There are some PRODIGIOUSLY strange goings on around the old housing complex in the seaside village of Kurosaki. The old folks in the run-down apartment building seem to live out their lives complaining about the heat and doting on nine-year-old Kimi, a young girl whose bubbly personality has charmed the old residents. During a journey… Read More First Impression: Housing Complex C
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
Hello dear readers, and welcome to a special edition of Otaku Reader’s Corner as we delve into works that are atypical for us—those involving horror or at the least, some ghoulish elements. So even if you’re stuck at home this Halloween, even if a certain Peanuts holiday special has joined the others off broadcast TV,… Read More Otaku Reader’s Corner: Great Pumpkin Edition
Where did it all go wrong? As the events of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (When They Cry) reset again and again to square one, like an inadvertent Goundhog Day, protagonist Keiichi Mabara repeatedly asks himself this question. Caught in a murder spree of some sort or another, with a different friend of his group involved… Read More Higurashi, Lent and the Martyrs
The 1990 NES classic Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse opens with a striking image. Our hero, Trevor Belmont, is seen kneeling in front a cross in prayer before heading off to slay Dracula. And, indeed, along with his trusty whip, an axe and a knife, Trevor also makes use of holy water, rosaries and crosses in… Read More The Inevitable Fight Against Evil – And Vampires