Student, pianist, and aspiring writer/journalist. Shares thoughts regarding anime and other current events.
Day 16: Anime with the Best Animation
There is no hesitation in me as I say that the anime film, “Kimi no Na Wa.” or more commonly known as “Your Name.,” is the anime with the best animation to have been released as of late.
REACTION – We continue where we left off from the previous episode as Megumi unveils her strategy on how to win Sagiri’s friendship. She goes for “if you can’t beat em’, be them” strategy and asks Masamune and Tomoe for light novel recommendations.
Day 15: Favorite Animal Sidekick, Pet or Summoning from any anime
Animal sidekicks and the sorts are usually seen in the shonen genre which is something that I do not watch regularly. However, there is one favorite of mine and that is Happy from the anime series, Fairy Tail, who serves as somewhat of a sidekick to Natsu, one of the main characters for the show.
REACTION – Never have I felt so satisfied after watching an episode of Attack on Titan. It was a wonderful development of maturity to see Eren understanding when to go all out or when to lay low.
PERSONAL ENTRY – In early May, I had the chance to participate in a debate and public speaking workshop which taught people ways on how to think logically and out of the box.
For this personal entry, I would like to talk about one motion which we debated about: “This House would prefer to live in a world where no rhetoric of uniqueness of an individual exists.”
In this debate, I was able to learn and gain some sort of self-insight on the topic of self-worth in relation to the rhetoric of uniqueness since I was in the opposition side. So I will be sharing what I thought and said during my part of the debate.
The other side brought out the ideas that calling people unique misleads them and at the end, gets them disappointed since such aspects apparently don’t exist within them at all. In their side, they claimed that life would be better without the concept of uniqueness since discrimination and misrepresentation would be out of the picture.
Thinking about these things which they said, I thought: “that cannot be right.”
For starters, they argued that the idea of telling other people that they are unique or people that personally feel that they are unique brings forth a sense of superiority and people should be aware that you are no different to anyone else.
Gathering my thoughts about what they said, I came up with this as my piece in the debate:
Why is the rhetoric of uniqueness important and impossible to remove? Competition.
If you remove the concept of uniqueness, then people would be in this mentality that their actions are basically just the same as other people so why should they live in the first place?
The rhetoric of uniqueness allows people to see and use their potential in what they do best. It may be true that two office workers may have the same jobs but if you look at it positively and differently, there is still an aspect of uniqueness in what you do.
Let us take this one example: office worker A and B are employed with the same jobs. However, office worker A does his job using a desktop computer whilst office worker B uses a typewriter. You can apply this example to two librarians working in two different institutions who prefer different methods of encoding documents.
Not motivating enough? Let me go about on a much more physical level.
You are apparently beautiful to the person sitting beside you but Lynda, the woman on the other end of the room which you are in, is not beautiful to the person sitting beside you.
But hold up, let’s think about this situation differently.
If you are beautiful to the guy sitting beside you, then you must not be beautiful to others. Doesn’t that create some sort of desire and annoyance therefore would somewhat encourage you to a certain extent to look good to other people?
In the case of the person who is not considered beautiful by the guy sitting beside you, she could possibly see this as a challenge and therefore would make personal steps to look beautiful in that person’s eyes and ultimately, to others as well.
This is why people get so easily discouraged and depressed – especially with our generation today.
Say we were to metaphorically compare our entire existence to a clean, white cloth. As time goes by, you notice a stain which was formed after you sneezed into said cloth.
Now, do you take your laundry materials and clean that stain? Or do you just look at it without doing anything at all?
In the realistic case, people would most probably wash that stain. Same as with life, you need to either wash that stain or cut that piece of cloth – whichever is most appealing to you.
If there were no sense of uniqueness, there’d be no atmosphere of competition which in turn would lead to some sort of pause in the processes of life.
If that would be the case, then why live in the first place when you don’t have reason to live? You might say, “I don’t know why I still live,” then I say to you, “Should I call a random person to figure out why you still live or would you want to look at the reason yourself?”
Every individual thinks very differently from one another. Isn’t that a form of uniqueness?
The concept of uniqueness varies from person to person and whatever their interpretation of it can drastically affect how they live their lives.
I don’t know if this article made sense or anything but I hoped it somewhat cheered someone up or made them think twice about life. It’s really disheartening to see people my age succumbing to depression and anxiety just because they have the wrong mindsets. Exterior factors can fall into play and considering that thought, I hope this can be a great “exterior factor” for people to ponder on.
As the Desmond Doss, from the movie “Hacksaw Ridge,” said:
With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it don’t seem like such a bad thing to me to want to put a little bit of it back together.
With that note, hope this article helps. Also, happy mother’s day to all moms out there.
Day 14: Anime that never gets old no matter how many times I watch it.
An anime series that has stood the test of time and could be agreed as such by the entire community is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This series has been the grounds for all anime series that have come after it. It set the basis for the current style of anime we see today.
This anime series has made a cultural impact predominantly in Japan, Asia and English-speaking countries. Numerous parodies of the dance shown in the anime’s ending theme, Hare Hare Yukai, were popular during its airing time and gave the companies a very hard time to enforce copyright.
That’s quite enough evidence to say that the Haruhi franchise contributed largely to the culture of anime.
When I mentioned “set the basis,” I mean it in the sense that this series has set the standards for your typical slice-of-life, high school-set anime series. Same goes for the entirety of the works that the studio, Kyoto Animation, which they base from the entire Haruhi franchise.
Why is the series good, you might ask? That’s a pretty hard question to answer but let me try to do so in the best way I can.
For starters, the story telling used in the Haruhi franchise is somewhat new and unique. Kyon narrates the story to the viewer and adds in his own internal monologues but doesn’t take away the spotlight from the real main character which is Haruhi Suzumiya. Some people might mistake Kyon as the main character of this series but if you think about it, the story always surrounds the titular character, Haruhi Suzumiya.
Its story is quite unique as well. I don’t think I have seen an anime series where it balances the high school, slice-of-life aspects whilst also mixing in the supernatural phenomenon in the mix. I mean, seriously, the titular character is god and it is Kyon’s (and the other characters) job to make sure that she is not aware of her abilities.
We got really fantastic characters here: an esper, an artificial humanoid interface, a time-traveler, and we have Kyon – a normal guy. All of them ensures that Haruhi is entertained and in blissful ignorance of her god powers. Simple yet something unique at the same time.
Imagine if you were in such a situation – you, as Kyon, would have to keep these fantastic and extraordinary phenomenon in the dark and make sure this blissful ignorant “ojou-sama” doesn’t know that she is god for the sake of the world’s safety.
Another thing to note is the animation quality shown in the entire Haruhi franchise was the highest of its time. Kyoto Animation was known to produce movie-like animation quality and still does so to this day.
The airing order of episodes was completely unorthodox and viewers had different ways to watch them. Its either to watch the series in two major episodic orders: Haruhi’s order (which was the chronological order) or Kyon’s order (which was the broadcast order).
It created somewhat of a confusion and also a sense of appeal since nothing of the sort is common. In Kyon’s order, the first episode would be “The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina Episode 00” while it would be listed as the eleventh episode in Haruhi’s order.
The ending theme was quite phenomenal as well which, as I mentioned earlier, bred numerous parodies as people were trying to do dance covers. The theme had a catchy, upbeat tune and showed off a full dance sequence. It was quite unique and probably even in our current time.
Because of the Haruhi franchise, there was a rise of popularity when it came to the high school set stories in Japan.
The story might not appeal to people at this time but take note that this franchise is the reason why anime, light novels and manga are written as they are right now. The trend of school-set anime was started by the Haruhi franchise which is probably the reason why despite the absurdity of most anime series, it is still in high school – “because apparently everything happens in high school.”
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya was a classic, a trend-setter, and is still appreciated till this day despite being released in the early 2000’s. It is, definitely, an anime series that never gets old no matter how many times I or you watch it – you can fight me on this.
Day 13: Anime Character that I am most similar to
If I were to pick out an anime character that shares most of my traits, I would have a tough time deciding who fits me best. Let’s just say that my traits are very contradicting to some extent and I end up being similar to a lot of characters.
For starters, I could be a mix of Oreki Houtarou and Hikigaya Hachiman since I have a very lazy personality and operate by reading between the lines, assuming the worst in every situation. At the same time, I end up helping and being friendly to other people which ends up me being somewhat similar to Hachiman – although I’m not really that much concerned when it comes to peers.
It is possible that I could be similar to Keima Katsuragi since I am pretty much in the “life is such a shitty game” phase and I had a similar experience when it comes to the whole Chihiro and Keima fiasco wherein I ended up flirting with someone but wasn’t expecting any mutual affection so, yeah, you get the picture.
I could be compared to Kousei Arima since I am a pianist and at the same time, I am pretty much soft-spoken to people who I don’t know but end up being close and interactive to my friends and colleagues.
Honestly, I have a hard time picking out an anime character that resembles me the most. If there was a character with the same personalities as Oreki Houtarou, Hikigaya Hachiman, Keima Katsuragi and Kousei Arima, then that’d be probably the character I’d pick for this.
But alas, I don’t know any anime character that resembles me the most. I can’t even narrow out from the four characters I mentioned just now since in a sense, Oreki is almost there, Hikigaya is too extreme, Keima and Kousei are only similar on some aspects.
So I guess Oreki is the closest to my personality? Honestly, I’m pretty much iffy about it.
Any other characters that come to mind? Let me know in the comments.
REACTION – The episode focuses on three things: Akane’s track meet, Kotaro’s publishing offer, and Chinatsu’s feelings for Kotaro.
For Kotaro’s case, he was contacted by the publishing company who received his novel manuscript. Despite strong objections from her mother in pursuing writing as a career, he goes to meet with the publisher anyways.
However, Kotaro was met with disappointment as the publisher states that he is not fit for serious literature and should try doing light novels instead. For me, it felt kind of an insult for Kotaro since I, as a writer and a person, know the feeling of expecting you are great at what you do but get shut down by other people – telling you that you’re not fit for such career, hobby or job.
As for Akane’s track meet, she lost in the race and had the worst possible time which earned her some disappointed remarks from Takumi, the president of the track and field club. Although it is clearly quite evident that Takumi wants to comfort Akane, but nuh-uh, mate, she taken.
What’s surprising though is Chinatsu’s request to confess to Kotaro after Akane just said that they were in a relationship. I understand that you need some sort of closure but isn’t the fact that your desired person is already taken enough to discourage you from going further?
Quite concerned on Chinatsu’s request since it could affect their friendship a bit if she tries anything fishy and Kotaro gets baited real good. But I’m also complacent that no such thing will happen.
Every time a similar situation happens like this, I always think about the concepts of netorare, cheating – it could be possible.
I’d also like to take note how wonderful it was to incorporate a good song in a montage of Akane’s track race and Kotaro riding a train to the publishing company. It gives off an air of uncertainty and calmness as the two embark on their separate journeys to accomplish their dreams.
Currently what I can say about the Kotaro and Akane pairing is that they are still at the stage where they prioritize their own dreams. However, I am certain that as time goes on in their relationship, it could make them open up more and realize each other’s importance to each other.
The whole relationship, at the moment, can be characterized by awkward stares, conversations which is pretty much expected from characters like Kotaro and Akane.
I hope the anime series continues on this wonderful path where they incorporate realism when writing their characters and the story as a whole.
Day 12: Favorite Anime Scene
The anime film Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya was one of the best of its kind. It solidified and gave way to the popularity of the Haruhi franchise. There were a lot of scenes from this film which could easily be one of my favorites and choosing just one was just too hard.
So after much thought, I think the best favorite scene I saw in this movie was “Kyon’s Choice.”
If you have watched the anime series and this film, then you would know about a character named Yuki Nagato. Her character is an artificial interface made by aliens which is devoid of any emotions and seeks to only complete the task at hand: to observe Haruhi Suzumiya, the supposed-entity or “god” responsible for keeping everything in balance.
In this movie, it is revealed the Nagato altered everybody’s memories and change the world to its normal state. By normal meaning Haruhi is not a god, and everyone else in the series become normal human beings – no special abilities, no out-of-this-world talents, normal.
She did this to give Kyon a choice: whether to accept a world where everyone is normal and lead a normal life, or return to the original world where Kyon is mixed in a group of people that possess supernatural abilities and keep Haruhi’s god powers in check.
Kyon chose the original world.
What’s so good about this scene is Kyon’s internal monologue and the animation sequences while he goes on about his reasoning of why he chose the original world.
Throughout his monologue, he tries to understand why Nagato could’ve altered the world – which is a cliche reason since she is an artificial humanoid interface devoid of feelings. The sole problem of making artificial human interfaces in every media is that they tend to analyze everything but are limited to the prisons of their programming.
In short, the errors which Nagato was warning Kyon about was her bottled-up human emotions. You cannot devoid a human, whether artificial or not, of human emotion. Otherwise, it is not human anymore but an empty shell.
Kyon acknowledges Nagato’s suffering. How she could’ve wanted to express her own emotions but couldn’t because of the limits in her programming. He blames himself for trying to rely on Nagato every time something bad happens. Kyon is stuck in the idea that “Nagato can fix this, so let’s leave it to her” but doesn’t realize Nagato’s side of these decisions he makes.
Kyon understands that Nagato wanted to live in a normal world and understands the reason why he was the only one given by Nagato the choice to revert or maintain the current world – it was because Nagato trusted her to make the right choices.
This puts Kyon in a precarious situation – does he put Nagato’s feelings as a priority? Or does he want to suffer even more in the original world where he does not have any talents and is at the whim of those who do have them?
He acknowledges that he is, as well, tired of being the normal guy – how every situation in the original world was too confusing and too out of hand to be understood by his own normal mind. Kyon weighs in his own woes as well and factors it to his decision.
However, there was a big question to be answered: didn’t he, Kyon, enjoy the original world?
Yes, he goddamned did.
Despite being under constant confusion all the time in the original world, he found everything fun despite being sick, tired and confused.
In this scene, Kyon battles with his alter-ego which weighs in his suffering and how everything is so screwed up in the original world. He considers that Nagato went out of her way to do him a favor yet he still wanted the choice to revert or maintain.
Kyon’s alter-ego weighs in why the normal world which Nagato created is better and asks Kyon the big question, “Wasn’t everything fun?“
To which Kyon finalizes his decision and said strongly that he had fun.
Therefore, he chose the original world.
This scene was a great show of character development of Kyon and Nagato. We fully understand Nagato’s woes and Kyon acknowledges this as well. But Kyon also considers that such a normal life would be… too normal. There’d be no point in everything and he finds it fun – that’s all there is to it.
It was such a turning point for Kyon and Nagato as characters. An emotional scene where Kyon monologues with himself whether to choose a normal life or live the original life where he is confronted with weird sh*t everyday. It may sound selfish but I’ll be damned, he made the right decisions and swore to not repeat the mistakes he made.
I could say Kyon grew to much more aware of Nagato and factor her into every decision he makes rather than the usual thinking where Nagato can handle everything. It goes to show the Nagato, as a character, despite being an artificial being, is capable of human emotion and should be treated as human.
Actually I was considering picking out the “John Smith” scene for this but I don’t know. I felt like this scene weighed in much more than the John Smith scene.
also yuki nagato is best grill
REACTION – I guess this is the part of the anime series where each character confronts their personal problems and come to terms with them because I’ll be honest – this is what these three episodes tell throughout their duration.
In episode four, the main characters try to showcase the Manoyama wood sculpturing industry. However, there are some people who wish to maintain the traditional aspects of their craft and want no exposure – which poses some sort of problem to the plans of the Tourism committee.
Sanae tries to help but is instead told by the senior wood sculptor that she knows nothing about his craft and is probably someone who just came to the rural area for an escape of her problems – which hits Sanae hard considering that she did want to escape the city life.
In the fifth episode, Sanae goes into this mode of depression but however, after some good pep talks from Yoshino, Sanae gets back to work and helps out with the Manoyama wood carving industry exposure.
The team decide to use the local train station and add some wood works and craft to beautify the station which leads to an understanding between those who prefer to keep the tradition and those who would like to expose it to outsiders.
In the sixth episode, a film crew comes to Manoyama to work on their project and asks the cooperation of the Tourism committee. However, Maki doesn’t want to be involved considering her past as an actress. But gets seen by one of the actresses involved in the film who calls her senpai and tries to convince her to stay in the acting industry, much to her displeasure.
Sanae tries to right Maki but in the end, breeds more hate and displeasure from the two.
So yeah, I was kind of annoyed for these three episodes since it was nothing more but the characters finding themselves and why they work for the Tourism committee.
But in the end, I enjoyed it. It could’ve been better though since it is pretty obvious that the series is going to its conflict arc.
The entertainment was enough to put me through.
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