Analysis

Liar Game and Game Theory

One of the miracles of shounen manga is the fact that they can be about anything. It’s one thing to make a shounen series for every sport on the planet – the eroge scene can compete in that regard – but it’s no new discovery that shounen extends far beyond its traditional premises, arguably a bit too far. You could probably dig up a shounen about Gunpla building or babysitting and they’d still be as over-the-top as the rest of the genre, and proud of it.

Following this train of thought, it took me a while before I started looking at Liar Game as, quite simply, a shounen about Game Theory.

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Analysis

My Heart, Your Soul, Our Beats

[onodera]

It’s difficult to not talk about Jun Maeda’s Angel Beats. Despite coming from a writer whose most famous works target a relatively niche audience, it’s a fact that Angel Beats is a high-quality production, likely high-budget as well, and it’s earned the attention of most of anime fandom – for better or worse. The show may not have topped Key’s visual novel adaptations in terms of popularity or praise, but it marks an interesting departure from Maeda’s traditional style while staying true to the sentimental storytelling that makes Key what it is. It goes without saying that I’m a fan, but I believe that Angel Beats is particularly noteworthy: not because it trumps the nakige classics, but because it’s a solid drama that helped me identify an aspect of Key’s appeal that I was unable to isolate during the various visual novel adaptations.

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Review

The Girl Who Talked Through Time

I stumbled upon an interesting gem the other day in my quest to actually start reading manga: Kimi ni Shika Kikoenai. Also known as Calling You, the comic is apparently adapted from a short story by the prolific Otsuichi. Since I almost literally stumbled upon the story, I read it blindly, without knowing anything about its origins or the writer. Needless to say, I was surprised that a nameless manga in my backlog turned out to be so good.

Now that I’ve read some of its background info, I can see that my surprise was unfounded – Kimi ni Shika Kikoenai is in fact not nameless or obscure, and for good reason. There’s something compelling about the manga that quickly made me realize that I was in for more of a treat than I expected.

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Review

An Imouto a Day

Obligatory myface.jpg

Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki ja Nai n da kara ne!! is… well, first of all, it’s a mouthful to say. I’m not even sure if there’s a convenient nickname or acronym for it so I guess I’ll just have to refer to it as Oniichan.

More importantly, the series is – for lack of a better word – good. I can almost guarantee that it’s better than the image you have in mind of a stereotypical siscon ecchi series with pandering characters, lighthearted dialogue, and a touch of fanservice where it counts. Of course it has all of the above, but the mangaka does a few things to keep it fresh. It’s been a while since I’ve read something so thoroughly enjoyable, even though enjoying something like this feels as awkward as enjoying a low-budget harem anime. In fact, this may well be the only comedy/ecchi manga I’ve read that’s actually funny!

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Review

The Desires of Haruhi Suzumiya

[Noizi Ito]

I have a strange history with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. I first watched the anime series shortly after it aired, but since I had only just started venturing beyond shounen and modern sci-fi/mecha at the time, I never really understood why I liked it. I memorized the Hare Hare Yukai lyrics and proudly gave the show a 10/10, but I couldn’t really point to one specific aspect of it and say “this is why this story is a masterpiece”.

Thankfully, that problem is now solved. I recently decided to go through the first of the nine published novels, and just as I expected, the memories from four years ago came back in a flash – except this time I’m not hindered by blind fandom.

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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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