For Ayaka Steiger, Christmas is awful. When she was still a child, the conflicted antagonist of Kurau: Phantom Memory lost her entire family on Christmas Eve to a group of gunmen with a grudge against her father, a top agent with the government’s secret service, the GPO. As an adult, she has followed in her… Read More 12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 12: The Many Christmases of Kurau: Phantom Memory
Christmas celebrations in the broken, besieged world of Yuki Yuna is a Hero provide a welcome respite for the bruised and battered girls of the Hero Club—an afternoon’s pause in their battle to save the remnants of humanity from the supernatural enemy that would devour them. Technically, it’s January 5th, but the girls are pretending… Read More 12 Days of Christmas Anime, Day 7: Yuki Yuna, Santa Claus & a Gift to Change the Ages
I loved Puella Magi Madoka Magica from the moment I first saw it. The heroine’s epic sacrifice to save the world and inject an unforgiving karmic system with grace resonated so powerfully. And not just with me, as I soon learned, but with pretty much all of Christian otakudom. But then I watched Rebellion, the… Read More Fixing Madoka’s Mistake: Yuki Yuna, Episode 11
It’s not often I feel shown up by an anime—especially when it comes to my faith. But the Hunter King in Ranking of Kings episode 4 does just that. As I watched him lead Bojji in a dance of thanksgiving, I realized that I had a thing or two to learn from this wild animist. … Read More Dancing of Kings: What the Hunter King Taught Me about Thanksgiving
Anime has a lot to say about friendship. Most of it, is about the process of making friends (often in trying situations with rather awkward people), and then standing by them in tough times. Much of the medium’s message about friendship can be pretty clichéd, but that doesn’t make it any less comforting and inspiring—or… Read More The Friend We Don’t Know We Have: Ranking of Kings, ep. 5
The heart of good anime—like all storytelling—is character development. The best series are tales of how the hero, and sometimes the villain too, adapts and changes in response to the events of the plot. They’re about how the protagonist levels up, be it their martial skills (Demon Slayer), social skills (Hitoribocchi), their emotional resilience and… Read More Mommy Issues & …Prayer? Selection Project ep. 5
Selection Project is the best idol anime you’re not watching. I’m not usually one for idol anime (unless the idols are zombies), but this is a series that grabbed my attention with its stunning background art and non-standard plot twist in the premiere, and has kept it ever since through its raw contemplation of the… Read More The Scars that Save Our Lives: Selection Project ep. 6
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