What do you do, and how do you move forward, after you’ve experienced a bittersweet, youthful love? Happy-Go-Lucky Days, currently streaming at the Asian Pop-up Cinema Festival, examines these questions through three stories, each particular in a variety of ways, but all connected by same threads of sadness, joy, and maturation. Those who have read… Read More Review: Happy-Go-Lucky Days
Just in time for St. Valentine this year, I’ve been rewatching Toradora with my teen siblings and have found that my appreciation of it has only grown. I like its summer night skies and its dark winter, its bittersweet songs, the red or golden evenings at the school or near the river. The brilliant, casual… Read More The Code of Kushieda
Our guest post today comes from author Audie Thacker, whom you can also find writing about anime and other topics at Speculative Faith. I almost didn’t start watching this series. When I first saw some notices about it, I had either finished or was close to finishing Yona of the Dawn. Seeing how much the… Read More Snow White with the Red Hair: An Appealing Image of Respect and Honor
As I mentioned last week, one can view Serial Experiments Lain as the story of a machine learning to become human, though unlike most series, Lain puts the audience in a position where we don’t know that the “machine” isn’t a human at first. Episode 11 goes a step further as Eiri explains to Lain… Read More Serial Experiments Lain Revisited: Episode 11
From the very beginning, Serial Experiments Lain is unusual, abstract, hard to grasp. Just when you think the show couldn’t get any stranger, it does, with episode six taking us deeper into the strangeness and also pulling us out. While the mysteries of the Wired, the Knights, and Lain herself deepen (with the most remarkable… Read More Serial Experiments Lain Revisited: Episode 06
A few weeks ago, I cuddled up to my husband—whom I married the end of last August (2017)—and flicked on Toradora, a favorite of mine. With Adam being fairly new to anime, I’m trying to stick to ones I know well and feel he’ll enjoy so we can discuss and enjoy them together. Had you… Read More Taiga x Ryuuji and Messy Relationships
I was really excited to watch Koi to Uso. The plot summary for the series felt like Minority Report meets moe, where a high school boy wants to be with the girl of his dreams, but is assigned a different match by the Japanese government, which at this point of the future assigns marriages to… Read More Koi to Uso’s Marriage System and a Call for Incompatibility
Last week, I traveled on the first of two vacations we’ve planned for this summer. While I might have some pertinent content to share for the second, I was surprised that I also had something to share for the first, which was a simple excursion to South Padre Island, the nicest beach that we have… Read More TWWK’s Beach Episode
First fight. Romantic rivals. Long distance relationships. The conflict in Tsuki ga Kirei is real to life. I meet consistently with college students who attend my church, and these are some of the problems they’re dealing with in relationships. And of course, I’ve been there myself. The beauty of Tsuki ga Kirei is in evoking… Read More Tsuki ga Kirei and the Detours of Life
One of the things I try to teach young people I mentor is to question the culture. Question the church. Question authority. Why do you do the things you do? Why do you believe the things you believe? Are they in line what with you believe is true, or do you just accept them blindly?… Read More Akane v. Chinatsu: Is All Fair in Love and War?