My Broken Mariko is an intense, single volume manga about Tomoyo Shiino after the death of her friend Mariko. This manga covers topics of abuse, depression, rape, and suicide. This is not a story of redemption, but rather about death and coping. If these topics are triggers for you, I would recommend avoiding this story… Read More Manga Review: My Broken Mariko
As we close out 2020, and complete our 10th year anniversary celebration, we’ve been posting a final series of Throwback Thursday posts from writers, past and present, revisiting their former columns! Today we’re posting the fifth and final article in the series, returning most appropriately to Zeroe4’s “Throwback Thursday” column. We hope you enjoyed the… Read More Throwback Thursday: 三月のライオン (Sangetsu no Lion)
Novel coronavirus is changing the way most of us are living out lives. Through the pandemic, we find ourselves separated from each other. Schools, businesses, universities, and churches are closing doors until further notice. This makes for incredibly challenging times as we are all alone together. Over a month ago. I started writing a piece… Read More Newman’s Nook: Pandemic Loneliness
I feel inadequate in so many ways. This feeling is on display each time I write, preach, teach in the church, or try to share the Gospel. While I have advanced degrees, none of them are for those actions, and I sometimes feel like these are irrelevant and insufficient when writing, preaching, or teaching. This… Read More Newman’s Nook: Inadequacy, Depression, and Shinji
Shouya Ishida is a lanky, handsome teenager attending high school in Tokyo. He’s smart and does well in school. He has a supportive family, and there are people in his life that he cares deeply about. Shouya is respectful and kind, and works diligently at a part-time job, helping to support his family. And tomorrow,… Read More Review: A Silent Voice
There a moment in episode two of Goblin Slayer when the title character describes the horrors of goblins ransacking a village, apparently remembering his own experience: An example would be if your older sister was attacked, tormented, made a plaything, then killed. Let’s say you witnessed all this, from start to finish in hiding as… Read More Goblin Slayer and Silenced Hope
The hook for Steins;gate 0 is that it takes place in a world line where Makise Kurisu is dead. She has not been rescued. There is no happily ever after. And while the Amadeus A.I. is both a device that moves the plot forward and gives the audience the Kurisu fan service we so desperately… Read More We Can’t All be Makise Kurisu (or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
May is mental health awareness month, a topic close to my heart. I grew up in a family that struggled deeply with mental health and I myself have had quite the uphill battle in this regard. One of my favorite coping mechanisms is aniblogging and diving into anime where I could relate to the characters’… Read More Anime and Mental Health Awareness Month
The Haruhi Suzumiya series of anime and light novels is structured around the eponymous character’s shifting feelings and thoughts and how they affect the world around her through her abilities to shape things according to her will. The very first portion of the series focuses on her melancholy, and as you might expect of one… Read More The Melancholy of Haruhi and She and You and Me
I stumbled upon A Silent Voice when I was at my local library in the manga section. What piqued my interest was seeing that it was a story about living with a disability, something I seldom find in Japanese fiction. A story that isn’t about trying to get senpai to notice you, but instead the… Read More A Silent Voice and the Value of Human Life