Deep-Dive Discussions

Youjo Senki Episode 1 – Distributing Information to an Audience

Owningmatt93 7 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

The Music of Psychics

Selie 1 Comment

akira_by_jonasdero-d66xuar.jpg

Here’s a question:  What music comes to mind when I say “telekinesis”?  It’s a bit of an odd question but say, for instance, that a composer had to make music all based off the idea of one vague idea:  individuals with psychic powers.  What would he or she do?  What musical instrument or theme would fit that fantastic element?  The concept may seem a little abstract, but sometimes, that’s all a composer initially gets to base a soundtrack on.   Composers aren’t usually given a complete version of the material to work with (although composition is traditionally done much later in the creation process so they might have some visuals), so a lot of composition may come down to just a feeling or an idea that they get.

Yoko Kanno, for instance, is famous for taking something so vague as “being human” and making an entire body of work based off of it.  On the western side, when Christopher Nolan was creating Interstellar, he initially gave the film’s composer, Hans Zimmer, the concept of “a father and son” (later changed to a daughter), without telling Zimmer anything else about the film.  This was specifically to get to the heart of what Nolan felt the film should be about.  Vagueness, in this way, allowed for a lot of creative freedom, but at the same time, as many artists can tell you, too much freedom can be oppressive, leaving them to not even know where to begin.  However, because the initial idea may be so vague, the same concept done by different composers can lead to amazingly diverse music, which brings me back to the music of psychic powers.

Continue reading →

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

Owningmatt93 1 Comment

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?

Continue reading →

An Alternate Look at Fanservice in Keijo!!!!!!!!

generaltofu 1 Comment

Every time a new season of anime rolls around, I take some time to look through the season’s offerings and decide what shows I’m hyped about, what I might give a look, and what I will more than likely pass altogether. Generally speaking, I check out most shows’ available PVs and do some digging into the creative teams that have been working on the show. These factors are most often what inform my choices of what I decide to check out, and what to perhaps get excited about. What acts as a preliminary informant to me before I even get to that stage of digging, however, is the simple survey of show genres–in contrast to the great deal of digging I do for shows that I follow, I often don’t pay much mind to shows that don’t seem even remotely interesting to me as far as their purported genres indicate.

Usually, I tend to breeze past shows that are tagged as ecchi, for example. If a show is branded as “action, comedy, ecchi, romance,” more often than not, you can bet that I am not going to be following that show in the slightest. That being said, I don’t have anything against the ecchi genre–I know many people that are fans of shows within the genre as a whole, and I know that, in some senses, it can be fairly diverse in how it appeals to different audiences within the genre fanbase through various modes of sexual fanservice. There’s all sorts of arguments that people can make about the genre with regards to, for example, how it might appeal to a male gaze, which, if you really want to get into that, seems to ignore the existence of any alternative gazes (lesbian gaze, bisexual gaze, etc.). But that’s not a discussion I’m going to get into here. Everyone has their own opinions as far as genre goes, and they’re entitled to those opinions. Some people don’t like mecha anime; some people don’t like slice of life; I myself generally don’t like ecchi.

Continue reading →

A Brief Look at the Fall 2016 Anime Season

generaltofu Leave a comment

Before we get into the post, I have to give a big shout-out to my ISP (who shall remain unnamed) for all their amazing work making sure my internet connection stays up and stable when I really need it to. Thanks, guys. You didn’t screw this one up at all.

Seriously, though, I hadn’t initially planned on writing a post about my shows I’m excited to watch this season—initially, I was simply going to share my thoughts during the Log Time General Podcast #2, which if you haven’t given a listen, you absolutely should. It’s filled to the brim with some fantastic discussion about some of the earlier episodes of this season’s shows, all nicely wrapped up in sweet, sweet banter between Mythos and Owningmatt (and myself, for all of about twenty minutes).

With that in mind, I should go ahead and mention that this is in no way meant to be an exhaustive preview of this season—due to the technical difficulties during the recording of the podcast, I still had some things I wanted to mention about the few shows that I definitely plan on watching this season; thus, here we are. So let’s get started.

Continue reading →

Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita – The Morality of the Fae

Selie 6 Comments

You know who the biggest assholes in myth are?  Fairies.  I mean, sure, the Greek pantheons were pretty bad, but what they typically did was monumental in scale, making them seem more malevolent or dispassionate towards humans rather than just plain trolling.  Let’s say here I am, walking through the cliff sides, when I suddenly see a beautiful woman blocking my path and dancing to a haunting tune.  She asks me to dance.  If I don’t, I get thrown into the nearby thistles to hurt for the rest of the week.  If I do, she may let me pass or I’ll just end up in the bushes anyways.  Not to mention that given my skills in the art of dance, I’ll probably be in the thistles either way.

chateauxnoirs-2.jpg

This example is actually from French folklore of the Dames blanches or “White Ladies”, a
particularly nice fae compared to a lot of others.  See, even when fairies are nice to humans, they’ll still find some way to dick you over, or, in the case of this fae, have you pulling thistles out of yourself for weeks.  In fact, throughout most European mythology, fairies are notorious for messing with humans because 1.) they can, 2.) it’s fun killing humans for sport, torturing humans for decades and what not, and 3.) because it’s all some power play to keep us down, like we’re a group of beatniks oppressed by the Bourgeoisie.  The worst part is that sometimes they may help a human out on a whim, making it confusing as hell to figure out what they’re up to.  It’s like meeting the Joker on a good day.  I think the Fae took Cyndi Lauper to heart because, particularly at our expense, fairies “just wanna have fun.”

Sir_Joseph_Noel_Paton_-_The_Quarrel_of_Oberon_and_Titania_-_Google_Art_Project_2.jpg

Pictured above:  Cyndi Lauper being accosted in the woods about her peculiar dance moves.

Continue reading →

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

Owningmatt93 5 Comments

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.

Continue reading →

A Response to “Moé, Misogyny and Masculinity: Anime’s Cuteness Problem–and How to Fix It”

thebackloggers 5 Comments

Preface

A recent post was made discussing the topic of “Moe” within the anime industry. You can find a link to it here.

This post, while interesting in itself, has sparked a response from multiple camps of critics and fans of anime alike, with opinions of all kinds surrounding the article. Given the nature of the post, and its submission on a feminist positive blog, there has obviously been some blind emotion on the topic. However, some have come forward to give their feelings, critique, and attempt an actual conversation about the topic. We thought we might do this as well.

Since our website is run by three different people who each have relatively different views, we figured it’d be best to add to the conversation individually, noting our personal feelings on this subject. None of these will be an in-depth analysis on the topic, and one or all of us may do something like that later, but for now, here our thoughts on the post specifically and what it talks about.

Continue reading →

Are the Game and Reality Separate?: Talking About Netoge and Online Identity

generaltofu 6 Comments

I can’t seem to count how many times I heard the phrase “reality and the game are separate!” while watching Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta (or just Netoge for short). For those unfamiliar with the show, Netoge is a light novel adaptation following high school student Hideki Nishimura and his Alley Cats Guild friends in their Net Game Club. Hideki Nishimura and Ako Tamaki, the central protagonists, have strong, differing views of how they exist in and outside of their MMO of choice, Legend Age. Ako sees the world of the game and “reality” (let’s call them the digital world and the physical world, respectively), as one in the same. Hideki sees it as the opposite: that the physical and digital worlds are separate. Although I don’t think either of them really hit the issue square on the head, and the show tends to skirt around any conversations about this that could be pretty cool or enlightening, I’m actually inclined to agree with both Ako and Hideki to some degree.

Continue reading →

My Five Favorite BAMF Female Characters

Selie 3 Comments

So here’s one I’ve been thinking about doing for a little while now as a follow up to a previous post I did ages ago called My Favorite Hilarious Troll Moves I’ve Seen in Anime.  In keeping with the theme of favorites, this is My Five Favorite BAMF Female Characters from Anime!  With so much anime that’s written specifically for a male audience, I think it’s good to take some time and showcase those characters that show a little girl power or at least some damn good writing with respect to women.  Hopefully we’ll see more badass ladies as time goes forward but for the time being, this is my list of awesome girls who are great characters that shine in their series.

Now, I will say right away that there are some stipulations.  The first is this is only from television shows and not movies because this list would very quickly turn into my favorite girls from Studio Ghibli and the directorial works of Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children, etc).  Second, I’m obviously only picking from stuff I’ve seen so this list won’t be comprehensive and may not have choices that others may have.  This list is also unordered because I’d rather not compare great characters when they all have amazing reasons to be number one on any list.  Lastly, and this goes along with the second point, this is only my list of favorite characters.  I’m not saying this is “The Top Five of All Time” or anything like that because this is entirely subjective and biased to me.  However, I do think these wonderful ladies have a chance to warm your heart as much as they did mine with how much ass they kick, both figuratively and literally.

On a last note, I’ll try to keep spoilers to an absolute minimum, but consider this a small warning for minor plot points being talked about.  So without further ado, here are our characters who carry wallets like this…

118016-pulp-fiction-bad-motherfucker-DBi5

Continue reading →