Around Anime

Last weekend I finally got to visit SwampCon. Unfortunately, I was only able to stay there for a short while and caught a glimpse of the event because I had many other plans that filled up my weekend. Also, during my time there, the only active event is the presentation on the Legend of Zelda. Fortunately, however, Zelda is my favorite and I really enjoyed the presentation! It was my first time going to an anime convention. I had never seen this many people dressed up in anime costumes in one place. I was surprised by how serious and detailed the outfits were. I could tell that some people put in a lot of effort. I could only see that they were not just fans, but participants. I walked into Zelda's presentation room without knowing what to expect, but the room was already full of people. The speaker (funny enough, she is actually in Link's Gerudo Outfit) was breaking down the timeline of the Zelda games into three branches. She explained how the story is split such that some parts of the timeline go forward while others loop back. It was like looking at a tree that kept growing in new directions. I knew Zelda was a popular game and my personal favorite, but I never realized how much lore it had. The presenter talked about how certain characters reappear with slightly different roles, how the world resets across games, and how that keeps fans interested. What surprised me was how seriously the fans around me followed the details. They already knew the timelines, the names, the items, and even the smallest events in the story. That moment showed me how fandom is not just about watching or playing, it is about knowing and digging. In class, we discussed the idea of fandom as a form of participation. I used to think it only meant liking a series. However, now I realize it is more about building knowledge, sharing it, and living with it. People at SwampCon were not just there to enjoy the event. They were showing that they belonged to something. Some fans dressed as their favorite characters and some others gave talks. These people were working out of passion and turning their interests into products or performances, and people appreciated it. This kind of activity turns media into something personal. Additionally, the timeline discussion showed how fans do not always follow a story from beginning to end. Instead, they take pieces and put them together on their own. They mix ideas, select elements they like, and form their own understanding of the story. This is like how anime fans follow specific tropes. They do not always care about the plot. They care about what they already like. For example, some fans only care about character types like tsundere, or certain settings like school drama or fantasy worlds (isekai!). It is about finding elements that fit their preferences. This explains why some anime look similar but still have their own fan groups. It is not always about the story but fitting the database. The panel also made me think about otaku culture. The presenter was clearly an otaku. She talked fast and with excitement. She knew the Zelda universe better than anyone in the room. She was not just sharing facts, she was performing her love for the games. The fans watching were reacting with the same energy. Otaku culture often gets criticized for being too obsessive, but in that room, it felt more like dedication. These fans were not hurting anyone. They were enjoying something deeply and trying to share it. Even though I did not stay long, the event helped me see fandom in a new light. SwampCon is not just about watching anime or playing games. It is about being part of something bigger. I saw people connect through what they loved. I saw fans teaching each other, laughing together, and just being excited to belong. I did not expect to learn much from a short visit, but I left with a better understanding of how fandom works. Even if I was only a visitor, I could see how important these spaces are for fans.

The final blog post! This anime begins with a question not spoken aloud but embedded in every scene. If you were given power over life and death, how far would you go before calling yourself justice? In this anime, the line between hero and villain becomes unstable, and each decision Light makes pushes him closer to something unrecognizable. At first, his plan to erase evil feels like a moral crusade, but as his methods grow ruthless and his ego inflates, he starts killing not just criminals but anyone who gets in his way.

The contrast between Light and L is one of the most captivating dynamics in this anime. Light hides behind his charm and composure, yet underneath is someone who believes he alone knows what is right. L, on the other hand, is odd, messy, and socially detached, but never takes a life. The battle between these two is not physical. It is strategic, psychological, and slow-burning. Their first indirect encounter, when L tricks Light into revealing his location, shows just how deeply this anime values intelligence over force.

Power in this anime is never neutral. The Death Note is not just a weapon but a test. Every time Light uses it, he justifies his actions with a warped sense of justice. Over time, this power shifts his identity. He no longer acts for justice but for control. What starts as a desire to protect becomes a need to dominate. The irony is that the more Light tries to cleanse the world of evil, the more he reflects the same cruelty he condemns.

This anime moves quickly but never feels rushed. Every episode builds on tension, not action. The quiet moments carry more weight than explosions. In this way, the anime shows that horror does not always need violence. Sometimes, horror is a calm voice explaining why someone must die.

What makes this anime so intense is not only the deaths but the slow collapse of any clear morality. There are no real heroes. Only people with reasons. It becomes less about whether Light is good or bad and more about how far he will go to win. This anime forces you to sit with discomfort. It never gives easy answers. It just keeps asking how far someone can go before becoming the thing they once stood against.

This anime does not just talk about alchemy. It talks about consequences, sacrifice, and how ideals are often crushed by reality. The story starts with a bold attempt to bring back the dead. What follows is not punishment, but the long road of trying to fix what has been broken. The law of equivalent exchange is simple on paper, but the story shows that real life is rarely fair or balanced.

One of the most powerful things I noticed is how the anime handles grief. The brothers do not cry often, but you can feel the weight of guilt and loss in how they move forward. Episode 25 hits especially hard. The loss is sudden, but the silence after says more than words. You can tell the world will never go back to how it was. This kind of storytelling captures the feeling of mourning that lingers in people, even when they keep going.

Greed is one of the most interesting characters in this section. At first, he wants everything. Wealth, power, status. But as he spends time in a human body and forms connections, he begins to change. By the end, he sacrifices what he thought he wanted for the people he grew to care about. This scene shows that people are not born evil or good. They change depending on how they are treated, and how they choose to respond to pain.

The anime also draws lines between different kinds of power. Alchemy is powerful, but it cannot fix everything. It cannot restore trust. It cannot undo betrayal. Some of the most dangerous people in the show are not the ones with magic but the ones with influence and ideology. The military leaders, the philosopher kings, and even the father figure who stands at the top; they represent systems that value control over compassion.

The show is also surprisingly political. Different nations, different values. People from Xing see alchemy as medicine and energy, not as a weapon. Their perspective is not dismissed. It is respected. That small detail shows how the anime does not try to say one way is best. It shows how context changes the meaning of power.

I felt like this anime was different from anything we have watched. It has a heavy atmosphere, a messy world, and a tone that never really tries to comfort the audience. The story builds fast, but it does not explain everything. You just get thrown into the chaos of Neo-Tokyo, and somehow it works. What stood out to me first was the way power is treated in this anime. Tetsuo goes from being weak and insecure to gaining power so intense that it completely breaks him. His transformation is scary but also kind of tragic. He has always felt small and ignored, so once he gets this power, he refuses to let anyone control him again. The problem is that he does not know how to use it. Instead of becoming free, he becomes something uncontrollable. The anime shows that power without emotional maturity only leads to destruction. Another strong theme is how this world treats youth. The government experiments on kids. The police beat teenagers in the street. Adults either try to control or ignore them. Everything feels broken, and the younger generation is left to deal with it. This connects to real concerns about authority, especially in how the system reacts with fear and violence instead of care. Kaneda’s group is reckless, but they are just trying to survive in a world that already gave up on them. There is also something about memory and trauma running under the surface. Neo-Tokyo was built on the ruins of disaster. Everyone is pretending like life moved on, but the cracks are everywhere. The city looks advanced, but it is also filled with poverty, protests, and corruption. Tetsuo’s powers feel like the return of a buried trauma that was never actually healed. The animation is intense. Every frame feels alive. The city looks gritty and real, but the psychic scenes are surreal and disturbing. I can see why this anime had such a big influence on later works. It is not just about style. It is about fear, collapse, and what might rise after everything falls apart.

When reading this manga, I felt very uncomfortable almost from the first page; as a Chinese, I felt particularly disgusted. The manga looks like it wants to tell a serious and patriotic story, but its messaging carries something much more political. This is not a normal story about war or history but a carefully framed argument that pushes a revisionist view of Japan’s wartime actions, painting the country not as an aggressor but as a misunderstood liberator of Asia. That view directly challenges public memory and mainstream historical conversations. It also raises many concerns about how media can be used to rewrite or reshape uncomfortable truths, especially during the era when communication is not as fast/convenient as today.

The manga repeatedly shows Japanese soldiers as honorable heroes who willingly sacrificed themselves to protect their homeland. Kobayashi also suggests that modern Japan has lost the noble spirit of these soldiers and now suffers from weakness and selfishness. This argument ignores the many complexities of that period. It removes the voices of the victims and reduces history to a tool for national pride.

The assigned reading on nationalism helps put this in perspective. Gellner explains how nations are not natural but constructed. They require shared myths and symbols. However, Senseron is exactly an attempt to build a national myth through selective storytelling. His framing of Japan as the savior of Asia diminishes the voices of those who suffered under its imperialism. It also denies events like the Nanjing Massacre, where 300,000 unequipped civilians died under Japanese guns and katanas. This kind of narrative is dangerous not just for what it says but for what it refuses to say. It refuses to question the cost of war for those outside the Japanese military, especially civilians in China and Korea.

In modern classrooms or social spaces, there is a constant effort to include multiple voices in historical conversation. But Sensoron rejects that effort. It blames social problems on the loss of wartime values. It glorifies sacrifice without looking at why the war happened or how it harmed others. It uses emotional stories to shut down critical thought. That is not only misleading, but harmful.

So while Sensoron might look like a manga about history or national identity, it reads more like propaganda wrapped in emotional storytelling. It does not invite questions. It avoids accountability. It promotes a dangerous kind of pride that forgets the past rather than facing it.

This anime has always been known for its stunning animation, but after watching it closely this time, I began to feel how much it quietly expresses emotion through absence and silence. At first, the story felt like a romantic mystery. Taki and Mitsuha keep waking up in each other’s bodies, writing notes to one another as they try to live each other’s lives. They never meet in person, yet somehow their feelings grow stronger. They share memories, but not all at once. They are connected by emotion, but not always by time. The anime never forces an explanation on us. Instead, it builds meaning through gestures and moments.

What made this story feel deeper is the way it ties personal memory to collective loss. When the characters learn about the comet disaster, the tension shifts from romantic confusion to a race against time. Mitsuha’s whole town is in danger. Taki tries to save people he cannot even remember. Even though the story uses magical realism, it reflects something very real. This is a story about remembering those who are forgotten. About holding on to what matters, even when you are not sure why it matters. It is also about the quiet spaces between people, where love and care can form without words.

Foucault talks about power not as a single structure, but as something that is everywhere, hidden inside ordinary relationships. I thought about this while watching the way Mitsuha’s life is shaped by tradition, family, and gender expectations. Her choices are watched closely. Her actions are tied to her role as a daughter and a shrine maiden. Meanwhile, Taki is shaped by a different set of expectations in the city. Neither of them is completely free, but their connection lets them see the world differently. They help each other break away, not through rebellion, but through mutual care.

This anime never directly critiques society. It never raises its voice. Yet it still questions the systems that determine who we remember and who we forget. The body-switching is not just for laughs. It becomes a way to imagine empathy, to experience someone else’s world without explanation. It shows how power works quietly through memory, emotion, and relationships. The comet is not just a disaster. It is a metaphor for what disappears when people are not seen. The final message is not about changing history, but about carrying forward what we almost lost.

Watching this anime gave me mixed feelings. On one hand, it is fun and unique to see countries personified as silly characters who interact like they are in high school drama. On the other hand, the comedy sometimes feels too light for the serious events it represents. By turning global conflict into a series of jokes, this anime makes history more accessible, but it also risks reducing the impact of real suffering.

It actually reminded me of Countryhumans, a genre where different nations are drawn as human characters and interact in fan-made stories. Just like this anime, Countryhumans often mixes dark history with humor or friendship. Sometimes it is even used to explore alternate timelines or give countries personalities that reflect how people view them. Both are ways to turn complicated politics into something that feels personal. Both show how people around the world use storytelling to connect with history.

I find it interesting how this anime treats war like a comedy skit. Germany is strict, Italy is goofy, Japan is quiet. These characters are exaggerated, but they still reflect stereotypes that people around the world might recognize. This helps the anime reach a global audience. Still, I wonder if turning countries into characters also removes the responsibility for what those countries did in the past.

The reading by Annett talks about this in a smart way. Annett says the anime turns war into a world conference, where instead of violence, countries talk and argue like in a meeting. This sounds peaceful, but it also hides the pain caused by real wars. I can see how that might be a problem. If younger audiences watch this and laugh without knowing the real history, they might not learn the full truth.

What stood out to me is how the anime uses cuteness to handle trauma. Characters argue, fight, and forgive quickly. This makes everything seem okay again. But in real life, wars do not end with a joke. The trauma stays. So, I think this anime shows how media sometimes chooses comfort over truth. It is not necessarily bad, but it makes me reflect on how we learn and remember history.

In the end, I can say this anime is fun and clever. Still, it made me think more deeply about how we use humor to cope with difficult events and how sometimes we forget that these jokes are based on real people’s suffering.

I just played this game recently, and I am so surprised we will watch the plots of this game. This game’s story begins in a world shaped by loss. The land of Alrest floats across a sea of clouds, where humans survive on the backs of massive Titans that continue to age and collapse. These Titans are not only carriers of life but also reminders that the world is slowly coming to an end. People cling to hope. They search for a myth called Elysium. Most do not know what Elysium truly is. They only believe that something better waits beyond the ruins.

Rex, the main character, begins with a simple dream. He wants to help others. He does not seek war or power. He finds Pyra, a Blade who awakens from a long sleep. She carries a power from the past. She also carries another self, Mythra, who remembers more of the truth. Together, they search for a place that might not exist. Their journey brings them into conflict with nations, weapons, and people who fear what Pyra and Mythra represent. They are not just symbols of strength. They are symbols of everything the world has forgotten.

This story does not follow the path of victory. It shows how the desire to control leads to collapse. The Titans continue to fade. The people continue to fight. The Blades continue to be treated as tools. The cycle repeats. Cobb’s reading about the Anthropocene helps explain why. He describes a world where humans separated themselves from nature. They replaced care with conquest. They chased improvement but ignored the cost. This same pattern appears throughout the story. The characters reach for power. They try to fix what was broken by using the same force that caused the damage. The more they try to take, the more they lose.

Cobb believes that change requires something deeper. Not invention. Not domination. A shift in how people see the world. This story supports that idea. Nothing improves until the characters begin to see their role in the suffering. The answers do not come from forgotten science or legendary places. They come from accepting that the past cannot be undone. The future cannot be reached through denial. It can only begin through a new way of living.

The ending does not solve every problem. It offers no easy conclusion. The world remains uncertain. The people remain scarred. But there is something left to hold onto. A choice to rebuild. A choice to carry memory with honesty. A choice to live not by controlling the world but by respecting what remains. That is what gives this story its meaning. That is what lingers after the journey ends.

This anime carries a message that feels timeless. The surface shows a post-apocalyptic world filled with toxic jungles, insect creatures, and broken nations. Beneath that surface, there is a quiet story about healing, misunderstanding, and the human tendency to destroy what it does not understand. The jungles appear dangerous and the creatures seem hostile. However, none of it is truly evil. The real danger comes from humanity - fear, pride, and the need to control what cannot be controlled.

Nausicaä stands at the center of this world. She does not fit into the mold of a traditional hero. Her power does not come from weapons, titles, or authority. Instead, it grows from her empathy, her curiosity, and her ability to listen. She spends time with the insects. She learns their behavior. She walks into the jungle without hatred. Her approach feels radical in a world ruled by panic and destruction. Rather than reacting to violence with more violence, she creates space for understanding, even when those around her are blinded by their need to win.

The war between the two nations does not stem from reason. It stems from their shared belief that power solves crisis. One side uses machines. The other side revives an ancient weapon. Both believe they are doing what is necessary. Neither stops to question what has already been lost. Nausicaä becomes the only person willing to hold both the truth of the jungle and the pain of the people. Her actions show how care can exist even in the most broken world.

There is no dramatic speech or final battle where the world suddenly transforms. Change happens slowly through each decision Nausicaä makes. She does not perform heroism. She simply stays honest to her beliefs. This anime suggests that true strength comes from holding onto compassion when everything else pushes you toward fear.