USA Anime

USA Anime

Anime reviews, commentary, streaming schedules, and educational memes for American anime fans

Full Reviews

Skeleton Knight in Another World
I’m Quitting Heroing
Bastard! -Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy
Summer Time Rendering
Princess Principal: Crown Handler 1 and 2
Ningen Fushin
Suzume
Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune
The Dreaming Boy is a Realist
Pluto
The Boy and The Heron
SAO Progressive Movie 2
Black Clover movie
Princess Mononoke

NEWEST UPDATES (4/16/2024)
Here’s the Newest:
  • I may be reviewing a second series this season, but I am still evaluating potential candidates.
  • The Spring 2024 Preview Guide is now complete.
  • The first episode review for Spice & Wolf: merchant meets wise wolf is now available. I plan to continue episode reviews on this one throughout the Spring season.
  • A full review of Gushing Over Magical Girls is now available.
  • The Winter 2024 Wrap-Up is now available.
  • 8 Lessons Learned from Frieren provides a different take on one of the top series of the past two seasons.
  • Episode reviews for The Apothecary Diaries are now complete.
Older Updates
  • Part 1 and Part 2 of the Winter ’24 Mid-Season Round-Up are now available on the Blog page.
  • Episode reviews for The Apothecary Diaries are ongoing on the Blog page.
  • The Winter 2024 Preview Guide has concluded and is available in its entirety on the Blog page.
  • The Seasonal Schedule page has been updated for the Winter 2024 season and is now listed by day.
  • 2023 in Review: The Best and Strangest of the Year is available here.
  • The Fall 2023 Wrap-Up is available here.
  • A full review of Pluto is now available. Find it here.
  • A review of the Miyazaki movie The Boy and The Heron is now available. Find it here.
  • The Fall ’23 Mid-Season Round-Up is finally working now. (It only took three days to figure out why it wasn’t showing up. . .) See it here.
  • A full review of the movie The Tunnel of Summer, The Exit of Goodbyes is available on the Blog page.
  • The Fall 2023 Preview Guide is now complete; see it here in its entirety.
  • A series review has been posted for The Dreaming Boy is a Realist.
  • The feature Supernatural Series Round-Up is available in the Blog.
  • A special review of Princess Mononoke – in honor of a recent theatrical rerelease – is now available.
  • The Non-Isekai Summer ’23 Season Round-Up is available in the Blog.
  • The Summer ’23 Mid-Season Isekari Round-Up is available in the Blog.
  • A review of the Black Clover movie and Yakitori: Soldiers of Misfortune have been added. See the buttons above.
  • The Summer 2023 Preview Guide is now complete. See here.
  • The Seasonal Schedule chart for the Summer 2023 season is now available ordered by day and time. See the appropriate tab above.
  • With the final episode of the season’s final title finaly in, my traditional seasonal wrap-up for the Spring 2023 season is is now available! see it here.
  • The final episode review (for now!) of Oshi no Ko is now posted in the Blog. Weekly coverage will resume when the second season – which has been announced! – airs.
  • The Love’s Gentle Spring. . . special article (which compares A Galaxy Next Door and TONIKAWA 2) can be found here.
  • The Spring ’23 Isekai Round-Up can be found here.
  • With the posting of the preview for The Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, the Spring 2023 Preview Guide is now complete. Check it out here.
  • Find the Winter 2023 Wrap-Up here.
  • A couple of full reviews have been added to the buttons above for titles reviewed over the last month or two. For partial-season reviews, see The Angel Next Door Spoiled Me Rotten and Farming Life in Another World.
  • Episode reviews for the 2nd half of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV have completed. See the Blog for all episodes through #22.
  • The Winter 2023 Preview Guide is complete; see it here.
  • A couple of older reviews have also been updated based on details that have come up in content released since those reviews were written. See 86 episode 10 and Sword Art Online Progressive: Aria of a Starless Night, the latter of which now include commentary on the recently-released English dub.
  • Partial reviews have also been posted for Raven of the Inner Palace and Management of a Novice Alchemist (and episodes which have aired since those reviews were posted have not changed my opinions on either).
  • 2022: The Best and Strangest (my annual yearly wrap-up) can be found here.
  • If you followed Mushoku Tensei, “Extra Episode” 24 is now available on Funimation (but, notably, not Crunchyroll). I heartily recommend it for any franchise fan, especially if you’re a fan of Eris.
  • Reviews for the final two episodes of 86 have been posted here (ep 22) and here (ep 23).
  • A special season-ending review for In the Land of Leadale has also been posted.
  • A review for the BD release of Interspecies Reviewers can be found here.
  • A review for the dubbed version of the movie Belle can be found here.
  • A review for the full series The Heike Story has been posted here.
  • A full series review for Selection Project can be found here.
  • Per a reader request, the Review Archives page are being periodically updated with indexed links to all episode reviews to date.
INTRODUCTION

Greetings! I am Theron Martin, and this my revamp of a defunct older site into my new anime blog.

This blog will primarily focus on reviews and commentary on anime titles, light novels, and manga that are currently or recently available via legal means in the U.S. It will also offer the following:

  1. Occasional full reviews of older titles
  2. Recommendations for fans of various genres (pending)
  3. A chart showing which titles are streaming where (and when) each season
  4. Commentary on the DanMachi Memoria Freese mobile game. (I never got this feature going, but will if there’s any interest.)
  5. Education-themed anime memes, which teachers are welcome to copy and use themselves

Why Follow My Blog?

Most anime blogs will not offer any of #3-5 above (especially #5). Many do offer reviews and commentary, but I can offer one thing that most of them don’t: experience.

I first started writing amateur anime reviews for the original version of USA Anime back in 2003. At the beginning of 2005, I joined the writing staff of Anime News Network and became a professional. From then until the end of March 2021, I did reviews, feature articles, and (rarely) interviews and convention reports for the site, as well as regularly contributing to seasonal features like the Preview Guide and “Best of Season/Year.” In all, more than 3,000 written pieces on the site have my byline; you can see an example of one of my most recent feature pieces here and my last full-length review for the site here. So you can expect a more practiced and organized delivery than on most other anime blogs, one backed by deep and broad familiarity with most anime genres and conventions. Because of my Preview Guide work for ANN, I can also honestly say that I have at least sampled 90% or more of the non-hentai TV series that have come out in the past decade.

What you won’t get, however, is an elitist attitude! My tastes run much more towards populist fare than auteur shows, so I won’t, for instance, automatically dismiss heavy fan service titles. (I even considered Interspecies Reviewers one of the top anime titles of 2020.)

My current plan is to choose 1-2 titles a season to do weekly episode reviews for, while also offering briefer (i.e., paragraph-length) commentary on others among the 10-12 titles I typically follow each season. This will begin with the Spring 2021 season.

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50 thoughts on “USA Anime”

  1. Why are you not part of ANN anymore?? You were hands down the best reviewer; your knowledge of basically every aspect of the industry was unrivalled, and you wrote about anime in a way that was FUN and made people excited to see it. I hope everything is going okay…

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    1. I’m guessing Lynzee had a part in him either not renewing his contract or he willingly left. She had words with him for not critiquing Redo harshly enough and she didn’t defend him when some website was slandering him. Good to see him be on his own and do his reviews without any nay-saying from the staff.

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  2. You were my favorite reviewer on Anime News Network, without you there there’s much less of a reason to head there. I hope you can talk about why at some point – even if it was just “I wanted to spread my wings elsewhere and do my own thing”. I hope there’s no bad blood between you and the rest of ANN.

    Looking forward to seeing your reviews here. I’ll have your website bookmarked.

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  3. Whelp it happened and I am going to be visiting here more often than ANN. Thank you for the redirect in your profile. You are just the anime reviewer/critic whose view is similar to my own.

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  4. Thanks for the consideration, all!

    I won’t go into details about why I left ANN because I don’t like airing personal matters publicly, but I will say that nothing health-related was involved and that the circumstances leading to it were years in the making. I have found myself increasingly sharply disagreeing with a couple of other reviewers there, but that’s nothing new and I think it’s actually gotten worse SINCE the decision was made.

    Anyway, I like to think that I still have a cordial relationship with most of the ANN staff, so you won’t see badmouthing from me here. Disagreements, maybe, but nothing more than that.

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    2. Guess I’ll be going here for my anime reviews now. You were the only person who seemed to actually look at things fairly anyway.

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  5. Hi Theron.
    Just want to wish you the best on this new site and I’ll be here to see your reviews
    I’m sure it will be so fun read your reviews here like it was on ANN.

    Jonny Mendes

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  6. It’s a bit of a shame to see you go. I have always looked forward to seeing your work on ANN and I honestly believe that having you around is better for the environment there as I believe there’s been a bubble that’s been forming for some time but as you don’t wish to air it, I will keep my thoughts to myself as well.

    I wish you the best here and will be looking forward to your reviews.

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  7. I’m sorry to see you leave ANN. I have always appreciated your work since I first joined. While I will respect your decisions and not air my own issues, I believe that your presence there is a major voice that acts as a vital counterpoint from the bubble I have seen growing over the years.

    Regardless, I respect your decision and wish you the best here. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

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  8. You were the only reviewer at ANN that I had any respect for. Personally, I think you are far better off far away from the elitist snobbery and constant intrusive far-leftist political flag waving infesting the supposed reviews over there. I happily subscribed to your blog here and look forward to reading your thoughts.

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  9. Just as a general announcement, posts here are set to auto-moderate for the moment. Nothing submitted has been problematic so far, so if it stays that way then I’ll turn the auto-moderate off in a week or two.

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  10. Do you intend to set up a Patreon (or similar) to support your writing here? I already have a couple other anime bloggers on my monthly Patreon bill; I’d be happy to add you.

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  11. [sorry if this is a double-post; WordPress was fighting me earlier]
    Do you think you’ll start a Patreon or other crowd-funding to support this site? I’m already kicking in for bunch of other anime blogs (Nick’s, Erica’s, Jacob’s [though he’s mostly video-only at this point]) and a bunch of podcasts, so it’d certainly be easy to add yours to my monthly tally.

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      1. I’m not that familiar with any of these services (Venmo and PayPal are the ones I know for online payments), so I’d be interested in seeing a pro/con breakdown from those that are familiar.

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  12. Substack is specifically for writers. It is a major outlet for independent journalists, featuring many big names that didn’t like the groupthink monoculture taking over the mainstream press. It has been very successful for some people – substack.com

    I follow Glenn Greenwald on there: https://greenwald.substack.com/

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  13. Subscribed! Glad you’re continuing to blog on anime, Theron! Appreciated your measured and matter-of-fact reviews of Shield Hero on ANN (i enjoyed the anime as a whole btw 🙂 that was gutsy👍✊! Ganbatte to you going forward!✊💪!

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  15. Never been a Twitter person. However, I may start soon in order to advertise what I’m doing here a bit more. If I do, it would be a low-volume account mostly used for making announcements.

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  18. I don’t think Thunderbolt Fantasy has any new installment airing in the upcoming season?

    As for the other two mentioned, I’m not up on my PriPara, so that one won’t be covered. I’m honestly not sure if I ever finished out Assault Lily Bouquet; I know I watched at least three or four episodes, but I think I gave up on it at some point.

    The Higurashi, IDOLiSH7, Magia Record, and Love Live! sequels are also off the table since I am not current on those franchises.

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  19. The problem with that is timing. I just got reminded yesterday that both Godzilla Singular Point and the newest season of The Seven Deadly Sins are now up on Netflix, and I’m trying to get through at least the former before debuts start tomorrow. Between that, summer work, and a get-together or two, the next week is going to be extremely busy, so if it happens at all, it won’t be until much later in July

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    1. Oh i didn’t expect reviews on Thunderbolt Fantasy for months given all the content. I just wanted it to be on the docket as it were for a future “for consideration”

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  22. Dear Mr. Martin,

    I am writing to ask if you have seen the teaser for the Star Wars Vision anime anthology and what your opinions are if you have seen it. Curious to see Star Wars interpreted though the eyes of the anime industry

    Izanagi009

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  24. So just curious, gonna review Tanya the Evil Vol 1 Audiobook when it comes out in November? They even got Monica Rial “dubbed voice of Tanya” to repraise her role for it.

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  27. Any chances of you reviewing Evangelion 3.0+1.01? I remember reading your review of 1.11 back in the day and was wondering what you thought about this long awaited finale? I’m sure Zac would have loved it.

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    1. I do have some significant on-road time coming up next week, and I did finally finish the SAO audio book, so I may check this out. (Being able to get it in MP3 form is particularly appealing.)

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  31. Theron, I noticed you dropped your planned LA CB review from the front page. I assume it is a moot point since it will not go beyond the current existing eps. But if you have it mostly worked out, it would be nice to see it. I have already stated why I didn’t like it (didn’t go beyond the first two eps) and I have some idea based on your ANN posts what your defense is, so I would be interested in your full review. Don’t think it would change my mind, but I always found your reviews worth reading even when I deeply disagreed with them (a rare occurrence TBH).

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  33. been rereading your old slime isekai reviews

    I wanted to double check on what your view on Rimuru was after season 2 and the events of the season.

    I feel that i can understand your sentiment in the reviews but i do think they might pay it off.

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  34. Honestly, I felt like season 2 was putting Rimuru above moral quandaries – or, perhaps more accurately, actively trying to find ways to justify him doing some really beastly things and still maintaining his purity. This bothered me a bit, though I wouldn’t call it a deal-killer. It’s just not handled as well as some of the really questionable things that the spider does in So I’m a Spider, So What? (especially the later novels), where she’s constantly trying to deny to herself that some of what she’s doing is really sketchy. Rimuru, by comparison, apparently never gives it much thought.

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  35. Dear Theron,

    I am writing because I would like to ask for your opinions on “The Eminence in Shadow”,

    From what i’m seeing and hearing, the manga is way more of a farce than the anime with the anime feeling like it plays it’s tropes too straight.

    Any input?

    Izanagi

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  36. Apologies for the long wait on the reply; it’s been a hectic few days.

    The Eminence in Shadow is one that I intend to write up at some point (especially after the very amusing episode 9). However, I think I want to take a look at some of the mange first, and I won’t have time for that until my Winter Break (in a couple of weeks).

    For that matter, you could see a flurry of pieces during the two weeks around Christmas. I’ve felt like I’ve been slacking this season, despite the huge amount of watchable titles, and I intend to at least partly get caught up on that.

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