Promoting Kemono no Souja Erin
January 25, 2009
Some of you may already know of a fantasy anime titled Kemono no Souja Erin of winter season. I haven’t checked this out yet, and had no interest in this series until I ran into a bunch of really interesting screenshots compiled by a certain blog here. Assuming that the blogger is a really cool person and doesn’t mind a harmless person like me using it for the purpose of promoting an underlooked series (as long as I’m giving him the credit…which I am), here’s several shamelessly stolen carefully selected screenshots ^___^/
Maturity in children’s animation
January 12, 2009
Towards better understanding
As promsied, here’s a spoiler-free look at why you should, if you haven’t yet, watch Avatar: The Last Airbender! But before I go on, I want to briefly identify the type of maturity found in children’s animations like Avatar, Dennou Coil and Tweeny Witches that make these stories so endearing for all ages. Arguably, children’s story is at its most mature when its honest expression of moral standpoint succeeds in moving even the most pessimistic viewers (and I wholeheartly agree). What I want to look at is the different tye of “maturity” found in children’s animation, which may differ from how others may define maturity in storytelling. The below is what I observed from Avatar.
1. We are at first confronted by a moral conflict, which is more grounded in reality than what is usually depicted from a story intended for children. In Avatar for example, you would normally expect clear division between good and evil (Fire Nation vs the world), where your heroes eventually eliminate all destructive threats in the name of justice. Instead, Avatar shows that everyone, including people from “good team” and “bad team”, are capable of both good and evil, and we as people are separated only by our ways of discriminating people without any attempt at understanding each other (Gonzalez Inarritu’s Babel anyone?).
Reviewing an underrated children’s fantasy anime, Tweeny Witches (Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu)
January 10, 2009
Title: Tweeny Wtiches (aka Mahou Shoujotai Arusu)
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Children
Company: Studio 4°C
Format: 40 episodes, each 9 minutes long
Dates: 9 April 2004 – 4 March 2005
Ah~ how boring is our real world', is what Alice tells herself now and then. Only if I can use magic, that'd be fun! And one day, as if waking up inside a dream, she finds herself transported into another world of witches and sprites. She also learns that magic isn't as pretty and wonderful as she imagined it to be! Will Alice learn a way to have more fun with magic, or will she try finding a way to return home?
The Awesome that is Avatar: The Last Airbender (plus a list of Korean cultural influences on Avatar)
January 8, 2009
WARNING: This post contains lots of images, over 1500 words, intimidatingly fanboyish, and definitely not safe for those even thinking of checking out Avatar. It’d break my heart to know that my spoilers ruined the experience for anyone (not that it’d completely sabatage the journey, since it’s hard to not be engaged by an epic like this). I apologise for the writing that may prove incoherent and horribly out of this blog’s character, but I just want to preserve these fleeting moments while it’s still fresh in my mind. I’ll come up with a very short spoiler-free review for those interested later. Having that said…
