Anime Central 2018 Press Report and Thoughts

Anime Central was my first con in a long time, and it was fantastic! Since it was my first time going as press, I figured that I’d both write about what I did in that role as well as what I did more generally. Above all else, I believe this is a great con and even barring the time I spent with others, it was a great time. So let’s dive in.

[Fanfic] Nanoha – Wouldn’t Trade Them For the World

The first of a number of Nanofate fics I’ll be doing.

[Script] Tadakoi vs Wotakoi: The Construction of Romantic Comedies

There are two decent romcom anime this season. On the one hand, we have Love is Hard for Otaku, or Wotakoi, and on the other, we have Tada Never Falls in Love, or Tadakoi. The similar abbreviations are hardly the only reason to compare them. Romcoms are a fairly well-played genre at this point, inside and outside of anime. Their general tropes and storytelling techniques vary, to be sure, but there are clear commonalities across them. Perhaps even more than for other genres, it’s instructive to compare how different romcoms succeed and fail so that we can get at the heart of what makes them work in a broader sense. These two are an excellent case study in that, seeing as both have their share of very different positives and negatives, so let’s break those apart and figure out what it takes to make romantic comedies work in the realm of anime.

[Fanfic] Comic Girls – This Date Couldn’t Get Anymore Kaotic

A date between Kaos and Ruki.

[Script] How Does Cutie Honey Universe Stack Up?

You might remember a video I made back in mid-January. Following up on the popularity of Devilman: Crybaby, I covered Re:Cutie Honey, a great Go Nagai adaptation which also doubled as an excellent yuri anime, full of gay girls, fun action, and excellent humor. Directed by Hideaki Anno with lots of freedom given to the Gainax staff that worked on it, it’s truly a great OVA. Well, if you’re one of the 60,000 people who saw that video before it was age restricted and you remember what I said then you might’ve been curious about Cutie Honey Universe, this season’s new adaptation of Nagai’s original manga.

[Fanfic] Comic Girls – Kaotic Self-Questioning

A sequel to the last one, this focuses more on Kaos and how I read her as trans.

[Script] The Road to My Hero Academia

My Hero Academia is a great anime and manga. Bet you haven’t heard that before. At this point, HeroAca is one of the most popular series in the entirety of the medium. Everyone’s heard of it, everyone’s seen it, and everyone has an opinion on it, with most people’s being pretty positive. But how was HeroAca made? Well obviously, it’s written and drawn by mangaka Kohei Horikoshi. While it took a number of people to make this series a possibility, from assistants to editors to animators to production assistants, it’s clearly his extreme talent which has allowed it to reach the heights that it has. But like all artists, Horikoshi did not emerge from a vacuum, creating a masterpiece out of nowhere. No, his struggles to reach this point have been long and hard. The amount of effort it took to eventually become one of the top series in Weekly Shounen Jump should not be overlooked. This, here, is the story of how My Hero Academia came to be.