I wouldn’t call myself the biggest anime fan in the world, but there are a few anime series that I just seriously love. One of these is Kill La Kill, which I recently watched through for the second time, and as I got about halfway through I remembered a website I used to read a lot.

It was called Mark Watches – there was a Mark Reads as well – and it was, in essence, the adventures of a guy who recorded his thoughts on each episode of a show as he watched it, or chapter of a book as he read it. In essence, he just reviewed things quite slowly. But there was something really endearing about it. A lot of that’s probably just down to his personality; you could get a sense of the man from his reactions to the fictions, which were often both touching and hilarious. I think a really great reviewer, which I consider that he was (is, if he’s still going, but I regret that I haven’t checked in for a while) is one who can add to the experience of the thing. There’s an art to that, and while I don’t claim to have mastered that art yet, I think I could use a little practice on that front.

So I’m planning to do a similar sort of thing. Haven’t got a name yet, but it’ll be a series in which I watch shows, read books, or even play games (hence giving me a good excuse to get through some of the stuff I’ve been meaning to for a while) and write a post after each chapter or episode. I’m planning to start with Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann, since Kill La Kill’s given me a taste for that sort of over-the-top, balls-out anime that’s simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny and utterly heartwrenching. Plus I’ve already seen it, albeit a long time ago, so it might be a good one to ease myself in.

I’m hoping that doing this will add to my own enjoyment of the series, since I have a tendency to rush through stuff I’m enjoying and forget to take the time to think about it and understand what’s going on until after it’s done, at which point it’s a bit late. Overthinking a little bit at a time might actually be a really good way to learn to appreciate the shows, books and games I’m enjoying on a better level than ‘wow, I’m really enjoying this right now so I’ll just blast through it as fast as possible’.

Keep an eye out for the first instalment of my watch-through of Gurren Lagann, which will hopefully be soon! (The ability to download episodes onto my phone via Netflix ought to help with this one.)