Ninja Girl and Samurai Master (Nobunaga no Shinobi) is a short form anime series set during the warring states period of Japanese history coming from a historical fiction standpoint. In the current story arc we were recently introduced to a political, military, and Buddhist religious leader named Hongan-ji Kennyo. After his introduction, it becomes clear that… Read More Newman’s Nook: Amida is not Jesus
I just finished watching WorldEnd: Etc. (Who would ever scribble out the entire title?) This stood as my favorite anime of the last season. (Though, my selection of anime series from the last season was quite small.) The author of this series did a wonderful job of world-building. Digressions on the world’s past did much… Read More WorldEnd: How Reincarnation Ruins Romance
Hola mis amigos! To all those who have been looking forward to Something More, I hope I meet your expectations. I am Samuru, one of the staff writers here at Beneath the Tangles who enjoys writing on video games and occasionally anime. I used to write a column on Geeks Under Grace called Treasure Chest… Read More Something More: Ghost Hunting, Spiritual Personas, Suffering from God and Djinns in Final Fantasy
Every-so-often, creators like to throw their fans a juicy bone–putting favorite characters into high-action power fantasies, or allowing an emotional build-up “just for the feels.” Fandom pandering can certainly lead to a watered-down story if creators cater to every imagined whim of their doting followers, but, sometimes, a little sprinkling of fan service can go… Read More Something More: Fan (Dis-)Service, Tsundere for Jesus, and “Playing God” until you Run out of Chimeras
Anime often revels in deviant storytelling. Add that to its cultural roots, and it’s easy for misunderstanding and stereotyping to occur among Western audiences. Christians, especially, seem hesitant to embrace anime due, in part, to its oftentimes default spiritual content. Witches, demons, spirits, and magic frequently flavor Japanese storytelling, which can sound worse in word… Read More Something More: Belonging in Bungou, Berserk “Sunday School,” and Dangerous Flying Witches
Recently, Beneath the Tangles was invited to become a blogger for popular database My Anime List. Aside from expanding our organizational platform, we hope to utilize MAL as a mainstream bridge between the spiritual and secular in a way that reaches a primarily non-Christian demographic. Our introductory post, which has received almost 5,000 views, provides… Read More Something More: Tangles’ MAL Debut, Crane Game Gospel, and Kiznaiver’s “Holy Spirit”
Episode 12 closes out our summer series of Japan focused podcast episodes with a special Tangles panel: JP (Japes), Kaze, Jack (R86), and Daniel (Zeroe4)! All members of this month’s panel have spent varying degrees of time in Japan in very different roles with unique experiences of the country, and thus use that diversity to… Read More The Tangles Anime Podcast: Episode 12