Behind The Nihon Review » royalcrown

Regarding anime relationships

royalcrown — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:40:54 +0000

So I’ve been in the mood for campy character romances after watching Itazura na Kiss, and consequently I’ve been watching quite a bit of shoujo romance. Now to be fair, my threshold for suspension of disbelief in anime is fairly high, but one thing I’ve never been able to completely stomach were the inane love triangles. Granted, I could go on all day about the problems with love triangles as a plot device in anime: the lack of originality, repetitious nature, developmental stagnation, etc ad nauseum. However, for some reason or another, I could always put that criticism in the back of my mind for the sake of enjoyment. The one aspect that I could never deal with, the one glaring problem with love triangles that I could never fully ignore, was the stunning ability of the protagonist to completely ignore the “third wheel” of the triangle. It happens in nearly every love triangle, from Itazura na Kiss (Kotoko ignoring Kinnosuke) to Suzuka (Akitsuki ignoring Honoka)… the list stretches on.

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Concerning Superflat

royalcrown — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 03:53:39 +0000

Yes, I know the topic of moe has been done to death on this blog, but I feel like throwing my two cents in. However, I am shifting the focus a little bit: to the Superflat genre of anime. The Superflat movement is an artsy, postmodern movement that currently receives most attention in the West due to a) pretentious xenophilic art enthusiasts in America, and b) Takashi Murakami’s relationship with Louis Vuitton in designing decidedly anime-inspired designs with the obligatory art house-spin added to it. However, apart from the trendiness of the postmodern art movement, the Superflat movement’s biggest influence on anime stems from a much more mundane source: Studio Ghibli.

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The role of the reviewer

royalcrown — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:37:15 +0000

Please excuse the lack of picture for the time being, but I’m out of town and on a laptop that lacks basically everything but an internet browser. Being in such situations often forces me to think about things that normally wouldn’t process in the hectic nature of everyday life, and as such I’ve been pondering some unsolved, albeit abstract, issues that have come up in my time at the NHRV. Frankly, this blog needs updates so I’ll post my mental ramblings in a hopefully coherent format.
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A matter of aesthetics…

royalcrown — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 07:22:23 +0000

Both as personal preference, as well as a reviewer, I tend to take the characters and plot of an anime pretty seriously. The visual style of an anime cannot make up for a lack of story, development, and execution – the audio/visual aspects of an anime can probably have, at its maximum, an impact of maybe one or two points. That being said, sometimes I like to just sit back and be stunned by amazing visuals and audio, and it’s a visceral part of the viewing enjoyment. While I’m wallowing in this state of ephemeral enjoyment, the question always subconsciously pops up in my mind: which makes more of an impact, the audio or the video? This is a dilemma that I’ve noticed present in some of the best anime in terms of production values. Is this inane, and am I nitpicking about small details too much? Probably. That being said, let’s briefly look into this conundrum.

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