Saturday, 24 October 2015

Housekeeping: More Anime Incoming

Back when The Armchair Empire first started I decided it would be nice if there was a section of the site devoted to anime. Sure, it was a bit outside the "All Things Gaming" mantle that we were going for at the time, but it heavily influenced it. One just had to look at the art direction and narrative themes of a lot of the games coming from Japan to see that the medium played and important role in shaping video games.

So, for several years we included anime reviews. It was a pretty great time talking about the various series we loved but over time the output slowed in part because I wasn't terribly enamored with what was coming out at the time and also the early to mid 2000s was a crumby time to track down anime legitimately as it was a period of expensive DVDs with only a handful of episodes per disc. Eventually, we just pulled the plug on the anime section to focus on games, which were a lot easier for us to get a hold of.

Now here we are in 2015 and things have changed. Streaming online video is a booming business and companies like Crunchyroll and Funimation have come along making it very easy for people to get their mitts on mountains of anime cheap and legit. I've certainly been indulging myself in this renaissance.

With that, I've decided to discuss the medium on AE once again. It'll be somewhat sporadic, as I'll be review either entire series or taking them on a season by season basis, but it'll definitely be coming back as we head into November. It's been one of my other favorite entertainment mediums I've enjoyed since childhood besides video games, so I guess it was only a matter of time before something like this came about.

In any case, it seemed appropriate to put up a quick post to let you all know what's going on. I'll be look at series both new and old as I explore the medium, so hopefully you'll feel compelled to come along for the ride.