The backstory of Uotani Arisa, friend of Fruits Basket protagonist Honda Tohru, is a genderswapped retelling of Jesus’ parable of the “prodigal” son found in Luke 15. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it was fun to say, and it got your attention, didn’t it? And there really is some great thematic resonance… Read More The Prodigal Uo-chan
When Soma Kisa is introduced in Fruits Basket, she has been facing bullying and, traumatized by the situation, stopped speaking. She also quit going to school, and so eventually she receives a letter from her teacher asking her to come back. Fortunately for the audience, we have Soma Hatsuharu and Soma Yuki around to read… Read More Finding Love in the Face of Self-Loathing
Harem romances are fairly common in anime and light novels. That is, many of these stories feature a male protagonist with several female love interests (only two love interests is merely a love triangle, not a harem). A harem story may or may not involve the guy marrying all the girls. I’m not a huge… Read More On Harem Romances
Steam had its summer sale not long ago, and I picked up a few visual novels to try. Each is available for both Mac and PC. Magical Diary: Horse Hall Magical Diary: Horse Hall is a very “meh” sort of visual novel. Bland backgrounds, forgettable music, and somewhat ugly character sprites do nothing to salvage… Read More A Trio of Visual Novel Reviews
Over the past year, I’ve become something of a light novel addict. #BlameBtT. Inspired by what Frank has written about light novels, I thought it might be worthwhile to survey the light novel series I’m reading. With a couple exceptions, these are overall impressions of each series, not reviews of individual volumes. Since I can… Read More What Am I Reading & Should You Try It?
*Warning: presumptive spoilers for a future season of Sword Art Online Alicization* Lingering the background of Sword Art Online Alicization has been the question of the nature of the soul. Early in the anime, the story established that scientists had narrowed down the soul’s nature to a light-based phenomenon they call a fluctlight. These fluctlights… Read More Love Versus Materialism in Sword Art Online Alicization
Crystalline, a visual novel available on Steam, is a fun isekai / romance / adventure story. Crystalline is the first visual novel I’ve ever tried, so I have nothing with which to compare it, but I found it charming. From what I can tell, it is typical of the visual novel genre, straddling the intersection… Read More Crystalline: A Visual Novel Review
“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate’s derisive rhetorical question during the trial of Jesus of Nazareth has a strikingly modern — or better yet, postmodern — ring to it (Jn. 18.38). In the postmodern worldview, “truth” is subjective, personal, relative, and often unknowable, much like Pilate’s question implies. I know there’s been a lot about The… Read More A Shield for Truth
When I watched the delightfully absurd Witch Craft Works, one surprisingly thoughtful scene stood out amid the convoluted hilarity. I don’t dare attempt to explain the whole story, but at this particular point, protagonist Takamiya Honoka and witch / bodyguard / love interest Kagari Ayaka have come into conflict with Kagari’s mother (an extremely strong… Read More Resisting Evil
TWWK: You’ve surely seen many of of the wonderful guest contributions by Jeskai Angel here in recent months—so many that he seems to be part of our regular staff! Well, we’ve remedied that inconsistently by bringing Jeskai Angel on as a member of our staff! He’ll be joining our light novel club and contributing other… Read More On Love