The Fall 2015 season is finally behind us. It was a bit rough. About halfway through, I was pretty thrilled about every single thing I was watching, but only a few made the long trek to the very end of the season—and this list. So, no more delays, let’s have the best girl of Fall 2015 take it away!
I will not deny that this title is perhaps something of a red herring. I regret nothing, as it is perfectly and appropriately descriptive—and because most of the people who comment on it won’t actually read it anyways. So now, if you’re wondering what this column is actually about, I’ve jumped headfirst (or maybe butt first) into the world of rhetorical criticism, with the anime fandom’s lexicon as my subject. In a lot of ways, this is just a introductory piece, but it comes at a nice time in the year. And it was fun to write. Hope you guys enjoy it!
We are always starting down our pasts when we look to our futures. There is no past that vanishes once it becomes a memory—stories last forever until forgotten, and the stories we don’t forget will last forever. Swallow down your memory, reject a past. An end, a beginning.
All you can do is make the choice to move forward.
Un-Go purports to be a show about truth—about finding, unveiling, and understanding truth in a world where truth is distorted, manipulated, created, and abused. The main character, Shinjurou Yuuki, is accompanied by a spirit with the power to demand a single truth from any human being.
Yet, it is perhaps the artificial intelligence, Kazamori, who becomes the most elegant image of truth in the world of Un-Go.
And so, we’ve come to the final Anime Weekly of the season (next week we’ll be doing season wrap-up). Some shows are done, others still have an episode to go, but it’s time to start thinking about where all of these shows belong in the grand scheme of things—and maybe start looking forward to next season.
Every time Christmas season rolls around, I start to feel bad about not having any ideas for a good anime Christmas post. So I’m kind of glad I was able to halfway write something related to both anime and Christmas this year, even if it might be a little bit of a stretch. Gundam, Toradora!, Christmas, and family themes aren’t necessarily the most obvious bedfellows, but I think I mostly made it work.
I’m a few days early, but Merry Christmas to all my readers! It really is wonderful to have you all around, reading and commenting. May the season (whether your celebrate Christmas or not) fills your life with love, your heart with hope, and our world with peace. 🙂
An episode about silent screams. An episode of jealousy, insecurity, and darkness. An episode about expectations. An episode about light and dark. A hard episode, but perhaps a warm one.
The Kanya Festival has come to a close.
As you may or may not have heard, μ’s, the idol group that has stood in the spotlight of the Love Live! franchise, will be performing their final concert on March 31 and April 1 of 2016 before breaking up to pave the way for the franchise successors, Aquors. For some, this is just the natural flow of the entertainment industry—but for others, including myself, the ending of μ’s feels like a loss more profound than your ordinary pop stars fading away.
Although a new chapter of Love Live! is beginning, somehow I think this ending will ring bitter for a while to come…
This week is kind of the reverse of last week—rather than complaining about everything, I’ve got a lot more praise to hand out. And it feels good.
In my ongoing battle to negotiate the lines of blissfully unattached fandom and genuine media engagement, I’ve run into a lot of different facets of anime watching in which this weird dynamic is found. On the hot seat this week is characters—waifus, husbandos, best girls, and everything else—and thinking about the ways that the general marketplace of fandom and industry seem to be at odds with lasting remembrance of anything at all.
But, sometimes, you find the perfect seat on the carousel. This article is about all of that.
Mage in a Barrel 