You may or may not like Penguindrum – it’s certainly weird, that’s for sure – but as I watched it I was struck by how many characters with interesting constructions there were. For instance, the central characters, Kanba, Shoma, and Himari Takakura, form a Body-Mind-Soul trio, but they each transcend their primary role and they […]
Read more "Character Analysis: Ringo Oginome"Every once in a while I fall into a rabbit hole and can’t climb out. So I have a subscription to Crunchyroll, and there’s an app that gives me access to certain manga they support. And I happened onto this little gem called Silver Nina. Now, it’s kind of dumb and the art isn’t especially […]
Read more "How to Cook a Series: Silver Nina"You know, in a certain way Rea Sanka, the titular character of Sankarea, is one of the saddest characters in anime. Sure, there are characters who are supposed to be sad, or whose loss is shocking. Right? When Kaori dies in Your Lie in April – oh, man, what a tearjerker. But Kaori’s JOB was […]
Read more "Character Analysis: Rea Sanka"Can anyone really honestly say they know what’s going on inside Hideaki Anno’s head? There’s a cute manga out there written by his wife Moyoco about their life together (“Insufficient Direction,” available at Crunchyroll), but, you know, she might be exaggerating just a little. She certainly made both of them much less attractive than they […]
Read more "What’s in a Name: Neon Genesis Evangelion"In a lot of ways romance animes are some of the dumbest on the air. I mean, seriously? You have Person A and Person B and everyone knows they will be in luv L-U-V by the end of the show and you have to make TWELVE FRICKIN’ EPISODES out of that. More if the audience […]
Read more "Oh, So Tropical: The He-Can’t-Love-Me Woman"Okay, I admit it: Fruits Basket is an anime I could easily have found to be annoying and Tohru Honda is a character I could easily have found to be annoying. I mean, it’s a silly high school romance when you get down to it, and that’s not something I relate to well, right? But […]
Read more "Character Analysis: Tohru Honda"Gleipnir is one of those things that manages to use a story to hide something in plain sight, and that is that it’s thinly-veiled pornography. And let me tell you, that’s one thin veil. So the deal is … do I even need to go through what the deal is? … the deal is there’s […]
Read more "Okay, I Get the Joke: Gleipnir"A long winter storm and a Comic Book weekend (which requires only reading and watching cartoons, including manga and anime) led me to the delight that is The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. There’s a nice story here I might want to break down sometime – it’s like a harem driven by outside forces, which is pretty […]
Read more "Character Analysis: Justy Ueki Tylor"Okay, I’ll be honest: Fruits Basket is not exactly in my wheelhouse in terms of what I want to see, right? I mean you take the rom-com thing and add in the Zodiac animal thing, and that should be a nopety-nopety-nope for me. But, ya know, they sucked me in. You know how. Some really […]
Read more "The Power of Three Squared: Fruits Basket"If you read back in this blog – oh screw it, here’s a link – I was really unthrilled with the manga version of Komi Can’t Communicate. Y’see, our gal Komi is a gal with some severe psychological problems. She has what we in the communication business call “speech apprehension” (you might call it “stage […]
Read more "Medium Matters: Komi Can’t Communicate"
Confessions of an Overage otaku 