Heartcatch Precure and the Value of Kids Anime

There’s a stereotype that animation is for kids, and it’s been a burden. People use that stereotype in order to devalue animation, causing others to defend the medium by pointing to examples which aren’t made for kids. That’s all well and good, but it tacitly accepts the idea that media made for kids is less valuable than media made for teenagers and adults, and I don’t agree with that in the slightest. I love kids shows, and my recent watch of Heartcatch Precure confirmed that. I think more people should watch kids anime, and I’ll explain why, with Heartcatch as an example.

Upcoming Changes to the Blog and my Media Consumption

I haven’t made a post in a little while, and there’s a number of reasons for that. I spent the last week on Spring Break, mostly paying Persona 5. In order to do that I put a TV in my room, and that combined with my 60 or so hours of P5 made me realize that I needed to make some massive changes to my media consumption, and with it some changes to this blog.

Why Anime First Appealed to Me, and why I Still Watch it

As of this Spring season I’ve been an active part of the anime community for four years, and I’ve been a knowing fan of anime for around five. At this point anime seems less like an ordinary hobby I could eventually drop, and more like a permanent fixture of my life. I’ve started putting some thought into why that is, and I’ve come up with some interesting ideas. My reasons for watching have shifted a lot over the years, and I’m sure they’ll shift more in the future, but I think all those reasons are worth exploring.

Why I Love It: Hidamari Sketch’s Indecision and Appreciation

Art comes in many forms. It can be conveyed through text, through audio, through visuals, and through many other forms as well. Art is extremely important to people, even if that importance is expressed in many different ways. I find joy in the consumption of all kinds of art, though when expressing my artistic ideas I prefer to do so through writing. The girls of Hidamari Apartments mostly focus on drawing and painting in order to communicate their art, but the show celebrates many types of interests and mediums through its calm slice-of-life setting at an art-focused high school, and I relate to it heavily.

Spring 2017 Week 1 Recap

Winter is officially over as its last remaining shows ended this week. I’m behind because of Persona 5 and bad planning, but from now on these should be coming up on Fridays. Yeah, not much more to say, I need to start watching Week 2’s shows now, starting with the Eccentric Family. It’s a light season, but let’s hope the few shows I watch turn out strong.

Aria, Episode-by-Episode: The Natural, Episode 5

This is another two-part episode, this time exploring two separate areas of Aria, away from Neo-Venezia. As I said in the past, The Natural is heavily focused on world-building, and this episode is particularly strong at it. The two locations they go to are totally different and carry different messages with them, but both are beautiful, leading to this being one of my favorite episodes in the series.

Aria, Episode-by-Episode: The Natural, Episode 4

This is another episode that focuses on Neo-Venezia, though it does so in a different way than the previous few. While past episodes focused a lot more on showing you parts of the City, thus giving you a better sense of what it’s like, this episode focuses more on the spirit of the city. It also brings back the beauty of letters, touched on in episode 4 of the Animation.

Nier: Automata’s Final Ending or “It was hard for me as well. Just Remember, you’ve got us with you.”

MAJOR Spoiler Warning for all 5 main endings of Nier Automata. Usually I wouldn’t do this, but this is an incredible game that everyone should play themselves if possible. Please only read if you’ve beaten the game or don’t care.

The world can be harsh. Nier: Automata demonstrates this the entire time you play it, presenting you with plenty of scenarios in which you are able to see how bad things are in the world the characters inhabit. The game makes no attempt to hide the ugly face of the world from you, and from the beginning its clear that everything is awful. There are many times you’re forced to do bad things yourself, only adding to the sense that the world is corrupt and rotten.

Aria, Episode-by-Episode: The Natural, Episode 3

This episode is a bit weird, because it’s an introduction for a character who’s already shown up multiple times. By this point in the show Al is fairly well-established as part of the cast, but none of the chapters introducing him had been adapted, so while the gang knows him, we don’t really have a real gauge on his personality.

Why Spoilers Don’t Matter and Hurt the Anime Community

Ironically enough, there are no major spoilers in this, other than briefly touching on certain episodes or arcs of shows without any detail.

We live in a period where spoiler culture is rampant; where the slightest hint of what happens in a piece of media is seen as a grave sin. That’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s certainly not unfair to say that people are particularly afraid of spoilers nowadays. As the internet has expanded and media has ditched time-slots in favor of immediate, permanent access, it’s become much easier to get spoiled, and the increased amount of people you can talk to has only made it worse. It’s no shock that people are now incredibly careful about spoilers. While that makes sense for many, it’s something I find incredibly annoying on a personal level, for many reasons.