Category Archives: anime

We’re All Stars: Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2

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As a franchise, Love Live! encourages people to be unique and do what they love despite self doubts. That said, I found its third incarnation, Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club to be the first to really shake things up for the franchise. It emphasizes not just uniqueness but also individuality. Its anime utilizes a different art style from the rest. And it’s the first to challenge what it means to be a school idol. Season 2 of the anime brings more of that welcome divergence from the standard, most notably in a message that encourages people to not box themselves in. It’s as if Love Live! Nijigasaki is saying, “In life, there’s no such thing as ‘minor characters.’”

At the end of the first season, Nijigasaki High’s School Idol Club successfully pulled off the School Idol Festival, bringing fun and inspiration to all attendees. Now with newfound fame, the girls want to do even more as school idols. However, a couple new arrivals at Nijigasaki High are looking to shake things up: Zhong Lanzhu from Hong Kong, whose confidence lives up to her immense talent, and Mia Taylor from New York, a young prodigy and professional songwriter. Lanzhu finds the School Idol Club’s desire to treat the fans as equals to be a mistake, and believes that school idols should be about demonstrating to fans that the performers are a level above. Her defiant attitude leads to exploration of unfamiliar territory among the members, each of whom approach the challenge differently. Perhaps the most affected of all is Takasaki Yu, the only member of the club who’s not a school idol, and who has taken up piano as a way to help the other girls and to find herself.

One of the things I greatly enjoy about Season 2 is its celebration of lesser spotlights. To start with, three of the girls (Shizuku, Emma, and Kanata) began as generic “normal-rarity” characters in the first mobile game before being “promoted” to full-on franchise reps, but it doesn’t end there. Throughout the series, they meet and talk with school idols from other schools in the Odaiba area, and all of them are actually other “N girls”—the peers of Shizuku, Emma, and Kanata before Love Live! Nijigasaki came into being. Given life through voice and animation, they go from throwaway characters in a mobile game to people with lives and ambitions of their own.

Takasaki Yu also falls into this idea of elevating characters beyond what they’re “supposed” to be. An unusual presence in Love Live!, Yu is actually based on the player character from the second mobile game, Love Live! School Idol Festival All Stars. There, she has neither a default name or a character design—both came as a result of the Love Live! Nijigasaki anime. In Season 1, she more or less fills this role of audience insert/support, but Season 2 makes a concerted effort to flesh out Yu by giving her struggles and conflicts all her own. Together, both Yu and the N girls bring about this sense that everyone has their own journey.

The Nijigasaki Idol Club’s school idols do have the biggest spotlight, but even their stories end up being about taking the path that brings you joy, and to hell with sticking with what “suits you best.” This philosophy comes into play with Lanzhu, Mia, and especially a third new girl named Mifune Shioriko, but it also echoes across the club—and the anime—as a whole. Notably, whereas the other Love Live! anime make getting into and competing in the titular Love Live! national school idol tournament, it’s more of a background element here. The many performances throughout the season end up acting as culminations of personal and interpersonal growth, rather than a showcasing of talent and showmanship progress as idols.

Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2 places greater attention paid to what would otherwise be less prominent characters. It also introduces new characters as a way to challenge notions of what a school idol is supposed to be like. Then, it looks at the expected goal of school idols, and turns that on its head too. Over and over, this anime expresses how there is no one-size-fits-all approach to passion, and that passion need not be precluded by having the accepted forms of talent. Because of all these qualities, I find Nijigasaki to be perhaps the most encouraging Love Live! of all. Plenty of fiction talks about the importance of being yourself, but this feels special nevertheless. That message is expressed with a powerful sense of grace and caring that leaves a lasting impression.

The Musician and the Mastermind: Ya Boy Kongming!

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Ya Boy Kongming! is an anime with the most absurd, yet perfect premise: What if legendary Chinese Three Kingdoms–era tactician Zhuge Liang was reincarnated in modern-day Shibuya, and became the manager of a fledgling musician? The concept is relatively succinct and easy to envision, though it feels like it could lose steam pretty quickly. But that’s why Ya Boy Kongming! is all the more impressive: Where it truly shines is in taking what could be a one-note gimmick and executing it in a way that feels fun, uplifting, and never stale.

Based on a manga, the Japanese title for this series is Paripi Koumei. The former word is short for “Party People,” i.e. people who like to get out and live it up, and the latter is the Japanese pronunciation of “Kongming,” Zhuge Liang’s courtesy name.

There’s a basic formula to Ya Boy Kongming!: Tsukimi Eiko—the aspiring singer—faces a challenge that can further her career or sink it. There are rival musicians looking to get ahead of themselves, and they seemingly have Eiko outgunned in every way. However, Kongming’s brilliance comes through, and using tactics inspired by his most brilliant ideas as found in Records of the Three Kingdoms, he helps Eiko overcome all obstacles. It’s reminiscent of a series like the mahjong manga Akagi, both in getting to see a genius on display and the fact that prior knowledge of the central focus (Chinese history in this case) isn’t required. It’s also charmingly lighthearted: Seeing one of Kongming’s famed stratagems in the context of exploiting the architecture of a Shibuya night club, for instance, is a great blend of silly and compelling. 

If it remained rigid in its format, Ya Boy Kongming! would be a quirky little thing that people can point to as an example of how wacky anime can get. But what the series also does to remain engaging is to give its characters a real sense of growth. This applies not only to Eiko and others she meets in her journey, but also to Kongming himself. Whereas Eiko is on a journey to stand on bigger stages and sing her heart out, Kongming is all about wanting to change the world in a time of peace rather than war. 

The show also just looks and sounds good. The art style is conventional, yet still charming. Eiko’s songs are beautiful and properly convey her as a hidden gem to whom Kongming is rightfully devoted. The themes are actually covers of popular club songs, which fits the series to a tee, and has helped Ya Boy Kongming! reach beyond a niche audience.

Applying war tactics to a music career reminds me of something I’ve heard often, which is that all businessmen should read Sun Tzu’s Art of War. The difference is that CEOs reading about how to be brutally efficient in war sounds like everything that is wrong with the world we live in, whereas Kongming’s gentle applications of theory in this specific context are fun and never void of human decency. It’s that gentleness and purity of premise that allows Ya Boy Kongming! to be both eminently memeable and fully capable of standing on its own legs. It possesses both fluff and substance, and watching it makes me feel better about the world.

Dance Dance Danseur, Ted Lasso, and Healing Masculinity

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There’s a problem when it comes to toxic masculinity, and I don’t just mean that it exists. Rather, the recurring issue is the fact that it gets easily misconstrued by detractors as meaning “masculinity is inherently toxic,” which then gets extrapolated to be an insult towards men as a whole and an attempt at widespread emasculation. The counter to that erroneous view is to point towards non-toxic examples of masculinity, but often they exist in the abstract. Recently, however, I’ve watched two shows, one anime and one American live-action, that go beyond toxic masculinity or even non-toxic masculinity, all the way to what I’d call “healing masculinity.” Those are Dance Dance Danseur and Ted Lasso.

To clarify a key definition to start, toxic masculinity mainly refers to the damage done to men and those around men by the dread of not living up to societal standards of manhood. “Boys don’t cry” is the classic example, as is the general reluctance to open up to others emotionally out of fear of being vulnerable. Dance Dance Danseur and Ted Lasso each address this in somewhat different ways, but the result is encouragement for guys to not be held back by what men are “supposed” to be like.

Dance Dance Danseur takes a more overt approach to addressing toxic masculinity. Its main character, Murano Jumpei, is a boy who fell in love with ballet when he was little. However, a combination of seeing other boys ridicule the style and his own wish to live up to the memory of his martial arts actor father leads him to suppress this passion—and take up Jeet Kune Do instead. It’s only after a female classmate notices that Jumpei’s supposedly kung fu–influenced spins look suspiciously like ballet moves that he sets back on the path of his true love. Even after starting practice, Jumpei initially tries to keep his training a secret for fear of his friends knowing, but he’s forced to confront the fact that maybe they’re just close-minded, and directly deal with their preconceived notions.

Jumpei carries a lot of classically “manly” traits. He’s loud and aggressively outgoing, and he’s very athletic. His love of ballet is expressed the same way a guy might get excited about his favorite sports team or band. However, instead of trying to play off these emotions, he embraces them even to the point of tears—all while his peers remain in their proverbial boxes.

Ted Lasso addresses toxic masculinity less directly, but arguably provides a more robust counterexample to it. Its eponymous protagonist is a successful small-time American football coach who gets hired to instead work with a soccer/association football team despite his utter lack of experience or knowledge in the latter. The English team he ends up with is full of all the expected problems: egos, lack of mutual respect, and a recent history of failure. But rather than trying to whip them into shape like a drill sergeant, Ted Lasso encourages his players to share their feelings and to develop camaraderie through emotional bonding—even the most hypermasculine among them.

Ted’s own personality is cheerful, laid-back, and optimistic to a fault (which does come into play as a point of contention). When it comes to leading by example, though, he excels and gradually changes the way his players see themselves, the sport of soccer, and their world. And while his attitude might appear to make him a pushover, Ted is anything but. He will step up to others, not out of excessive tough-guy pride, but instead a desire to lift up others in pain. This applies to his coaching style as well: Ted’s main drive isn’t wins and losses, but to make everyone on the team the best versions of themselves.

Both Jumpei and Ted remind me a bit of Guy Fieri, a figure who helped make cooking “okay” for a lot of guys. Beyond that kind of “dude-safe” presentation, however, what I think contributes to them being strong models for a less damaging conception of masculinity is that they try to aid others find their own ways out of their own trauma, all the while being far from infallible. Their approaches to life don’t come without setbacks: Jumpei’s hot headedness gets him into plenty of trouble, and Ted’s American Midwestern positivity can sometimes leave certain problems unanswered. Yet, both are able to help others by being supportive, defiant, imperfect, and vulnerable. They provide a form of masculinity that isn’t just neutral but actually heals.

Ikura NanDemo: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for July 2022

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I would love if the only thing on my mind was the summer anime season that’s just beginning. There are plenty of shows I’m looking forward to, but the news coming out the US Supreme Court is just too dire to ignore, especially this close to July 4. A lot of people are going to get hurt because of the family planning services denied to them, and the very fact that we’re seeing an established civil right being taken away is truly disheartening—though I choose not to give up hope.

Recently, I’d been watching old clips of George Carlin, and there’s a line that stuck with me that rings with the painful truth about the Conservative mindset in America: “If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re pre-school, you’re fucked.” It drives home the fact that we’re forcing babies into a world that doesn’t give a damn about them; otherwise, we’d have reliable healthcare and infrastructure that prioritizes bringing people out of poverty instead of acting like all the suffering the poor have to endure is somehow deserved.

Readers might be wondering if I’m going too far off track from the core focus of this anime blog. To that, I say: While there is no inherent political direction to anime, with works that go in every direction on the political spectrum, there is a strong and complex history of feminism through anime and manga that has helped to shape the lives of adults and children around the world. How many, including myself, were inspired to see the notion of women as heroes in a new light through shows like Sailor Moon? What about the fact that there was an episode of Hugtto Precure! dedicated to addressing the stigma towards C-sections in Japan, or how Delicious Party Precure has a non-cisgender character? Even something decidedly more horny and muddled in its politics like Darling in the Franxx portrays a world where pregnancy is controlled against people’s wills, and the main couple can’t actually have children.

Remember: You can be morally against abortion but still be in favor of bodily autonomy. It’s about leaving the choice up to the person whose body has fundamentally changed due to pregnancy.

As with every month, I’d like to thank my Patreon subscribers, particularly these fine folks below.

General:

Ko Ransom

Diogo Prado

Alex

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

Blog highlights from June:

If You Love Literature and Violence, Gimme a Hell Yeah—Hibiki: How to Become a Novelist

I finally got around to reviewing a really great manga about Japanese literature, and it’s one that comes with no shortage of pleasant surprises.

A Deluge of Riches: Super Robot Wars 30

At long last, my actual review of Super Robot Wars 30.

Hololive Alternative, TakaMori, and the Speed of Memes

A post that talks about Virtual Youtubers, but also the way that information changes so quickly in that world.

Kio Shimoku

Kio Shimoku’s Twitter this past month was pretty light, but I definitely enjoyed finding out his thoughts on various movies, both anime and non-anime.

I also got to ask him about his participation in a Star Wars artbook.

Closing

I know many in the US are feeling like their votes don’t matter—otherwise, this stripping of civil rights would never have happened. And indeed, voting is very limited in what it can accomplish. It can be disappointing to see those with greater influence, especially politicians, not do enough to exert more lasting change. However, to not vote at all is to concede a very fundamental power. And while it may seem like a drop in the bucket, the consequences of its utter absence will be far deeper and suffocating. Please don’t give up.

A Deluge of Riches: Super Robot Wars 30

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When I first began playing Super Robot Wars 30, I wanted to write a review immediately, but I decided against it because I wanted to complete one run of the game to get a fuller impression. Now, nearly 200 hours of playtime later, I have the opposite problem. There’s so much in here that I feel like I have more I’ve forgotten than I’ve remembered. I’ve already given my thoughts on certain specific elements of the series, including DLC packs 1 and 2, the way the game handles the Gaogaigar storyline, and the attack aesthetics of the Ultimate Dancouga unit, but here, I just want to lay out my broader impressions.

Super Robot Wars 30 is named as such not because it’s the 30th game but because it’s to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the franchise. To that end, there are a number of callbacks to its roots, from the fact that you can use the original RX-78-2 Gundam to specific guest characters making appearances. The roster is no mere nostalgia dive, though, as it consists of plenty of series old and new—both in terms of the release date of the source material from which these mecha come from and when they first appeared in SRW in general. L-Gaim and Victory Gundam are two franchise veterans making long awaited reappearances, while J-Decker, SSSS.Gridman, and Knights & Magic make their mainline debuts here.

Having lots of series is always an overall good thing for SRW, but I got decision paralysis when thinking about which units to deploy on multiple occasions. I’d want to bring out anyone who might be plot-relevant for a stage or at least have interesting dialogue with boss characters, but that didn’t always narrow it down. I’d waffle between doing what’s beneficial strategically and what’s cool thematically, and this might have made an already long game take even longer. It’s to some degree a curse that I accept with the blessing of a robust roster.

There is so much content in SRW30 that it can be overwhelming. While many missions are optional and a lot can be played out of order, I was struck by a sense of FOMO many times. What funny stories are on this stage? How did these characters get together? As someone who wants to revel in that fanfiction-esque lore, skipping felt wrong. 

One problem with that, however, is that every so often, I’d trigger a compulsory mission, whereby the intermission screen flashed red and locked me into a specific next plot-relevant stage. I don’t mind their presence so much as that the game itself never really explains what trips them off. I specifically remember playing some EXP-farming missions (called “Fronts” in the menu), not realizing that doing so meant I didn’t get to see how the sixth member of Team Rabbits from Majestic Prince joins. 

The game feels like it was designed to be fairly lenient, as if it was assuming that SRW30 would be a lot of people’s first Super Robot Wars. This wouldn’t be surprising, given that it’s the first officially translated SRW game to show up internationally on Steam. Even at the hardest difficulty (at least originally), it was possible to upgrade and improve your units to brute force your way through. They would later add a “super expert” mode that put it closer in line to a classic SRW experience, but having a really tough game isn’t necessarily what I want or expect, and the initial absence of a hardcore mode isn’t really an issue to me. 

Rather, if there’s any major criticism I have of the gameplay, it’s the lack of stage variety. There are a number of levels that have specific win conditions, but they felt too few and far between, and even they felt like they came from a general template. On top of that, for whatever reason, SRW30 refuses to take advantage of a classic system that is literally built into the game: terrain differences. In many SRW entries, there are stages with bases or areas where units can recover HP while on top of them (usually 30%). They usually exist in missions where you have to defend an area, or perhaps they’re being used by a stubborn boss that you have to dislodge. However, not a single stage I played had any such spots, even when it would make sense both gameplay- and story-wise.

A Final Dynamic Special—usually a combination attack with Mazinger and Getter robots, would have been nice too. Given the anniversary theme of the game, I’m surprised it didn’t include one.

I think this review may come across as more negative than I actually feel about the game. I think that’s simply because the game is so long that it took me months and months to complete, and my view is tinged by a patina of fatigue. SRW30 has a lot to offer, especially from a mecha fanservice perspective, and it feels satisfying to successfully utilize your units’ strengths and mitigate their weaknesses through smart play. I just wish there were more opportunities to do that.

Hololive Alternative, TakaMori, and the Speed of Memes

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Hololive Alternative is a 2d animation project depicting the Virtual Youtubers of Hololive as active characters within a world. Two “teasers” are out currently, and they’re a treat for fans and newcomers alike. But while watching the second, the depicted interaction between Takanashi Kiara and Mori Calliope made me hyper-aware of how internet culture and its memes evolve at lightning speeds.

Kiara the Phoenix and Calliope the grim reaper are both part of HoloMyth, the Hololive brand’s first foray into the English-speaking market. Early on in their careers, they were known for having a rather flirtatious and tsundere-esque relationship, which in turn spawned the ship known as TakaMori. It was a prominent part of both character identities—even making it into Can You Do the Hololive?, a song based on all the members’ signature greetings. In it, Kiara states, “Of course the two of us come together,” and Calli responds, “Shut your mouth, Kusotori [Stupid Chicken].” 

Similarly, the second Hololive Alternative teaser shows the two eating together. Kiara eagerly takes photos of everything (Calli included), and the reaper responds by grabbing her scythe and taking swipes at Kiara. The whole interaction describes the original basis for TakaMori to a tee. 

The only problem: the nature of the pairing has changed over time. It still has fans, of course, and the two even recently had an in-person stream together that was made all the more impressive by the fact that one had to travel from Japan to Austria. However, both Kiara and Calli have talked about the fact that they decided to emphasize their solo identities more. The fans in the Youtube comments for that collaboration have remarked even on how the duo’s dynamic has changed (and arguably for the better).

Granted, this isn’t quite the same as a meme naturally morphing into something unrecognizable. The fact is, one can point to a conscious decision as the reason TakaMori isn’t quite the same as it used to be: a purposeful shift in direction. Nevertheless, it feel indicative of the rapid pace at which VTuber in-jokes are formed feels indicative of the general speed of the current internet. In contrast, elaborate animations—even short ones like the teasers for Hololive Alternative—take time to be made. In that gap, the ground shifted underneath TakaMori, and its depiction in animated form can feel like a relic of the past. In reality, it’s only been a little over a year, but the fact that a year sounds like forever in VTuber time makes that difference all the more stark. Online empires rise and fall in less time, and I have to wonder what else might end up coming across as a “yesteryear meme” by the time the next teaser is done.

The Moving Goalposts of Integration: Messy Roots

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Messy Roots: A Memoir of a Wuhanese American is an autobiographical comic by Laura Gao. It tells the story of her coming to the United States at a young age and growing up with the competing influences of Chinese and (predominantly white) American culture. It’s another story about the Asian diaspora, with the author’s Wuhanese roots making it all the more striking in this current health and political environment. Although the story isn’t specifically about COVID-19-derived discrimination, it shows how the seeds of that racism were already planted amidst a more personal story of joy, sorrow, identity crisis, and self-acceptance.

The comic goes through Laura’s life from early childhood all the way through college. Along the way, she runs into the conflict of wanting to hold onto certain aspects of her Wuhanese roots that are discouraged by her parents while also looking to reject or minimize those which her parents want her to maintain. Traveling back to Wuhan at different stages of her life and feeling the increasing disconnect with her original home contributes to the fear of being neither Chinese enough or American enough to satisfy either side, while also feeling that leaning too far in one direction is also considered a mistake.

These feelings hit me right in the chest. There’s a moment early on in Messy Roots, where Laura brings lunch from home. When her classmates blanch at her dumplings and call them “stinky,” I could feel myself yelling in my head, “HOW DARE YOU? Your sandwiches or whatever are clearly nothing compared to what she gets to bring.” I love all foods, including White American food of the typical variety, but that stigmatizing of delicious homemade dumplings actually made me mad for Laura. The notion of people finding certain foods’ cultures inherently smelly is a recurring issue, I find.

Conversely, Laura joins the basketball team as a way to fit in with her American peers, but when she ends up wanting to quit due to unpleasant events at school and informs her parents about it, they fail to provide the support she’s looking for. Rather than asking if she’s okay, her dad talks about the money they’ve sunk into her basketball hobby that has now been wasted. That sense of your family’s culture prioritizing the value of the activity over the feelings of the individual is simply too real. 

One aspect of the Asian-American experience that’s expressed well is the fear of being a “FOB,” the fear of being a naive bumpkin. When I was young, it wasn’t all that uncommon to hear Asian kids making the distinction between FOBs and non-FOBS, and at the time, I didn’t realize how deeply toxic that mindset is. I never had to learn English as a second language, so I don’t relate directly to my peers treating me like a complete outsider due to an accent, but damn if some of them didn’t try anyway. I should have known better, and I really didn’t care about what those kinds of kids thought about me, yet something about that mindset must have gotten internalized in me. Seeing Laura depict it getting called out was a welcome jolt.

Messy Roots makes me realize that certain feelings I find bubbling inside of me are not all that unusual. The feeling of wanting to escape or move past cultures because you’re being suffocated on all sides by them, only to circle back around to later in life and try to build back the bridges that were left neglected? It’s something I can definitely relate to. 

Messy Roots ends up having a lot in common with other stories about the Asian diaspora in North America, such as Himawari House, Turning Red, and American Born Chinese—but I find that rather than feeling “samey,” it’s a reminder to me that these shared experiences can help us Asians be conscious of a mutual understanding and empathy when it comes to navigating our circumstances. We’re even seeing these points of connection transcend generations, as Laura makes specific mention of reading Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, and it having an influence on her. I hope Messy Roots and the others help to carry this legacy forward, and influence the next generations for the better.

Miscellaneous Notes

Wuhanese very much feels like a middle point between Northern and Southern Chinese languages. It seems to carry aspects of both, which isn’t surprising. However, I never knew much about Whan before, and so it makes me want to learn more. Incidentally, a martial arts instructor/scholar I watch on YouTube is also from Hubei Province, where Wuhan is located.

I appreciate all the off-brands used throughout Messy Roots. My favorite is “Royal Danks” [sic]. That sense of disappointment when trying to find cookies (only to see sewing supplies inside that familiar blue tin) is a part of my soul. My earliest memories of butter cookie containers is that they never had cookies.

Love Live! and Playing with Canon through Songs

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In Love Live! Nijigasaki High School Idol Club Season 2, the character Takasaki Yu struggles to write a song for her friends in the club to perform. When she finally finishes it, the song is revealed to be “TOKIMEKI Runners,” a piece that celebrates the individuality of each member. In the context of this anime, it’s a new creation, but in terms of the actual real-world release schedule, it was actually their first. It makes me think about how Love Live! has these funny divergences between versions of the same groups, and the pliability of its story as a result.

Similar situations occur in the first Love Live! anime. For instance, the very first song they perform is “START:DASH!!,” but the actual first single was “Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE.” In the former case, the school idol club was a mere three members at the start. In the latter case, the group already has all nine members. In fact, in the anime, “Bokura no LIVE Kimi to no LIFE” is performed only when the full team has assembled. Rather than it being the introduction to Love Live! that it was conceived as, it serves as a culmination and turning point. 

While there are versions that have come first, like the singles for OG Love Live! and a mobile game for Nijigasaki, they hold no special authority over the fandom. Materials are there to be used in whatever way fits. Old songs become new. New songs become old. Character qualities that are developed over time by the voice actors/singers in one iteration might be presented as long-established in another. In essence, I’m a fan of the fact that there’s not really a specific “canon” other than the broad strokes.

Against the Barrel: Ogiue Maniax Status Update for June 2022

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I have to admit that the world feels overwhelming. If it’s not COVID rates ticking up, it’s deadly shootings and war and racism and the fact that these things are all tied together. As an anime blogger, I also think about these things in relation to entertainment, and in light of recent events, we’re seeing old boogeymen like “violent video games” being brought up. I remember those conversations from two decades ago, and though my perspective has changed from childhood to adulthood, I’m not so naive as to think that the root cause is violent entertainment. Rather, it’s at best a symptom of a deeper problem—that power is conflated with self worth, and that gun lobbyists want men to feel that threat of emasculation so badly that they’re willing to go to extremes.

I’m not someone who believes that glorifying violence in entertainment is inherently a problem. I like my action series plenty, and even if something like sports can be argued to be a conduit for aggression, I don’t think that it’s automatically going to lead to the kind of mind-poisoning we’re seeing from cultures that refuse to confront their own pasts. As long as media can be media and not propaganda, even the most depraved depictions of human behavior can have a place. If fiction is the only alternative for someone to find themselves comfort, that’s not the fault of the fiction.

On a less somber note, I’d like to thank the following Patreon subscribers:

General:

Ko Ransom

Diogo Prado

Alex

Dsy

Sue Hopkins fans:

Serxeid

Hato Kenjirou fans:

Elizabeth

Yajima Mirei fans:

Machi-Kurada

Blog highlights from May:

Lots of Brain with a Bit of Heart: Combat in Girls und Panzer das Finale

A review of sorts for GIrls und Panzer das Finale, especially Part 2, but more of an analysis of how combat is portrayed in the series.

Ultimate Dancouga in Super Robot Wars 30 Is Quintessential Obari Masami

How this particular SRW30 DLC captures the essence of its original creator.

The Tools to Express Yourself: Blue Period

Thoughts on the moving story of a guy who’s suddenly inspired to become an artist.

Apartment 507

Why Zhong Lanzhu makes Love Live! better by being a heel.

Looking at the way the English translation of Spy x Family adapts Anya’s kid speech.

Kio Shimoku

Kio Shimoku’s Twitter was full of design drawings for Hashkko Ensemble. There’s a lot of insight into his early decisions for the manga.

Closing

I’m going to leave off on a nicer and more personal not: I finally beat Super Robot Wars 30! It only took…200 hours. I want to write an overall review of it, but part of me wonders if all the existing posts might be enough.

The Tools to Express Yourself: Blue Period

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When I was in art school, I often heard a recurring sentiment from my fellow students: “If people can understand even 10% of the message my piece conveys, I would be happy.” Though we differed in style, talent, skill, and experience, there was a mutual desire to have we put into our work to make it to those viewing it. So when I began reading the fine arts–themed manga Blue Period, and the main character starts to cry after his friends “get” his drawing of Shibuya at dawn, it brought me back to those younger days. It also told me that this manga really understands the struggle that artists have with themselves and their work.

Blue Period is the story of Yaguchi Yatora, a contradictory “academically successful delinquent” whose social and school careers are both solid. However, Yatora is prone to being the person others want him to be, and he lacks personal motivation. When a chance encounter with an older female classmate’s large-canvas artwork fills him with inspiration to try making something himself, it leads Yatora to start down the path of applying to art school despite his parents’ wishes. As a total beginner with certain expectations placed upon him by friends and family, the walls he must surmount are tremendous.

It’s rare for manga and anime about artists to actually be about art; most of the time, it’s really just a motif to convey drama and/or comedy. This is a fine approach, and some of my favorite series fall under this umbrella—Hidamari Sketch and Honey and Clover stand out. But like Blank Canvas, Blue Period takes a more serious approach, delving deep into the “art” of art, so to speak. From theory and experimentation to the emotional roller coaster that comes from thinking you’re hot stuff one day and hot garbage the next, I can speak from personal experience that what’s portrayed is all too real.

While Blue Period does approach the subject of art very seriously, this doesn’t mean it’s a dry and boring instruction manual. The characters and their stories are some of the best parts of the series, and I find myself drawn to most of them. Yatora himself is quite rare in terms of protagonist types because being a successful yet directionless individual is not the kind of conflict you see too often, and the rest of the cast feels like three-dimensional individuals living their lives, whether they appear a lot or a little. Whether it’s Yuka’s gender-nonconformity riling their parents up, Kuwana being pressured by the artistic pedigree of her family, or even Yotasuke’s reasons for being an artist clashing with Yatora’s, their world and their emotions feel real.

Blue Period is the kind of series I enjoy most: one where character interactions are robust and powerful. In that sense, it reminds me of Kio Shimoku’s work in certain ways. Notably, Blue Period is actually serialized in Monthly Afternoon (home to Genshiken and Hashikko Ensemble), which makes me think the similar vibes are less a coincidence and more a general editorial emphasis.

I’ve both watched the anime and read the manga, and while they largely tell the same story, they each have a particular feeling that makes them not quite 1:1. The anime has the advantage of portraying things in color instead of black and white, which makes the artwork feel more like how you’re “supposed” to see it. The pacing is also such that the human drama is emphasized. The manga has one obvious edge in that it goes past the anime, but even putting that aside, there’s more to it. The manga lingers more on the art and its characters’ internal worlds more, and the rougher artwork has an appeal all its own. In short, the anime feels like it emphasizes the interpersonal more, whereas the manga is more about the internal. 

One theme that comes up in Blue Period is the way that making art can be very revealing about oneself, and willingly exposing your deepest self to the world can be intimidating. Seeing Yatora and the others so hard at work reminds me about my own journey and process, namely that I wasn’t half as dedicated as these characters are. Blue Period may be making me confront my own inadequacies and regrets, and I can’t help but feel that itch to start making art again, if only to address those unresolved emotions.