, I Have no Voice and I Must Sound! Euphonium.’  And from here on, we’re looking at the second half of that title, as we review Kyoto Animation’s beloved adaptation of Takeda Ayano’s Sound! Euphonium novels (co-directed, of course, by the one and only Yamada Naoko). In today’s episode, we’re looking at the 13 episodes (and 1 OVA...

Welcome back for Part 6 of our Kyoto Vacation,  entitled ‘Yamada Naoko Strikes Back; or, I Have no Voice and I Must Sound! Euphonium.’  And while most of this part will deal with the second half of that title, today’s subject is all about the aforementioned Yamada Naoko, the Kyoto Animation wunderkind behind K-On!  and Tamako Market,  and the director of what might well be the best thing we’ve wat...

Part 5 of our Kyoto Vacation, “Kyoto Animation’s Splendid Isolation,”  comes to a close with one last adventure with the characters of  Love, Chuunibyo, and Other Delusions,  in their 2018 movie,  Take on Me!  The film finds Rikka and Yuta off on a journey across Japan as they ‘elope’ after Rikka’s big sister Toka plans to move her to Italy for her final year of high school. Many hijinks ensue, an...

We are back for a particularly ‘colorful’ episode of Part 5 of our Kyoto Vacation, “Kyoto Animation’s Splendid Isolation,”  with our review of 2016’s  Myriad Colors Phantom World.  While this series isn’t one of KyoAni’s ‘masterpiece’ shows, it might just be their most underrated. A madcap comedy packed with wall-to-wall creativity, vivid characters, and a smarter and more emotionally engaging str...