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Awoo, oooh oooh ohhh! For this Monster Chiller Horror Theater installment of Anime World Order, Count Clarissa reviews the spooky and scary…okay fine, it’s not SCARY, but it’s the 2007 Noitamina series Mononoke. Yes, that includes the recently-concluded movie trilogy and the finale of Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales.
Introduction (0:00 – 55:25)
After the abundance of riches that was the Summer 2026 anime season, the Fall 2026 anime season is substantially lighter. We talk about a few current new titles, while also chipping away at the infinite backlog.
There’s been some overlap in otaku circles, as gaming fans have been retaliating against Sony’s efforts to divorce consumers from the concept of physical media ownership both in the realm of anime fandom as well as videogames. The plagiarism slop machine efforts were redirected towards jailbreaking the Playstation 5 and making Tekken 6 PC playable with online multiplayer, and the Japanese fan reaction to these efforts has been dramatically different compared to the English-language fanbase. We speculate on why that seems to be the case. despite the acceptance of the plagiarism machine seeming to be aligned to the polar opposite of each region’s reaction.
This then extends to the realm of manga, where we discuss some of our recent (and not-so-recent) manga acquisitions along with the associated tribulations regarding physical and digital manga. To this regard, we close with an email inquiry sent in by an actual HUMAN, which these days is novel: what might be some suitable manga titles for a library’s Young Adult section that aren’t either extremely niche or mainstream Shonen Jump titles? We give several potential recommendations of varying utility, since many of them end up being in fact either niche or mainstream Shonen Jump titles, but if one thing is for certain, it’s that Dorohedoro is for the children.
Review: Mononoke (55:25 – 2:07:16)
When Netflix announced that after 17 some odd years there would be a new Mononoke film trilogy, we figured we would wait until the release of the third and final installment before reviewing all of it. Well, all the anime of it, anyway. Naturally, upon the release of the third and final movie on Netflix about a month ago, it was then announced that a new Mononoke animated project was underway which we presumably won’t see begin for a little while.
Originating in the final three episodes of 2006’s Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales, which was one of the earliest titles to run in the late night NoitaminA block intended to showcase anime that wasn’t typical otaku fare, 2007’s Mononoke continued the mini-trend of the 2000s by being a period piece series focused on supernatural entities that featured highly distinctive visuals and animation techniques that pushed the boundaries of early digital anime.
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- This article contains full spoilers for the entire series and the movie, but if you want to know about the various yokai/mononoke depicted in the series, here is an overview
- An interview with director Kenji Nakamura regarding the new Mononoke movie trilogy series, now available on Netflix in both English dubbed as well as Japanese with English subtitles
- The then-surprise ending of the third film resulted in the veteran inaugural producer of NoitaminA, Koji Yamamoto, retiring from producing in apology for keeping it a surprise
