Ringtail Reviews

2022 was an absurdly packed year for anime. From hotly anticipated manga adaptations to anime-original surprises that took hold of the discourse, the year was often so overstuffed that it was tough to keep up with everything, especially during the historically stacked fall season—which makes it no surprise that there were plenty of great shows in the mix.  So with just that much to choose from, what exactly did 2022 bring? It’s true that we didn’t get an artsy, dramatic masterpiece on the level of 2021’s The Heike Story or Sonny Boy , but instead, last year delivered something different: lots and lots of top-shelf entertainment, fun shows of all shapes and sizes brought to life with extraordinary art design and over-achieving animation, even for the productions made under tight conditions. 2022 felt like a constant celebration of the entertainment that that anime can bring, and here, I’d like to highlight the best of these shows and the joy they brought me.  Before we get to t...

2020 is long since dead and gone (thank God), but I'm still pretty proud of this retrospective I wrote at the start of 2021. Here's hoping you get something out of it over a year later. Enjoy! - R - - - Time to get this out of the way: 2020 sucked, 2021’s shaping up to be only slightly better, and we’re all doing our best just to get by. Let’s get along with the feeling of hopelessness. I have now fulfilled the baseline requirements for a 2020 year-in-review article introduction. Okay? Okay.  Well, maybe not okay. Because this is a thing I'm writing about anime, and the anime this year was… not the best. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a miracle that any shows managed to get off the ground in a year that saw the entire industry uprooted and working from home. But between multiple delays, a few high-profile flops, great shows that couldn’t stick the landing, and the continued dominance of soulless mobile game and isekai adaptations, I can’t say this was my favorite year for Japan...

**This is an older review I wrote a few years ago as an experiment. It's a little long, and I don't know that I'll be returning to this exact format in the future, but I hope you find it interesting! -R In January of 1996, Sunrise began releasing the first episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team on home video. Helmed by veteran anime director Kanda Takeyuki, the show took the long-running space franchise into more grounded territory with its Vietnam War-inspired take on the Gundam universe. Yet that July, halfway through the production, tragedy struck when Takeyuki was suddenly killed in a traffic accident. The 08th MS Team stayed incomplete for several years until Takeyuki's former collaborator Iida Umanosuke came on board to finish the remaining episodes under Takeyuki's original plan.