I enjoy a narrative when it doesn’t feel compelled to proclaim itself. I feel sort of molly coddled at best and annoyed at worst when a story lays out the plot like some kind of Lego instructional manual. Just let me put the pieces together on my own, all right? I can make the pirate ship without you holding my hand.

It is for this very reason that I’m particularly excited about Kurenai. Right from the get-go the characters are in motion and the wheels are turning. Other than the fact that main character, Kurenai, is a dispute mediator and works for Juusawa Benika, you don’t know much. You feel almost thrown into the world, yet at the same time the narrative remains cohesive and slowly fills in the details piece by piece. Read the rest of this entry »

Breaking news! The sudden disappearance of superstar bloggers 0rion and Guff over two months ago had left the anime blogosphere in a state of shock, and theories abounded regarding the whereabouts of the former tag team blogging duo.

Today we bring you breaking headline news to report on the status of Epic Win with a live interview with none other than the previously MIA, thought deceased writers themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Porororon poro roro roporon ron!

“This episode is full of kanji and makes me tired.”

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Cha chiri chiririn, docchudocchurin!

“Yes, I agree heartily, good sir.”

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Miri kiriri rururin mirurun mirakuru mikurunrun!

“It also contained many obscure puns that most English speaking viewers won’t understand at all!”

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Sumomomo momomo!

“Not to mention incoherent rambling from every character for the first 12 minutes of the episode!” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while since our last humorous entry, and we haven’t talked about Japan much since our post about Junky Healthy Taco Rice and other fun Engrish stuff, so we thought a good way to kill two birds with one stone would be to show you guys some of the funny Engrish-style T-shirts those crazy Japanese have cooked up.

Dental hygiene is of extremely great in portance in Japan. Whilst I was perusing the various and sundry clothing shops scattered throughout Harajuku, I came upon this incredible shirt. It’s awfully rare to find a T-shirt that so unilaterally implores others to follow societal mores, really. Come to think of it, I think teeth are often undervalued in our society…well, or maybe that’s just England?

Nevertheless, it serves as a good reminder. Also, check out that bad tooth - do all cavities have such a huge bite taken out of them? Thankfully, they provided three standard teeth to allow for comparison. Gosh, I love this shirt so much. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, time to nitpick. Having read the first of the Ookami to Koushinryou novels, as well as read a bit of the manga, it is now my contractual obligation to tell you how the anime sucks and is nothing like the original, which is of course a paragon of excellence, prosaic and beautiful in ways this adaptation can never be!

Just kidding, of course. The Spice and Wolf anime has thus far been excellent, and I continue to look forward to each new episode. That said, I feel it has several distinct shortcomings. Read the rest of this entry »

Aria banzai! Donuts banzai!

Like pie and ice cream, like Alicia and “Ara ara”, like Akari and embarrassing comments, the gentle strains of Makino Yui’s beautiful singing go together perfectly with the beginning of an Aria episode.

The whole concept of the “OP-that’s-not-an-OP” is wonderfully fitting for the series, as the song complements the gorgeous scenery of the opening shots, helping to soothe the soul and get you in the right mood to enjoy what’s to come. It’s almost like an insert song for every episode, in a sense. Read the rest of this entry »

How I’ve missed Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei! The winter anime season doesn’t look like it’s going to be very strong on comedy shows, and Hayate no Gotoku has been kind of going downhill recently, so I’m extremely pleased that I’ll once again have the ever despairing Itoshiki-sensei and his twisted harem to tickle my funnybone. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh my God, is that a woman in a Kaiji episode?! What has the world come to?? Up is down, left is right, J.C. Staff is KyoAni!!

Hmm, well at least I think that’s supposed to be a woman, anyway…I dunno, Guff? What’s your expert opinion?

While the skirt and sweater vest may seem indicative of the female gender on first glance, look carefully at the nose.

Stand by…now magnifying… Read the rest of this entry »

Finally finally finally FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY… after dicking around with filler arcs and side stories for what seemed like an eternity, they finally get around to the good part of the story. And thank goodness, because it is good indeed. I’ve been waiting to see this scene animated for a long, long time.

The last few episodes have been following the novels very closely, so it seems that they’ve decided to really get back on track. Man, it’s been a while since I watched an anime episode that made me giddy like this one did. Honestly, instead of wasting the first 7 episodes on filler stuff, they should have just jumped right back into the canon storyline and used the extra money on animating the fight scenes. Especially considering the speed at which they’re moving through the events in the novels; I mean, they basically covered almost half of one novel just in this episode. Read the rest of this entry »

While variety is the spice and wolf of life, and while we like always mixing things up here, it’s also good to know what kind of content you guys enjoy most.

In our contest last month I asked, among other things, what you wanted to see more of here at Epic Win. Between that and our recent poll, I think I’ve gotten a pretty good idea of what our core audience is looking for. Read the rest of this entry »