At Beneath the Tangles, we believe anime and manga can open the door to meaningful conversations about faith, life, and creativity. Our writing and editing team brings those conversations to life through reviews, essays, reflections, and plenty of enthusiasm for the stories and characters we love. Meet the people behind the words!
claire – Editor
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!)
Gaheret – Writer
The eldest of ten siblings who are all avid readers, Gaheret 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.
Jeskai Angel – Writer
Yo-ho! Jonathan’s liked reading, video games, and trading card games for a long time, but he only became an otaku in 2016. After falling in love with anime, he later became a fan of light novels…which eventually led to freelancing as an editor and proofreader of many such light novels for J-Novel Club. He’s also technically a historian who’s written a scholarly study of junior officers in an American Civil War army (#shameless “Buy my book!” plea).
KhakiBlueSocks – 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 – Reviewer
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.
NegativePrimes – Editor
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.
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 – 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.
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, Toonami, 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.
WacOtaku – Reviewer
Three years stationed in Yokosuka, Japan back in his US Navy days may not have made Hayden “go native” but he definitely picked up a few things along the way- such as a love of Japanese curry, a fascination with rakuguo, and a long-distance love affair with the city of Nagasaki. As his beloved alma mater Baylor University’s official beverage is Dr Pepper, he can confirm Okabe Rintaro’s claim that it is indeed the drink of intellectuals.
