Month: September 2009

Editorial

On Setting and Atmosphere

On Setting and Atmosphere

It can get a little tiring thinking about plot and character all the time, can’t it? The Araragi Theory of Bakemonogatari, the Nasu-ified story of CANAAN, the theme of the value of life (and, well, brotherhood) in FMA: Brotherhood – while all of these things are good by themselves, they can easily lead to a mentally-taxed viewer.

Well, when you look at it objectively, being mentally taxed isn’t exactly a bad thing. If anything, it’s good to have stuff to think about while watching anime, but as everyone knows, sometimes it’s nice to just kick back and relax. But what is it about these shows that lets us do that? Aria is an extreme case, but even so, what is it about the show that causes it to be such a stress reliever? The characters and story are part of it, but surely that isn’t everything. When I started questioning why I fell so easily for a show about baseball girls in the early 20th century, though, I knew it was time to get to the bottom of it.

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Community

Nodame Cantabile Rewatch and my introduction to Japanese Live Action

Nodame Cantabile live action

A few months ago on Twitter, Moritheil of Anime Diet proposed one of those ever popular communal rewatches that always seem to make the experience more fun. A couple posts have already been done to get the ball rolling , but I was busy drowning in my backlog toward the end of the summer and so I’m more than a little late to the party.

At any rate, there’s one aspect of modern Japanese media that I’ve always been illiterate in: live-action dramas. Admittedly, I’m not even well-versed in Western live-action films, favouring video games as a child, and I’ve only seen a couple anime-irrelevant Japanese live action movies (although one was directed by Hideaki Anno and the other was scored by Joe Hisaishi.) Most of my knowledge of the medium comes from little clips I’ve seen on my classmates’ computers and Hinano‘s screencaps. Needless to say, it’s about time I took a look at the medium for myself and figure out what I’ve been missing.

Besides, there’s promise of GYABO in here. How can it go wrong?

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Review

War is better when it’s Moé – Gadget Trial

Gadget Trials (11)

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you haven’t heard of Gadget Trial. If you follow visual novel translation news then you can skip the next few lines, but in essence, it’s a surprisingly lengthy VN by the apparently well-known Kogado studio. Like most SRPG VNs, Gadget Trial mixes strategic gameplay with visual novel-style dialogue, but unlike most of them, it seems heavier on the gameplay. That’s what makes it feel long, regardless of the actual hour count.

All things considered, though, that doesn’t matter very much. Really, what matters more is the Tomokazu Sugita-voiced military commander and the loli artillery units.

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Analysis

Idealism and Heroism: Fate/stay night Unlimited Blade Works route

Unlimited Blade Works

What is a hero? A miserable pile of ideals? Wikipedia defines the word as a person who selflessly and courageously faces danger for the sake of a greater good, while it defines superhero as a person who protects the weak and innocent by fighting evil. Heroes are ubiquitous in fiction, long before the days of Superman; the concept of heroism extends into the days of mythology, when the world was a radically different place.

Thus, it’s only fitting that Emiya Shirou, the main protagonist of Fate/stay night, should share something in common with these summoned heroes that he must fight alongside and against. His wish is to become a superhero, to save everyone and eliminate the need for sacrifice. It’s a naive ideal at first, possibly as frustrating to the reader as it is to Tohsaka Rin, but the moral battle grows ambiguous when the red knight arrives to play Devil’s Advocate.

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Miscellaneous

And so, one year later…

One year anniversary

It’s been a year. Isn’t it funny how quickly time can pass when you’re not looking at it? In this case, it feels like I’ve been too busy to notice the months slip by. I think I’ve been having fun, too. It was a year ago that the internet was raging at Code Geass R2, making memes out of Charles and the legendary trainwreck episode; a year ago that I first clicked the “publish” button on a WordPress post, writing and rewriting less than 500 words on the last day of the summer holidays.

Looking back, though, it’s hardly felt like a journey at all. If anything, I’m just glad that I didn’t run from the prospective work and criticism and loss of free time, and end up missing out on something this satisfying.

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