Thoughts and Analyses on Anime-related Content

                                Blog: thebackloggers.wordpress.com                                 Here lies anime discussion. And cute anime pictures. Everyone loves cute anime pictures.

[owningmatt93]

Seasonal Showcase — Twisting Plots within Deca-Dence [Summer 2020: Week 2]

Seasonal Showcase — Twisting Plots within Deca-Dence [Summer 2020: Week 2]

Nothing is more surprising than when an anime throws a curveball at you within the first few episodes of the show. 

It’s not uncommon within shows to do this when they begin to ramp up its story into something larger than life or want to increase the scale of their plotline to emphasize their thematic point. Occasionally though, this does happen early on in the show as we see with this week’s’…

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[owningmatt93]

Seasonal Showcase — The Unstoppable Force of The God of High School

I'm doing a new thing this season where I'm writing each week after a different stand-out show/episode! Come and read where I discuss the opening episode of The God of High School. #TheGodofHighSchool #goh_anime #GodofHighSchool

The first week of the Summer 2020 anime season has now fully concluded, and despite the lack in number of shows that the season has to offer us, there’s still plenty of great shows to partake in for our viewing pleasure. Since the season has such a small, awesome selection of shows, I figure this was a good chance to spice up the Seasonal Showcase posts by doing something a little different than…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Podcast | Death March Discussion — "I Really Didn't Mean to Call Him Kirito!"

The Backlog has spoken, and this time... Death March was the one selected. Oh boy. Tune in with us as we talk about what sort of anime experience this was and how it fits into the general space of isekai anime as a whole!

Remember how it feels like we just talked about shows in digital worlds, or with an isekai plot, or some combination of those ideas? We just watched another one. It was an awful decision. Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody is a pretty decidedly “meh” fantasy MMO isekai harem series, and we had to watch all of it. It’s not all bad, of course – we get some pretty good discussion out of some…

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[owningmatt93]

Improving Tiresome Anime Debates — A Response to Irina

I wrote a short response to @Irina_the_Great's article about Anime Debates and how we can improve age-old debates into something better! Please give it (and the original article) a read!

In the past five years of being a blogger and almost eight years of being an anime watcher, I’ve personally seen a lot of discourse and discussion over a variety of topics from plenty of angles – opinionated and factual alike. There are always those debates, though, that continuously circle back around after some time again and again, almost as if they are scheduled to appear once a few months…

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[owningmatt93]

Help! The Tears Won't Stop! — A Spring 2020 Seasonal Showcase

As we round the halfway point of the season and people begin to solidify their picks of the season, I talk about some of the big-named shows and what makes them interesting watches of the season!

This season has led me to two major realizations within the space of seasonal anime and how we perceive it, as viewers and fans of anime. 

1) With a lot of shows delayed until this crisis is over, I was initially disappointed by the lack of my “main” shows such as Re:Zero and OreGairu S3 and wasn’t sure how I was going to fill the “anime void” left in my heart. However, I think this also has…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | End of Winter 2020 — My Favorite Anime Made It to the End of the Season!

We talk about some of the big hitters of the Winter 2020 season this time, and share a lot our own memes as well! Give it a listen and enjoy our silliness as well with this great season of anime!

The Winter 2020 season ended on quite a lot of strong notes! There were a lot of contenders for what we would talk about on this wrap-up cast, but for the sake of not having this take three hours, we had to narrow it down to some of the season’s best of the best. It’s not like we were doing much else during a global pandemic, but hey. We’ve got a whole smorgasbord of stuff for you in this one: we…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Podcast | Sagrada Reset Discussion — Backloggers, Reset

Sagrada Reset is a show about superpowers, time travel, and apparently Kit Kats! We never would have expected that, but it ended up being pretty decent for what it was! Come and join us as we talk about this weird anomaly of a show!

Having watched the first few episodes when this started airing a while back and feeling decidedly like “it was a show” and nothing else, Sagrada Reset is not something any of us would have decided to watch on our own.

Thankfully, our merciless, unstoppable backlog selected it for us, and we’re here to report that it’s…actually pretty good? Join us as we talk about some weird superpowers, a…

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[owningmatt93]

Digital Media Preservation: Why the Interspecies Reviewers Controversy Matters

We've all talked about Interspecies Reviewers to death, but what concerns can this incident present to the medium of anime? I discuss some of the quirks of the "digital age" of anime and streaming services that may need to reflected on for the future.

Anime has come so far from the days of having to watch subbed episodes of Evangelion on bootleg video tapes and trying to find any anime streaming site worth its salt that just wasn’t clustered with ads. One thing that I appreciate about modern anime streaming services and availability is being able to just sit down and watch a series when I want to without having to go through the hassle of…

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[owningmatt93]

Seasonal Showcase Winter 2020 — Idols, Turtles, and Detectives

Interested in knowing about some different sorts of shows this season? Our Seasonal Showcase talks a bit about why some shows this season that seem average are above-average in their execution!

Since the winter season’s been in full swing for several weeks, everyone’s likely chosen what anime they want to watch from the seasonal pool of shows. We’ve got all of these Great Winter Anime this season, and honestly it’s probably one of the best Winter seasons we’ve had in recent years. It may be so good, though, that narrowing down what shows to watch can be a huge issue, as it has been for…

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[owningmatt93]

Owningmatt93's Picks for the Anime of the Decade

Here are my picks for Anime of the Decade! Hope y'all enjoy the crazy shows I've selected!

So, it’s my turn now, huh? I don’t think the world is ready for my Anime of the Decade list, but here we are. 

Just like the other two, I’ve chosen shows that I enjoyed the most and found the most interesting throughout the decade. No gimmicks; no “one anime from each year”; no rankings or any of that. These are solely shows that I most enjoyed from 2010 to 2019 in the order that I first…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Campfire Cast | MASTERPIECES

I know we've been quiet, but nothing's better to break the radio silence than a good ol' Campfire Cast. We got kinda rowdy in this one but still while making some interesting musings about anime, so we hope you enjoy this nonetheless!

Welcome back to the Campfire Cast! In this one, we end up talking about a lot of anime that has made us emotional. However, most of those emotions run the gamut of rage, disgust, confusion, or just flat-out despair (here’s looking at you, Golden Time). There’s some solid discussions about genre conventions in this one, too, such as what makes a shonen anime a shonen, or what makes a great story…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | End of Summer 2019 — Lost in the (Not So) Wasteful Days of Summer Anime

Log Time Seasonal Podcast | End of Summer 2019 — Lost in the (Not So) Wasteful Days of Summer Anime

It’s that time again folks, where we talk about all the seasonal hits and duds. Luckily as with many past seasons, we didn’t watch the duds after the first few eps; we watch it so you don’t have to! We still talk about our adventures with the season though, which was mostly a success, minus a certain anime about firefighters that got superseded by a movie about firefighters instead… which…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Podcast | Love Lab Discussion — HOW TO BOY??

Log Time Podcast | Love Lab Discussion — HOW TO BOY??

Love Lab is a show with many layers – most of them are goofy as all get-out, but some of them? Some of them get surprisingly deep for a show about a student council wanting to know how to meet and romance boys. Join us as we talk about really bad puppy dog eyes, harmonized goofs, and the most important question: HOW TO BOY??

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundCloud

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[owningmatt93]

Your Lie in April - A Shining Light Within A Sea of Despair

Your Lie in April – A Shining Light Within A Sea of Despair

To “lose” something is such a powerful, yet diverse word when it comes to what it means to different people. It’s a word that can mean both a misplacement of something important to us and a heartbreaking parting with someone we know. A word that can mean both a failure to achieve a personal goal and also one of misguidance and confusion. It’s hard to pin down on what “losing” can mean to any…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Podcast | Revue Starlight Discussion — Dances with Giraffes

Log Time Podcast | Revue Starlight Discussion — Dances with Giraffes

Tofu was told by some folks that Revue Starlight was basically Black Swan with idol girl fights. In this episode, we learn that this is not the case. Join us as we talk about some sick fights and songs, marvel over timeline-looping bananas, and are astounded that we watched a Bushiroad project that wasn’t BanG Dream! This podcast was recorded August 18th, 2019.

Audio Links: iTunes | SoundClo…

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[owningmatt93]

Log Time Campfire Cast | Let's (Shounen) Jump Right Into It

Log Time Campfire Cast | Let’s (Shounen) Jump Right Into It

Welcome to our first Campfire Cast! These are going to be an offshoot of our current suite of stuff where we talk about pretty much anything and everything anime and manga-adjacent that we’ve been into recently or recent events in the industry.

In this one, we talk about shounen manga and anime series, some Japanese originated video games, and even share how we all got into anime to begin…

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[owningmatt93]

The Backloggers Blog Update: AKA, A Letter to Irina's "Blogging Breaks" Post

The Backloggers Blog Update: AKA, A Letter to Irina’s “Blogging Breaks” Post

Note: I’m starting off this post by saying that this is my no means to be any reflection of the other members of the Backloggers. This is solely my thoughts on this topic alone. Although this post will talk about general blog updates and general impressions of the blog, I obviously cannot speak for anyone but myself and my opinions on the subject at hand.

This post will probably be the longest…

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