The writers at Anime Diet analyze the first two Madoka Magica movies, and include some great discussion of Buddhist and Christian allusions in the films and series. [Anime Diet]
Speaking of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Nick Calibey points out the similarities between Homura and St. Peter. [A Rather Silly Blog]
Nick also presents a wonderful reflection on whether beauty can be found in media, including in anime like Now and Then, Here and There. [A Rather Silly Blog]
ajthefourth and vucubcaquix do their typically wonderful jobs of analysis, discussing religious allusions, primarily to Buddhism and Christianity, in Shin Sekai Yori. [The Untold Story of Altair & Vega]
Among other things, Draggle specifically points out the ironic role Buddhism plays in the same series. [Draggle’s Anime Blog]
Sweetpea discusses the idea of familiars, mentioning her current search for one and giving some examples from anime. [Pagan by the Book]
Hashi interviews Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda of AltJapan, writers of a new book about yurei. [Tofugu]
Thanks for the linkback! I’ve got a major theological piece in the works, and this year’s Nanowrimo novel entirely takes place at a church retreat (it’s an expansion/fictionalization of some of the memoir posts I wrote earlier this year). Stay tuned!
I’m looking forward to both! I really enjoyed that memoir post – where will I be able to read the novel?
Well I’m not publicly sharing the novel as I’m writing it, but you can read the first few paragraphs at my Nanowrimo profile page. The basic twist of the story has deep roots—I wrote a short story about it several years ago—and the characters have been with me for over a decade. I guess it’s a consolidation of everything I’ve written in this vein for a while.
😀 Another NaNoWriMo-er! Good Luck!
TWWK, just curious…. where do you get to see these animes ( unless you actually buy dvds ?) is there an anime channel on TV?
While not TWWK, I can say that there isn’t an anime channel on TV in the US. There are streaming sites online – Hulu, Crunchyroll, Funimation, VIZ – that show anime. (And those are the legal sites with licensed anime, illegal ones have the unlicensed ones!)
Haha…that’s technically not true. There is the Funimation Channel. This assumes you have the right company though :p
Ah, maaaaan! xD I didn’t know they’d made that! I definitely didn’t (don’t) have the right company (or heck, cable bundle >.>) for it, though.
Well, each of the two particular series mentioned in this post can be seen easily (and legally). I won Madoka Magica on DVD and Shinsekai Yori is streaming on Crunchyroll.
I did use to have Anime Network on Demand, which was just serendipitously part of my basic digital cable package. It showed a wonderful variety of shows, including some that became favorites (Aria, FMP: Fumoffu, Kanon), and really was largely responsible for getting me back into anime, when I’d been a very casual viewer for many years prior.