There are certain things you see in anime a lot, like characters winning trips to Okinawa so we can get swimsuit episodes with lots of fanservice, or transfer students who invariably sit in the seat reserved for main characters, as well as happy wedding scenes, since everyone loves those. One subject you don’t hear about too often in anime is divorce, for obvious reasons: anime is a fun escape for most of us and we don’t need a lot of crappy reality seeping in and making us feel bad. The first anime to talk about the subject was Ojamajo Doremi — the parents of Aiko, the blue magical girl, are divorced, and the girls spend several episodes trying to get them back together. It was an important plot point in second season of Hibike! Euphonium, as we learn that Asuka-senpai’s parents divorced when she was very young, and that her father is a famous writer of music textbooks, which is what drove Asuka to excel in Brass Band. In the real world, divorce is low in Japan, 36% of couples during their lifetime, compared to 53%, 47% and 61% for the United States, United Kingdom and Spain. As Japan ages, this number is ticking up due to a boom in “silver divorces” by aged couples.
Every once in a while an anime season comes along that has not two or three good shows, but a dozen or more, and this is one one of those seasons. (Being an “anime blogger in Japan” may seem like fun, but it’s a lot of work, too.) One show I fell in love with immediately is the currently airing Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, about a quiet company employee who lives alone until one day a giant dragon (who can transform into a semi-human girl) comes by to become her maid. It’s done by Kyoto Animation, but the art style was fresh and unique enough that I didn’t catch this immediately, which I give them points for. In a world that’s overpopulated with tired genres like “battle high school harem comedy” and “the rival who fought the main character in the first episode will become an ally by episode three,” it’s nice to see something totally fresh and interesting to watch. I recommend Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid a lot!
We’ve got some great news! The Steam version of our epic ero-RPG Seinarukana – The Spirit of Eternity Sword 2, the sequel to Aselia, is up on Steam now! We went the extra mile for the Steam version, translating all the totally original content (will full voice) that replaces the 18+ scenes that were removed, so both versions are great to experience. We recommend you get the Limited Edition of the game, which has great additional content plus the code for the Steam
