Well, here we are; somehow I blinked and it’s now suddenly the end of December. As I continue to privately mull over the strange properties of the human perception of time’s passage, publicly I thought I’d take this opportunity to look back at the writing I completed over the past year. If you came here looking for a “best-of” anime post, fear not; I have one of those in the works as well. But for now, I thought I’d toot my own horn a little bit.
Seasonal First Impressions
First of all, this is the first year in a while where I’ve basically completed all the first episode reviews I’ve set out to complete. I know there are series here and there on strange release schedules that have slipped through the cracks, but for the most part I think my coverage has been pretty thorough.
For the Winter season I tried a little experiment, posting multiple first impressions in each post. I don’t know how successful it was as far as readability, but it served a purpose that I hoped it would accomplish – it got me to finish the reviews. I’m happy that the temporary change in methodology broke me out of the writing funk that essentially sank me in 2020.
- Winter 2021 Premiere List
- Spring 2021 Premiere List
- Summer 2021 Premiere List
- Autumn 2021 Premiere List
Other Essays, Reviews, and Opinion Pieces
This category covers a lot of ground, but I wasn’t really sure how best to subdivide things and a lot of what I write is sort of in-between categories anyway. It’s been a goal of mine to write more pieces focused on thematic analysis, personal opinions, etc. and I think I was able to accomplish that this year.
These are listed roughly in chronological order (because I’m just going through my archives month-by-month, heh). I’m including short descriptions in the hope that folks can discover something they’ll find interesting.
The Balancing Act of Being Critical: Part 2 – Yes, Sometimes it Does Hurt – This is the second (and so far most recent) entry into an informal series I’ve been putting together regarding the processes and pitfalls of being critical of media. In this one I attempted to tackle the attitude I’ve seen crop up many times, in which people believe that those who criticize extreme media are, in doing so, attempting to suppress it (not the case! At least most of the time and with most people). I don’t know how successful I was, now that I’m re-reading it, but it’s an evergreen subject that I’ll probably talk about again in the future.
Anime Fandom on Our Own Terms – I wrote this in response to one of the recent (at the time) semi-viral anime gatekeeping tweets that had been making the rounds on Twitter. I find gatekeeping to be an especially pointless pursuit; as anime fans, shouldn’t we appreciate the fact that it’s so incredibly accessible now?
Threads Reconnecting: A Discussion of Supergiant’s “Hades” – I don’t write about video games that much, partly because the market for it is pretty saturated at this point, and also because I only play 3 or 4 a year nowadays. But now that Hades has just won a Hugo Award and gotten even more very deserved attention, I’m happy that I had the chance to share my thoughts about it back in February. This piece is a little more review-y than I typically tend to be when I write, but I like how it turned out.
Maybe It’s Unreachable for Me: Inadequacy in “SK8 The Infinity” – I was in kind of a dark place earlier this year. One of the reasons for that was simply seasonal depression, which tends to hit me hard as the Winter weather wears on. But I think another reason was just that I was feeling very bad about my writing and started to fall into the trap of comparing myself to others’ successes, which obviously doesn’t take into account the very different circumstances of our various lives. I really liked SK8 The Infinity, and one of its central story arcs really resonated with me, which I talk about here.
Anime Club no Densetsu: The Tale of the Moe Pioneer – Some of you know that I’m a long time (now over 20 years) member of a local anime club, and I have a ton of stories to tell from my time there. But a lot of people online tend to make fun of anime clubs, so I wanted to write a series focusing on more thoughtful and positive things I’ve seen happen and lessons I’ve learned from being a member. This one is the first entry, which talks about a person I encountered at the club many years ago, whose tastes and attitude differed quite a bit from my own. I’ll also be linking to the other couple of entries in this series, because I just enjoy them a lot.
Anime Club no Densetsu: The Tale of the Buzzing Fansub Tape – This anime club story is much more lighthearted and fun, talking about a technological issue that’s definitely an artifact of a specific time and place in anime fandom. Thinking back to faulty 3rd-generation VHS tape copies makes one very thankful for anime streaming, that’s for sure!
Goodbye, Osamu Kobayashi – I don’t know how many people reading this are familiar with Kobayashi’s work, but he was always one of my favorite directors/animation directors and his untimely death earlier this year really affected me. Here, I attempt to talk about why his work, idiosyncratic and focused on extremely limited animation, appealed to me, and what a loss it was for the anime community.
Horimiya – Snapshots of a Relationship – This seems to be around the time of year when I started to feel a bit better about what I was doing, as I remember having some decent ideas of how to frame my thoughts on some anime I’d been finishing. This review of Horimiya focuses on its presentation, which is paced much more quickly than a lot of anime romance series.
The Way of the Househusband – What Makes an Anime? – I admittedly got a little bit snarky here, because there was a bit of a minor uproar over the manner in which The Way of the Househusband had been adapted. For the record, I loved the series and don’t mind that it was barely animated, as it seems to be what the manga creator felt comfortable with.
A Fashion by Any Other Name – In one of my rare forays outside of anime, I talk a bit about Lolita fashion – a type of Japanese kawaii fashion with an unfortunate name that has nothing to do with the book of the same title. There are also some pretty good photos of me included in the piece (I don’t typically like getting my picture taken).
To Love and Be Loved – Ash’s Legacy in “Banana Fish” – I had a lot of emotions over Banana Fish, which I finally had the chance to finish when the anime club voted to watch it. This piece focuses on what is possibly one of the most controversial aspects of the series – the major character death at the end – because of the way it perpetuates a stale storytelling trope related to queer relationships.
Retro Review – Birdy the Mighty: Decode – I’ve been writing about anime for a long time, but lost access to a lot of my old writing due to various reasons that aren’t worth explaining here. But through the magic of the Internet Wayback Machine, I’ve been able to uncover a few gems. This is the first in what I hope to be an occasional series focused around revisiting some old opinions of mine and seeing if and how they’ve changed over the years.
It’s a Point of Pride – Here I discuss a somewhat late realization about myself and my identity. Nothing particularly groundbreaking, but important to me.
Odd Taxi Episode 13 – Truth – I don’t typically do real-time weekly episode reviews, as I feel that most series don’t have enough interesting weekly storytelling content to warrant that and I find myself saying the same sorts of things over and over again. Odd Taxi was somewhat different, and a series that I’m glad I took in from week-to-week. You can read all my episodic entries related to the series via the above link.
The Fleeting Beauty of Youth and the Persistent Beauty of Youthfulness – Pretty Boy Detective Club – I just loved the heck out of Pretty Boy Detective Club, not only because it was a lot of fun, but also because it spoke to the desire to hold on to youth and playfulness in ways that tend to become very emotionally complicated the older you get. As someone who turned 40 this year, some of its themes hit me pretty hard.
Anime Club no Densetsu: A Tale of Enduring Respect – In this third anime club musing, I talk about a prior relationship and the way sometimes negative feelings toward someone can fade to the point where you can at least look back and think fondly of better times.
Blue Blazes and Attempting to Tame the Imposter – I often struggle with the feeling that people have too high an impression of me, and that one day they’ll find out that I’m not particularly smart or accomplished. Feelings of inadequacy can be haunting, something I attempt to talk through here. Also, if you have the means and motivation, I highly recommend watching Blue Blazes!
Revisiting “Shirobako” – You Can’t Go Home Again – I loved the Shirobako anime series. The movie… well, I still enjoyed it, but I had some complicated feelings about it as well which I hope I’ve expressed adequately here.
Infrastructure Run Rampant – Yokohama Station SF – I’m exceedingly terrible at actually reading novels, something I used to love. Lately I’ve been able to crank through maybe two or three a year in between all the anime-watching, game-playing, and blog-posting I’ve been doing. Yokohama Station SF was one of my rare forays into reading novels this year, and it was luckily a great pick. Here, I talk about its portrayal of infrastructure and the roles that infrastructure plays in our lives.
Playing in Another’s Sandbox – “Wonder Egg Priority” and Finding Personal Meaning in Messy Storytelling – This is it, the behemoth that took me weeks to finish, and which just kept expanding every time I’d do another editing pass on it. I’m not a concise writer, especially when I have a lot of big feelings about something. This is a prime example of that. In spite of its unwieldiness, I’m still really proud that I was able to complete it.
God is Dead – The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace – Lately I’ve been working to untangle my feelings about anime and media that deals with controversial subject matter and which I have ambivalent feelings about Idaten is a series I found to be really fascinating, grotesque, and, well, complicated, which I tried to write about here.
…And that brings us to the present time. I’ve been extremely self-indulgent here, linking to probably far more posts than one might normally in a “best of” sort of context. That said, I don’t care; it’s been a rough couple of years and yet I managed to do what I consider some really good work writing about a medium that I love, and that’s a true accomplishment!
If you’re a writer, artist, or other kind of creator and have done work you’re really proud of this year, feel free to link to it in the comments, because I’d love to see it!