For those who don’t know Secret Santa…
In my first year of participation, I got to choose between Tekkon Kinkreet, Manabi Straight, and House of Five Leaves. Since I’ve already been interested in the last one since a while ago, I decided to go with that. Both my and my santa’s hunch was right. This show is definitely one I’d recommend to all of you. Continue reading
In case you didn’t know, I joined this thing so you should all check it out (all 5 of you). Which leaves me with this blog.
I’m going to open it up for a bigger variety of topics. Where I previously limited myself to mostly anime, manga and light novel related topics, I’m also eager to talk about esports, musical endeavours, computer science and many such other things. Aside from that I still plan on blogging about the usual modern media of the far east, but you can expect posts with a bit more consistency on the previously mentioned Anime Audio Log.
And I also have an announcement for Christmas.
But until Christmas, there’s nothing planned. The usual business of daily life grabs me, illness, projects, social life and other demons.
That’s about it. See you on Christmas.
| 期待 | きたい | expectation; anticipation; hope |
| Common word, Noun, Suru verb | Sentences, Kanji details | |
I would never say I’m smart, but if grades are any indication I have an aptitude for academic courses at the very least. I’ve had the pleasure of attending a good and rather elitist school for my secondary education. I go to a good university in which I perform as is expected of me. But the reason I would never say I’m smart is that I’ve met some really smart people. Continue reading
I swear I'm a glutton for punishment to let these four characters on my show. This week was Idolmaster themed, staring:
Let’s just get this over with. The one who started this all laid the rules down here. I won’t promise this won’t be an excuse to post pictures of Kotori.
First up are Reiseng’s questions:
1) How seriously do you take anime? Is anime something that you watch to learn or, do you just watch anime strictly for entertainment?To quote my Latin teacher: “It’s never wrong to over-analyze.” Anime is still entertainment but entertainment can be found in many different areas. Learning is fun too! Analyzing is just a big part of what I do. If only I could write these things down on something like an online notebook I shared with others.
If only I could do it competently…
Rolling on with more great stuff. I was joined by:
Great dialog, as we talked about the importance of music in anime, Japanese satire and comedy and it's transference to a Western Audience, and given all the resources at your disposal, what Anime would you create. Viewer questions were taken at the end.
Click for full size.
I think other people say it best when, well, they always say it better:
I had a really bad impression of Hyouka when it first aired, but now, I think I can see why KyoAni decided to adapt it. The mysteries don’t feel unrealistically convoluted, while still being fairly intriguing. Like what they did with Nichijou, KyoAni also decided to be creative with their animation for Hyouka, giving the show a much-welcomed surreal feel.
@fkeroge, via Desu ex Machina
So far, Hyouka has been incredibly mundane. There are no gods, robots or retconners in sight. The mysteries concern neither killers nor conspiracies. The solutions are all quite… normal. Mundaneness has never been a problem for me and there’s something to be said about its persistence about keeping everything normal. Some people are already designating it as a slice-of-life rather than a mystery. And a part of me wants to agree with them.
I don’t really care for mysteries is what I’d say if I were lying. Recently having read Book Girl’s second volume, I still felt that pull that keeps the pages flipping. The as of yet only review on this blog is a favourable one of a mystery light novel. But still there’s something ephemeral about a “mystery”. And quite personally, I prefer the eternal over the ephemeral.
Then it might seem a bit weird why I would rather look at Hyouka as an SoL instead of a mystery. The good ones however tend to stick with me. Aria as the obvious one, the Clannad visual novel (SoL with a purpose; I have no good words for the anime). Even the more comedy focused ones like Lucky Star and this season’s Acchi Kocchi. I have ackc as my second favourite anime of the season (and you can guess the first; the hint is ice cream). These and more consistently rank highly on my list.
On the other hand, if you call something a mystery I expect some, you wouldn’t say, mystery to solve. Which is different from some mystery getting solved for you. Which is, I suppose, my entirely unreasonable expectation. And at the same time the reason mysteries don’t stick with me.
To elaborate, all of the mysteries so far have a rather arbitrary explanation behind them, concluded from facts held from us until the timing was right and the truth confirmed in an equally arbitrary fashion. This makes for rather shitty riddle solving from the viewer’s perspective, and a lot better storytelling. And a little bit more like how it’d work out in real life.
How boring. And wonderful.
A little credit to day[9], my esports hero. Important part starts at 1:22, the time I linked to, and ends at about 8:04. The extra :04 for the quote “screw life lessons, we just play video games”.
I really do feel that the fate/zero anime is good despite ufotable’s greatest efforts, rather than because of. The action scenes are fluid and smooth, but the dialogue is compact and functional, rather than impactful. Call me biased, for I have read the novels. I truly feel that the anime does not add to the experience, which is the only requisite I ask of adaptations.
Kiritsugu’s dialogue with Irisviel (slash indirect monologue towards Arturia) is my most memorable scene from the novels. The power with which he tries to convince Irisviel of his convictions and his contempt for those who are called heroes, justified slaughterers. It radiates Kiritsugu. It’s his entire being. It was overwhelming.
It’s a bland, monotonous thing of reproduction, in its anime form.
It’s such a “perfect” reproduction, in fact, barely anything is missing. Dialogue intact, no details left out, even the pacing is matched with the amount of words at their respective passages. But this doesn’t cut it for me. I’m better off reading the damn novels.
Edit: I forgot I wrote nearly the same thing for the 12 days series. Whoops.
Smile awkwardly and make people feel happy.
