I’m just now realizing that—once again—I’ve found my way underneath 10 airing shows that I’m keeping up with (the count, as you’ll see, is 9). As I’m still only keeping up with the things I really want to keep up with, I’m feeling pretty good. I also think about these reduced schedules (as opposed to earlier in the season when I was up around 13 shows) in terms of “having more time to do more writing,” but maybe it’s better simply to think of them as reducing some of the pressure. As always, thanks for reading and commenting—I’d probably have given up somewhere along the way if not for you guys!
Aniwords – How Anime Avatars Explain Life
A little less than two weeks ago, a guy writing for New York Magazine threw out an article that ostensibly linked Twitter users who have anime avatars with a certain internet group, and there was a bit of a fuss about it. I kind of joked about it when the article came out, but I also spent some time musing about it—and so, as I do with most things I spend time thinking about, I wrote a column for Crunchyroll about it!
Hyouka, Episode 12
Oreki’s personal crisis is over and the culture festival is finally here, bringing with it a batch of new drama pins and one big problem for the Classics Club. After the weight of the last few episodes, it’s quite pleasant to have an episode that leans more into Hyouka‘s lighthearted strengths. How this peace will last, however, remains to be seen…
I Could Never Stop Time, nor Could I Hold to Its Passing: Reflections on Glasslip
It’s never explicitly stated, but at the end of Glasslip, at the conclusion to a brief and fitful summer, Kakeru Okikua leaves town to continue accompanying his famous piano mother as she tours the world… just as he has always done. Behind him, things have changed forever in the group of friends. It’s a momentary glimmer, but the effects will live on long after the sparkle has faded.
Glasslip is a reflection on the nature of time. It is about the impermanence of life, about the transience of our temporal existences, about the significance of these fleeting events of the past we call memory.
Anime Weekly: Fall 2015, Week 6
Aniwords – Noragami Aragoto and the Failure of the Gods
After a couple of weeks of idols, I’m back on the Serious Anime Writing train with my analysis of the Bishamon Arc of Noragami Aragoto. The nature of Noragami‘s gods and the way they interface with the humans in the show has always been the most fascinating element of Noragami for me, so being able to find the material to write this article was quite a pleasure. This arc articulated a bunch of things I’d kind of half-said about the first season of the show, and as it happens having the second half of the show around to finish articulating what Yukine arc started helped a lot in that regard.
Hyouka, Episode 11
The official title of this episode was “Closing Credits of the Fool.”
But I think “The Scourging of Oreki Houtarou” works just as well.
Anime Weekly: Fall 2015, Week 5
This is typically the point in the season when shows start to lose a bit of momentum. First arcs are ending, production might be suffering a bit, and the great pushes from the premieres are basically out of energy. This is the time when the truly great shows separate themselves from the rest of the seasonal offerings—and as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one of those this season.
Aniwords – IDOL WARS (Part 2)
Following up on last week’s post on the characters in idol anime, this week I lay out my thoughts on the Big Three Idol Anime—Love Live!, THE iDOLM@STER, and AKB0048. I had a lot of fun writing this one up, and it’s definitely up there among the posts for Aniwords that I’m most proud of. Let me know what you guys think about it! Kind of like that post about “anime that are important to you,” this is kind of a stepping stone post towards an inevitable huge post on a subject I’ve been thinking on for a while (aka AKB0048). Maybe if I write enough of these littler ones, someday I’ll actually write the big ones…
Hyouka, Episode 10
What kind of life does Houtarou Oreki want? Does he truly want the gray life he lives, or does he actually desire the kind of rose-colored life he see around him—the kind of marvelous life that comes from living fully, whatever that might mean for him? Oreki has never been wrong in his assumptions about his basic differences from those who are his inner circle, but than in itself is not a unique experience. Just as Oreki sees himself as different, so do others see themselves as different, too. The loneliness of individuality is vast, but it may not be so hard to find your way out of it as Oreki thinks.
Mage in a Barrel 