Month: March 2009

Fandom

Moé and the Land of Escapism: The Reality Factor

It’s very, very hard to get a good picture of Rika.

It all began while I was rewatching Honey and Clover. It’s a beautiful show, really, and I can guarantee that I’ll post on it at some point, but the painfully real relationships of the cast aren’t the focus of this post. Instead, I’m going to talk about a thought that crossed my mind with relation to one of the characters: Rika Harada.

What does this have to do with moe, you ask? You’ve probably already started drawing conclusions in your head, but I’ll spell it out for you – just as long as you click on that enticingly blue read more link below.

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Merchandise

Artbook Review: Nanairo Ice

Out of all of Japan’s excellent bishoujo artists, Naru Nanao would have to be my favourite. I can’t quite put my finger on why, nor can I use any over-the-top artistic jargon to justify that statement, but in layman’s terms, her character designs are absolutely delicious. Seeing as she worked for companies like minori and Circus and designed some of the more famous eroge characters such as Miyako Miyamura (ef) and Nemu Asakura (Da Capo), I highly doubt that I’m the only one who feels this way about her work.

And if you’re willing to pay up to the overpriced import stores, you can see first-hand why she has earned her place as a personal favourite.

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Merchandise

Artbook Review: Shin Moeru Headphone Reader

shin-moeru-headphones

Headphones. Gotta love ’em. We love them so much, in fact, that some company in Japan decided to publish an entire artbook dedicated to the good old headsets/cans/whatever you like to call them. And, like all good things related to Japan, the object in question must, in some way, shape, or form, be connected to either giant robots or cute girls.

I don’t think I need to tell you which category this one falls under.

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Miscellaneous

A Two-Week Absence…but it’s for a good cause!

I’m not scared of planes. Really!

Well, it’s a good cause for me at least. I’m confident that less than 10% of you have read this (or at least the last part), but regardless, time sure flew by: four months have already passed, and the event that I’ve been looking forward to since the beginning of high school is finally on the horizon. It’s going to be a long flight, the lack of cell phone service means that I’ll be off Twitter, and the schedule is packed enough that I’ll probably be away from the internet as well…but fear not! I wrote a few posts in advance and set them to publish in the future. They may not be anything too spectacular, but they should at least entertain, and I’ll get back on any comments that need replies when I get back.

But forgetting about that, it’ll definitely be a fun trip, and most likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Australia isn’t the kind of place that people normally go to, much like Canada, and I’m assuming that it has its own unique – if not somewhat familiar – charm (much like Canada). Time to see if that opera house lives up to the hype!

~ ETERNAL
つづく

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Review

Bitter Virgin: An Uninhibited Tale

It’s an interesting phenomenon when a fictional story makes you figuratively cringe with pain. No, not the kind of cringing that seems to so often occur while watching the likes of Akikan or hundredth filler episode of Naruto: I’m talking about a reaction to real pain, pain that goes beyond 22 minutes of poor animation.

Bitter Virgin, however, is not entirely about pain. It’s as much a dark story as it is a hopeful one, and it juxtaposes an improbable cruelty with an equally improbable shoujo romance in a manner that’s somewhat plausible – and most importantly, effective. It isn’t without its flaws, but looking back, this simple four volume manga series invoked more emotion – and more dark emotion – from me than a fictional story has for a long, long time.

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Art and Aniblogging: A Non-Critical Take on Criticism

I’m not an English major. I probably will be at some point in my life, and I have some sort of intrinsic attraction to the act of looking beneath the surface, but that’s a different point entirely. What I’m trying to say is, I’m by no means a scholar on this topic: and frankly, the use of the word “criticism” in the post title was likely enough to give more than a few of you false hope when you saw it on Anime Nano.

However, the title reflects exactly what this is: a non-critical look at the act of literary criticism, and the way we apply it in the anime blogosphere.

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Memories of Eternity