One of the persistent problems I’ve faced as a blogger has been the demand of my peers to post certain kinds of content. Typically I don’t actually blog a series, for instance. Series blogging is often pointless in my world, because unless the narrative lends itself to extrapolation, I just don’t see a point to [...]
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Electronic gaming’s a huge part of our culture now, and one of my favourite pasttimes is sitting down with a good fighter. The problem, some would argue, is that it’s hard to find a fighter that’s just right for you. Some people end up playing just about any (or every) fighter they come across; others [...]
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I’m not the best authority on games — at least not anymore. I used to be pretty well informed, to the point that I could name just about any given composer, graphic designer, lead programmer, or director on a project. These days, not so much. I still keep as up to date as possible, but [...]
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Occasionally I try to be helpful when it comes to understanding another culture. While many companies now try to include liner notes of some kind to explain cultural items in anime, there’s still a wealth that goes unexplained. In an effort to compensate for some of this (and fulfil my own vain need to write about [...]
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A rising star of manga, about whom the internet has relatively little information, Aki Shimizu is the artist of Suikoden III’s manga adaptation, and wholesale author of the historically-based fantasy manga Qwan. She’s the latest manga-ka up in the spotlight!
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If you ask your average anime fan about Japanese culture, you’re likely to get an enthusiastic response. For some who consider themselves more informed than others, this enthusiasm will often be balanced with that pernicious use of “but…”, followed shortly by a laundry list of things wrong with the country. It can cover anything from [...]
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A short discussion some time ago left me wondering what my favourite heroines were. I then realise that I didn’t consider the majority of them “heroines” in the proper sense of the word. Madoka Ayukawa from Kimagure Orange Road, for instance, is not a heroine. She is a protagonist however. Things became clearer from there [...]
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I have to wonder if we don’t put on some blinders when viewing other cultures and their humour. It’s one thing to be merely ignorant of what another culture works out to be funny, but when you’re unaware of your own, what do you call that? The gap for me between say, Canadian or American humour, [...]
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Though she’s not a true manga-ka, her work’s still been very important to manga and anime in the last few years. Head over and check out my profile of Fuyumi Ono!
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I’m left wondering why I didn’t continue this blog for awhile. I guess I was burnt out? Not on anime per se, but on writing. It’s not exactly hard to write every day, but I’m a bit fickle about my projects — something which I know has to change. Routine has never felt right to [...]
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