Archive for Bakemonogatari

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The Nihon Revue, Episode One

The Nihon Revue, Episode One

That’s right, kids— The Nihon Review now has a podcast! It’s called The Nihon Revue, and features the ever-so-charming Sorrow-kun and everyone’s least favorite blogger (yours truly) doing what The Nihon Review does best: reviewing anime. For our pilot episode, we have for you five of last season’s hits. Most of these shows have finished [...]

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary – Reducing Anime to Color

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary – Reducing Anime to Color

The Impressionists had been fascinated with color. It was a playground for them; a fertile field from which they could explore that very subjective experience of color qualia. A hundred years later, anime studios continue to carry on the tradition of experimention. However, I think we sometimes take for granted how the mood is conveyed in anime. We certainly can dissect it, talk about the lighting, the facial features of the characters, the placement of the items, all the while coherently pick out the mood that the scene contains, but we haven’t delved far into the heart of the art behind it at all. Let’s take a second and see just how the completed product – the artistic experience from watching anime – can be reduced to the most fundamental of building blocks: color.

The Purity Fixation

The Purity Fixation

Two years ago, a comic serialized in Comic Rex stirred up a huge controversy after the sexual purity of its main heroine came into question. Flamewars were had on 2ch, and over-zealous fans teared up their tankobon volumes in protest. The author fell deathly ill after the controversy occurred (in an unrelated and extremely unfortunate [...]

The Markings of a Good Season

The Markings of a Good Season

While everyone’s writing about the season that’s just started, I figured it’s a good time to go against the grain and look back at the season that just ended. Reviewing seasons is a completely different kettle of fish to reviewing a single series… there are multiple things to consider such as the number of “good” [...]

2nd Anime Oscars?

2nd Anime Oscars?

More mock awards on the anime blogosphere (as if there haven’t been enough), this one being a sequel of the one I did last year. Just like the last effort, this set of awards will be structured to (somewhat) resemble the real Academy Awards, cheekily timed to coincide with yesterday’s ceremony. Again, these awards are [...]