Posted 30 January 2010
I’ll actually make a conscious effort to avoid major and specific plot spoilers here, both because you probably haven’t read IO (literally イオ) and because I want you to. I won’t say I guarantee you’ll like it if you have an interest in harem, or can get past the harem veneer, but it’s worth a look, not least because its harem lead isn’t quite what one would expect.
(P.S. I have been posting here frequently. If for whatever reason this excites you, I’ll warn you not to get your hopes up. Semester two of grad school is just beginning…)
(P.P.S. Though I guess it would be nice if I could pull out 500 words or so at least once a week. We’ll see.)
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Posted in IO | No Comments
Posted 28 January 2010
By “lots of things” I mean war and soldiering; mixed technology; “Amazing Grace,” music, and sound; art and the making thereof; and slice of life group dynamics. Each episode might revolve around the delivery of some sentimental idea — hey, it’s slice of life — but Sora no Woto is shaping up to be something more complex than I would have guessed.
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Posted in Sora no Woto (Anime) | 13 Comments
Posted 22 January 2010
Here’s something that occurred to me the other day when I was stumbling as usual through the fiction-writing process: speculative slice of life anime and manga, even those with some emphasis on festivals, rarely include an event analogous to Christmas as manifest in the United States. This is not to say that gifts aren’t given and received in fantastical and science-fictional slice of life franchises — they are, and pretty commonly — but few such franchises seem to present a holiday whose focus or impetus is the giving and receiving of gifts.
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Posted in Aria (Anime), Haibane Renmei, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou | 4 Comments
Posted 18 January 2010
I’m twelve episodes into Zeta Gundam (which is in turn the fifth series in my project to acquaint myself, finally, with UC Gundam), and I suppose it’s about time that I started collecting my thoughts. I’d probably misplace them otherwise, and that wouldn’t do.
What strikes me (lolpun) about Zeta is the willingness of its characters to slap the hell out of each other. As in 0079, much of the non-mecha physical violence we see in Zeta occurs between people on the same side — and, as in 0079, it serves as a reminder that people on the same side don’t always or even typically get along, that “sides” are deceptively arbitrary. But Zeta takes it to the limit. Here, physical violence between allies is an institution.
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Posted in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam | 4 Comments
Posted 16 January 2010
I have no intention whatsoever of episodic-blogging Durarara!! (I won’t have time, probably). But as long as it keeps impressing me — by which I mean, necessarily selfishly, working for and with me — I’ll no doubt continue to devote a bit of time every once in a while to figuring the thing out via bloggery.
I mentioned before that I’m particularly interested in Durarara!! because it deals with something I’ve been calling, reluctantly and for lack of a better term, “interstitial urban mythology” — that is, the magic that lurks in the places between the everyday, and takes forms consistent with the world we live in. The first episode introduced us to the Durarara!! mythos; the second, in providing another angle on certain events of the first, allows us a more intimate look at those interstices in which physics and logic become malleable.
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Posted in Durarara!! (Anime) | No Comments
Posted 13 January 2010
So I’m checking out Sora no Woto (Sora no Oto? So・Ra・No・Wo・To? Sora no Whateverthehell, anyway) this season, because I like the humanity-in-decline slice of life with a touch of music angle, but there’s one thing I don’t get. Why the military motif? It seems unusual here; the last thing I’d imagine these characters carrying around is guns — and yet one was fired, even, in the second episode.
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Posted in Sora no Woto (Anime) | 7 Comments
Posted 11 January 2010
I’ll go ahead and call it now: Durarara!! will be my favorite show this season, mostly because it’s all about something I really enjoy, something that’s prevalent enough in anime that it’s part of the reason I’m an anime fan in the first place. Let’s call it…interstitial urban mythology? That’s sort of awkward, but I guess it’ll have to do.
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Posted in Durarara!! (Anime), Ookami Kakushi | 1 Comment
Posted 28 December 2009
Here I stand some three days after the conclusion of Project Twelve Moments 2009, my fingers bent and bloodied, my mind weeping ichorous tears after twelve days of wracking. And yet my work is unfinished. A mere twelve posts aren’t enough to cover every specimen of drawn and/or animated media I consumed in 2009 that hit me where it counts. I’d like to mention, briefly, a few other examples of note, and though even this list will surely leave things out, I’ll at least feel a little better for recommending a few extra things that seem to deserve it.
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Posted in Bakuman, Fate/stay night (VN), Solanin | 4 Comments
Posted 24 December 2009
[Read the previous moment here or start at the beginning]
Today’s post isn’t as…revelatory as 2008’s Moment the Second, I’m afraid. It is, rather, a humble post about a humble character from the humble show that changed everything (for me, anyway).
That’s right — Aria. You knew it’d show up somewhere among my chosen twelve of 2009. Last year, Aria the Animation occupied no less than three spots, specifically eleven, eight, and one. This post is related to last year’s eleventh, actually, though I didn’t plan it that way.
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Posted in Aria (Anime) | 6 Comments
Posted 22 December 2009
[Read the previous moment here or start at the beginning]
A while ago, OGT recommended Gunbuster and its sequel to me as gateway shows into the super robot genre. I still have yet to really delve into the genre, but the Top wo Nerae! OVAs are now among my favorite science fiction anime, generally speaking.
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Posted in Diebuster, Gunbuster | 7 Comments
