About the Nihon Review
Who we are
Welcome to to The Nihon Review, an anime review website dedicated to anime commentary and dialogue. United by a love for anime, we cover a range of topics ranging from content analysis to cultural topics to issues of fandom. We’re pretty passionate about what we do, and would love to read your comments or hear from you.
Our bread and butter are our anime reviews. In fact, we have a collection of over two hundred individual anime reviews ranging from anime released decades ago to the most recent releases in Japan. They also cover a wide variety of genres, from action anime, to rom-coms, to mecha anime, and everything else in between.
In our review process, we strive to showcase how we feel about an anime while giving readers an idea whether they too would enjoy (or not!) based on what we say about a given show or movie. In addition to our reviews, we feature editorials and opinion pieces focused on the animation industry in Japan as a whole, including a yearly review article that takes a look back at an entire year of anime.
Why we do what we do
Each one of our writers began as fans of Japanese anime, but soon realized that there was much more to think and understand about the medium. Animation is a powerful medium for storytelling, entertainment, and commentary on contemporary issues in society. The Nihon Review was born out of a desire to understand anime while sharing those findings in a highly critical yet accessible way. We also have a documented history of how we’ve changed over the years here.
Quality, not quantity, is one of the most important factors we consider in our content, meaning that we frequently improve our own methods for watching and discussing anime. We hope to contribute value to the grand discussion and overall understanding of anime as a whole.
A Brief History of the Nihon Review
The Early Years
- The first incarnation of the Nihon Review was founded on November 21, 2005 as AMGReviews (where the AMG stood for “Anime, Manga, Games”). The original team was run by Seven and Tamashii and consisted of prominent reviewers including Taleweaver, Kuma, DarkKanti, Genkisakura and, of course, Seven and Tamashii.
- Sorrow-kun joined AMGReviews in September 2005.
- AMGReviews changed its name and identity to its current incarnation: “The Nihon Review”.
The Nihon Review Finds Its Rhythm
- An experiment in other article formats led to the successful Year in Review articles which distilled the best of the best from the sea of anime released in a given year.
- Kurier joined our site in January 2006, and he was followed shortly after by dheu.
- Dheu and Sorrow-kun officially become editors, and took over managing the site from Tamashii.
- Suzumiya Haruhi‘s release and the Nihon Review’s subsequent redesign led to Haruhi becoming the Nihon Review’s mascot.
- Scoot joins the team and played a huge role in managing the site redesign. Pachinko also joined that year.
- TypicalIdiotFan joins the team in the tail end of 2006 while Kuma and Scoot were promoted to editors.
- Akira, joins the team in 2007 as did royal crown, Ascaloth, Godai, Shadowmage, and Kavik Ryx. The latter two were huge in ensuring our coverage of mecha anime was truly complete.
Stability and growth
- Sorrow-kun would take over sole ownership of The Nihon Review in late 2007.
- Zzeroparticle comes on board, after impressing with the work he did on Anime Instrumentality.
- 2008 saw us publish 142 reviews, a record!
- Staff departures started around 2009 with DarkKanti, Seven and royal crown officially resigning, and Godai, Pachinko, Scoot and zeroxhour being delisted for becoming inactive.
- 2010 saw a huge team effort in the series of posts that captured the best anime of the past decade (2000-2009).
- New faces were had in kadian1364, Kylaran, and Buttercup, the latter of whom would depart along with our resident mecha fan Kavik Ryx.
- Other notable recruits after 2010 included Shinmaru, Kaikyaku, kevo, Click, and Reckoner. Our audience got large enough that we were able to send folks to Anime Expo and other anime conventions as members of the press!
The Dark Ages
- It’s at this time that real life started getting in the way. Sorrow-kun finished his schooling and rode off into the sunset. The remaining members didn’t have the time to take over with steering the ship.
- The website then got mired in a design update. Toying around with the Nihon Review’s existing structure would prove to be too much to overhaul. With no progress in sight, the Nihon Review would linger all the way until 2017.
- Sometime around 2017, the Nihon Review’s website’s registration lapsed and the site was quickly snapped up by domain squatters.
- The squatters would sell the Nihon Review site domain to a string of owners who had no anime-related interests and instead, used it for their own commercial pursuits.
Future beginnings…
- Thankfully, none of those commercial pursuits proved to be profitable to the website owners. At least, that’s the speculation. The domain would limp along and eventually fall into disuse.
- After patiently waiting for years, zzeroparticle found a moment when the domain, close to expiration, was put up for auction. He quickly snatched the domain in April 2026. The Nihon Review is now in the hands of someone who gives an actual damn about anime.
- The recovery process begins, starting with a new design. Along those same lines, the process of bringing back previously-published reviews would be slow going, but steady.
- Some time was allotted to new anime reviews that had not been published, including one for Akane-banashi season 1 and Blue Lock season 1.
- Where the future holds, we’ll see……..
Current Staffers
- zzeroparticle – Site Admin, Editor-in-Chief
Former Staffers
- AC
- Click
- CNile
- hayama
- Kaikyaku
- kevo
- Kylaran
- Reckoner
- Shadowmage
- Slashe
- Shinmaru
- TypicalIdiotFan
- Akira
- Arabesque
- Ascaloth
- Buttercup
- DarkKanti
- dheu
- Elineas
- Eternal
- Fuu
- GenkiSakura
- Godai
- kadian1364
- Kavik Ryx
- Kuma
- Kurier
- MK
- Niner
- Pachinko
- royal crown
- Scoot
- Seven
- Sorrow-kun
- Taleweaver
- Tamashii
- UZ_white
- zeroxhour
- Zirilan
How we rate anime
Our rating system uses a 0-10 scale. It’s not the score that matters, but the description of what these scores mean. This context is important!
Learn more about our Rating Scale.
We also use a highlights system to note what stuck out to us about a given anime. It’s less a pros/cons and more of a sense of what we thought was notable.
Learn more about the Highlights system.
Contact Us
We welcome feedback, comments, and questions from readers. We can assure you that a human does read submissions on our Contact Form. Some of our social accounts have been lost to the ravages of time, but our Facebook page is still active.