End of the Line

It’s been bugging me that I haven’t officially closed the blog for a while now. Perhaps I thought I’d eventually dive back in head first  and resurrect like  a pheonix from old, old, oooooold ashes. But in any case, the chances of that happening are ridiculously miniscule. I have come back to do this one thing though, since I know I’ll regret it if I don’t. And at least then there’d be a reason to remove the site from my bookmarks.

Read Full Post »

The Language Barrier: Musical Resonance in Anime

“Don’t wake me when I land, where they barely understand what I speak but they nod to my beats.” – Lupe Fiasco, Paris;Tokyo

I’ve always liked the way music works with anime. It’s kind of amazing to me that so many good soundtracks and original compositions can come from it (then again, I’m always amazed at how innovative and different music can be in general). Even if the music doesn’t stand out to me, most soundtracks do a good job within the context of the show. There are very few shows which have bad or ill-fiiting music; a lot of times you can say “Well, the show was pretty bad but at least the music was okay”. Or perhaps that’s just me and my inability to dislike most styles of music.

Read Full Post »

On Our Backs, In Our Hearts

Image source

Seems like I’ve suddenly turned into someone who looks at the trends in shounen anime…

Read Full Post »

“I Don’t Care If You’re A Million Times Stronger Than Me!” : True Heroes Never Go Down

I’m a complete action fanboy. And being a fanboy means that I love good shounen. The first anime I can remember being exposed to was Dragonball Z back around when I was 11. Me and my friend always used to talk about how awesome the show was, but took two very different paths: he got into gymnastics/fighting/general awesomeness (as his love of DBZ was less a love for anime and more a love for all things martial arts) and I just kept watching more anime. DBZ was just a gateway drug, and although it’ll always be with me as a part of my childhood, these days I easily dismiss it for not being all that good. But that’s not really the point.

Read Full Post »

It’s All In The Execution: Why Durarara!!’s So Entertaining

Even though the new season is very much underway, Durarara!! still stands out as one of the best shows currently airing. Whenever I think of my favourite series, I can always point out the single element that had me completely hooked. There was just something that series did so well that made it stand out to me, be it excellent direction, dialogue or character development. Though I love Durarara!!, the show hasn’t shown itself to have that one quality that instantly makes it a must watch. Even so, it’s still an excellent show and easily one of my favourite series. And I think it’s due to the fact it doesn’t have a single element that stands out because everything is so high quality – all of it is done so well.

Read Full Post »

The Pacing of Heroman

On most counts, Heroman is not a good show. The characters are uninteresting (bordering on the annoying) and for the moment the story’s rather dull as well. Although it has the potential to be good, I don’t think it’ll ever live up to that. I probably feel this way because I’m not the show’s intended audience – even though I do like a fair amount of shounen, they’ve never been as basic as this.

Read Full Post »