Manga and Anime Seminar - 2020

I read some of Oishinbo and I wanted to discuss one of the chapters I found interesting this week, which was the chapter on tea. I didn't find it interesting because of the tea, in fact tea wasn't talked about that much. Rather, I found the concept behind the chapter more interesting. It was the reflection of a Japanese-American senator who came back to Japan to find that all his old friends became wealthy, and seemingly lost their "spirit". I find it ironic, because the mangaka puts America in a good light in the senator reminding both the viewer and the characters of the manga to not consume too much and not to lose their Japanese spirit and heritage, yet America is one of the biggest countries that pushes capitalism and consumerism. So, to me, it's ironic that the Japanese-American senator is sick of the wealthy lavish displays of food from his old Japanese friends. Though, it makes sense given his background that maybe he's also tired of American displa

Contemporary manga! I've already read A Silent Voice --both the original one shot and the entire manga! It's one of my favorites for how uniquely it makes you look at the troubles a deaf person faces, as well as the change of someone who used to be a bully. But enough about that, because it'd just be me reiterating something I've already read. This week I read a bit of Silver Spoon ! I am a huge fan of Full Metal Alchemist , but never had read her newer, latest manga. I always think it's interesting how mangaka can make you feel passionate towards something you'd never really been interested in before. Arakawa is writing about something she herself knows, since she was raised on a farm. I feel like Silver Spoon is slightly alike another manga I've read before, Shokugeki no Soma . Except, while Shokugeki no Soma is mostly written for fanservice and shonen stereotypes, Silver Spoon takes itself a little more seriously due to different authors. We're a

Junji Ito is one of my all time favorite mangaka! I've read all of his works that have been translated/scanlated into English. My favorite of his works is actually the short story manga, Glyceride . I think this short story sums up why Junji Ito is a master of horror manga. He is able to capture this unnerving and sometimes gross atmosphere with his stories and his art. Glyceride  is absolutely disgusting in it's content, and it makes me slightly nauseous when I'm reading it. However, I think that's the genius of the work. The fact that it's able to compel such a reaction in me is exactly what makes it good. Junji Ito is also funny to me, because a lot of the inspiration behind his work isn't very deep. For example, he's stated before for Gyo  that his inspiration was basically "if sharks could be on land that'd be terrifying." And a lot of other of his works also just derive from him thinking about "if this happened, wouldn't that b

Isekai! I'm actually very familiar with isekai, since it's the hot manga craze right now. I read quite a handful of them and The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime  is one of my favorites. I think it's because it handles the reincarnation much less like a "self-insert" of the author's self, and it's more about this man turned slime and how he's starting to govern a whole country on his own. Another favorite of mine is So I'm a Spider, So What?  It's about a girl who was killed in her class, but is reincarnated as a spider. These two are my favorites of the isekai genre so far not only because the web novels started early on in the isekai boom so they're less like the "mainstream" isekai now, and they're quite unique. The spider isekai focuses a lot on our MC's struggles being a weak spider, and fighting and growing into a stronger spider. It deals a lot with healing, getting damaged, and being a (giant) spider scaring

This week was about Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and various others like Neon Genesis Evangelion . I had already watched Akira  and I think animation wise and setting wise, it is a great work of art. However, I believe that the story itself from the film does not make much sense. Akira  was adapted from a much longer manga, and thus had to be condensed for the film, which explains a bit of its problems. Despite this, I still think that it is an outstanding and lasting work of art, just because of the animation and themes. I didn't read too deep into Akira  upon my watchings of it, because it is rather fast paced and disjointed. You're not able to grasp everything like in the manga, because it doesn't cover all of it. The manga has much more detail and subtly, which I tend to find as a problem with many of these long manga to anime adaptations. Akira lead to the growth of anime's popularity internationally so I think it deserves to have a place in history for its influen