My Favorite Fall 2021 Anime will possibly be my favorite anime of the year, even though its not among those bloody action adventure stories I love so well. Especially since I got a little spoiler on tomorrow morning's episode. Netflix is airing this anime and let me say that it is groundbreaking in a lot of ways. It is a slice of life anime, which takes their characters a bit more serious...but I have never seen a transsexual character treated seriously before in an anime. Usually, in shonen (boys adventure) anime, they are the comical characters. Blue Period is different. It's different in a lot of ways. Leveling up in this anime isn't learning a new fight move or a new supernatural ability. Leveling up, for main character Yaguchi Yatora, means learning about stuff like stippling, using a roller. impasto (he hasn't learned this yet in the anime), proportion, perspective, and style. Yaguchi has decided, rather abruptly, that rather than drifting into adulthood in a dead end job and continuing to be a delinquent (although a delinquent with good grades) he is inspired by his friend Ryuji (trans girl character) and another classmate to do art. So he joins the art club in his 3rd year with the overwhelming goal of getting into one of Tokyo's most prestigious art colleges. The stress art students endure is highlighted (Yaguchi breaks out in hives he is yet to recover from, one classmate is hospitalized, and Ryuji walks out of the college first exam). It also highlights Ryuji's stress of being a trans person in a country that doesn't accept them well in very realistic fashion. I knew in the first episode that Ryuji was probably trans due to the name. People refer to them as Ryuji (almost always, 99% of the time a male name in Japanese...it kind of means dragon child, by the way). We see them going on a date with another student in epsiode 2...but in episode 3, the young man breaks up with them and we see just how close of a friend Yaguchu is to Ryuji. This is a heart-rending scene, and I found it on YouTube. I thought then that this anime was doing something different. Probably even the manga, when it came out in Japan in 2017. I'd never seen a anime devoted to art before. Stylistically, it's gorgeous. The painting scenes and the insight into the art world (even from the perspective of students visiting art shows and museums for inspiration) is fascinating. Their teachers are inspiring and the other students are quirky as hell...as you'd expect from creatives. We creative types are wacky. Some of us are proud of it! I'm looking forward to Episode 9 (Wandering Knife) tomorrow morning but from the spoiler I received online, I may need a pack of tissues by my side, as Ryuji will have some heavy-hearted issues to work through and hopefully a good friend will be there for them. I'll leave you with this. Another thing that makes an anime for me are the opening and closing songs and animations. The opening and closing sequences of this debut season of Blue Period are f*$%ing awesome! I found them on YT also, and will post as my wrap up, consecutively. I highly recommend this show...even for people who are new to anime and wonder if they would like it. Realistic, entertaining, emotional and with believable characters you can grow to empathize with and love.
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I am generally not a manga reader, but I do read a few of them. I haven't read this one, but I know it must be good going on how heavily hyped this anime was before it was released in 2019 by fans of the manga. They weren't wrong. Itadori Yuji is a high school student who excels at sports but he doesn't want to be an athlete. The sports clubs at his new high school would keep him attending too late to visit his grandfather (his only family) in th hospital, and his grandfather is very ill. So the only club he wants to be a part of is the Occult Club which lets him come and go as he pleases...because he keeps their club going, being the member they need to make the final number cut. He likes the other two members, though. Enough so that he got the school's cursed object for them...and that was probably not a good idea. It sets into motion the events that changes Yuji's life and gets him transferred to sorcerer's school. Because now he has a curse living inside of him...one of the most evil curses imaginable. Following this episode is the best gold-darn ending song I've heard in awhile. "Lost in Paradise" performed by ALI—a multinational Hip Hop/funk outfit from Shibuya (Tokyo), featuring AKLO on vocals. Honest to goddess, it's all I can do to stop myself from getting up and dancing (very badly) to this song every time it comes on. My girlfriend laughs at me enough as it is. Also...whenever someone in anime has their eyes closed via bandages or blindfolds, etcetera, it's a dead damn giveaway that that person is 1) EXTREMELY OVERPOWERED, and 2) has weird-ass, freaky-ass looking eyes. Well, in Gojo's case, it's one out of two. When I first saw Gojo's eyes, I almost forgot how gay I am, and fell once again in love with an anime character. If you're curious, watch the rest of the damn show. It's not too long (episode five maybe) before they're revealed. Or just search on YouTube for the opening song with Gojo's blindfold off. There are two opening songs: one where he teases taking the blindfold off, and then after the episode where he does do it, they start showing the second opening song. Anime openings are (sometimes) pretty good about not giving too many spoilers. They give enough as it is. Anyway, this anime is one of my favorite new anime and I'm trying to get caught up with season one right now, because season 2 will be airing soon. This has themes of blood and gore and violence. Probably not for little kids. There's also the occasional dirty joke. Enjoy. AND... I forgot the ending song doesn't appear in the first episode. My bad. Here ya go: As a member of Crunchyroll, I get to watch some really cool anime Really, really cool. Like this one. Yeah, it's another romantic one like Fruits Basket but like Fruits Basket its also a fantasy that's got some dark moments. I'm telling you...wayyy darker than Fruits Basket. In FruBa, the main character falls for a boy whose cute cat form may become a monster under certain circumstances. In TAMB, Chise Hatori sells herself to be the bride of an actual monster. A possible man-eating monster, a magus named Elias Ainsworth (nicknames: Pilum Muralis (lit. "Wall Spear"), the Child of Thorns, and the Thorn Mage, and other less pleasant names others in the series call him). His head is a skull with horns, eerily reminding one of the Wendigo of American legend. A half-man/half beast that was once human, the Wendigo is cursed because as a human it resorted to cannibalism. And there's cannibalism hinted at in Elias' past. Yes, this anime has some disturbing moments. But it has some remarkable moments as well. It is an anime with a theme of struggling to overcome your inner demons. Elias struggles to overcome his beastly nature. Chise struggles to overcome her depression, the fact that she is cursed to see monsters, and that her mother committed suicide because of that same curse. Both Elias and Chise struggle to learn to love and live with one another while trying to find a way to keep Chise from dying from her condition at a young age. She is a Sleigh Beggy, a human mage that can draw magic from her surroundings. Sleigh Beggies are worth a lot of money, so there's always a subplot of someone trying to get to her, but they also die young. This is a great anime. It has some of my favorite Japanese voice actors in it, coupled with the rich animation of English countrysides and English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish mythologies. And there are dragons. And the cryptid Wendigo mystery behind who Elias really is. The Ancient Magus' Bride is another anime that ranks very high on my recommended anime list. There are two seasons, so far...and some OVAs. Fans of The Ancient Magus' Bride or Mahoutsukai no Yome, as it is called in Japanese, are eagerly awaiting the 3rd season...when Chise attends the Magus Academy in London. I don't imagine it will be anything at all like Harry Potter. Some people don't seem to fit in anywhere. At home, at school, on the job. Outcasts. Black sheep. Bullied and shunned. This was the first episode going in this early that broke me. This soon. Realizing that Torhu, as beautiful and sweet as she is, has people in her life who actually cannot see how beautiful and sweet and kind she is. Her kind grandfather is the only remnant of her father's side of the family who treats her well. The rest of them treat her like a pile of dog crap they stepped in with their best Sunday shoes on. It's painful to watch. Her father died when she was a tiny girl, and since her mother died the previous year, she puts up with these other assholes (aunt, uncle and shitty cousins) to be around her kind grandpa. So she leaves the Sohma house when the renovations are done to move back in and these jerks have also moved back in and are treating Torhu as if she's not welcome there. The whole story when she is packing up to leave the Sohma's of the childhood game "Fruits Basket" and the children naming her the "Rice Ball" so that she never gets picked to go play with them and her saying it figures since she doesn't belong, is heartbreaking. This is also the episode where one comes to the realization that Tohru and Kyo have a whole helluva lot in common. They are both "black sheep of their families." Well, in Kyo's case an orange cat (and something terrifyingly more, as we find out in a later episode) and in Torhu's case, a "Rice Ball in a Fruits Basket." Being accepted into a family and feeling family love or romantic love is probably the apex of human happiness, and Torhu begins to feel both here: family love probably with Yuki and Shigure and probably the stirrings of romantic love for Kyo. I swear, the first time I watched this, back in 2009 (the old anime) and the boys came and got her from the asshole place with Yuki telling them off for being mean to her, and they walk away, and the scene from childhood pops in her head with the kids shouting "RICE BALL!" I fucking lost it...and sat bawling at least for thirty solid minutes. I think anyone who has been through similar situations in childhood (I was shunned for a whole school term in high school, except for two close friends) and to this day I do not know why) would seriously relate to this episode. The review below is from the 2009 series, but the episodes are pretty much the same for the first season. I like the 2019 series better, but I could not find a really good review on it that showed the emotions it provokes. This reviewer captures it well. Yesterday, Crunchyroll's news blog reported that 100 taxicabs in Tokyo will feature panels from the wildly popular pirate anime One Piece to commemorate the upcoming milestone of 100 manga volumes published. And it doesn't look like the manga will end very soon, but there isn't much left of the story, according to creator Eiichiro Oda. The anime is currently in the Wano Country arc.
Crunchyroll reports: "While some of the famous panels may bring up some tearful memories for some fans of the series, I'm sure seeing panels of One Piece whizz by on the streets of Shibuya or Akihabara more than makes up for reliving those moments in the Straw Hat's journey." Makes me think there will be a Going Merry (the Straw Hat's first ship, the little ship with a soul) panel or two, and perhaps some of Luffy's adopted brother, Ace. Both of these beloved characters died in tearjerking scenes. Read the Crunchyroll post here: https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2021/05/24-1/one-piece-dons-100-tokyo-taxis-in-celebration-of-100-manga-volumes Yuki is the Sohma clan member who carries the curse of the Rat. If a girl hugs him or he feels ill, he transforms into a rat. When he was little, some friends were over and a girl hugged him. He transformed, revealing the Sohma secret. His uncle erased their memories. To this day, Yuki avoids contact with girls, which is difficult since most girls love his princely good looks.
But Machi. In Season 2 we see some girls bullying her because she says Yuki is not princely and is an airhead. Yuki overhears her and is shocked. She also says he seems lonely. She is spot on. He's shocked about that too, almost as if she has seen into the part of him that no one else sees, even family. In an earlier epsiode in Season 1, we witness Yuki confessing to Torhu that sometimes he is jealous of Kyou for his easy familiarity with other people and his ability to easily make friends. Yuki was tormented by the head of the Sohma clan (Akito Sohma, the "God" figure of the curse) for years. He can't help but notice Machi has issues with order. Machi's father is a rich man with a wife and a mistress who fight over which kid will inherit. She was caught trying to cover the new baby up (she thought he was cold) and her parents accused her of trying to smother him. They got the teenage Machi an apartment where she lives alone now. She messes up her place, breaks windows, throws boxes of perfect pieces of chalk, messes up the school room where the student council meet, stomps muddy bootprints into perfect new fallen snow. Anything to be "imperfect." Yuki gently confronts her with this, and sobbing, Machi confesses how trying to be perfect for her parents made her anxious and ill. Yuki promises to walk with her in the snow to make footprints. (NOTE: an ironic thing is that "Yuki," is Japanese for "snow." Later, at a student council meeting, someone declares it's not their turn to do notes on the chalkboard and puts the opened box of clean, new chalk in front of Machi. We can see her beginning to lose it, when Yuki (who is addressing the council and seated next to Machi), reaches over without breaking his talk to the council, and breaks one piece of chalk. Machi, surprised, calms down and begins to ask within herself if he will really walk in the snow with her and thinks how this is the first time she has ever wished for snow. Just as Kyo and Torhu were meant to be, as the "outcasts," the "rice balls in the titular fruits basket," Yuki and Machi were meant to be as the "imperfectly tormented" tying, and failing, to be perfect for others. Yuki has reached the stage where he is no longer trying to be perfect for others, thanks to the help of Torhu. Now, he perhaps sees a chance to help someone else facing the same torment. Torhru was meant to help Kyo heal. And Yuki was meant to help Machi heal. NOTE: this was my first Fruits Basket review from a month+ ago. As I go along, I will post mini-essays on the characters and the plot of Fruits Basket. I knew these two were meant for one another from the titular episode "Rice Ball in a Fruits Basket." That episode was also the one where I knew that every episode from then on would leave me in a puddle of feels. I will also do an essay on that episode, as a standalone post with the subject of "black sheep and fitting in." I'm enjoying season 3, the final season of anime's most dysfunctional family...the zodiac cursed Sohma family. I have cried 10 times so far and we are only on episode 3. Ep 2 really got me in the dang feels. Fruits Basket Final Season-mini review. Torhu just found out that one member of the Sohma family managed to break the curse...she's not sure she should tell any of the others...but when she decides to, it would be her crush Kyo, the twice-cursed cat (Kyo doesn't just turn into a cute orange kitty when hugged by the opposite sex or when he is sick...when you remove the sealing beads he wears around his wrist he turns into a monster). Kyo, not used to dealing with people, or dealing with her (the crushing is mutual but there will be a whole lot more drama and tears before either of them can admit it) brushes her off. Torhru gets upset but not for the reasons Kyo thinks. Then Kyo gets upset because he thinks he's made her sad. Then... this is the best scene of the season so far. The flower. Goddess, has someone seen my heart? These two just stole it. The way he looks at her! *swoons |
anime n' mangaI blog about a lot of regular, harmless sci-fi and fantasy anime n' manga, but I'll throw the occasional yaoi n' yuri (gay) posts in here. 'Cus I like that shit too. archives
December 2021
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