Tag: review

My Hero Academia

My Hero Academia. Everyone is watching it, everyone is talking about it. It is a great shounen anime. It really is worth watching.

Despite MHA being great, I can’t really give MHA all that much praise because it doesn’t feel unique or inspired. Being unique in the saturated superhero landscape is difficult. After all, everything in one way or another is inspired by other things; we are just making copies of copies of copies. My Hero Academia hits on all the shounen and hero tropes, making it feel familiar before you even start watching it.

What makes My Hero Academia great is the flawless execution of all these tropes.
It has a great story (albeit uninspired), the animation is great, and the characters are great. Watching the show is exactly what you would expect from a shounen anime. I said a similar thing about Black Clover being “un-original” but still a great anime since it did everything right.

My Hero Academia is slowly putting itself in a position where the story can make a deeper critique of Hero culture and our infatuation with it. MHA includes villains who rebel against the status quo of the Heros because they believe the Heros themselves have become corrupt and greedy. With the retirement of All-might, we also posed the question, what is a hero symbol? Do we need a symbol of justice? Who gets to determine what justice is? Do bureaucracies get in the way of justice? Is vigilante justice ever justified?

All of these deeper moral questions that MHA ponders suggest a story that is deeper than your typical Superhero story. However, the superhero medium has already become self-aware of its own tropes and is starting to address them. American superhero movies like Logan, The Dark Night, and Captin America: Civil War has done excellent self-critics of the superhero genre. All these American Superhero movies explore the complex social and political landscape and question how superheroes can fit into a modern society. So far, MHA has aligned closer with shounen tropes and only briefly alluded towards a more complex superhero theme in some of its villains– but not the main villain group, The League of Villains.

With all that said, I see this show becoming the closest thing that anime has right now of mainstream success. It will become a long-running shounen anime that should gain a large international following. Maybe it will become the next Fullmetal alchemist, i.e., the anime that gets new people hooked on anime.

Dr. Stone Season 2

Season 2 of Dr. Stone was shorter than season 1, consisting of only 11 episodes, where season one had 24 episodes. Overall, season two retained the same level of excitement, and I was enjoying the watch. Animation remained remarkably well.

Season one finished with Senku finishing the construction of the telephone, and season two focused on the fight against Tsukasa. This shift also leads to a shift in using science to make more destructive weapons. The most lethal thing that was made in the first season was gunpowder and swords, but in this season Senku ended up making both a tank and dynamite. Although Senku manages to have a bloodless coup d’etat, it hints at the destructive power that modern science enables. This is literally hinted at by Tsukasa who argued that science must be eliminated to return to a world without bloody wars. The fallacy with Tsukasa was in that he then enabled violence via survival of the fittest.

Senku’s stance on this debate over the destructive power of science was illuminated when Senku created dynamite. Senku mentioned that it was debated whether Alfred Nobel created dynamite to help mine minerals or wage wars. Senku proceeded to say that he didn’t care either way because it helped advance science– Alfred Nobel went on to start the Nobel prizes to celebrate advances in science. This is echoed in season one when Senku and the village built the telephone to wage information warfare, but, along the way, they ended up making a slew of things that helped the village out like glasses and furnaces to heat their homes.

Although it is noble to think that science, regardless of the motives, will eventually lead to a better society, that can lead us into morally tricky situations. Consider nuclear technology. It was initially developed to build bombs, but now it is also used as a green energy source. On the one hand, it is helping society with clean energy. On the other, it has put us in a dastardly situation where mutual destruction is ensured if any nuclear power were to go to war with each other. So, do the motives matter? If nuclear research got conducted solely for energy, it would have just gotten weaponized, the second a geopolitical conflict required it. In Dr. Stone, the Senku-Tsukasa conflict got resolved by Senku using science to defeat Tsukasa. When two sides are pitted against each other, they will use any advantage they can get, and in Senku’s case, that was science. TLDR: humans wage wars science can’t stop that, but if science can help humanity prosper, then let’ be all for it.

Fullmetal Alchemist is another anime that does a phenomenal job at exploring the ethical applications of science. Dr. Stone hasn’t yet crossed the lines of applying science to do morally questionable things, but Fullmetal Alchemist has done just that. Skipping plot summaries, FMA concludes that the pursuit of science for science’s sake is not a good enough argument since it can lead some people to do some truly horrific things– like human experimentation and human sacrifice.

Sound of Metal

This was a depressing movie. It followed Ruben Stone, a gypsy punk-metal drummer who loses his hearing and deals with an identity crisis. This really resonated with audiences in 2020 because an unexpected health crisis can wreak havoc on your life.

The movie was very astute with the sound in the movie and had it emphasize the struggles of being deaf. Moreover, the movie does a great job at bringing awareness to the deaf community in a way that is not condescending. It perfectly portrays that deafness isn’t a disability, it’s a culture.

The ending was left open for interpretation. We don’t get to learn whether Ruben decides to return to his ‘old life’ or embraces deaf culture further. Ruben runs back to Peris to be with his girlfriend after the surgery. however, he shortly thereafter leaves early in the morning. The movie closes with him unplugging his earphones and enjoying the silence.

Dr. Stone Season 1

Dr. Stone was a refreshing anime to watch. The animation quality was terrific, the characters were energetic, and the plot was unique. This show was essentially like watching someone play Minecraft IRL. After everyone in humanity was turned to stone, our protagonist manages to escape the stone and start reviving people. Throughout the show, Senku uses his keen knowledge of science to build incredible things.

It makes you think about how useful you would be if you were transported to a prehistoric era. Although, yes, we have accumulated a vast lot of knowledge, most of our knowledge is predicated on access to modern tools. Few people (if any) know how to bootstrap themselves from raw minerals to an advanced piece of technology. Although I know a lot about linear algebra and computer science, those advanced skills are useless without a computer. It is amazing how much humans have achieved scientifically, and how much more we have to learn.

The Prince of Milk

It’s incredible how much the novel The Prince of Milk did: love, philosophy, sci-fi, nihilism, horror, thriller. The short chapters and intriguing plot made this a book I couldn’t put down till I finished it.

With all praise aside for the book book. I first picked it up because I found Exurb1a’s YouTube channel and I binged watched 20 of his videos, and I found out that he was also an author. Not all YouTubers that write books necessarily do a good job at it. However, Exurb1a definitely has a way with words, and it is reflected in both his YouTube channel and his novel The Prince of Milk.

Similar to the novel This is How You Lose the Time War, The Prince of Milk is a story that spans both time and space, but this book mostly focused on a small town in England. There is a rather long list of characters in this book, and it is hard to pin down if we have any “main” characters at all since the narrative is spread out among a dozen people. This sacrificed deeper character development, but it paid off since it managed to tell a vaster story in a shorter amount of time. This is juxtaposed to This is How You Lose the Time War, which only had two really fleshed out characters.

A similar thing could be said for the themes of the book. It was definitely a science-fiction book at its core, but it also had romance, horror, mystery. This amalgamated something very unique and interesting, but it lost its focus, likewise with the science-fiction concepts. The Prince of Milk wasn’t a single science-fiction concept explored to its max and crafted into a grandiose story like a Neal Stephenson novel; Exurb1a gleaned a giant heap of spaghetti science-fiction and threw it on paper to see which would stick with the reader. Not to say that this was a bad thing, I found this aspect fascinating. But, for a relatively short book, it is hard to cover this grandiose vision while giving the reader something salient to walk away with at the end.

Re:Zero Season 2 Reaction

Season two of Re:Zero was a treat. It is definitely a lot slower than season one, but this is because it did a lot of character and world-building. Overall I can’t say I enjoyed this season as much as the first season. By now the novelty of the emotional rollercoaster of return by death has worn down and the emotion feels shallower, but it still remains a very emotional show.

The one thread that this season elevates the theme that everyone needs to face and accept the past. During this season, all the main characters had to face their pasts: Subaru, Emilia, Beatrice, Garfield, Otto, and Roswaal. Rather than being an escapist Isekai series where the protagonist is thrown into a fantasy world, Subaru has to face his past as an Otaku shut-in. Subaru and Emilia had to literally face their past in a world created by the witch Echidna in her three trials. Garfield, Beatrice, and Roswaal had to let go of certain parts of their past for them to let go and go on with the future that Subaru is forging. All of the advantages that Subaru gains in this season were his ability to learn of the character’s pasts and then play that to his advantage the next round when he gave a motivational speech or made a deal.

By coming to this world and interacting with these people, it gives Subaru the motivation to do more with his life rather than being an otaku shut-in. Thus, the fantasy world inspired him and gave him encouragement. A meta read on the season could imply that this genre has that effect on people since it provides us with characters and people we can relate to– since in our mundane lives, we often don’t have people we can connect with. Subaru wanted his parents to scold him for skipping school, someone to get mad at him for being incompetent– and Subaru got that in this world. This series also does constant fourth wall breaks with Otaku culture. Subaru is completely aware that he is in an Isikai and makes constant references to the tropes in the genre. Although Subaru starts as that “that guy,” Subaru slowly changes into a more mature adult we root for as the hero.

Death Note

Death Note is an anime that follows Light Yagami after he acquires a magical notebook that enables him to kill people by just putting their name down in the notebook. Light takes it upon himself to become the arbiter of justice and kill criminals. L, N, and M are kid genius investigators tasked to take down Light Yagami.

As the show went on, it kept getting better and better. There was a twist with each episode that kept you at the edge of your seat. This show is really a battle of wits and intelligence between Light and L; every scene and detail held significance. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys crime and or darker anime.

The philosophical question posed in the show centers around what is Justice. People like Light or his hidden “hero” name “Kira” would argue about a more principle-based approach to Justice. There are criminals in this world that need to pay for what they have done– think old testament. There was even persistent biblical imagery throughout the show. The demon loves to eat apples: like Adom and Eve. There was even a Michelangelo painting at once showing Light and the demon touching each other through the notebook.

L, on the other hand, has a different view on Justice. L viewed justice more as a means of correcting wrongdoings. IE: it is impossible to know what is wrong without first pointing it out. Although this distinction may feel subtle, it is really not because one view is more fixated on punishment/revenge, where the other is focused on reform. This then begs the bigger question of what purpose does justice serves. Is justice solely done to bring revenge and closure to those who have been wronged or is justice enacted to correct the wrong by changing that person and bettering society?

The show doesn’t give hard answers on what Justice is but rather posed moral questions for the audience to ponder along the way. We are persistently posed with the question: is Light Yagami right? What about accidentally killing the innocent? Do the ends justify the means? If crime rates went down, could stricter punishments for a crime actually be justified?

Another question is raised: does justice only matters when others are watching? IE: is justice something we only care about to maintain our reputation and status? What happens when we are given that anonymity. The show touched on this a bit when it said that people would publicly denounce Kira’s executions as cruel, but people supported Kira privately on the internet.

Re:Zero Season 1

Re:Zero is an emotional roller-coaster to watch. The premise of this anime is that a Japanese teenager named Subaru is teleported into a generic fantasy world where he has to play through it like a video game. When Subaru dies, he is teleported back to a checkpoint, and he is unable to tell anyone else about his condition.

Neither the time loop concept nor the rebirth in a fantasy world is a new concept in anime. However, Re:Zero does a great job at leveraging the time loop to take us on an emotional typhoon. Subaru is faced with the darkest, most disparaging, degrading moments, only to be built back up by characters that fall head over heels for him. Although the character could whimsically die and face no emotional consequences from the viewer, the deaths presented in this show are always very emotional and heartfelt.

Steins Gate is very similar to Re:Zero in terms of the time loop. In Re:Zero it is when Subaru dies, wherein Steins Gate, it was a time machine. Both shows call into question the nature of reality and leave plenty to question. Within Steins Gate, the science is “well” established, but there is the underlying question of why do they have to fight fate/convergence. What other forces are at play? In Stein Gate, the time loop narrative was front and center, wherein Re:Zero, the time loop is comparatively in the back seat. Re:Zero is more focused on the fantasy adventure aspect. After an entire season of Re:Zero we still have no clue why Subaru is in this world, and all we know about the “return by death” is that it has something to do with a wicked witch.

Gravitation

I absolutely loved this show. It was fast-paced, never repetitive, and it was absolutely hilarious. It is a must-watch for the shounen-ai genre.

The show is built on strong character dynamics. Shuuichi, the main character, is very goofy and emotional. Shuuichi is the polar opposite of Yukie, the person he falls in love with.

The show isn’t without flaws. The animation is inconsistent at times, and although the music is great, they constantly re-use the same two songs the entire show.

I’m conflicted as to how I feel about Shuuichi falling in love with Yukie in the show. Yiki is a narcissist who talks down on people and pushes everyone out of his life. However, by the end of the season, with the backstory of Yukie fleshed out, I come to understand why Yukie acts the way he does and he does open up to Shuuichi more.

I can’t say that Gravitation said or did anything unique in it’s show. According to todays standards, it is a typical love story. However, being published in 1999, this was one of the first popular shounen-ai anime, and it opened the floodgates for the genre as we know it today. Despite being 20 years old, the anime still is well worth the watch.

Manga: There are Things I Can’t Tell You

Short review for a short LGBTQ romance manga. The artwork was gorgeous, and the romance between Kasumi and Kyousuke was heartfelt. Definitely worth the read if you are interested in gay romances.

Apart from your typical love tropes, this manga explores two additional themes: what it means to be happy and how our careers can interfere with our romantic lives. In the manga, Kyousuke pushes away Kasumi because he believes that Kasumi would be happier if he weren’t in a relationship with him — because societal norms growing up coerced him into thinking that gay relationships are somehow bad. It wasn’t until receiving a love confession from Kasumi and advice from his boss did Kyousuke decide to follow his heart and proclaim his love to Kasumi.

Kyousuke is depicted as a workaholic, frequently pulling all-nighters for the agency that he works for. This ends up pushing him to burnout and being unhappy. Moreover, at the beginning of the manga, Yukiko is having an affair with Kasumi because she is unhappy with her husband because he is distant because of work. Yukiko believes that Kasumi could fill a hole in her life, but that never happens. Nothing that the manga says is deep in this regard. But, it is nice including this because our society has a romanticized view of workaholics. Yet, in reality, it is a self-destructive behavior that pushes the ones you love out of your life.