I seem to have a knack for choosing to read manga shortly before an anime adaptation is announced for the same series. This has happened on several occasions including Kuroshitsuji and Kimi ni Todoke. The most recent series to fall under this category includes the popular manga Mahou Tsukai no Yome or The Ancient Magus’ Bride written by Yamazaki Kore. For the Summer 2016 anime season, a 3 part OVA for the season premiered. In response, I went about rereading the available chapters for this review.

The titular characters Chise Hatori (the bride) and Elias Ainsworth (the magus) are an incredibly strange duo. Having come into contact through peculiar means, the two quickly become enraptured with one another and struggle through their relationship while simultaneously figuring out their feelings on a personal level. It’s strange for me to try and articulate what it is that makes Chise and Elias’ story so unique, aside from the fact that the world that has been built around them is fascinating and beautiful. It can certainly be called a love story, but even then, the emotion known as love is brought into question. So much of their interactions would point to the fact that the two are in love, but the fear that they each have when dealing with these emotions prevents them from being honest with one another. It’s also fascinating to consider how their love is displayed, as it is vastly different from the usual formula one sees in love stories (and to a further extent shoujo manga).

These weirdos’ relationship aside, the world that the two exist within is mind numbingly gorgeous. A lot of what is hard about fantasy anything is how the world is built, whether or not it can/does hold together logically, and how it is explained to someone (presumably the reader) who exists outside of it. Much of what is presented in this series (the creatures, the way magic works, etc etc) takes some degree of inspiration from previously existing works. The one example that immediately comes to mind is the Queen and King of the faeries, Titania and Oberon, both of which can be recognized from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (though Shakespeare was known to find references for his work elsewhere also so I wouldn’t be surprised if this was not the origin of Titania and Oberon). This collision of works helps to further enrich the world created by Kore, giving a story and life to parts of Chise and Elias’ lives that would not be further examined otherwise.

I’m completely in love with this series as it stands. As it has yet to be completed, I hope that the series continues to enchant me and other readers alike. If you’re interested in this sort of manga, I highly suggest getting a hold of it to read for yourself. It is currently being serialized in Monthly Comic Garden, an online database of Japanese manga. Manga volumes have also been released in English stateside.

Now you can make your love-hate relationship official with five hilariously cute designs!

When it comes to weddings in Japan, there’s attention to detail in everything, right down to the official documents used to register your union. We’ve seen Sailor Moon, Hello Kitty, and even a virtual idol grace marriage certificates in Japan with their big eyes and romantic gowns, and now it’s time for a different type of character adornment, with one of the world’s most popular cartoon duos at the helm. These are the Tom and Jerry marriage certificates, and they’re every bit as sweet as they are hilarious, playing up their love-hate relationship on your documents in the cutest way possible.

▼ There are five designs to choose from, including the charming “I Got You!”

▼ And the simple “Love Ya!”, which features the two characters on a plain, pink design.

▼ Lovers can bring a bit of Tom and Jerry-style fun and spontaneity into their lives with the “Cheerful Home”.

▼ While the colourful “Movie Film” is a great choice for diehard fans of the series.

▼ And for those with a sense of humour, there’s the cheeky “Yours Forever” design.

Each design retails for 3,000 yen (US$29.80) and comes in a set that includes two copies of the marriage registration certificate, which can be submitted at local city halls, and a special copy for couples to keep as a commemorative memento. To find out more about the cute marriage certificates, visit the official website for more details.

Source, Images: PR Times

One of my current interests about the Japanese Popular Culture, especially anime, are the voices behind the characters known as seiyuu (voice actor/actress). In every anime that I have watched I could always somehow recognize a characters particular voice that would let me think “Oh! I know this voice! It’s so and so.” Sometimes it’s hard and other times it’s easy, but it always makes me wonder “How could they do that?”

Ever since I discovered my first voice actor, I have been wondering and researching about who the seiyuu are, what characters they play, what type of characters they usually play, how did they voice their characters, etc. For every bit of information I find about the seiyuu, I have been getting more and more interested about them and the voice acting industry.

Now you may have been wondering why I start my post the way I did. There are two reasons 1) was to try to give a clear purpose of what this type of post and future post will be showing (or at least to give myself a clear purpose) and 2) it is something I am interested in.

For these type of posts, I will be posting some basic information about the seiyuu (basically information that most people know) with some fun fact that I found about them. I won’t post anything that I feel it is too personal, my research is mostly about them as seiyuu and the voice acting industry. Their private lives are their own after all.

So, the first seiyuu will be:

Ryohei Kimura

Kimura-san first started work as a seiyuu as a side character in Medabots as Belmont and is now one of the popular seiyuu in the voice acting industry.

Famous Works:
1. Kuroko no Basuke as Kise Ryouta
2. Tales of Zestiria as Slay
3. Haikyuu as Bokuto
4. Silver Spoon as Yugo Hachiken
5. Eden of the East as Akira Takizawa

Current Works:
1. Tales of Zestiria X as Slay
2. Tsukuita. The Animation as Shun Shimotsuki
3. Sevamp as LawLess
4. Battery as Shunji Mizugaki
5. Macross Delta as Harry Takasugi and Keith Aero Windermere
6. Re:Life as Ryo Yoake

He is a part of unit a called “Trignal” with fellow voice actors Eguchi Takuya and Yonaga Tsubasa and together they host a radio show called Trignal KiraKira Beat R. Fans have already translated clips of their radio show, so be sure to check it out.

Besides Kise from Kuroko no Basuke, I only know Kimura-san through the otome games and anime he plays such as Diabolik Lovers. In my opinion, he is great in portraying characters like Kise and Slay from Tales of Zestiria. In his radio host for Trignal, he seems to be a funny and cool person and the mature one in the group (I  may be wrong though). He also has a good singing voice.

Fun Fact:
1. He really loves to drink alcohol (probably couldn’t live without it).
2. Likes to eat good food and often go to different resturants to try to see if the food is good (from pictures I’ve seen for Kiramune Company)
3. His current hobby is watching MVs. (again from pictures of Kiramune Company that fans have post)

(via Google, Tumblr, and Wikipedia) (Photo via Google)

Every month, the YouTuber and streamer Chu!Bam!Pow! holds an anime stream called Chu’s Crunchy Wacht Club (CCWC) to sit down together and discuss a show. I will usually try to cover these anime with different formats and also join the streams. The anime of this month are Rokka no Yuusha and Mushi-Uta.

Sometimes the shows we watch are great, sometimes they are bad, but there is always something to discuss about them, so feel free to join us!

Anime: Teekyuu 4

| Episode: 47

Just what happened to Tsubaki during his past…?!
I’m so curious!

My Thoughts:
Angel or Demon?
Answer: Both.

Mahiru has it tough for both himself as a person & MC + being a babysitter for his ‘friends’ and his servamp.

When we get introduced to Lawless & his eve, Licht Jekylland Todoroki; a pianist that is on the top charts; it goes pretty serious for a second but then gets normal and serious afterwards; Miharu gets kicked around by Licht; Lawless appears, introducing himself & his eve in a cheery manner with flowerly background and then when Miharu wanted them to help them & the others to go against Tsubaki, the whole situation goes serious.
Next time Miharu.

Tsubaki plans his next attack after the festival to a piano concert but the twist is that it’s Lawless & Litch vs the whole audience.
That was a twist I wasn’t expecting at all.

Tsubaki crying just got to me unexpectedly but it probably has to do with something about his past which is probably why he calls his subclasses his family.

Litch though; he gives no craps about a person when he/she invades with his concert.
I kinda dislike but like him at the same time; I absolutely hate Lawless when he talked to Kuro like that and try to get Miharu involved.

Kuro’s face at the end though.
That was again unexpected.

Verdict:
LAWLESS!!!!! GRRR…!

T-Tsubaki…! Please let’s into Tsubaki’s past! It’s killing me!

Rate: 8/10

Durarara!! – Episodes 1 & 2

Score: 7.75/10.

Death Billiards (short film)

Score: 7.75/10.

Originality is not something that you can really find in even things like anime.  From each decade, there is a certain style of anime that became extremely popular and other series that tried to copy off its success.  These big series also go on to influence other popular series in terms of animation, art style, character design, and a lot of things.  Character designs can last a lot longer than that.  They borrow from the decade they are around from, but iconic ones can last for a long time.

There is a finite variance of everything.  Music titles, voice acting roles, anime genres and styles, but I think similar character designs can hurt anime the most.  Since they are a visual thing in a visual art form/medium, it is possible to tell what kind of personality a character has, what role they will play in a story, or what story the show is going to be just based on how characters look.  This is a huge meta cultural knowledge thing that people can acquire by watching years of anime or watching anime in a short period of time when one-character design is copy and pasted into another show.

Of course, this is never a completely bad thing.  A show should rely on its own strengths to be good.  A similar character design is not going to hurt a show automatically.  It depends on how well character types are used and how well each character is explored.  Entire studios like Kyoto Animation and Studio Bones use similar character designs all the time, but each show has their own character range and style that separates them from the rest.  Just because a person knows what to expect when watching something doesn’t mean that there isn’t room to be completely surprised.

Here are some examples to show you that I have at least a general idea of what I’m talking about.  (Maybe, I could be completely insane)

—

90’s anime women:

Martian Successor Nadesico

Outlaw Star

Irresponsible Captain Tylor

This is a good way to display how shows during an era had similar art styles.  This is from the 90’s and not every character looks exactly the same, but there are a lot of similarities between each.  What’s strange about today is there are characters that look similar to each other, but it’s not as well saturated due to tons and tons of art styles.

Seed Character Designer:

(From left to right) Shinn from Gundam Seed Destiny, Kazuki from Fafner, and Age from Heroic Age

This is another easy one to explain.  When shows have the same character designer, of course the characters are going to look the same.  This is the same as saying that Arslan and Edward Elric look the same.  They are both manga from Arakawa so that’s obvious.  Still, Seed’s character designer is still getting a lot of work by studio Xebec and Arakawa has had a few popular series (FMA, Silver Spoon, Hero Legends, and Arslan)

The Rei Clone:

All the Rei Clones

This one is ironic because of spoilery reasons and true on so many levels.  Ever since the advent of Evangelion, there have been a lot of character archetypes borrowed/lifted from the show.  While none of these girls look exactly like each other, they have the same traits.  The white hair, the very different colored eyes, and the minimal and robotic personality.  This follows my argument of already knowing what to expect from these characters just based on their design.

The Three Point Banged Male Character (Not sure what to call this):

Takumi from Battery

Avilo from 91 Days

Oreki from Hyouka

Haruhiro from Grimgar

This is a modern trend that I seem to have noticed.  Especially since there have been two characters that have looked the same this season from Battery and 91 Days.  Very different anime, but yet very similar main protagonist character designs.  In fact, being the protagonist might be the only thing that this design is defined by.  I don’t think these character design always has the same type of personality, it’s just worth noting for the reasons of seeing this character design more and more.

The Kirito Protagonist Type (Light novel protagonist 1)

Kirito from Sword Art Online

Ayato from Asterisk War

Bell from Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

This is more along the lines of a character design also shows off what kind of show the story is.  Since Sword Art Online became popular (blech).  It seems like this protagonist design is used in a fantasy rpg video game setting which also seems like a harem.  A big sign to people like me to stay away from this kind of series.  I suppose this could go along with the picture set above it in some ways, but that just plays into anime protagonists are beginning to look similar.
—

So once again, having similar character designs may hinder a series at the start, but if the character writing is good and each character is well defined in who they are, then it doesn’t damage the series in anyway.  It’s always when characters are just an archetype with no additional depth that the damage is already done.  This more of a visual level, but the same could be said for similar sound tracks, voice actors, directors, writers, and everything else that can be thought of.

What similar character designs have you seen?  How was the experience of watching the show affected by it?

Well folks, the final chapter of Bleach, chapter 686, was released today, ending the series. The special announcement was the report that a live action movie would be created by 2018 for the Bleach series (not sure about that), so at this point there is no spin-off series (could always happen though) and the series is over. 

So, what about this final chapter? Well, as we saw in 685, things were wrapped up real nicely for everyone and in this chapter, the same thing has happened. Ichigo married Orihime and they have a son that is also a shinigami. Rukia and Renji married as well and have a daughter that is a combination of the two, so that story continues between the two sides. Ichigo’s sisters are grown up, Sado is a professional boxer, and Uyuru is now a full time doctor like his dad is (we don’t know where he is or Ichigo’s dad are). The slight scare with Yhwach seems to be gone and Aizen is locked back up (not sure how that happened). There is no follow up on Urahara, Yoruichi, the Fullbringers, or anyone of the Espada that helped out. We are left wondering and will never get an answer it appears.

The ending was rushed I feel, in fact the last 10+ chapters have all felt rush. Plot holes have fallen apart, characters have been forgotten, and you just get the feeling Tite Kubo either wanted the series over or his employers told him it was over.

In the end, this is my favorite manga/anime series of all time, so I am sad its over, but am a bit disappointed in how it ended. I’m one of those who wanted Ichigo and Rukia to marry, but the series decided on Orihime instead for the hero. Oh well, can’t have everything right?

It’s Thursday again!! Time for another Throwback Thursday! Wow, I can’t believe this is number 7; it’s been 7-8 weeks ever since I started this project. This week there will be 2 drawings cuz why not? Lucky number 7 haha… Just kidding, I thought I’ll include these two together since they’re the same character and I really couldn’t choose one over the other to post so I decided both should be included! *nods. And if you can’t already tell, Anohana is one of my favorite animes! So if you haven’t watched it yet, GOOOoooo!! These drawings are references I found on Google, so all credits go to the original creator besides the fact that I drew them XDD. And I drew both using a regular mechanical pencil and eraser. Anyway, if any of you are curious why I always have something covering part of my picture (like this time it’s colored paper), it’s cuz that’s where my signature is and then my name will be revealed… Maybe one day, I’ll show you guys it, but it’ll probably be till I’m more comfortable with this all~

-Pls. Comment, like, and follow! Stay tuned for next week’s drawing!

~CY @ kpop9019

5. Because YouTube Isn’t My Style

I tried starting my own YouTube channel and while it was a learning experience, it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. I’ve always liked writing and decided that this would be a better way for me to do what I wanted.

4. Because Countdowns Are Challenging and Fun

Counting down anything can be a challenge because you have to decide once and for all what are your favorites. I’ve also been working with WatchMojo.com as a freelancer helping out with their top 10 lists and have found that to be quite enjoyable, so I decided to do it for myself.

3. Because I Love Anime

It’s kind of obvious since I’m dedicating a whole site/blog to anime. But anime is an art form that has gained acceptance among more and more mainstream audiences in the past few years and I want to express my love for it in my own little way.

2. Because It Gives Me a Reason To Write

As a writer it’s hard sometimes to just sit down and write something. At the very least this will give me some motivation to actually put words on paper.

1. Because Why Not

 In the end it’s just something I wanted to do. So stick around as I countdown anything and everything that pertains to anime.

I’m always open to suggestions so if there is a certain topic you want me to cover and countdown feel free to suggest it.

This is a bit of a wishy-washy post, but all of my posts these days are. This is may also be taken as an insult or a hot take and uhh, sorry about that.

It can be hard accepting negative opinions on stuff you like. There is a reason ANN forums, reddit comments for a review or CR comments etc, are often full of disdain for the author who just ‘doesn’t get it’.

And of course, it is pretty bad if you argue (like most people on the net) using flaky reasoning and personal attacks. If anything, I strongly recommend you just don’t bother. 99.9% of the time, your ‘objective reasoning’ will simply be a matter of taste or priorities (some need x in an anime to be good, others prefer y to be good).

Still, it comes from an understandable place. You don’t like it when something you liked was disliked. It makes you feel like you were wrong to dislike it.

It has taken me 6+ years, but I’ve finally grown an opinion shield, I can handle hot takes about the anime I like….well, not entirely, especially not on twitter.

If only I could turn off my phone so easily.

I’ve been trying to write a post on why I’m not fond of ‘criticism’ on very public, in your face, services like twitter, and suffice to say, I have not yet succeeded at it.

For now, it will be enough to say I don’t like seeing negative opinions on places like twitter because they are really hard to avoid! At least with a dedicated blog post, you can easily chose to not read them!

“But criticism is good! My critique of something should not affect your enjoyment of it!” Oh, but it does. I love this Anitwitter cliche quote. It is one of those things that should theoretically be true, but practically never is. I guess it is a bit like saying “you should be calm if your hair is on fire” because in practice, you often won’t be.

That is a rather extreme comparison, but roughly speaking that’s my problem with it. Folk who can use that quote are those who’ve come to accept and understand what they like, don’t like and are supposedly comfortable with the opinions of others (supposedly).

A lot of newer fans are not in that position and that position is actually rather hard to obtain unless you really do want to wear the critic’s mindset, which is also something not everyone wants to, nor should they want to. It took me years to get to the “I won’t let 70% of opinions affect my enjoyment of an anime” level I’m at. I am sympathetic to the poor newcomer who blows up in rage when someone tweets a hot take on Attack on Titan.

But, that’s a different more involved post, probably. For the rest of this post, I’ll clarify why some negative opinions are far more irksome to me than others and why I’m struggling with it.

My running theory is that I find easily defended criticism much easier to stomach because well, it is easily rebutted. If someone says Chitoge is worst Nisekoi girl, then that’s pretty easily chalked up to taste. If someone says says they couldn’t watch more of something because of the art style, then that’s also just a matter of taste or priority. (Some folk don’t like certain art styles and some find a bad art style to be more or less of a demerit than others.)

The one form of criticism that I’ve always struggled to reconcile and accept is the one that revolves around the treatment of women in anime, especially with respect to fan-service. I can’t reconcile because more often than not, it is valid and true. In some cases, where I don’t like that part of the anime either, I can accept those faults and enjoy the rest. I enjoyed Fate Stay/Night (2006) despite hating on the treatment Saber got precisely because the rest of it still resonated with me. But, in other cases I can’t. I can’t because I do enjoy the fan-service. I do enjoy the questionable scenes.

And I can’t really defend that, nor can most folk in my shoes. Crudely speaking, my observations suggest that when it comes to fan-service, or lewd material, the fandom can be coarsely divided into three groups. The first group is the bunch that outright hates fan-service and wants nothing to do with it. For some, it is just preference, others a deep concern for feminist ideals and some just religious piety (these latter two meld and clash in interesting ways).

Then there is the group I mostly closely associate with. The folk who claim fan-service and its irk is ‘questionable’ but they still like it. The self-proclaimed trash party if you will.

“So, you liked Ichiban Ushiro no Dai Maō?”

“err, yes.”

“Even the harem fan-service?”

“err, yes”

“why?”

“well, uhh, you see I’m trash.”

‘Trash’. A word we ironically use to describe ourselves on the net. We laugh and go ‘hey, haha, I’m trash! I like this trashy stuff!’, but deep down, it is more of a sombre deflection. “Yeah, I am not supposed to like this, but I do. I guess I’m trash. I’m trash. I’ll try to be proud of that.” We are proud of comparing ourselves to apple skin, banana peels, plastic wrapping, empty soda cans and whatever else goes in the trashcan. Talk about a positive self-image. What a joke.

Finally there is the third group, the folk who are almost proud of their thirst. I don’t want to over-generalize, but most of the ‘NU UH STOP CENSORING MA ANIME & VIDYA GAMES YOU DAMN SJWs’ probably fall in here. As silly as the stuff they say is, as easy as it easy to make fun of, their anger/fear (unjustified/misplaced as it may be) comes from a genuine place. They don’t want stuff they like to go away. And that’s a relatable feeling even if it is a seemingly misplaced one.

Of course, there are several folk who believe in good fan-service. “Fan-service can still be empowering” they say, arms crossed with a smug shiny smile that’s only outshone by the glint of their crotch. I, too, tend to prefer the ‘good’ kind of fan-service. I’ll take the ‘girls change clothes without embarrassment scenes’ in New Game over ‘clothes are ripped during combat’ any day. I’ll take a thousand ‘well meaning harem lead trips on stairs and accidentally gropes girl’ scenes over a single ‘villain licks Asuna’s eye’ scene. But, perhaps that is just preference on my part.

It is easy for me to sit here and proclaim the stuff I like is worth more than the stuff found in anime like Btoom or Cross Ange or Daimidaler, but it may very well be entirely fetish biased. I don’t know if I have the right to claim my preferences are less problematic than others and even if I did, I don’t think I should.

At this point, no doubt you are rocking in your chair, eagerly anticipating the end of this post, so you can leave a steaming hot sentence. You place the wine glass atop your side table, and lean back on your golden throne. A smug smile appears, and a single tooth shines behind the hand with which you’ve embraced your face. “But you see, it is okay to like problematic things as long as you understand it is problematic.” You take a puff out of your pipe before switching to your vape, seemingly satisfied with the rock of wisdom you just dropped on me.

A rock of supposed wisdom it may be, but a dropped rock hurts nonetheless.

“Sword Art Online treats its female characters like shit. What a terrible show. Oh, but you are still cool if you like it as long as you understand why it is bad.”

“God, I hate these revealing costumes. How could anyone think it was a good idea? Oh, you like them. No worries, you are still cool as long as you understand that they are gross.”

“Ugh, the male gaze is so strong in this show. What, it matches your gaze? No worries, just be cognisant of that!”

“Ugh, KyoAni, you are normally so good, why are you making this Phantom World boob bouncy bullshit. Oh, you like it? Well, I just think they’ve made better stuff, you know.”

“The fact that so many LN adaptations sacrifice female protagonist agency in favour of male fantasy is incredibly problematic. What, you like this shit? lol, can’t account for trash taste.”

There is a Big Lebowski meme that goes “You’re Not Wrong, but You’re an asshole”. I’ve seen it used to great effect against militant atheists on reddit and to an extent, it is applicable here too. It is great when you are able to detach yourself enough from your media to criticize it willy nilly and better even when those criticisms line up perfectly with your personal preferences and beliefs, but not everyone can do that. Not everyone can reach critic Nirvana nor should they try to . In pointing out that my blanket has holes and that they were there all along, you’ve stated no falsehood, but you’ve shattered an illusion of comfort. And the night is colder for it.

I am not entirely sure what lessons I mean to impart with this post. I noticed that the criticisms others had for anime on twitter often made me grumpy, so I cut back on my own. I haven’t totally succeeded, but I’ve tried my best to not tweet mean things about anime this year.

But, I don’t know if I could ever expect others to do the same. Some folk, understandably, don’t want to make or run a blog. Others find joy in sharing their rants with like minded friends. In this world where anger against real life happenings almost always accompanies depression and uncertainty, rants against media feel euphoric. Anger makes us happy. Group anger gives us strength. I don’t think I have the right to pull that blanket out from anyone.

So, I end this post having asked questions and answered none. But, it is a post containing thoughts I’ve been meaning to get out for a while now, so I am glad for that chance at least. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to watching my questionable anime.

Thanks for reading.

Anime: Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan (The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.)

| Episode: 31

I’ve posted the latest chapter and it can be read here! I’m finally back with new chapters! I’m on break now, so for the moment I should be able to get them out pretty quickly. I plan to work exclusively on this for like the next week so I can finish it before the deadline, which is August 29th, when the contest ends. I really think it’s going to be a good one, so I hope you guys will like it. Once I complete this, I’ll get back on my other two ongoing works. In an ideal world, I’d like to finish at least my trials series over this two week break, but we’ll see. Anyway, look forward to good stuff over the coming weeks. Thanks as always!

So a well Kaiju is finally getting an anime adaptation. If you’re wondering who this Kaiju is then let me tell you, it’s none other than the legendary Godzilla ( cue japanese man screaming Godzilla). That’s right Godzilla it’s getting an anime adaptation that’s see to arrive next year. The film was written by Gen Urobuchi and will be directed a Kobun Shizuno.

A Website was also created but it’s in japanese (Kanji I believe) so I have no Idea what it says, but there is some dope concept art that has me thinking that it takes place on another planet ( Star Wars music anyone). The film currently had no actual title.

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KageSeries: Land Of Lightning Hoodie

If you wanna show your loyalty to the Village Hidden In The Clouds then this jacket is a must cop (Limited Time Only) 

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