Forty-fourth week of 2018 edition!
This is a Crow’s eye view of the posts that caught my attention this week. Typically, they’ll be posts that celebrate some aspect of anime, like strong characters, intricate plots, or amazing worlds.
There are only two rules:
- I have to find the site to read it. I publish a list of the sites I review every week, so please do look for your site! If you don’t see it, I’d love for you to mention your site in the comments.
- Your post had to have been published during the last seven days (or so)
Remember, you can find a list of the sites I check every week here.
There’re a lot of good posts in the anime space. I hope this article helps you find some of them!
100 Word Anime
Friday’s Feature: So I Hear You Like Anime…
You know how as you get older, you start to realize that people can be, let’s say, less than open minded? Okay, more like a little crazy? Like, “screaming in your face if you don’t agree with them” crazy? This post from 100 Word Anime explores that idea. Used to be, it might be fun to start up an anime conversation with a stranger. Nowadays? Well, it can be a bit dangerous. It’s to the point where I try not to even bring it up at work! It’s not that I worry about what narrow minded people might think; it’s more that I just want to avoid the hassle. So, did the post’s writer have to endure a public attack? Or maybe find a fellow fan? Have to invest in personal protection? You’ll need to read the article to find out!
BiblioNyan
Diabolik Lovers & the Poisonous Provocation of Rape Culture – Anime Review
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on the state of discourse in social media in general and in the United States in particular. As a theology major, and as someone who tries to understand the world as it is, I buy into the idea that agenda is the enemy of fact. So it’s with mounting frustration that I read attacks on (seemingly) anyone who suggests that something as vile as rape culture is bad. “Oh, you’re just a Social Justice Warrior,” is a common refrain. I remember the life and death battles that accompanied some of the gains we made in terms of social justice at the end of the 1960s. That means I take exception to anyone contravening the idea of “social justice.” How the heck can social justice be a bad thing? How can we dismiss the condemnation of something that deserves condemnation? But that’s not the real question, is it? The real question is how we, as a people, can continue by our inaction to condone the pain and misery this rape culture inflicts on its survivors? To drive home this imperative, this post from BiblioNyan gives us a serious and personal reminder of what’s really at stake — and agenda be damned.
Just a Whole Lot of Weird
Weird’s Top 10 Horror Anime
I kinda feel like I’m out of step with the times. Here it is November 2018, and I haven’t published anything about Halloween 2018! Sigh! Well, to make up for that, I want to share a post that presents 10 top horror anime. I’ve seen a lot of these top x lists for scary anime series, but this one had a delightfully eclectic list of shows. It includes perennial favorites like Shiki and Another, which are almost bellwethers of a good Halloween list. But then there are other lists like this list from Just a Whole Lot of Weird that pleasantly surprised me by going beyond those standards! Of course, I’m not going to spoil the surprise, so please do check out the article and see if you can guess which shows convinced me to include it!
Lita Kino Anime Corner
Strike The Food Banks| Strike The Blood
Did you watch Strike the Blood? It was a harem show around a vampire, the Fourth Progenitor Kojou Akatsuki. I’m pretty picky about my harems. The main character either has to be completely harmless like the well-intentioned but almost helpless Rito Yuuki from To Love-Ru, or they have to be badasses who use their power to express both respect and affection for the women in their lives, like Kogarashi Fuyuzora from Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs. For me, Strike the Blood’s Kojou makes the grade because he seriously wants to be like Kogarashi, and often pulled it off! Fan favorite character Yukina Himeragi more often than not went to great lengths to explain why he was an idiot, but their banter was part of the charm. The show had a lot more going for it, and this article from Lita Kino Anime Corner nails describing what that “lot more” is! What impressed me most about this article? Its recognition of who the best girl really was in the series!
Mechanical Anime Reviews
Whose Traits are Monstrous Anyway?
It’s a common theme in zombie fiction: If society degenerates around you, what are the rules? What traits are desirable or virtuous? Do those concepts even apply? I’ve always loved anime’s ability to explore questions like this, and horror anime series are no exception! So I was really excited to read this post from Mechanical Anime Reviews that explores these questions! It takes three excellent zombie/altered mental state series, School Live, High School of the Dead, and Parasyte: The Maxim, and elucidates what they have to say on the subject. Even more cool? This is actually a meta post that builds on the site’s previous review of each series!