With the spring season rapidly approaching, it felt like about time to write some sort of thematic wrap-up for this season of Chihayafuru. I’ve been thrilled by Chihayafuru’s expansion of its dramatic scope all throughout this season, and greatly enjoying its exploration of how your relationship with karuta naturally changes as you embrace the full responsibilities of adult life. Let’s get to it!
A Lifetime of Competition: Growing Up in Chihayafuru
This week’s Crunchyroll article returns us to My Hero Academia, as I explore the central question presented by Gentle Criminal’s addition to the narrative. Gentle’s actions aren’t legal, but they’re clearly pursuing a specific ideal of justice – so are heroes ultimately just super-powered shock troopers for the police, or genuine, independent heroes of the people? It’s a question that cape comics have explored all throughout comic history, and I’m delighted to see My Hero Academia expanding its moral scope through the defiantly ambiguous Gentle. Here’s the piece!
Who Defines Justice in My Hero Academia?
Along with my own personal list of shows that appeal to my snooty critical sensibilities, this week I also wrote up a more general preview piece for Crunchyroll, highlighting the shows that your average anime fan might actually care about. I couldn’t help myself from devoting a bonus paragraph to Oregairu, but otherwise this is a pretty straightforward rundown of the upcoming season’s likely biggest hits, with an emphasis on the big friggin’ sequels in store. Let’s get to it!
Prepare Yourselves for a Superb, Sequel-Packed Spring Season!
Today I’ve got a pretty silly Why It Works feature, mostly prompted by how much fun the new My Hero Academia movie was. Inspired by that film’s generous spread of 1-A combinations, I took a crack at building my own My Hero Academia teams, along with some light commentary on the general fun of the hero team concept. Here’s the piece!
My Hero Academia’s Most Terrifying Team-Ups!
We return to One Piece in the midst of its Alabasta arc, as we’re presumably nearing the climax of the overarching “Baroque Works” era. I haven’t actually read One Piece before, but given this final confrontation will involve squaring off against the actual leader of the Baroque Works pirates, and prompt either the fruition or destruction of the plan he’s been concocting for literally years, I have at least a certain degree of confidence that this arc will resolve the overall Baroque Works saga. So how does the view look from this point, as we near the conclusion of such a crucial conflict?
Today I’ve got a fresh My Hero Academia article for you all, largely inspired by the show’s recent provisional license retakes, as well as Mirio and Nighteye’s additions to the story. One of the things that I feel sets MHA apart as a shonen is that in terms of temperament, Midoriya is far removed from the default “shonen protagonist,” who’s generally someone a lot more like Mirio or Yoarashi. Midoriya has to actually work to come off as inspiring, and that plays naturally into My Hero Academia’s framing of heroism itself as a source of inspiration. Anyway, here’s the piece!
Not Born to Be a Hero: My Hero Academia and the Road to Greatness
This week’s Why It Works column is pretty self-explanatory, as I use the convenient approach of My Hero Academia’s school festival arc to talk about why these festivals show up so often in anime, and what they offer to a narrative in a dramatic sense. To someone who’s watched far too much anime like me, school festival arcs are an inherently soothing experience, a comfort zone within the riling experiences of high school. But they serve more of a dramatic purpose than that, and, uh, that’s what this article is about. Here’s my piece!
Let’s Explore the Fundamentals of a Great School Festival Arc!
Today on Crunchyroll, I conclude my early breakdown of how Eizouken explores the genuine fundamentals of creating stories generally, and producing anime specifically. The show’s progression actually ended up helping me a great deal here – I was already planning on centering much of this half on how essential people like Kanamori are, and then episode four came along and basically served as a direct celebration of her talents. It’s always a joy to write about this show, and I hope you enjoy my piece. Let’s get to it!
How Eizouken Embodies the Messy Thrill of Storytelling (Part Two)
I am sure it could not be less surprising that I’m favoring Eizouken in this season’s Why It Works columns, but you only get so many chances to write about shows this good. I’ve still got more Eizouken writing to do today, but I hope you enjoy this piece about how Eizouken reveals the true messiness of constructing a narrative. Here’s the piece!
How Eizouken Embodies the Messy Thrill of Storytelling!
At scattered moments during your journeys across the rocks and rivers of Death Stranding, your player character Sam Porter Bridges will mutter little encouragements to himself, or simply scattered half-thoughts. “Sam, Sam, he’s our man,” a slogan uttered with an edge of bitterness, as he was essentially manipulated into this job of carrying endless packages of cargo across a broken America. Sometimes it’s more straightforward motivational exercises, like “one foot in front of the other,” or at one point, “I’ve scaled higher mountains than this.” And sometimes it’s a rare acknowledgment that he actually finds joy in this work – checking in with the companion strapped across his chest, or staring out across a forbidding yet beautiful wasteland and remarking “I always liked the quiet.”