RogerBW's Blog

Know Your Rites, Andy Redsmith 20 February 2023

2019 comic fantasy, second and to date last of the Inspector Paris series. The invasion from fantasyland has been repelled, but things aren't quite back to normal.

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Breaking the Lore, Andy Redsmith 30 December 2022

2019 comic fantasy, first of the Inspector Paris series. Paris is a hard-drinking Mancunian detective, but he's not prepared for a beautiful woman crucified in a suburban garden. Or for her to be fifteen centimetres tall.

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In Your Dreams, Tom Holt 28 June 2020 - 2 comments

2004 comic fantasy, second in the J. W. Wells series. Paul Carpenter continues to blunder his way through magical hazards.

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Shokugeki no Soma season 3.2 23 February 2020

2018 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars: The Third Plate: Totsuki Train Arc". Yukihira Sōma fights cooking duels to try to let himself and his friends be allowed to stay in the élite Totsuki cooking school.

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3-gatsu no Lion season 2 27 January 2020

2017-2018 seinen manga adaptation in 22 episodes: AniDB, vt "March Comes in Like a Lion". Kiriyama Rei is a young professional shōgi player, but is profoundly lonely.

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Hoshiai no Sora 31 December 2019

2019 high school sports story, original anime in 12 episodes: AniDB. The boys' soft tennis club is the joke of the school; the student council decrees that they'll be disbanded unless they win at least one match at the summer tournament. Then a new kid joins the school… vt Stars Align.

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Houkago Saikoro Club 21 December 2019

2019 high school story, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Miki is terminally shy, but learns to make friends through an interest in boardgames. vt After School Dice Club.

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New Game!! (Season 2) 12 May 2019

2017 slice of life, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Suzukaze Aoba continues to work as a character designer at a computer game studio.

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Kuzu no Honkai 27 April 2019

2016-2017 romance, seinen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Scum's Wish". High-schoolers Hanabi and Mugi both have hopeless crushes on other people; they become a couple to tide them over until they get what they really want.

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3-gatsu no Lion season 1 24 February 2019

2016-2017 seinen manga adaptation in 22 episodes: AniDB, vt "March Comes in Like a Lion". Kiriyama Rei is a young professional shōgi player, but is profoundly lonely.

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Mahoutsukai no Yome 21 October 2018

2017-2018 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation, 24 episodes: AniDB. Unwanted orphan Hatori Chise is bought at auction by the monstrous magician Elias Ainsworth, to be his apprentice… and his bride. vt The Ancient Magus' Bride.

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Practical Demonkeeping, Christopher Moore 27 September 2018 - 1 comment

1992 comic fantasy, first of the Pine Cove series. Travis has been living with the demon Catch for nearly ninety years – the immortality and invulnerability aren't bad, but the murders are getting to him. He's finally tracked down a way of ending the pact, but it won't be easy.

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Tonari no Totoro 19 September 2018 - 3 comments

1988 fantasy: AniDB, vt "My Neighbor Totoro". Perhaps some time in the 1950s, a university professor and his two young daughters move to the countryside to be near his hospitalised wife; the house and woods prove to be full of magical creatures.

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Koi wa Ameagari no You ni 11 July 2018

2018 modern romance/slice of life, seinen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "After the Rain". High school student Tachibana Akira has a crush on Kondou Masami, the middle-aged manager of the restaurant where she does a part-time job.

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Otaku ni Koi wa Muzukashi 25 June 2018

2018 modern romantic comedy, josei manga adaptation in 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "Love is Hard for Nerds". Obsessive fans of games and manga try to balance their passions with real life.

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Shokugeki no Soma season 3.1 13 March 2018

2017 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars: The Third Plate". Yukihira Sōma continues to fight cooking duels on his way up the élite Totsuki cooking school.

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Kobayashi-san Chi no Maidragon 03 March 2018

2017 modern fantasy, seinen manga adaptation, 13 episodes: AniDB. Kobayashi the office worker gets drunk one night, and in the morning finds a dragon outside her front door – who's come to stay with her and be her maid. vt Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid.

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Wisdom of the Crowd 09 February 2018

2017 science fiction/investigation, 13 episodes; a tech billionaire, obsessed with finding the murderer of his daughter, builds a crowd-sourced crime-solving system.

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Time After Time 13 January 2018

2017 science fiction/investigation, 5 or 12 episodes; H. G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper into the modern day.

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The Librarians, season 3 21 September 2017

2016-2017 modern fantasy, 10 episodes; the Librarians, who hunt down magical artefacts, take on a god and a government agency.

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Fune wo Amu 12 July 2017

2016 slice of life, novel adaptation in 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "The Great Passage". Introverted Majime is a useless salesman for Genbu Publishing, but finds his true calling working in the Dictionary Editorial Department.

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Flying Witch 21 May 2017

2016 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Makoto the trainee witch moves to a rural town in Aomori prefecture to live with her (non-magical) relatives.

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Shokugeki no Soma season 2 05 May 2017

2016 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars: The Second Plate". Yukihira Sōma continues to fight cooking duels on his way up the élite Totsuki cooking school.

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Kyoukai no Rinne season 2 27 April 2017

2016 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 25 episodes: AniDB, vt "Circle of Reincarnation". High school student Mamiya Sakura, and Rokudō Rinne the shinigami, continue to have wacky adventures dealing with the spirit world.

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New Game! 15 April 2017

2016 slice of life, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB. Suzukaze Aoba joins the studio that's making the third game in a series she loved growing up.

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Dagashi Kashi 10 April 2017

2016 contemporary comedy, 12 episodes, manga adaptation: AniDB. Kokonotsu works at his father's old-fashioned sweet shop, but wants to draw manga. A strange girl appears to try to recruit his father, but first she needs to persuade Kokonotsu to take over the shop.

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Sakamoto Desu ga 01 March 2017

2016 contemporary comedy, 12 episodes, manga adaptation: AniDB, vt "Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto". Sakamoto is the coolest student in the high school, perfect at everything.

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Musaigen no Phantom World 07 January 2017

2016 contemporary fantasy novel adaptation in 13 episodes: Anidb, vt "Myriad Colors Phantom World". Phantoms, weird magical creatures created by the human subconscious, are everywhere; Haruhiko and his school friends seal them away when they cause trouble.

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Ojisan to Marshmallow 08 December 2016

2016 contemporary comedy, 12 short episodes: AniDB, vt "Middle-Aged Man and Marshmallow". Hige is an overweight middle-aged man working at Web Related Company (sic); he loves marshmallows. Several of the office ladies are in love with him, for no obvious reason.

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Boku dake ga Inai Machi 03 December 2016

2016 seinen manga adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB, vtt "Erased" and "The Town Without Me". Fujinuma Satoru sometimes slips back in time to just before a life-threatening accident, which lets him try to correct it. When his mother is murdered, he finds himself thrown back to eighteen years earlier, when he was in elementary school and someone was killing his classmates.

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Subete ga F ni Naru 21 August 2016

2015 mystery novel adaptation, 11 episodes: AniDB, vt "Everything Becomes F" or "The Perfect Insider". Shiki Magata killed her parents when she was fourteen, but her mind was clearly disturbed, and she's a brilliant programmer; for the fifteen years since then, she's been confined to a few rooms within a research lab, with extremely restricted communication with the outside world. And yet, someone has managed to murder her.

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Community, season 6 17 June 2016

2015 comedy, 13 episodes; most of the same team of misfits continue to try to keep their community college going.

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Sakurako-san no Ashimoto ni wa Shitai ga Umatteiru 28 May 2016

2015 mystery novel adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Beautiful Bones: Sakurako`s Investigation" or "A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako's Feet". Kujou Sakurako, osteologist and amateur forensic anthropologist, investigates the remarkable number of human bones to be found locally.

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The Librarians, season 2 19 May 2016

2015 modern fantasy, 10 episodes; the scrappy team of magic-hunting Librarians fights against a resurrected Prospero who's planning to remake the world.

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Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko: Everything Flows 17 May 2016

2015 slice of life, four short episodes: AniDB, vt "She and Her Cat: Everything Flows". Miyu's cat contemplates their life together.

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Sore ga Seiyuu 04 May 2016

2015 slice of life, 4-koma manga adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB, vt "Seiyuu's Life". Ichinose Futaba is a novice voice actress; along with her friends, she goes to auditions, gets together in a singing group, and generally tries to advance her career.

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Jitsu wa Watashi wa 28 March 2016

2015 modern humour, shounen manga adaptation in 13 episodes: AniDB, vt "My Monster Secret". Kuromine "Leaky Bucket" Asahi is unable to keep a secret; when he goes to confess his love to the girl of his dreams, she turns out to be a vampire. But she'll be forced to leave school if the secret gets out…

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Shokugeki no Soma season 1 07 March 2016

2015 cooking story, shounen manga adaptation in 24 episodes: AniDB, vt "Food Wars". Yukihira Sōma works at his father's diner, then finds himself sent to an élite cooking school: not only is it tough to get in, but only one in ten graduate.

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Ore Monogatari 03 March 2016

2015 romantic comedy, shoujo manga adaptation in 24 episodes: AniDB, vt "My Love Story". Gōda Takeo is a huge guy, clueless but with a good heart; when he saves Yamato Rinko from a groper on the train, they fall in love.

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Joukamachi no Dandelion 26 February 2016

2015 modern fantasy, 4-koma manga adaptation in 12 episodes: AniDB, vt "Castle Town Dandelion". The king announces that he'll retire in a year; his children campaign to be elected in his place.

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Kyoukai no Rinne season 1 23 February 2016

2015 modern fantasy, shounen manga adaptation in 25 episodes: AniDB, vt "Circle of Reincarnation". High school student Mamiya Sakura can see spirits. It turns out that her classmate Rokudō Rinne is also working as a shinigami, helping lost spirits reach the wheel of reincarnation. But she's entered a dangerous world…

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Nisekoi 2 31 January 2016

2015, comedy, manga adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB.

Continuation of the high school harem comedy. Hero is a yakuza heir, who to stop a gang fight has to pretend to be going out with tsundere heroine #1 (rival yakuza heiress), but really wants to be involved with kind sweet ordinary heroine #2.

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Danna ga Nani o Itteiruka Wakaranai Ken series 2 13 December 2015

2015, 13 episodes: AniDB.

Also known as I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. Continuation of the slice of life comedy dealing with the daily routine of a busy office lady and her otaku husband.

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Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru. Zoku - My Teenage RomCom SNAFU TOO 20 November 2015

2015 contemporary romance, light novel adaptation, 12 episodes: AniDB. Sequel to 2013's Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru - My Teenage RomCom SNAFU. Cynical loner high school kid and the rest of the Volunteer Club continue to try to help other people and work out their own problems.

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Saenai Heroine no Sodatekata 29 June 2015

2015, 13 episodes: AniDB

Parody of contemporary slice-of-life and romance. Aki Tomoya tries to create a computer game (in one of the standard Japanese models, with good art and multiple-choice gameplay) with the assistance of various schoolmates.

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Koufuku Graffiti 09 June 2015

2015 contemporary slice of life, 12 episodes: AniDB. A middle school girl with a knack for cooking learns that everything tastes better if you share it with someone special. vt Gourmet Girl Graffiti.

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Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso 14 April 2015

2014, 22 episodes: AniDB vt Your Lie in April

Modern romantic comedy. Kousei was a child prodigy at the piano, but gave it up. Two years later when he's in high school, he randomly meets Kaori the violinist, who insists that he should be her accompanist in a competition.

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Bad Monkey, Carl Hiaasen 12 March 2015

2013 Florida Weird. On Key West, former Miami cop Andrew Yancy has a human arm in his freezer. But there's a reason for that. Yancy thinks the story about the arm's owner dying in a boating accident is full of holes, and sets off on an unofficial investigation.

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Denki-Gai no Honya-San 06 March 2015

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB; also known as "Electric Town Bookstore".

Workplace sitcom based in a manga/DVD/game/etc. shop, poking fun at the fandom and conventions of the genre.

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The Librarians, series 1 28 February 2015 - 5 comments

2014-2015; the Library is where all the magical artefacts in the world are stored to keep them (and the world) safe. After three TV movies, the story has been resurrected as a weekly series.

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Amagi Brilliant Park 10 February 2015

2014, 13 episodes: AniDB.

High school boy is asked to be the acting manager of a failing amusement park populated by fantastic creatures.

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Danna ga Nani o Itteiruka Wakaranai Ken 30 January 2015

2014, 13 episodes: AniDB Also known as I Can't Understand What My Husband Is Saying. Slice of life comedy dealing with the daily routine of a busy office lady and her otaku husband.

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Whit, Iain Banks 29 January 2015

1995: Isis Whit is the Elect of God and heir-designate to the small cult of Luskentyrianism, the granddaughter of its founder; she's lived all her life in its holdings near Dunblane. But now one of the members in London has fallen out of contact in an odd way, and it's up to Isis to travel outside and try to get her back.

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The Portable Door, Tom Holt 26 January 2015 - 2 comments

2003 comic fantasy. Paul Carpenter applies for a job as a "junior clerk" at J. W. Wells, not knowing just what it is that they do; but it seems to be something really quite strange. He'd chuck it in if he hadn't fallen for his fellow junior clerk…

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Tokyo Ghoul 03 January 2015

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB

Modern Tokyo is infested by ghouls, who eat humans. Kaneki is about to become their latest victim.

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Glasslip 09 December 2014

2014, 13 episodes: AniDB

Teenage romance and premonitory powers in contemporary small-town Japan.

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Free! Eternal Summer 27 November 2014

2014, 13 episodes: AniDB, sequel to Free! (2013).

High school sports club anime: the sport in this instance is swimming.

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Ao Haru Ride 07 November 2014

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB, also known as Blue Spring Ride.

Contemporary school story adapted from shōjo manga. Futaba reinvents herself as she enters high school, only to find that her middle-school crush Kou has also reinvented himself.

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Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun 24 October 2014

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB; also known as Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun.

Parody series about young girls' (shōjo) manga. Chiyo has a crush on fellow high school student Nozaki, but through comical misunderstanding discovers he's a manga writer and artist – but this has to be kept a secret from the rest of the school.

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Mangaka-san to Assistant-san to 11 September 2014

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB

Situation comedy based on a manga artist, his assistant, and various other workmates.

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Mekakucity Actors 24 August 2014

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB

Young people with superpowers in modern Tokyo? Well, that seems to be the premise at first. It soon gets much stranger.

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Bokura wa Minna Kawaisou 18 August 2014

2014, 12 episodes: AniDB; also known as The Kawai Complex Guide to Manners and Hostel Behavior.

Romantic comedy; high school boy lives in boarding-house with a variety of Characters, one of whom is a cute female bookworm.

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Yowamushi Pedal 14 August 2014 - 1 comment

2013-2014, 38 episodes: AniDB

Weakling anime fan Sakamichi Onoda finds there's nobody else interested in forming an anime club at his new high school, so ends up joining the bicycle racing club instead. Seems he's got a hidden talent for cycling that even he didn't know about.

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