What do you think of when you read “anime tourist?” Anime tourist can refer to two quite different meanings. The first, and most obvious for older anime fans and people who aren’t in the fandom, relates to tourism. Namely, it refers to people who visit areas featured in different anime. Many towns and cities in…
Author: Chris
The Legacy of Hakuin Ekaku
You likely haven’t heard of Hakuin Ekaku, but you’ve no doubt heard of his most famous question: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” This question is a koan. Koans are a method, tracing back to Chinese Buddhist tradition, to break the logical mind so you can be more open to nirvana. While koans…
Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive? The Doormat and the Emotionally Unbalanced
Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive? is a romantic comedy with the usual love triangle set in high school. But this story has a few twists that are sadly realistic. I have to spoil the story to discuss the characters. Yu Natsume is a high school boy who has an interest in flowers and wants to…
Is AI Translation the Future for Anime and Manga?
Manga is increasingly being translated by large-language models (LLMs), or artificial intelligence as most people call LLMs. The Ancient Magus’ Bride manga, for example, used Mantra Engine for part of its English translation (Schley, 2023). LLMs are software programmed to teach itself patterns in inputs and then use those patterns to generate new patterns based…
Please Put Them On, Takamine-san: Ecchi on the Path to Censorship
If I was in Texas, I would (possibly) be going to prison for watching Please Put Them On, Takamine-san. In my quest to expand my exposure to stories I normally avoid, I gave this ecchi a watch. Okay, a half watch. I worked on writing projects and did other things as I half-watched it. This…
Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty: Music as a Sexual Identity
Rock is a Lady’s Modesty sits in the girl-band category and within the yuri genre. Categories can span different genres. Girl-band stories can fit in the yuri genre, shojo genre, and other genres, for example. Rock is a Lady’s Modesty has overt lesbian tones to it, but with a twist. In order to discuss the…