Aniwords

Aniwords – One Punch Man & the Nature of Heroism

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I’ve kind of been waiting for One Punch Man to put some thematic muscle behind its animation chops, and this episode did it (albeit via the graceless inclusion of the random whiny dude). So, of course, I gave the show its due and spent a little bit of time breaking down how One Punch Man‘s commentary works at illuminating the nature of heroism. I suppose I should point out—and I didn’t really touch on this in the original article—that the Hero Associations brand of heroism isn’t wrong per se. It’s functional and practical. It emphasizes results, and directs heroes for the benefit of society the best it can (the point raised this episode that the Association is funded by donations from the public is extremely interesting). But this post is about heroes! Enjoy!

Here’s the link~

One Punch Man

 

Aniwords – I’m Driving a Giant Robot, & I Can’t Make it Stop

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As you are all aware, I’ve been in the middle of a big mecha anime kick for a while. After Gundam Build Fighters paved the way and I cruised through Knights of Sidonia like a madman, I’ve been spending most of my free anime watching time burning through what is probably anime’s most hallowed genre—that of the giant robot. So, in this week’s Aniwords, I spend a bit of time retracing my steps to this point (“someone tell me how I got here // from the city to this frontier”) and musing a bit on the overall experience of expanding the boxes of interest in which we dwell. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Here’s the link~

SDF Macross

Aniwords – How Anime Avatars Explain Life

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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!

Here’s the link~

Hackadoll

Aniwords – Noragami Aragoto and the Failure of the Gods

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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.

Here’s the link~

Noragami Aragoto

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Aniwords – IDOL WARS (Part 2)

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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…

Here’s the link~

Wake Up Girls

Aniwords – Save Me, I Love These Anime Too Much

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You guys probably know better than anyone how overjoyed I’ve generally been with this season. You guys also probably know better than most how, when I’m really feeling happy about something, I just gotta let people know about it. So, of course, that’s what I did with this week’s edition of Aniwords—I told everyone how happy I am about this season (and tried to disguise it with some kind of vague lesson about how we need to be careful when being hyped about stuff to others). Read at your own risk, I suppose…

Here’s the link~

K: Return of Kings Continue reading →

Aniwords – Being an Anime Fan in the 3D World

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One thing I really enjoy about being an anime fan is seeing how this particular hobby that I have interacts with the non-anime liking world. I’ve had some great experiences—like friends watching the entirety of shows I like and love (SAO and Chihayafuru, respectively) with me—and some not so great ones. But we’re all anime fans who live in the real world, and not all of us (aka, me!) want anime to just be a hobby that we keep in the privacy of our apartments. I’m not ashamed of liking anime, but every time I try and dodge telling people about it makes me feel like I am.

I don’t want to be that kind of person. I want to be someone who is authentic, even if it means that I get into some awkward moments sometimes. This column is a story about that wish.

Here’s the link~

Concrete Revolutio Continue reading →

Aniwords – Where Do Hot Anime Boys Come From?

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Thanks to the influence of a prominent fujoshi friend on Twitter (Mira, if you’re reading, you’re wonderful and yes, this is about you), I’ve kind of been working over the past few months or so at increasing my personal appreciation for good-looking anime guys. Whether they’re cute (you may recall my weekly palpitations over Danmachi’s Bell Cranel) or beautifully hot (shoutout to Kuroko’s Basketball and Kise), I think it’s a good thing for me to cultivate a healthy appreciation for good people aesthetics in both guys and girls.

Happily, the current anime season has had not shortage of cute/hot anime guys to aid me in this quest. So, of course, I spent this week’s Aniwords talking about how glad of that I was.

Here’s the link~

Gundam Tekketsu Continue reading →

Aniwords – Anime. You. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

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Alright, this week’s Aniwords is live! Sorry, I’m late posting it over here—I was busy watching the pile of crap that was Charlotte. Anyways, this week I used a sparkly title to talk about getting mad at people’s opinions. This honestly isn’t really even about anime that much, but more about the things that happen around anime watching (or engaging with any kind of media, really).

I’m not sure how much I actually like this post, but it came to me pretty easily, so that’s good, I guess?

Here’s the link~

Classroom Crisis

I Went Through the GATE…

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I’m sure you’re all familiar with the closing lines of the oft-quoted, oft-anthologized, oft-ridiculed poem by Robert Frost: 

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— | I took the one less traveled by, | And that has made all the difference.

GATE, much like writers who choose to use “The Road Not Taken” as openings to their columns, takes the more-traveled road as a matter of course—yet, in doing so, it makes way for the discovery of a few rare mushrooms along the path and one big one with a bad smell that covers the whole forest. Now, I don’t mean to be coy here; I enjoyed GATE a whole heckuva lot. It’s a fascinating blend of things I found engaging and off-putting, likable and awful. At the end of the day, though, I’ll always give three cheers for a show that manages to succeed in spite of a fundamentally misguided base premise. There’s something awfully human about a show like that—even if you might not want to emulate it.

GATE Continue reading →