An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Month: December 2020

Peace and Fluff – Helpful Fox Senko-san Spoiler Review.

What is fanservice?

When you say the word “fanservice”, I feel like most people think of something very particular – the beach episode, the hot springs episode, panty shots, or anything else that puts cute girls (or beautiful women) in skimpy outfits or less for the viewing pleasure of the audience or otherwise indulges prurient desires. And, certainly, this is a kind of fanservice… but it’s not the only one. I’ve talked about others before; in Granblue Fantasy when a ton of characters we’ve never seen jump out and show their stuff in the final plot episode, obviously to appeal to people who were their fans in the game even though the plot didn’t have room for them, that’s a kind of fanservice.

In short, while there is absolutely one kind that stands heads and shoulders above the rest, fanservice is material that exists to gift the audience with exactly what they believe they want, satisfying some natural viewer desire whether or not it’s actually germane or intellectually fitting.

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Cyberpunk, Magic, and Critical Mistakes – Shangri-la Spoiler Review

Shangri-la is a very peculiar show for me. I wanted to like it. I tried to like it. I gave it chance after chance and said time and again things like “they could recover from this”, or “they could still bring it back” or “that’ll make sense if…” only to be, in some sense, disappointed every time. This isn’t a show where every thing is bad, but it is one where critical flaws ultimately produce something of a frustrating experience.

In some ways, I think Shangri-la is best studied in a master class on how to not write speculative fiction. It is so particularly, precisely bad that we really do have to sit down and dissect its failures in order to understand and learn from them. In others, I have to wonder: is there anything worth saving? Well, there’s not much point dawdling, so let’s take a look. Fair warning, this is going to be a long one.

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A Vision of the Old Days: Record of Lodoss War (1990) Spoiler Review

So, what is there to know about Record of Lodoss War? This story is one that, if rumor is to be believed, is basically the creator’s Dungeons & Dragons campaign, and it practically relishes every expectation and convention of the AD&D/OD&D era, to the point where I’ve usually heard it compared to D&D tie-in material, particularly the Dragonlance novels, more than to later anime. At least to western audiences it sort of serves as a bridge between two spheres of nerdy media, Anime and the Western Fantasy/TTRPG scene. Given its age, it may no longer be a true “gateway” to Anime, but it probably served as one for a lot of people who were already into D&D.

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Where Angels Tread – Haibane Renmei Spoiler Review

Haibane Renmei is… actually, that’s probably going to be the hardest part of this review: defining what Haibane Renmei is. As a show it’s a little too plot-heavy to really be called Slice of Life, but also a little too low-key to be called a drama. Perhaps it would be best to term it as a Slice of Life show that evolves into an emotional drama, since there is absolutely a point where the show takes a turn for the dramatic?

It is, without question, a beautiful show. Despite being very down-to-earth, without a ton of places to show off impressive spectacle or visual wonder, I can say that everything looks amazing. The color, lighting, backgrounds, character design, and motion are all quite striking in their own ways, despite being fairly humble. This is a show that takes things that are plain, and makes them memorable and beautiful with its focus and care.

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