Higehiro has been a wild ride for me. The tale of a runaway high schooler, Sayu, who finally finds solace by staying with a man, Yoshida, who wants to help her heal rather than use her for sexual pleasure, has at times been high-minded and dealt authentically with difficult issues; it’s also sometimes gone the… Read More Higehiro: When an Imperfect Route is the Perfect One After All
I’ve been waiting for Super Cub to take me somewhere deep, somewhere transcendent, and in episode five it finally did. I knew it could, hoped it would, and am uplifted now that it has. “Reiko’s Summer” takes us into the wilderness and up the mountain, and in doing so, points the way to a whole… Read More We Belong in the Mountains: Super Cub, Episode 5
Have you been watching SSSS.Dynazenon? While I love the characters, insights, and animation in both that show and SSSS.Gridman, the S^4 series have remained a hard sell for me, and this even though my earliest memories of anime (and TV in general) include another giant robot series, Voltron. In fact, it’s the whole giant robot… Read More SSSS.(Your)Dynazenon
I didn’t know what to expect going into episode one of To Your Eternity. After watching it, I honestly still don’t know much regarding this series and where it’s headed, though Negativesprimes drops some hints in his first impression piece. What I do know is that this anime, based on a well-regarded manga by Yoshitoki… Read More To Your Eternity, Episode 1: The Fear and Failure of Leaving Home
“I’ll be here until you’re able to ride those waves alone.” Several years ago, I attended a family wedding in Hawai’i. The trip ran through my birthday, and as if a vacation to paradise wasn’t enough, I was gifted a ticket for a surfing lesson. I was excited and terrified at the same time—compounded by… Read More In Life and Love, Ride Your Wave
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of “That Anime/Light Novel Said Something So Well I Don’t Know How to Add to It!” Today’s thought comes from vol. 2 of Obsessions of an Otome Gamer. I was re-reading it and came across a passage I highlighted on my first reading, and it struck as… Read More Resisting an Otome Gamer’s Inner Ugliness
Don’t keep dragging the dead into your life. In episode three of Charlotte, we’re introduced to a delinquent named Sho, who is unable to let go of Misa, a recently deceased girl who takes over the consciousness of her little sister’s body. At the end of the episode, after Nao and the rest of the… Read More Charlotte, Episode 3: Dragging the Dead
Dear Readers, When I established Beneath the Tangles almost five years ago, it was with a singular goal in mind – to engage anime fans with a different sort of analysis, bringing in Christian concepts and ideas to how we can interpret anime. It was nothing unique – Christian Anime Alliance had long existed by… Read More Patreon Drive! Donate $2 to Support Beneath the Tangles
One of the most boring things a parent has to do is attend kids’ birthday parties. Seriously, so boring. The only thing a parent can do there is chat with other parents, but sometimes, even that option is cut off. Particularly, if you’re an outsider at the party, the other parents might congregate with each… Read More Hachiman Hikigaya and Busting the Christian Bubble
Personally, I loved the CGI movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and felt it was one of the best video game movies ever made (we don’t have much to work with). This is not a review of the movie itself, though I might write one; this is about a scene that I noticed while watching… Read More Gaming With God: Cloud Strife Finds Forgiveness