Alternatively known as: Jack, And, S[monkeys]t
Breaking up the Red Ninja: End of Honor Blog Post Saga momentarily to bring you the wonderful world of an animanga series featuring otaku culture and the comedic deconstruction of otaku culture.
No, not that one. We did that before. Twice.
Read More »A GAP! THERE’S A GAP!! NURSE!!!
Yeah, I intended for this week’s post to be about the Fate franchise, but that behemoth requires attention that I can’t split from a bunch of other things work and non-work related. The dedication necessary to commit to it exists, but it’s going to be broken off from several other things I either need to do or am viewing first. Something something undivided attention, something something divided like a math problem, something something… yeah, I can definitely do it, but whether I remember to knock it out before Christmas this year is up in the air with all the moving parts laid out and getting ready to be laid out so instead, I’ll knock out some thoughts and opinions for once about things I care about.
So even Japanese pop media is cautious about the issue
Due to a bunch of moving parts away from the blog in my personal professional life, I’ve been away from viewing things close to my expertise, so forgive me if this week’s entry is more than a little manufactured. But away with that; sometime ago, I jokingly floated around the idea of a chicken and egg question over when East Asia saw artificial intelligence and machinery as cute and cuddly instead of imposing and downright threatening like in the Western world. Probably not all that hard to figure out honestly, East Asia, specifically the Sinitic world (or countries that have been influenced by China through the dynasties and beyond), has severe reverence for their elders to the point that many technological advancements, especially now, would be focused on their aid with their aging populations routinely exceeding the 90s and 100s in age. Not everyone wants to be a caretaker for their 100-year-old baa-chan, so enter the robots to aid the elders. But not for nothing, it’s been at this stage for ages, with companies accommodating the old heads whose approach to technology is not dissimilar from Japan’s approach to the West when forced to open up for trade in the 1850s.
A long-time coming
My days of binging anime series may be well behind me in my adult years, but to make up for a lot of lost time, I’ve designated an alarm to get me up to speed on some anime I’ve been sleeping on, one of which I wrapped up recently with plans to watch the movie, despite my opinions on some anime movies. Looking at the title of this week’s post, it’s none other than:
Yet it was available for free on Tubi a few years ago
Due in no small part to its popularity and wide appeal, Shonen action-battle series get all the media attention at home and abroad, unintentionally hiding other genres in the process. So it’s not a big surprise or concern when people erroneously claim that the longest running animanga series is One Piece, or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, or Dragon Ball. All have been running for decades, with the latter two debuting at the end of the Showa era. The subject of this post however has been in serialization since 1968.
New Year, New Animanga
By the luck of the gods, I’ve returned to my post on the same day and I’m not terribly fatigued.
The Year of Cordis Die, the Year of the Snake, the Year CoD S[gunshots]t It’s Respect Out is out, and the Year of the Horse, the Uma 「馬」is in.
I don’t consume Umamusume anything, but it makes the rounds in my favorite spaces, so I can’t ignore it if I wanted to.
Read More »Holiday wrap up
Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays, to include Boxing Day for my British and Commonwealth subscribers, I know you pop in a couple times a month. I am currently on leave right now, seeing family in New York until January 2, so the first post for 2026 will be delayed most likely until later the next day. So this Boxing Day will be spent reflecting on pieces of entertainment that I consumed in 2025, even if it was older or not necessarily released this year.
I won’t be using any particular order or any kind of ranking system. This post is gonna be a free-for-all, so look forward to video games, TV series, movies, and animanga all in one post. For the video game front, the FPS genre suffered a devastating loss earlier this week with one of the founders of Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, Vince Zampella, losing his life in a car crash in Los Angeles. His work, along with that of Jason West, heavily influenced the trajectory of the FPS genre and the gaming landscape from spearheading the modern warfare concept up until he and West were unceremoniously booted on trumped up charges. Nevertheless, neither man was deterred and got back on their feet with the likes of Titanfall under EA.
1970-2025
Read More »Equally a lot and not enough
Getting back to the end of year wrap up of content, I’ve definitely watched more anime this year in between my regular duties in the Army. A lot of what I’ve been watching this year has been stuff I’ve written about on this blog yonks ago, but also some new stuff that can (and probably should get) their own posts, but this being a speedrun like before I shipped out to Fort Lost in the Woods for training is gonna be a brief overview of some stuff I got a look at this year, but didn’t necessarily finish. I may add more to the watch times of these respectively and give them the reviews that they deserve, but I’m probably gonna do what I normally do and play it by ear. Here’s the anime lineup:
With a bonus. If you were to ask me if it was anime, it falls under “Yesn’t.” It’s based off a manga and has an anime adaptation that is currently four seasons in, but it’s doing something different.
Read More »What I’ve been reading this year
Right before we get to the crux of this post, I had a second look at my notes and noticed a gap between November 28 and December 12. I forgot to fill that in in time so before we properly wrap it up, next week will be something of an intermission discussing a controversial video game even by RockStar’s standards. Here’s a few vague hints: Jack Thompson tried to have it made illegal, it was banned in several countries, including the US at first, and the real kicker, it’s primarily a stealth game, so you get rewards when you knock skulls around without people noticing. Now for the real focus of this post.
The end of the year is on the horizon and before we close out the Year of Cordis Die, let’s recap some of the manga I’ve been pirating. I’ve talked at length about manga I’ve been pirating and recommending for as long as this blog has been up, some series I’ve recommended and others I haven’t mentioned yet. So for this post, there will be updates on what I’ve been reading this year, coupled with some looks at manga I’ve yet to mention on the blog. Here’s some series I have lined up, unordered:
Some of these are familiar to the long-timers, others I haven’t spoken a word of once on this blog, even in passing. Take these as holiday recommendations to get you through the time-honored tradition of repeating yesterday’s Christmas songs until Boxing Day.
Read More »Stop me if this sounds familiar
A man gets reincarnated into a world where traditional gender roles a flipped, in that women are the breadwinners who sexually objectify the opposite sex while men are demure homebodies to be seen and hardly heard from even during intercourse. Quick! Which isekai did I describe!?
If your answer was several, then great news! You understand how unoriginal the premise has become over the years. It may have had a spark in the beginning but with surprise comes formula comes borderline formulaic. There aren’t many isekai that reverse gender roles, but there’s enough to make it seem as though many follow the exact same story beats. Still, the subject of this post caught my eye, largely because of the premise and because it reinforces a meme I used in a prior post:
In matters concerning the pleasures of the flesh, women and men are equal. But sometimes people get competitive and develop superiority complexes… for some reason…
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Opinions on Entertainment 