Angel’s Egg has a firm reputation as one of the premier “anime art films,” for whatever that’s worth. In anime fandom, it doesn’t really mean much; fans have a tendency to scorn the unfamiliar, and when you get to the kind of visual storytelling or narratively disruptive scene-setting that are often part and parcel with “arthouse film,” people who are into anime for the girls or robots tend to check out. “Pretentious” is the word – a word that in fandom dialect has come to mean anything outside of the familiar, and when your “familiar” is almost strictly genre fiction for teenagers, the Other can be a fairly broad place.
Category Archives: Essay
Parallel or Together in the Idolmaster
It’d be easy for the Idolmaster movie to be a strict love letter to the fans, and barely a movie at all. The Love Live movie did that, which wasn’t really a surprise – Love Live’s always been a series in direct conversation with its fandom, and so the fact that its movie was basically just the cast doing their bits and then a bunch of cute performances seemed pretty appropriate. And The Idolmaster is a series with so many good moments that it’s essentially created its own robust vocabulary of character and narrative touchstones to reference. You could have a sequence of Iori and Yayoi being an awkward couple, an extended return to the Sunday game show, a bit where Hibiki and her dog conduct an interview with some grumpy antagonist, and there you go – ninety minutes achieved, checks are in the mail.
A Fire Burns in Concrete Revolutio
Aw dang it’s time for a new essay yeaaah. Concrete Revolutio is absolutely stuffed with great ideas, so the biggest issue here was really just tying them all together into a coherent piece. I’m pretty happy with the result, and hope you enjoy the writeup. The show’s only half over, but it’s already one of the richest narratives of the last few years, and I really, truly, desperately hope it sticks the landing. A good second half could make Concrete Revolutio a legitimate classic.
Anyway, enough preamble, let’s get to the writeup!
A Fire Burns in Concrete Revolutio
The Star Under Lights: Millennium Actress
Millennium Actress’s credits open with the view from a train, as light flickers past in a tunnel before giving way to city skyline. It’s fitting that an animated movie about the deception of film begins with those flickering lights; the light of a train on a tunnel is itself one of the simplest forms of animation, a series of starkly lit shots creating the appearance of motion. As the view transitions to a bombed city under blue skies, the image shifts, with a plane overhead melting into first a modern passenger jet, and then a rocket in space. Fluid transitions across time and space are an accepted part of reality in this world; what matters is not the base nature of the world, but the dramatic throughline of the object in flight. What catches the eye is what remains. What we remember is what exists.
Forgiveness For When Marnie Was There
It’s hard to forgive. As self-focused creatures, we want to believe in a just world, one that will repay our pain with some equal kindness or justice. When we are wronged by others, when we are abandoned or let down, we don’t want to simply accept that pain as the cost of engagement. We want others to understand how much they’ve hurt us, and to give us back the hurt they’ve caused. Forgiveness means acknowledging that things aren’t fair, and that sometimes we must give more than we take, and that embracing others in spite of pain is a constant wager of sacrifice, a road on which the friction of disappointment may one day wear down the strength of our love.
What Makes Kyoto Animation So Special?
I wrote another big article for ANN! This one’s about KyoAni! I’m super excited about it! I am guessing that is obvious!
I took a lot of time on this one, and am very happy I was able to segue directly from watching all of K-On! into getting to work on it. Kyoto Animation do wonderful work, and it’s nice to be able to celebrate that so directly. I hope you enjoy the piece!
What Makes Kyoto Animation So Special?
Wolf Children and the Wilderness
I wish I had more interesting things to say about Wolf Children. I wish I could dedicate a spiraling essay to unpacking its secrets… but that’s not really the kind of movie it is. The film doesn’t hide anything – it’s a movie about mothers and their children, about struggling and making it through, about time and patience and joy and grief. None of these themes truly dominate the film, because the film is about the lives of a few people, and life has a lot of themes. But they work beautifully in concert, garnishing the sturdy core of a quietly perfect story.
The Many Lessons of Gatchaman Crowds
New essay time! Jeez, I’ve been spoiling you guys lately. There was a bit of a lull when I was getting used to managing my time for ANN, but now you’re getting articles on idols, articles on classic OVAs, and now an article on Gatchaman Crowds. I wrote about Gatchaman’s first season way back when it ended (jeez, that was two years now), but I think I’ve gotten a little bit better at consolidating my points since then. This isn’t a breakdown of every single thing that happens – this is a condensing of the core themes that emerge in different ways across both seasons. I hope you enjoy it, and may our lady Hajime shine upon you!
The Many Lessons of Gatchaman Crowds
Giant Robo and the Beautiful Night
A new essay has arrived! I finished Giant Robo a little while back, but it took me some time to really hammer down a piece on it. I’m happy with the result, though, and certainly happy with the show. Giant Robo is a titanic, triumphant series, a glorious melodrama that revels in old-fashioned adventure and giant robot storytelling while crafting a narrative pretty much anyone could appreciate. It’s both soulful and beautiful, full of riveting characters and gorgeous visual compositions. It’s a masterpiece, basically – you may not be the biggest fan of its style of storytelling, but it is essentially a perfect version of what it is trying to be.
My piece is up now over at ANN, so please check it out, and I hope you enjoy it!
Giant Robo and the Beautiful Night
I also wrote notes that got more and more thorough as I made my way through the series. You can check those out below!
The Intoxicating Lure of Idol Anime
No escaping it now, apparently. I’m stuck in idol hell, so I might as well document the whole process, to save future generations from this dire fate. This is a sprawling article, one that covers my experience at the Love Live! movie, my time spent with four separate idol anime, some thoughts on that whole Database, Database thing, and more besides. It’s a bit more of a personal reflection than the stuff I normally do, but I hope you enjoy it. This past year has definitely been quite a ride.
The Intoxicating Lure of Idol Anime
