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Channel 4 has developed a tradition of adapting popular children’s books into animated specials for Christmas. 2023 sees the second book in Judith Kerr’s Mog series getting this treatment. Mog is a dim and forgetful cat that the Thomas family owns. Her peaceful life gets disturbed by a strange tradition the humans celebrate. This includes putting […]
You know your enjoying the latest incarnation of Doctor Who when your only complaint is that the latest sonic screwdriver is a bridge too far in terms of qualifying as anything in the realm of a “screwdriver.” Because that is such a minor quibble to have in terms of the story, characters, and aesthetic of […]
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is built on a pretty interesting premise: What would happen if, in modern times, the children of the Greek gods were made aware of their parentage and found themselves in a tug-of-war between various gods for control of Mount Olympus? After all, what adolescent – and despite broad appeal, these […]
In my last post, I chose ten (Western) animated series which I felt were the best of 2023. However, of the over 40 reviews I wrote in the past year, 14 of them were anime. Originally I was planning to make this a top 10 list, but I decided that was too limiting, and added […]
The penultimate Rick and Morty’s seventh season sees the titular pair going on an adventure into the afterlife. Rick discovers that the afterlife does exist after murdering Jerry seven times. The afterlife can be a source of infinite energy. To harvest this energy Rick concocts an overly complex scheme involving getting himself murdered by Bigfoot and […]
The Nativity Story is one of the most famous ever told and the bedrock for Christmas. It gets a musical retelling with Journey to Bethlehem. Mary (Fiona Palomo) is a teenage girl who is betrothed to Joseph (Milo Manheim), a man she has never met. She had even more pressure thrust upon her when the archangel […]
The Hunger Games concludes with the second part of Mockingjay and shows the final clash between The Capitol and the Rebels. Peeta has been rescued from The Capitol, but he has been brainwashed, leading to him harbouring a bloodlust against Katniss. The war has swung in the Rebels’ favour and the Capitol is about to […]
On December 13th, fellow writer Jean Henegan published Pop Culture Maniacs‘ annual Top Ten TV shows list. I decided to put together my own list of my top ten animated series for 2023. I’ll be focusing only on Western animated series, not anime or films. Like Jean pointed out, this year, for television, was tumultuous, […]
The Family Circumstances of the Imbalanced Witch, also known as Dekoboko Majo no Oyako Jijō, is a fantasy comedy and family-friendly anime based on Piroya’s manga of the same name. Series director Masahiro Takata and writer Gyro Knuckle were joined by A-Real Studio, an anime production company. This review has spoilers. Content warning for discussion […]
When discussing the final batch of episodes in The Crown’s sixth and final season with a friend, he mentioned something that got me thinking about how the series slowly, over the course of the last four seasons, fell apart. He lamented that the latter seasons of the series couldn’t manage to capture the heart and […]