Four Spring 2018 Anime You Need to Watch

The end of the Spring 2018 anime season has come and gone and it blessed us with a ton of great anime! So I am here to tell you about the shows I thought were the gems of this last season. I started out watching fifteen shows and by the end I was still watching nine of them. That is unheard of for me! This last season has been one of the best anime seasons I've seen in many years. And while I can go on and on about all the shows you should be watching like the third season of My Hero Academia (OMG! MY FEELS!), I want to discuss these four new first season anime and why you should go binge them all right now.

 

Kakuriyo- Bed and Breakfast for Spirits

 Kakuriyo is the only two cour anime that made this list so the second half of the season is still airing throughout the summer. THIS SHOW IS AMAZING! To quote my friend, Nikki: "it's like a mix between Natsume's Book of Friends, Kamisama Kiss, and a comfy cafe anime". And I haven't heard a better description yet! I've been captivated each week watching Aoi work hard to find her place at Tenjin-ya while paying off her Grandfather's debt without marrying the Master Innkeeper, Odanna. What really sets this anime apart is the large cast of characters that run the inn and their interactions with each other. We learn about a new character each week as we slowly see Aoi come into her own and it is glorious! The plot isn't too shabby either and has kept me on the edge of my seat this whole season. I love what this show is doing with the "arranged marriage to pay off x family member's debt" trope! And I'll be honest, I totally ship Aoi and Odanna! Kakuriyo will definitely be one of my favorite animes of 2018.

Watch on Crunchyroll.

 

Yotsuiro Biyori

Yotsuiro Biyori was this last season's surprise gem and it was a goddamn delight! I had my heart stolen by it and it earned a permanent spot on my Animes I'll Perpetually Rewatch for Comfort list. Who would have thought my favorite anime of the Spring would be about four guys running a tea shop? It's the most chill anime ever! The premise sounds too simple to be an engaging anime but it's SO good! It's a very character driven show about people who get a lot of joy and satisfaction from pleasing their customers. And I found it super relaxing to watch! Although, it made me super hungry with all the anime food porn. I seriously don't think there was an episode I watched that I didn't come out of it hungry for Japanese food. It's also a show that will leave you all happy and smiley after watching an episode.

Watch on Crunchyroll.

Hinamatsuri

 OMG! Guys! Hinamatsuri surprised the hell out of me with how good it was! I never knew I needed an anime about a Yakuza becoming the caregiver of a girl with telekinetic powers and the shenanigans they get into with other psychic girls. It sounds weird but it's SO good! And funny! And oddly heart-warming! It's very much a character-driven anime and I loved the characters so much! Each psychic girl has their own personalities and part of why the show is so funny and endearing is because of how they interact and play off of each other. Hina is great and Anzu has my heart! I can't recommend this one enough!

Watch on Crunchyroll.

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku

Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku was one of my most anticipated animes of the spring season and it did not disappoint! It gave me serious Recovery of an MMO Junkie vibes but with different kinds of otaku and not just gamer otaku. I loved it! It was also great to see a romance anime set outside of high school and I found so much about it super relatable. And I laughed so much while watching it! The characters are great and loved their interactions with each other and how they tried to hide their otaku side from people outside of their little group! And I totally ship all of the established couples in this plus the one pairing that hasn't been confirmed yet. Plus, the opening credits were glorious! I NEED A SEASON TWO!!! I want to see more otaku shenanigans and learn more about the characters espcially Kou and Nao!

Watch on Amazon Prime. 

Movie Review: Black Panther

Guys! Can we talk about Black Panther? Because Holy Cow! What a movie! We loved it! We loved it a lot! It was different and fresh and as Maggie Stiefvater eloquently put it on Twitter: It's "a superhero movie full of kings with tears in their eyes and women with fire in theirs." 

 

With the movie hitting the $700 million mark by its second weekend, we know you've been hearing about this movie non-stop but here are some of our favorite things about the movie:

Shuri

I loved all of the strong female characters but Shuri stole the show for me! She was amazing! She's smart, fierce, funny, and she totally has T'Challa's back. But my favorite thing? Shuri, a young black GIRL, is the one who is responsible for a lot of the advances in Wakanda’s modern technology. A BLACK GIRL is the face of STEM in the Marvel Universe and it's just plain beautiful to my scientist heart! We're going to petition to make Shuri an official Disney princess, yes?

Okoye

You know we love our badass woman warriors, but often those characters sacrifice femininity to get there. Seeing Okoye standing on the hood of that car with her red dress flowing behind her was such an empowering moment. And the fact that she threw off her wig tells us that she's going to do this whole beauty thing her own way.

Wakanda

Seeing Wakanda for the first time felt a lot like seeing Thymiscera in Wonder Woman. There's just a jaw-on-the-floor sense of awe. But it's even more impressive because where Thymiscera is a perfectly preserved Ancient Greek utopia, Wakanda is a futuristic technological marvel that maintains its African identity. I loved seeing the marketplace just as much as the monorail.

And here's the one thing that bugs me:
This action-packed superhero movie manages to comment on so many different issues. Colonialism, isolationism, activism. When T'Challa tells his father, "You were wrong!" he's also condemning a culture that lets children grow up without fathers. The father/son dynamic is such a big part of the narrative - fathers represent history, culture and tradition. And while I'm certainly not opposed to that message, they completely ignore the mothers. The only one in the entire film is the queen whose only real function is to support her son. How can a movie full of so many great female characters disregard mothers? Are they no longer badasses once they have kids? And where was Killmonger's mother? As a single mom, this one flaw feels really big to me.

Discussions

One of the great things about this movie is how much discussion it's prompted. I think I've seen more written about Black Panther than any other movie. (Yes, even more than The Last Jedi.) Here are some of my favorite articles about Black Panther. Other writers have addressed some of that commentary happening in the film better than I could.

Alex Brown's piece for Tor.com covers the film's place in African and African-American culture and in the MCU, and addresses some issues like the lack of queer representation.

Carly Lane at SyFy Wire talks about the Women in Black Panther.

Princess Weekes wrote about Killmonger's misogyny for The Mary Sue. 

Aaron Reese at B&N wrote about Wakanda as a character.

Epic Reads list of books to read if you loved Black Panther includes Black authors, African myth, woman warriors.

What did you think about Black Panther?

Watched That? Now Read This! The 100 Read-Alikes

I'm sure I'm not the only one who goes on a Netflix binge to fight book burnout. But what if your favorite shows could help you pick your next read? That's the idea behind this feature which was actually inspired by a post on our Instagram.

One of my favorite shows that I discovered on Netflix is The 100. Season 5 doesn’t premiere until April 24 so once you've caught up on the most recent season, or binged it all again from the beginning, how do you fill the Bellarke-shaped void? Try one of these post-apocalyptic reads!

The Burned Lands series by Bec McMaster

Like The 100, this PNR series takes place after a nuclear apocalypse. It has people living in underground bunkers, ruins of recognizable cities, and even reivers. The overall feel is a little more Western than the show. And oh yeah, there are werewolves.
 Start with Nobody's Hero

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The House Immortal series by Devon Monk
I loved this series but it's kind of hard to describe. It's a dystopian world altered by a time travel experiment gone wrong. Our heroine Matilda is a Frankenstein-y being stitched together with special thread. The story is fast-paced and twisty so I recommend binging all three books.
Start with House Immortal.


The Outcast series by Keri Arthur
A war between humans and shifters left this world in ruins. It also tore open the veil between worlds releasing wraiths and creating pockets of interdimensional weirdness. Like in The 100, the world gets bigger as the series progresses to include a corporation experimenting on people (*cough* Mount Weather *cough*) and lots of espionage and intrigue.
Start with City of Light.


The 100 by Kass Morgan
I know this one's obvious, but there's a reason I bring it up. Lots of people want to read the book as soon as they see the movie or show. That's the reason there are so many tie-in versions out there. But I've found that it's best to do that while you're waiting for the new season to start. If you're still watching, or even have watched recently, book-world and TV-world can get confused and you're left trying to figure out which version something happened in. (Trust me, it happened to me with True Blood. Give yourself some time between the book binge and the TV binge.)

What book reminds you of The 100?