I really don’t know how this post is going to end. But at the least, I know how it’s going to start. I had heard of Clannad, but I was avoiding watching it, because something about the title made me think that it was an isekai or something set in medieval times, and I’m really not too keen on those kinds of anime. But then I found out it’s nothing like that, and I watched it. Or some of it. I put it on hold after fifteen episodes because I have… Read More »Clannad
I hate anime dubs. I mean I really can’t stand them. I’ve tried to watch one or two, and I always end up dropping it after a few episodes. Subtitles are far better in my opinion. Is this because I’m an elitist who thinks that the anime is only good in its native language? Well… that’s true, but that’s not why I hate anime dubs. It’s close, but not really. Is it because I’m upset at the localizers for fucking up the dubs? Well, I am, but that’s not why… Read More »Why I Hate Anime Dubs
So it’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve finally processed my feelings on “Love Live” and similar anime, and now I will inflict it on you, who may even read this. Anyone who’s watched anime for any length of time knows that there are a few different broad classes of anime. There’s “Slice of Life” anime, there’s “Cute Girls doing Cute Things” anime, there’s “High School Rom-Com”, there are the action “Shounen” anime which involve a lot of fighting and girls with unrealistic bodies, Shoujo anime which involve… Read More »Liminal Anime
This will be another of those posts where I intend to take full advantage of the fact that no one reads this. As you might have gathered from the last few posts, “Love Live” hit me hard. The thing about that is, there’s no obvious reason why that should be the case. I’m a middle-aged guy from Texas who has about as little to do with the lives of even an ordinary Japanese schoolgirl, much less a group of them that are involved in a “school idol project”, as a… Read More »Happiness
Anime sometimes makes me think. Most of the time, I don’t think it’s supposed to, being honest. I think it’s generally supposed to be light entertainment, or tell a story, or basically fill the same role that live-action TV does in the west. I think it may be a character flaw of mine that I think as hard on it as I do, and I’m pretty sure that most of the time, this makes me something of an outlier at best, and a pariah at worst. Nonetheless, it does. It… Read More »Sadness, Depression, and Hope
The thing that got me into anime (after mostly eschewing it for years) was the OP for “Oshi No Ko”, “Idol”, by Yoasobi. I didn’t even encounter it on its own at first, I saw a music youtuber analyzing it, and thought it was so amazing I listened to it, and have probably listened to it hundreds of times since. It’s amazing, not just because of the music, but because of how real it is. When I first got into Japanese media, it was through Morning Musume, which is an idol… Read More »Idol
Or, I finally found a reason to learn Japanese. One thing I’ve noticed as I study Japanese is that the translators often aren’t very good. They tend to make choices that seem designed to water down the message the mangaka is trying to send half the time. For example, one of the first animes I watched was “Sound! Euphonium” which was a great anime, one of the best. At one point there was an interaction between Kumiko and Asuka. Kumiko says something translated correctly as “Welcome back” or some such. … Read More »Good Riddance to Bad Localizers
Hi! It’s been a while since I posted here, so I have a lot to say. Truth be told, I don’t really think I’m fond of the blogging method of expressing myself, but I haven’t come up with anything better yet. I’m working on it, though! First, an update. The Lily project (https://lovelylilylives.com, in case you didn’t know) is almost a year old now! In that time, the story has progressed from a sweet but confused girl who didn’t know who she was, to a sweet but confused girl who… Read More »The Three Japanese Cultures
There have been, and are, several reasons for this site. But I think ultimately the reason I created and still write in this site is to help me work out stuff by writing, and I just so happen to do it publicly sometimes. I need to do that now. So, here we go. If I were to give a word to how I have felt throughout my entire life, I think I would use the word “isolation”. The Japanese word “gaijin” really does encompass in many ways how I feel… Read More »Alien (Gaijin)
So as y’all may know, I’m currently working on another site called Texihabara. It’s kinda lame right now, but I’m actually really pleased with the framework I’ve built, I think I can add to it to make it something special. I just have to figure out what “special” means. However, I decided it needed a mascot. So, after a google search, I went to Etsy and found an anime artist (I will not name him on this site, but you can find a link to him on Texihabara’s legal page here if… Read More »My Experience Commissioning an Custom Anime Figure