Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi *Bed and Breakfast for the Spirits*

Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi is a charming anime about a girl named Aoi Tsubaki who is spirited away by an Ogre god to be his bride. Aoi is shocked to discover that she is the collateral for her grandfather’s unpaid debt and must either pay back the millions he owed to the Ogre-god or submit to being his wife.

Siren’s Lament

I must review my first ever webtoon. 

It’s a short one, since I don’t have a lot of time, but here we go…

Siren’s Lament is a webcomic available on webtoons.com. It’s about the interactions between Lyra, a florist with no big dreams, Shon, the sexy childhood friend™, and Ian, a siren who’s willing to do anything to be human again.

Howl’s Moving Castle

In celebration for finally getting my hands on the book, I’m going to review Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle

Howl’s Moving Castle is LOOSELY based on a novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones. The characters are roughly the same as those in the book, but there are some serious discrepancies in the story-line.

I don’t think it’s bad though.

Hiiro no Kakera: Fragments of the Past 💚 Kuso no Mikoto💚

Hiiro no Kakera, (at least this particular one) can be downloaded as a free-to-play otome from Google play. Most of the Hiiro no Kakera franchise are pay-to-play only, so consider this game a teaser for what the paid games can offer.

💚Kuso-no-Mikoto is the first otome route I ever played.💚

I had watched the Hiiro no Kakera anime and saw the game while browsing through Google Play.

(Be warned, before starting Hiiro no Kakera, the game is time intensive. It takes a while to get through the game, and the extra story-tickets are hard to come by without paying for them with real money )

Hiiro no Kakera always starts the same way: MC is the cursed Tamayori Princess, charged with guarding the power that can destroy the world. In the case of Fragments of the Past, MC stumbles upon an injured fox god and takes him back to her home to heal him. Thus begins a struggle to protect the world, etc. etc.

Brand New Animal

Brand New Animal, or BNA, is a brand spanking new anime fresh off the table of Studio Trigger in collaboration with Netflix. It premiered on April 8 of 2020 and holds a lot of promise.

BNA is a fantasy anime about a world in which humans have segregated a group known as “beastmen” in their own personal zone called Animacity. Beastmen can (as the name suggests) transform into anthropomorphic animals and are in great danger from many anti-beastmen groups that wish them harm.

Beastmen and Humans are not interchangeable. They are almost two completely different species, and have lived apart from each other for as long as possible. Due to the growth of humanity, and the removal of beastmen habitat, they have been forced to reveal themselves. Tensions run incredibly high and life is very dangerous for the beastmen, who have to rely on a few (shifty) human politicians to get what they need.

Which is where the anime begins.

Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho

This is a review for the manga, if you’re looking for the anime review, that will be a later post.

Let me just say:

  WOW 

Saintia Sho was everything Saint Seiya needed to bring it back into the mainstream. After The Lost Canvas was cancelled in favor of the disaster that was Omega, I really thought that Saint Seiya was finished for good.

Ikemen Vampire: Leonardo Da Vinci

Ikemen Vampire is a hot-topic game for CYBIRD right now. The massively popular game is finally being translated into English, and the otome community has a new set of ikemen to drool over. The game is still very new on GooglePlay, with Leonardo Da Vinci having just been released back in June.

Please note that the game has a rating of 17+ 

Since the game isn’t fully translated/released, only three out of the possible twelve routes were available for play when I started. While I wanted to do Saint Germaine, he’s probably going to be the last route released, so I settled on Da Vinci instead.

Fate: Last Encore

Fate: Last Encore, is one of the most recent incarnations of the formidable Fate franchise. It was received with mixed reviews, and viewers either loved it or hated it. Here’s my spin on what did and did not work in Fate: Last Encore.

Fate: Last Encore follows the male protagonist from the video-game Fate: Extella, and the saber class servant, Nero. The basic synopsis is that Hakuno (the protagonist) and Nero must battle their way through a multi-layered dungeon to reach the top of the “Moon Cell” and avert the total destruction of humanity. Unlike most Grail Wars, there are new rules and each time you defeat the reigning master of a floor you are immediately transported to the next level. Essentially, Fate: Last Encore retained the video-game feel from Extella and rolled with it.

From Far Away

From Far Away is a manga that was first published in 1993 by mangaka Kyoko Hikawa.

Despite being over twenty years old, From Far Away is a surprisingly good manga. It shows its age with the older art-style, but I consider it a plus rather an a minus. The softer, beautified style enhances the magic and attraction of the story where cleaner, more realistic art wouldn’t have served.

When I try to decide who I would recommend From Far Away to, I wind up sounding like an infomercial:

“If you like pretty artwork then From Far Away is the manga for you!”

“If you like epic romances then From Far Away is the manga for you!”

“If you like demons and apocalyptic monsters then From Far Away is the manga for you!”