I was seeing this talked about quite a bit already last year well before Shield Hero became the hot topic of the community.
It bothers me a bit in a show like Ragnarok from last summer where our protagonist has become basically the ruler of a country and yet he sees the Slave trade going on in that country and doesn't abolish it, and yet he is doing other things to "modernize" said country. For the most part however that happens because the writers simply weren't thinking about it enough.
And seeing it in Medieval Europe Based Fantasy in general, either Western or Japanese media, bugs me since I know Slavery wasn't actually practiced in Medieval Europe, the Church eventually managed to abolish Roman style slavery until trans Atlantic contact brought it back.
Western media critics are talking about this being a problem in Isekai as if it's relevant to actual Japanese social issues, as if there is a risk of chattel slavery suddenly being reestablished there.
Japan abolished chattel slavery in 1590, when the European Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was still forming, before the Colonies that became the United States were even founded, the first African slaves were brought to those colonies in 1619. In fact the WWII era Imperial Japan we love to demonize so much abolished slavery in the parts of East Asia they conquered.
So I think it's highly offensive and arrogant to see any Americans moralize to the Japanese on this issue.
Now you can also use the word slavery to describe certain amoral things WWII era Japan was doing. But when you expand the definition like that, well it just reminds me how we enslaved Japanese Americans and Immigrants in internment camps during WWII, and technically still have legal Slavery to this day in our for profit prison system. If you think America did nothing wrong during WWII then I don't wanna hear your criticisms of people who think Japan did nothing wrong.
I haven't watched any of Shield Hero yet, I'm waiting till I can binge a few episodes of the Dub. But what I've gathered so far is that it's not an average Isekai, it's depicting a dark dystopic world where the institutionalized racially based slavery going on is absolutely another example of how messed up that world is. And the protagonist is a bit of an Anti-Hero who's moral choices are not necessarily endorsed simply because he's the protagonist.
As shown in a recent Pause and Select Video, when Nationalist tendencies do seep into Isekai it's about depicting these other worlds as savages compared to how "Civilized" modern Japan is, and so the existence of slavery in these worlds is merely another example of that. Even apologists of WWII era Japan are likely to be pointing out how WWII era Japan was abolishing slavery in continental Asia.
I'm bothered by that video making Outbreak Company seem like nationalist propaganda however, they must have missed the part where the Prime Minister was the ultimate villain of the show. Either way Outbreak Company certainly can't be accused of approving of Slavery.
I find it hilarious how last summer off just the first episode people like AnimeFeminist were condemning How Not to Summon A Demon Lord as some kind of pro slavery show. It's mainly a fetish show where it's made clear this slavery spell is supposed to be done between people who consent to it for Kink reasons. The show was thematically very much about freedom of choice and agency. I wasn't able to finish it because it was too fan servicy for my tastes, but I saw nothing objectionable in it's message.
Way back, long before I was into any of these Anime, on an IMDB forum I think, I saw someone express an opinion that if you were living in the Antebellum South it'd be inherently immoral to buy a slave even for the purpose of freeing them, or keeping them from falling into the hands of someone worse (certain Laws in the South made it very difficult for an Freed Slave to remain Free), because you're still financially supporting the institution.
It's easy to take such a hard line black and white position on that when you live in a society that hasn't actually had this institution for over a century, but it's different when you actually live in that world. The fact is historically there were people back then who owned slaves while not just saying that they opposed slavery but were actively involved in the abolitionist movement. Of course it's also true that plenty of Abolitionists were still Racists who didn't want Black people in the country at all. The point is you can't ignore nuances when trying to pass moral judgment on people who lived back then.
Why is that rant relevant to Isekai? Because sometimes Isekai protagonists buy slaves for that exact reason. I don't have any solid opinion on Shield Hero yet, but we saw it in Deathmarch last winter, the Protagonist buys some slaves in order to rescue them. That show is not currently one of my favorites of the genre, but I enjoyed it.
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Batman Begins is a Prequel
Does anyone remember back when the casual audience thought Batman Begins was gonna be a Prequel to Batman89? Even after the film had been out for awhile I remember people at my local video rental store still referring to it as one.
I don't think you even theoretically could do a Prequel to Batman 89, it wasn't an origin film as we think of it today but it was still presented as very early in Batman's career, it's heavily implied everything he did before it started was just more of what we saw in the cold open. Gordon clearly didn't even think the Batman was real till the Axis Chemicals incident, so for that reason alone you couldn't do a Year One kind of story.
But you see all things considered, Batman Begins definitely is a Prequel, it's a Prequel to The Dark Knight.
I'm not just saying that because of how much TDK became a bigger film, I'm not gonna go around calling A New Hope a prequel to Empire Strikes Back. There are only three Star Wars Prequels, and then two glorified Easter Egg Hunts.
You see it starts with how The Dark Knight doesn't seem like a sequel, there is no reason you need to have seen Begins before watching it, not even much of a reason why it would help to have seen Begins, it doesn't actually draw on the prior film's events at all. People make fun of how the 90s Batman films didn't seem all that concerned with continuity, but the references to Vickie Vale in Batman Returns are more of a reference to the prior film then anything in TDK. It helped for marketing that a lot of these actors were already popular in those roles, but that's it.
And the reason people thought Begins was a Prequel originally is because it was made like one, even it's title is a Prequel title. It was like Gotham and Smallville in that it functioned as a vague prequel to a basic lore but not a specific already existing continuity.
Remember this was the first time non-comic readers had seen a not yet Commissioner version of Jim Gordon, now everyone takes it for granted that Gordon starts out as an ordinary cop, but he used to just mainly be Batman's M.
So when looking back at the Nolan Bat-Films now, Begins is a Prequel to The Dark Knight far more then The Dark Knight is a sequel to Begins.
I don't think you even theoretically could do a Prequel to Batman 89, it wasn't an origin film as we think of it today but it was still presented as very early in Batman's career, it's heavily implied everything he did before it started was just more of what we saw in the cold open. Gordon clearly didn't even think the Batman was real till the Axis Chemicals incident, so for that reason alone you couldn't do a Year One kind of story.
But you see all things considered, Batman Begins definitely is a Prequel, it's a Prequel to The Dark Knight.
I'm not just saying that because of how much TDK became a bigger film, I'm not gonna go around calling A New Hope a prequel to Empire Strikes Back. There are only three Star Wars Prequels, and then two glorified Easter Egg Hunts.
You see it starts with how The Dark Knight doesn't seem like a sequel, there is no reason you need to have seen Begins before watching it, not even much of a reason why it would help to have seen Begins, it doesn't actually draw on the prior film's events at all. People make fun of how the 90s Batman films didn't seem all that concerned with continuity, but the references to Vickie Vale in Batman Returns are more of a reference to the prior film then anything in TDK. It helped for marketing that a lot of these actors were already popular in those roles, but that's it.
And the reason people thought Begins was a Prequel originally is because it was made like one, even it's title is a Prequel title. It was like Gotham and Smallville in that it functioned as a vague prequel to a basic lore but not a specific already existing continuity.
Remember this was the first time non-comic readers had seen a not yet Commissioner version of Jim Gordon, now everyone takes it for granted that Gordon starts out as an ordinary cop, but he used to just mainly be Batman's M.
So when looking back at the Nolan Bat-Films now, Begins is a Prequel to The Dark Knight far more then The Dark Knight is a sequel to Begins.
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
George MacDonald the invertor of Isekai
His 1858 novel Phantastes: A Fairie Romance for Men and Women is the first book that can unambiguously qualify as an Isekai, predating even Alice in Wonderland. And MacDonald is known to have been a sort of Mentor to Lewis Carrol, it was because of MacDonald's advice and the fact that MacDonald's children loved it so much that Carrol published Alice in Wonderland in 1865.
George MacDonald's Magnum Opus was also an Isekai, Lilith published in 1895 is younger then Alice but still older then The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and the Narnia books. George MacDonald was also a Christian Minister and it is this book more then any other fiction he wrote that incorporates his belief in Universal Salvation, indeed how much it is allegorical of his view of The Gospel firmly makes it the proto-Narnia. The book is also technically a Vampire novel that predates Dracula, but not by long enough to have been a likely influence.
Those two novels may be the only ones he wrote that qualify as Isekai, but not the only ones that can be considered early Fantasy stories. Tolkien said he didn't admire MacDonald as much as Lewis did but admits in his letters that the Goblins in The Princess and The Goblin (1872) were an influence on how he wrote the Goblins in The Hobbit (not quite as much the Orcs in LOTRs). Indeed that novel is really the invention of the modern notion of Goblins, Goblins in Medieval European folklore were trickster spirits like Leprechauns, the notion of Goblins as evil minions you can fight a war with without needing to worry about the humanity of your villainous mooks begins with this novel.
There was an animated movie made out of The Princess and The Goblin in 1992, I decided to watch it, partly for my interest in MacDonald in general, but also because I figured it'd be interesting after how much Goblins were a meme of the Fall 2018 Anime season to familiarize myself with the origins of the modern Fantasy Goblin. It was a pretty decent movie, I'm amazed at how much agency the Princess had in it, remember this was a novel written by a Victorian era Pastor.
Probably the most enthusiastic literary student of George MacDonald was C. S. Lewis, even though Lewis didn't agree with Universal Salvation, he clearly respected it and didn't consider it something to condemn someone as a Heretic over.
The only reason Jadis, The White Witch, is identified as a descendant of Lilith is to homage George MacDonald's Lilith. Frankly I think the Lady of the Green Kirtle makes more sense to associate with Lilith between her shape shifting into a serpent and being Lewis' only Femme Fatale character that I'm aware of. The character of Jadis is much more modeled after The Snow Queen.
Now I've already talked about the ways in which I feel the Narnia books are closer to modern Anime Isekai then other early Western Novels that can be called Isekai. Though clearly a lot of current Anime critics wish the genre would more often follow Voyage of The Dawn Treader's attitude towards slavery.
The big difference between Lilith and most Anime Isekai is how much older the protagonist is. But Lilith can in fact seem perfectly suited to Anime in a lot of ways, it's a story where all but 2 of the most important characters are women, and one of them is arguably a Neko.
All of George MacDonald's novels are in the Public Domain now, so I'd love to see some Anime studio try adapting them.
George MacDonald's Magnum Opus was also an Isekai, Lilith published in 1895 is younger then Alice but still older then The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan and the Narnia books. George MacDonald was also a Christian Minister and it is this book more then any other fiction he wrote that incorporates his belief in Universal Salvation, indeed how much it is allegorical of his view of The Gospel firmly makes it the proto-Narnia. The book is also technically a Vampire novel that predates Dracula, but not by long enough to have been a likely influence.
Those two novels may be the only ones he wrote that qualify as Isekai, but not the only ones that can be considered early Fantasy stories. Tolkien said he didn't admire MacDonald as much as Lewis did but admits in his letters that the Goblins in The Princess and The Goblin (1872) were an influence on how he wrote the Goblins in The Hobbit (not quite as much the Orcs in LOTRs). Indeed that novel is really the invention of the modern notion of Goblins, Goblins in Medieval European folklore were trickster spirits like Leprechauns, the notion of Goblins as evil minions you can fight a war with without needing to worry about the humanity of your villainous mooks begins with this novel.
There was an animated movie made out of The Princess and The Goblin in 1992, I decided to watch it, partly for my interest in MacDonald in general, but also because I figured it'd be interesting after how much Goblins were a meme of the Fall 2018 Anime season to familiarize myself with the origins of the modern Fantasy Goblin. It was a pretty decent movie, I'm amazed at how much agency the Princess had in it, remember this was a novel written by a Victorian era Pastor.
Probably the most enthusiastic literary student of George MacDonald was C. S. Lewis, even though Lewis didn't agree with Universal Salvation, he clearly respected it and didn't consider it something to condemn someone as a Heretic over.
The only reason Jadis, The White Witch, is identified as a descendant of Lilith is to homage George MacDonald's Lilith. Frankly I think the Lady of the Green Kirtle makes more sense to associate with Lilith between her shape shifting into a serpent and being Lewis' only Femme Fatale character that I'm aware of. The character of Jadis is much more modeled after The Snow Queen.
Now I've already talked about the ways in which I feel the Narnia books are closer to modern Anime Isekai then other early Western Novels that can be called Isekai. Though clearly a lot of current Anime critics wish the genre would more often follow Voyage of The Dawn Treader's attitude towards slavery.
The big difference between Lilith and most Anime Isekai is how much older the protagonist is. But Lilith can in fact seem perfectly suited to Anime in a lot of ways, it's a story where all but 2 of the most important characters are women, and one of them is arguably a Neko.
All of George MacDonald's novels are in the Public Domain now, so I'd love to see some Anime studio try adapting them.
Monday, January 7, 2019
Lindsay Ellis did a video critiquing Death of The Author
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGn9x4-Y_7A
The point is that the audience is allowed to interpret the work in ways the author didn't intend, because the author's personal views and experiences were only one factor in how the art was formed, there was also earlier art that influenced them, and other people helping along the way, and if you're a Christian like me the possibility that the Holy Spirit was a factor is always there, I believe it does sometimes work through non-believers.
She talks briefly at the beginning about the "Ethics" of supporting art from artists who've said or done problematic things, but never really delved into that. Death of the Author is mostly irrelevant to my answer to that issue actually. The issue there is that "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" whether or not the "Author" of some art you spent money on is problematic I guarantee you someone making money off it is. So if you want to boycott a perfectly enjoyable piece of entertainment because you don't like the author fine, just don't go around shamming others for not doing the same, because we're supporting evil corporations just by buying the food we need to live. And for me simply enjoying the entertainment media I like is also important to how I survive living in this world.
I'm now gonna copy here a comment I left.
What annoys me is the notion that Death of the Author is some new thing and Authorial intent is what's traditional. Lots of traditional texts we don't even know who wrote them, sometimes we have a name and nothing more like Homer and Hesiod, it's entirely possible that Homer as he's traditionally thought of didn't even exist, there are conflicting theories even on when The Iliad was written down.
But regardless of all that the Traditional view of the Iliad was never that who Homer was mattered, he was always viewed as just a vehicle by which more ancient stories were past down.
The problem is it's actually a very modern idea to think of any text as having only one author. A Prose novel may not have collaborators in the same obvious way a Movie does, but it's known that Tolkien was constantly showing what he was working on to Lewis and vica versa. And that's the thing, Tolkien pretty much expressed the Death of the Author concept before the 1960s, he wanted his myths to be like real myths, he wanted people to read whatever they wanted to out of them.I know full well that C. S. Lewis wasn't ultimately in agreement with me on Universal Salvation, but I've gained a lot recently from interpreting his fiction as if they could be. And it's kinda the same with Tolkien.
The video is mainly about the impossibility of separating art from the author in the modern social media driven world, well even then it depends. Most of the Anime I consume I know nothing about the people who made it. A decent amount I've heard something about them, but even then I'm often skeptical of what I hear because of the nature of how news travels from east to west. And not once in the FranXX controversy did anyone even think about seeing if the authors had expressed any political views, no everyone decided what they thought the show's politics were from the text alone, and I didn't come to the same conclusion as most ani-tubers.
This reminds me of when I was reading about 19th Century French Pulp authors via Brian Stableford, how Alexandre Dumas was perceived as a royalist based on aspects of the content of his most famous stories even though he was staunchly a Republican.
Paul Feval was probably the Tolkien of the 19th Century even though he mostly didn't write in the same genre, because of how he was a Conservative Catholic who's fiction has a bizarre way of appealing to people who are clearly against his real world politics. The people at BlackCoatPress making his work available in modern English are clearly closer to Eugene Sue on the political spectrum, yet it was a Feval work they named their publishing company after. I don't know if his stuff can appeal to Protestants/Evangelicals like Ryan Reeves as well as Tolkien's does, but I know I'm broadly speaking an Evangelical and I'm a fan.
Sunday, January 6, 2019
Narnia Animated
I just re-watched the 1979 animated version of The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe. The 2005 Disney film happened to be on TV while I was in the Hospital last month, which partly prompted my recent re-watching of Prince Caspian.
When I last watched this cartoon years ago I still hadn't gotten that into Anime yet. Now in 2019 I have a lot less tolerance for a cartoon having a severe lack of nuance in characterization compared to it's live action counterpart. Tumnus and Edmund both act like mustache twirling villains before their plot ordained change of heart happens. The Dom complained in the 2005 movie about Jadis when first meeting with Edmund seeming much more cartoonish then she did in the book, well just look how it goes in the actual cartoon.
Ya know, I don't think most people even know this cartoon exists, most discussion of Narnia adaptations are just about comparing the 80s BBC miniseries to the Hollywood movies.
As someone who's familiarity with Narnia is mainly through adaptations, and just hearing people talk about the books a lot. I wonder if I'm only such a fan of Susan because of Anna Popplewell? In this cartoon she was kinda just there, and I don't much remember her from the BBC versions. Thing is I haven't watched Anna in much else, I tried getting into Reign a couple of times but it was never able to keep me interested.
If Netflix is really gonna reboot the series, I think they should forgo LA and work with their Anime partners to make a better Animated adaptation. For one thing Anime people won't be afraid to make Aslan adorable which I've heard he is sometimes. This cartoon made more of an effort then the movie to reference Aslan playing with the girls after he's resurrected, but it looks really really not good.
The Dub of Princess Principal has proven there are Anime Dub actresses who can do British Accents well. But I'd have Aslan be voiced, in both English and Japanese versions, by the same actor who voiced Entei in the 3rd Pokemon movie.
The movies were clearly building to having Tilda be the Lady of the Green Kirtle, which is not a decision I would have liked. Tilda suited the White Witch fine but I tend to visualize something very different for the Green Lady. There was this piece of Fan Art I saw of her once a long time ago, but it wasn't on a website you would normally go to for Narnia fanart and now I can't find it. Some of the fanart you will find on a google image or deviant art search has the same kind of look. I would want her to have the same kind of vibe as Amora/The Enchantress from the Thor comics. I'm amazed how off the top of my head I can't think of an analogous Anime character.
When I last watched this cartoon years ago I still hadn't gotten that into Anime yet. Now in 2019 I have a lot less tolerance for a cartoon having a severe lack of nuance in characterization compared to it's live action counterpart. Tumnus and Edmund both act like mustache twirling villains before their plot ordained change of heart happens. The Dom complained in the 2005 movie about Jadis when first meeting with Edmund seeming much more cartoonish then she did in the book, well just look how it goes in the actual cartoon.
Ya know, I don't think most people even know this cartoon exists, most discussion of Narnia adaptations are just about comparing the 80s BBC miniseries to the Hollywood movies.
As someone who's familiarity with Narnia is mainly through adaptations, and just hearing people talk about the books a lot. I wonder if I'm only such a fan of Susan because of Anna Popplewell? In this cartoon she was kinda just there, and I don't much remember her from the BBC versions. Thing is I haven't watched Anna in much else, I tried getting into Reign a couple of times but it was never able to keep me interested.
If Netflix is really gonna reboot the series, I think they should forgo LA and work with their Anime partners to make a better Animated adaptation. For one thing Anime people won't be afraid to make Aslan adorable which I've heard he is sometimes. This cartoon made more of an effort then the movie to reference Aslan playing with the girls after he's resurrected, but it looks really really not good.
The Dub of Princess Principal has proven there are Anime Dub actresses who can do British Accents well. But I'd have Aslan be voiced, in both English and Japanese versions, by the same actor who voiced Entei in the 3rd Pokemon movie.
The movies were clearly building to having Tilda be the Lady of the Green Kirtle, which is not a decision I would have liked. Tilda suited the White Witch fine but I tend to visualize something very different for the Green Lady. There was this piece of Fan Art I saw of her once a long time ago, but it wasn't on a website you would normally go to for Narnia fanart and now I can't find it. Some of the fanart you will find on a google image or deviant art search has the same kind of look. I would want her to have the same kind of vibe as Amora/The Enchantress from the Thor comics. I'm amazed how off the top of my head I can't think of an analogous Anime character.
Thursday, January 3, 2019
The Prince Capsian movie of 2008 was pretty darn good.
I just re-watched it and it does still hold up.
I thought about putting right in the title of this post a declaration that it's "better then the book", but the thing is I haven't actually read the book (all I've read of Narnia are the first few chapters of A Horse and His Boy). I just know that on the old IMDB Boards and other places when I would see people complain about all the ways this movie wasn't like the book, their descriptions of how it was in the book had me going "wow, it sounds like the book sucks". Then I watched the BBC Miniseries where Prince Caspian is adapted more faithfully and I did not find it very engaging at all, the other three were fine in the BBC versions so it can't be blamed on the BBC.
So maybe what Lewis wrote for this book works on paper, but it would not have worked as a film. I think this book was always regarded as the weakest so I don't see why book purists felt the need to even care this time.
It's a fun action/adventure medieval fantasy film. It's the only version of any Narnia story where Susan is treated with respect. And it has pre Game of Thrones Peter Dinklage.
Leaving aside the increase in action and structural narrative changes, what mainly bugged people was making the protagonists more flawed. Lewis and Tolkien didn't exactly share our modern values about the importance of heroes having relatable flaws. But I don't think it's a coincidence that Peter was named Peter, Simon Peter was far from flawless.
Before December of 2017 I consistently felt that if any company can be trusted to handle a beloved franchise they didn't create themselves it was Disney, and the worst option was Fox. And comparing the MCU to the X-Men films was not even my main example for that, it was what happened with this Narnia series. Disney made two pretty darn good films, then Fox got the franchise cause people whined about this one, and turned the generally regarded as best of the books into one of the few Hollywood movies I've seen and have no fondness for. The BBC version of Dawn Treader was more satisfying even though it didn't have the run-time it needed.
I suppose the denigrating Fox part of that rant I can still make, but after a certain film I'm trying not to talk about, I clearly don't trust Disney so blindly anymore. The MCU has done so well because Disney let the people already in charge keep doing what they already started. In the case of the franchise you can probably guess I'm referring to, they did the opposite.
2008 may well have been the best year for movies in my opinion, between having half my candidates for greatest film of all time (The Dark Knight and Speed Racer), the start of the MCU, my personal favorite Indiana Jones film, and in Anime Land most of Kara no Kyoukai, this underrated film being in 2008 is merely icing on the cake.
As someone who's been a type of Evangelical Christian since before this particular film franchise started, I've often thought about how I'd do something like Narnia differently from Lewis well before I started getting into Anime and it's peculiar versions of this genre.
For starters if I made a Christian Isekai series I'd have one of the Lost Tribes of Israel wind up in this parallel world,(in the case of this story the Telmarines could have easily filled that role, instead they're just random Mediterranean pirates). And then I'd have the protagonists from the modern world be young Christians who are actually pretty genre savvy about the Biblicalness of what's going on.
I have become a supporter of Universal Salvation which means there would be no Susan Problem if I'm in charge. In fact the Susan in my stories would probably be the main protagonist. Speaking of Universal Salvation and Isekai, I really need to read George MacDonald's Lilith some day, if only someone would adapt it, it would make a great Anime, it even has a Neko I've heard.
I thought about putting right in the title of this post a declaration that it's "better then the book", but the thing is I haven't actually read the book (all I've read of Narnia are the first few chapters of A Horse and His Boy). I just know that on the old IMDB Boards and other places when I would see people complain about all the ways this movie wasn't like the book, their descriptions of how it was in the book had me going "wow, it sounds like the book sucks". Then I watched the BBC Miniseries where Prince Caspian is adapted more faithfully and I did not find it very engaging at all, the other three were fine in the BBC versions so it can't be blamed on the BBC.
So maybe what Lewis wrote for this book works on paper, but it would not have worked as a film. I think this book was always regarded as the weakest so I don't see why book purists felt the need to even care this time.
It's a fun action/adventure medieval fantasy film. It's the only version of any Narnia story where Susan is treated with respect. And it has pre Game of Thrones Peter Dinklage.
Leaving aside the increase in action and structural narrative changes, what mainly bugged people was making the protagonists more flawed. Lewis and Tolkien didn't exactly share our modern values about the importance of heroes having relatable flaws. But I don't think it's a coincidence that Peter was named Peter, Simon Peter was far from flawless.
Before December of 2017 I consistently felt that if any company can be trusted to handle a beloved franchise they didn't create themselves it was Disney, and the worst option was Fox. And comparing the MCU to the X-Men films was not even my main example for that, it was what happened with this Narnia series. Disney made two pretty darn good films, then Fox got the franchise cause people whined about this one, and turned the generally regarded as best of the books into one of the few Hollywood movies I've seen and have no fondness for. The BBC version of Dawn Treader was more satisfying even though it didn't have the run-time it needed.
I suppose the denigrating Fox part of that rant I can still make, but after a certain film I'm trying not to talk about, I clearly don't trust Disney so blindly anymore. The MCU has done so well because Disney let the people already in charge keep doing what they already started. In the case of the franchise you can probably guess I'm referring to, they did the opposite.
2008 may well have been the best year for movies in my opinion, between having half my candidates for greatest film of all time (The Dark Knight and Speed Racer), the start of the MCU, my personal favorite Indiana Jones film, and in Anime Land most of Kara no Kyoukai, this underrated film being in 2008 is merely icing on the cake.
As someone who's been a type of Evangelical Christian since before this particular film franchise started, I've often thought about how I'd do something like Narnia differently from Lewis well before I started getting into Anime and it's peculiar versions of this genre.
For starters if I made a Christian Isekai series I'd have one of the Lost Tribes of Israel wind up in this parallel world,(in the case of this story the Telmarines could have easily filled that role, instead they're just random Mediterranean pirates). And then I'd have the protagonists from the modern world be young Christians who are actually pretty genre savvy about the Biblicalness of what's going on.
I have become a supporter of Universal Salvation which means there would be no Susan Problem if I'm in charge. In fact the Susan in my stories would probably be the main protagonist. Speaking of Universal Salvation and Isekai, I really need to read George MacDonald's Lilith some day, if only someone would adapt it, it would make a great Anime, it even has a Neko I've heard.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
Starting 2019 by looking back at my following of Seasonal Anime
Right now I feel like the early part of 2018 was the best, Katana Maidens was the show of the year, Citrus probably the Single Core show I got the most enjoyment out of, Deathmarch was on the better end of the Isekai we got, and I enjoyed FranXX including it's ending.
But a year ago I felt similarly about 2017 between Dragon Maid, Tanya, A.C.C.A. and Gabriel Dropout. But now I feel like In Another World With My Smartphone from the Summer was the 2017 show that stuck with me the most, and Fate/Apocrypha has grown stronger whenever I revisit it.
Also right now I feel like 2017 was a better year for Anime then 2018, but that's based on my not watching or finishing a lot of the popular shows, including waiting for the Dub for Lupin III Part 5.
For 2017 I can now say I've watched a lot I didn't when they aired, for 2018 that won't be the case for awhile.
I started watching Anime as it aired technically in 2016, with Sailor Moon Crystal season III, but that I didn't follow by the usual means. Mainly it was the fall season with Izetta and Flip Flappers, I loved both those shows but I haven't felt too compelled to revisit them.
I've defined my era of Anime as starting with 2011, but I don't want to be someone who winds up feeling like my era ended right when I started following current Anime.
Maybe it's simply normal for me to not know for sure how I feel about a show till I can can look back on it's place in Anime history. Or maybe I need to give more re-watch time to the 2017 and 2018 shows I liked.
Going forward, I intend to wait to actually start the Winter 2019 season, allow enough time to pass that I can binge whole arcs of even the Simuldubs.
If you want to look at my 2018 experience in real time then go over my Anime Weekly Updates tag.
Till then I'll be finishing Food/StayNight, Slime Incarnation, Hugtto and Magical Index III while trying to find time to do more re-watching.
But a year ago I felt similarly about 2017 between Dragon Maid, Tanya, A.C.C.A. and Gabriel Dropout. But now I feel like In Another World With My Smartphone from the Summer was the 2017 show that stuck with me the most, and Fate/Apocrypha has grown stronger whenever I revisit it.
Also right now I feel like 2017 was a better year for Anime then 2018, but that's based on my not watching or finishing a lot of the popular shows, including waiting for the Dub for Lupin III Part 5.
For 2017 I can now say I've watched a lot I didn't when they aired, for 2018 that won't be the case for awhile.
I started watching Anime as it aired technically in 2016, with Sailor Moon Crystal season III, but that I didn't follow by the usual means. Mainly it was the fall season with Izetta and Flip Flappers, I loved both those shows but I haven't felt too compelled to revisit them.
I've defined my era of Anime as starting with 2011, but I don't want to be someone who winds up feeling like my era ended right when I started following current Anime.
Maybe it's simply normal for me to not know for sure how I feel about a show till I can can look back on it's place in Anime history. Or maybe I need to give more re-watch time to the 2017 and 2018 shows I liked.
Going forward, I intend to wait to actually start the Winter 2019 season, allow enough time to pass that I can binge whole arcs of even the Simuldubs.
If you want to look at my 2018 experience in real time then go over my Anime Weekly Updates tag.
Till then I'll be finishing Food/StayNight, Slime Incarnation, Hugtto and Magical Index III while trying to find time to do more re-watching.
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