御田 | Oden

If you’ve read my bento post, you know I have a bit of an interest in Japanese cuisine. Today I want to write a tiny bit about oden, an eintopf Japanese dish, which appears in anime quite often.

So, what is it? This is a difficult question to answer, because there are countless regional and household varieties. I’d settle for a dashi broth with kamaboko, boiled egg, konjac and white radish.

Oden in Shirobako episode 24

(I would have loved for Sushi and Beyond to dedicate an episode to oden.)

Backlog: Week 1

I haven’t been slacking off. I finished off five anime this past week. In all I watched 24 episodes — 15 being shorts (5 minutes or shorter) — which is three more than planned. On the other hand I would have liked to have watched less shorts and more “full-fledged” episodes.

In what order should I watch Monogatari anime?

August 20, 2017: This post is currently up-to-date.
Please let me know if you find mistakes or inaccuracies.

I took it upon myself to settle the simple question posed in the title of this post: “In what order should I watch Monogatari anime?” Just to be sure, by Monogatari anime I mean the several series of various lengths adapted from Nisio Isin’s (a palindrome and a pen name) light novels by studio SHAFT under the direction of Akiyuki Shinbō. For those unable to bear the suspense, my short answer is “In the order in which either the anime or the novels came out or chronologically.” For a longer and more detailed rebuttal read on.

Short thoughts on ’50 years of anime’

In 1963 Astro Boy first aired in Japan. Its creator Osamu Tezuka utilized a new way of animation to make the series. Until he started animating with this less-demanding procedure, anime could hardly be made fast enough for an episode to air on weekly basis, so animation studios were focused on movies. (Not that all studios manage to animate their serialized works within their designated time nowdays. No, I’m not hinting at SHAFT. They may be cutting it close, but they always deliver.) Simply said there wouldn’t be anime as we know it today, if it wasn’t for Osamu Tezuka and his Astro Boy. And, as you may have noticed, it has been 50 years since 1963.

There are countless blogs, like The Golden Ani-Versary of Anime, popping up for the occasion and doubtlessly there will be an endless stream of essays and ani-blog posts on the topic of the evolution of anime and countless rants on how today’s anime is so much worse than anime back when it started or, more often, when the writer was just starting out as an otaku. Please do not expect me to write anything of that sort, as my perfectionism would not let me rest until I wrote something worth submitting as a thesis…

Personally, with anime turning 50 this year I keep thinking I should watch something ancient. The oldest movie I’ve watched is probably Castle of Cagliostro from 1979. From anime series it should be Yu Yu Hakusho, which started in 1992 and ended in 1995. Any suggestions?

What are the oldest pieces you have watched?