The Best of Clarkesworld 2014

written by David Steffen

Clarkesworld has been getting bigger and better. They’re publishing more stories than ever before and they’re good as ever, publishing more episodes than any of the other podcasts I listen to. Neil Clarke continues to edit and Kate Baker continues to host and usually narrate the podcast.

The List

1. “The Clockwork Soldier” by Ken Liu
I enjoyed this story so much, moving science fiction story involving text adventures (like Zork).

2. “The Magician and LaPlace’s Demon” by Tom Crosshill
Probability magician vs near-omnipotent AI. Great stuff.

3. “Fives Stages of Grief After the Alien Invasion” by Caroline M. Yoachim
Another great one by Caroline, aliens that look like frogs but are intangible mists start making deals with Earth.

4. “The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye” by Matthew Kressel
Omnipotent super-AI finds a drifting human eras after the rest of humanity has gone extinct.

5. “The Saint of the Sidewalks” by Kat Howard
Its the rituals that make a saint.

6. “Seeking boarder for rm w/ attached bathroom, must be willing to live with ghosts ($500 / Berkeley)” by Rahul Kanakia
Pretty much what it says on the tin.

7. “The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter” by Alastair Reynolds
Hard to describe the parts I liked about it without spoiling it…

Honorable Mentions

“A Gift in Time” by Maggie Clark

“Stone Hunger” by N.K. Jemisin

“Cameron Rhyder’s Legs” by Matthew Kressel

The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Podcast 2013-2014

written by David Steffen

This post covers two years of Beneath Ceaseless Skies–they didn’t publish quite enough stories in 2013 to do a list. Beneath Ceaseless Skies continues to publish quality other-world fiction, edited by Scott H. Andrews. This list only covers the stories they published on their podcast, which is a bit less than half of the stories they publish–one podcast every two weeks.

The List

“No Sweeter Art” by Tony Pi
Sequel to “A Sweet Calling” that was published in Clarkesworld, both about a Zodiac-confectioner mage–might want to listen to the other one first.
“Sekhmet Hunts a Dying Gnosis: A Computation” by Seth Dickinson
I love stories that mix fantasy and science fiction in a big way.
“The Breath of War” by Aliette de Bodard
I can’t say I recall another fantasy quest story starring a pregnant woman as the hero.
“Alloy Point” by Sam J. Miller
Flee the terrible metalman, who comes to keep the people of base metal apart from the people of precious metal.
“The Penitent” by M. Bennardo
Number 17596 wakes in his cell. Where are the guards? Why is the cell unlocked?

Honorable Mentions

“The Clockwork Trollop” by Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald
“Ill-Met at Midnight” by David Tallerman

Anime Movie Review: Fafner: Dead Aggressor: Heaven and Earth

written by Laurie Tom

Fafner: Dead Aggressor: Heaven and Earth is the movie sequel to the TV series Fafner: Dead Aggressor. Having been animated six years later, 2010’s Heaven and Earth is able to take advantage of improvements in CG animation (the alien Festum really benefited) and a bigger budget as everything looks much, much better.

Unfortunate the story is not as strong. Being constrained to an hour and a half, the movie reveals that the Festum were not defeated so much as divided by the destruction at the end of Fafner: Dead Aggressor, though the people of Tatsumiyajima Island have been able to enjoy what appears to have been two or three years of peace.

The eighth graders who were not pulled into service at the end of the TV series are now older and active pilots, though without combat experience, and the survivors of the original series are now veterans, though not without scars.

Though it hasn’t been as long for me between seeing these characters, it was still pleasant seeing how they have matured and moved on. Kazuki and Maya might be a non-starting relationship, but I really like how Kenji and Sakura were still together, even after everything that’s happened.

Very little effort is made to bring anyone up to speed with the TV series. Characters come and go with little explanation of who they are and what they do. Most of the new pilots had previously appeared in the series as potential back-ups so it helped that they did not come out of the blue, with one exception. Akira seems to have been included because someone could not resist having a single mecha piloted by twins.

I realize this is a mecha anime so I can buy into neural-controlled mecha without much issue. Pilot thinks and robot moves. Simple enough. But what happens when you have two pilots and one robot?

No time is spent on how this works or why it is an advantage, and the fraternal twins of different genders, who have problems understanding each other (and don’t have the plot time to figure things out), are tossed in the mecha and they pilot it like it’s no big deal, which I had some trouble buying into. I suspect there was originally a subplot here, since it’s mentioned that their parents were the original pilots of the two-person Fafner, but if that’s the case, the two-person mecha should have been pulled along with it.

All of that is secondary to the fact the Festum have changed due to the events at the end of the TV series. Due to the influence of humans on their psyche, the Festum are trying to annihilate the island (and then presumably the rest of humanity) in greater numbers than before. There is also some creepy weirdness in that not all of the Festum are united anymore. While we saw the beginnings of that kind of schism in the TV series, it’s much worse in Heaven and Earth.

The movie is fine for revisiting characters a couple years down the road and for the visually impressive combat scenes, but otherwise feels more like a light snack than a satisfying meal. Because of the time constraints, the story just can’t play to the strengths of the TV series and its large cast works against it.

It does end on a positive note, pointing towards a possible peace between humans and that which was previously incomprehensible.

The new 2015 TV series Fafner: Dead Aggressor: Exodus is supposed to be set two years after the movie, which is why I watched Heaven and Earth (and the original TV series), but it feels very skippable to me, and if the new series does a good job it should bring newcomers up to speed.

Fafner: Dead Aggressor: Heaven and Earth is currently streaming both subbed and dubbed on Hulu. The subtitled version was watched for this review.

Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published inGalaxy’s Edge, Penumbra, and Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

The Best of Drabblecast 2014

The Drabblecast! Still my favorite publication, hitting just the right level of weirdness. Big editorial change recently at Drabblecast with Norm Sherman handing over the Editor-In-Chief position to longstanding head slushwrangler Nathaniel Lee–sounds like it might get episodes out with greater regularity which would be a great thing. Norm will still be host and main producer, so his talent will still make the show what it is.

The List

1. “The Carnival was Eaten, All Except the Clown” by Caroline M. Yoachim
Starring a confectionary clown who acts as the seed for a magician to make carnivals. The epitome of a Drabblecast episode–weird, fun, strong emotional story.

2. “To Whatever” by Shaenon Garrity
Written as a series of notes from an apartment dweller to lurking horror that always stays just out of sight and also drinks the last of the milk from the fridge.

3. “Jackalope Wives” by Ursula Vernon
A kind of a selkie love story, but with jackalopes.

4. “Half a Conversation, Overheard While Inside an Enormous Sentient Slug” by Oliver Buckram
Happily, this story is exactly what it says on the tin.

5. “My Hero: The Fisherman” by Jack Handey
Yes, this is the Jack Handey you may recognize from SNL’s Deep Thoughts and Fuzzy Memories segments. Hilarious story.

Honorable Mentions

“On a Clear Day You Can See All the Way to Conspiracy” by Desmond Warzel
This is one of those that was definitely elevated by the production–amazing narration by Dave Robison as the radio DJ and others playing callers.

“Seven Things that are Better in Blue” by Jason K. Jones

Anime Catch-Up Review: Fafner: Dead Aggressor

written by Laurie Tom

fafnerdeadaggressor Fafner: Dead Aggressor is a series from ten years ago, and it shows in the character designs and the 4:3 aspect ratio of the original broadcast, but those do not detract from making it one of the more unusual mecha shows I’ve seen.

While Fafner starts with the usual teenage protagonists as the pilots, what draws me in is the attention paid to their parents, who are both their commanders and their support crew in the war that suddenly finds their figurative Eden.

Twenty-nine years ago, long enough that many of the younger adults were born post-crisis, an alien entity emerged and most of Japan was destroyed. But a small group of researchers hid on a mobile, artificial island with a cloaking device, taking their research with them.

There, they built weapons to fight the alien Festum and also raised children to pilot the special robots called Fafners, that are the only weapons powerful enough to routinely destroy them. The Fafners are named after the giant in Der Ring des Nibelungen who turned into a dragon to protect his treasure, and they are finicky things that will only accept pilots that meet certain genetic criteria.

Then as the pilot ages and their brains continue to mature, they lose the ability to sync with the machine (all controls are neural). Hence one of the best rationales I’ve seen for having teenage mecha pilots.

Most of their history is unknown to the teenagers, who grew up thinking that the rest of Japan still exists and that they simply live on one of the smaller islands. This is an intentional choice by their parents, who want the children to have as ordinary a childhood as possible. The adults work as shopkeepers, teachers, craftsmen, and so on until the day a Festum finally finds them, at which point it becomes apparent that all of the adults know the truth, even those that were born on the island and were former Fanfer pilot candidates themselves.

Once exposed again to the outside world, the island’s inhabitants are forced to deal not just with the Festum, but the rest of humanity that is still out there and has been searching for them for the last twenty-nine years in hopes the advanced technology the researchers fled with will save them.

Though the protagonists are essentially tools created for the day they might be needed, it’s clear that many of their parents love them regardless of the fact they were born to be the island’s primary line of defense. One of the most moving scenes is when Commander Makabe and Dr. Tomi go around to all the parents of the best pilot candidates (most of whom have second jobs as part of the island’s military command and support staff) and let them know their child is being conscripted.

How the parents react, even knowing this day could come, touches on emotions that most mecha anime never address. One of the fathers is a Fanfer mechanic, and there’s a short scene where he tells his wife he can’t put off work that evening because of their son (who will be going into battle soon).

The result is something quite unusual, as I can’t think of any other anime that spends so much time on family, whether its parents, children, or siblings. It does make the cast rather difficult to keep track of since there are several pilots and parents for almost every one of them, but I think the effort’s worth it, as every death (and there are several) means something to someone.

That said, Fafner: Dead Aggressor does not entirely come together. The alien Festum aren’t meant to be understandable, in fact the core of the problem is that neither humans nor Festum can abide each other’s existence, but even if their mind is alien, some things about their behavior just doesn’t make sense if examined too closely.

And if one hopes for an explanation for why a giant robot is the best weapon against alien invaders, there isn’t one. It is still a mecha series at heart.

The quality of the characters varies. Lead protagonist Kazuki isn’t bad per se, but he’s not very interesting. He’s the lens through which the audience views most of the show so he’s ignorant of everything and is a little idealistic, even when the audience knows what he wants is a bad idea given the situation (granted, we’d have a less interesting show if Kazuki’s idealism didn’t keep causing trouble).

Some of the series’ most trying moments come when Kazuki decides to talk enemies into defeat, which can strain believability.

The rest of the cast has significantly less time, but enough to feel like individuals rather than cut-outs, which is an accomplishment, since there is only so much time the show can give any one character. Aside from Kazuki, the rest of the cast gets about the same amount of attention, including several of the adults, whether they are parents or previous Fafner candidates.

In a way that works since it’s harder to tell if someone is wearing plot armor and if they’re going to make it to the end of the series, but because of the greater distance between the audience and individual characters, it’s more that we feel for those who keep living than those who’ve been lost.

Even though Fafner isn’t perfect, it’s memorable for what it accomplishes, and putting a human face on war. While I initially thought it was naive for the adults to have worked so hard to maintain the illusion that the world outside still existed, by the end I understood. Fafner is a loss of innocence story for the pilots, but they are grateful they had the innocence to lose.

Number of Episodes: 26

Pluses: teenage protagonists with parents just as invested in the fight as they are, more realistic treatment of the costs of war than most anime

Minuses: not much character depth, backstory reveal is on the slow side, sometimes the amount of information withheld from the protagonists doesn’t make sense

Fafner: Dead Aggressor is currently streaming both subbed and dubbed on Hulu. The subtitled version was watched for this review.

Slush Retrospective

written by David Steffen

For anyone who hasn’t been following along, Diabolical Plots was open for fiction submissions for the first time in December 2014 to pick 12 stories to publish one per month for a year as our first fiction offerings. This is my first time editing fiction or handling a slushpile of my own (as opposed to being a slushreader for a magazine run by someone else).

Also, this is a long post–I tried to give useful headings so you could skip to the parts you’re interested in.

WHY NOW?

Anthony Sullivan (my co-conspirator here at Diabolical Plots) and I decided together that we wanted to give this a try. We’d been talking about it off and on for years. So why did we actually move forward with it now? The answer to that is simple–money. We knew that if we wanted to do this, we wanted to do it big–professional rates as defined by SFWA (currently 6 cents per word). We don’t have anything against markets that pay less, but we figured the best way in our control to increase the upper quality of the slushpile is to pay professional rates. And we wanted to make a market that we would be excited to submit to. We would love to become a SFWA-qualified professional market.

The reason we can go forward with this fiction venture now is because of generous donations both one-time and recurring from users of the Submission Grinder. Those donations go first to site maintenance costs like hosting as well as secondary costs that help us keep up with market news as well as we can. But we’ve been saving what we can to put towards projects that require money like this fiction venture. We could have run a Kickstarter campaign but we both liked the idea of providing something of value and then seeing if people would like to support it, rather than the other way around. We plan to launch a Patreon campaign in the near future–if that and the recurring PayPal donations combined reach a threshold, then we will keep publishing fiction past the first year, if we reach the next threshold above that we’ll buy 2 stories/month for the following year, and so on. I’m not opposed to something like Kickstarter, but I like the Patreon model better for what I hope will be an ongoing venture because its focus is maintenance funding, ongoing income instead of the one-off burst that Kickstarter will provide–at some point a magazine has to hit Kickstarter again and one success does not guarantee another.

MAKING THE GUIDELINES

Our guidelines are somewhat unusual for several reasons. One is that we were only open for a month to buy a year’s worth of fiction. Part of the reason for this is that we intended from the beginning to read all of the slush ourselves, and we knew this would be time-consuming, so we would rather do it on a short-term sprint than to be reading slush around the calendar.

Another oddity is that we only allow one story per author per submission window. There were a few reasons for this. One is to encourage authors to pick their very best work they have available that fits the rest of the guidelines. Another is to make any progress in the slushpile a permanent step–rather than rejecting a story by an author and getting another story from the same author again.

Of course the biggest oddity in our guidelines is the requirement for anonymity–there are a few markets that require this–among pro SF markets I believe Flash Fiction Online and Writers of the Future are the only others. But we’re even more strange in this respect in that there were only two staff members doing all the reading and there wasn’t a separate person to do author correspondence. Our homebrew submission tracking software had to be quite a bit more complicated because of this–it had to hide the author’s identity from us until we’ve made our final decision of accept or reject, and had to allow some basic way for an author to query us to make sure their story was received but without breaking anonymity.

The reason we wanted to make the slush anonymous is that we wanted story to trump all. We wanted to completely remove the possibility that personal relationships with an author would sway our decision one way or the other. And we wanted to remove the consideration of marketing concerns–it’s not uncommon for a publication, especially when starting up, to publish stories from established authors with big fan followings to attract readers. The reasoning behind cherry-picking known authors is that the fan following will get more eyeballs on the magazine and help make the launch more successful. But personally, we felt that these stories can feel phoned-in because the story didn’t make it into the publication on its own merits. We have nothing against established authors with big names, of course. They got to be big names because they knew what they were doing. But if an author you recognize is in our table of contents, it means that we thought that story was in our top twelve and the name has nothing to do with it.

THE SLUSH

In the 31 days we were open, we received 378 submissions–34 of those on the first day of submissions, 27 of those on the last day of submissions.

17 of the submissions had clear violations of the guidelines. A few of those were stories with names attached against our anonymity requirements. Most of those were stories that were clearly too long for our 2000-word maximum, sometimes by several times. And the one submission that was a synopsis of a non-speculative children’s book that was also triple our maximum word count allowed. I did have to wonder, as I was rejecting these stories unread and with a note pointing out the guidelines violation, what these authors were thinking. Did they not read the guidelines at all? Did they think their story was so good the word count limit was irrelevant to them? Either answer is not particularly endearing . Because of our one-submission-per-author-per-window policy that was the only opportunity those authors got this time round. Once those were taken out of the running that left 361 valid submissions.

I’ve read slush for a few different venues–Flash Fiction Online, Drabblecast, and Stupefying Stories. Overall the quality of the Diabolical Plots slush was much higher than I expect from past experience, and there wasn’t the glut of serial killer stories and stories about protagonists killing their spouses. This could’ve been because I tried to warn off these things in the guidelines, or because the one-story-per-author rule made authors more selective, or could just because we didn’t specifically ask for the offensive like the Drabblecast guidelines do.

The stories that were rejected in the first round were rejected for a variety of reasons. A slow or uninteresting beginning to the story is an excuse to start skimming–a bad sign, especially when dealing with stories less than 2000 words. Stories where nothing happened, or stories with low stakes. Or ones without strong characters. First and foremost we wanted stories that made us feel something, whether that was humor, fear, fun, love, but it had to make us feel something.

By January 8th we’d finished the first round of reading and held 67 stories for the second and final round of consideration. I didn’t keep statistics on the proportion of personal rejections–but I’d guess them at maybe 10% in the first round. I only commented if I had feedback that I felt would be useful to the author.

EDITORIAL CHANGE

Around this same time I started drafting up the contracts based on Lightspeed’s very author-friendly publicly posted contract. Up until this point we had been pretty focused on the editorial side of things and the technical side of things (tweaking the submission system), but at this point we started getting into the publishing side of things, particularly on the topic of risk and legality. We realized that Diabolical Plots should be registered under an LLC to minimize any risk to our personal finances. And as part of that discussion, Anthony realized that he needed to step down from the co-editor position. We didn’t have a falling out or anything like that. He just realized that his role as co-editor wasn’t going to work out with other aspects of his life. So from that point forward I am the editor of Diabolical Plots.

Anthony will still be a big part of Diabolical Plots and the Submission Grinder and will continue to fill the same invaluable role that he has filled since we first teamed up in 2009–handling all of the technical side of the website administration, and doing the lion’s share of the software development that has made the Grinder the useful tool it is today. In fact, he is hard at work on an overhaul of the Grinder site that will make it easier to maintain as well as providing a lot of shiny new features that will make it even better than it is now. We’re aiming to launch this site overhaul to the public around the same time that we launch our first fiction publication–that date is yet to be determined, but will probably be in a couple months.

THE HOLD PILE

By January 8th we had finished reading and resolving all the first round submissions and we only had the 67 stories in the hold pile left to resolve. By the time Anthony reached the decision that he needed to step down, I had re-read the hold-pile stories and ranked them numerically with plans to compare lists with Anthony. So when I became the sole editor, I was already ready to go and could resolve the whole pile in one fell swoop. I made sure to give personal rejections to all the stories that made it to the hold pile because I hate it when my stories are held for further consideration but then rejected without a word.

I had enough good stories in the pile, and planned to buy so few, that I didn’t venture into any major rewrite requests. If the story wasn’t good enough as-is, then I didn’t accept it–I have made a few small suggestions for small changes and will probably do a few more as I progress from acceptance to publication. There were a lot more stories in the pile that I would’ve loved to accept if the budget had allowed, so there were some very hard decisions in this pile.

In the final twelve stories I was interested to see that there were several author names that I knew from seeing their published stories in pro markets. For at least one of the authors, this was the first pro sale. Judging by names, of the final twelve, seven of the authors are women. I’m glad to see both sexes so well represented–I know that some publications have a real problem with getting enough women-authored stories in their slushpiles (to the point where they have to make campaigns specifically to bring in more women authors) so I was glad to see that.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Before I do anything else, I need to sort out some business details, defining what Diabolical Plots actually is. Once that’s in place I can finalize the draft of our contract and send it to the twelve authors–in the meantime I’ve requested and gotten preliminary notes from all twelve to let me know the stories are still available. The twelve authors are free to share their news as widely or as narrowly as they wish so you may have already heard a few of them.

Once the contracts are signed, then I can publicly announce the table of contents–I’m really looking forward to that. And then I can seriously consider what kind of launch date we can manage for the fiction offerings, but I’m still planning to coincide that with the launch of the Submission Grinder overhaul, so it will depend somewhat on that as well.

WHAT ABOUT YEAR TWO?

You may notice that all of our planning so far has been focused on providing a single year of fiction, talking about the budget for a year, the schedule for a year. That’s because, at this point, we don’t have the capital in place for another year of fiction. We’re hoping to change that. Ideally by gathering recurring donations of whatever size through Patreon and PayPal to give a steady stream of funds to kick off the second year and beyond. If the end of year one approaches and we don’t have this in place yet, then I’ll consider doing a Kickstarter campaign to get year two funded and continue to focus on getting recurring donations so that big one-off campaigns don’t need to be run every year. If we get enough to be able to afford to publish two stories a month, then we’ll expand to that. And beyond that we’ll consider expanding in other ways. The sky’s the limit if there is enough interest and support. I’ll be posting sometime in the not-too-distant future about our Patreon campaign to this end. In the meantime, recurring PayPal donations either on the DP page or the Grinder page are the best way to help support both our necessary costs and our harebrained schemes like this.

Winter 2015 Anime First Impressions (with Fall Bonus)

written by Laurie Tom

Unlike last fall, which had an anemic number of shows that interested me, this winter has several. It’s also becoming more common for TV series consisting of more than 13 episodes to split their cours to run in staggered seasons rather than back to back. Hence last summer’s Aldnoah.Zero and Tokyo Ghoul are both returning for their second halves this winter, and this winter’s Durarara!! x2 will take a hiatus in spring and return in summer.

With Aldnoah.Zero and Tokyo Ghoul returning, and two of the fall shows I did enjoy continuing into winter (Yona of the Dawn and Parasyte), this winter is experiencing something of a logjam and something’s gonna give, but I’m not sure just what yet.

Assassination Classroom

assassinationclassroom Why I Watched It: It has an absurd premise where an octopoid being blows up the moon and then agrees to teach a class of teenagers to kill him within a year. If they succeed, he won’t blow up the world. The alien’s yellow humanoid octopus design is very distinct, making the show easy to recognize.

What I Thought: Despite its life or death premise, the show is largely a comedy and rolls with its bizarre premise. Kuro-sensei moves as fast as Mach 20 and none of the world’s governments have managed to kill him, so they’ve agreed to let him teach a class of students as he’s requested. Oddly enough, they’re the E class, made up of the school’s lowest performers, but their strange genocidal teacher is also the best one they’ve ever had, praising them when they do something well (even if its an attempt on his life), and honestly trying to get them to do their best. It makes for an interesting dynamic since they need to kill their teacher, but they actually like him.

Verdict: I’ll save it for later. It’s off to a good start and I liked it, but because it’s based on an ongoing manga I’m not sure we’ll get a satisfying ending and there’s too much else to watch right now.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Cute High Earth Defense Club Love

earthdefenseforce Why I Watched It: It certainly wasn’t for the title. Rather, it looked like it might be an interesting twist of the magical girl genre in that the protagonists running around in frilly outfits and using sparkly attacks are all male this time around.

What I Thought: It’s better than the premise sounds and there are a lot of good laughs. Four male high school friends and a sudden fifth are arbitrarily chosen to save the world with the power of love by an alien that looks like a pink wombat. This includes magical girl style transformations into their frilly combat outfits, though they are wearing either shorts or pants instead of skirts (the tail of their coats is the nod to the skirts). The boys take this about as well as can be expected. But despite compulsions to pose and say weird things (they try and fail at getting their costumes off), they finally give in and fight this episode’s monster, which in frequent magical girl fashion, is a transformed classmate. I about died laughing when they used their wands and instead of calling out a magical girl-style attack they used things like “Something-or-Other Storm!” and “I Am Awesome Fire!”

Verdict: I have no idea how I’m going to find time to watch this, but I really want to. Might end up being a save for later.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Death Parade

deathparade Why I Watched It: Based on a previous short film, Death Parade is one of the more mature offerings this season with no signs of teenagers. It takes place in a sort of purgatory for people who have died, where visitors are asked to play a game to determine their fates.

What I Thought: Death Parade won’t win awards for originality, but the execution is spot on and beautifully animated. A couple on a honeymoon are the purgatory bar’s first visitors and are convinced to play a game of darts with their lives on the line, unaware that they are already dead, and what a game of darts! As they play the game the audience is led and misled regarding the truth about their marriage and how they died. My only concern is that the deceptively energetic opening credits features a lot of other bar employees besides the bartender who managed the game in this episode and I’m not sure I want the focus to shift off the visitors. I’m completely down with a Twilight Zone anthology format.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. Unless the format changes too much, I’m going to try to find space for this one.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Durarara!! x2

durararax2 Why I Watched It: I really enjoyed the first Durarara!! in 2010, even though the series defies a convenient plot summary. The closest thing I can say is that it’s about some of the inhabitants of the Ikebukuro neighborhood of Tokyo and all the very weird, even supernatural, things that happen around them. Why and how it all happens makes about as much sense as it does in real life, and maybe that’s the point.

What I Thought: Durarara!! x2 is just as mind-bending as the original, and goes to pains to show how nothing has really changed in Ikebukuro. The style of the opening and ending credits are direct callbacks to the distinctive look of the original, and the episode itself follows the same non-linear storytelling that has encompassed all animated versions of Ryougo Narita’s novels since Baccano. I can’t honestly say I know what’s going on other than it looks like all the weirdness will probably revolve around a serial killer eventually since that plotline is the only one that is not directly a part of anyone’s life… yet.

Verdict: In another season, I would probably watch this right away, but because of the non-linear storytelling that looped back and forth, between and within episodes in the original, I think Durarara x2 would be better saved for later marathoning so I can better keep things straight in my head.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Fafner: Dead Aggressor: Exodus

fafnerexodus Why I Watched It: The sequel to 2004’s Fafner: Dead Aggressor and it’s 2010 movie, Heaven and Earth. Presumably problems continue with the alien Festum trying to deal with their own changing nature and trying to annihilate humanity. Exodus is supposed to take place two years after Heaven and Earth which should make most of the protagonists adults now.

What I Thought: Exodus doesn’t waste time, giving viewers a breakneck intro to where humanity is in the war with the Festum before moving on to glimpses of almost everyone who survived the original series and the movie. I was pleasantly surprised by the original Fafner: Dead Aggressor because of its unusual focus on whole families being part of the military structure while still trying to be a family, and I’m honestly not sure where Exodus is going to be able to go thematically now that the original protagonists are adults. It’s not clear if they can still pilot the Fafners (compatibility slips once past the teenage years), so I’m curious how the show will continue to involve them, especially those that chose to avoid full-time military work. New pilot candidates have been introduced as well, so there will definitely be enough characters to pilot the Fafner mecha, but I’m hoping the show will focus more on the original cast and where they go from here.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I don’t know where the show is going, but enough of the key staff from the original series have returned, along with just about all the voice actors, that I want to give this a chance.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Gourmet Girl Graffiti

gourmetgirl Why I Watched It: I’m not normally much of a fan of slice of life shows, but Gourmet Girl Graffiti is about a girl who’s good at cooking, and I hoped to see lots of delicious anime versions of Japanese food.

What I Thought: It was definitely a good idea to watch while I was eating, and not while I was hungry. The level of detail on the various Japanese dishes was great, and the main character Ryou is obviously really into cooking so there’s a lot to be learned about how food is prepared and how leftovers from the making of one dish can be made into another just from listening to her dialogue. On the other hand, some of the animation of Ryou eating seems to have the wrong idea about what people mean when they say “food porn.” It’s a small part of the show, but very noticeable.

Verdict: Interesting side adventure, but not likely to be going back.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Maria the Virgin Witch

mariavirginwitch Why I Watched It: The art style isn’t quite to my tastes, but I heard good things about it and the Hundred Years War between England and France is a really unusual setting for an anime.

What I Thought: There are a lot of jokes about Maria’s virginity and the naivete that comes along with it, mostly from her succubus familiar. Aside from that, this is a version of the Hundred Years War where witches exist and meddle with battles out of patriotism or for profit (or to enforce peace in Maria’s case). There are surprising historical touches, like the English giving the French the bowfinger or capturing knights for ransom, that I wasn’t expecting in what easily could have been generic medieval warfare.

Verdict: I might come back to it later. It’s not my usual cup of tea, but the historical part of the story piqued my interest.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Bonus!

Quite unusually, there was one show picked up for winter simulcast that actually started in the fall and it’s still running. Back episodes are being added at a pace of two old episodes for every one new.

Magic Kaito 1412

magickaito Why I Watched It: Set in the same universe as Case Closed, Magic Kaito focuses on a high school student who becomes a master thief to fight against his father’s killers. Case Closed (also known as Detective Conan) was one of my favorite anime series back in college and I always wanted to see some of the manga artist’s lead character, Kaito.

What I Thought: The opening episode feels a little dated, which isn’t surprising given that the manga was started in the 80s. Even though there are touches to show it’s modern day (video calling on a laptop), the show’s core sensibilities, how quickly Kaito both accepts and assumes his new position as a master thief appeals to an earlier time.

Verdict: I’ll be watching it when time allows, hoping that it has the same crime-solving (or crime-committing!) attention to detail that the Case Closed series is known for.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Fall Leftovers

There are the only three shows I was interested in last fall, and all of them I continued to watch. Fate/stay night is now on break and will resume in spring. Yona and Parasyte continue into winter.

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works

fatestaynightunlimited Why I Watched It: This is supposed to be an alternate telling of the well regarded Fate/stay night series and it has a female protagonist so I figured if I was going to jump in, this would be a good starting point.

What I Thought: Rin turned out to be a decoy protagonist, only starring in the zero episode, and it’s still the same main character, Shirou, as in the original series for the rest of it, but apparently we are going through a different storyline from the visual novel series (which has multiple endings). The series has beautiful action sequences between the mages and the Servants they command, but the worldbuilding falls down if looked at too closely. It works best as a popcorn show.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Parasyte -the maxim-

Why I Watched It: Parasyte originated as a Seiun Award-winning science fiction horror manga that questions what it is to be human. The manga was first translated into English back in the 90s and no other story I’ve read has so eloquently pointed out the many flaws in humanity while still saying it’s okay to be ourselves. I mainly had two concerns going in. 1) Parasyte is at times very gory and will have to be censored for its broadcast run. I’m rarely an advocate for gore, but Parasyte might be one of the few stories that is less powerful without it. 2) I’m really not digging Shinichi’s new character design. It makes him look like an introverted nerd, which he never was, and I’m concerned that might mean they’re changing his personality.

What I Thought: The adaptation made some changes the bring the story to modern day, and the rapport (or lack thereof) is spot on between main character Shinichi and alien creature Migi, who has taken over his right hand after a failed parasitic invasion. There are odd additions to the story while at the same time condensing others, but it’s still coherent and I found I liked the changes more as time went on. The gore is partially on screen, but toned down, and there’s no escaping the fact people are being eaten. Shinichi initially comes off as a bit more of a wimp than in the original manga, but he’s not unbearable, and I can understand why they gave him the glasses since it allows for a later transformation to become more pronounced. If it hadn’t come out against Aldnoah.Zero it would probably be my favorite show to have started in 2014.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Yona of the Dawn

yonaofthedawn Why I Watched It: Asian fantasy adventure story geared towards the female audience with a female lead character who does not appear to have a prominent love interest in the promotion art. Plus she’s holding a sword.

What I Thought: The early episodes are a bit slow as Yona tries to come to grips with the fact that the cousin she loves has just killed her father the emperor and usurped control of her nation in one fell swoop. But after being on the run for a few episodes she finally comes to accept that she can’t let things stay the way they are and we see the birth of a warrior. She’s not particular good at the start, but she’s persistent and I like that the show makes it a point to show how hard Yona is training every day as she and her guardian, Hak, journey in search of the legendary dragons who will be able to help her reclaim her country.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

The Best of Escape Pod 2014

written by David Steffen

It’s been a great year for Escape Pod with some of my favorite episodes ever after they and their sister podcasts came back from the brink of having to close due to lack of funds. The podcast is still edited by Norm Sherman, with some help this previous year from Mur Lafferty who has now moved on to edit Mothership, an upcoming Escape Artists tie-in. Just a few days ago there was a metacast that announced big new things coming up, including that Alasdair Stuart and J. Daniel Sawyer are now owners of the company. Here’s to many more years.

(Keeping it brief on this one because, due to technical issues, this is literally the third time I’ve retyped this)

The List

1. “Rachel in Love” by Pat Murphy

2. “That Other Sea” by William Ledbetter

3. “Kumara” by Seth Dickinson

4. “A Struggle Between Rivals Ends Surprisingly” by Oliver Buckram

5. “The Sky is Bright and Blue, and Full of Stars” by Edward Ashton

Honorable Mention

“Shared Faces” by Anaea Lay

The Best of Podcastle 2014

written by David Steffen

It’s been a great year for Podcastle with some of my favorite episodes ever after they and their sister podcasts came back from the brink of having to close due to lack of funds. The podcast is still edited by Dave Thompson and Anna Schwind and they’re doing a great job.Just a few days ago there was a metacast that announced big new things coming up, including that Alasdair Stuart and J. Daniel Sawyer are now owners of the company. Just yesterday I learned that Dave and Anna are stepping down from their editorial positions early this year after five years in the position–I hear that the full details are in the most recent episode along with the story Rachael K. Jones’ “Makeisha in Time” but I haven’t had time to sync my iPod and listen since I heard this, so I don’t know much more about it yet.

On to the list!

The List

1. “Heartless” by Peadar O Guilin

2. “The MSG Golem” by Ken Liu

3. “Stranger vs. The Malevolent Malignancy” by Jim C. Hines

4. “Without Faith, Without Law, Without Joy” by Saladin Ahmed

5. “Gazing into the Carnauba Wax Eyes of the Future” by Keffy R.M. Kehrli

6. “Help Summon the Most Holy Folded One!” by Harry Connolly

Honorable Mentions

“The Old Woman With No Teeth” by Patricia Russo

“Underbridge” by Peter S. Beagle

“Ill Met in Ulthar” by T.A. Pratt

The Best of Pseudopod 2014

written by David Steffen

Another solid year of Pseudopod after they and their sister podcasts came back from the brink of having to close due to lack of funds. The podcast is edited, as it has been for years, by Shawn Garrett. Just a few days ago there was a metacast that announced big new things coming up, including that Alasdair Stuart and J. Daniel Sawyer are now owners of the company.

On to the list!

The List

1. “The Screwfly Solution” by James Tiptree, Jr.

2. “The Wriggling Death” by Harold Gross

3. “Shadow Transit” by Ferrett Steinmetz

4. “The Metal and Its Mold” by Tim W. Burke

5. “Prince of Flowers” by Elizabeth Hand

6. “The Signalman” by Charles Dickens

Honorable Mentions

“Kraken Rising” by Andrew Reid

“The Violin Family” by James Douglas

“File Under” by Lisamarie Lamb