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Now that Far Cry 5 is out, I’ve been looking up cutscenes of the hot-bod priest sama and his demented congregation. There is considerable visual tension between the pastorly calm of his spectacles and his Russian-mobster chest, enough to play with ideas of that old stereotype about grannies saying he was “too genteel to do this or that shit” – the unnervingly calm villain – even when he is raving about some Book of Revelations type spiel. I like it. Very cool, and (more importantly) marketably cool. Menacing enough of a charismatic villain for people who do not know how villainy or charisma manifests ... itself in the real world – and he has enough poses for action figures.

The protagonist of Fire Punch starts out as an incest-mongering siscon wrapped in the flames of God’s eternal curse, and the suffering of the world. I think he’d make a good action figure, but no marketing team will ever take him into consideration because they do not want sister-fuckers on the shelves. Backstory aside, he has a kinda bland personality. Then, he is joined by your lovable meta-commentative immortal psychopath – a wannabe film director and film buff who wants to make the best B-movie revenge plot out of siscon Human Torch, and maims and destroys as many tropes as bad guys. The world around them is sketched in loving detail by mangaka Fujimoto Tatsuki. This is his personal vision and he gives no fucks about linearity, but rather intends to throw in as many subversions, dour social commentary, and cool action scenes as possible in the span of 80 chapters. Fire Punch is – as a result – what I would label ‘unmarketably cool’. While Far Cry 5 idealizes a real world premise to turn it comic-book – Fire Punch starts from the perspective of comic book, and then slowly inserts humanity in, until you realize that mankind is violent slapstick and nobody is laughing in the end. The latter approach, I feel, has more balls because it shows all the cards, the artifice, and then fucks you later with the shiv hidden under the table. Of course, the result is you have most readers crying about the ‘train-wreck’ that the manga is in the forums. Once again, proof that no action-figures will be made of siscon Human Torch.

Although, ultimately, Fire Punch edgecore maximus that pales in comparison to a lot of other stuff (wait for Dan Schneider’s corpus for how to do truly mature edge and grit) – I do enjoy it because it has the special kind of edge that feels earnest, and when it goes all the way, it goes all the way. No half-measures here. None of the silly pretense. Crazy entertainment might as well be this crazy.

“Come, gather and bear witness to my opera, now in the making. Its script is the height of cliché, I am forced to admit. And yet... Its actors are of the finest fold; beyond exquisite. Thus, I believe you will find it enthralling”
- Mercurius, Dies Irae

For anyone who liked Re;Creators, go experience Dies Irae. Ignore the crappy anime version and get the 50-hour Visual Novel. Don’t ask questions. Don’t look at spoilers. Just go play it. Now.

There are a lot of flaws with Re;Creators. The setting is dubious at parts. Some character’s decisions are questionable. The protagonist is kind of an annoying wimpy kid. There’s a ... lot of handwaving, deus-ex-machina-ing etc... And, the characters don’t exactly reach the “finest fold” that Dies Irae reaches. Yet, I am going to posit something very paradoxical. It is PRECISELY because of its flaws, that Re;Creators is amazing. When you think about what “acceptance” means within the world of Re;Creators, and what it means to sustain “acceptance” amongst an audience – and when you take into account the entirety of the journey – suddenly something amazing happens. The anime itself becomes the very PROOF of that idea of “acceptance”.

Because none of the story worlds that the characters come from are adequately explained, this allows them to manifest any power that the show sees fit. By the end, it has reached proportions of insanity which SHOULD break one’s suspension of disbelief. If such a show were any normal battle show, the audience SHOULD be rolling their eyes already.

Yet, compared to other battle shows, we don’t roll our eyes. We don’t because the show plays with boundaries, and because the show knows that it is animation – which is a lie that can be enforced through sheer force of image.

In other words – while shows normally invokes metafiction to criticize or satirize a story – to break down the parts of it and create irony. In other words, to break down the foundation of the story. Re;Creators uses metafiction to MAINTAIN THE FOUNDATION OF RE:CREATORS. Without the metafictional element, we would NOT BELIEVE THE WORLD OF RE;CREATORS. It shows us reality to ENFORCE THE ILLUSION.

That is exactly proof of “acceptance”. This is the insane paradox that the show itself admits, and uses with utmost sincerity – despite being full of ironies as well.

And, in this way, the entire show becomes a thematic loop from start to finish. Its flaws are the very proof of the struggles of the creator characters within the anime itself. Suddenly, it feels that the work has an amazing beating heart – and one of the best love letters to the entire industry itself. It is a work that could only exist as animation.

I give this work a 9, because without being a 9 it would not be a 10.

I watched this a long time ago /w all of the other Ghibli films, when I was young. Out of all the Ghibli films, Pom Poko is still the work that I have the most memories of (in terms of Miyazaki's work, I remember Kiki the most because it has the best Ghibli loli). In a way, it represents what Ghibli/Miyazaki could have been, but never was - because of their adherence to a certain frame of style. While Takahata's other works, like Grave of the Fireflies & Only Yesterday, were thoroughly grounded in the real world - Pom Poko showed me the possibility of ... a Ghibli fantasy totally drunk off its ass and crass in the best way possible. Ghibli on drugs, in other words, headed by a cast of bawdy Tanuki with their flying ballsacks and mischievous metamorphoses - showing that 'dirtier' aspect of Japanese folklore that was missing even from gory works like Princess Mononoke. Yet, the crassness is never extreme, and there's still great beauty found in it. The Night Parade scene is etched into my visual memory forever due to how exhilirating it is, and even though Satoshi's Kon later take on dream imagery would be more insane and hallucinogenic - I felt that Paprika was lacking considerable... 'heart' I guess? Takahata simply knew better about things like creating a sense of robustness that escapes superficial sheen, or gives the sheen 3-dimensionality.

Speaking of Princess Mononoke, I like the take on environmentalism present in Pom Poko more than anything Miyazaki - because there's a kind of mature balance and lack (or, rather, lessening) of the heavy-handed aspects that frequently drags down other Ghibli works. I like the snarky half-documentary approach that it takes. I like the rough edges more than the cleanliness of your standard Ghibli movie. I love how much they muted any romance aspect or riveting action narrative (even though there is some) in exchange for a more thorough look at a fantastic society. Ethnography over excitement. The jokes are the best kind of slapstick, and they fit the way the bodies bend and warp in infinite transformations. As time goes by, it's Pom Poko and Only Yesterday that ripens beautifully, while the rest of the Ghibli oeuvre starts to seem a bit too sweet for my liking (and Grave of the Fireflies too bitter)

Made in Abyss made me want to write an adventure story. That kind of "spanning across strange environments with a bunch of characters that you care about" kind of story. Too bad I'll actually have to take the time to build up those interesting lands and worlds and all that if I ever want to go beyond it. Probably'll take months.

While not revealing anything of particular depth, the pacing really allows you to breathe in the whole journey, and the art is fancy, and the music is smooth (everyone was gushing over the OST and all that). I also applaud it for having pretty good ... depictions of medical stuff.

Nanachi is peak moe. She'll probably help the studio earn a lot of money through plushie merch.

In terms of adaptation, this is probably one that a lot of people can learn from. How to be faithful, yet also make changes that adds to the whole rather than detracts from it, and how to end a limited arc satisfyingly, when the rest of the series hasn't been completed yet.

Kokkuri-san has better jokes than most other comedy anime, because the main heroine is slightly screwed up in the head, and so she sounds like a Zetsubou-sensei character-lite. Recurring gags have interesting variations. Doesn't really end, but just sort of closes without any resolution, which isn't a big issue for a comedy show except that they hint at some greater stuff going on in the background.

Don't think I ever laughed out loud during this, but I think I giggled.

Something that stuck with me as good was the background art, which was, if I remember, very well painted impressionistic style. Due to the subject matter, it ... had a lot of nature shots & temple shots. There was very atmospheric scene in episode 8.

Pretty damn fun. Damn good show!

There's a bunch of stuff that floated up in the back of my mind when watching, regarding the suspension of disbelief - like how the characters were pulling off all these actions that you'd think would draw more attention, and how the Princess seemed to be able to maneuver so freely without any suspicion being raised - but the first episode has a top-hat Arsene Lupin-esque moegirl using a magical gravity ball to fly around, and she's accompanied by a loli-samurai, so who gives a shit about suspension of disbelief?

Princess Principal is pretty fun, and the episodes are short and full of basic tropes (the ... basic story is Prince and the Pauper + a variety of spy cliches like double-agents and backstabs) cobbled together into something fast-paced, action-packed, and cutesy. The story is well-structured enough such that you aren't lost even if its out of chronological order, which serves no purpose to anything deeper, but is a great display of Ichiro Okouchi's ability to do entertainment pacing. I felt like the episode that stretched things a bit too far from me (and I'm a person who feels like I can suspend my disbelief very easily) is episode seven - but that episode makes up for it by having a chock full of moegirls.

The ending peters out a bit too. It feels to clean, since there's a great change that occurs extremely vast, and is resolved just as fast. Really, it's there to incite quick emotions and give a sense of triumph to the ending.

Animation is stellar. Setting looks cool as hell. Sound is Yuki Kajiura.

If you want crazier spy stuff, just watch the 1967 TV series called The Prisoner - which is actually great, as well as entertaining.

What seems to be a Slice of Life harem show is in actuality a kind of Special Needs PSA using monster girls as a vehicle to explore these themes. Personally, I don't feel it took the premise far enough - given that there is a lot of deeper cultural baggage & mythologies to explore (and a lot of opportunities for higher poesy if the premise were placed in the hands of a person with a higher vision) rather than just treating the monster girls like mutants. The best episodes comes from when it combines Folklore Study with the scientific mindset of Takahashi in order to ... chart out the possible ways that the myth could have come about from the biological deviations that the mutations grant (the Yuki-Onna episode). The Dullahan-Quantum Physics episode was also very interesting, although from what I know they probably got it wrong (I remember reading somewhere that 'observation' in a quantum sense doesn't necessarily refer to human observation). What matters is that they went there - which makes it more adventurous than other shows of its type.

Pretty comfy show, but needs more of a Monogatari Series or Moryou no Hako touch. Themes are normal self-help stuff about finding identity - but its interesting in that it makes a statement about the classmates needing to accept the differences of the Monster Girls rather than trying to 'make them human'.

I guess this would put it on somewhat the same wavelength as something like Zootopia. Tries to go deeper than the novelty of the premise, but requires a true reach into the unknown, subtle, and nuanced in order to escape from its current level.

My first encounter with a Chinese web novel occurred during the study break before my finals. While taking a rest from hitting the books, I randomly decided to search up those web novel authors on Google & I decided to flip through a random novel (I Shall Seal The Heavens) in order to see what that kind of fiction was like.

100 chapters later, I managed to pull myself away from the monitor.

It didn't matter that I was reading it in an awkward translation with no natural flow. In fact, that might have contributed to the speed of it. My mind began to register the content ... rather than the form - and I was sucked into the vortex of power levels, general badassery, stereotypical characters by the boatload, and that sinister but effective weapon known as 'The Cliffhanger'.

I don't even remember any of the events that occurred within story itself. I just remember a flurry of one-ups, cool lines, and quick ascendance. It was less of a novel and more of a giant system created to cradle the attention. And the Chinese are adept at making some absolutely disgusting systems.

The King's Avatar is such a system. Despite knowing full well what to expect - all the power levels & badassery & characters derived from archetypes & hyperbole & Wuxia-derived narrative tricks - something deep inside me was hooked to the point where I completed all 9 episodes in a single go. The act of watching this Chinese anime felt less like watching and more like 'synchronizing rhythms' to some Lovecraftian god far above my level of consciousness. The godlike pace of the web novels, and intricate love for systems were condensed into focused bytes for visual consumption (200 chapters in 9 episodes, so I heard).

Given the sheer amount of Chinese web novels out there, and given the potential mobilization of the humongous populace to become an Animation machine - I say that our future productivity is doomed. Once the web-novel-anime machine comes together, you can expect the world to be plunged into chaos as jobs are neglected and social lives are destroyed.

On the plus side, if the CWNA-machine ousts shows like SA:O & other Isekai type action-based anime from the Japanese industry by out-competing them (as seen from the people already bashing SA:O after coming into contact with this) - then there will probably be a greater orient on this front towards other things. Either that or you can expect more Moe.

Change is coming. Moe is coming. You have been warned.

(As a sidenote - this is also a great way to get people interested Chinese slang & speech styles - although their mainland Chinese way of speaking is a bit hard to parse for a person who sucks at Chinese like me)

We think about life as a story. The politician too – and the gangster. And I would like to believe that both adulterers and the faithful think the same way. Some, perhaps, will make it into a story of triumph. You think, for example, that this isn’t your fate. You have ambitions – and yet you are being tied down to the Earth – to this marriage that you chose out of either some bad circumstance or because you were blind in early love. Either way, the adulterer, wishing to be the hero/heroine of the story, will view it as a conquest of the soul. ... I have to do this, because my life will not be narrowed into such a stupidity.

Why is passion such an old theme? Because love has always been messy – so they say. I have not touched the Tale of Genji yet – supposedly the first psychological novel out there – but I hear that it is a great book on love. From what I know from reading bits and pieces of that Ecchi manga – Minamoto-kun Monogatari – it also seems to be a great book on passion and lust (of course, this could be due to the manga’s exaggerations). Love is one of those old themes that has been dealt with everywhere – in poetry & fiction.

So, Kuzu no Honkai falls into that tradition. I watched the first 4 episodes, the reactions – and I also skimmed the manga so I roughly know what happens next. I would say that it is a story about people who like to tell themselves that they are the hero or heroine in their story of love. Hanabi Yasuraoka (whose beautiful voice sends shivers down my spine thanks to the atmosphere combined with the work of Chika Anzai) – believes that her love is important to the point of self-destruction, and she wishes to escape this pain – either by achieving it or momentarily placing it in someone else. In this case, Awaya Mugi – a boy who also suffers from the same crisis.

I think the animation is exquisite. And I’m not just talking about the very very hot sex. The slow pacing mingles with the OST and voice to ensure that you don’t just see the events as mere events – but you feel them as well. You understand that Hanabi is lovestruck because you see the world in her rose-tinted lenses. And when the bouts of depression or loneliness sinks in – the atmosphere is heavier and anguished.

But, as I said – this is the oldest theme. One of the great examinations of Love in any medium has been pulled off by Woody Allen in his film – Husbands & Wives. In that film – there are two couples. The first couple has decided they want to ‘see separate people’ for a while – the second couple, their friends – are shocked by the news. The first couple has been happily married for a long time. So, to the second couple, the fact that so many years still cannot guarantee a constant love – opens up a massive abyss inside them. They, too, find themselves thinking about seeing other people for once. How everything resolves is surprising, maybe even cynical – and yet completely naturalistic. And Allen’s work is amazing because he never lets his characters find rest in their own story – but he always takes the observational point of view to make fun of them. To tell them how small their passions are. He uses his trademark comedy sometimes – or other times he uses very well-placed ‘documentary footage’ where various of the characters are ‘interviewed’ after the end of the story.

Gonensei is also a good exploration. It deals with the same theme. It is an extremely bitter manga, but at times it is also a romantic one. I have talked about it before in various places. One very good element is the fact that it hides the lead characters’ flaws in the viewpoints and interactions of other characters. It also has some very good use of flashbacks, to show hints of these flaws.

Kuzu no Honkai is beautiful – aesthetically – but where does it fall? It talks about the stories of these people. It talks about these stories as though they were the most important things in the world to them. But a dream is a dream to the extent that there is always a reality to return to. And although there may be women who, for example, are truly manipulative and find joy only in manipulation – and it may be ‘realistic – there are larger larger things in the world. I am one of those who tries to keep a restraint on this word – Realistic – simply because a lot of things can be possible in real life, and to that extent there are many things that can take the moniker of Realism. But there are many people who will be quick to say that something is e.g. ‘real as fuck’ or ‘that’s goddamn real as hell’ – when it is real in the sense that it parallels to the story that they have playing in their own heads.

In this world of stories – and in the world where pattern recognition is a constant thing – you may always have the urge to pull certain thing you see into yourself. This is one of humanity’s oldest weapons. It is called Empathy. But a problem is that Empathy is born from perspective, which may sometimes be limited in its recognition. A happy person will find Hanabi’s struggle to be less ‘real as hell’ than a person who has ‘been through it’. The world is large enough to accommodate both perspectives. Furthermore, a person who has ‘been through it’ and doesn’t want to deal with it anymore may find Kuzu no Honkai ‘real as hell’ but they won’t enjoy it because they don’t want to deal with that shit anymore. And there are also those people who haven’t been through it but they have pre-conceived angsty notions of people and think that this is how it all works.

To the extent that we can feel through these characters – is a limited place to ask questions. Questions like – is this a good story? Does it say anything powerfully human? There are some writers who are totally unreal in their writing – but they capture a kind of mood so well that they get to the essence of something human. Kafka is one of them.

What are the questions that the characters of Kuzu no Honkai poses towards us? What is the meaning of violent passion? The primary worldview of Kuzu no Honkai seems to be that it is a beautiful net. You are dragged into it, and the world becomes brighter, but underneath – it is darker. And there are those who do not wish to be caught – so they become the catcher instead. This is a violent Darwinian kind of perspective where the primary theme is eat or be eaten. The only way to win is not to play. Later events in the ongoing manga seem to support this ‘escape from passion’ as the only way out. Is it Buddhist? I have no clue. But this violence of passion is the underlying worldview.

But, therein lies the problem. It is very easy to write of powerful emotions – and hard to write about an escape from them. To write about powerful emotions, all you have to do is to invoke emotional extremes. War is an emotional extreme. Backstabbing and adultery are emotional extremes. First love is an emotional extreme. Because they are so extreme – there are bound to be people who find them ‘real as hell’ – because we remember our extremes the clearest, while forgetting that our life is built from these extremes and a thousand other smaller thoughts. A writer with more restraint always finds a way to be gentler, subtler, and more analytical in their treatment of a theme. You can look to Woody Allen’s Manhattan – for example – where all these passions and emotions play a part in the work, but it also serves to expand upon the theme of a single person’s idealization of his own life. His idealization of a city and of romantic ambitions. The story he is trapped in and cannot escape from.

To that extent, Kuzu no Honkai is better as a whirlpool for you to be trapped in. It’s a wave of emotion that just keeps on coming, and it uses all the power of Shoujo romantic art to maximize on the force. But, I think a good story has to show you the waves, and then provide you with a shore to stand on – to look at the sun.

Mizukami Satoshi seems to specialize in taking the exact opposite approach compared to a lot of other action story writers. A person focusing on the action would have a betrayal occur to create a reason for one character to fight. Satoshi writes an entire action setting to give a reason for a few characters to have a warm reunion.

Although I believe that Spirit Circle is a work that can be considered one of the most perfect works out there, Sengoku Youko manages to position itself as one of the most satisfying adventure stories out there. In terms of theme and characterization, Sengoku Youko is rawer ... and more loose around the edges, and, if you break it down to its core, it’s action scenes are less about strategy and more about winning through Shounen spirit – but all that is overturned by its sense of scale and adventurous scope.

Sengoku Youko’s story is a story that is split between two protagonists, and involves Gods and beings vaster than anything on the Earth, but it’s mainly about how fun it is to travel with friends that you care about. Separations are only prefaces to future reunions, no matter how heart-breaking they may be. And even if those separations are permanent – memories exist. It has a lot less of the philosophical focus that Spirit Circle can pull off in a mere 40 chapters, but I think writing such a work is important since it allows a writer to stake out a different repertoire. Given that he was writing both works at the same time, it could be that channelling his spirit into this one allowed him to take a more focused approach with the other – but that’s just speculation.

With a laudatory discussion like this though, there has to be a talk about ‘limits’. With Biscuit Hammer, Sengoku Youko, and Spirit Circle, Satoshi has already expended many of the pathways that he’s familiar with. He can no longer tread on familiar ground anymore – that ground being the raw youthfulness and sense of growth that exists in those works. These are the points that will either make or break writers – and I’m really interested to see the continuation.