Comedy in Anime

Having talked about One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, my stance on the importance of comedy in anime is that it is important to the medium and, luckily, has been constantly evolving to become more universal and has been able to reach a broader audience within the last decade or so. One Punch Man happens to be especially funny because if their use of slapstick and shock humor. Another anime that I've become keen of is Nichijou, or My Ordinary Life.

Nichijou is another comedy anime, from around 2011, that is about several different groups of girls who go through their everyday lives. The twist is that mundane things are blown out of proportion in a very ridiculous yet humorous way. Tayler had a scene from the show on their presentation - the girl with the blue pig tails slams a goat against the floor.

From the 9 or so episodes I've watched so far, each episode has made me laugh because although I expect the character reactions to be ridiculous, I can never expect what the reactions will be. One instance that sets the tone for the show happens to be the first thing that happens at the beginning of episode one - two people collide into one another. At first, you'd anticipate that they trip over each other in a slow-motion type style, but instead they collide and a large city wiping explosion occurs instead. Nothing is actually physically destroyed but some props and characters do go flying from this small interaction and it sets up some of the jokes that follow afterwards.

Not to mention, the voice acting helps sell each scene ten times more. The actors of the sub are able to control their voice very well and you can hear the fear, excitement, sadness or anger in their voice very easily. That on top of the great animation and art style of the show means that, similar to One Punch Man, the show is nice to look at and contains some very funny jokes. I've already recommended the show to a few people, and I definitely recommend it to you

Pandora Hearts

Ah, a story about a curse/grudge that carries on throughout the family bloodline - or so it seems! Upon the first chapter, a lot seems to happen - the combination of Oz and his ceremony at the royal house as he turns fifteen and also his discovery of what I assume to be a link to his family's secrets/past.

The first chapter had some horror themes that I really like - with the girl and her dolls in particular. Personally, dolls, especially of the nature that were illustrated in the manga, have generally creeped me out quite a bit and seeing them drawn to actually see and think sends chills down my spine. It's something that creeped me out since I was a child and it all becomes a reality in this story, at least in the first chapter. I imagine these doll characters will be brought back sometime in the future of the story, which is cool because it sort of allows me to observe a fear that I have come to life but from a distance. 

I predict the story will evolve with Oz as he matures into the crown and becomes a bit more badass - he's illustrated to be kinda acrobatic and a bit of a trickster which, I assume, is similar to what his ancestors did, but to the wrong people, and now Oz has to suffer because of it. As of this blog, I'm unsure if the manga has an anime adaptation, but it seems like it would be great in the animated medium simply because of the horror elements alone. 

Rise of the Shield Hero

With the first episode, I wasn't expecting to like this show so much - especially since it was 47 minutes but I am very interested in the story. I'm sure anyone would relate this show to Sword Art Online, given that the theme is similar - people brought from one life to another that have to fight and get stronger until they can defeat the overarching threat and return home. The biggest difference that I've seen so far is that this deals with a lot more adult themes - allusions to rape, slave trades and I'm sure there will be more.

Going into the first half of the episode, I definitely thought Naofumi would be liked a lot more even if he wasn't as knowledgable about the world as the other heroes. The people who wrote the story, though, definitely made it clear that Myne would be trouble given that she made Naofumi buy her some pretty expensive gear and then tried to seduce him into drinking. Sadly, even though he didn't drink and decided to turn in early, she still manage to frame him for sexual assault and all of his gear and money were taken and given to the other heroes. I don't think I would come to have disdain for characters so quickly, but the combination of both false accusations as well as the reluctance in giving Naofumi any benefit of the doubt was very anger-inducing. Naofumi was put into a corner where anything he would do would be used against him - "Oh, you wanna go home after what you've done? You owe it to these people to fight." They forced him to become the person that they set his name out to be - someone who'll do whatever they need to get what they want.

My hope is that he'll be able to rebuilt his reputation among the country before the wave of monsters that he's training to combat rampages through it. I would hate to see his reputation stay at the bottom for the whole series - but I don't think it will. The shop owner seemed to believe that Naofumi was truly innocent, so that was already a step up. He's also the best person for Naofumi to have as an ally as well since he can make gear and what not.

I'm pretty excited to see how the story unfolds. It definitely wasn't anything that I thought it would be, but that's good because now I'm invested into what will happen in the story that has yet to be told.

Banana Fish

Initial impressions of simply looking at the term Banana Fish, I thought the term would have much more of an innocent or optimistic meaning - as neither 'banana' nor 'fish' are inherently harmful sounding terms. Going into the anime, I was expecting a much more lax, maybe slice of life anime but got a show about gangs and rivalries. I am very much into this kind type of anime and the production value of the show seems pretty good, relatively speaking. The poses of animation are nice and it feels like things are always moving, even if they really aren't.

Overall first impressions were pretty good, I might give the series a full watch. The plot seems promising and I was left wondering what would happen next. Ash, as a character, being edgy and ominous, is a person I want to learn more about as well as Eiji, another young yet promising character. The dynamic between the two, as of now, seems like it will lead to either some form of friendly competition or people who will eventually come to work together. The contrast in the way they handle things - with Ash being calm and collected while Eiji is a bit more temperamental and prideful - they will definitely have a large impact on one another's life.

The only question I was left wondering was the significance of the term Banana fish. In the anime, it is said that anyone who sees a banana fish will want to die but why is that the case? Is it gang related? Or some kind of magic or unknown power that is unknown to the characters yet? Some kind of cultural significance? It's interesting because why a Banana Fish? They seem so harmless yet, in this world, they are paired with bring death.

The Silver Spoon

1. What is your reaction to the text you just read?

The Silver Spoon felt like a very easy story to get into. I've personally always had the preconception that going into something like agriculture would mean that you grew up in a family that did it and you found your connections through your parents - not that there's a high school that you could go to that trains you. Because of this, Hachiken's high school experience is going to be quite different from my own but I think I'll still be able to relate at least a little bit to how he reacts to the people around him. It's his first time dealing with agriculture and I get to learn about it with him.  Overall, the reading seems like it would be pretty enjoyable.

2. What connections did you make with the story? 

Discuss the elements of the work with which you were able to connect.

The biggest connection to the story I was able to make was Hachiken's first time being at high school. From his perspective, everyone seems to have their stuff figured out one way or another and the fact that he doesn't have a concrete 'dream' yet already stresses him out and starts to alienate him from the other students, which, I think, is something that a lot of kids go through around that time. At first he feels like he knows exactly how he'll conquer the school and become number one, but he quickly learns that agriculture is going to be a lot harder than he initially thought. 

Hachiken is also a little overreactive, but is still learning how to react and think about certain things, such as the fact that the egg of a chicken comes from the same orifice as the 'shit.' A lot of kids around his age, me included, tend to overthink or over analyze these kinds of truths and what their 'deeper meaning'  could be although they are relatively simple and easy to understand. 

3. What changes would you make to adapt this story into another medium? 

What medium would you use? What changes would you make?

If I could, I think turning this story into some kind of audio book would be interesting. Since the story seems like it will mostly deal with the 'high school experience,' except at a farm, the setting would be pretty easy to intuit. The story would focus a lot more on being from Hachiken's point of view and accompanied by various relevant sounds i.e. while he's in the chicken coup, there could be sounds of chickens and exaggerated sounds, like a 'pop', when they lay their eggs. The benefit of this being an audio book would be allowing the consumer to imagine each scene the way they want to which would leave a much different impact as opposed to this story just being an anime.

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness + My Brother's Husband

The amount of real (ˈrē(ə)l n. : A measure of a work's relationship to the reality that we live in) that was in My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness felt almost staggering. Nowadays, especially on social media, there's a lot of confusion among the young adult generation (20s-30s) about what finding happiness and a place in this world could be and this story captured a lot of that essence pretty well on top of offering a way for the audience to see that it is a problem with a solution - and that it just takes time.

One theme that was brought up very often throughout the entirety of the story is the binding that someone has to their parents. Not all people feel so dependent on their moms and dads, but a lot of people do and that inhibits their power to create a life they enjoy living. This story quickly illustrates trying to please the idea of what it is that would please your parents is something that will only drag you, yourself, down. The rise of independence and therefore self-care is important to everyone's development if they want to become the person they truly are. Not unlike the main character's experience in hiring a prostitute to discover her true wants and wishes, finding independence is often a lot easier to do through the relationships of other people (as ironic as that sounds). She learns a lot about what won't fill the void in her heart through the first woman prostitute that she meets and, from there, is able to adjust her life perspective into something that helps her mentally. When she gets another woman prostitute, although she doesn't do everything she says she wants to do within that interactions, she's able to do a bit more than the first time she was with the first woman.


My Brother's Husband (the first 5 chapters), was also pretty interesting because it also dealt with learning acceptance of different people. Kana's father (who's name is skipping me right now) has a tough time finding his viewpoint on how to feel about Mike, his passed-brother's husband. Amidst his confusion, his initial instincts tell him that Mike will try to come onto him or that Mike is weird because he is gay or that Mike is someone to be wary of due to his sexual preference. But, through Kana, he learns that Mike's way of living is not as alien as he originally thought that it was. By allowing Mike into his life, he grows to accept that people are different in their interests and that's okay - there shouldn't be a norm for things that are not harmful, like love. Everyone should react to someone else's relationship that an innocent kid would.

Voices of a Distant Star - A Relationship Across Time and Space

     Considering the very limited production team, The Voices of a Distant Star was able to effectively portray the struggles of a long distance relationship in a way that made me actually care about what the characters were going through within only half an hour. The paradigm of Mikako and Noboru sending emails between one another, with the sending time increasing drastically is a great way to illustrate what it's like to have to simply wait for something. Without creating a plot driving element that is too complex, the send-time going from 6 months to 1 year to 8 years is something that I think a lot of people can relate to - although those numbers are quite large to have to wait for someone to respond. Whether it's friends, a boyfriend or girlfriend, or even your parents - we've all been in a situation where we would try to send them a message and they would not be able to respond immediately for whatever reason. 

Do they not like me anymore? Do they think I'm annoying? Did they DIE? 

 

Whatever it is, simply waiting for a response without knowing what's happening on the other end allows for intrusive thoughts to pervade our minds before we eventually run out of the energy to care. This exact thing happened in the film, when the email send-time went from 6 months to 1 year - Noboru thought Mikako had decided to stop responding because he hadn't gotten anything from her in a year. He ran out of the energy to care simply because he didn't know that she had jumped even further in space.

Ultimately, what I really like about the message of the film is that, the act of simply waiting - being forced to wait - is something that can test the emotional strength of an individual. Waiting can be very taxing, especially if what you were waiting for leaves just as quickly as it arrived. Is the time spent we spend on some things worth it? In many cases, I'd argue that it is - especially in the realm of maintaining relationships. Waiting is something that we all have to do, right - we have to be patient. But I think patience is finite - although some people have much larger reserves of it - and it can only be a matter of time before the voices of that distant star become too far to hear.