Overlord adopts Kugane Maruyama’s light novel series. When YGGDRASIL’s servers, a deep-dive massively multiplayer online role playing game, are scheduled to be shut off, Momonga remains logged in to see the shutdown. He’s the guildmaster of Ainz Ooal Gown and spends the last few minutes of the game’s life in the guildhall of Nazarick. He…
My Note-Taking Method: A Way to Read, Remember, and Write Better
How you read matters as much as what you read. How I read varies. If I’m reading Spice and Wolf or other fiction, I just read. If I’m reading nonfiction, my approach depends on my goals. No matter what I’m reading, I try to read on a schedule. Reading, like so many other practices, requires…
Japanese Rock’s Place in My Music Playlists and Maybe in Yours?
Back when I first started watching anime regularly–during my early college years (I’m getting old)–I would sometimes get hooked on opening and ending themes. Two later favorites were Ichirinnohana by High and Mighty Color and Natsumi Kiyoura’s Tabi no Tochuu from the original Spice and Wolf. While I would find other opening and ending themes…
Anachronisms in Anime
Anachronisms appear throughout anime. They take many different forms, sometimes impacting the story and other times erring in details that don’t matter. Merriam-Webster defines anachronism as “a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other.” Anachronisms can pull you out of a story by jarring the fragile illusion the story…
The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses
The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses is a harem comedy that focuses on the theme of a found family. Spoilers ahead for both the anime and manga, by the way. Hayato Kasukabe returns to Miura to close his recently deceased grandmother’s cafe, Cafe Terrace Familia. But he discovers his grandmother had taken in five women…
Should You Read Musui’s Story: The Autobiography of a Tokugawa Samurai?
I had hunted for a cheap English copy of Musui’s Story for several years. Finally, I stumbled across a copy buried in a used book store for $5. Katsu Kokichi wrote his autobiography toward the end of the Tokugawa period. Musui, to use his retirement name, wasn’t a scholar, administrator, or a samurai of any…