Aoi Bungaku ep. 1 – Another Spectacular Madhouse Show

There always seems to be at least one spectacular Madhouse show on the air that goes totally under-the-radar. It will get subbed late every episode if it gets subbed at all, and only a handful of people will remember it. The last one that just ended was the epic and amazing Souten Kouro, which has about 12 of 26 episodes subbed currently. Before that was Casshern Sins, which actually managed to get subbed (probably because the dialog was incredibly simple) and more miraculously got licensed for release next February. Before that, we had the show that most resembles Aoi Bungaku, which was the totally amazing Mouryou no Hako (sporting what I consider the greatest first episode ever made) that was apparently subbed through 12 of it’s 13 episodes (anyone know why that is?) It took over a week for Aoi Bungaku 1 to get subbed, which is not that bad, but we’ll have to pray the trend keeps up.

Opinions vs. Absolutes in Anime Reviews

This is a carry-over discussion from my comments section on the Unrepresentative Studio Screw-ups post.

The word ‘good’ gets thrown around a lot in anime discussion, and in conjoint with various aspects of what most consider to matter in an anime. ‘Good animation’ or ‘good characters’ or ‘good directing’. Good is always taken to have an objective meaning (I won’t get too deep into that, though, since I’m sure I have too many times on this blog.) However, some of these things are totally up to opinion, while others aren’t. I’d like to explore what things should and shouldn’t be personal considerations.