A Foodie's Guide to Anime: What Are Onigiri, Ramen, and Taiyaki?   Food in anime is often animated with a level of detail that makes it look more delicious than real food. From characters meticulously preparing bento boxes to scenes of them devouring bowls of noodles, food is a pillar of the narrative. For new viewers, three foods appear constantly, acting as key cultural items: Onigiri...

5 Amazing Stand-Alone Anime Movies Perfect for a Friday Night (No Prequel Knowledge Needed)   You've had a long week. It's Friday night, and you want to watch an incredible movie. Anime has some of the most critically acclaimed films in the world, but it can be hard to know where to start. This list is designed for one thing: to give you a fantastic anime film that works as a 100%...

The Piracy Problem: Why Is It Still So Hard to Watch Anime Legally in 2025?   It is late 2025. The anime industry is a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon. More streaming services exist than ever before: Crunchyroll (which absorbed Funimation), Netflix, HIDIVE, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video are all competing for a piece of the market. And yet, a problem persists and, in some ways, has...

Filler vs. Canon: A Beginner's Guide to Understanding Anime Arcs (and Which to Skip)   You're watching a long-running action anime, like Naruto. The main plot is intense; the characters are in the middle of crucial training or a life-or-death battle. Suddenly, the next episode begins, and the main characters are on an unimportant side mission, like helping a talking ostrich or cooking the...

The “curse of video game adaptations” is a real phenomenon. For decades, most anime based on video games were, at best, 20‑minute commercials and, at worst, rushed adaptations that stripped away everything that made the original great. But that has changed. In the modern era of streaming, creators have had the freedom to take the lore and world of a video game and build something...