Author: Celeste
-
The unbearable lightness of Tamako Love Story
Read More →: The unbearable lightness of Tamako Love StoryI had a little crush, recently. He was handsome and urbane, tall and well dressed. We talked late at night over a bottle of whisky. It felt out of control. It felt silly. I let myself be swept away by daydreams. And why not? Is there anything more uncomfortable and enlivening than the feeling of a new love?
-
Just Communication; Rewatching Gundam Wing
Read More →: Just Communication; Rewatching Gundam WingLet’s be honest, here: I rewatched Gundam Wing these past couple of weeks because A Day Without Me was posting hilarious screencaps on twitter, and listening to Just Communication a grand total of once convinced me it was a good idea. When Gundam Wing aired on Canadian TV, in the early 00’s, I paid it no more than passing attention. I…
-
And Punpun is just fine, today.
Read More →: And Punpun is just fine, today.I spent two days reading up to the latest releases of Oyasumi Punpun. I spent two days kicking myself for not reading Inio Asano’s longest-running work sooner; assuming it would be inferior to the tight, refined narratives of his one shots. I spent two days crying over the fact that no-one picked up the English-language…
-
U mad, bro? Fujoshis, Swimming Anime and Kyoto Animation
/
Read More →: U mad, bro? Fujoshis, Swimming Anime and Kyoto AnimationWhen I think about Free!, known and loved by all of tumblr and the internet as Swimming Anime, I find myself in a bit of a dreamlike haze.
-
All good dreamers pass this way
Read More →: All good dreamers pass this wayAll these years, I wanted K-On! to prove me right. I wanted it to be a shitty anime about cute girls doing cute things. I wanted to hold myself above it and I wanted you all to point and look and say “Look at those folks over at Bateszi Anime Blog, they have such good fucking taste, they’d…
-
Because her soul is enslaved to a goddess; Oniisama E
Read More →: Because her soul is enslaved to a goddess; Oniisama EBy all means, Oniisama E, translating as Dear Brother, is unassuming in its premise. However, pegging Oniisama E as anything other than a landmark production would be short-sighted. Ikeda Rioyko’s original manga was penned in the 1970s, and yet the series moves through triggering subjects like terminal illness, suicide, incest, homosexuality, and drug use without batting an eyelid.
-
Say I love you or they won’t want you; sexual capital in Sukitte Ii Na Yo
/
Read More →: Say I love you or they won’t want you; sexual capital in Sukitte Ii Na YoI read quite a bit of shoujo manga. As such, I was quite pleased to see that Sukitte Ii Na Yo received an anime adaption this fall. It’s an interesting one, because, while stubbornly about teenagers’ romantic involvements, it really isn’t. If you’re watching Sukitte Ii Na Yo, or if you’ve written it off as ‘just another shoujo show’,…
-
Life imitates art: the TED Prize
/
Read More →: Life imitates art: the TED PrizeIn a somewhat odd series of events, the TED prize (associated with the eponymous talk-producing website, naturally) – normally $100,000 USD has increased to a total sum of $1,000,000. Moreover, the process by which the prize is awarded has changed slightly. To quote the organization’s blog post: “But, while historically the prize has been awarded to…
-
Wanderlust girls: The manga of Tsuruta Kenji
/
Read More →: Wanderlust girls: The manga of Tsuruta KenjiHave you ever travelled, my friends? Have you ever packed your bags, left home, returning months later? Or not at all? With a nervousness that travels from the soles of your feet to the soles of your feet to the whites of your eyes, borded a plane, feeling as if every atom in your body…
-
But I'll be Peter Pan forever: To Aru Majutsu no Index and I
/
Read More →: But I'll be Peter Pan forever: To Aru Majutsu no Index and IIt’s a common story. A Saturday night, no plans. What do I do? Seek out a new anime to watch, of course.
-
Don't forget the side characters
/
Read More →: Don't forget the side charactersIn alot of ways, what keeps a longer manga engaging isn’t its main characters, but the side characters. Though our initial emotional investments as readers are in the main characters, the supporting cast and their links with those main characters are what keeps the story fresh.
-
An anatomy of a gaze
/
Read More →: An anatomy of a gazeThough I suppose anatomy of a pose might be a better title for this post. I’m in love with by this image of Himari. Rather, boushi-san, or hat-san, as Shouma calls Himari’s possessed form. This image, seen in Mawaru Penguindrum’s second opening, Shounen yo, Ware ni Kaere, has been captivating me for some weeks now.
-
Dedicated to all pioneers: sticky anime
/
Read More →: Dedicated to all pioneers: sticky animeAt the risk of taking anime too seriously, a part of the reason my fandom has endured for as many years as it has is the idea of “stickiness”. And yes, feel free to leave your perverted jokes in the comments (jerks.)
-
June 2011: What we're watching
Read More →: June 2011: What we're watchingbateszi: The hope is that this post will be the first in a new monthly feature. I say ‘new’ as if we’re bursting with regular features here, but no, this is more like our first attempt to do anything that isn’t a one-off blog post. Awkward introductions aside, then, welcome to the rare sight of…
-
This isn't how I imagined it; Hanasaku Iroha
Read More →: This isn't how I imagined it; Hanasaku IrohaTeenage girls are a tricky thing to do well in anime. Anime about (and often aimed at) teenage girls is a continually saturated market, making it hard to improve upon. That said, I liked Hanasaku Iroha. In particular, the portrayal of Ohana was intriguing.
-
Yankee-kun to Megane-chan and the world of shounen manga apprentices
Read More →: Yankee-kun to Megane-chan and the world of shounen manga apprenticesI’ve always found the idea of an apprentice palatable. The idea of learning directly from a ‘master’ on real-world projects is, to me, a better way of doing things. Over my years in university I can’t count how many lazy students (including the lazy student in the mirror) I’ve met who slack off simply because…
-
A Tatami Galaxy kind of year
/
/ AnimeRead More →: A Tatami Galaxy kind of yearOf all the anime I’ve seen this year, probably the one that deserves blogging the most is The Tatami Galaxy. Life imitates art; and looking back on the past year, or the part of my life which, in many ways has abruptly stumbled to an end of sorts I can qualify the title. For me,…
-
A fatal Attraction
Read More →: A fatal AttractionIn what ended up being one of the cooler mornings I’ve had recently, I stumbled upon Koji Morimoto’s Attraction via twitter. Not knowing what to expect, but hearing it paired with the words “interactive anime”, I clicked. What followed was one of Studio 4C’s latest experiments with the anime medium. Their involvement with the upcoming…
-
Because the dawn is beautiful; Future Boy Conan
Read More →: Because the dawn is beautiful; Future Boy ConanWeird as it may sound, I judge an anime by how many screencaps it nets me. I screencap things on my first run-through an episode or movie, and obsessive-compulsively: if something flashes by my eyes and I miss grabbing the screencap, I will jump backwards in the movie as many times as needed to grab…
-
Let's keep what I'm about to sing between the two of us, okay?
/
Read More →: Let's keep what I'm about to sing between the two of us, okay?Think of this as a Diary of An Anime Lived post if that tickles your fancy. As much as I love Kuragehime, and as much as I have to say about it, I find it a little bit hard to write about. It hits a little close to home for me, and sweet as it…
-
Autumn ’10 impressions
/
Read More →: Autumn ’10 impressionsWelcome to yet another autumn run-down! Everything is loosely ranked into a makeshift top 10 and we’ve tried to keep our impressions short and to the point, but if there’s anything you want clarified, feel free to question us (and our opinions) in the comments. We’ve missed out certain series because they are sequels to…
-
Am I looking at the sky, or the sea?
Read More →: Am I looking at the sky, or the sea?Though it borrows from the mythos of the (very real) city of Venice, there’s something pleasantly unreal about Aria. Rather, not unreal so much as there is a disregard for the idea and constraints of reality. Perhaps Aria seeks not to undermine reality as we know it, but in its ‘New Venice’, create its own…
-
The art of fading into the scenery; introducing Megane
/
Read More →: The art of fading into the scenery; introducing MeganeThe only way I can think to describe Megane is “a movie for B-type personalities”. It ambles along at a pace that – to the outside observer – seems foreign, but somehow fascinating. Other than that, it’s hard to pin down. The film builds its own internal language of keywords and signs, yet offers the…
-
Cherry picking in autumn 2010
/
Read More →: Cherry picking in autumn 2010It’s autumn again, and with it comes dozens of new anime series to get excited about. From these, we’ve picked a few that we’re particularly interested in. Marvel at our impeccable taste and insightful opinions! I was thinking you’d come up with something better than that for the introduction. Evidently my expectations were too high.…
-
The town where nothing ever happens: FLCL & I
Read More →: The town where nothing ever happens: FLCL & IFrankly, I lack the words to talk about Satoshi Kon’s passing; there are others who have said and will say things more eloquently. Instead, I offer you a diversion: FLCL. I meant to write this post a while back, but never go around to it. Somehow, it’s been a very long, and a little bit…
-
One Piece, or when the anime is better than the manga
Read More →: One Piece, or when the anime is better than the mangaBefore I start, a preamble: One Piece is a great anime. Ever since our little agreement a month back I’ve been tackling the series, from 229 onwards at a pace of about 3 or so episodes a day. Unlike the other One Piece addict around here, however, I must admit the plot and characters aren’t…
-
The candy-colored afterlife
/
/ AnimeRead More →: The candy-colored afterlifeOccult Academy, you’ve made a fan out of me.
-
The future of "anime" is bright
/
Read More →: The future of "anime" is brightLet’s take this Dai Sato discussion for another spin, shall we? The above image is from the film My Beautiful Girl Mari. It was released in 2001, and is being distributed in the US by ADV films. Moreover, you can stream it for free courtesy of the Anime News Network. It centers around a dream…
-
Low-brow good times [Occult Academy first impressions]
Read More →: Low-brow good times [Occult Academy first impressions]If there’s one thing I’ve learned about anime over the past year, it’s that these Anime no Chikara projects start out strong, only to have me lose interest after four episodes. When faced with the latest offering in the project, Occult Academy, I was determined not to be sucked in. I would watch it, but…
-
Seeing the forest through the trees with Sailor Moon
/
Read More →: Seeing the forest through the trees with Sailor MoonIf you haven’t done yourself the favour of reading the original Sailor Moon manga, I suggest you drop whatever stigmas or preconceptions you have of the series and find yourself a copy. Naturally, it suffers from the cliches it helped to establish: baddies-of-the-moment, elaborately named attacks, and a penchant for all the bad parts of…
-
Why didn’t you shoot? I meant to. – Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Read More →: Why didn’t you shoot? I meant to. – Jin-Roh: The Wolf BrigadeThe thing is like a wolf. The thing is a wolf. Thus, it is a thing to be banished. I’ve been an anime fan for a long time. At 22, the portion of my life in which I’ve been a fan is already half of that; and the period of time in which I’d been…
-
Walking Away
Read More →: Walking AwaySomething has always bothered me about the ending of Samurai Champloo. It was an ending that haunted me for nearly a year after finishing the series, its memory resurfacing every time I thought about it. Midicronica’s “San Francisco” was in many ways a fitting ending for an anime which drew so heavily from hip-hop and…
-
“Next time, let me see a Matsuri Special.”
Read More →: “Next time, let me see a Matsuri Special.”Something about the transience of adolescence never fails to inspire. More often than not we wake up, 20, fully grown, and confused as to how we got there. For this reason, mangaka like Kamio Youko are a particularly rare breed. Time and time again, she manages to lushly recreate both the frame of mind and…