Japanimation Station Season 6 - TOMINO-THON!

We are back for Part 5 of our Kyoto Vacation, “Kyoto Animation’s Splendid Isolation,”  and today we return to the wacky world of  Love, Chuunibyo, and Other Delusions  for its second season,  Heart Throb!  This second batch of episodes sees Rikka and Yuta struggling with what it means to be a couple when another  chuunibyo  friend from Yuta’s past enters the picture, and while both Sean and Jonath...

We are back for Part 5 of our Kyoto Vacation,  entitled  “Kyoto Animation’s Splendid Isolation,”  and today we’re discussing what might be the worst series the fine folks at KyoAni have ever made: 2013’s  Beyond the Boundary,  a show that is as beautifully animated as anything the studio has ever produced, but suffers from generic (and sometimes incoherent) storytelling, flat characters, and a fru...

We are back for Part 5 of our Kyoto Vacation,  entitled  “Kyoto Animation’s Splendid Isolation,”  and today we’re discussing the next series made by the ladies behind  K-ON!,  2013’s  Tamako Market!  An entirely original creation by Naoko Yamada and Reiko Yoshida,  Tamako Market  is a strange, singular, and sweet slice-of-life series about the daughter of a mochi-shop owner and the many oddballs s...

We are back for Part 5 of our Kyoto Vacation,  entitled  “Kyoto Animation’s Splendid Isolation,”  where we will be looking at the period in the 2010s when KyoAni took complete control of their source material and began creating anime based on light novels they themselves published! That effort began with 2012’s  Love, Chuunibyo & Other Delusions!,  a series that starts out as a very funny, very si...

Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball  and Dr. Slump,  and illustrator of the Dragon Quest  franchise, passed away this week at the age of 68. His influence on our lives, like those of millions around the world, has been incalculable, so we’re devoting today’s entire show to discussing his incredible body of work and the way it changed anime, manga, video games, and global popular culture. We dis...

Part 4 of our Kyoto Vacation  is called  “My Ordinary Life is a Mystery to be Lived,”  and today’s second part tackles the ‘Mystery’ part of that title with 2012’s singular slice-of-life mystery anime  HYOUKA!  Adapted from the ‘Classic Literature Club’ novels by Honobu Yonezawa,  Hyouka  follows ‘energy conservationist’ Hotaro Oreki as he tries to glide through high school without giving anything...

Part 4 of our Kyoto Vacation  is called  “My Ordinary Life is a Mystery to be Lived,”  and we begin with one of Kyoto Animation’s most beloved cult classics, and also perhaps the weirdest show ever made:  Nichijou,  based on the manga by Keiichi Arawi, which follows three high-school girls, a genius child inventor, the robot big sister she invents for herself, a talking cat, and many more increasi...

Part 3 of our Kyoto Vacation  is‘ Moe Money, Moe Problems: After School Tea-Time with the Girls of K-On!’  And today, we’re finishing our journey with Hokago Tea Time by following the girls to London for an overseas adventure in  K-On! The Movie.  Released in 2011 to more or less unprecedented success for this type of anime, the feature film continuation of the series is one of the franchise’s fin...

Part 3 of our Kyoto Vacation  is‘ Moe Money, Moe Problems: After School Tea-Time with the Girls of K-On!’  And today, we’re discussing the 27-episode second season from 2010, which follows Yui, Ritsu, Mio, and Mugi-chan in their third and final year of high school, with second-year Azusa facing the prospect of being left behind after they all graduate. It’s an incredible season of TV, filled not o...

Part 3 of our Kyoto Vacation  is‘ Moe Money, Moe Problems: After School Tea-Time with the Girls of K-On!’  And for the next three weeks, we’re reviewing what may be Kyoto Animation’s most popular series to date:  K-On!,  the musical slice-of-life anime sensation following the girls of the Sakuragaoka High School light music club! The 14-episode 1st season follows Yui Hirasawa as she learns the gui...

It’s December 25th, and Christmas has finally come to Otaku Town – and with it, the final episode of Part 2 of our  Kyoto Vacation.  For today’s very special episode, we are finishing our journey through the world of  Haruhi Suzumiya  with the 2010 film  The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya,  the nearly-three-hour climactic story in Kyoto Animation’s beloved adaptation of Nagaru Tanigawa’s light n...

Part 2 of our  Kyoto Vacation  chronicles ‘ When Christmas Came to Otaku Town,’  and that holiday is drawing ever nearer with Season 2 of  The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Aired in 2009, this season collected the 14 episodes originally produced in 2006, re-arranges them in the story’s chronological order, and then intersperses 14 new episodes amidst them, to make for a new 28-episode version of...

Part 2 of our  Kyoto Vacation  chronicles ‘ When Christmas Came to Otaku Town,’  and in this episode, we do an extremely deep-dive into the single craziest experiment ever attempted in commercial anime: The infamous ‘Endless Eight’ arc from  The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya  Season 2. We will be talking about the rest of that show’s second season from 2009 in next week’s episode, but as we worked...

Part 2 of our  Kyoto Vacation  chronicles ‘ When Christmas Came to Otaku Town,’  and following the wild success of  Haruhi Suzumiya,  Kyoto Animation moved on to one of the defining slice-of-life anime comedies, 2007’s  Lucky Star!  Simultaneously a very dry, down-to-earth ‘atmospheric’ show and an absolutely absurd slice of post-modern anime surrealism,  Lucky Star  is a singularly entertaining s...

Part 2 of our  Kyoto Vacation  chronicles ‘ When Christmas Came to Otaku Town,’  beginning with a look at the first season of  The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  Based on the light novels by Nagaru Tanigawa,  Haruhi  is a seminal work of 21st century anime, with the first 14 episodes from 2006 creating an absolute sensation with major impacts on the future of the industry. It’s also an incredible...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first movie based on  Persona 3,  a game that is one of our all-time favorites here at  Japanimation Station . We reviewed each of those films as they released over on  The Weekly Stuff Podcast , and hold them in extremely high regard as some of the greatest video game adaptations of all time, in any medium – and an undeniably great work of anime. So thi...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first movie based on  Persona 3,  a game that is one of our all-time favorites here at  Japanimation Station . We reviewed each of those films as they released over on  The Weekly Stuff Podcast , and hold them in extremely high regard as some of the greatest video game adaptations of all time, in any medium – and an undeniably great work of anime. So thi...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first movie based on  Persona 3,  a game that is one of our all-time favorites here at  Japanimation Station . We reviewed each of those films as they released over on  The Weekly Stuff Podcast , and hold them in extremely high regard as some of the greatest video game adaptations of all time, in any medium – and an undeniably great work of anime. So thi...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first movie based on  Persona 3,  a game that is one of our all-time favorites here at  Japanimation Station . We reviewed each of those films as they released over on  The Weekly Stuff Podcast , and hold them in extremely high regard as some of the greatest video game adaptations of all time, in any medium – and an undeniably great work of anime. So thi...

Part 1 of our  Kyoto Vacation,  ‘ Crying is the Key to Happiness,’  comes to a close with  Clannad After Story,  the second and final season based on the legendary visual novel by Key VisualArts. And after speaking for 3.5 hours about the first season, we somehow go even longer on the second, which follows Tomoya and Nagisa progressing into adulthood and becomes an ever-deeper, richer, and more em...

Part 1 of our  Kyoto Vacation,  ‘ Crying is the Key to Happiness,’  continues with 2007’s  Clannad,  the first entry in a two-series journey adapting the legendary visual novel by Key VisualArts. And it is, immediately, a major artistic leap for Kyoto Animation, a stunningly animated, beautifully written, alternatingly hilarious and poignant portrait of high school friendship and romance. Before w...

Part 1 of our  Kyoto Vacation,  ‘ Crying is the Key to Happiness,’  continues with our review of  Kanon,  a fascinating snapshot of two groups of storytellers finding their way: The team at Key VisualArts, for whom  Kanon  was their first original visual novel, and the artists at Kyoto Animation, who had already made  Air  the year before, and were now working with double the episode order and an...

Part 1 of our  Kyoto Vacation  kicks off with ‘ Crying is the Key to Happiness,’  a series of episodes on Kyoto Animation’s adaptations of the acclaimed visual novels by Key VisualArts. We begin with 2005’s  Air,  the strange, sad, and surprising tale of a wandering boy, a girl obsessed with dinosaurs, an empathetic crow, and a winged girl in the sky.  Air  is a hard show to describe, but it’s a p...

Welcome to  Japanimation Station’s Kyoto Vacation,  the fourth season of our podcast and our biggest adventure yet! We are taking a journey through the works of Kyoto Animation, one of the most respected and beloved anime studios in Japan, reviewing shows like  Clannad, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, K-On!, Nichijou, Sound! Euphonium, Violet Evergarden,  and much more. But before we talk about...

“Leave it to my psychokinesis.”    The third season of Japanimation Station comes to a close with the jam-packed final installment of The Classic Adventures of Lupin the 3rd! We start by taking a look at Lupin’s first live-action adventure, 1974’s Strange Psychokinetic Strategy. This is one of the earliest Lupin adaptations period, created between the first and second anime before the franchise ha...