The Anime Diaries

I thought this film would be a good match for the class because we just finished a lengthy discussion on fandoms and respective culture. A look at a different kind of fandom, it shows us exactly how obsessive some fans can be and reminds us that celebrities are normal people like the rest of us. In my opinion, anime fandoms are among the healthiest in expressing their likes and dislikes. On the other hand, idol/celebrity fandoms are some of the unhealthiest. In general, when people start to idolize other people, it becomes toxic very quickly. When a celebrity’s flaw is publicly known, we are quick to cancel them. Mima’s situation is a similar example, where fans began viewing her as a product. When she changed her cute image into a more mature one, they felt a sense of betrayal. Although the film was made twenty years ago, the issues presented are just as problematic today. Some of the other themes are the importance of technology and identity. Technology is a double-edged sword, with a unique ability to empower and enslave. Identity is another common theme, one that is relevant to people of all ages, but especially important to the younger generation as our identities are still being formed and therefore fragile. Mima is especially vulnerable because she goes through a transition, idol to actress. 

I watched Death Parade back when it first came out a few years ago and its still one of my favorites to this day.  Great concept, and the OP slaps too.

Death Parade is clearly a show about moral conflicts, and the difficultly of placing objective judgement on a subjective concept.  In order to do this effectively, or attempt to, Arbiters were created with no emotions. In fact, they are created with the idea in mind that they should be as far from human as possible.  They are dummies that cannot die, and they cannot work with anything living.  In theory, this seems like it should work – what better way to stay objective than to have a completely outside point of view?

However, in reality (anime reality), we can see from the start that Decim makes a mistake in his judgement of Machiko and Takashi because of this.  Because he doesn’t understand emotion, because he doesn’t have empathy, he sees everything at surface-level.  He takes Machiko’s claim about the baby’s father as fact, and condemns her to the void without a second glance.  It wasn’t until Chiyuki, the one human staying in Quindecim, points out Machiko’s underlying intentions to save Takashi that Decim questions his decision.  Decim’s inability to feel emotion rendered him blind to the true dynamics at play, and therefore caused him to make a ‘wrong’ decision.

This was the first time i watched this show. I definitely remember seeing stuff from this show back in the day when i was on tumblr and I actually found it interesting even though i didn’t watch anime. It was surprising that the episodes are only five minutes long, including the end credits and also the extra separate thing that they have at the end. I think the show might benefit from a longer format because it makes the storytelling a little choppy.

I thought it would be interesting to see how Japan viewed different countries, and I was not let down. Within the first two minutes of the first episode, many countries were introduced and their ‘personalities’ were displayed. It was a cute idea to make each person represent their own country, but this makes story-telling a little confusing as you’re generally supposed to remember which country is which or you end up lost. When I looked up the show before watching it, I saw it was based on  a manga from the late 2000s. I wonder how different it would be if they made this today.  

When watching the sub vs the dub, there were more differences than i have seen before when watching sub vs dub anime. Usually, there are only slight differences in sentence structure and the uses of different synonyms, but the dub version had some translations that were not the same.

I feel like Japanese video games have this unwritten rule to make terrible graphics, even on modern titles. Despite the animation and art being rather lacking (in my opinion), Xenoblade Chronicles 2 brings a vast world with an interesting story, including ideas relating to the environment, technology, and more.

Near the end of the video game, Klaus activates the conduit in an attempt to change his own universe; he reveals to Rex that once he leaves, the Conduit - the large source of power in this world - will likely vanish, causing the World Tree to collapse as well. The importance of the Conduit displays technology’s grip on the world portrayed in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The world benefited greatly as technology played a large role in the formation of it; however, their over-reliance on the things they took for granted cause the world to nearly cease to exist. Cobb’s “Drama of the Anthropocene” partly relates to this in the fact that science and engineering has contributed to a “naive” worldview separate from nature. This worldview, then, warps our perspective on nature causing us to ignore certain aspects of this world. The collapse of the Conduit brings back nature in a sense; the Titans merged together to create a new natural landscape, one that fulfilled Rex’s true goal of Elysium. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 also addressed the role of the environment in the world earlier during the story.

“You may live to see man made horrors beyond your comprehension.”

-Nikola Tesla

I have a high regard and respect for movies from Studio Ghibli, and I hope to watch them all eventually. This is the first time I’ve viewed Studio Ghibli, and they lived up to their reputation with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, an inventive and piece that any viewer can tell is created for the love of the art and not for the money. 

The main protagonist is Nausicaä, the princess of the Valley of the Wind. Her happy homecoming with Lord Yupa illustrates how in the thousand year aftermath of the seven days of fire, humanity has lost its industrial and aggressively capitalistic foundation system, and The Valley of the Wind is very much a gemeinschaft, with the people respecting and cooperating with each other. A hierarchy exists, since Nausicaä and her father are monarchs, but this monarchy is idealistic, her father being a gentle king, our heroine being a calm and loving princess. This image rejects the industrial society we have built, giving an example of a true community in which people flourish. 

The true message of the film, however, comes through with the fact that the beautiful Valley of the Wind is under constant threat by the toxic jungle. The world-building here is particularly excellent, as insects are its main inhabitants. Insects are the most diverse and abundant group of animals on earth, and it would make sense that they would become dominant animals after the seven days of fire, since many species can even survive nuclear explosions. There is a testament to the intricacy and unknowable contents of nature, as Nausicaä discovers that these insects are not aggressive animals, but protecting the forest that needs ample time to renew itself. Another contribution to this theme is the mysterious Ohm. With their feelers, they revealed to Nausicaä that the Pejite pilot was still alive. They do the same thing to resuscitate Nausicaä. It is never explained how they are able to do this, and that is why it is humbling to the human species. Although we are able to make such bounds and learn so much, there are some mysteries of this planet that we cannot solve, and questions that don’t need to be answered. 

Humanity’s hubris rears its ugly head through the Tolmekians (less so, but still, through the Pejites). The Tolmekians masked their ambitions of conquest under those of unification, as many powers have in our own time. Furthermore, they ignore the patterns that humanity has seen. They are aware that the giant warrior was something wrong in the cosmic sense, they were a result of human arrogance and had scorched the earth as a consequence, and yet the Tolmekians believed that they were somehow better, that they could do what ancient humans could not. It is interesting that while the Valley of the Wind uses futuristic gliders, the Pejites their unique flying craft, the Tolmekian aircraft all looks very antique. They even look a little antique to us, more like World War II aircraft than the sleek fighter jets we have now. They are also notoriously flimsy, foreshadowing that Tolmekian brute strength is a delicate facade, as when things turn, their soldiers do as well, deserting. 

This show was another hit, I’m hoping I have time to go back and watch the rest of the episodes. Straight off the bat, we’re introduced to a diverse array of characters, one of which is transgender. We’re able to compare the double standards with gender roles. Our protagonist, Nitori, enjoys dressing in girly attire. Each time, however, she’s met with disapproval and disgust. Very rarely does she ever feel accepted and comfortable, which results in visible frustration, such as the time she pushed her sister. Maho, although unpleasant, was a vital character because she was the human embodiment of transphobia. Watching her, I felt her transphobia and disgust likely sprouted from ignorance and xenophobia, not out of malice. Japan and most Asian countries are still conservative and not regularly exposed to LGBTQ-related topics, like we are here. Sarashina has a completely different experience, as a girl, she dresses in both male and female attire and nobody questions it. In fact, dressing in this non-conforming manner actually gets her popularity. 

Watching this show reminded me a lot of The Office  but if it were more closely followed on a single characters struggle, mainly due to the shows’ expertise at managing to use typical office tropes to great comedic effect. While the show is a comedy, and quite a funny one at that, it portrays situations in the workplace that are so common that they are relatable, despite the overwhelmingly negative characteristics that form them.

The first episode of Aggretsuko introduces us to a lot of the colorful characters we see repeatedly, as well as the stereotypes they represent in the office environment. We very quickly see multiple examples of Retsuko’s split personality between her home life and office life, as well as the various additional challenges her and her female coworkers face due to their gender. The article we read talks about how ones expected behavior can be closely tied to their gender, and how in different contexts acting out these expected behaviors can be expected of your gender. In these episodes we see Retsuko conceal her outlet of death metal, which can be considered distinctively unladylike, and carry out actions that would be expected of a woman such as fetching tea for her supervisor. In the workplace we see a false version of Retsuko that acts out the created role of her gender in the office to maintain the order and stability of the workplace. As the show progresses we see glimpses of how the other female workers are often doing the same, and are aware of their “performative act” that they uphold in the workplace.

“Why don’t you start acting like a lady for a change?” 

                                                                                                      - Mamoru Chiba

Sailor Moon illuminated the stereotypical portrayal of women and young girls in the media, focusing on feminity. 

In fact, according to Newsom’s “Girl Power”, “Sailor Moon is a powerful and feminine character whose power is dependent on her femininity”. In the first episode, women and young girls are portrayed as emotional beings who are easily swayed by sales and jewelry due to their shiny factor. In the second episode, focuses on romantic relationships, specifically focusing on the crush stage. In this episode, Usagi is more obsessed with the cute guy from the arcade instead of focusing on her mission. In episode 4, the obsession with weight seen in females as well as the pressure to lose weight and live up to the “skinny” ideal is presented. In this episode, Usagi starves herself while linking beauty to weight. These ideas and ideals are presented to women (young and old) constantly daily. Growing up, young girls are exposed to this and like Usagi, choose to starve themselves and/or constantly work out pushing themselves past their limits, potentially shortening their lives for their ideal bodies. Things like this lead to young girls to put too much emphasis on their weight, resulting in the eating disorder epidemic seen in the United States.

Wow, I never planned on watching the movie since I had already read the manga (I feel like I say this at the start of every post but these are just my honest thoughts x_x), but I’m glad the movie still turned out good. Although there were a few parts of the story that felt cut out, it’s still a good story and and enjoyable watch. 

At several points of the movie, it feels like everyone has turned against Ishida. When the principal of the school comes to their class to address the bullying, all of his friends instantly turn against him, even though they also bullied Nishimiya or were just spectators. No one told him to stop, which they lied about, and even the teacher didn’t do anything to try and stop it, which should be his job. That really made me mad, and it’s understandable why Ishida didn’t look at anyone’s faces after that. His actions were wrong, so he should take responsibility for them, but he did try to make up for them afterwards. He worked part time jobs to help pay off the hearing aids he broke, he learned sign language, and went and found Nishimiya to try and amend for his past actions. On the other hand, Kawai continued to pin the blame solely on Ishida, Ueno continued to treat Nishimiay poorly, and (manga-specific) Mashiba punched Ishida despite really knowing nothing about their past. Even at the end, I feel like the other characters were kind of shallow and didn’t really change. Anyways, it just really made me wonder if people can redeem themselves for their past actions, or if their lives should just be dictated by their past. In the case of Ishida specifically, I would consider him to have redeemed his past actions, especially since he was still young and immature. However, is there a point at which actions become irredeemable? 

Another thing is that Nishimiya naturally made the assumption that things were her fault, since she couldn’t fully grasp what was happening around her. But she really shouldn’t feel this way, since it’s not her fault she was born deaf. People should be more accommodating, but I guess 6th graders don’t really understand that.