I always insisted I was a trumpet.
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Tanoshii Ongaku
Category: Editorials
Well, this is weird. This is the first time I’ve sat down to write something for a really long time, too long for a blog that inexplicably still has some readers. For that, I thank you. Whenever I hear from one of you, it truly boosts my spirits.
Over the years of writing for this place, I’ve tried to make sure that the writing is future proof. Even still, whenever someone links an old post, especially one that’s been collecting dust over the years, I’ll flinch in embarrassment. I mean, god, there are posts from 2006! That young me and my opinions! Because I’m so much wiser now, right?!
(Bateszi reviewed this back in November of 2011, I’m revisiting it in light of Funimation’s upcoming February release of the show)
A strong signal that a series is great is that you can easily summarize the concept and get someone to watch it based on that short description. Ben-To is just that kind of show. All you need to know is that it’s about fights for discount bento boxes. If you don’t get excited about fights for discount bento, I don’t want to be friends with you.
On the blu-ray packaging, Funimation trumpets the Eureka Seven television series as “The Greatest Love Story Ever Animated.” Where that series is centered around love, the movie re-imagination, Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers, is all about death. In particular, it is about the fear of death. Even the crew of the Gekko, an alternate universe version of the TV show crew, spends much of the film running from death using any means possible. Renton and Eureka are the only characters who aren’t defined by their fear of death and instead, focus on love.
(In my attempt to procrastinate a Haikyuu!! post I’ve been meaning to write for months, I present to you an excerpt from a final paper I wrote for one of my literary theory classes last year. Yeah, I’m that girl who always finds a way to connect her assignments to anime. No shame.)
In the anime and manga world, there have been countless debates on whether, No.6, a series by Atsuko Asano, is considered to be BL. BL, or boys love, is a genre of stories that depict romantic and sexual relationships between men. But although No.6’s main characters are both male, and they engage in acts that may be considered homosexual, Asano adamantly refuses the BL label. In her attempt to pull the series away from the charged label BL, Asano opens up the possibility of seeing it as queer. No.6 is a queer text because of its rejection of paranoid reading and exploration of nonsexual romance between men.
Ghost in the Shell: Arise marks Production IG’s attempt to reboot the classic franchise. With multiple successful superhero and anime reboots out in the wild, it’s only a matter of time before others (certainly Dragonball) get remade. Movie and television producers reboot well loved shows to appeal to modern audiences. The story, the characters, and the special effects all get updated to how the show would have looked if it was made for the first time today. With Ghost in the Shell, a show already set in the future and one that has aged well visually, this standard formula wasn’t really necessary.
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Band Spotlight: White Ash
I was first introduced to this wonderful band through “Crowds”, the OP of Gatchaman Crowds (which I still haven’t finished) and instantly fell in love with the edgy, deep voice of the female vocalist. But after looking for the song on YouTube, I discovered that the vocalist is actually a male, a very geeky looking one, at that.
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Durarara!! Isn't an Escape
“The kind of scene you see every day. But sometimes, for no reason at all, you can see the hint of another reality…a crack, suddenly appearing in your peaceful, everyday life, throws you off guard, making you rethink things.”
My desire for the next season of Durarara!! has pushed me to revisit the first season quite a few times. And every time I do, my brain picks at a new detail that further enriches the series. Durarara!! (geez, that name gets old quickly) is a bit confusing at times but that is just a side effect of the multitude of layers Ryohgo Narita is playing with. One particular concept that caught my attention from the get-go is that of reality. I, for one, am an escapist, so the concept of reality and pondering whether an anime series is “looking out into the word” isn’t something that I often concern myself with. But Durarara!!, an anime brimming with folklore and myth, ironically brought my own reality into the foreground of my thoughts. Wow, who would have known; anime can actually teach relevant lessons.
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I Can't Think of a Cool Nickname
“Hey, hey! Shizu-chan’s definitely in love with Izaya. Two guys… Like BL!”
Wow, writing an introductory post is extremely difficult. I’m quite the talkative person but things like this make me a bit shy.
Hello! My name is Kiara. I am a junior in college and am double majoring in Japanese and English. You could say I am the baby in this wonderful group of bloggers. I have been an anime/manga fan since 7th grade and I am currently on a long journey to becoming a manga editor. Although I have a wide range of interests (J-rock, step dance, jazz, fashion, etc.), anime/manga occupy 70% of my free time.
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Anime blogging 2015
Over the last four or five months, I’ve written half a dozen new articles for this blog that haven’t made it through to being published. I don’t know why I’m now dithering so much, but as its now been two months since I last published anything new, I just wanted to say that I’m still here and won’t be giving up any time soon. Just to emphasise that fact, in December I renewed this website’s address for another two years, so you’ll be stuck with us until late 2015, at the very least!
When I started anime blogging in 2006 (ignoring some obscure attempts in 2005) it was such a new and shiny mode of communication and felt like being on the crest of a wave of something special. And it was, just look at Anime News Network today in comparison to 2005. Blogging has completely changed the world of publishing, for better and for worse, but if 2006 was the Spring of anime blogging, what we’re in now is the Autumn.