My Roommate is a Cat, which hits close to home
A show told twice over: once from a new cat owner's side, once from the cat's. As a guy who lives alone with a black cat, this one landed for me.
Read entry → back to the timeline
anime
16 entries
Ascendance of a Bookworm, a slower isekai I was lukewarm on
A book-loving woman is reborn into a world that barely has any books, so she sets out to make her own. A neat premise. I watched both seasons but never fully fell for it.
Read entry →
Laid-Back Camp, the most relaxing show I've ever watched
A comfort anime about a few girls camping in the Japanese countryside. I watched it during the early pandemic while learning Japanese, and it made me want to go camp out there myself someday.
Read entry →
The Promised Neverland, the show that almost lost me in two episodes
An anime I nearly quit over the violence, then couldn't stop watching. A little girl named Conny, a mother who isn't what she seems, and a theme song that haunts the whole thing.
Read entry →
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, a fun one
A regular guy gets stabbed, wakes up as a slime in a fantasy world, and slowly builds a whole monster nation. Easygoing isekai comfort food. I enjoyed it.
Read entry →
The Rising of the Shield Hero, and Raphtalia's arc
A guy summoned into a game-like world as the useless Shield Hero, the companion whose growth is the real story, and an old-school leveling grind I loved. I just ran out of time before the later seasons.
Read entry →
ReLIFE, a second shot at high school done right
A 27-year-old takes a pill that makes him look like a teenager again and relives a year of high school. Not quite time travel, but close enough for me, and the ending sticks the landing.
Read entry →
Anohana, the one that makes everyone cry
A group of childhood friends who drifted apart get pulled back together by the ghost of the girl they lost. I liked it a lot. It earns its reputation as a good cry.
Read entry →
Orange, a letter from your future self
A high schooler gets a letter from her twenty-six-year-old self asking her to save a classmate. Quietly devastating, and very much in the same emotional lane as Erased.
Read entry →
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the one with the world building
I caught up on Brotherhood years after it finished airing, another show I found on my own. The world building and Edward's arc are the best parts. The middle gets darker than I'd like.
Read entry →
Erased, probably my favorite anime of all time
A man with an involuntary power that drags him back in time gets sent eighteen years into his own childhood to stop a series of murders. Time travel done right, a killer I genuinely didn't see coming, and one trope I wish it hadn't leaned on.
Read entry →
Steins;Gate, the time travel show everyone's right about
A mad-scientist sci-fi about a hacked microwave that texts the past, an old IBM clone, and one guy trying to save his friend across timelines. It earns its spot on everyone's top 10.
Read entry →
Sword Art Online, the best first season that then ruins itself
A show about people trapped inside an MMO, where dying in the game means dying for real. The opening arc hooked me like an old WoW raid. Then it swapped the whole world out for fairies.
Read entry →
Death Note, a chess match with a god complex
My second anime, again on Craig's recommendation. A brilliant cat-and-mouse first half, a second half that basically restarts the whole premise, and a main character who thinks he's the smartest man alive while being one of the dumbest.
Read entry →
Spirited Away, the one a friend talked me into
A girl wanders into a spirit world, her parents get turned into pigs, and she has to work in a bathhouse to win them back. The Miyazaki film I keep coming back to, plus the two others I've actually liked.
Read entry →
Cowboy Bebop, the first anime I ever finished
I was never an anime person until a friend from World of Warcraft talked me into one, and the first I watched start to finish was Cowboy Bebop. The best music in the medium, a redheaded hacker kid I loved, and a dish of bell peppers and beef with no beef.
Read entry →