The Sunshine Award – I Got Nominated For One of Those Blog Chain Letter Award Thingies But This One Is Pretty Cool So I’m Game

I wanted my next post to be about One Punch Man so I’d have all three of my stickied posts feature a screenshot from the show but Medieval Otaku nominated me for the Sunshine Award and … wait, I just had a good idea … continuing, Medieval Otaku is a great blog that I like to read. As a Roman Catholic, I enjoy reading a quality written blog that adds Catholicism into the mix of covering anime – I have never had the guts to do it much myself because I think I might have poor impulse control when discussing religion since we’d be dealing with something truly important (a person’s soul as opposed to anime) and I want my blog to remain a place that’s civil.

I also thought the questions were good ones so here we go …

My Problem with –ists Who Believe in –isms

The Null Set is supposed to have a little SF sprinkled in between its coverage of anime but I’ve been neglecting that promise of late. Sure, I discussed the classic era of the TV series Doctor Who back on March 24, 2014 but one has to go back to April 5, 2013 to find the last time I talked about print SF (a review of the March 2013 issue of Asimov’s SF Magazine). So, being semi caught up with anime I decided to cast around for something SF to discuss. I remembered reading a review of a book that I’d just finished that rubbed me the wrong way because I thought it did a great disservice to the book and now here we are.

The book is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

Reflecting on Episode 1 of Kotoura-san and the Newtown School Shooting

The mindset someone has while viewing a piece of media – book, art, movie, anime TV show – will, obviously, effect how that person will react to that piece of media. My mindset doesn’t often visibly bubble up when I want to talk about anime; though, I’m sure it subtly does all the time.

As the new season of anime starts and I’m watching the many anime series for the first time I was surprised when one, Kotoura-san, had a moment where it connected to and gave me an answer to a question I’d been pondering and reflecting on after the Newtown school shooting.

Before I get to the answer Kotoura-san provided I need to start with the question.

Did Magi Just Become Ron Paul the Anime?

The last thing I expected after the epic Ugo beat down at the end of episode 10 was to see episode 11 of Magi segued into a better explanation about the pitfalls of the preferred fiscal policies of the current administration then I’ve heard from the increasingly inept looking Boehner and the Republican party.

New Banner

I quite liked the previous banner; the combination of Yotsuba and a picture of a local steel mill worked liked a perfect opening to an anime does – it looked good and gave the viewer a window into understanding what they were about to watch/read and the people behind it. It fit so well that it’s stayed up the longest of any banner I’ve made (almost a full year) and I started thinking that nothing could replace it. I needed to find an angle that contained a similar level of rightness and awesomeness before I’d consider a switch. (Spoilers ahead for PM3.)

So Predictable, I Predicted It

Almost 2 years ago I wrote a comment on Simplicity’s old anime blog about Obama and politics on the night of Election 2008:

“There’s a part of me that is quite happy to see [Barack] elected because he’s african-american. I think it’s an important moment for our country. If he puts the country in front of party politics then we should be okay. However, if he allows congress to pass alot of left-wing bills then he’ll make the same mistake that Bill Clinton made and we’ll see the republicans take back congress in two years.

The other reason that I’m partly happy that Obama won was that the republican party lost it’s way once they got control of congress and the presidency and they needed something to snap them back into shape. This, I think, will be it.”