12 Days of Anime

12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 12]: Anime-gataris — How A Sense of Community Creates A Closer Relationship to Art

Owningmatt93 5 Comments

It seems appropriate to cap off this set of 12 Days of Anime posts with Anime-gataris, as I think it’s something that both readers and other content creators can appreciate to end the year on a more uplifting note than perhaps some of us may have experienced over the last several months. Anime-gataris itself may not seem to have a lot going for it at first, as many of its jokes start off as being solely referential or just about wacky club dynamics that you can get from plenty of other anime as well.

At first, there may not seem to be enough appeal for a sort of show that runs on those concepts alone though, and perhaps if the show had just left it at that, it would have never really become something that would have been worth talking about in of itself.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 11]: Girls und Panzer – How Unity Can Help Us Support Each Other

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I wasn’t really sure what to expect from a show that basically has the synopsis of “girls join a tank club and fight with tanks”, especially since I heard some rather good remarks concerning the recent film that the series had gotten, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised with the series as a whole. While I still don’t think that it’s the best of its kind and other anime, such as High School Fleet have expanded on this sort of “genre” (if you want to call it that) in a much better way, it’s always good to see the roots from what those newer, better shows were built off of, something I addressed in my previous 12 Days of Anime article.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 10]: Doki Doki Literature Club – How We View Media Can Refine Our Perspective

Owningmatt93 2 Comments

Now, I’m going to start this off with saying that I realize that this may not feel like it meets the definition for “anime” for some, but personally I feel that Doki Doki Literature Club is close enough and unique in its own way to at least consider it a part of the “anime-esque” media, considering it greatly pulls from the convention of Japanese visual novels. Oddly enough, I could probably be writing this about the actual Japanese visual novel Kimi to Kanojo to Kanojo no Koi (Totono) and make the same sort of comparison, but without any translation for it (something which I hope happens at some point), this is what I have to work with.

Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC) is questionably innovative in what it does for this reason, but that doesn’t make it any less gratifying to see it play out in of its own. There’s something to be said about how we perceive media, and I think DDLC makes an excellent observation about that which can change how we view certain works in the future, while also giving us appreciation for the past works that led up to the creation of a better one. It becomes a sort of love letter to the creators and players of these sorts of games, which I think is pretty neat in its own regard.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 9]: No Game No Life: Zero – How Accepting Others Diversifies Our Life Experiences

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No Game No Life is one of those franchises that it’s really easy to love, but also just as easy to hate as well. For every potential good thing that the series does, there’s a potential bad thing to offset it, and while I can highly appreciate the series for how it presents itself with some of the interesting visual techniques and just capturing the thrill of what playing games is like, there’s plenty of things wrong with the original series too. It’s overabundance of weirdly sexual scenarios with the involvement of the Sora and Shiro duo as siblings can really go either way in terms of humor depending on your views of those things, but it makes it hard to watch and definitely runs a lot of people away from the series in general for those seasons, despite what good content is actually beneath the surface.

The reason I bring all this up is that the movie decides to approach all the content in a different way, far differently than the series itself portrays anything and really, could almost stand on its own as it’s a prequel movie with nothing but history to tell about the world that the story takes place in.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 8]: White Album 2 – How Romance Can Affect Our Adolescence

Owningmatt93 5 Comments

One of the more interesting shows that I had the “pleasure” (if you can call it that) of watching this year was one I had only heard stories about, yet never knew why it was one of the more iconic visual novel adaptations and romance stories in anime. It’s not necessarily a popular story, but it’s an interesting one for varying reasons. One of those reasons being how White Album 2 portrayed adolescent romance quite differently from many anime of its kind. This isn’t really comparable to your Toradora‘s, Sakurasou‘s, or even OreGairu‘s in terms of a typical romance story; it’s sort of a mixture of those anime, but decides to go a different direction with its story and characters.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 7]: Makoto Shinkai and Your Name – How Our Future is Shaped By Decisions We Make

Owningmatt93 3 Comments

Shinkai’s films are always an experience for me. While I haven’t seen all of his works, the ones that I have seen have completely changed the way I view anime films in general, but I suppose my perspective on anime films is a bit different than what would normally be expected from an anime fan.

It’s no secret (or if it was, it’s not anymore) that my experience with anime in general doesn’t extend far beyond the reach of prior 2010 works as I began watching anime in early 2012. It was a sort of time when Shinkai films were already well-known because of 5 Centimeters per Second and others being released around that time, but I had never gotten into any of his films until later in my anime “career” (around the end of 2014).

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 6]: Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc – How Our Own Desires Can Change Ourselves

Owningmatt93 1 Comment

Not all changes in someone’s perspective are necessarily beneficial to us; sometimes those changes cause us to experience more despair and pain. Unlike many of my previous 12 Days of Anime posts have shown and also contrary to the title of the game, Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Danganronpa: THH) isn’t exactly a story brimming with positive moments from people undergoing changes within their lives. That’s not to say the game is nothing but unhappy events, but as expected from a narrative that’s mainly about high-schoolers trapped in a death game scenario, there’s definitely a lot of negative events that transpire and occur to the characters within it.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 5]: Hai to Gensou no Grimgar – How Death Inspires Personal Growth

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Hai to Gensou no Grimgar is an anomaly in the group of shows I’ve chosen for 12 Days of Anime. It’s the only show of these that I respect and understand what it’s doing, and I don’t think it’s a terrible show by any regards, but there are plenty of aspects that left me with a sour taste in my mouth, unrelated to the actual topic of this article. I feel that I have to say this up front, as this article may glorify the show perhaps a bit more than how good the show actually was, but I definitely think it has valid points regarding this topic.

Progressing past the discussion of the less gratifying portions of the show, the topic of death really comes up quite frequently in the story-line of this show, whether you’re following the anime or the light novels. Death itself is obviously not a comfortable topic for anyone to discuss, but Grimgar portrays death in a semi-realistic fashion, both showing the fallout that can be caused over a death and also how people can come closer and grow to be stronger because of one.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 4]: Re:Creators – How Perception of the World Influences Our Actions

Owningmatt93 2 Comments

Despite the title, as obviously as this concept might seem, as your perception of the world will, of course, change what you do and how you do certain things, but let’s put it in this context for a minute: what would be the first thing you do when entering an unfamiliar place or new society environment? You’ll be more likely to pay attention to certain things to see how your new environment works, how people act, and observe all the changes from your old environment as well. Perhaps you may be more sensitive and notice new things that you never noticed before, especially if you’re from a different part of the world or entering a new country, as that’s pretty much what situation the characters of Re:Creators end up in.

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12 Days of Anime 2017 [Day 3]: Aldnoah.Zero – How Political Events Can Change Humanity

Owningmatt93 2 Comments

The last two 12 Days of Anime posts may have been about changes occurring on a personal level by how particular lifestyles unfold, but this time let’s look at some other changes that can occur during our lives that are on a grander scale. Less personal changes that still affect us happen all the time, and sometimes we really only play a small role in being able to control these things. An easy example of this would be how laws can cause these sorts of wide-scale changes, but sometimes the amount of input into preventing or supporting those particular laws can seem meaningless or futile. This can be disheartening, especially when these things can affect us so much.

Aldonoah.Zero is that sort of story. The stakes are high, changes in how the different governments view things happen frequently, and those changes have direct impact on the world at large, especially on the future of humanity.

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