Anime Review: Restaurant to Another World

Anime: Restaurant to Another World
Genre: Slice of Life

General Setup: Once a week, on Saturday, portals appear, connecting another dimension with ours. All of these portals have a common end goal: The Western Restaurant Nekoya!

Characters: This show has a large cast of characters. At first, the cast expands each episode, as new characters are featured. However, before the expansion gets too top-heavy it slows down. I appreciated this deceleration because it kept the addition of new characters from being overwhelming and gave the chance for older characters to come back into the story. While the cast is wide and varied, little character development goes on. The only thing I can think of to label as development would be how shared experiences at the restaurant bring people of different backgrounds together and let down barriers.

Plot: The plot for this anime is very episodic. Each episode is generally divided into two parts, each part featuring a certain character and their favorite dish/how they came to know about the restaurant. Some of the characters recur, but many are just there for their segment and then gone. Instead of focusing on character development or plot, this anime focuses on the ability of food to bring people together and just be an enjoyable part of life.

Ending: The last episode continues in a similar vein to most of the others, but it reveals the connection between the two dimensions. Things come full circle, you could say.

Things to Watch For: I half-way expected some of the characters to have over-the-top reactions to the food, like in Food Wars. However, that did not happen. The only thing I would be on the look out for, are a few instances of revealing costumes in character design.

Sights and Sounds: Both the animation and the soundtrack are bright and whimsical.

Other Media: This anime is based on an ongoing light novel series . There is also a manga adaptation.

Fillers: N/A

Length: There are 12 episodes in this series.

Where to Watch: Crunchyroll

Update: Dragonhaven Book Review

Book Review: Kashka by Ellen Kindt McKenzie

Book: Kashka by Ellen Kindt McKenzie
Genre: Fantasy, adventure
Rating: Old family favorite

Other Media: Starting a review with a category out of order? Unheard of! Kashka is actually a prequel to a book we previously reviewed - Taash and the Jesters. With that in mind, I will be doing some comparisons between the two. That isn’t to say that the books aren’t strong enough to stand by themselves. Each is able to stand independent of the other. However, as a set I would recommend reading Taash first because even though it comes later chronologically, things are revealed in Kashka that would spoil certain plot points for the reader.

General Set up: That being said, I’m not going to go too much into the basis for this book. It is set in the same world as Taash and the Jesters and essentially tells the story of the two jesters, Piff and Kashka, in their youth and ‘how it all began.’

Plot: The pacing for this book is slightly different than it’s sequel. The pace is still overall sprightly enough to keep your attention, but there are a couple time skips and the events themselves are spread out over a longer period of time. Also, the author occasionally leaves details that need to be inferred in order for the reader to 100% understand what is going on.

Characters: One of the things I appreciated about this book was the way the author handled the characters of Piff and Kashka. In some cases, as the series goes on and characters grow their personalities tend to warp and they don’t seem to be the same characters you fell in love with in the original. In Kashka the author does a good job of keeping the essence of the characters the same. I also enjoyed getting to know some of the minor characters from Taash better and seeing little Easter eggs from the story to come. The author bounces back and forth from different character’s perspectives to tell the story, but is still able to keep the flow of the story and keep it a continuous whole.

Ending: Obviously, the end of the book is just the beginning of a whole other story. However, despite the daunting task ahead of them, the books ends on a light note with the two main characters seemingly ready to take on the world.

Things to Watch For: I mentioned this in my other review for this series. This book contains elements of witchcraft. Compared with Taash, Kashka has a darker feel to it, overall. Again, I won’t be taking time at the moment to discuss in depth the topic of witchcraft in literature, I just want to let you know that it is present.

Book Commercial: Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

First Impression--Yuri!!! on ICE

First Impression--Yuri!!! On ICE

When I heard that there was going to be a figure skating anime, I was quite apprehensive. The reason? I used to watch competitive figure skating on TV. Simply put, I was cursed by knowing too much! What I mean is I could tell if they cut corners on the animation, especially in the physics behind the movements. Some (not all) sports anime suffer from the problem of forgetting that physics are real. I mean, most if the skating in anime I’ve seen in the past wasn’t physically possible. And I think about shows such as Haikyu!! (What is with all these exclamation points? Seriously! It seems like every sports anime has exclamation points.) While the show was entertaining, the physics was not there.

But my fears were baseless! As soon as the theme (History Maker) began to play, I knew that they had at least done some homework.

The Opening: What can you even say about the opening? It was done masterfully. I think that the choice of “History Maker” was a good one, as it set the tone of the show: light-hearted, yet striving to greatness. The animation opens with some technical aspects often found in figure skating, and I was amazed at the detail and style put into it. The camera angles are something that I want to talk about specifically. When figure skating is filmed, the problem that you run into is that no cameras can be in the actual ice rink, leaving the view to be wide and sweeping. The easiest thing would be to have the anime do the same. However, we are treated to various angles not found in television for these events. Not only that, but the animators maintain the physical mechanics of movement! I also thought that it was interesting that it was only the dance aspects and not the jumps that were focused on for the opening. I greatly respect that, as it is often forgotten that rhythm and style can be just as hard as jumps. The only complaint that I have is that the pronunciation gets a little lost in translation (as usual for Japanese), but the song was still strong and solid.

Plot: As far as I can tell, the main plot advances (or doesn’t advance) as Yuri Katsuki’s figure skating career advances. I was excited to realize that you would see figure skating from more than the three protagonist, but also concerned that they would be cookie-cutter performances, simply animated to fill time. However that is not the case, as for the most part each skater I have seen so far has had a unique style.

Characters: The biggest fear I have when an anime has international implication is the fear of stereotyping other countries. Among various types of media, anime and manga seem to be one of the worst offenders of negatively stereotyping its characters. While I was impressed at the mature handling of the international characters, I was less impressed with the characters themselves.

It seems clear that your two main protagonist are based off of real figure skaters: American Olympic skater Johnny Weir and Japanese Olympic skater Yuzuru Hanyu. From similarities in background and personality traits to nearly identical costumes it seems like Yuri and Victor are based off of the real-life Olympians. Feel free to read up on these skaters and tell me if you agree. (https://www.inverse.com/article/24660-yuri-on-ice-figure-skating-johnny-weir )



That being said, for basically being a fan fiction, Yuri!!! on ICE is (thus far) good and fairly original.

Book Review: Taash and the Jesters by Ellen Kindt McKenzie (Fixed)

Book: Taash and the Jesters by Ellen Kindt McKenzie

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure

Status: Old family favorite -> first printed in 1968

Length: 245 pages

Genera Set-up: Taash is an orphan who knows nothing of his origins. He inadvertently stumbles upon an attempt to overthrow the Kingdom using the young Prince. After rescuing him, Taash must keep the prince's identity safe and discover his own!

Characters: Even through Taash is only 12 or so, I feel like he is still a relatable character to an almost-adult like me. Part of this might be that he is mature for his age, but I think also that the author did a good job writing him. I also enjoyed the contrast to the two jesters Piff and Kashka.

Plot: The pacing of the plot is well done. It is quick and varied enough to keep the reader interested. the only thing I have to complain about is sometimes the author requires the reader to infer certain things in order to fully comprehend some developments. These inferences are a little vague, so younger readers might have difficulty understanding these passages. -> I certainly did!

Ending: The ending is resolved while not cutting off the possibility of future additions to the story (though, at this point that may be doubtful). As a kind I was oblivious to the book's foreshadowing, so the ending was a complete surprise when I first read it. However, looking back I realize how much the ending was hinted at. So maybe I was just a tad bit boneheaded as a child.

Things to Watch For: There is witchcraft in the book--one of the main villains is a witch. This goes along with on of the book's themes of good vs. evil. However, I am not going to delve into the debate of how Christians should view magic and witchcraft right now (that is another topic for another time), so just know that it is there.

Other Media: Ellen Kindt McKenzie has written several other books, including a prequel to this book, titled Kashka.

Anime Review: Granblue Fantasy the Animation (Video)

     I am now working through my back-log of pre-filmed videos, so hopefully production will be expedited. In the meantime, enjoy!

     A written version of this review is also available.