Author: Owningmatt93

Youjo Senki Episode 1 – Distributing Information to an Audience

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Japan, are you doing okay? You wanna talk about something?

This is the second season in a row where we’ve had an anime about a “European” conflict involving both magic and standard military technology. From what I read in the synopsis, my perception was that the setting would be more modern than it was historical, and that is partially my fault from not looking at the PV close enough. Just from looking at it, you can tell the weaponry is not fully modernized, and the stylistic designs of the uniforms are not modern at all. I will also fully admit that mixing militaristic ideas with fantasy elements is not really something I’m innately interested in. Although, what I am interested in is looking at a non-realistic portrayal of the less glorified aspects of war. Using fantasy elements as a way to emphasize the physical and mental destruction caused by war is something I’d love to see from this show.

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The Ghibli Gabble – Reflecting on Popularity of Films in the West

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Lately I’ve been binge-watching anime films as I still haven’t seen several influential films that I probably should have by now, especially with 200+ anime series now under my belt. Specifically, I’ve started catching up on Ghibli movies, as they’re the ones I’m lacking from my anime background the most. I’m already a huge fan of Makoto Shinkai and seeing how popular Your Name. is in sales, even surpassing some classic Ghibli films, I wanted to find out why Ghibli has always been popular among Western fans while directors like Shinkai are only finally breaking into the market. While Your Name. is most likely an excellent film (please no spoilers), it’s very tonally Shinkai in both art style and narrative, yet it’s gotten so much more hype than his other works. If it is so stylistically Shinkai, then why is it that very few works of his, minus arguably Five Centimeters Per Second, are not even mentioned by most well-versed anime fans, yet almost every Ghibli film is known even to those who just dabble in Japanese animated films?

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“Show, Don’t Tell”, The Community, and You

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In the recent months, there have been several anime releases that have caused a massive amount of discussion about the concept of “show, don’t tell” between fans and critics alike. From my observations of discussions on recent anime, including Re:Zero, Mob Psycho 100, and Kizumonogatari Part I, along with many others, the community at large seems to have varying perceptions of which animated productions utilize this concept well and which ones do not. Many people seem to share a common opinion about the topic though, and that is “show, don’t tell” is a storytelling technique that is universally accepted as a standard for media or literature to always strive for, and when used, it is almost always presented in a positive light. Likewise, when there is a large amount of dialogue presented to the audience, it tends to have the opposite effect, creating a near universal hatred for moments that tend to use dialogue-heavy scenes. Although personally, I don’t think either of these expressions are a great way of thinking about the concept as a whole.

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Short Review — Koutetsujou no Kabaneri: A Beautiful, Emotional Trainwreck

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Synopsis: Koutetsujou no Kabaneri is an anime-original series that shows how the initially weak-willed protagonist, Ikoma, grows as a character while fighting off hordes of zombies from attacking his friends and other villagers aboard the Iron Fortress, a steam-powered locomotive.

This is the type of story that everyone wanted after the Attack on Titan craze struck anime fans as something that invoked deep emotions through its characters, but also contained high-powered, well-animated action sequences that made the anime stand out from others. With similar kinds of expectations to meet, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri steamrolled into the scene, attempting to become the next anime to take on that role and to give fans a new incarnation of that same sort of story to live vicariously through. This show, being created by nearly the same core team as Attack on Titan, was automatically seen as a hit among fans across the globe, and with the unique setting and art style, backed up by Hiroyuki Sawano‘s OST, there was no stopping the hype train. But if all of this was the case, then why was there a complete turnaround on the general community’s view of the show? Why has a show that was on a track for nothing but success, suddenly become the bane of nearly everyone that has finished the show?

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Short Review — Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun: An Unsympathetic Love Story

Owningmatt93 2 Comments

Synopsis: The anime Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (also known as My Little Monster) is a shoujo manga adaptation about understanding the relationship between Mizutani Shizuku, a hardworking student, and Yoshida Haru, a troublemaking delinquent.

As with all shoujo stories, romance and relationship-building are what drives the genre and finding a stand-out from the typical formula of two people meeting and slowly coming to realization of their feelings for each other is a rarity. Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun defies the conventional formula by starting out with the confession and working backwards. Because of this, we get to watch these characters handle romantic issues in a highly genre-breaking fashion. Shizuku and Haru struggle with each other and themselves to discover their own feelings for each other and what the concept of love truly means to them. While this likely isn’t the first instance of a shoujo story breaking the genre, genre-breakers are always interesting and are especially easy to draw people into watching.

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Nerawareta Gakuen – A Film Where Frame of Reference Matters

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My methods of choosing what anime I want to watch next are probably abnormal compared to most. Sometimes I become interested in a show by reading a blog post, or sometimes the selection is completely spontaneous and random. Nerawareta Gakuen fell more into the former category for me, as I originally discovered it through a video created by Digibro, an anime blogger/reviewer. While I can’t find the exact video that originally inspired this post, I found another video of his that reflected the same viewpoint.

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My Personal Favorites of 2015

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It sure has been a while folks, but we are back in business in Owningmatt land!

I’ll quickly go over some updates and then we’ll jump straight into the content since I’m sure this is the post that everyone was waiting for after all of this time. If not… well, I guess you’ll have to wait for the next time. Anyway.

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Love Live! The School Idol Movie – A Hard-Hitting Punch into Reality

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We’ll make everyone’s dreams come true!

Love Live! School Idol Movie Picture 1 - Logo

Note: This will contain some heavy spoilers about the ending of the Love Live! The School Idol Movie. If you haven’t seen the movie before reading this post, then I’d suggest doing so beforehand.

Idol shows are one of those things within the anime community that people either love or absolutely hate. There’s a lot of polarization between fans that like shows with “mature and gritty” stories and those that tend to enjoy milder, “moe” settings. While anime be at all places within that spectrum, idol shows tend to fall on the “moe” side merely because of the character designs and the content discussed, and therefore causes a lot of “tension” (read: shit-posting) between the two fanbases, especially when it comes to the online anime community. Some associate the “moe” side of the spectrum with slice-of-life comedies that have no story or overarching plot; I personally think they’re just missing out.

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Summer 2015 Anime – Watching

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As this post comes rolling through, it seems that half of the Summer 2015 anime has already aired and most people probably have already formed opinions about what they’re watching this season. As standard procedure though, I’m going to roll out what my thoughts are on these series and tell you why I continue watching the anime that I’ve chosen.

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Aspects of Fansubbing – Editing can be pretty difficult

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To make up for how long the last post ended up being, I’ve decided to make a slightly shorter post re-hashing an article I wrote on my Tumblr a while back. I’ve gained further knowledge about the topic since I’m actively involved within a fansub group, and I can now further apply that knowledge to the topic I’ll be writing about.

To start off, I’m not an editor for a fansub group, so I can’t say that I know everything about editing or even that I’m doing it right, but I do know how editing is theoretically supposed to work. For example, taking subtitles from an actual simulcasted release of CrunchyRoll (CR) or Funimation and making a few line changes does not make you a fansubber in my eyes (although that’s a great way to start into the editing portion of fansubbing). While this isn’t what the post will be about, it does factor into the problem that I will describe below with a single picture.

Also, spoilers of Golden Time ahead.

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