anime + manga

Arakawa Hiromu's Silver Spoon 1. What is your reaction to the text you just read? I found Silver Spoon to be incredibly enjoyable. It's a slice-of-life manga, but informative in all things farming (in Hokkaido). It reminded me somewhat of a manual. Arakawa has this lovely habit of being very intentional in her work and showing progress of a character developing. We all know Hachiken is going to shape up to be a great farmer in the future, but we're just excited to see how he'll get there. Obviously, the art is fantastic and appealing. How it starts out makes me intrigued because I want to know what's happening. Hachiken is a stand-in for the audience at this point, because he thinks farm school is a breeze while literally knowing nothing about it. I remember reading this for the first time many years ago right after I finished reading Fullmetal Alchemist, and I was disappointed by the easygoing nature of this manga, so I never made it past the first cha...

This week we talked about Hetalia and comedy in anime. I will use this blog post to talk about the fall of Hetalia in popular culture and the many flawed aspects of it, from its use of racial stereotypes to its fetishization of WWII. Now, Hetalia isn't the first anime to use WWII as either an implied inspiration or the exact setting (such as Grave of the Fireflies and Joker Game), but it is probably the worst anime to do it. I've never been particularly engaged in Hetalia, though I knew a few people in middle school who were fans of it. This seems to be the case for most people: they enjoyed the lighthearted, ridiculous humor as kids, but then grew out of it as they became adults and gained higher standards for themselves and the mediums they enjoyed. A big, jarring red flag for me was its usage of Axis Powers in the title. I never really paid attention to it, and during class it was pretty much the first time I realized how horrible it was. It was called Axis Powers ....

Pokemon. The international hit. The worldwide phenomenon. The Beyoncé of video games. I, like probably everyone younger than 40, grew up playing a Pokemon game. It was Pokemon Silver, and my starter whom I shall love forever was a Chikorita. Pokemon's cultural stamina is unending.  The new game for the Switch, Sword and Shield will be coming out soon, as well as a Detective Pikachu movie with a star-studded cast. Pokemon Go, the game on the smartphone, has reached an all-time high in the past few months instead of dipping downwards as with any gaming app where people have lost interest. It's 20-year legacy and popularity can be attributed to several great aspects of the game, in my opinion. First and foremost, the pokemon are adorable. The gameplay is also easy to understand and straightforward, and it allows access to people of all ages and ability to play. You can play with friends in the game, as well as trade and battle with pokemon. It's a great, simple adve...

This week, we had presentations concerning the topic of isekai, cyberpunk, and Made in Abyss. Because I really enjoy the topic of cyberpunk, I'd like to spend this blog post talking about this! Akira is one of my favorite cyberpunk anime of all time. I first watched the movie several years ago when I was in high school, and back then I was really surprised at the fantasy-esque thread in it because of Akira's famed reputation as a cyberpunk cornerstone in anime. It has so many iconic cyberpunk elements that I ADORE, like neon cityscapes, cool pimped-out vehicles, really beautiful gritty detailed clutter that enriches the background and really allows the viewer to sink into the world that is Neo Tokyo. I personally think Akira's strongest element is in its grounded depiction of terrorism and government corruption - very emblematic of cyberpunk in general - so I was slightly put-off by the fantasy. But it's still a great movie with outstanding animation. It also a...

A link to my presentation this week: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gXNIbTJXBb2-79Jr0r-cTCx5ySVgcHUiMuMjh_CJfgg/edit A link to read Ran and the Gray World:  https://mangadex.org/title/2576/ran-to-haiiro-no-sekai

This week, I reread My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness  by Nagata Kabi, which is an autobiographical manga that details her sexuality and also her experiences with mental health. I was first recommended this manga about a year ago by an LGBT friend on tumblr, who was living in Japan at the time as a University student. I read it in one sitting that day, stunned by the sort of blunt honesty and contrast between the sweet drawings and the rough life the author had. It's a pretty intense read, but I really enjoyed it. Japan isn't that great when it comes to LGBT issues, even though it's definitely a part of the developed world. Asia has a big problem with moving forward from traditional societal views. This was a very intimate, genuine autobiographical story and I was particularly impacted by how the author depicts having anxious thoughts, depression, and guilt over her own "inadequacies." She actually published a sequel last year, and the first volume was ...

I was around eleven or twelve when I first watched Spirited Away, and it was beautiful . Back then, as a kid, I wasn't quite concerned with critically thinking about media like I am now. I just know that when I saw it, I saw something magical come alive on the screen. This might sound weird, but I can still remember the feelings I had while watching the movie a decade ago - the confusion when Haku made Chihiro eat the berry, the surprised fear when the stair under Chihiro broke, the awe of the washing/bathtub scene. I read Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga this week, and I was pretty surprised at the vast differences in the manga and movie. I think he did a great job at compressing the manga while keeping so many of the themes and significant details, like Nausicaa's uncontrollable rage at the soldiers and the prophecy of the blue dress and a wheat field. Despite watching my first Ghibli movie at eleven(ish), I actually only first watched Nausicaa when I was around fourteen o...