Crunchyroll’s #HeroWeek continues on, and so does my series on my favorite hero anime of the last few years. With Gatchaman Crowds already tackled earlier this week, now it’s time for a show that made it into my top 25 all-time favorite anime, Concrete Revolutio!
It’s #HeroWeek over at Crunchyroll, so I’m pitching in with a couple of essays on my two favorite superhero anime of the last few years—Gatchaman Crowds and Concrete Revolutio. Up first, Kenji Nakamura’s Gatchaman Crowds!
Another week, another Aniwords! On the docket this week is My Hero Academia, which I confess I feel rather lax for having left untouched for this long. While I think the show’s pretty good, and even improves on the manga in places, ultimately I’ve been disappointed by how safe the adaptation’s been played. That being said, there’s still a ton of cool stuff going on My Hero Academia, and so I hit on some of those things this week. Hope you guys enjoy it!
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!
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.
Mage in a Barrel 