Sakuran: Blossoms Wild is a tale from the Edo Period of Japanese history. It focuses on the pleasure quarter, Yoshiwara, with our female protagonist named Kiyoha. As a child, Kiyoha was sold to a brothel, where she worked as a maid until she could rise to a prominent position of a courtesan. This book was…
Asleep is an #OwnVoices Japanese literature novel that’s a part of the magical realism genre. It’s also a small collection of three short stories written by Banana Yoshimoto, who’s a female author. I’ve had the book on my shelf for a long time, so for the 24in48 Readathon that occurred last weekend, I decided to…
For my GoodReads group (Japanese Novel & Light Novel), we recently read Kieli Volume 1: The Dead Sleep in the Wilderness by Yukako Kabei. This is an #OwnVoices supernatural, fantasy Japanese light novel series with steampunk elements. Never before in my life have I read a light novel that was so breathtakingly astonishing in its…
The third instalment of the scientific-military action/adventure series, Sigma Force, called Black Order written by James Rollins, was so disappointing. This was not a re-read for me, unlike the first two books. Please note that this review will be, as always, spoiler-free. In book number three, our group returns to investigate a mysterious plague-like disease…
After completing the fantastical novella, The Terracotta Bride by Zen Cho, I immediately went in search for another to dive right into. Amazon recommended The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo to me, so I hopped on the opportunity. Yet again, my mind was utterly blown by how magnificently this story was told. The novella follows a…
By the end of June, I was feeling a small slump licking around the corner, so I needed a way to remedy it as soon as possible. A fellow BookTuber (Katie Loves to Read) recommended a novella called The Terracotta Bride written by Malaysian author, Zen Cho. Katie had wonderful things to say about it…
An adaptation of the video game developed by Nitroplus, Katsugeki Touken Ranbu is the quintessential badass anime premiere of the Summer season. Produced by Ufotable and directed by Toshiyuki Shirai (Fate/Zero), the anime takes place in 1863. “As the tumultuous samurai era is coming to an end, Japan is split between the pro-shogunate and anti-shogunate…
When I first saw the PV for this show, I had a very strong feeling that it was going to be a feel-good type of a series along the lines of Flying Witch and You and Me. There isn’t too much of a plot to it as it follows the everyday exploits of a small…
Aho-Girl is the anime adaptation of a 4-panel manga series written by Hiroyuki. The serial is directed by Keizō Kusakawa and produced by Diomedéa studio. This comedic show has episodes that run about 12-minutes each, and to be blunt, I don’t think I could handle anything longer than that. The show’s about the everyday lives…
Another show that I wasn’t planning on checking out is Tsurezure Children. I saw a couple of clips from it on Twitter and it looked really nice, so I figured I’d give it a go. I have some mixed feelings about this one, to be perfectly honest. Tsurezure Children (TsurexDure Children) was originally a 4-panel…
Restaurant to Another World (Isekai Shokudō) was originally a self-published light novel series from the fantasy genre, written by Junpei Inuzuka. The anime adaptation is being made by Silver Link studio and director, Masato Jinbo. When I saw this on the Summer line-up, I was immediately drawn to how beautiful the visuals were. After reading…
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir arrived in my mailbox last year, but I always felt hesitant with picking it up due to the hype surrounding it. In my experience, when a book (or anything really), has a huge boom in popularity, I tend to stray away from it becuse I don’t want…
Last year, I picked up a novel entitled Alice written by Christina Henry. It is a very dark re-imagining of the Alice in Wonderland story that was originally written by Lewis Carroll, and it ended up becoming one of my most-loved adult fantasy titles. I read its sequel, Red Queen, and knew that I had…
Elegant Yokai Apartment Life wasn’t originally on my list of shows to check out for the summer, but when I saw that CrunchyRoll had picked it up, I decided to give it a shot. I’m very happy that I did because I get some good-vibes from it. Elegant Yokai Apartment Life (Yōkai Apato no Yūga…
Natsume’s Book of Friends Season Six (Natsume Yūjinchō Roku) was the anime that I was looking most forward to watching! I have been a huge fan of the series since it first aired back in July 2008. I decided to watch it on a whim and it has been one of my all-time favourite feel-good…
