In 2010, Twwk founded Beneath the Tangles to explore the connections between anime/manga and Christian spirituality. But he hasn’t been the only contributor to the blog—far from it. During the course of 2011, over a dozen other writers contributed guest posts, and soon afterwards, several co-bloggers joined the team, to which another five were added in January 2015. In 2016, Charles moved on to focus on family and ministry, and a leadership team under Japesland took the lead, before Twwk returned the following year. Today, the following members make Beneath the Tangles possible:
BambiBethy – News Editor
Wife and mom to 3 children, 2 dogs, and 1 cat, BambiBethy loves video games, anime, J-pop, K-pop, Korean and Japanese drama shows, DC comics, Marvel comics, and Star Trek. She and her husband are pastors in California where she also teaches children’s church. BambiBethy loves writing bible studies for her students about popular kids movies and television. She also enjoys attending anime conventions and loves keeping up with the latest news in gaming and anime.
claire – Writer
Claire is passionate about story in all its forms, especially visual. She loves to uncover where and how God is revealing himself in culture—across time and space. She’s a historian by trade, specialising in cinema. Claire is fairly new to anime, and so is enjoying catching up on decades worth of rich “archival material”. Though actually it turns out she’d watched anime as a kid, only without knowing it. (For years, she thought there was a class of transformer that were big cats, thanks to the original Voltron. If only she still had that complete mecha toy set, she could retire!)
Cecillia – Director of Development
Cecillia is a bubble tea addict who does Accounting to provide for her two lovely cats, “forever puppy” dog, and man-child medical student husband. She loves kpop, anime, webtoons, tennis, Chick-fil-A, and Lake Tahoe. Her favorite discussion topic is Haruka Nanase’s character development throughout the Free! series.
Celotron – Podcaster
Musician, extrovert, and people lover, Celotron loves spending time enjoying life with the company of friends. Along with his other quirky hobbies (like composing video game music, learning magic tricks, and whatever phase he’s into this week), Celotron enjoys reading new manga series and watching anime whenever he has time. He likes to impress people, as well as being impressed by others, and has a lifetime goal to have made everyone he knows laugh at least once within the first 10 minutes of a casual conversation.
Gaheret – Writer
The eldest of ten siblings who are all avid readers, Gaheret is a is a Catholic lawyer from Spain, too tall for Robin already but not yet serious enough for Batman. Interested in heroism, wonder, hope. and Christ, he looks for them from the realms of Philosophy and Theology to the Arthurian cycle, Dostoyevski, and comics. He discovered anime after University much to his joy, mostly through Beneath the Tangles
Japesland – Director (Retired)
JP is an aspiring businessman and linguist in the land of Japan. His tastes are always in a state of flux, but he enjoys anything with an emphasis on characters. His obsession with Japan carries into most of his interests, from books to television to video games and more. In his free time he likes to pose with bunny ears for caricatures.
Jeskai Angel – Writer, Light Novel Club
With his fondness for books, video games, and trading card games, Jonathan has always been pretty nerdy, but he only became an otaku in 2016, falling in love first with anime, and later with light novels. Despite physical and mental health issues, Jonathan somehow became a historian of the American Civil War, and he has a 500-page doctoral dissertation he still needs to get published. He’s been doing freelance QA work for J-Novel Club since 2019.
Joseph – Social Media Team, Podcaster
Joseph just graduated undergrad and is now attending medical school. He hopes to one day serve God’s kingdom as a medical missionary. After being forced to watch Code Geass by a friend in middle school, he realized anime wasn’t as cringy as he had thought, and has been watching it since. He’s also played volleyball for a while and claims to be better than Nishinoya. Aside from anime, his favorite video game series is The Legend of Zelda and loves to study philosophy.
Judy – Social Media Team
With a passion for plushes and all things kawaii, Judy’s first taste of anime came when she saw Battle Of The Planets as a child and she delved further during the Pokemon, after which her love of anime kept growing (and she’s never looked back). She has a knack for taking secular songs and coming up with religious connotations to them, and loves Japan/Japanese culture, the color blue, and laughing! When she’s not watching anime or reading manga, Judy is working out at the local YMCA, drinking Pure Leaf raspberry iced tea, blasting Stryper’s music throughout her house, rooting for the Boston Bruins or shelling out her love of one of her favorite animals, the turtle!!
KhakiBlueSocks – Social Media Team, Writer
Also known as the Cajun Samurai, KhakiBlueSocks is a Christian, a southern gentlemen, an “angry black man,” a commentator, and a blogger on life and anime, A virgin until married and avid New Orleans Saints fan, he’s written quite a few things, and looks forward to writing a few more!
Laura A. Grace – Writer
Growing up, Laura A. Grace dreamed of being a Sailor Scout fighting alongside Sailor Moon and Sailor Mars. As an adult, she now dreams of being a volleyball player on the Karasuno volleyball team, a fellow pirate in the Straw Hat Crew, and matchmaker for a certain “couple” in Cells at Work. To indulge her daydreams, she often gets fanart commissioned with her favorite fictional characters and collects as many anime inspired enamel pins her husband will allow. She happily gushes about her latest manga reads (and anime memes) to her husband and three children, who may or may not like battling her with plastic lightsabers.
Lili – Social Media Team
Lili (Lea) traverses on this earthly plane serving Christ through her occupation of Massage Therapy. When she’s not caring for others, she’s playing Final Fantasy XIV or other video games, practicing Hokuto Shinken, singing around the house, and looking at JP/Korean fashion/skincare.
Mecahawk – Social Media Team
A Christian and anime fan since his youth, Tyler has sought religious enlightenment through scripture and cultural enlightenment through anime. Much of his time is also spent gaming with a wide variety of tastes centered around strategy. He is happily married to his wife, and he uses his knowledge of political science and Humint as a moderator of the Beneath the Tangles Discord server.
Medieval Otaku – Writer
Medieval Otaku is essentially a bookworm. His greatest loves are writing, anime, literature, history, religion, and foreign and ancient language, especially Japanese, Latin, and French. He hopes to become a full-time novelist one day, though each day offers endless ways to distract him from this happy goal.
MRNewman – Columnist, Social Media Team
Matthew Newman is an environmental engineer who’s also a husband, beard aficionado, Dad of four beautiful children, blogger, and all around geeky guy. When he’s not chasing his kids or working, he’s probably asleep.
NegativePrimes – Writer
Dr. Steve, aka NegativePrimes, was introduced to anime while working on his Ph.D. in literary studies, when the local anime club showed Naruto’s fight against Zabuza and Haku on an auditorium big screen. His favorite anime series include FMA: Brotherhood, Erased, Snow White with Red Hair, and Gate, and he also enjoys computer programming, gaming, and technology. Where he finds the time for these, after prayer, work, and raising several children, remains something of a mystery.
Nyan – Video Team
From getting up early on weekends to catch the latest episode of Pokémon or Sonic X, to sneaking onto the family PC late at night for some Naruto or Zatch Bell! action, to studying Evangelion instead of for AP Psychology, Ryan has been watching anime since before “anime” even entered his lexicon. Perhaps it is what led him to eventually pursue a career in the film industry. When he isn’t busting his tail on a movie, you’ll find him catching up on anime/manga, grinding away at his ever-growing backlog of JRPGs, serving at church, experimenting in the kitchen, messing around on the piano/drums, playing with any new tech he can get his hands on, exercising, and sleeping (on the rare occasion).
Peter – Writer
Peter is a software engineer living in Texas. His love for anime started with shows from WB and Toonami and was fully realized in high school where he was introduced to One Piece. He is a diehard fan of the Dallas Cowboys and hopes his dreams for the team will stop being crushed in his lifetime. He also enjoys following the NBA (Dallas Mavericks), playing sports, bass guitar, and reading witty comments on Reddit.
R86 – Sensei
R86 is a chemistry professor, which is the sort of job that probably made you stop reading already. He teaches organic chemistry at Texas A&M University. In his spare time, he enjoys music (flute/saxophone/clarinet and MIDI/Vocaloid synthesis), watching anime, and travelling to Japan as cheaply as possible.
Samuru – Writer, Social Media Team
Michael (Samuru) is a school teacher, husband, lifelong gamer, avid anime fan and follower of Christ. Video games have been his delight, as have books, writing, traveling and a slight obsession with music via Spotify. If he’s not teaching, you’ll find him conquering digital worlds on his PS4 or on Steam.
sleepminusminus – Writer
sleepminusminus lurks mysteriously in the dark corners of the anime world, occasionally peeking out to retweet something cute or clever. Online, he spends copious hours smashing keys in osu!mania and binging old slice-of-life shows. Offline, he ponders theology, mathematics, and everything in between.
Stardf29 – Light Novel Club Prez, Writer
Frank is known as “stardf29” on various parts of the Internet; it stands for “Star Defender 29”, which is something he came up with during his chuunibyou years. Now, when he’s not doing things for the Navy or indefinitely delaying his writing projects, he likes engaging in anime, especially of the slice-of-life sort.
Talia – Video Coordinator
Small in stature, big in heart, Talia is a bundle of geekiness, goofiness, and imagination. She grew up obsessed with The Legend of Zelda, to the point where she legitimately thought this girl in her Tae Kwan Do class was the hidden princess and was immediately so jealous of her destiny—ahem, anyway… Talia also adored anime as a kid, pretending to pass out like the Sailor Senshi of Sailor Moon randomly, or fighting Arrancar with her Rainbow-sword. But the biggest moment of her life was her beautiful Abuela handing her a beautiful King James (she thought Talia was very advanced in reading, apparently) Kid’s Bible with an abundance of animals on the cover. Talia treasures this book with her beloved Abuela’s handwriting to this day. Talia also is studying Japanese, and has been to Japan twice—first for studying abroad and later to visit her friends. In addition, Talia sings everything, and her life is a musical. You can find her driving to something while belting her eardrums away in her car, playing her Nintendo Switch, or catching up on One Piece.
Thathilomgirl – Social Media Team, Writer
Having just finished her undergraduate degree recently, Michelle is continuing her stay in Melbourne as she learns to navigate her way through adult life (permanently, she hopes). When she’s not holing herself up in her room with anime and manga, she’s either roaming the city for ramen and milk tea or thinking intensely about her current favorite series.
TWWK – Director
A little Speed Racer here, some Transformers there, and without even realizing it, TWWK’s childhood had dotted with anime. But it was the later discovery of Digimon, Tonami, and Princess Mononoke that entrenched him in the world of anime, while Evangelion sealed the deal. Today, you can find him hanging out with his family, serving at church, and of course, watching anime.