Man, was this one of Akatsuki no Yona‘s best episodes yet or what? Great character comedy, some cuteness, ideological and thematic tension, a new character, plot progression—it was all here and with the freshness that only a new setting can bring. A port town is the perfect place for a stare down between destiny and freedom and I’m incredibly excited to see how Yona brings Jeaha into the fold. (Oh, and the new OP got me real hyped this episode—consider acclimation complete.)
Revolutionary Girl Utena: Reflections on the Hero
This is the second in a series of three posts reflecting on the various roles of Utena Tenjou, the titular character of Revolutionary Girl Utena. These posts are adapted from an academic paper I wrote in Fall 2014. These posts assume the reader has completed the anime and thus contain spoilers. Citations will be noted in footnotes at the bottom of the piece.
I am of the opinion that Utena’s unique role as the hero is directly related to her unique role as protagonist—not only does being the protagonist set her up as the de facto hero of the story in a traditional sense, but her unique place in the narrative paves the way for a reimagining of what it means to be a hero.
Revolutionary Girl Utena: Reflections on the Protagonist
This is the first in a coming series of three posts reflecting on the various roles of Utena Tenjou, the titular character of Revolutionary Girl Utena. These posts are adapted from an academic paper I wrote in Fall 2014. These posts assume the reader has completed the anime and thus contain spoilers. Citations will be noted in footnotes at the bottom of the piece.
By way of introduction, the thesis of my paper was, in essence, that the character of Utena deconstructs a trio of archetypes and reinterprets each of them in her own identity. This is from the first section of the paper, which details my thoughts on Utena’s narrative role as the protagonist of the story.
Aquarion EVOL Part 1 DVD Review
Welcome to the world of Aquarion EVOL, where love must yet be sin, nakedness rivets you to the pulse of life, and punches go on for infinity.
January Physical Media Reviews
I got a little tied up in January with everything that was going on, so this was a lighter month for reviews—a lot of time went to the start of the new season and getting up first impressions here and over on Otaku Review. But, I still got to review two really fun pieces and I’m set to tackle a few more in February!
“Bro before holes?”
Your Lie in April, Episode 15
How many different narrative threads does KimiUso think it can handle at once?
I’d be lying if I said I’m a little ambivalent about the introduction of Hiroko’s new student, Nagi. We’ve already got plenty of different stories going on in this show right now with most of our mainstay characters in some sort of flux, so to have an entirely new character introduced…well, it both excites me and irritates me. I like Kousei, Tsubaki, Watari, Kaori, Takeshi, and (former Best Girl) Emi quite a lot, so taking more time away from them to spend it on another character makes me wonder if we’re ever going to actually deal with everyone else’s storylines.
Winter 2015, Week 3: Highlights of the Week
More shows dropped this week (including Isuca‘s premier managing a paltry 51 seconds before I gave up on it), meaning my schedule for this season is more or less set. There are still a few shows that could get knocked out, but I’m pretty happy with everything on a daily basis, so there would have to be some serious stumbles for any of the remaining bubble shows to get dropped.
Akatsuki no Yona, Episode 16
Well, to be totally honest, this episode would have been a total disappointment if not for the post-festival scenes and, even then, this was probably one of the weakest episodes Akatsuki no Yona has produced. Unlike the comparable comedy-laden, mostly plotless episode spent in Ki-ja’s village, there were not cultural constructions at work until the very end—meaning that, due to the relatively dull nature of the war games, the episode was relatively boring, something Yona‘s never really fallen to even in its weakest moments.
Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? Light Novel, Volume 1 Review
A transparent attempt to cash in on the popular tropes and trends of the day, but Is it Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? is not without its charms.
Animator Expo Impressions (Part 2)
For those of you who don’t know, Evangelion director Hideaki Anno’s Studio Khara, in conjunction with media company Dwango have been running a cool little project called Animator Expo (there is an English language version of the site) for the past couple weeks. 30 short anime productions are planned for the Expo, with a new one coming out every week starting on November 7, 2014. So far, 10 of the 30 shorts have aired, so here are my thoughts on the last five of them. Rather than giving them a standard rating, I’m just going to go with a [bad/decent/good/great] scale.
Previous Posts: Part 1
On these five shorts as a whole: Overall, I was a bigger fan of this set of shorts than the last. We basically got three music videos in this bunch, a format I think lends itself really naturally to the kind of creative experimentation that the Expo seems to want to encourage. Having “Tomorrow from there”—easily by favorite short thus far—in this group definitely bumps it up a notch, but (unlike the first batch) I genuinely enjoyed every short on this list and would recommend checking out each of them.
Mage in a Barrel 