February (2020) Monthly Favorites

Hello, hello fellow bloggers. I’m back with another Monthly Favorites post. I normally don’t do back-to-back content but I completed the Shoujo Anime Challenge, which was a fun break for me to experiment with more short-form content. Of course, there were a lot of movie reviews sprinkled in there too.

Non-blog stuff is that these past days the COVID-19 has hit Japan pretty hard. I’m not in an affected area, but it’s something that I’ve had to balancing as an ‘actual adult’. I did get to go on vacation before it got ‘worse’, so that’s where the plum blossom feature photo has come from.

This post, I’m going to play around with shorter snippets introducing a post. It’s going to be a little shorter then usual, but we’ll see if this format sticks around.

Before that, I found this video by the Punk Rock MBA interesting. It reminded me that no one is perfect. The false info that Suu doesn’t sing live when she does… the ignoring that POPPY stole from Mars Argo originally… Just interesting.

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First up is LofZOdyssey, with their blog post “Anime Hajime Review: Hoshiai no Sora”. They bring up a much more even perspective about the series, with more distinction about good and bad factors that contribute to how the series played out.

Next up is a double feature from two bloggers, on the same topic. The topic being “Ride Your Wave”. The Other Side of Animation wrote their blog post, “The Other Side of Animation 177: Ride Your Wave Review”. Additionally, KiritoNarumi wrote “KIMI TO, NAMI NI NORETARA [REVIEW]”. Both provide a less gushing, more straight forward reviews of the film.

Additionally, there is Scott with “Natsume’s Book of Friends: Tied to the Temporal World – Memory Wipes and 3 Nyanko Senseis”. Finally someone else has talked about this film!! Natsume fanbase let’s come through already!! I want more takes please!

Related to anime, but in the non-review situation is The Backloggers with “Anime Can (and Can’t) Successfully Talk About Big Ideas™️”. It’s chockfull of good examples in recent anime titles, that’s really does showcase the best, and worst that anime has done recently.

We also have Irina with “The Unbingeables”, tackling that all-too familiar topic within the anime watching community. It’s a constant struggle, and Irina has excellent points about what they will and won’t consider binging and why.

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Into the manga realm is “Junji Ito’s Cat Diary” by Reasons to anime. I always love hearing about people’s opinions about horror manga. It’s a short and sweet review that hits the marks for helping a reader chose to read this series (or not).

I didn’t realize until I was typing but this month is all about cat-related manga. My second manga post suggestion is Al’s Manga Blog on “A Man & His Cat Vol 1 Review”. I love this series and own it all in Japanese. I’m super glad Al is enjoying it, and I’m super glad it got an official English license!

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Now we are back to JDrama-land. First up is, “If Hataraku Saibou had a live adaptation…” by evening tea musings. I loved this idea for this post. I am going to steal this idea and maybe make a series? With full credit to Evening Tea Musings of course. It’s a fun post, read it~

This is from That JapaneseDramaGuy with, “Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Doko Made mo Review”. It’s not a full series review, but a good way to gauge if you should be watching this currently airing series. (Personally, I’ll be binging this later!)

Popping back to a series I’ve yet to see but still gets fantastic reviews is This Drama Life with, “Japanese Drama | Switched (2018)”. It’s shorter review, but it being a shorter series I think that’s a good thing. Good things come in smaller packages.

A breif look into the J-Movie world, is “According To Our Butler” from Bex’s Cinematic Reviews. I’m both morbidly curious about this title for Nagase Ren. But… I don’t think I’m going to have it jumping up on my priority to watch anytime soon thanks to this review.

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Now, we get to move into music~ the Bias List has got the Johnny’s debuts cover with “Song Review: Snow Man – D.D.” and “Song Review: SixTONES – Imitation Rain”. Yes, I’m still jamming to Snow Man, but I don’t think my opinions will be coming out on this blog.

Off of Idol is Shit, is a double dose with “[Top Ten] Album Releases of 2019”, and “[Review] HEROINES – Yubikiri ~Kono Saki mo Issho ni Ayunde Ikou ne~”. I don’t cover alt-idol enough. Garry does, go read his reviews and find new music.

Gotta shout out to Leap, with their infallible series “Listening to Japanese Music: Monthly Recommendation Roundup (January 2020)”. More music is always better, and Leap makes it easy to find things you like!

“An overdue Valentine: The underappreicated Takanori Nishikawa”by the blog appears.  It’s seasonally appropriate and, 100% accurate. He’s such an amazing performer, it’s a shame in Japan he’s often referenced as “the toilet bowl cleaner CM guy” since he’s so much more.

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From the non-blogging world, is Otaquest interviewing Sano Reo of Generations from EXILE TRIBE. “Interview with REO SANO of GENERATIONS: Style Influenced by Music”, was a really interesting look at an aspect of Sano Reo aside from his acting and performance perspective. It also shows that Reo’s instagram feed when it comes to fashion isn’t intensely pre-chosen by a stylist. Additionally, is Visual Run with an interview from ACME. You guys know me by now. Summon the Roses also had an “Interview with ACME”. Hell yeah fam.

With all that, here’s the latest Rude-a release that I’ve had on replay since it came out. See you next month!