Anime
The Gamer Mentality and the Ultimate Power Trip Isekai: Overlord
Overlord adopts Kugane Maruyama’s light novel series. When YGGDRASIL’s servers, a deep-dive massively multiplayer online role playing game, are scheduled to be shut off, Momonga remains logged in to see the shutdown. He’s the guildmaster of Ainz Ooal Gown and spends the last few minutes of the game’s life in the guildhall of Nazarick. He…
Anachronisms in Anime
Anachronisms appear throughout anime. They take many different forms, sometimes impacting the story and other times erring in details that don’t matter. Merriam-Webster defines anachronism as “a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other.” Anachronisms can pull you out of a story by jarring the fragile illusion the story…
The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses
The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses is a harem comedy that focuses on the theme of a found family. Spoilers ahead for both the anime and manga, by the way. Hayato Kasukabe returns to Miura to close his recently deceased grandmother’s cafe, Cafe Terrace Familia. But he discovers his grandmother had taken in five women…
Not All Heroes Draw Their Swords: Joseph Campbell’s Monomyth in Modern Anime
The journey story stands as one of the oldest types of stories, although the Cinderella story is likely the oldest story pattern. The journey pattern involves a hero of some sort traveling across various places, facing all sorts of challenges, and, at the same time, delving into their own psychology. This story archetype remains popular…
This Monster Wants to Eat Me: the Guilt that Drives Someone Toward Death
I enjoy a good yokai story, having studied yokai stories and even reworking versions of them for modern readers, freeing them from their late 1800s English and Latin (which were often the first time these Japanese stories were written down). If you are curious, I collected all of these into my Tales from Old Japan…
Violet Evergarden: Revisiting a Great Anime
Some stories linger for years after you experience them, floating within your mind like glittering snowflakes, touching your thoughts and actions in ways you can’t quite see. And yet you sense something has tinted your life’s painting more vivid where desaturated pigments once dominated, creating a more vibrant glaze that hints at how your mind…
