Okay, taking up from last time, (yeah, if you didn’t read it last time this won’t make a lot of sense this week, there there’s the link right there) Magical Girl shows tend to have four common characteristics, I mean, apart from just having Magical Girls in them: Transformation Mutual support Cuteness Triumph The formula […]
Read more "Going Dark II: Puella Magi Madoka Magica"The late Satoshi Kon was famous for playing sleight-of-hand with his characters. They were always existing at two or three different levels of reality or slipping around in time to meet themselves or whatever. His most accessible work, Tokyo Godfathers, has been making the rounds in a revival (with a new English dub I didn’t […]
Read more "The Power of Three: Tokyo Godfathers"Weathering With You is a fabulous movies from Makoto Shinkai, who gave us Your Name. I adored Your Name, and if you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s fabulous. If you haven’t seen Weathering With You, you should. It’s pretty darned good. The animation is just fabulous, the weather scenes – and it’s almost always […]
Read more "Suspension of Disbelief: Weathering With You"When I broke down the anime series (and follow-up OVA) The Saga of Tanya the Evil it bothered me that they constructed a great hero for a psychodrama and turned her loose in an action-adventure series. If you don’t know the story, “Tanya” is the mind and soul of a middle-aged salariman who has been […]
Read more "Medium Matters: Tanya the Evil"One of the fun elements of the otaku culture is that it embraces multiple dimensions. One is the Japanese lifestyle. I’ve mentioned I am learning Japanese. Did I mention that I figured out how to use chopsticks finally this year? And I hang Japanese-style artwork by my friend Bronwen MacDonald around my house? More important […]
Read more "Medium Matters: Revolutionary Girl Utena"This is a little more explicitly about writing than my usual posts in that it talks about writing using anime examples instead of looking at anime from a writer’s perspective. Sorry about that. I won’t make a habit of it. But this is my Two Year Anniversary post. Yes, the first post of this blog, […]
Read more "The Protagonist is a _______ but _______."“Meta,” or self-reference, is one of those things that fascinates me and has since I learned about recursion in computer programming. A subroutine that calls itself! Ye gods! What a concept! Now, meta is one of those things that appeals to people whose minds are spectacularly twisted, like mine. My buddy Derekl is also one […]
Read more "The Seven Levels of Meta"