The Sirens of Titan

The Sirens of Titan is one of my favorite books. At least in the top three of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut books — up there with Player Piano and Cat’s Cradle. Sirens of Titan has an absolutely insane plot that has you guessing every step of the way. Even at the end you question if any of the characters had any free will.

At large the book is about being used and the purpose in life. In the book we thought Winston Rumford was calling all the shots manipulating people like Malachi Constant. Except nope, at the end we find out that Rumford was actually the one being used by an alien race to deliver a spare part to Salo’s space ship. In fact, Rumford wasn’t the only one being used, the entire human race was being used. The great wall of china, the pyramids and all ancient objects viewable from space were created through UWTB (Universal will to become) to send messages to Salo.

Right before dying Rumford said:

Nobody likes to think he’s being used. He’ll put off admitting it to himself until the past possible instant. It may surprise you to lean that I take a certain pride, no matter how foolishly mistaken that pride may be, in making my own decisions for my own reasons.

Rumford’s ex wife Beatrice then spends the rest of her life on Titan and she writes a massive book on the meaning on life. Right before she dyes, she tells Malachi Constant:

The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody, would be to not be used for anything by anybody…

Thank you for using me, even though I didn’t want to be used by anybody.

There is a beautiful duality in this in terms of relationships. Nobody wants to be used, but everyone also wants to be used. I’ve ran into this with my own relationships. My ex felt guilty that he was “using me” to get over his past relationship. But, there is nothing to feel guilty about, I was using him for the same thing. Relationships are not all give or take. There is a symbiotic nature that happens, I give you my support and you give me yours and we both benefit greatly. Even if it’s one sided, it still feels good to be able to help someone in some way, that gives people’s life purpose. In Sirens of Titan, being useful to the aliens gave the Human race purpose however small that purpose was for. To be of no use would mean that the Human race doesn’t have any purpose outside of our own insignificant planet.

Soul Eater

Despite being published 15 years ago, Soul Eater remains to feel fresh and lively. The unique art style, beautiful animations, and solid Shonen story will forever keep this a timeless anime.

Soul Eater pulls in references to a bunch of different European stories without the show feeling recycled or generic like a lot of current amines. Dr. Frankenstein, The Grim Reaper, Escalator; although all coming from different fantasy stories, they were perfectly integrated as characters in Soul Eater while feeling fresh and unique.

Komi Can’t Communicate

Komi Can’t Communicate is a typical slice of life anime with some humor. The humor is very Japanese, but if your familiar with anime you would probably like it. Newer anime viewers looking for a comedy anime, I highly recommend watching “The Disastrous Life of Saiki K”. Komi Can’t communicate keeps a fast pacing, keeping the story fresh, but Saiki K takes things to the next level, landing joke after joke.

Yowamushi Pedal

Yowamushi Pedal is an anime about a high school bicycle racing club in Japan. The characters are funny and the story is addictive. Overall, this is a pretty good sports anime, especially if you enjoy biking — however no knowledge of biking is required. My only gripe with the show is that the pacing of the story is a bit slow by the time they get to the final road race. Also, some of the characters are a bit over the top, but it adds to the cheesy aspect of the show that I find charming. Although this isn’t quite as good as Haikyuu, it shares many similar aspects, so if you liked one, you would definitely enjoy the other.

Arcane

Oh my god. This show. The backgrounds design, music, and animations are off the chart. I was hesitant to watch it since it was based on a video game but watching it you wouldn’t even notice. The story has a great emotional depth to it and ends each episode with enough of a cliff hanger to keep you watching.

The animation itself was a very stylized 3d version, think very high-level video game but with cinematographic shots. This has the potential to set the standard when it comes to future 3d animations. Although some 3d anime’s like Ajin have mixed reviews, this executed 3d animation flawlessly. Too bad that the production quality is probably too high to become a long running show that releases frequently.

Sword Art Online

It is hard to review this anime online. Sword Art Online gets a lot of hate. I enjoyed this show and would recommend others watch it because it’s an iconic anime, but I do recognize its flaws.

The best part of the show is its world-building and high-tech fantasy components. It is hard not to get drawn into a show about an immersive VR fantasy game where sensory data is beamed directly into your brain rather than viewing things with a traditional VR headset or TV screen. The high-tech fiction is extended in seasons 3 and 4 with the introduction of artificial intelligence and the ability to copy someone’s ‘soul’ entirely. These relevant high-tech concepts paired with stunning artwork make for an anime that immediately draws you into it.

The problem with the story itself is that it often lacks focus. Interesting concepts are presented throughout the show, such as what it means to be human, the purpose of life, high stakes politics, morality within a virtual world, etc. However, most of these concepts are sabotaged by harem romance antics. A prime example is blatantly clear with the antagonist Nobuyuki Sugou. After SAO was defeated, Sugou hijacked 300 of the SAO survivors and began to conduct experiments on them to determine if he could implant memories inside their heads to coerce them. Fascinating concept, consider the geopolitical implications of this technology– what would the military do with this… BUT, this plot point was tossed to the background of the story since Sugou was a creepy person who tried to rape Asuna on several occasions. And, he had several weird tentacle research assistants… Plus, there was a weird incest romance thing happening during the same story arc… Need I say more?

A part of me feels like the story of SAO could have been on par with titles like Attack on Titan if it ditched some of the more sexual topics and focused on the high concept tech plot more. However, I’m not totally sold on that. Consider Netflix’s series Black Mirror. Although Black Mirror is about dystopian technologies, it’s about human nature at its core. Technology has a way of bringing out the worst in people. Although it’s an uncomfortable truth, technologies like the ones in SAO enable new ways for sexual assault. SAO is not the best story to explore these topics considering the harem plot, but it is worth having these discussions before VR technologies like this emerge. How do we prevent people from using new technologies for evil? I hope the answer we come up with isn’t one teenager with a sword in a VR world, but it does make for a good anime.

Forest of Piano

There isn’t a lot to be said about this anime other than it is an underrated anime and you should really check it out if you enjoy music. Although, having knowledge of music is completely optional. The show gives you a real appreciation for classical music as it follows two children with vastly different backgrounds through their journey on becoming professional pianists.

With that said, its animation is pretty bad. Well, more like, really, really bad. The cut between 2d and 3d animation for the piano playing is jarring. Plus, any scene with a crowd is poorly animated, which is usually forgiven since these are one off occurrences in most amines. However, this show relies upon competing in front of a crowd, so the poorly animated crowds stand out like a sore thumb. This feels more like an anime that was produced in the early 2000’s and not a Netflix anime produced in 2018. The show is carried upon the music and plot alone.

Blue Period

Wow, Blue Period is an amazing and inspirational anime. Most of my thoughts can be summed up on this youtube video elaborating on the anime.

As somebody who picked up art as a hobby, this anime really inspired me to work harder and improve my skills. During episode one, a quote at the end of the episode really stuck out to me:

That doesn’t mean you have to go to art school to be an artist, there are plenty of great artists who are hapy to presue it as a hobby…

But, I may offer ‘Just leave your passion as a hobby,’ that’s something only an adult would say. I think that those who don’t give it their all are those who don’t have passion.

At first reading, this is a really inspirational quote and definitely encourages the viewer to pressure passions with more intensity and vigor. However, I’ve learned the dangers of letting the flames of passion burn too bright. I nearly depleted my passion for programming by turning it into a full-time job. That is one of the reasons I picked up hobbies like photography and art; I felt like it has helped me balance my creative outlets more. Since I started practicing art, I’ve learned that passion is very finicky, it needs to be nurtured and cultivated. Inspiration and motivation don’t come spontaneously, they to be egged on by action and a consistent routine.

Maybe I’m trying too hard to project myself into this anime. I’m not anything like the protagonist; I’m a recent college graduate working a 9-5 software engineering job. I’m surrounded by people who are sapped of all passion and are just doing the bare minimum for their job. It is frightening, to be honest. The fear of being lost in a sea of mediocrity… Recently art has been beckoning me. Something about this anime perfectly captures the energy and emotions of a new artist and it can only be described as pure excitement.

The Orbital Children

The Orbital Children is a six-episode Netflix ONA that is about several middle schoolers in space. Some of the children were obnoxious — especially when it came to the social media parts. But overall the characters were each interesting and had their own quirks. For such a short series, it managed to do a fair bit of world-building and hit on some pretty high sci-fi concepts along the way.

It needs to be said that most of the “sci-fi” was pretty bogus. The “hacking” was just clicking a button and having droids shoot lasers at each other. The AI was pretty out there, but the show never tried to explain how an asteroid suddenly turned into a giant AI, so I will just leave it as that…

The ending was quite satisfying, emotional, and left room for a second season, but a second season is yet to be confirmed by Netflix. However, the season summarized two years of events in the last 10 minutes of the show, so I really don’t expect a second season. Most shows that do this are just trying to give the audience a somewhat satisfying conclusion since they don’t know if they will get a second season.