Have you ever been afraid of the future? Have you ever looked at the horizon and worried about what lay ahead, hidden just beyond sight? The hardships to come, the opposition you’ll face, or perhaps even worse, the things that will never be, as the things that are missing from your life continue to elude… Read More Fear of the Future in The Heike Story
What does it mean to truly arise from the tomb, from everything the tomb implies? That is, death not only (only!) of the body, but of certainties, of hopes, big and small, of innocence, virtue and long-sustained efforts, of wisdom, of connections, of memories, of meaning, of the past and the future, of the entire… Read More Holy Week 2021 [Arise]: Arising from Angel’s Egg Deluge
Of all the full-length anime I’m following this season, AOKANA: Four Rhythm Across the Blue is my least favorite. I don’t have a good explanation for why I kept watching after the first two episodes. But the plot did become somewhat interesting by the seventh episode. And in the eighth, the characters hit on a universal theme: fear… Read More Annalyn’s Corner: Aokana and Fearing Failure
In sports anime, characters have to learn that their failures don’t define them—or their place on the team. Once they learn they are unconditionally accepted, valued, and forgiven, they’re able to play without any more pressure than necessary. I’ve noticed this often on Haikyuu!!, but the most recent episode struck me in a slightly different way. For Ennoshita,… Read More Annalyn’s Corner: Haikyuu!!, Grace, and Boldness
Sound! Euphonium could very well be one of my new favorite anime shows of all time. Not only does it have Kyoto Animation, one of my favorite animation studios, bringing its usual high standards of quality to the table, but it also features a topic that is personally very nostalgic to me: the school concert… Read More Anime Today: Kumiko’s Divine Encounter in Sound! Euphonium
Kuroko’s Basketball has always been, in part, an underdog story. No one expected Team Seirin to defeat the Generation of Miracles, but here they are, facing the final boss: Akashi Seijuro and the Rakuzan team. And they got here largely because of Kuroko, a small, seemingly unremarkable athlete. At some point, I started taking Seirin’s determination… Read More Annalyn’s Corner: Chihuahuas Fighting a Lion
While I have hardly been impressed with the summer season, one of the few shows I’ve been enjoying is Barakamon. It follows the encounters of struggling calligrapher Seishuu (though everyone calls him sensei) with the residents of a rural island. As a perfectionist, he often worries about things which the residents cannot comprehend or relate… Read More Barakamon Episode 4, The First Step