Okay, so last time we looked at how manga and anime differ. Anime is an action medium while manga has more depth; the anime business is higher financial risk/reward proposition while manga can be riskier in content because of the lower costs involved. Right. I just summarized a thousand-plus word post in one compound sentence. […]
Read more "Medium Matters: School-Live! II"There are a lot of stories out there where you engage with the characters, especially the main character, and so you want to see more about them. That’s a good thing. Remember, people make these things to make money. If you like the character and want to see more of them, that’s what we call […]
Read more "The Spin-Off Movie: Violet Evergarden"Yeah, okay, maybe I got a little heavily into the wordplay there in that title, but you know, what can a poor boy do? And it does sort of work. A lot of series have multiple meta-plots going on. That makes sense: If you have a series of, say, twenty-four episodes, you have to keep […]
Read more "Plots de Deux: Your Lie in April"Yeah, it’s taken me a long time to get to Sailor Moon. There are a couple reasons for that. I’m overage … I don’t have time enough left in my life for series that run to hundreds of episodes. And I’m not even remotely interested in straight up (no pun intended) Magical Girl stories. I’m […]
Read more "Character Analysis: Usagi Tsukino"The end of a narrative is supposed to do two things, resolve the conflict and wrap up the loose ends. Some anime try to spread those two functions across two episodes. Speed Grapher, anyone? Some anime blow off the loose ends in the name of drama. Cowboy Bebop anyone? Some anime integrate the two seamlessly. […]
Read more "Look at This Ending: El Cazadore de la Bruja"Power is one of those topics that pops up over and over in writing and in life. For instance, power underlies a lot of the relationship stuff I’ve been babbling about for almost two years in this blog. Take for instance Samurai Champloo. Mugen and Jin are fearsome swordsmen. Why in the name of bog […]
Read more "The Performance of Power: The Saga of Tanya the Evil"Princess Jellyfish was neat to see in that a lot of the characters were upside down in their construction; instead of having one key weakness, many of them had one key strength instead. This allowed them to push the plot forward and keep the narrative momentum going. Narrative momentum? You mean there was a plot […]
Read more "Let’s Cook a Series: Princess Jellyfish II"I ran into a list of shows that was described as “8 Great Anime for People who Don’t Like Anime” and had a look. You know, there was some seriously good schnizz there. It included two of my all-time faves, Black Lagoon and Samurai Champloo, plus a couple more I really liked, Beastars and Paranoia […]
Read more "The Odd Couple: Nana and Hachiko"Tropes are one of those things that I’ve mentioned about a zillion times but never actually talked about. There’s probably a formal definition, but a trope is basically a commonly used marker or indicator used to tell the audience something about the characters, plot, or setting. Setting/genre is a big place where tropes show up […]
Read more "Oh So Trope-ical: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi"Welcome to the NHK is a classic, and it’s a classic for a couple reasons, I suspect. One, I’d guess, is the love story between Tatsuhiro and Misaki, which is sweet and handled nicely as it develops. Another is that Tatsuhiro is an unusual character, his status as a hikkikomori – a person who is […]
Read more "Character Analysis: Misaki Nakahara"