The Best Anime About Creating Anime

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Recently I finished Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, and as an animation enthusiast (and just generally creatively fascinated person) I was blown away. Eizouken is truly heartfelt, and an absolute joy to behold for hopefully everyone, but at the very least, for those that are or wish to become “creators”. It’s not easy to learn about anime from a Western perspective, there’s not a lot of deep and highly articulated schools of thought on the subject in very many schools, universities, or public forums. It certainly becomes easier everyday with the birth of new fans and new scholars happening all the time, but for a long while it seemed that to learn more about anime, you’d have to delve into studies of Japanese and film. Nowadays, we have anime YouTubers and bloggers to add to (and sometimes detract from) educated discussion. Luckily, like any story with meaning, anime have the power to educate as well. And when it comes to the education everything to do with animation production, you’ll find no better teachers than Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! and Shirobako. Continue reading →

Lesser Known Anime from The God of Manga, Osamu Tezuka

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Hey everyone! Sorry for the hiatus after such a short-lived return, but I am back (and unfortunately in America). I’ve been using my quarantine time on a number of things: a new creative project, remote work, cleaning, exercise, and so on. After settling down a bit and seeing that this situation will probably not change for a while, I figured I should throw myself into my work. I think this blog isn’t something I consider to be work, so I haven’t been keeping to it (perhaps as much as I should). That being said, I still have lots I want to write about and I want to be more consistent with posting. We’ll see what happens. For now, please enjoy this article about the independent films of the great Osamu Tezuka! Continue reading →

What Persona’s Gameplay Says About the Reality of Relationships

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Persona is one of my favorite game franchises to ever exist, and the reason for that isn’t as simple as one might assume. Sure, having brilliant characters to fall in love with and an immaculately stylish soundtrack help the game win regard, but what really puts the series far above average for me is its ingenious gameplay mechanics and the profound philosophical implications that stem from them. But before we delve into that, I need to first explain what is Persona. Continue reading →

O Maidens in Your Savage Season Review

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My first impression after finishing this series was that the ending was rushed. There were certain characters and sub-plots that needed more time develop, but instead felt pushed to the side in order to give focus to a more bombastic and engaging climax. After said climax, an arbitrary time jump occurs to showcase the characters’ near futures but ignores the immediate falling action of the incident and repercussions for the people involved. The conclusion feels like a hastily tied together bow for a series that was, at the last minute, assured not to receive a second season. However, after looking into the manga, I found out the anime actually follows the source material quite accurately. This isn’t to say O Maidens in Your Savage Season: “the anime” is excused from critique of having a lackluster ending, as an adaptation shouldn’t necessarily be judge on the merits of how well it copied the original. I’m just merely pointing out that this was the original creator Mari Okada’s intention. And although I started this review at the end, and seem to have favored it rather poorly, there’s still a lot to enjoy in this funny, awkward, and earnest coming-of-age story.

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I’m back!

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Hey everyone! It’s been almost a year since I’ve last posted, and after all that time I’ve come to realize a few things. But before I get to that, I’d like to share what’s been going on in my life–if not for your knowledge, then at least for my own sake of aligning myself aloud.

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Abroad Update:

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Oh, how my priorities have shifted.

I’m going to start this blog post with a disturbing admission: I wish I had never promised the Your Name Project, because now it is forever on my mind until I finish it. It is not hyperbole when I say that it has kept me up at night. The quality of video that I want to produce is going to take a lot of work, and I just don’t know if I alone am up to the task. My passion has certainly waned, and currently my attention is being torn away by a hundred different things.

I haven’t produced another video since Anime Japan. I haven’t written anything about my travels. I haven’t even been to any noteworthy anime pilgrimages.

Instead, I’ve been studying, and exploring other interests—including writing fiction. And I think, for now, I’m content with that. So, I’m sorry if you’re still eager to hear all my formulated thoughts and opinions on anime, but I’m currently on hiatus. Again. I have about 3 months left before I return to my home country, and perhaps then I’ll return to aniblogging.

Until then, I’d like to thank you for reading. I’m still shocked every once in a while when I check my metrics to see that people are still reading my articles. I wish I could supply you all with even more compelling, but alas, that takes time and effort that I just don’t currently have–like I used to. Hopefully I find it once again. And if I do, I hope you’ll give it a chance again. Thank you.

Unfinished Business – Bye, America

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Well, today’s my last day in the States. I couldn’t manage to get out anywhere near all the things I had in mind for this humble little blog of my mine—which makes me pretty disappointed in myself. If I’m being honest, I feel like the blame falls upon 10% actual busyness, 90% procrastination. It’s been hard to keep my mind straight, especially in this last week as I’ve been spending time with and saying goodbye to so many people. One of my problems is that I treat social gatherings like another job to be scheduled, and I never turn down work. I suppose I need to get better at my time management and only work on the social links that really matter (Persona reference, for those confused).

Now that I’m going to be in Japan, supplied with brand new equipment, I’m excited by the things I’ll be able to create, and all the potential Japan has for the ideas I have in store. Your Name on TV will exist, and it will be my first priority once I settle in. After that, we’ll see where my crazy mind takes me. All I can say for now is that I definitely want to put my film school experience to use, and hopefully find people that will help me with that. I also want to eat a shit ton of ramen.

Sorry I couldn’t be quite so prolific in my brief return to blogging, but I’m going to continue writing about anime for a long time to come…there just might be some long times to wait between my posts. Writing has been a very important hobby for me, something that I wholeheartedly feel good about doing—unlike a bunch of useless acts of instant self-gratification that I’ve been indulging in lately (mainly worthless video games). Games are fun, but I certainly have a hard time limiting myself, which is why I won’t be bring my PlayStation 4 along with me (although I do have my Vita and Switch for the plane ride).

This next 5 months I’m going to be taking a break from a lot of things, and I’ll see how things go. I will most likely be updating this blog with my adventures, so I hope you stay tuned for that, as well as the usual randomly timed posts about anime (one day I’ll learn to stick to a schedule). Truth be told, I still can’t believe this is happening. I’m going to be IN JAPAN. TOMMORROW. Well, technically Tuesday because of the time zone leap and flight length. Still. Holy shit.

As a writer, I hate to say that I’m at a loss for words because it is literally my life’s goal to never let that happen—to always be able to describe to the best of my ability what’s in my head and in my heart. All I have right now are silly dreams and naïve wishes for what the next 5 months will be. But fuck it! I’m gonna work hard. I am going to turn all my dumb anime dreams into reality, or at the very least keep trying until it kills me.

Anyway, to close this I just wanted to do what I always do and thank you for reading. It’s still astonishing to me that people managed to find what I write, and even crazier that they continue to read. I hope you enjoy what comes next. I have a feeling I will as well.

What Makes a Great Adaptation: Bakemonogatari Book v. Anime (Part 2)

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To reiterate once again: The core essence of Monogatari is absurdity. Because of the amount of dialogue meant to convey that sense of absurdity is too overwhelming for an anime adaptation, the sense of such intense absurdity had to be translated over in other ways. SHAFT found this way to be converting it into the mise en scene: the things we see in frame. Continue reading →

What Makes a Great Adaptation: Bakemonogatari Book v. Anime (Part 1)

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Recently I just finished reading the official translation of NISIOISIN’s brilliant mystery novel, Strangulation: Kubishime Romanticist, and it got me thinking about another fantastic book written by the same man that was adapted into an equally amazing, but vastly different anime. Specifically, I started thinking back to the days when Bakemonogatari was a little more relevant (in the mainstream—it’ll always be relevant to me) and the conversation about the “quality” of the adaptation was still in flow. Bakemonogatari the light novel was ultimately a very different beast from Bakemonogatari the anime, with the most quantifiable disparity being the amount of dialogue. Continue reading →