Category: Analysis

The serious side of semi-serious

Analysis

Megatokyo’s Meta: An Examination of Wish Fulfillment

You’ve probably heard of Megatokyo – the American 4-panel webcomic that evolved into a published manga series both in the English-speaking world and in Japan. I wasn’t around for its birth and rise to fame so I can’t comment specifically on the history, but Fred Gallagher already said that the story was never expected or intended to turn into what it is today (not unlike the history of 4chan). Despite the fact that Megatokyo‘s decade-long history comes with its fair share of awkward pacing and different visual styles, it’s more or less a mandatory read for OEL manga fans and people who enjoy meta anime like Genshiken.

The interesting thing about Megatokyo is that its plot can hardly stand on its own: without any cultural awareness on the reader’s part, the story is flat-out illogical. Luckily, this also means that it provides a surprisingly engrossing experience for readers who can relate to the protagonists and their bizarre journey through the zombie hordes and love triangles of Tokyo. There’s a reason why I like Megatokyo as much as I do, a reason why it trumps all of Japan’s anime-about-anime-fans in my eyes – its secret lies in the fact that the meta concepts are woven into nearly every aspect of the plot.

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Analysis

A Journey Through Gensokyo, Part Two: Style and Beauty of Eastern Wonderland

[sayori]

If you’ve played any Touhou games other than the 2D fighters, you probably know that ZUN isn’t the world’s best artist. However, as most Touhou fanartists have realized, beneath the technically flawed character portraits lies a wealth of creative, memorable, if not gimmicky character designs. I’m sure we can all think of one character off the top of our heads whose design stands out from the rest, a character who would instantly catch our eye while scrolling through the picture collection. Every game has one of them; frankly, every game has lots of them.

One aspect of ZUN’s character designs that I find interesting is the fact that they occasionally tie into the story and the character’s personality. Sometimes this takes the form of a visual motif; a distinguishing trait, be it an article of clothing or a story-related magical power, that’s always capitalized upon in fanart, and sometimes even in-game. Amazingly, the danmaku that the player struggles to dodge can be more than just a mess of shape and colour! Be it through clothing or hair colour or magical vampire wings and frog-eyed hats, here are a few characters whose designs are slightly more than meets the eye.

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Analysis

White Witch, Black Witch – The ‘Magic’ of Umineko no Naku Koro ni

[ayko]

Ryukishi07’s Umineko no Naku Koro ni has been the talk of the internet for at least a year. With spoilers flying left right and center, there aren’t many anime fans who haven’t at least heard of Battler Ushiromiya’s series of chess games against the witch named Beatrice. I wrote about the first episode when I read it, but having finally completed and digested the first complete game, I think it’s time to revisit my old theories and provide a new assessment of what the story is about and where it’s headed. Brace yourselves; Rokkenjima does not follow the laws of the rest of the world.

(This post contains spoilers from episodes 1-4 of the visual novel)

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Analysis

Crying Your True Tears

In a word, True Tears is spectacular. It’s a well-crafted love story that doesn’t succumb to the common failings of its kind. Be it visual novel or shoujo manga adaptation, romance anime are often hit-or-miss, falling apart at the lack of realism or the unnecessary angst or the uninspired telling of a straightforward plot. It’s rare to find a story that, despite being fairly ordinary, hits every note with such eloquent accuracy. Rather than being a tear-jerker or a personal favourite for various subjective reasons, this is one of the first shows on my favourites list to earn its spot based on sheer competence.

Most bloggers have already written about True Tears and most fans have already settled into their opinions of it, but my second viewing gave me the insight I needed to understand why the show received the praise that it did. This is my attempt at examining the anime that made me remember that, from the viewer’s perspective, there is such thing as the perfect story.

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Analysis

A Journey Through Gensokyo, Part One: Listen to my Song!

[kibushi]

Touhou fandom is a vast, vast entity. A while ago I jotted down some tips for beginners who fear the difficulty of the game series, but as important as bullet dodging is, the franchise extends far beyond the gameplay. I’ve learned a lot about Touhou over the last few months, dedicating countless hours to filling up my doujin music library and saving new fanart. I spent some time on the ever-helpful wiki, too, trying to piece together some of the more obscure tidbits of storyline information.

As my travels through Gensokyo continued, I stumbled upon something quite interesting: Touhou sheet music. With a bit of help (thanks, Matthew), I was able to track down the sheet music of some of my favourite songs in the series. I’m no expert on music theory, but with a visual transcription of the songs to help me, I think I can dig up some interesting facts. Maybe you can to.

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Analysis

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Pierces the Heavens in more ways than one

[eltinidordediyablo]

I missed a lot of the buzz surrounding Gurren Lagann when it first aired. I knew about the drills and the dramatic quotes and episode 8, but that was it. It seemed like one of those shows that my friend was always talking about: big, colourful robots that fuse together and punch the lights out of other big, colourful robots. To be honest, I expected to hear cheesy brass-filled BGM when I finally watched it, and I was more focused on how over-the-top it was instead of on the story it was trying to tell.

Of course, it’s a bit late to be talking about a series as popular as this, but the pair of summary movies allowed me to see the story in a different light. It’s interesting to see how much sense it all makes when you’re not caught up with Kamina’s manliness and Yoko’s breasts. In fact, when I witnessed the epic conclusion for the second time, something clicked in my head that hadn’t clicked before.

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