A Compendium of Cool Characters

Sort of a lie. This isn’t summarizing anything massive; just a little ol’ post inspired by ghostlightning’s post on the why of favoriting characters over at THAT Anime Blog. I’m also a dirty bandwagon hopper, because Rakuen at Borderline Hikikomori has already taken the lead on this. But, hey, bandwagon hopping every once in a while isn’t so bad, right?

(P.S. Still thinking a bit on how to tackle a Macross Plus post. Just know that I greatly enjoyed the OVA and would heartily recommend it to anyone, even those who might be a bit wary of Macross.)

The Role of OPs and EDs

After posting about some inappropriate EDs last week, I thought a bit more about the subject, specifically about what the hell we expect from OPs and EDs. And it probably isn’t a shocker to know that OPs in general have a fairly defined role (with leeway on execution), while EDs are a different story altogether.

A Violent Battle Between Head and Heart

I had a jumbled idea of what I wanted this post to be about beforehand, but ghostlightning’s great — and well timed! — post yesterday had me thinking a bit more about what I wanted to express. Definitely give his post a read, because it is very interesting; I haven’t read the manga he writes about, but it’s not completely necessary to understand the post.

A necessary warning: I try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but there are a couple from Now and Then, Here and There‘s final episode that I believed were necessary to make my points clearer, so if you want to avoid all spoilers for that series, then tread carefully or avoid the post altogether. Sorry. And no images in this post because, frankly, writing this has wiped me out, and I don’t have the energy to get images right now, haha. Maybe I’ll edit some in later.

When I watched Now and Then, Here and There a few weeks back, I wondered how the series would end. It is not an easy show to watch — it pushes the boundaries of suffering, cruelty and violence in ways many anime do not dare, both in content and presentation. I wondered how the finale would top this; now, I never thought there would be some large-scale bloody battle with both sides duking it out, because it seemed to me that this would run counter to the series’ message, but still, I wondered what would happen. Well, there is blood shed — plenty of it — and the situation resolves itself through a Deus Ex Machina of sorts. And the survivors are left with what they have.