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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Fall 2014, Week 3: Highlights of the Week

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I guess it’s that time again—three weeks into the season—for the weekly rundown. At least for now, while I’m still trying to cut shows from my schedule, the individual entries might be a little shorter (at least I’ll try to keep them so). I’m down to 15 shows, which is manageable for watching, but not for blogging. So far, nothing’s stuck out like Zankyou no Terror last season as worthy of weekly posts, but we’ll see…

Anyways, wow, week three already? It feels like the season just started to me.

Inou Battle

Inou Battle identifies the worst kind of person.

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Gundam Build Fighters: When Toys Come to Life

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Gundam Build Fighters [Sunrise, 2013], as a glorified toy commercial, stands at the fascinating intersection between art and commercialism. As most involved in the anime fandom know, these foreign cartoons are almost always little more than an advertisement for their source material, and Gundam Build Fighters has the slightly more unique distinction among them by being an ad for model robots rather than an narrative product.

This in mind, it is all the more marvelous that Gundam Build Fighters is simultaneously a triumph of creative narrative entertainment and intelligent advertising—but more than that, it’s a beautiful affirmation of the importance of fun, play, and sheer joy. How incredibly ironic that such a blatantly commercial enterprise should leave us with the final message that to sacrifice the love of something in the pursuit of material success is the worst kind of destruction that can be inflicted on our souls.

Gundam Build Fighters

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Anime Artwork Adventures #5

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Sorry for the dead spell of posting! Midterms just finished up on Wednesday, and I was busy studying for them (and watching Gundam Build Fighters). I think I’m also just a little bit burned out from posting—between writing a lot for classes this year and the absolutely (for me) torrid pace at which I was putting out content starting in the middle of last month, my brain’s just a little bit fried. So, it was nice to take a weeklong break to just watch some fun stuff, not do any heavy blogging, and not fail my classes. Again, sorry for the delay! I’m on midterm break now and I’m hoping to come back refreshed and ready to write.

By way of an apology, I’ll also let y’all know that submitted a informal proposal to write an academic paper on Revolutionary Girl Utena for a final paper for a class. I haven’t seen Utena before, but if the proposal goes through I’ll have the opportunity to watch it, research it, and write about it in detail. And, of course, I’ll definitely get that piece up here when it’s complete. Something to look forward to in like…December…heh.

On to the pictures! They’re back in full numbers this week!

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First Impressions: Fall 2014 Anime (Part 3)

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This is the third and final iteration of my Fall 2014 Anime first impressions. I do apologize about them being so spread out, but there were just so many shows…(Part 1, Part 2).

Well, well, we’ve finally come to the end of all the premieres. It feels like it’s been a quite a while since the season kicked off, what with Amagi Brilliant Park and the Ghibli series getting orphaned and YuYuYu having a really late premiere. However, it’s all over now and the time of separating the wheat (keepers) from the chaff (drops) has come! All of the impression below are based on the first episodes only.

Twintails

Literally the worst thing possible.

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