Tag: anime 2026

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There were no Pook-Emu Bee links on Saturday because it was newsletter day (22 links in issue 275!). There were no Pook-Emu Bee links on Sunday because I failed. But today is Monday. Monday is a fun day. I will not fail. In fact, I may even have some bonus links (either to make up for yesterday or to keep my link list under control).

1. 420 Court’s Façade Takes Shape in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (Michael Young and Matt Pruznick for New York YIMBY. April 13, 2026.)

Carroll Gardens is next to Cobble Hill, which is one of Brooklyn’s historic districts. The line between Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill is easy to miss. Yet, as I noted in 2020, Carroll Gardens is not a historic district. With that in mind, this new construction is not bad.

2. Placard Abuse Clogs Downtown Brooklyn Bike Lane (Brooklyn Today. April 13, 2026.)

Placard abuse is a well-known problem. But must everything be about the struggles of bikers? The bikers in the area behave terribly even where the bike lanes are unimpeded.

3. Investors Juice BlackBerry as the SaaS-y Company Racks Up Contracts (Jamie Wilde for The Daily Upside*. April 13, 2026.)

Making QWERTY phones offered more value.

4. Morgan Library (I Love Beets. April 13, 2026.)

I have not been to the Morgan Library in a long time, but these photographs indicate that it is as aesthetic as I remember it.

5. ProPublica journalists walk off the job in first U.S. newsroom strike over AI (Andrew Deck for NiemanLab. April 9, 2026.)

I reached the “choose your fighter” screen between ProPublica and big AI. Then I left the game on and went for a walk.

6. Doki Doki Literature Club Removed from Google Play Store Following Policy Violation or Is This Just Another Attempt by Monika for Our Attention? (It’s Not, They Really Delisted It) (Azario Lopez for Noisy Pixel. April 9, 2026.)

While I never “reviewed” Doki Doki Literature Club, I referenced it in my review of a freeware visual novel called Save the Date in expressing my hope that Save the Date would be published on Steam, Itch, and other places where more people could find it. I never played the “paid” version of Doki Doki Literature Club, but from my knowledge of the free version, this decision strikes me as odd. It certainly deserves an “M” rating (which I presumre age-gates downloads/purchases) but I am sure there is more objectionable “content” on Google Play Store. Of course, I use F-Droid, so what do I know?

7. The Death of the Small Point Guard? (James Barlowe. April 10, 2026.)

Is there really a “death”? How many instances in NBA history have we had where the undisputed best player on a championship team was a “small” point guard? Off the top of my head: 2014-15 and 2022-23 Golden State Warriors (Stephen Curry), 1988-89 and 89-90 Detroit Pistons (Isiah Thomas), and 1972-73 New York Knicks (Walt Frazier). You could argue for a few additional cases in the 1950-51 Rochester Royals (Bob Davies), 1969-70 Knicks (Frazier). 2003-04 Pistons (Chauncey Billups), and 2016-17 and 2017-18 Warriors (Curry). I suppose one could try to include Dennis Johnson since he was “small” and add the 1978-79 Seattle SuperSonics? But if this is all we can come up with, it does not seem like building a team “around” a small point guard has ever been the best path to an NBA championship.

8. Ascendance of a Bookworm anime studio acknowledges gen AI use in opening, promises to replace offending scenes with hand-drawn art (Dorde P for Automation West. April 10, 2026.)

I never watched the first few seasons, and I doubt I will ever catch up. Were I planning to catch up, this would not encourage me. With that being said, I have 2.5 seasons worth of anime to catch up on. Every news article reminds me.

9. Friends Don’t Let Friends Play Monopoly (Dan Lewis for Now I Know. April 3, 2020.)

I never played Monopoly. No one ever tried to convince me to play Monopoly. Now I know that Dan Lewis does not think I should play Monopoly.

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Quoted The Best Anime of Winter 2026 by Kevin Cormack (Anime News Network)
Frieren is now the new gateway drug to recommend to potential new anime fans, with the only downside that almost no other anime can hope to measure up.

Anime News Network does a “best of” run-down at the end of every anime season. I decided to check out the Winter 2026 season review to see what I should watch in a couple of months after I catch up on the summer and fall 2025 seasons. The staff ranked Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Season 2 as the eighth best show of winter 2026. Kevin Cormack wrote the entry for Frieren S2, stating that “almost no other anime can hope to measure up.” While I am led to believe that these season rankings are a composite staff ranking, it is a bit jarring to read in the commentary for the “8th” best show of the season that “almost no other anime can hope to measure up.”

(For whatever it is worth, I am a bit sour on Frieren after the first season concluded with a meandering and ultimately self-refuting arc which took up the last third of the season, but I will watch the second season and see if it redeems itself.)

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I subscribe to Anime News Network’s feed. I saw the following headline: My Gift Lvl 9999 Unlimited Gacha TV Anime Reveals 5 More Cast Members, 2nd Promo Video. I have a problem with this headline: One “9” too many. The late great Herman Cain taught us that “999” is the perfect number (or plan). I have dedicated The New Leaf Journal to spreading the word about 999. I would have watched My Gift Lvl 999 Unlimited Gacha but I have no interest in My Gift Lvl 9999 Gacha. (That was a lie, but I did watch one recent “999” anime and one of my favorite video games is 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors.)

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Anime News Network reports that “The Dangers in My Heart: The Movie, the compilation film of the television anime … will get a theatrical elease in the United States, Germany, Italy, France, Mexico, Chile, Peru, and additional Central American territories, among more areas.” The film will debut in Japan on February 13, 2026. The TV anime has featured in several New Leaf Journal articles. I published a short Leaflet post on the height difference between the main duo after watching the first episode of the first of two seasons. I wrote a mixed review of the first season (prompted by the announcement of a second season) followed by a glowing review of the second. While the first season only merited a small note in my 2023 Anime Review article, I selected the second season as my 2024 TV Anime Series of the Year (it also cleaned up in my 2024 TV anime category awards and, where available, in my picks based on Crunchyroll’s slate). The ending of season 2 was, as I noted in these pages, quite saccharine.

I call this short article a “PSA” in the spirt of my 2024 article on the availability of the Sound! Euphonium movies for free streaming (I previewed that Sound! Euphonium would feature in my 2024 anime review and it was in the end one of the three articles in the mix for my anime of the year pick). Of course, I never watched the Euphonium compilation movies (I did however watch the two movies that did not merely recap the anime), and I was initially inclined to say that I would not watch the Dangers movie, but Anime News Network does promise that “it will also depict the story of Kyōtarō and Anna after the series finale” (I hope that does not mean there will not be a third TV season). But if and when I get around to it, it will not be at a movie theater. I last went to a movie theater to watch the Hopkins-Jones II fight on April 3, 2010, and if that streak is to end, it will not be for the Dangers comilation movie (maybe HiDive will pick it up).