Two Skipped Reviews

In case you haven't noticed, I haven't updated my review blog since September. I'm really sorry about that! I haven't really been able to finish a lot of anime or find anything else worth reviewing lately, so I haven't really been in the reviewing groove. Okay, I lied; I have been writing reviews, but they were not for my review blog. The two reviews I wrote were for class assignments; I considered posting them on my review blog, but ultimately, I decided against it. Why?

(WARNING!: Spoilers for "Bakuman." incoming!)

You see, in season three of "Bakuman." (which was the best out of the three, by the way; I literally watched the whole season in just a week), there was a character named Tooru Nanamine. He was a fan of Muto Ashirogi, the pen name Mashiro and Takagi went by as manga artists, who wanted to be a manga artist for Shonen Jump (or Shonen Jack, as the anime called it) himself; unfortunately, his inability to take criticism and his online meetups with fifty people who voluntarily gave ideas to him ultimately led to his downfall. (Good riddance, too; it's been ten months since I finished the anime and eight since I finished the manga, and I still hate his guts!) The first of his despicable acts, though, was posting his first manga, "Classroom of Truth", online when it didn't get a prize from Shonen Jump. (By the way, "Classroom of Truth" was also a compilation of ideas from people Tooru met online. It was a way less amount of people, but it was still a bad idea, nonetheless.) Of course, the people as Shonen Jump were not happy about this.

(WARNING!: Spoilers done.)

Thinking back on this, I decided against posting my two reviews online, especially considering the fact that the class I wrote them for was a Journalism class; there was no way that my reviews were actually going to get into the school's newspaper, but regardless, I wanted to play it safe. In addition, no one who knows me on Google knows my real name (except for the people who know me in real life), so if I posted my reviews online, chances are that either the "real" me or the "online" me would get accused of plagiarism. Thus, there are two reviews that I've written that will never be on my blog (or, in the case with one of them, on MyAnimeList); however, I don't think that will stop me from expressing some quick thoughts on them.

The first review was for The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya, the eighth installment in the Haruhi Suzumiya series. My review for this is the main reason behind this blog post; I plan to review The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya once I get my hands on a copy of it, so I wanted to ensure any possible readers of my review blog that I did not skip the book before it (although I did start my reviews from the fifth). My thoughts on this one, though, is that although I did truly enjoy it, this may be one of the weakest installments in the series. The first short story, "Editor in Chief, Full Speed Ahead!", was thoroughly enjoyable; as a wannabe author myself, I found great pleasure in seeing the SOS Brigade write their installments in the anthology they were assigned to write and reading the installments of Mikuru, Yuki, and Kyon as they were brought to light. The second, "Wandering Shadow", was also rather interesting, with more focus on the sci-fi elements of the series and the fact that there is a dog in it (and I'm a dog-lover); however, I couldn't help but feel like something was missing from this story in particular, which was what bogged the novel down. Maybe it's the fact that it's the interest in Sakanaka becoming more than just a one-time side character but the knowledge that this won't happen that's the problem? I guess we'll never know.

Okay, my main reason for this blog entry's existence is out of the way, but since we're on the topic of reviews that will never come to light, I must mention the anime movie that is in the same boat; that would be the highly critically-acclaimed "Kimi no Na wa." First of all, I must ask; this movie came out in Japan in August, so how is it already on KissAnime?! Second, my opinion can be summed up in five words; the hype is worth it! I was pretty excited for it, since I'm a fan of one of Makoto Shinkai's previous works, "5 centimeters per second"; however, I was shocked when it hit the #1 spot on MAL, and when I saw it for myself, I could see why. Like all of Shinkai's anime movies before it, "Kimi no Na wa" had beautiful animation, but it was much more than that; the story was great, as well, with certain moments getting me to laugh and nearly cry! I was also invested in the characters, especially the two main leads, and everything they went through that helped them grow as characters. Especially with the whole plot of switching bodies, it's not as realistic as "5 centimeters per second", but it still made me emotional; thus, it was the only anime so far to get a 10/10 out of me this year.

With that being said, I must repeat that the reason why I never posted these reviews was because they were for school assignments; in other words, they were for educational purposes. I plan to get at least one more review out before the end of the year, but before I do, I must warn any possible readers of something; my style of reviewing hasn't changed much, but future reviews will seem less silly than past ones. I was never planning on reviewing things for a living, but these two might have caused me to sound more professional and probably more blunt on my opinions. That's all I wanted to say. If anyone even bothers to read this, much more to the end, congratulations! You've discovered that somewhere in this world, there lay two reviews from a girl who just writes reviews for fun that will possibly never be discovered. I hope you have a good day!