Anime for this Spooky time of the Year

By Luiggi Cavanna

Halloween is around the corner and we all are in a nice spooky mood to watch nice spooky anime. For that reason, I decided to make a nice spooky list of things to watch, well, maybe not that spooky but definitely, it will have some paranormal things in it.  Now without further ado, let’s just jump right in.

Hyouka is not a Spooky anime, it is a good detective/mystery one though… Let’s just move on.

I want to make this list a bit different so I might not feature the anime that you might expect. So no “Another” or any of the “Blood” anime, Vampire Hunter D, Hellsing,  you know, the usual stuff. That being said let’s start with….

Bakemonogatari

Well, the whole Monogatari series in general, but if we’re going to start somewhere let’s do it with the one that says “Monster” (Bakemono) in the title. I’m just going to put this out there, this is one of my favorite titles. It’s a hard recommendation though, it’s not for everybody. The Monogatari series is heavy in dialogue, a matter of fact, the meat of the show is in the dialogue. Especially the banters between Araragi and Hitagi are delightful to watch.

The series revolves around our protagonist Koyomi Araragi, that constantly finds himself trying to help girls from his school with their paranormal problems. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he had a previous encounter with the supernatural that left him a quarter vampire. Araragi can’t help himself but help others with “oddities” as the show calls them.

It’s ok, Araragi knows a guy.

The most interesting part of the Monogatari series is the deconstruction of tropes. Nisioisin is one of my favorite writers and the way he survives in this light novel environment where the public just consumes the tropes like water. He gives us that but not at all. For example, you could say that Hitagi is a “Tsundere”, she even refers to herself as a tsundere, but using that stereotype to refer to herself should be a clue that there’s something else to it. The tsundere title is just a mask that she uses to cover up the real reason of why she behaves the way she does with people.

The characters in this stories seem to be your stereotypical anime heroines, but deep down they have their reasons for acting in certain ways. They are real people with very human problems and those problems are the ones that connect them to their respective oddities.

And everyone has problems!!

I can’t recommend this show enough but I can understand if you’re intimidated by how many parts it has, Nekomonogatari, Nisemonogatari, etc etc. Let me tell you something, start with Bakemonogatari and if you can survive the lengthy dialogue, the flashing letters, and the shaft head tilts, you will enjoy the rest of the series.

Studio Shaft really loves their head tilts yo!

Also if you managed to go pass Bakemonogatari you’ll be able to experience the spookiness that it is spooky Ougi!

Spooky Ougi is spooky!!

The next series is an old one, matter of fact, I had to go rewatch it because for the life of me I couldn’t remember anything about it. I stopped watching after episode 2 because I told myself, “I’m going to watch this on Halloween”.

Boogiepop Phantom.

Boogiepop Phantom is an anime based on a series of light novel of the same name that could be considered the granddaddy of light novels like Bakemonogatari. The story takes places a long time after a strange pillar of light appeared in the city one night, and a series of murders as well. The anime follows an array of different characters, mostly high school students because of anime, and their experiences with abnormal situations. Most of these abnormal situations involve the disappearance of students in mysterious ways, and mostly everybody blames these disappearances on the urban legend Boogiepop.

She doesn’t look that bad.

First, let me tell you, this is old. Like, remember when you used to watch TV and your image was a square? Yeah, that old. Like good old anime of yesteryears, this show gets weird, like really weird! A fun thing about the show is that the stories of the characters overlap with each other, for that reason you’ll see some repeating scenes, but from a different perspective. Don’t worry though, doesn’t matter from what angle you see something, things will still be freaking weird!

I mean, this dude is eating ghost spiders that he pulls out of people's hearts!

This a perfect show in which you can grab a friend and ask “hey you wanna watch something and get weirded out for Halloween?”. Well enough of that, the next show I’m going to talk about is super cute, and you know what that means right?

DON’T F’ING TRUST IT!!

Gakkou Gurashi!! If Madoka Magica, and most recently Made in Abyss, has taught you something, it should be... don’t trust in cute sh’t!! Unfortunately, a lot of people passed on this show just for its looks, and it’s hard to try to recommend this show without spoiling what it is about. This show relies on the shock of a major plot twist. Fortunately, unlike Madoka Magica where the twist comes in episode three, we get the shocking revelation on episode one!

Look how cute the character design is, but there’s something odd about this scene.

The show is about a group of girls that belong to the “School Live” club. What does the club do? Well, they stay in school and live there. Why do they have to live in the school? You would like to know that wouldn’t ya? At first glance, this anime is just a slice of life about cute girls doing cute things. The show does its best to portrait that image throughout episode one, but if you are observant, you will notice clues to the true nature of the show. That is cute girls doing cute things because what other choice do they have.

This chick carries a shove around 24/7, that’s flipping weird right!?l

You’ll have to trust me on this one. I can’t say much without ruining the show for you, matter of fact, I think I already said way too much because now you know something is up with this anime.

Forget I said anything, their biggest problem is when the dog

starts running around like crazy.

So do you have a show that you’re going to watch during Halloween? Are you just going to stuff your face with lots of candy? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Good-bye, for now, my friends.

Have a spooky good time!!

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Manga Recommendation Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro

Manga Recommendation

Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro

This anime season has proven to be more exciting than the previous one so I might need some time before I can release my “The Anime Season So Far” blog. Also, I have planned a special Anime blog for next week, in the spirit of this spooky month, so for this week, I’ve decided to make a manga recommendation. This is one of my favorites out there and also goes along with the spooky feel of this month, so without further ado.

My story with “Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro” started in a “Barners & Noble” that I walked into after leaving a movie theater. In the manga section of the store there was this manga, with its cover facing straight at me, and immediately caught my attention. The character design of the main character was very interesting, and after further inspection, the art style was captivating.

It had this dark gloomy fairy tale kind of look and I decided to purchase the book right then and there! After that, I’ve been a diehard fan.

Also, the main character looked like an undertaker Konota from Lucky Star.

The story of Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro revolves around a young traveler, a girl dressed in black, named Kuro. Accompanied by a bat named Sen, and two peculiar little girls with cat ears, named Sanju and Nijuku. They embark on a journey across the land that leads them to interact with an array of interesting characters. What’s Kuro searching for, and why does she carry a coffin around? Where did Sanju and Nijuku come from, and why do they have cat ears in a world with pretty much regular looking people? And why does the bat talk!? These were questions that I asked myself and that drew me deeper in the mystery that it is Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro.

The crew.

It’s hard for me to explain what is Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro without me rambling for hours, or spoiling major plot points, but I’ll try my best to give you an understanding of the manga. So let me start by talking about each character, and what better character to begin with than Kuro.

The traveler clothed in black, Kuro.

Kuro is quite the mysterious character. We don’t know much about her past, but we get bits and pieces of the reason behind her journey throughout the story. Kuro normally gets mistaken as a boy, a mortician, or even a vampire sometimes, but she doesn’t let that get to her.

She’s tremendously smart, and she can be a bit sarcastic at times. She also can be harsh and straight to point with her companions. Most of the time she tries to keep her composure and she doesn’t let her true feelings slip out too often, but deep down she is a caring person. It’s like life has made her the way with its hardships, after all, she is wondering the land dress in black carrying a coffin. Perhaps the coffin is the most peculiar thing about her. If you were to ask her about it, she would only reply with: “this coffin is for me”.

The snarky bat Sen.

Sen is a snarky individual and a womanizer, but he also can be really wise at times, but above all, he’s a talking bat! Sen is always causing problems for Kuro but also is always there to protect her, and there’s nothing more terrifying than a cloud of a hundred bats. That’s the thing, Sen is not the only bat with Kuro, in total there are one hundred bats, most of them spend their time in Kuro’s coffin until their help is required.

Better safe than sorry eh?

The peculiar thing is that all of them are Sen, like every single one of them is part of a single entity, and the talking Sen is the head. Despite his disposition, Sen cares deeply for Kuro and it’s clear that he is in this journey for similar reasons as Kuro.

The twins, Nijuku & Sanju.

Nijuku and Sanju are just children, and as such, they are full of energy and curiosity, while also being a constant source of headaches for Kuro. Kuro found them in an abandoned mansion and decided to take them with her. As I mentioned before, they have cat ears, but they also possess an array of strange abilities. They can shrink to the sizes of a mouse, they can change into colors of things they touch, and many other odd abilities. They are clearly not a common thing in this world and their origins are as mysterious as the rest of the cast. Different from the others though, we know their goal. They joined Kuro in her journey in order to find the one person that is truly precious to them, a person that they called “Professor”.

Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro is a seinen fantasy manga that is constantly changing settings thanks to the travels of our characters. The fairytale look of the art in combinations with the dark tones, and the color choices for the colored pages, give a nostalgic and melancholic feel to this series. It shows that even in the lighter moments in life, there’s still a little dark in there, and there is a little light in the dark as well.

The story is about the journey, a journey that will make you laugh and will make you cry. A journey that it is fun but it has an urgency to it. The travels of our heroes will have to end one day, and whether their adventure ends in a happy ending or not, is uncertain.

This is an old series that I hold dear to my heart, and now that I have an outlet in which I can promote it, I gladly wrote this blog to recommend it to the world! Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro is published in English by Yen Press, so there is no reason not to own a physical copy. Currently, five volumes have been released and I can’t wait for volume six. It’s a shame that this manga doesn’t have an anime, but Kuro and Sen did make a background appearance in the anime adaptation of another of Satoko Kiyuzuki’s work, GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class.

I guess this is as close as we’re going to get when it comes to an anime adaptation eh?

So are you interested in reading Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro? Are you a hardcore fan like me? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Good-bye, for now, my friends.

Have a safe journey, my friends.

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24 HOUR COMIC DAY (this is a thing!)

By JP Simmons

AMERIME MEDIA at its heart is a publishing company. We primarily publish sci-fi fantasy, space operas, paranormal romance, and yes COMIC BOOKS. we have two comic series in production. "Rise To Regent," our vampire comics that accompany the dark fantasy novels, and "The Land Of Blood And Plenty," a comic series about a warrior tribe Africa charged with protecting a very special village. These comics have been in production for a year, and have yet to hit the market 

so you can imagine our surprise to learn that there are magical elves (these people aren't human) who can produce an entire comic book in a day!

According to Wikipedia, a 24-hour comic is a 24-page comic book written, drawn, and completed in 24 hours. Cartoonist (And the leader of the elves, Elron if you will) Scott McCloud came up with the challenge in 1990 as a creative exercise for himself and fellow comics artist Stephen R. Bissette. Beginning in 2004, writer Nat Gertler helped popularize the form by organizing annual 24 Hour Comics Days (usually held in October), which now take place regularly in the United States and many other countries worldwide.

I learned about 24 hour Comic Day by browsing movies on Hulu... I am preparing for NaNoWriMo and I love to watch movies I've seen a thousand times while I make my outlines. It has a documentary, reality tv show type of vibe, and it really sparked my interest. I immediately went to the website http://www.24hourcomicsday.com/ to find out more about this awesomeness. I highly recommend you check out the movie on Hulu and stalk the website at your leisure. Amerime Media is based in Philadelphia and Philly held no 24hourcomicday events this year, but we are sure to host one next year!!!

  DO YOU LIKE NERD SHIT???

WELP WE DESIGN AND SELL NERD SHIT

BUY NERD GEAR HERE

BY OUR DARK FANTASY 

BLOODY MARY: THE COVEN BOOK ONE 

HERE

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The Gifted: Possibly the best live action X-MEN

Let’s start with the Mutant resistance

The guy up top is Thuderbird so far his mutant powers are he has super strength, he can track people over a certain distance using the bird tattoo on his arm, and super hearing. He is basically the tracker for the group. He helps find the runaway mutants and bring them into the resistance. Next is Polaris one of Magneto children (this dude got around.) she has all the same powers as him. She shares some of his disgust for non-mutants as well I’m curious if they will explore her connection. Fox has stated it shares the same timeline with the movies so it could happen.

The next is Blink she is the most current member of the resistance she can create portals. So, she’s going to be very important to the group.

And, last but not least is their fearless leader Eclipse he hold the power of the sun in his body. Think solar flares, he can shoot it out his fingers and is one hell of a flashlight. His blood is made of light or heat from the sun.

And, now for the family the father Reed Strucker who is a federal prosecutor for the government. He puts mutants in jail. has the Stryker like vibe to him. He is the bad guy turn good because, surprise, surprise his kids are mutants. Well the daughter always knew of her powers she uses them without the knowledge of her family. The son whose abilities were dormant until he was bullied one too many times. And the mom who were thrown into the chaos trying to protect her kids.

Maybe it’s just me but if both children are mutants then I’m guessing it came from one of the parents. Meaning we have one more mutant in the family my money is on the dad. He grew up resenting mutants and suppressed his abilities.  One faithful school party the bullies decided to have fun with Andy Strucker and drag him to the boy’s shower room this is when his gifts of telekinesis and magnetism woke up. His character in the comics has a shit load of powers we’ll see which one’s fox displays in the series.

His sister Lauren Strucker on the other hand have a Last air bender style of powers that’s right she can control the elements. Now she has been using her powers for a while now but for minor stuff, stealing out of vending machines and cheating at bowling so she doesn’t know the extent of her gifts. After Andy destroys the shower room and all the lights in the school the same people his father works for. Sentinel Services (yup their here in small form.) Reed then reaches out to the Mutant Resistance for safe passage for his family to Canada.

Now for the timeline. We know it’s before Logan because mutants are still being born and not being weeded out using chemicals in food and, being killed off. But, the X-Men and Brotherhood are gone. Maybe most escaped to Eden by now or in hiding. Either way Xavier vocal voice on behalf of mutants and the academy is gone. Magneto and the brotherhood violent acts are gone. For now.

With only two shows in this show is really good. I can’t wait to see where they take it. Will some X-Men show up to help the resistance? Will the brotherhood show up and the resistance have to fight them to save a non-mutant. I left a lot out because I want you to check it out Fox and Marvel has a winner with The Gifted.

Thank you for reading and vibing with us for this long just remember check out our store some great stuff going on also.

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Made in Abyss Discussion

BY LUIGGI CAVANNA

The Final Episode

“This anime season was a little bit underwhelming”, those were my thoughts at the beginning of the season if I recall correctly. I did talk about three different shows of this season in my blog “The Anime Season So Far”, but let me say that “Gamers” didn’t quite recover after episode five, and “Tsurezure Children”, even though stay consistent, was still just a romance anime and if you are not into romance you were shit out of luck. So aside from two-day specials like “Owarimonogatari” or recurring anime like “Boku no Hero Academia” there wasn’t much out there, except for…

Of all the shows from this season, “Made in Abyss” was the one I waited for, every week, with the most anticipation. This show left such a mark on me that I have to talk about it, so I decided to create another segment like “The Anime Season So Far” and name it “The Final Episode”. In this segment, I’ll take a second look at one anime near the ending of a season, in which I’ll discuss the show in more detail. Without further ado, let’s jump right in.

No pun intended.

First of all, I already wrote a little synopsis of this show in my previous anime blog, “The Anime Season So Far” and if my editors at Amerime Media are awesome, as I know as they are, they will put a link to it right here. So I won’t be discussing so much what the show is about, as much as dealing with more in depth stuff. So fair warning, there are some minor SPOILERS AHEAD! But not that many, I still want people that haven’t watched the show to give it a chance.

Here is a refresher on how the curse works.

Made in Abyss was the one anime I stayed with until the end of this season, and it truly will be a crime if any of you gave it a pass just for its cutesy look. If “Madoka Magica” has taught the community anything, it’s that looks can be deceiving and cutesy looking anime can have an amazing well-written story. It can also be very dark. Unlike “Madoka Magica”, which turned really dark on episode three, “Made in Abyss” took it’s time and actually slowed down its pacing. We spent a few episode on the surface getting to know the world outside the abyss and characters that we might never see again! I really appreciated that. It gave us a sense of what the characters were leaving behind for the sake of this adventure. Friends and family, a world that they will never see again because the journey to the bottom of the abyss is a one-way trip.

Madoka Magica is suffering.

I have to say it was quite a move this show pulled since a second season is not certain. Other anime would’ve rush through the story cramming as much content as it could in a twelve/thirteen episode run and hope for a second season. “Made in Abyss” only cared about building its world and characters, disregarding the time constraint and managed to give us a satisfactory ending.

Satisfying but still bittersweet.

Despite the slow pace, the show knew when to pick things up. At the point where the anime ran the risk of becoming stale, it threw us into the chaos of the abyss. In episode ten, at the layer where the effects of the curse escalate to a point where a return is near impossible, the anime gets serious really fast. Every layer up to this point has showcased a vast number of creatures that are formidable, as they are deadly. The creatures of the fourth layer proved to be in a different league. With a combination of speed and otherworldly instincts the Orbed Piercer, a terrible monster of the abyss, severely injured Riko and the only way to escape that Reg could think of, was to take Riko and ascend rapidly to a structure above. That comes with a price though, remember, the strain of the curse at this level is quite terrifying.

 

“I just wanted to have a nice and wholesome adventure…”

I love how the story was constructed. So far, with Reg’s might and Riko’s knowledge of the abyss, the journey has proven to be dangerous but manageable. We had some fake-outs on our way to this point, and some of us probably grew complacent thinking that they would just have a nice and wholesome journey to the depths of the abyss. This is where the story shocked us and told us that the tales of this place are very true and any step you take can be your last. This part was also the perfect time to introduce other characters, characters that are tremendously important in order to have a better understanding of this world.

Nanachi and Mitty.

The story of Nanachi and Mitty, aside from leaving the whole community a sobbing mess, still followed the themes of humanity’s curiosity and longing for the unknown but also added the other side of the coin to it. Faith and the unstoppable thirst for knowledge, a thirst that can drive men to commit the darkest of deeds. Nanachi and Mitty weren’t always a bunny girl and a fleshy bag of pain and sorrow. They were orphans from foreign lands that were brought to the abyss by one of the white whistles and most hated anime character currently, Bondrewd.

More like “The Ass-hole of Assitry” dude!

There is something eerie in the way that Bondrewd was introduced and how the children viewed him. He was like a messiah that walked into the orphanage to offer purpose and salvation. That also showed us how the world sees the abyss, a place of wonder, where we can find a second chance. Heck! It even spawned so sort of religion.

“Let the children come to me”

In a way, Bondrewd is what we feared Ozen was going to be, remember when I talked about “fake outs”? Since the introduction of Nanachi and Mitty, we knew that their appearance was caused by the curse of the abyss, but we didn’t know why they had tremendous differences between them. Bondrewd is the answer, and also it’s the answer as to why Nanachi requested Reg to do something that, not only dumbfounded him but the audience as well.

My heart sank.

I don’t want to spoil much more, I really feel people should experience this show. It explores so many aspects of our humanity, our curiosity, thirst for adventure and longing for a place to belong. There is so much sorrow and pain in this world, but also many beautiful and wonderful things. Despite all the fearsome creatures of the abyss, it’s telling that the most terrifying creature in the depths is man.

Life continues, and regardless of everything that our heroes experienced, there’s still hope. I gotta say that it's been awhile since a show has made me feel so many things and I can only hope that it gets a second season, and if not, it would be time to read the manga. I can’t recommend this show enough! It is an adventure worth having, regardless of the dangers.

So did you watch Made in Abyss? Are you going to give it a chance? What are your thoughts? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling, probably to keep crying. Good-bye, for now, my friends.

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