Michelle Villanueva

Awesome anime you might've missed: GeGeGe no Kitaro

GeGeGe no Kitaro is a much-lauded horror manga series created by Shigeru Mizuki, but as beloved as Kitaro is in Japan (the manga has six different anime adaptations, essentially one version per decade), the character and his monster cronies haven't…

A Place Further Than the Universe will give you all the citizen-scientist feels

A Place Further Than the Universe is, at its heart, yet another slice-of-life anime starring cute high school girls with charmingly relatable personalities. Rather than follow these young women as they navigate the struggles of Japanese high school…

Which anime series boasts the best version of a terraformed Mars?

With NASA's Mars InSight probe successfully landing on the Red Planet, let's focus on one of the things that sci-fi anime does best: depicting how humanity will terraform and colonize Mars. Because, let's be real, what's left for us on Earth…

Problematic Faves: Elfquest

Fair warning, gentle reader. We're gonna talk about elf sex. Elfquest is the venerable, decades-in-the-making indie comic by Wendy and Richard Pini. Shape-shifting aliens crash-land on a primordial Earth-like world, and the narrative follows the…

Gunslinger Girl is a blood-soaked anime about how modern society fails young girls

It's easy, given Gunslinger Girl's premise, to dismiss it as a fetishistic attempt at the "girls with guns" trope. In a near-future Italy, a shadow organization called the Social Welfare Agency recruits young girls to combat a rising trend in…

The troubling relationship between anime and fascism

I just wanted to watch a nice anime about people encountering gigantic fruit. At least, that's how I was first exposed to ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept., an anime series ostensibly about an inspector investigating a possible conspiracy to…

Forgotten Anime Spotlight: Key the Metal Idol

Key the Metal Idol is a difficult anime series to classify, as it's not specifically a singular genre. The great quantity of robots present in the series qualifies it as science fiction, but there are echoes of the supernatural as well. The restless…

The Star Blazers reboot has more representation than ever, but still fails its female characters

I love Star Blazers. From the moment I caught a random episode of the landmark '70s anime series, known in Japan as Space Battleship Yamato, I was hooked. I've written about my deep affection for the show and my disappointment with its shortcomings.…

The audacious queerness of Land of the Lustrous

Land of the Lustrous (aka Houseki no Kuni) initially sent rumbles through fandom circles thanks to the show’s surface-similarity to fan-favorite Steven Universe. Sentient gems! They fight! And love! And they're possibly gay! But throughout its…

Motherhood, suffering, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Amid the comics-inspired shenanigans that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has fostered over its five seasons lurks an underlying thread of threats which spur from motherhood, particularly the relationship between mothers and daughters. A prime example is…

Yuri!!! on Ice is the queer figure skating anime you need after the Olympics

There’s a moment in figure skating anime Yuri!!! on Ice where main character Yuri Katsuki prepares to perform a short program on the subject of eros, i.e., lust. His gracefully compelling movements catch the eye while he skims across the ice, but his…

Awesome anime you might've missed: The Eccentric Family

The humble tanuki, or raccoon dog, holds a place of particular significance in Japanese folklore. The creature has become a symbol of prosperity, and many Japanese households harbor at least one tanuki statue. Each statue shows the tanuki eagerly…

The first anime series I loved: Star Blazers

I look back at my childhood growing up in Hawaii with equal parts fondness and dread. There’s something idyllic about spending one’s formative years on an island, and yet that isolation implanted within me a burning wanderlust. I loved the…

How Star Wars Rebels paved the way for The Last Jedi

One of the most popular (and my personal favorite) fan theories about Supreme Leader Snoke is that he is Ezra Bridger, the young Force-sensitive character from Disney XD’s Star Wars Rebels. Proof? When has an Internet fan theory ever required proof?…

Forgotten Anime Spotlight: Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040

Bubblegum Crisis, despite its cutesy title, is a seminal work of cyberpunk anime. It’s not about Violet Beauregarde ballooning up with blueberry juice after chomping on three-course-meal chewing gum. According to series writer Toshimichi Suzuki, the…

Apocalypse now: 7 anime titles to prepare you for our inevitable dystopian future

Is the 24-hour news cycle getting you down? Is every refresh of your social media feed sending you into the depths of despair? Are you tired? I’m sure you’re tired. I’m tired. We’re all tired, but we can’t allow ourselves to slip into complacency.…

7 things the Cowboy Bebop live-action series must do to break the cycle of bad anime remakes

Cowboy Bebop is iconic. It’s the gateway anime for many and is widely considered one of the best anime shows ever created. The eclectic mix of compelling characters, gripping visuals, and a futuristic backdrop makes for a near-perfect show. And…

66 thoughts I had while watching Neo Yokio

With Netflix producing more and more original content, it’s not surprising that the streaming company would green-light a curious little vanity project from Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig. The show stars Jaden Smith, whose life is so much like a…

5 reasons why Doctor Who needs to become an anthology series

As of 2017, venerable British sci-fi series Doctor Who has been around for over 53 years. It’s now considered a cultural institution, and one of the UK’s most popular exports. Not bad for a show that started out in 1963. With the current continuation…

8 anime titles for your Game of Thrones fix

As the latest season of HBO's mega fantasy rolls on to its inevitable conclusion, here's the inevitable list of anime series to check out if you enjoy Game of Thrones. So, anime series based in fantasy worlds are a dime a dozen, but let's delve a…