An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Killing Time – Assassination Classroom Spoiler Review

Assassination Classroom is one of the big ones, both in terms of popularity and in terms of length. The latter has made it something of a challenge to consider reviewing in the format to which I am accustomed, but for Back To School month, I decided to finally take a crack at it. For this case, I’ve decided to err on the side of giving a general overlay, rather than full detail

The setup for Assassination Classroom is this: a giant yellow octopus man who can fly at mach 20 just blew up the moon, leaving it a perpetual crescent. He threatens to do the same thing to the Earth in a year’s time, but has deal with the governments of the world: for the next year, he’ll be the homeroom teacher for a particular class of middle school students, who have that time in order to kill him (and score a huge bounty in the process). Of course, he has many superpowers, so this is far easier said than done. The octopus is shortly given the name Korosensei by his class, a portmanteau of korosenai (“unkillable”) and sensei (“teacher”), and both he and government forces are ready to teach the students in both ordinary academics and assassination techniques in the hope that they’ll be able to save the world.

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Anniversary Post: A quick look at Selected Films of Hayao Miyazaki

So… normally this time of year I do a big anniversary top 10 list. I had an idea to do the same this year, but real life concerns got in the way of the amount of work the particular concept would have taken. This won’t affect the weekly reviews, because I try to keep a buffer of those, but it does mean that I was sort of caught out when it came to the annual weirdness.

So, instead of a Top Ten, I thought I’d take a quick look at a few of the works of Hayao Miyazaki. I normally don’t comment on films, rather than series, though I have looked at movies in the past, and the Miyazaki films in particular seemed a little awkward to take looks at because… well, briefly put, they’re all great. These are seriously some pieces of work that live up to their hype, and it’s hard to imagine they won’t remain enduring cultural icons.

But, in the spirit of doing something different for the year mark of this blog, I thought I’d get my thoughts down on a few of them, reacting in a more extemporaneous fashion than I normally do, just to have my comments on record. And, unlike my normal reviews, this will be if not spoiler free than at least spoiler-lite, trying to avoid major spoilers for the two people who haven’t seen these films. That out of the way, let’s dive in.

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Welcome to Generica – Shironeko Project Zero Chronicle Spoiler Review

Alas, video games. This isn’t the first time I’ve picked on you and it won’t be the last. And let me make one thing perfectly clear: I love video games. I even like their stories; there are games I’ve played and replayed just for the story, like Planescape: Torment, and games where I think the story could gracefully make the transition to screen in some form, like Iji. Even when a game doesn’t reach the highest heights, it can have a good and memorable story with good and memorable characters. JRPGs like Skies of Arcadia are great at this – and, for all its stereotypical fantasy cheese, so is the Fire Emblem series.

For those who aren’t familiar, Fire Emblem is a series of tactical RPGs or Turn-based strategy games (depending on how you want to look at them) united by being set in fantasy worlds where a lot of familiar tropes tend to repeat themselves. Warring kingdoms, divine dragons, nobles, and retainers are the order of the day. Sometimes the setting can be a little tired, and sometimes the characters (who only have a few quotes to distinct themselves, unless you follow their support stories) can be a little basic, but by in large it tends to turn out moderately decent stuff.

Why do I bring that up? Because, at first, Shironeko Project Zero Chronicle feels like an off-brand Fire Emblem setup. It’s got noble pretense, clear fantasy tropes for everyone, sworn retainers with different character classes, and so on. They worship a shiny rock instead of a dragon, but that’s neither here nor there. What it turns into is an insult to storytelling and makes me feel kind of bad for ever thinking of this mess in terms of Fire Emblem. So let’s dive in.

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To Boldly Go Where No Catgirl Has Gone Before – Cat Planet Cuties Spoiler Review

When starting Cat Planet Cuties, I felt an odd sensation. It took me a moment to place it, but I soon realized that the feeling I was experiencing was a nervous concoction of creeping dread. Why feel fear when loading up something that seems as mindless yet harmless as Cat Planet Cuties? Well, let’s just say I’ve seen another show with a fairly similar pitch, DearS, and that the title “Cat Planet Cuties” inspired about as much confidence as “In Another World With My Smartphone”, so I was expecting this to hurt me.  Expectations, however, must be modified in the face of evidence.

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Unseen – Mushi-shi Review

For those who don’t know, Mushi-shi is an anthology-style show. It follows (roughly) the travels of Ginko (by trade, the titular Mushi-shi), a man who specializes in dealing with strange cases related to Mushi, spirit entities that most humans cannot see but that all can feel the effects of. He walks the length of ancient Japan, interacting with isolated villages and others that have Mushi problems whether they know that’s what they have or not. Part nature documentary, part medical drama, and part ghost story, Mushi-shi has a broad range of experiences to offer.

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