:anime: Free/Low-Cost Anime Pick of the Month:: Tales of Gen

Given yesterday's semi-review of ALDNOAH.ZERO's first half, the debut of its second half in a few days, Expelled from Paradise pulling over $1M in just 13 Japanese theaters, and the PSYCHO-PASS movie coming out next Friday, I figured now would be a good time for anyone new to his work to get better acquainted with some of the previous work in his repertoire. And by "his," I mean Gen Urobuchi, the hottest and most in-demand name in the anime industry today.

First rising to notoriety with his writing work at game company Nitroplus (most notably on Saya no Uta), he rapidly rose to super-stardom after penning Puella Magi Madoka Magica in 2011. He's been having a very busy, but very successful, time since then, including this past year, and does not seem to be letting up anytime soon. While you await for his next slate of work, or are looking for something to marathon through New Year's Eve/Day and this holiday weekend, you can take a look at some of his anime contributions, nearly all of it online and streaming for free!

:anime: Ani-Journal - For December 30, 2014

Everyone's favorite scrapped princess…

For whatever reason, I keep thinking that I have done a bunch of these, but in reality, this is only the sixth entry in "Ani-Journal" (or is that "of"? "In" makes more sense because it's like a journal and stuff, but "of" is more grammatically-correct…). So, without further ado, here is an all-new entry in/of Ani-Journal!

—In spite of the allure of Fate/Zero's Ei Aoki collaborating with that novel's author, Gen Urobuchi, for the then-new ALDNOAH.ZERO, I was not exactly enthralled with what was yielded in its first couple of episodes. Its premise was interesting, for sure, with its tale of haughty human Mars-dwellers raining down upon the Earth with their almighty space castles to subjugate it under a cloud of political upheaval on their end and the Earthers having to find a way to stop them with their inadequate mecha (this being a mecha show and all). The way it played out early on, though, also proved interesting, but not altogether exciting or that interesting. If anything, there was more of an air of familiarity and routine to it than any real whiff of originality (and this is not taking into consideration the strange vibe of a more modern, reworked Martian Successor Nadesico). For all of the hype, it was "good" but nothing "great", and if you are pimping out a show (or anything, for that matter), it better be "great".