Thoughts, opinions, reviews, and summaries on things I’ve finished since the creation date of the page, my own plain text alternative to Goodreads, MAL and similar. May contain spoilers. I try to write at least a quick review of everything I read/watch. It doesn’t take much time, and is helpful for connecting with the story on a deeper level and for having a log of what I read. I don’t always make a summary right when I finish something. The things I have finished but haven’t gotten to yet reside in the Residuum section.

Books

Fiction

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

<08/04/21 Wed>

There is more than one kind of freedom," said Aunt Lydia. “Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.”

(Margaret Atwood)

A very multifaceted novel full of symbolism and allusions that managed to somehow confuse, entertain, amaze me all at the same time. Though I had previously heard of Margaret Atwood, it was my first time reading her writing. In this novel in particular, witty wording, puns, symbolism, dialogue only surrounded by quotation marks under very specific circumstances, and Offred’s repeated references to the future readers of the story makes it feel almost like metafictional poetry. The episodic flip flops between Offred’s life with Luke, life under control by Aunt Lydia, and present life make the story hard to follow at first, especially given that there is no visual or tonal distinction between these. This is obviously a purposeful choice though, and in my opinion it’s really well done. Care is taken to introduce the republic of Gilead and the background of the story sufficiently, without overexplaining or resorting to info-dumps.

The republic of Gilead in the novel justifies it’s actions with a Biblical story from Genesis. Rachel, who is infertile, gives her servant Bilhah to Jacob to bear children for her. This is viewed as a positive light by proponents of the regime. However, we see that it later causes problems in the Biblical story, such as Leah doing the same thing with her servant Zilpah out of jealousy sake, and also Reuben (Jacob’s firstborn son) eventually committing adultery with Bilhah, thus losing his firstborn rights to a double inheritance. I presume that Reuben in the Biblical story is analogous to Nick in The Handmaid’s Tale, and also that the hanging of the three women during the salvaging chapter, a wive and two women on either side, is analogous to the crucifixion of Jesus.

The dystopia aspect of the novel is comparable to the one in Orwell’s 1984. In terms of plausibility, I find the situation in Orwell’s novel to be more imaginable (though many would disagree). You could say the surveillance aspect is already happening (or at least starting to happen). As for the manipulation of thought, that can, and already has, been done through changing the education systems, propaganda, use of terror, and other dictatorial techniques (I’m sure you can think of historical examples). Once you take these into account, it’s really not too absurd to envision a 1984-like society in the future, especially if large amounts of power happen to reside within an elite few who happen to make use of these techniques. Compared to the Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale, which started from a suppression of the feminist movement and a coup d’etat transforming the liberal United States into a dictatorship, the chances of a radical group like the “Sons of Jacob” in the novel succeeding and lasting are, at least in my view, less likely.

This is not to say it isn’t possible, it certainly is with a large amount of following and luck (quoting from Margaret Atwood’s forward to the book: “Anything could happen anywhere, given the circumstances”). Nor is it to say that Atwood’s story doesn’t have relevance in the political scenery, or that we shouldn’t consider the imminent possibility of similar situations. Perhaps we could treat as ‘A Modest Proposal’ (Swift) but for feminism. Or as a statement against religious theocracies in general.

Toradora, Yuyuko Takemiya

<09/15/21 Wed>

Understanding each other was something like a miracle. For two people to understand each other, and to love each other, was like an unbelievable miracle. All the couples in the world, the friends, the spouses, the children and parents, the siblings—they could all be thought of as miracles.

(Ryuji)

Comical, amusing, and heartwarming light novel series. A good breed of comic relief from many technical readings I’ve been doing lately. I enjoyed it for the most part, though it felt a little stupid and slightly cringy at times, especially the eloping marriage towards to end. Then again, by that time I was already unconditionally hooked on the characters so the wince-worthy plot didn’t matter too much to me. I probably would have still liked the series no matter what happened.

I feel this is a common theme in East Asian media, and indeed most slice of life series: Endearing, captivating, unequivocally charming characters combined with mediocre, squirmy, sometimes downright bad plot. Notable examples include shows like K-ON! and Non Non Biyori. It doesn’t take long for readers to grumble about this either. Scroll down the MAL reviews and forums for Toradora! (or for K-ON!, Non Non Biyori, or any slice of life series) and it won’t take you long at all before you find the start of many negative comments about the plot, something along the lines of “boring”, “poorly handled”, “idiotic”, “cliche”, “immature”, “Taiga just bullies Ryuji the whole time”, “why’d Taiga just leave without a word”, “it makes no sense”, etc, you get the idea.

This does make characterization much more important in series like this. After all, your characters have to be pretty damn interesting for me to spend the time reading 10 volumes, each 150+ pages, about them. Toradora!’s characters did this for me, which is why as much as I hated the plot, I still stuck with it and liked it.

Three Days of Happiness, Sugaru Miaki

<03/31/22 Thu>

What had kept me bound to life thus far had been the shallow hope that something good might happen someday.

(Kusunoki)

A very interesting premise. Selling one’s life in exchange for money immediately instigates discussion on what value we should assign it, or the metrics from which value should be assigned. Kusunoki at the beginning of the story is poor, isolated, and in debt. He has largely given up on future prospects. In other words, he is a nihilist, and the only thing really motivating him to keep living is likely something similar to the sunk cost fallacy along the lines of: “I’ve come all this way, may as well just keep going”. Or maybe the abstract notion that suicide is an option has not occurred to him yet.

And then he learns of a shop that can buy his lifespan. To a nihilist, this almost too good to be true. Life is meaningless anyway, may as well exchange it for money to make my current time better. Kusunoki was not always this way. He had dreams before, aspirations of fame, passion for drawing, and even a girl he liked (two girls, actually). Those probably faded with time, and he gave up on them, probably something all too common that many can relate to, including me. Learned helplessness through repeated failure, consistent realization of your insignificance, and self-created social pressures like imposter syndrome prevail in our society today.

Another personal interpretation of this story which I agree with: Value is a human construct, and does not exist in an ontological sense. Our general intuition tells us that values are a guideline for acting in a advantageous way, either observer-dependently or internally. The idea is that value is simply a heuristic, and subject to change as Kusunoki’s does. And values don’t necessarily, or even reliably determine actions anyway, it is simply our perception of our values which do.

At Night, I Become a Monster, Yoru Sumino

<12/28/21 Tue>

If everyone could simply go around not worrying about things at will, the world would sure be a carefree place. Real life was harder than that.

(Adachi)

A compelling novel with a storyline that showcases in a very concrete way the fantastical realism style Sumino is so well known for. A quick synopsis: A boy named Adachi turns into a kaiju every night. One day when retrieving his forgotten homework from his school, he encounters a girl in his class named Yano, who is the target of bullying due to her being labelled as odd. This probably stems from the fact that she has a mental illness (this is not directly mentioned in the story, but is fairly heavily implied). Yano figures out his daytime identity, and the two start habitually meeting at night for what Yano calls a “midnight break”, a break from a daytime of agony.

The reason the class bullies Yano, at least according to Adachi, is due to an Omelas-like situation. Having a shared goal of bullying a single scapegoat brings a sense of patriotism to the class. At first, I expected this to also be an Asch scenario where individuals are only bullying Yano to show normative identification with the group and to protect their social standing. However, the ambiguous ending is unclear whether the situation improves or not. I suspect that if the story were to continue past the point where Adachi breaks the group unanimity by treating Yano well and returning her greeting, others who were purely there for the unity but whose morals were telling them the contrary would follow suit and do the same.

If Cats Disappeared from the World, Genki Kawamura

<02/23/22 Wed>

It doesn’t take much to realize that all life’s experiences eventually add up to one big inevitability.

(Genki Kawmura)

A story about a man diagnosed with terminal cancer who is about to die. But he makes a deal with the devil where he can live an extra day in exchange for the disappearance of something thing the devil chooses. There are various problems which bother me though:

I’m not sure what the goal of the devil in the story is. Apparently he says he wants to win a bet against God, which I am assuming means that he is taking everything away in hopes that eventually man will make everything disappear in exchange for his life? Lets say hypothetically that the man makes everything disappear. How does he plan on continuing with him after that? Or does he not believe it will come to that point, in which case why is he arguing for it in the first place? I’m assuming that this story operates by Christian principles, and is such in many ways a spin-off on the Biblical book of Job where Satan similarly takes away things from Job’s life, hoping that he will curse God. In the end, Job stays upright and as a reward at the end gets all his things back plus more.

The devil behaves inconsistently with his alleged personality and goals. I’m not sure if this was purposeful or not, given that the devil alludes to the fact that he is not in his true form, but it certainly made the story less enjoyable, at least to me. Is the devil on the man’s side or not? Why did the devil give the cat the ability to talk? This can only work against him if his goal is to woo the man into agreeing to make cats disappear. And it did, the man talking to the cat made him all the more redolent about sacrificing cats in exchange for his life.

On the topic of cats, having two cats (Lettuce and Cabbage) in the story weakens the plot. One of them is already dead, and yet the man still appears to be living fine without it. In general, cat symbolism is overused and cliched anyway. It would have been better to either leave out the first cat, or choose something else.

However, even given these criticisms, it was overall a nice story, short enough to read in one sitting, but long enough to explore a topic to some degree of thoroughness. I enjoyed reading it.

The Travelling Cat Chronicles, Hiro Arikawa

<09/03/22 Sat>

If you have to consider what’s going to happen after you die, life becomes doubly troublesome.

(Nana)

A very interesting book overall. A stray cat is hit by a car and is adopted by Satoru, a feline-loving man a little over thirty living in Tokyo. Satoru names the cat Nana because the shape of it’s tail is curved like the character for seven (nana means seven in Japanese). They live happily for five years, until one day Satoru cannot keep the cat for unknown reasons, and the two go on a journey to find a new owner.

One main aspect I enjoyed was the structure of the story. The chapters are structured with visits to each friend as follows:

1. Prologue
2. Kosuke, Satoru’s elementary school friend before he moved away.
3. Yoshimine. Satoru’s middle school friend.
4. Sugi and Chikako. Satoru’s high school and college friends.
5. Noriko. Satoru’s caretaker, the final destination.

Additionally, the book is structured in a time oriented manner, starting from spring/summer and moving through from fall to winter. We learn about Satoru in a time oriented manner as well. Starting with his elementary school days and his old cat Hachi, and the death of his parents. Then his middle school days with Yoshimine, how they had tried to run away to visit Hachi on a school trip, each covering for each other, the mutual understanding of two boys who both lost their parents. Then Sugi and Chikako, two married friends who formed a romance triangle with Satoru from their high school days.

Arikawa clearly put much attention to detail in to making the story coherent. Though each chapter is a separate story, we can see a consistent psychological continuity of the main characters through the entire novel, such as how Satoru decides to get blotting paper as a gift for Chikako, as he couldn’t give it his parent’s before they died, or how Nana is used to sleeping on the bonnet of Satoru’s van because of it’s warmth, so it follows that he would also enjoy the warmth of the CRT television. Small details like these added much to my enjoyment of the story.

Non-Fiction

The Wisdom of Crowds, James Surowiecki

<08/01/21 Sun>

Sometimes the messiest approach is the wisest.

(James Surowiecki)

The fundamental idea of this book is that in problem solving and decision making aspects, a group is smarter than the smartest person in them, given the right circumstances. This means that when wanting to make a accurate or good decision (because for some problems there are no ‘accurate’ answers), it is preferable to go against conventional wisdom of asking only the experts and ask the crowd instead.

A couple prerequisites for a smart crowd from the book, plus some of my own speculations:

• Diversity. A single individual only has a niche set of skills to solve problems when compared to the skillset of an entire crowd combined (assuming the crowd is diverse enough). Paradoxically, the more experts we add, the less diverse the crowd becomes, and thus the less intelligent. If we define expertise in a field as having a certain set of skills, these niche skills will be overemphasized if we have a crowd composed of only (or too many) experts. The opposite is also true. If we have too little experts, those skills that only they have will be lost.
• Independence. The crowd ecosystem needs to have a balance of independence and coordination. Humans are quick to imitate those around them, which is fine if the idea they are imitating is intelligent, but this is too often not the case (eg: stock market bubbles). We can apply methods that force individual autonomy such anonymous voting, or really any system that allows individuals to make decisions simultaneously rather than one at a time (which eliminates the possibility of prior individual’s decisions affecting latter ones), though this isn’t practical in every case, like in markets for instance.
• Decentralization paired with aggregation. Another problem with the oxymoron of a purely ‘independent crowd’ is that many problems either require implicit knowledge or knowledge that can be expressed but would take too much effort compared to the problem. Well coordinated decentralization solves this. There are many examples testifying to the success of decentralization across the board: ant colonies, beehives, bird flocks, peer-to-peer file transfer, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and the development of Linux. However, there are plenty of decentralized systems that have gone wrong, the book mentions traffic jams and the failure of the CIA to notice paramount clues that could have prevented the September 11 attacks, for instance. The book notes that successful decentralization is not a “work on whatever you want as long as its related to the problem” kind of scheme. View decentralization as a pool of information contributed by various individuals that could be, or could not be, useful to solve the problem. A good system needs a way to aggregate that information and pick out the ones that actually point to a solution, but without resorting to a top-down organizational structure where decision making power is centralized (because then it wouldn’t be decentralization and you lose the wisdom the crowd can provide). There are a couple ways Surowiecki suggests:
  • Active communication between individual entities, which would allow them to share private knowledge and make it collective wisdom.
  • Dedicated systems to analyze information and incorporate it to solve problems. In Linux and other open source projects, anyone from the general public can submit source code patches, but they must be reviewed by people like Torvalds and some other high level developers before they get accepted into the next release. In the case of the CIA, Surowiecki suggests that (moral issues aside) either an internal, or better, public decision market that bets (motivated by real money rewards) on the likelihood of terrorist attacks could have been a good way to aggregate information. Of course, the downside to dedicated analysis is that it requires more work and money to implement.
• Trust. Each individual in the collective group needs to trust that the rest will behave fairly. Otherwise, we will have a cascade of emotionally motivated irrational behaviour. The book cites the example that individuals who pay taxes presume that others are doing so as well. However, if they learn that everyone in their community is evading taxes, they are more likely to evade themselves, not because they don’t believe in the importance of taxpaying, but purely because others are not doing it, because they believe it’s unfair. Technically though, even if you evade (assuming you don’t get into legal trouble for it), you still reap the benefits, like improved communities and the like. However, nobody will benefit if everyone evades. Therefore, if the majority of other individuals are paying taxes, it is logical to evade. So then why doesn’t everyone evade? The answer is because they trust that the large majority of citizens will not evade, and they also trust that those who do will be punished. This trust is important to ensure cooperation.

Comics

Horimiya

<08/02/21 Mon 15:22>

I bet everyone has a side they don’t show anyone else.

(Hori)

I really enjoyed this manga, perhaps for it’s constant visual variation, interesting romance and character development, or humour. Story-wise, the first couple volumes in particular were incredibly well structured, showing the evolving relationship between Miyamura and Hori and some snippets of flashbacks to Miyamura’s middle school life and Hori’s family situation, all interlaced in humorous romcom moments. Starting around volume 6, there was a stagnant phase where not much was happening, the plot wasn’t advancing and neither was the character development. Personally, I think a slice of life type series need to make up for lack of action-based plot with character development. The romance development in the series in some ways feels similar to Golden Time, which I presume you would also enjoy if you liked Horimiya. The art in the series is great, the covers are very nice, and you can tell, as with many other long running manga, the artist’s art improves over the course of the series.

The characters were a big reason I liked this series. Miyamura has piercings and tattoos, Hori is a cute girl that likes horror and is slightly sadistic, Yuki wears her sleeves over her hands all the time, Sengoku is so thin he wears seven shirts to pad himself up, Remi is an insect lover, Sawada is terrified of all guys but Miyamura, Iura is a ball of energy and enthusiasm, Yanagi has terrible eyes. You can imagine the humour of these characters put together, especially when the manga deals with the idea of internal and external self.

The ending of the story leaves a couple side romances unresolved: the situation with Yuki and Tooru, Sengoku’s parent’s opinion on him and Remi, Iura’s sister and Kitahara, as well as Souta and Yuuna. Although this does leave a slightly empty feeling to the reader, I don’t consider it to be too much of a problem because the main romance has already been settled, plus it gives room for some thought.

Shingeki no Kyojin

<08/17/21 Tue>

Even though the walls have been intact for the past 100 years, there’s nothing that can guarantee they won’t be broken down today.

(Armin)

Very hyped, action-packed, shounen series that just finished serializing. I was waiting for this series to finish before starting it. Because it was so hyped, I had high expectations coming in. Right away, I saw various similarities between it and Yakusoku no Neverland, which I read last year. In fact, they are so similar I wouldn’t be surprised if they were directly based on each other.

To be honest, although I didn’t hate the manga, I didn’t particularly enjoy it either, at least compared to similar manga like The Promised Neverland and Tokyo Ghoul, or even compared to action-shounen manga with human-eating premises like Demon Slayer. I don’t exactly know the reason, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to enjoy it (or more accurately I wanted to want to enjoy it). I think that it is overhyped for the quality that it is, but I feel insecure with saying that. After all, it’s won numerous major awards and the first volume was on the New York Times Manga Best Seller list for 81 straight weeks, so I don’t want to discredit it as a ‘bad series’ when obviously it’s status and ranking says otherwise. I think the reason I didn’t like it is because I’m a sucker for slice of life series, and am less inclined toward action series so I am obviously biased. For action series to be interesting to me, there needs to be a psychological element, which both The Promised Neverland and Tokyo Ghoul have. AoT is mostly focused on the fighting/power aspect, which I think is fine for the demographic it targets.

I feel the lore part of the plot for AoT is a little weak, and solves too many inconsistencies with the “happened by chance” excuse, especially when the manga started time skipping. The island of Paradis is a monarchy in appearance but a military dictatorship in reality, with real king being fake and merely a show puppet (the Reiss family is the real bloodline). The walls were erected by the first King Fritz by utilizing the powers of the founding titan, Ymir, who was supposedly in love with King Fritz despite being treated as a slave her whole life and wanting freedom. Apparently she decided the best course of action to achieve this was just to sit back and wait in the metaphysical realm. 2000 years later, “by chance”^TM Wall Maria was breached by infiltrates (namely Bertlot, Reiner, and Annie) and “by chance”^TM there happened to a certain individual Grisha Yeager who was in possession of the power of the attack titan at the same time, who also “by chance”^TM happened to know about the Reiss Chapel, and “by chance”^TM know that the Reiss family was in the Reiss Chapel praying at the time. The story of Grisha Yeager is odd in the first place. He was given the power of the attack titan by Kruger, also known as the Owl, who told him to go into the walls to steal the power of the founder titan. It would be a stretch to assume that he would be able to get into the walls in the first place. Reiner, Bertlot, and Annie were only able to sneak in due to the confusion caused by them breaching Wall Maria. Grisha was incredibly lucky (“by chance”^TM) and happened to be let in by Keith Shadis of the Survey Corps at the time, who was roaming around the outside and saw him. Shadis found him to be unaware of any of the customs of human life inside the wall. A human walking around the wall without any recollection of life inside should have been suspicious to Shadis because he was brainwashed by the founder that humanity was extinct outside the walls. And I’m sure he didn’t think that he was a soldier or something (in which case he would have known his name).

I suppose this “by chance” excuse is typical of any shounen manga though. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that chance is a large component of even slice of life series too (romcoms, *cough). As I have probably stated somewhere on this site before, I believe fiction is character oriented, so whether pure chance is used as a plot device is not necessarily an indicator of quality, so it is probably unfair to discredit the series due to it using chance as a main plot motive (this genre is speculative fiction, after all).

Koe no Katachi

<10/02/21 Sat>

There’s some things you just can’t change. I know that personally. I think it’s the time you spend trying to change that’s more important.

(Ishida)

Koe no Katachi is most famous of course for it’s anime adaptation directed by Naoko Yamada (which I haven’t seen, I’ve only read the manga). At the crux, I feel it is about communication. Nishimiya is an elementary schooler who is hearing-impaired, obviously can’t communicate through normal means and uses a paper and notebook instead. Though she knows sign language (or is at least learning it), this is still a barrier because most of the people in her class don’t, and are unwilling to learn it.

In fact, the whole farce can be pinpointed to a series of misinterpretations of other’s speech/actions: (1) The bullying started with Ishida writing on the blackboard mean words targeted towards Nishimiya in hopes of getting her angry. Ishida and his classmates erase the board for her, a pretend gesture of kindness. Nishimiya interprets this as a real gesture and wholeheartedly thanks everyone. (2) When Ishida starts openly treating her badly, everyone in the class laughs, which Ishida takes as them approving him of his actions. He tells a joke about how Nishimiya can’t hear because she didn’t have sutras painted on her ears, which even the teacher laughs at. (3) The teacher openly tells Ishida that he understands how he feels in their talk about Ishida destroying Nishimiya’s hearing aid (which by the way, Ueno was the first to grab, not him). This was probably just his way of supporting him as a teacher, and possibly also to protect his job, evident by his words “All I’m telling you is don’t embarrass me.”. Ishida takes this as a confirmation for his actions and comes up with the conclusion that he doesn’t have to apologize. (4) Right after his talk with the teacher, Ishida’s friend Shimada tells him blatantly “Here’s your chance” when they see Nishimiya on their way home. He almost certainly meant “here’s your chance [to apologize]”. Ishida took it as “here’s your chance [to bully her more]”.

It is when the school principle comes to talk about Nishimiya’s missing hearing aids and the financial damage incurred does Ishida recognize what people thought of his actions. With Kawai saying that none of the girls in class approved of what he was doing, and Shimada saying that he told him to knock it off but he didn’t listen. They then push him into the puddle after school. Ishida and Nishimiya are foils for each other. Nishimiya physically cannot hear. Ishida can hear but can’t get the message. I personally think Ishida’s case is much worse. There are alternative communication techniques to making sounds, whereas no communication technique will be successful when the recipient can’t understand.

By now, hopefully you also get the other point I am trying to make: that the people around Ishida are primarily at fault for the ongoing nature of the bullying. No one actively tried to stop Ishida. If they had a problem with it, then why didn’t they try to stop him? His teacher is also at fault. He should have resolved this or at least noticed and reported it at it’s early stages. Instead, he waited until the damages amounted to 17 hundred thousand yen. And to make matters worse, after Ishida starts becoming the target of bullying, his teacher does absolutely nothing and tells him “I warned you didn’t I, it’s your responsibility”. What kind of teacher tells his elementary student that?

A somewhat interesting subpoint the manga makes is the fact that maybe stereotypes are learned behaviour (related to the school of thought that individuals are products of their environment). We see that the girls in the class are initially inclined to help out Nishimiya with her classwork, but eventually get tired of it, which leads them to start disliking her and passive-aggressively treating her miserably. The children have been conditioned with the idea that “deaf individuals = pain to deal with”, and more generally, “disabled/abnormal individuals = not worth the time” which is perhaps an early development toward a just-world hypothesis bias. Maybe this is the reason that the idea of karma keeps coming back in the series (further reading on related topic, cough scihub), and why both Nishimiya and Ishida attempt suicide.

Chibi Vampire

<10/25/21 Mon>

A cute and light read. Elements of humour combined with originality like a vampire that gives blood instead of taking made the story refreshingly engaging. When the state of affairs between the vampires started getting serious, the story took a more action-based, serious tone, which I thought was appropriate.

Though the manga is centred around Karin and her love life, to my surprise most of my attention kept on being brought to her little sister Anju, who is without a doubt my favourite character in the series. Out of all the characters (besides Karin and the situation with being “the psyche”), she goes through the most, having been constantly monitoring her sister and taking care of nosebleeds and such for her whole life, then turning into an adult and finding out she can’t spend time with her like she used to. The panels she shares when Ren is consoling her is the most impactful to me, perhaps because I am an older brother and I can relate to the homologous pain you feel when your sister is sad. The scene where she is parting with her sister for good in the ending is unequivocally the most touching in the entire manga.

Overall, an inspiriting new take on the typical vampire-romance.

Summer Time Rendering

<07/21/22 Thu>

I always enjoy a good time travel mystery story. Bonus points if it has a dose of romance. I initially picked up the story because I heard that it’s anime adaptation was airing, but stayed for it’s (honestly surprisingly good) use of time loops.

The protagonist is a bit of an airhead, and gives off a juvenile vibe, However, even given this and the extravagant use of fanservice, the manga is surprisingly serious. Intelligent adult side characters, use of foreshadowing, and psychological warfare are prevalent. The war against the shadows is more psychological than anything else.

If you go out of your way to look, there will almost certainly be some plot holes, as with nearly all time loop manga that have a fair level of complexity. Whether this detracts from the quality of the story or your enjoyment of it is up to you to decide.

Film and Animation

Hyouka

<08/02/21 Mon>

See here.

Hibike! Euphonium

<04/15/22 Fri>

The TV anime series: I started with these first, and watched seasons 1 and 2. It was an enjoyable watch. My only gripe is that although the romance was well done, but didn’t have enough development in my opinion. Although the situation with Reina and Taki was fleshed out, it would have been nice to see more of Kumiko and Tsukamoto’s relationship development as well, which appeared to be stagnating (some may even say going downhill) after the fireworks festival. About the implications of yuri in the show, for those who argue that it is an accident, the dialogue and shot composition seem to strongly suggest otherwise. Not to mention that the song Reina and Kumiko play on the mountain is a brass cover of ‘Ai wo Mitsuketa Basho’, a love song. And not one of platonic love either, it’s a romantic love song. In addition to that, I would have to be very, very benighted to not notice that Reina’s dress has a suspiciously wedding-like air to it. Ishihara and Yamada, along the rest of the Kyoani know what they are doing, and I don’t think they would “accidentally” choose to represent things this way for no reason.

• Favourite character? - Hazuki. Her bright and perky mood really uplifted the series. It was heartwarming to see her character progression and ups and downs, from her first time playing in band, to losing motivation and needing her friends to console her, to crying when getting rejected by Tsukamoto. And of course the way she calls her tuba チューバカブラ (“Tubacabra”) is adorable.

Liz to Aoi Tori: For some thoughts and analysis of symbolism and other non-verbal communication, see here.

Chikai no Finale: It was okay, but not great. Definitely rushed, and felt poorly planned. Eg: The snippets of cropped phone video edits are obvious fillers to pump up the screen time. The shot variety was okay, but there wasn’t much subtext to anything, symbolism was hardly used, and the movie overall didn’t take advantage of thematic techniques beyond simply showing the plot.

Maquia

<03/25/23 Sat>

Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms definitely did not disappoint. The two hour runtime was well paced and the plot moved in an natural and unforced way. The interplay between the history of the characters and their dynamics as time passes work to paint a complex picture of their lifelong relationships and emotional peaks, all set along the backdrop of societal and political issues in Middle Age society.

There is much which can be said about the themes in this movie. One of the things I am reminded of is a recent report (archive) I came across on what individuals report to hold most weight in giving meaning to their lives. The biggest factor was family. From the beginning, we see that Maquia’s life is monotonous, weaving the same tapestry day-in day-out, spending time around the humdrum elder, because she has noone else. The closeness they exhibit is a testament to how often they are around each other. The elder strictly tells Maquia not to fall in love with a human, because that will only bring loneliness. That same night, Maquia witnesses two of her friends meeting secretly. Turns out they are lovers.

And so begins, a story packaged with as much complexity as the ideas it attempts to convey, examining the very essence of the human condition laid bare. The state-of-nature struggle of the characters following the collapse of all social order showcases the astonishingly wayward choices individuals make for even a sliver of opportunity in desperate circumstances. Having a child with a stranger, abandoning your friends, harassing your mother, and even trying to kill your lover. In a state where all is chaotic enough such that you are free go against those you care about, even you and your mother are on opposing teams. Going back to the report: In such a case, what matters to you above anything else?

And if the answer to that truly is family, perhaps a more important matter is what you would do if they are taken away from you. The Iorph’s live up to their name as a clan of partings. Naturally, forming bonds with humans will lead to inevitable disappointment as humans have a limited lifespan, and are forced to look up from the ground while the Iorphs fly away. Whether the heartbreak of goodbye is worth the happiness of the journey is the crux of the dilemma Maquia explores. The answer according to director Okada is yes. As long as there is someone alive who remembers, the Hibiol of the deceased will continue on (you have probably figured by now that the Hibiol is a metaphor for memory).

This review has gone longer than I desired, so I will close with a last thought provoking point. The Iorphs initially live a natural life of traditional practises like weaving, and are disturbed only by the invasion of Renato. Is this naught but a reference to colonization of indigenous territory?

Suzume

<04/13/23 Thu>

Shinkai’s newest work, I watched it the day of the Canadian premiere. The story follows 17 year old Suzume Iwato as she visits her local ruins one day and naively sets in motion a journey of transcendence, paranomality, and aspiration.

I consider Suzume first and foremost, a simple story of adventure. Shinkai has said that he was heavily influenced by the 3.11 events, but one does not need to know anything deep to appreciate the film. Conviviality is one of the factors that I think the success of Suzume is pivoted upon. Uncertainty, the fragility of our patterned lifestyles, and how powerless we sometimes can be have been amplified by events such as COVID, and the film gives a new perspective into our sometimes illusioned feeling of safety, which not everyone in the world has the pleasure to experience.

But despite how deep this sounds, Suzume is a Shinkai movie after all and is never overly dismal or heavy. The symbols and atmosphere speak clearly the cinematic dialect of Shinkai et al, from the Miyazaki-style door portals, Pixar-style humanity of inanimate objects and animals, and themes of memory, youth, and distance expressed using an artistic pallete of saturation put into every raindrop, Shinkai’s own signature we are so familiar with from his previous works.

Although the film is certainly sentimental, it is not particularly romantic in the run-of-the-mill way. Love is decidedly present—but you won’t find any traditional movie kisses or big suki da confessions in Suzume. Rather, romance is developed in a cathartic yet subtle manner, a complex alchemy of circumstance, physical appearance, and cooperation. Infatuation in the film is more nuanced than two teens choosing to flood the world to be together (Weathering With You). Romance nestled in the subplots of family situations make for a vulnerable, mature, and organic melodrama.

Overall: A mythical but modern fantasy escapade tackling loss, grief, and change in a blooming teen, superscribed by an umbra of sagacious romance. Highly recommended.

Residuum

Things for which I have finished but haven’t yet gotten to doing a write-up are listed here. Being here doesn’t speak at all for the quality of the items, it’s merely for me to see which series I still need to do a write-up for.

• Evergreen <08/14/22 Sun>
• Akame ga Kill <08/11/22 Thu>
• Girl From the Other Side <07/17/22 Sun>
• ReLife <06/30/22 Thu>
• We Never Learn <05/22/22 Sun>
• I Want to Eat Your Pancreas <01/06/22 Thu>
• I Had That Same Dream Again <01/15/22 Sat>
• I am Blue, in Pain, and Fragile <09/06/22 Tue>
• Summer Time rendering <09/22/22 Thu>
• Charlotte <12/20/22 Tue>
• K-ON! The Movie <12/29/22 Thu>
• David Boring <02/17/23 Fri>