blogs-no-giggles

[blogs-no-giggles]

Hetalia Reflection

  Hetalia is a very interesting and entertaining show to watch. It discusses the history and worldwide events through a humorous stereotyping way. I do get that it may be offensive to some, and others might see it as problematic. But I think it’s really funny and entertaining. Also, it practically went over hundreds of years of history in such a short amount of time while entertaining its audience with it. I think it’s a great show to watch, and I was giggling at all the stereotypes it included in the show. Personally, I think there wouldn’t be a better way to learn history and the countries around the world than this show has done.

  Another thing I would like to discuss is the stereotypes of the countries it described. Although it may be a little problematic, that is just how each country's culture is and is factual in a sense of the way. Even though it may be pictured as bad or silly, but with the bad things there’s also the good that is shown with it. From the stereotypes, it described in the multiples of countries, I also learned a lot about Austria. I’m not the best history student ever. Before watching this, I didn’t really remember Austria being involved in the war. In the show, it is pictured oftentimes with music, piano, a sort of fanciness, and very like sophisticated of sorts. It also is seen pictured with being Italy’s “big brother”, which assumes Austria helped or is older than Italy in a sort of way. I’m not really sure, but I feel like the show is a great way to learn about other cultures around the world, not in a stereotypical way, but characteristics of a certain country. It also uncovers the World’s history all the way from the Roman empire to WW2 and beyond.

  The jumping timelines and the constant shrinking of Italy becoming a small child is sometimes a little confusing, but I enjoyed the show a lot!

[blogs-no-giggles]

Your Name Reflection

This film contrasts the experiences and lifestyles of the two individuals Taki and Mitsuha. The story starts off as Mitsuha in a countryside town where she is tired of the constant expectations, and lack of activities to do in her little town of Itomori. She then yells to the sky "I want to be a handsome city boy in the next life." Then suddenly Mitsuha and Taki swapped places where each of them was in the opposite person's body. This kind of mimics many beliefs of the power in the skies, the power stars, and the solar system system have.

In to the show, both of them were initially very stunned by this sudden occurrence, and they both though of it as a dream. Being in this new body but with the same mind shocked them, however they started to explore the identity of the other person's life. Taki inside of Mitsuha's body clueless of the new feminine characteristics he now resides. He also employs masculine characteristics during this time where we can see how he grabbed a big bowl of rice, later we see how he lacks barriers between the opposite gender as he shoved Teshi to the side of the couch. We also see how the actual Mitsuha suddenly becomes the town's popular girl liked by other girls as well, this is because of Taki's doing. Now Mitsuha is inside Taki's body, she acted just as surprised as Taki had, shocked at the new masculine characteristics she now embodies. We can see the feminine characteristics Mitsuha expresses as she's in Taki's body from the way she talks, the way she is posing, and the wrong use of pronouns. She is also excited about the city lifestyle she wished for. We can see how she loves the cafe and orders an enormous amount of food. However, she experiences the downside of the city lifestyle, working. It is relatively expensive to live in the city and she saw the amount of days he have to work to keep up with the lifestyle.

The film really provided a perspective of the wishes of and more rural side of the world where all the people want is to go to a big city and experience the possibilities and the opportunity to make money. However, as the film shows. Nothing is perfect, we can see although the city has many of the things the countryside folks expected. It is also very hard to keep up with the lifestyle as everything in the city is literally super expensive. It's also difficult to find a decent job as we can see how Taki failed to find a job after so many applications and interviews. The reality is nothing is perfect, there's always a good and a bad side to everything.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Reflection

  The scenes from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is kind of similar to Nasusicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Both featuring a post apocalyptic world where humanity and Earth’s creatures are one with nature. The scene of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is pictured on a very advanced humanity in the future. Where technology has allowed humanity to physically and permanently reside in space. However, the advances in technology ultimately destroy the world as the ambitions of humanity is too strong, whether it’s a single person or as a group no matter the moral intentions. As shown in the scenes, Dr. Klaus destroys the world after he found an all-powerful Conduit in hopes of purifying all of humanity's selfishness and greed. However, the result was all if not most of Earth’s inhabitants and the entirety of nature being wiped away, describing one of the central points in this Module, Anthropocene. Ultimately changing Earth’s makeup forever.  This leads us to the world where the characters are living from the start. How nature surrounds everywhere, not much technology is present and the characters struggle with their world searching for a greater and better place called Elysium. The scenes are very enjoyable to watch and actively demonstrates the problems of the world and characteristics of Environmentalism.

  The main concern for Earth’s ecosystem shown immediately was the overwhelming cloud sea which covers all of the world shown in the scene. Humanity is struggling with nature as the only place suitable for living is on the backs of the Titans. At the start of the scenes, we also see Rex mentioning how many of the Titans are dying continuously, and soon humanity will not have a place to live and have to accept the fear of extinction. This mimics the current environmental problems of Global Warming, where the ocean levels will continuous to rise and ultimately swallow up all of Earth’s inhabitable area, leaving humanity with nowhere to live. This also addresses the concern many of us have today where we eventually have to migrate to space after so many years whether we deplete the resources of Earth completely or the sea levels will rise and the struggle shown in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 becomes a reality. I also find it interesting how the scenes plots the beginning of the disaster as being humanity living on space while the after math is the ever contracting livable world that the characters resides in post-apocalypse. It’s kind of backward in such a way.

  The show ended with the characters finally finding Elysium through a rift and finding everything they ultimately hoped for. A place where lands stretch across the world as livable, a place where nature is abundant and flourishing, and a place where humanity and the world’s creatures can thrive and survive. The show is super fun to watch, and I really recommend it!!!!!

[blogs-no-giggles]

Nausicaa of Valley of the Wind Reflection

  The film first starts off with Lord Yupa, a respected member of The Valley of the Wind, searching for towns that has not been infected by the poisonous spores. He stumbled on into the village, we could see the poisonous spores popping releasing poisonous gas that was fatal to humans. He then went on to the village, the only thing left was the structures of the civilization. All inhabitants are either dead or left in a part of the world where the poisonous gas has not reached yet. He continues to search for the mystery behind why the phenomenon of poisonous gas affecting only humans occurs. By comparing the poisonous spores to the enormous amount of pollution and carbon gases being released into nature, the author conveys to his audience the dangers of pollution and the possible outcomes humanity might face. Although this film is based on the very future of our society, it does resemble the toxic air and air quality that parts of the world are experiencing. Especially in China, we see how people have to wear masks in certain industrialized cities to avoid breathing in the polluted air which will cause serious health problems later on in life.

  Later on in the show, we also find out the beginnings of the apocalyptic society. The story goes: one thousand years before, the humans were at war with each other, for which during an event called Seven Days of Fire, all of Earth’s resources and structures are wiped out by Giant Warriors. Civilizations tumbled instantly, and vast destruction was present all over the world. It is very metaphoric for the dangers of nuclear war. As pictured in the film, Fire reigned over every corner of the world, and a thousand years passed. Earth’s natural inhabitants and resources turn their back on humanity.

  The film also contrasts environmental and Industrialism between the kingdoms of The Valley of the Winds and the Tolmekian Kingdom. The Valley of the Winds is a simple more to the nature-society, which relies on wind power, and simple lifestyles with very little technology evident in the society. We see how the towns people are content with their simple lifestyles and lives a calm life outside of the toxic forest. Tolmekian Kingdom however is described as a very warlike Kingdom, where they plan to conquer and unite everyone in order to burn the toxic forest down thinking it would save humanity from the worldwide Epidemic. Their enormous ships were also signs of industrialism where iron, metal, and familiar industrial structures were prevalent in the Kingdom’s technology.

  The show ended with Nasusicaa saving the Valley by stopping the Pejite from hurting the baby Ohm and rescuing it.  Nasusicaa was seen to sacrifice her life for the baby Ohm, but later we see how the adult Ohms worked together to resurrect her from the dead. The vision of Oh-baba came true as the resurrected Nasusicaa were in the blue gown that she visions the savior to be. In this case, Ecofeminism was also featured as the prediction was going to be a male savior saving humanity 1000 years from the start of the apocalypse, instead it was Nasusicaa who ended up saving the valley from other forces.

[blogs-no-giggles]

The End of Evangelion Reflection

The End of Evangelion timelines Shinji’s emotional states from inquiring for assistance to despair, to destruction, and finally to resurrection. After the death of Kaworu, Shinji becomes despaired because of the enforcement of the hegemonic masculinity on Kaworu ultimately to save humanity. He resisted to his queer masculinity, which is his true self, but the burden he carried as the 1st offering to Adam forces him to perform such acts ultimately devastating his inner peace. The show begins with Shinji in the hospital bed asking Asuka for assistance with his true queer masculinity and hegemonic masculinity required by society. He felt like there was no way out since society won’t accept him for who he is, but force him to commit acts that go against his own will. It seemed like a never-ending nightmare for him, this turned him into the sob, despaired individual who welcomes death as he is deprived of everything he values in life. In one scenario, when the SEELE forces attacked the main base of NERV, he even stood there welcoming death as the soldiers were given instructions to eliminate the Eva Series and its operator as a way to save humanity.

  The show later came to the scene where Asuka becomes the conscience and realizes the meaning of life for which she powers up and becomes fully synchronized with Eva 02 and fights off the SEELE’s Evas that were deployed. However, a turn of events happened when Eva 02 is pierced by the Spear of Loginus. Shinji watched helplessly as the SEEL’s Evas tore apart Eva 02 piece by piece. I personally thought it was super pathetic of him to watch his friend get destroyed and possibly die while he just sat there and did nothing. Nothing seems to motivate him until his mother calls to him and he finally synchronizes with the Eva 01 and goes to fight off the SEELE forces. However, the Spear of Longinus and the SEELE forces froze him in place and flew him up ultimately for the goal of commanding the third impact. The SEELE’s plan works after Rei becomes one with the Mother and tries to help Shinji. The SEELE manipulated Rei into implementing the last step to restarting humanity which caused an world-ending explosion which wiped the surface of Earth, and later we also see how all the souls of humans were collected in the impact into the red sphere shown in the film. Within the red sphere, there’s Shinji’s consciousness and Rei who is talking to him about the outcome of his wishes if there’s no one to judge him. He saw the devastated world with no souls occupied within and thought to restore that balance even if it meant he could never be his true self.

  Shinji felt that in reality, although things weren’t good for him. He still feels the emotions of each person, with a sort of genuineness that the empty space will never be able to provide. He ultimately realized that the perfect society within his head is not possible, that it is only a dream, a dream of fiction, something that can never be true. He realizes that although the reality is cruel and horrifying, the experiences that come with it are what make life genuine. I really like the overall show and the film of Evangelion. It really puts you into perspective of what life is really about, why we do things we do, and the tiny things that makes life fulfilling.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Neon Genesis Evangelion Part 2 reflection

  Part 2 of the Neon Genesis Evangelion took a very interesting turn at the end which I’ll discuss later. But first, the Anime started out with Asuka, the 2nd Child of Eva. She is quite the opposite of what Shinji is. She possessed a more impulsive, straightforward, courageous, and lack of restraint which is what usually males are precepted as. She represented what Shinji should have been. Also in a couple of episodes, I feel like the narrator lightens Shinji’s voice to make it sound more feminine in to addition of the fact that he’s presented queer masculinity discussed in this module.

  We later see how Asuka and Shinji worked together to defeat the whale-looking Angel. Afterward, another angel appears in the shape of a sphere. The Angel swallowed Shinji and the Eva 01 whole and they almost died because of it. However, at the last second, Eva 01 suddenly operated on itself and tore the Sphere Angel in half which shocked many of the observers. Seeing the unpredictable potential of the Evas, it made the people think about whether the Evas were protecting humanity or will it turn against humanity and ultimately destroy them in the end.

  Then with the appearance of the 5th Child of Eva, Kaworu, who later turned out to be an Angel and was eventually crushed by Shinji operating the Eva 01, or else humanity would have been destroyed. Kaworu’s death made Shinji rethink about his life which leads to Episode 26, a very interesting and sophisticated Episode in the Anime.  The majority of the last Episode talked about how a person find their own identity. How we fear loneliness, and how we seek partners to overcome that fear. How we as a person find meaning in life. It talked about the concept of emptiness and freedom. How a person experiences unrestricted freedom when the world is just themselves, then with others comes restriction but meaning to life. The world with just ourselves will be blank, we comprehend and see pictures of ourselves based on the perception of others outside of ourselves. We learn things from others and we all implement ourselves in others in order to feel. How we find meaning to live by being with others. We love, hate, argue, and experience emotions as a way to find meaning in life, to find what we’re living for, and to experience all the good and bad life has given us.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Evangelion Part 1 Reflection

 

Part 1 of the “Evangelion” is super exciting to say the least. The show featured a post-apocalyptic era where humans were forced to hide underground because of the monster species “Angel”. They built cities and very sophisticated structures and technology. It is actually super interesting to see that the city underground is much like an upside-down world kind of like the other side in Stranger Things.

  The Anime first starts off with Shinji getting rescued by Ms. Misato when the Angel raids the city. All the military forces were useless against the Angel, so they denoted a bomb much like the nuclear bomb with a radius near the ground zero to be utterly evaporated. However, this did not stop the Angel, it healed rapidly and the Allied forces were left with no plans left. Shinji is then transported to the main city where the Allied forces live underground away from the sight of the Angel. There he found his dad, however, his dad commanded him to operate the last resort of humanity, The Eva Series 01. Although Shinji doesn’t really want to, he is guilted in operating the machine since his dad gave him the ultimatum of either the hurt girl to operate or him since only they are able to operate the Eva Series and the same humanity. Shinji in the show is kind of like the queer masculinity the module discussed whereas Hegemonic Masculinity is what is expected of him. The society expects him to be fierce, violent, and be honored to defend the human race. Which is a common perception of what males should be and should do back in the traditional society.

  When Shinji ultimately faced the Angel, he struggled to command the Evas 01 and were brutally defeated at first. But, suddenly the Evas 01 gained control of itself and obliterated the Angel, this could be a contrast between what Shinji should have been, and what he couldn’t do. The actions of Evas 01 is what is expected from him in the beginning, something he couldn’t do for which the machine did it itself. Then Shinji was left with either quitting or staying, a stage of personal reflection for some time. He ended up coming back and was faced with another mysterious Angel, the fifth and most powerful angel. The episode left a cliffhanging scene as Evas 01 is seemingly getting destroyed by the Angel. I’m very excited to watch the part 2 of the show!

[blogs-no-giggles]

Wandering Son Reflection

  The Anime “Wandering Son” is a little confusing in the beginning and hard. At first, I thought Nitori and Takisuki were the same person which made me very confused. However as the show proceeds, I realize that Nitori is the guy in the situation, he wants to be a girl and wants to dress up like one. Takisuki is the girl, who wants to be a guy, and she even dresses up as one pretty early in the story, we also see another character, I forgot her name who also dressed up in guy uniform to school. Nitori wishes he could do the same and express who he truly is.

  As the show goes on, we see that Nitori practiced dressing up as a girl outside of school, he went shopping with Anna and looked at girly things together with her. Nitori slowly learns how to be a girl, and what being a girl is like. He really wanted to dress up as a girl and go to school afterwards, but fear of the judgment he might get from doing that. Although in the back of his head, he know everyone will judge him for it, potentially even being bullied, the overwhelming confidence everyone gives him eventually made him go to school in a girl’s uniform. When he first approached the school gate, she was stopped by the front gate people. At first, they thought that it was a foreign exchange student. However, as they looked closely, they saw that it really is Nitori. Then the first comment is mentioned to him, they said “but aren’t you a boy?”, not in a rude way but it is just different and rare for them to see a guy in a girl’s uniform. Later on, his nightmares came true, Nitori was called to the office and had his parents called because he dressed up as a girl. Everyone at school also started judging him and calling him a weirdo, some even referred to him as the “girly man”.

  The show is okay, it talks about the difficulties of each person’s gender identity, especially with the examples of Takisuki and Nitori. They’re both born into a gender’s body which they don’t accept, Takisuki wants to be a guy, and Nitori wants to be a girl. It does mention some of the problems we have with school bullying along with the gender identity.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Aggretsuko Reflection

  Aggretsuko is an Anime show about a female protagonist named Retsuko in the office job industry. The show uses music to demonstrate each character's frustration either towards society, work, or their higher-ups. It also showed how each character is using gender performance for a better outlook on themselves from the world.

  The show started as Retsuko first entered the business industry filled with happiness and excitement to finally be able to get a job. The usual societal expectations of going to school, and get a good job after graduation. Then fast forward 5 years, and we see how her apartment is filled with beers, snacks, and trash surrounding her home table and floors, which is mostly likely the outcome of overworking and extensive office hours. Retsuko also was getting tired of the continuous annoyance of her boss from the enormous workload, and unnecessary tasks such as cleaning his desk, bringing him tea, and a new flower on his desk at the beginning of the day. Which ultimately made Retsuko dream of getting married and quitting the office job, which was a norm in Japan back in the day. Restsuko, however also found a way to relieve her stress from the office. Through Karaoke, she sang with all her heart listening to the band “Death Metal” at the Karaoke place in town. It detailed a genre similar to rock, death voice, and anger, which is typically perceived to be listened to by male audiences. It serves as her sanctuary from work and all her anxiety. Although she is very passionate about signing the band, she doesn’t let anyone find out about her love for the band. This could be because of the traditional public expectations of each gender, and their gender performance such as how Retsuko is supposed to be calm, quiet, compassionate, and understanding of her job description. In fact, she is paranoid and scared of what will happen once they do.

  Throughout the most entirety of the show she kept her secret passion hidden, it was until later when the secretaries of the CEO invited her to come with them that she finally revealed her true self. How she is not a quiet, conservative, and calm person society expects her to be, but she is a person who is filled with passion, anger, and a love for rock music which typically should be the opposite of perceived traits of females. Overall, I like that the show how it uses animals as the characters, and I believe Retsuko is a female tiger, I’m not totally sure but when she gets angry she has her whiskers all ranged up, with the Japanese word “Rage” on her head which is pretty cool.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Sailor Moon and the Girl Power Reflection

  I kind of like this show. It has a cool plot of the protagonist Usagi defeating a kind of monster in each episode of the show. The monsters themselves also served as societal problems that Japan or even our culture is experiencing. It definitely has characteristics of Girl Power shown in the show as the main protagonist is literally Usagi, a middle-school school who suddenly gets involved with the supernatural world and starts fighting bad guys.

  The show starts off with an interesting scene of Usagi overslept her alarm and being late for school. She later finds Luna, which is the magical cat in this movie. She was missioned by a mysterious force to find all the Sailor Guardians in order to protect the city from a mysterious evil force that is outside of humanity. When Usagi first found Luna, Luna was being harassed by the middle-school kids, Usagi jumped in and saved her. She then tore off the bandage on her head which revealed a crescent-like mark on her head. It was later on she discovered that Luna could talk and was able to transform Usagi herself into Sailor Moon to protect the city from the monsters.

  The show has many parts of Girl Power in it. It doesn’t stand against what history presumed to be women’s traditional characteristics but empowers it. For instance, the Anime uses the girls as the Sailor Guardians. They still retain much of the female characteristics such as being kind, caring, sweet, and emotional, but the show enhances those traits and strengthens them into Sailor abilities, in a way for them to also be the heroes in the show whereas traditionally in the past, it was mainly male characters. I like the general plot of the show, even if we had to skip parts of the episodes, the plot per episode helped me understand the general idea the show is trying to convey.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Convention Blog

  I personally have never been to any Anime fandom convention. To be honest,  I wasn’t really invested in Anime at all before this class. However, this class has taught me many things including the context of Anime and the fandoms that surround it. It also made me enjoy Anime and the concept behind it. Apart from that, since I didn’t go to any actual conventions, I watched the 3 parts of the documentary instead. It is very interesting to say the least, the documentary went over many aspects of the Anime culture, the cosplay culture, and the general communities they provide for the people and the fans.

  To start off with, I want to discuss my findings on the Otaku community, those who have a keen interest in Anime, Manga, and cosplay. During the documentary, it showed tens of thousands of people gathering at the Otakon. People from all over the world gather at the city it’s being hosted in to pursue their interest and their passion in either Anime, Cosplay, or similar contexts. We see the very diversified audiences of the Otakon, from children, teenagers, adults, the elderly, and different cultures from all around the world gathered together to celebrate the Otaku community. The community itself brought and flourished cultural exchange, and different people from different cultures were able to collaborate, celebrate, and communicate about the similar passion they have for the Otaku community.

  Another interesting discovery were the answers, when the interviewers asked the attendees the question “Do you consider yourself to be an Otaku?” Although the festival is Otakon, many people actually don’t consider themselves to be Otaku. They perceived the meaning of Otaku as someone who is very invested in the Otaku culture. Some although very passionate cosplayers and such, do not consider themselves to be one. The identity of being an Otaku varies from person to person, some consider themselves to be one even though they have only been to a single Otakon event, while others don’t even though they have been to multiple. It may also have something to do with how the Otaku culture is perceived by the outside world. Although many people are interested in Anime and Otaku culture, it is still not relatively a big subculture in the U.S. Some people may criticize the ones who are devoted to the culture, and the Otaku themselves could be subject to embarrassment. This also leaves us to talk about the next discovery I found in the fandoms, and Otaku culture, belonging.

  A big context of the documentary is the essence of belonging. It showed how everyone was welcoming and socializing at the Otakon. The host, Nicole said that the Otaku community is a place where all the Anime lovers and Otaku’s can belong, a place where there is no prejudice, a place where people can openly discuss the things they love about Anime, cosplay, and manga. People find a new community when they attend Otakon. Friends and family come to this convention to make new friends, discuss their passions, and enjoy what they love doing. Many also find their new circles of friends and even lovers at Otakon. During one of the interviews, Nicole interviewed this couple who met at Otakon, they met during 2 Otakons, and decided to commit to each other because of their similar interest in the Otaku culture. It is also a place for discovering new friends. People who may be afraid to express their passion for Anime may freely discuss their views with others during the Otakon. Everyone here is open to each other’s perspectives about the common thing they love. It is a commonplace, a community, and a place called home for all Otaku lovers.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Genshiken Part 2 Reflection

  The part 2 is definitely interesting to see as well. The show started off with a stunning scene of a member of the Manga Club jumping off the building eventually hurting herself. We would eventually know her as Ogiue as she joined the Geshiken Club later on. At first, she hated Otaku people, which I’m pretty sure it meant people who are invested in Computers, Manga, and Anime. This is also ironic as she joined both of the clubs. On top of that, later in the show we actually see she drew doushinji and brought it to the comic fest. This also brought up the topic of pride or homosexuality discussed in the show. The primary source of the doushinji was Ogiue’s misinterpretation & imagination of Sasahara and Madarame being together. When the doushinji is finished and presented at the comic fest, Ogiue seems kind of embarrassed about it. She feared that others may criticize her work since it is not a cultural norm in society. However, it turned out that some people actually enjoyed it, it gave some another perception of viewing things I guess. Truth is, most people today are open-minded, we don’t take other’s views as insulting, or offensive. Most people are open to interpretation, and usually won’t criticize unless it certainly bothers them.   Another aspect of society that the end of the show discussed is cultural exchange. This is very prominent in the U.S., but probably not as much in other countries. However, many countries are open to tourists and new citizens being enrolled into their society. In the show, you can see how shocked some members of the Genshiken are when Sue and Angela arrive at the school. This is also apparent when they go to the comic show. The people weren’t criticizing them or anything, just curious about them seeing foreigners at the Comic Con. Sue and Angela also represent the spread of Japanese culture in the U.S. as they were both invested in the comics, and Anime Japan offers. The show described diversity and how people of any culture is able to get along with each other, as most of us are generally open-minded.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Genshiken Part 1 Reflection

  This show took a turn from the previous shows, to say the least. It has some very interesting concepts and new ideas in the Post-modern society characterized in the show. This includes the wide spread of Anime, the adoption of Manga, and the flourishing industry that it currently is. It also features aspects of sexual desires and preferences between different people.

  Genshiken first started with Saki meeting Makoto as he walked across the hallway. They instantly recognized each other after saying Hi. Which later facilitated for them to start seeing each other. While this is happening, our protagonist Kanji decides to join the Genshikin club In hopes of liking it. The club is majority a club for Anime, which has many genres of Anime available just like how the lecture talked about, with the use of Moe Elements. Kanji later was exposed to the scenes of what some may call “Adult Anime”, he was shocked at first and kind of embarrassed he got caught looking at the stuff. However, he later learned that the majority of the club members had “Adult Anime” drawing books as well as even adult video games. This could be represented by the term “Animalization” Azuma talked about, where in post-modern civilization. Without a Grand Narrative, people tend to adapt to the simplest form of desire, in this case, our sexual desire.

  Another great example shown in the show that expressed a lack of Grand Narrative and signs of Animalization is the scene where the Genshiken Club goes to the comic fest. At the fest, we seen thousands of people line up for hours just to enter the once-in-a-year comic festival. They don’t seem to have a Grander Narrative as a community like they used to have prior to the age of Post-modernization. Everyone is just fulfilling their simplest needs and desires, and many adapted Anime and created art as their new way of Ideas,

[blogs-no-giggles]

A Silent Voice

  The film “A Silent Voice” starts out with a new student being introduced to the class, Shoko Nishimiya. She is just like any other student except for the fact that she can’t hear. Her introduction to everyone made everyone shocked as she flipped through the pages of her notebook to communicate with the class. Many students didn’t get used to her, and one of the students in particular Ishiko, took advantage of that. He started bullying her, ripping out her hearing aid, and verbally harassing her to make her feel miserable. Although he is the primary one, most of the class was doing exactly the same thing. They took advantage of Shoko’s disability and used it as a way to bully her.  Ultimately, causing her to move schools after so many broken & lost hearing aid, and the constant bullying.

  Although this is just a movie, it discusses a bigger part of the social phenomenon of people taking advantage of others with a disability or those who are less fortunate in order to please themselves. This is a regular reoccurrence, especially during the lives of the children in school. Many experienced bullying and some have gotten so bad that children were considering killing themselves to get out of the horrible life they’re currently experiencing. Also as described in the movie when Ishiko tries to kill himself in a turn of events. For which the bullying he was implementing on Shoko backfired on him, he was experiencing the same treatment of bullying on Shoko but instead this time on him. Everyone seemed to distant out, and Ishiko was left completely in loneliness. In fact, in the film X’s were placed on everyone's face because Ishiko failed to recognize them, and he mentally blocked almost everyone until Shoko came back to his life.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Wolf Children

The film starts out with Hana in college and finds her children’s father to be interesting, different of sorts. She approached him, helped him with his school work, and slowly they fell in love. Then Suki is born, followed by Ame 1 year later. The Happy family continued on for some time. One day, a mischievous event happened, the children’s father was killed during maybe a hunting trip of some sort. Consequently, Hana became a single mother living in the urban village. He tried her best to hide the real identity of her children while letting them live their lives but at a young end, it was simply impossible so they had to move to the countryside.

  The countryside signaled a new beginning for the family of 3. The peace, and beautiful nature give them hope of finding a new place where they can belong. Hana started learning farming as their food and money started to run short. Thanks to Grandpa HIrasaki, she achieved success from her plots of land and grew enough to support the family, but also enough to give to the townsman who needed the extra food supply. They lived comfortably and the 3 got along quite well in their newfound home. As time goes by, Hana and Ame were ready to go to school. Hana loved the school system and all the friends she met during her time there. However, Ame didn’t exactly fit in, he resided in the nature side of his identity and found peace and happiness with nature.

  The film expresses the stress and harshness of single parents taking full responsibility of their children while their partner is absent. In this case Hana, from raising the children in the city side, to a home in the countryside. She did everything for her children, she worked tirelessly and took care of her children after. In the film, it was quoted “She’d gotten so good at falling asleep, she’d doze off for even a slight second while taking care of her children.” She also represents a mother’s unconditional love for their children.

  Another element that was prevalent in the film is finding one’s identity and fitting in. Yuki and Ame were both humans and also wolves. They weren’t exactly the same compared to their classmates, neighbors, or even townspeople. But whether to fit into society is totally up to our own thoughts.  Yuki in the film fits well within the school system, therefore she suppresses her wolf side and becomes more human-like. Ame on the other hand, didn’t fit in with the rest of his classmates, he resided to the wolf side of his identity, he blended in with nature, and had sensei a wolf as his mentor. They both took different paths as siblings, not exactly human but also not wolf. Their identity and destiny guided them into the person or wolf they were at the end.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Naruto reflection

  Naruto is one of the most famous Anime to be ever created. I’ve heard of it from friends, ads, and many other places but I never really gotten the chance to watch it. Now that I have, I see what the hype is really about. From plot to characters, and actions in the show, it is really a stunning work of art. Many contemporary struggles and problems are also discussed in the show, things such as Naruto’s childhood, the war between the nations, and the general way of ninjas and hatred discussed in the show all reflect the societal problems in the real world.

  I’d like to discuss the childhood of Naruto. The show begins with Naruto being rebellious and mischievous as he paints the face of the Hokage’s sculpture all messy and disoriented, then he proceeds to play with the guards and laugh it off. He later also makes fun of Iruka, his sensei when they’re performing a spell test to transform into a copy of him. Instead of doing that, he transformed into an appealing young lady with not much clothes on which made the whole classroom laugh and embarrassed the sensei. We later learned the reason of Naruto’s behavior is because he grew up with no parents, no role models to support him. He also encompasses the Nine-tailed fox spirit which made everyone fear and kept distance from him. He represents the neglected children in contemporary society, where some become associated with crime and mischief all due to the reason of no role models and no one to rely on, therefore they believe in nothing and perform violent or ill-intentioned acts. Children are not naturally evil, they’re innocent and the person they become depends on the environment they grow up in. Even with just a little motivation and some sort of role model, many juvenile delinquents as some may say definitely straighten out their path. It not they we should blame for their actions, but the failure as a society.

[blogs-no-giggles]

Hi Emilato, I totally agree. The beginning of the show was a little confusing and especially boring. However, I kind of got it as the show went on. I too believe that the show has anti-war characteristics as families lost their loved ones. Even in the beginning of each show, the introduction was always repeated saying that both sides lost over half their population since the war began.

𝕄𝕠𝕓𝕚𝕝𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕚𝕥 𝔾𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕞

This was such a hard watch for me. I found this show extremely hard to pay attention to and, overall, quite boring. I think the show helped me figure out that I'm not into sci-fi. Besides what I think, I do know how well-known and popular this series is. My cousin went to Japan recently and saw the large moving robot (the RX-78F00) in the gantry. At the time he showed me the picture, I had no clue what it was, but it is cool that now I do. Since I found it difficult to pay attention, it's hard for me to do a deep dive into this show, but I did see slight themes of anti-war throughout it.

Mobile Suit Gundam takes place in the year 0079 and follows the story of Amuro, who eventually becomes the pilot of Gundam, a powerful mobile suit that Amuro's father created. Amuro fights during the war between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon. As I mentioned previously, I noticed slight themes of anti-war sprinkled throughout the show. One that I noticed right off the bat was the human cost of war. In the first episode, characters like Fraw Bow and Amuro experience trauma. Fraw Bow's family was caught in the crossfire and was killed by a bomb. The show overall depicts the destruction of cities and lives. 

The show also showed a critique of soldiers who were cut off from the command structure and how they treated regular civilians, once again showing the suffering of civilians due to war. These soldiers exhibited a sense of arrogance and had a superiority complex, viewing civilians as inferior. We can see this, for example, in the scene where a soldier was sneering at this woman who was begging him to pay for the apple he took. 

Though this show wasn't for me, I can kind of understand its appeal. The concept of the show is pretty neat, especially since it came out in the late 1970s. I like the unique design of the suits and that there are many messages about war mixed into the show. What I also find cool about it is that the show has evolved over so many years and still has a place in people's hearts.