Shirobako, Episode 5

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Subtitle: On the Importance of Workplace Communication

Shirobako‘s a pretty sneaky show—it gives us an episode titled “Those Who Blame Others Should Just Quit!” and then proceeds to give us an entire episode of one guy who probably really does deserve to be blamed (although not entirely). It’s pretty eye-opening to watch Tarou’s exhibition of his absolutely abysmal communication skills (and lack of common sense), and as fun as it is to just blast him over sucking at his job, I think there’s a pretty impressive opportunity for self-reflection here. Even if you don’t have a job right now, Shirobako‘s highlighting a pretty important message here: communication is key.

And, along with all that, Shirobako managed to squeeze in a whole bunch of jokes, commentary on the 2D-3D debate, parallel that debate with Aoi’s struggles with her future, and lead us into the “one person’s problem is everyone’s problem” episode.

Shirobako

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Fall 2014, Week 5: Highlights of the Week

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So, even though I dropped Sora no Method, I do want to plug the ED—both the song by fhána and animation (apparently the entire ED was animated by just one guy). It’s hanging out somewhere on YouTube. This felt long a long week to me, but there were a lot of show with really good episodes, which made it enjoyable. I’m now down to 11 simulcasting shows with Your Lie in April going on hold and Sora no Method out of my schedule, so I might end up picking up a few more (like Gundam Build Fighters Try) or just doing more backlog watching. Either way, it’s a good season so far!

Hitsugi no Chaika: Avenging Battle

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Dead Monday Q&A—Fifth Edition: Themes, MAPPA Shows, a VN

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So, I know this is of concern to people—the name Dead Monday no longer technically applies to Monday like it did last season, because I have Bahamut AND Inou Battle to watch on Mondays. (Sundays are actually my no shows day, now that I’ve dropped Sora no Method.) But, fortunately, I have a great new reason to keep the Q&A on Dead Monday, and that is in honor of Bahamut‘s wonderful lolizombie, Rita, voiced by the wonderful Miyuki Sawashiro. She may techinically be undead, but I mean, c’mon, she can control zombie dragons!

Ahem. Anyways, about those questions. As always, thanks to everyone who asked—and if you missed out, you can still ask (anonymously, if you so choose) on my ask.fm!

Rage of Bahamut: Genesis

Always package your lolizombies with care.

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Poll: Revolutionary Girl Utena Posts

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Update: Thanks to everyone who voted! You can still vote if you wish, but it looks like the plan will be to just route the posts through the Utena Project page. You might see one or two pop up on the front page if I think the episode is really significant, but if it happens, it’ll be only rarely.

Hey, guys! This has been something that’s been bugging me the past couple days, so I thought I’d bring it up to you, my readers. As you hopefully know by now, I’m currently watching Revolutionary Girl Utena and planning to write episodic posts for each of the 39 episodes.

So far, the plan has been has been to just date the posts a while back so that they don’t all cascade across the front page of the blog, but~! I’m putting a lot of effort into these posts and I do want people to read them, if they’re interested. The posts are primarily for my own processing, but still! So, let me know via this poll—or let me know in the comments—what you’d like me to do!

 

EDIT: Oh, and don’t worry about hurting my feelings and voting that you don’t want to read them at all! Like I’ve said, these are mostly for me, so I want to know what you guys think about reading them.

Anime Artwork Adventures #7

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My new life goal, guys, is to move to Japan and convince Goose House (the band responsible for the wonderful OP to this season’s Your Lie in April and Silver Spoon‘s first ED) to let me join their band. Someone on Reddit posted a video of them doing a live performance of the KimiUso OP on a livestream and oh my gosh they look so friendly and I want to be their friend. Also, if you haven’t seen the video of Real Akiba Boys dancing like crazy talented fools to Nozaki-kun‘s OP, you should check that out, too. I wish I could find stuff like this myself, but alas, I’m dependent on Reddit for them…

Pretty picture time!

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Akame ga Kill: A Reflection on the Futility of Violence?

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So, I’ve been watching Akame ga Kill for a while now and I’m starting to wonder if there’s actually more to this show than just extreme violence, no censorship, and an infatuation with grisly deaths. Is it, perhaps, a reflection on the futility of violence as a solution or as a method for change disguising itself as a cheap shounen thrill fest?

I’m well aware that on the surface, this seems an absurd suggestion—I myself, after the first episode, felt that Akame ga Kill did nothing less than glorify bloodshed by “justifying” it through the immorality of those who were being killed. 17 episodes and a few heartbreaks later, I’ve realized that, for all the characters who have died and who have been introduced and died, Akame ga Kill, Night Raid, and the Jaegers are no closer to any sort of resolution to their conflict than they were at the beginning of the story.

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Fall 2014, Week 4: Highlights of the Week

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Honestly, I just don’t feel like writing much of an intro right now. But I’m gonna do it anyways, because if I just spend this space talking about how I don’t want to write an intro, I’ll just end up with an intro anyways of me talking about just that. So, here’s handful of random stuff—that counts, right?

  1. Look at my beautiful screencaps from WIXOSS this week!
  2. Three weeks late, I’m finally as excited about Bahamaut as everyone else is.
  3. I can’t stop thinking about how much better Your Lie in April would be if Kaori was a violist instead of a violinist.
  4. Something something Chaiiiiiikaaaaaaa
  5. In case you missed it, the blog hit 100k view this week!

Twintails

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AKB0048 First Stage: Dreams, Performance & the Machine

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I’ve always had mixed feelings about Japan’s idol industry, and AKB0048 First Stage [Satelight, 2012] is kind of the perfect review of everything I find enchanting about the system and everything I find terrifying and troubling about it. Like many anime shows that heavily feature music, I seriously believe in the unitive and uplifting abilities of music and, perhaps even more than just music itself, performance. Having been a part of a show choir for three years in high school and one year in college, the similarities between idol performances and show choir performances have always struck me. (Don’t know what show choir is? Here’s a video of a nationally renowned high school show choir from California.)

So, the trouble comes when I have to compare the affection for the past and resonance with my own experience generated by these shows to the dark side of the industry such shows sometimes tackle, but often gloss over. But before that, have some tunes!

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Anime Artwork Adventures #6

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Good news! My proposal to do my final project on Revolutionary Girl Utena went through, so I’ll be starting to watch it pretty soon. I plan on taking pretty extensive notes due to the fact that it’s notoriously convoluted symbolically, and I certainly expect to drop a few posts on the show in here as I work my way through it—ideally, doing so will help me to come up with a solid essay for the project and make it easier to draw all the pieces together.

I’ll also be doing academic research on the show (and probably on the mahou shoujo genre, among other things) and reading other interpretations of the show. If you know of any good ones I probably wouldn’t find on my own, send them my way!

Now, on to the pictures!

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Why Mage in a Barrel?

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As I expect most of you have probably noticed, there’s a new banner at the top of my blog! You probably have also realized that the words scrawled across that banner by my barely sufficient graphic design skills say, “Mage in a Barrel,” not “Life and Anime.”

Take this as the official announcement: the name of my blog has changed to Mage in a Barrel.

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