Tag: Bishoujo

Editorial

Shoujo Through the Eyes of a Bishoujo Fan

There was once a time when I called myself a fan of “romance” anime. As I know now, romance is not as useful a category in anime as it is in some other mediums, since anything from Love Hina to Inuyasha could fall under its umbrella. However, even as a dedicated fan of one of Japan’s greatest inventions – the 2D girl – my taste in anime often returns to the central premise of romance. My interests often fit closely with bluemist‘s old tagline – where shoujo and bishoujo meet.

The interesting thing about viewing a very gender-targeted genre through the eyes of the opposite gender is that some tropes and clichés have a completely different effect. Here are some of my observations of the shoujo genre that have allowed me to experience the stories from a personal level as well as from a third-person level.

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Review

The World God Only Knows and the Art of Love

Love is War, as they say. Fighting on the battlefield of love requires not only the guts and courage of a shounen hero, but also the level-headed tactical prowess of a military commander. Keima Katsuragi is one such warrior who, having distanced himself from the frailty of human emotion, fights with his life on the line against impossible odds. Armed only with his wit and intellect, he stands proudly as a one-man army against thousands of escaped spirits from Hell who hide within human hosts and absorb their energy. His dramatic tale of love and loss is one that has won the hearts of countless fans, including my own. It comes as no surprise that he will one day become the protagonist of his own anime series.

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Merchandise

Artbook Review: Mutsumi Sasaki Art Works 1998-2005

Ironically, I already did a post on Mutsumi Sasaki’s second artbook; this here is his first book, a self-explanatory collection of his work from 1998-2005. In terms of style, it goes without saying that you can expect the same kind of content that was in Est – which is to say, a skillful combination of moe and bishoujo. His first book is a hardcover, which is nice, but it has appallingly few pages considering the hardcover format, and some of the content overlaps. Is it still worth it? That’s a fair enough question, but first let’s take a look through the scans.

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Merchandise

Artbook Review: Mutsumi Sasaki Art Works Est

Mutsumi Sasaki is another one of those popular eroge artists that you’ve probably noticed at one point or another. He’s been in the industry for quite some time, designing characters for the Memories Off franchise (the anime adaptations were mediocre, but that’s another story), and, more recently, titles like Chaos;Head and Myself;Yourself. Putting the inappropriate use of semicolons aside, neither of the aforementioned shows struck me as anything spectacular, but one of my favourite aspects of them was the character designs. Why? The answer should be obvious. I love Mutsumi Sasaki, and while he might not be my absolute favourite artist, his work always holds some sort of mysterious control over me. Est is his most recent professional artbook, and suffice to say, I wasn’t disappointed.

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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: 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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Memories of Eternity