Behind The Nihon Review

During my recent trip, I noticed that not much has changed in Japan since I came last summer, but one can see the commercialization of moe progressing rapidly. The new rage in Japan is what my friends and I have facetiously dubbed “life goods” (after Kyoto Animation’s booth at ‘ket, which sold K-On character “life [...]

During the past days, I’ve been having some fairly intricate conversations with my partners in crime (mostly whilst waiting in line for goods at Comiket.) One of our more interesting conversations dealt with the root purpose of anime, which my friend claims is escapism. He posited one simple question to me: If I am living [...]

Most of us are disappointed with the way Kuragehime ended. While it more than proved itself to be a quaint, charming little series, the ending was an absolute trainwreck. This got me to thinking… how does one end an anime well? (Spoilers for the tagged series, major spoilers for Kuragehime.)

Happy New Year to all of my readers out there. I want to begin 2011 by talking about one of the greatest, and perhaps most surprising, success stories in recent years. Most of you can probably guess what I’m talking about: Touhou Project.

The Yano Research Institute (矢野経済研究所) released a mammoth, 491-page report on the state of the “otaku economy” two weeks ago. The report is interesting in that it looks not only at sales figures for a variety of anime-related media, but also asks questions about perceptions and attitudes towards otaku. Unfortunately, the whole report is ￥105,000, [...]