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Assassination Classroom

The world of Assassination Classroom is fairly ridiculous: a giant yellow octopus that will destroy the world unless a class of middle school students assassinate him while he is the teacher. But, it does have some realistic elements.

The most prominent theme is the discrimination Class E receives from everyone else in the school. Class E is physically separated from the main campus, and the building is of much poorer quality compared to the main building. The chairman of the school even contributes to sustaining this system because he believes that allowing for the other students to look down at Class E will motivate them to do better than them.

However, the role that Class E is forced to take up does not actually correlate to their actual potential. It is only when Korosensei helps to bring out each student’s potential that they begin to perform at the same level as the other classes, eventually overtaking them. This reminds me of Eden of the East where society prevents NEETs from being motivated to be productive through needless degradation of NEETs. It is not until Takizawa that unleashes the potential of the NEETs to save Japan from destruction, similar to Korosensei. Likewise, the school system only facilitates the mindset of being failures in Class E. Also, in order to be recognized by society (the school), Class E is forced to produce results that are dissonant with its assigned role. In this show, the victims of discrimination are responsible for changing their perceived image.

The mission of assassinating Korosensei reinforces the tradition of hegemonic masculinity. Assassination can not happen without violence. We can only hope that the hegemonic masculinity Class E has to embrace will not endure and help perpetuate the system of hegemonic masculinity. In addition, I find it interesting how the government are relying on the younger generation to take care of critical mission that may result in the end of the Anthropocene.

angel-is-not-creative

I also made the connection between the NEETs and the way that the students of Class-E are treated. They are treated as less than others when it is clear that they are just people who were left behind in the schooling system and were not given a fighting chance to reach their full potential. We get to see Class-E start to reach this potential once they have a teacher who is actually willing to believe in their abilities and spend time honing them.

beefmastersblog

I really like what you brought up about the NEETs and the fact that they are often looked down upon by society due to a "lack of potential". I really liked what Eden of the East did at the end with it, showing that if you give them the opportunity, they can be useful, and I think the same thing is being said in this anime: if you give them a good teacher, and invest resources into their education, even students that might not seem like they would be able to be successful are able to find success. I think that is a really important message, and I am glad that you compared the two shows.

Assassination Classroom

Assassination classroom is one of my favorite anime series of all time. I think it is an incredibly entertaining piece, with a lot of powerful themes and messages. It follows the story of an alien teacher, Koro-sensei, plans on eventually destroying the world, but spends his time teaching a class of misfits at Kunugigaoka Junior High School. The series follows the students as they learn how to grow and mature, all while trying to find a way to assassinate Koro-sensei. The series is definitely a must watch for any of you that maybe have not seen the entire thing, it is honestly very good.

It was a little bit weird that we only watched the first two episodes and then two near the end, so I will only be discussing the themes displayed in those few episodes, not any other ones that occur throughout the piece (since I would feel bad spoiling such a fun show). But the main theme in this anime is that of discrimination and educational inequity. Class E is looked down upon and are viewed as misfits that are not smart enough to do well in school and don't care enough to get there. They are consistently the lowest in scores, have teachers that don't care about their education, and transferring to their class is used as a "punishment" for other students that get below average test scores. However, because they aren't given any opportunities to actually learn and grow, those who end up in Class E are often stuck there.

I thought this reminded me a lot of what we often see in current school systems. I know that when I was in elementary and middle school, our classes were split up by test scores as well (I know public schools had a similar system of gifted vs not). But my school, specifically 8th grade, was split up into 8-1, 8-2, and 8-3, with 8-1 being the kids with the lowest scores who were deemed not academically gifted, and 8-3 being the students doing high school level coursework. And the difference in the treatment of the children in the classes was drastic. I remember, whenever people got into trouble with the administration of the school, 8-3's opinion and what the students in that class said actually happened was what the teachers believed. Even if what they were saying was completely untrue, 8-1 was deemed untrustworthy because they often did not pay attention in class and fooled around a lot. And I know that idea of teachers and staff preferencing the "smarter" students that sit there and studiously do all of their work is still a very common issue. As someone who also has experience with education, I have seen that before as well. Although I worked in a preschool, not a high school, the students that typically acted out or seemed to struggle a bit more with concepts often frustrated the teachers, and I know in some education systems, those students get overlooked and end up falling behind. But dispersing students into classes based on "ability" ends up lumping them into a box that they will be stuck in for (very likely) their entire schooling career. I know there have been multiple studies proving that, and the fact that the way your teachers or administrator at your school view you and what group they lump you in, often defines how you see yourself and affects your later academic achievement. And this is something that is perfectly demonstrated in this piece.

However, this piece also serves as a critique to that idea of people being worthless or born with a set ability. We see that by the end of the series, Korosnsei has given them time, meaningful lessons, and showed them that he truly cared about them. He was very likely the first teacher to do that. But by doing that, Class E was not only able to catch up to the other students, but their test scores actually exceeded that of the students in the top class, proving that with the right guidance and a good teacher, you can do anything, no matter where you come from. I thought this was a very beautiful theme, and a very unique one that I don't see portrayed in a lot of anime specifically, so it was very interesting to see it in Assassination Classroom.

Overall, I love this show and I think it is a great example of how discrimination in the academic world affects people and how it can be overcome. I am glad that we got to watch this as our final anime of the semester and I definitely plan on rewatching the entire thing once I am doing my summer internship. It was nice meeting all of you and seeing your thoughts on different pieces. Goodbye <3

leiogerio

This is gonna be a hot take, but I actually don’t like the show that much. I can recognize that it’s still pretty good, but I felt that we weren’t able to spend enough characters to make many of their deaths feel truly meaningful. Pilar’s death really just came out of nowhere, mostly serving as a way to move the plot forward. Also, Maine’s fall into cyber psychosis only occurred during the span of a single episode. If we had gotten to see an entire arc where Maine kept trying to get new implants despite his growing insanity, just like what happened to David in the end, it would make both of their deaths so much more significant. Like I said, I don’t think that show is bad. In fact, the last arc is one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve ever seen, but I’m just sad that the series could have been so much more.

As with nearly all cyberpunk works, the show presents a speculative world that results from late capitalism. When businesses and profit reign supreme, it leads to massive social stratification, as shown by the different lives that David has to live compared to his high-class students. David is forced to pirate, his mother is forced to engage in illegal activities to make a living, and when David’s mother is horribly injured during a crossfire, he isn’t able to pay for her healthcare.

It's also important to note Lucy's desire for exteriority. Her dream is to go to the moon, far away from the capitalist dystopia of Night City, but the moon has simply become a tourist destination for more people to exercise capitalism. When she finally makes it to the moon in the final scene, she isn't happy because it seems as if all her efforts had been for nothing, having lost everyone that was close to her.

The show effectively portrays the harsh realities of a dystopian future where access to basic necessities such as healthcare is determined by wealth and privilege. This portrayal aligns with the cyberpunk genre's overarching theme of societal inequality resulting from uncontrolled capitalism and corporate control. It highlights the vast disparity between the rich and the poor, where the mega-corporations hold immense power, and the lower class struggles to survive, often resorting to illegal activities to make ends meet.

angel-is-not-creative

I agree with what you said about the deaths being not that meaningful, I think that Davids death is the only one that made a true impact. Watching him progress from the poor boy who is outside of this display of capitalism to being trapped into this capitalistic mindset and having to continue to push his bodies natural limits with more chrome, eventually leading to his death. I think that this show really does a good job at showing the true long-running impacts of capitalism

beefmastersblog

I definitely agree, the show would have been so much better if we got more character development. I really really enjoyed it during the first 4 episodes, but once people started dying randomly and we started focusing only on fighting battles and going on adventures, rather than the actual characters themselves, it wasn't as good for me. I still think it is a pretty good show, but not nearly as perfect as it could have been for those same reasons. I especially thought that Maine's death could have been a lot more powerful, when it happened I still had very little idea of what cyber psychosis even was, and I wish that was developed a little bit more before his death. Also, I thought it was very predictable from the first scene of that episode, the second I saw him having his little mind moment I was like dammit, he is going to die. But I also agree with you about how David's death was pretty much the only one that felt meaningful, much for the same reasons; for me it wasn't the actual death that was sad, but when Lucy went to the moon and saw the David of the past, the one without all the chrome added onto him, that really did hit me in the heart.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

I typically am not someone who enjoys any kind of fighting anime or the cyberpunk genre. In fact, until this piece, I had no idea that cyberpunk was a genre. But I have heard of this piece before this class, but never had any interest in watching it. In fact, I was pretty disappointed when it was selected as our class choice. But I was pleasantly surprised by this anime, I actually ended up watching the whole thing (because I am sick and have nothing else to do) and I ended up enjoying it.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a story about a society that is so messed up that it fails basically everyone in it: everything is heavily dictated by money, you cannot trust anyone, and the only way to escape it is to go to another celestial body (which also requires money). It follows David Martinez, a street boy who attends a preppy school but doesn't fit in, and his adventures after he acquires a military grade piece of cyberwear.

One theme that I want to touch on that is very noticeable within the first few episodes is the idea of money, and a society so overrun by it, that it no longer cares about it's citizens. David's mother slaves away at her job to make sure that he is able to attend the best school possible, because she fears that if he doesn't, he is just going to end up like her, not having enough money to run their washing machine. However, we see that he doesn't fit in at this school, and he is an outsider because he is poor and doesn't have the same posh, stuck up attitude as all of the other kids. This comes in on a later theme. But, the whole slaving away to pay for his schooling is sad enough, but when they get into the car accident, as he is crying for help for them, the medical team walks up, scans them, sees that they are not a member of their specific insurance plan, and then leaves them there to die. And when a rinky-dink hospital takes them in and his mother ends up dying, instead of condolences, David, now an orphan, is bombarded with funeral packages, listing the different costs of funeral services. I think this is a sad commentary on the prioritization that money has in our world today.

Another major thing I wanted to talk about was David being constantly outcasted by his peers. I think that the constant bullying and the fact that he was treated as lesser than, really developed his personality into one that fights hard to be not just equal but "built different". I think that his body did have an unusual ability to support the cyber wear, but he went way too far beyond his limits, even after his friends told him it was too much, and after watching Maine die because of it. But I think that ties into this idea of knowing and acknowledging your own limits. The same thing could have been said for Maine. If either of them were simply willing to recognize when they reached their capacity, and either removed the cyber wear or stopped using it like their friends advised them to, then they could have likely remained alive. I think that having the ability to recognize your own limits and weaknesses is actually a very important strength, and it was very sad to see David losing it in his last moments.

Those were the two main things that I wanted to talk about, but I also thought the idea of going to the moon to escape how horrible reality on Earth is, is very reminiscent of another anime we watched in this class (a place further than the universe). I thought it was very interesting as well, because we see that the cyberpunk universe is also completely dictated by money, with those having money being the people in power and those without always getting the short end of the stick. Lucy's dream reminded me a lot of that idea of emancipation from capitalism.

But yeah, I liked this anime. I will admit, I enjoyed the first 4 episodes significantly more than I enjoyed the last 6, only because it started to feel a little too basic for my tastes, and I enjoyed the deeper storyline of the first few episodes of this show. It actually reminded me a lot of Dorohedoro, another anime on Netflix, but I will admit, I thought that one was executed better from start to finish. But I thought the characters were pretty cool and I really enjoyed the piece overall. It was a very interesting watch and although by no means would I rate it a masterpiece, it was pretty good and I'm glad I have finally watched it so I can engage in the exchange of cultural capital with it now.

bryanschmuck

Perfect Blue

Despite the movie being only 81 minutes long including credits, and not being one of the things I voted for, I'm actually really glad it was chosen because this movie was a banger.

I've always sorta been a fan of psychological thriller type movies, even though I think some of them get a little too into the psychological part where it ends up making no sense unless you bend over backwards and jump through some hoops. But this movie was perfectly fine, and I found it to be super entertaining. The ending was really wild and I actually loved the twist ending.

As for analysis, I think that it's pretty clear the movie is taking a look at celebrity/pop idol culture and exposes some of the stresses involved with it as well as some of the problems celebrities face. We can see that Mima's psyche deteriorates over the course of the entire film, which causes her to not only hallucinate about committing murders, but also not be able to discern from filming her TV show and reality. The movie does a pretty good job of this, and while sometimes it can get a little confusing, I felt that overall it was done in a way that was still pretty easy to somewhat understand what was going on. A lot of psychological thrillers will have a scene towards the end of the movie where it shows what was really happening while the main character was hallucinating, but I've never really liked those except for very rare circumstances.

We can also see that relevant to some of our class discussions, the film comments on obsessive fan culture and the dangers of it. We can see in the film that there are multiple characters that are obsessed with Mima, being the one rapist character (I forget his name), and the main antagonist of the movie, Rumi. I believe that the film tries to show the audience the danger of becoming too obsessed with a specific celebrity, as it can cause you to literally do things that end up negatively affecting the celebrities own psyche. While Rumi clearly has some sort of mental disorder that causes her to act this way, I think it's still interesting that the film decides to deal with it.

Lastly, a large part of the film is about blurring the lines between fiction and reality. Throughout the movie, we are unable to tell if some parts are real or not, which shows us the true psychological impact that the stresses of work life are having on Mima. I think it's a very effective way of storytelling, and I thought it was done well in this movie.

Pretty good.

bluelockholytrinity-jpt1311

I agree that the film blurs the line between reality and fantasy. I was confused about which scenes were part of Mima's hallucinations and which were happening in reality. I guess that means the film did what the scenes were supposed to be.

beefmastersblog

I think this movie does a great job of exploring the dangers and stresses that come along with celebrity culture. It's interesting to see how Mima's psyche deteriorates over time as she is unable to discern between her TV show and reality, which really demonstrates the impact of being in the public eye. The blurring between fiction and reality was definitely an interesting form of storytelling as well.

Perfect Blue

I thought this movie was alright; it probably isn't something that I would seek out to watch on my own, but it was an interesting watch and it did keep me on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Perfect Blue is a psychological thriller that takes viewers on an intense journey exploring the complex and chaotic life of female protagonist Mima Kirigoe as she transitions from celebrity idol to actress. Throughout her transition, Mima experiences both inside and outside pressure which lead to a rapid deterioration of her mental state.

I will admit, there were a few in this piece that made me very uncomfortable and caught me very off guard. But also, this was a class choice and not something that was picked out ahead of time, so it is understandable, but it was still pretty shocking and graphic to see. I also did not know this was a thriller until I started watching it so I was... quite surprised. This isn't the thing that I usually pick out to watch, so again, I might be a little bit biased.

The movie also explores themes of obsessive fan culture, revealing the dangers of becoming too obsessed with a specific celebrity who may end up affected by it mentally or physically. This is a little unrelated to this specific anime, but the new one that just came out, I think it is called My Star in English, also explores themes like this so I kind of made that connection when watching this one. But I do think it is a very important topic to explore, especially with all the tragic events that we see going on with idol groups, and the high rates of suicide. It is a very sad thing and this is definitely something that needs attention.

One thing that I want to point out is the way that Perfect Blue blurs the lines between fiction and reality in order to show viewers how tough working life can be for celebrities; emphasizing the powerful psychological impact that stresses have on them. I thought that was a very cool and unique thing to do, I haven't seen a piece that did something like that. It did leave me a little confused a lot of times, because there would be scenes that I thought were reality, but they would turn out to be just her acting or something like that, and then I had to go back and rethink everything that just happened. But I also think it helped emphasize the mental chaos that Mima was going through, so I thought it was a very interesting choice to make.

Unfortunately, I don't have too much to say about this one because I am actually sick, so I kind of watched this one with a mushy brain, which might have also made the piece a little bit more confusing with all the reality vs. not reality scenes in it.

bluelockholytrinity-jpt1311

Thoughts on Sensoron

This was undoubtedly an interesting manga to read. It was clear that the manga was some sort of propaganda for Japanese nationalism. It seems like it was very far right-wing as it often criticizes the left wing.

This manga mainly criticizes how media often invents fake quotes and re-used images out of context to dehumanize a country or to push their agenda. It gave a lot of examples of how European and US media recycled images from entirely different events related to Japan in order to paint them as the evil in the world. The manga argues that since they were no conclusive evidence that Japan was the cause of the atrocities mentioned in the manga, they shouldn't be apologetic. This argument is flawed because it could be a pure coincidence that the newspapers use the same pictures to describe similar events that have Japan's name on them. Most news outlets nowadays use similar images with different headlines based on who their audience is, so it's not far-fetched to say that news outlets are manipulative and will only release news that gets the most reaction from the public.

One of the main messages of this manga is that not everything that you read in the newspapers is true. Throughout this manga, we see how everything in the newspapers is full of bias, flaws, and misinformation. This message is relevant to today's world, where everything can be modified by artificial intelligence to make it look like it's real. We have to double or even triple-check our sources to avoid getting false information about certain events.

beefmastersblog

I like how you acknowledged that although this piece had it's flaws, the arguments that it made about fake-news and the necessity of fact checking sources is very accurate. I agree with you, especially with AI these days, and more convincing outlets of fake news, you have to be very careful about what you believe. Even just looking on Instagram, I notice that when big controversial events happen, these special little text posts will start getting reposted on people's stories, making wildly untrue claims about these events with no source to back them up. And when I swipe up and I'm like can you explain XYZ conflict to me and what is going on, 9 out of 10 times, the person that reposted the fake news can't even explain the conflict they are taking such a strong side on. I think that goes to show how important it is to be an educated member of society, and ensure that you are aware and up to date on the truth about current events, because nowadays it is so easy to be caught up and swayed by fake articles and text posts.

Sensoron

I personally was not a big fan of this manga, while granted, I am not a big fan of manga in general… so I might be a little biased.

I knew going into it that this piece would have similar themes of war like Hetalia, but I thought this one approached it way differently. For starters, it seemed like this piece almost had pro-war themes, which was a little bit strange. I don't think that anything good comes out of war in general, and especially not world war 2, so I don't know if I was just reading into that wrong, but I completely disagree with war being a positive thing in any way.

I also understand that countries are all going to have those nationalist ideas, but it just seemed like Sensoron was trying to make Japan out to be the victim of all of the events, which is not the case at all. Of course, we in the West are probably a little biased, and by no means am I saying that we were in the right either. But you can't completely victimize a country, acting like it did nothing wrong, when that isn't historically accurate at all. I found that to be a very frustrating piece of propaganda designed to make the Japanese smpathize and merge together in this shared idea of "we were the victims". But again, look at history. That was what caused WW2 in the first place. The Germans felt like they were the losers of WW1, and got punished more than they deserved. That self-victimization was what pushed the civillians to be affected by things that horrible leaders, such as Hitler were saying, where he claimed he would bring Germany back to greatness and that they would no longer be the victims of the post-war society. And that is what this manga really reminded me of, was the type of propaganda sent out during that time to stir up the population and convince them that they were the victims.

However, despite that little ramble, I will admit that the manga does bring up some good points about how media often invents fake quotes and re-used images out of context to dehumanize a country or to push their agenda. And it is true that sometimes sources are not completely accurate, and this manga is reminding us to be wary of what we believe. I think that is something that people need to be aware of, especially with AI becoming more popular and having the ability to create realistic looking images. However, while it is true that sources are not always completely accurate, you can't deny the war crimes that Japan committed, and there was empirical evidence and hard proof that these events were real and did take place, so I thought that whole argument was weird and too biased.

Overall, I think this manga was a bit too biased and too one-sided with its ideas. While I agree that we should not believe everything we read in the newspapers, I think it's also important to accept and understand history and current events, and make informed decisions about what is real and what is not real, as well as fact check what we are reading. But you need to acknowledge that even if you don't want your country to be painted in a negative light, you can't deny history and you shouldn't try to sweep atrocities under the rug. When you do that, it just creates more problems later (again as seen throughout history… think Armenian genocide and the fact that some people still deny it happened). So overall, I wasn't a big fan of the ideas of this manga, but it was cool to read something instead of watch something for this class, and I found it interesting to find a piece of pro-war manga just sitting out there.

jpt1311

Your Name

This film reminded me of an old saying: love is like a siege, where people outside want in, and those inside want out. Maybe that is the case because people knew too little about the other alternative; thus, people naturally assumed the other way around would be better because, well, why not? We know nothing about them anyways, just make things up ourselves. This is due to the boundary, the limitations to what we can see. People all have these imaginations about what they could do in a different situation, as someone else, or just as somewhere else. But aside from all those, this film looks like it has unlimited expressional power and labor hour to work on a fairly vague, generalistic story. The film incorporates majorly depictions of the daily aspects of two different groups of people, which resembles all the astrology stuff that helps people develop their hopes and dreams about themselves and others that simply suits everybody because all the descriptions either sound good to begin with, or at least is not insulting. If that is it, it is but one more lame story. But if just that is not catchy enough, let's add something special. Something special, like a comet striking the earth. Of course, it does not have to make sense. If there's no comet, just add one. Of course, smartphones don't delete data out of their own free will, just make it do so. As long as other elements in the film make others like it, most people would naturally overlook these 'little flaws.' Maybe it is because they are tolerant, or maybe because they have some confirmation errors. It doesn't matter. Exploiting these weaknesses of their viewers is also an essential skill to master as commercial film directors, even if they are in the form of animation films.

beefmastersblog

I actually really enjoyed this piece. I guess I've been exploited by the film directors lol... But I thought it was very different than a traditional romance piece and I liked the way that it went deeper into a story than we normally see and that romance wasn't the focus of it. I think at it's core it is a piece about truly understanding another person. I have seen very few pieces where the romance was secondary to a different storyline and still been able to be successful, but I think this was one of those cases. Of course, comets don't randomly fall out of the sky and smartphones don't just delete data, but I think the comet served as an important aspect of the plot and the idea was set up early in the piece. Of course, this might just be something I caught because I've seen the piece a few times now. And I thought the whole smartphone thing was the fact that well, she died. The timeline was really confusing, but it appears Taki and Mitsuha weren't switching bodies at the same time. That was why when she went to visit Taki 3 years earlier, he didn't know who she was. And why when he went t visit her, the comet had already killed her. I was under the impression that the reason the messages got deleted was because his timeline finally caught up to the one where she died, and since their timelines were no longer in synch, the data disappeared along with her. It might not be that at all, and I might be confused, but that is just what I thought was going on. But overall, it is fine if you don't like the movie, I enjoyed it, but I can see how it isn't for everybody. But I just thought I'd give some insight into the confusion of some of the reasoning behind the plot aspects.

Your Name

Kimi no Na wa has long been one of my favorite anime movies ever since I saw it when it came out back in middle school. Back then, I was captivated by the piece itself, the characters, plot, music, and animation, but I had little concept of what the piece ACTUALLY meant. Now, after watching it on my 17-hour car ride to my meat judging competition in Chicago, I had a lot of time to think about what this piece is ACTUALLY trying to represent. And so this is probably going to be a long blog post.

This movie is about truly understanding a person (which you can’t do any better than physically being inside their body).

It is also about tradition, and the value it holds as it is passed down from generation to generation. We see this most significantly through Mitsuha’s grandmother and her family shrine. The grandma explained that many of the meanings behind the traditions they still do has been completely lost, but they still do them because it was interweaved into their culture and has individual meaning to them. This mainly pertains to the braided cords. Although they aren’t sure exactly why they do it, they braid these cords and believe wholeheartedly that a piece of yourself, your feelings and emotions at that moment, go into the cords. The concept of musubi, is introduced. This word has a multitude of meanings, but it seems to most closely refer to the flow of time and connections you make. Much like how as time passes, your relationships with other people might twist and tangle, sometimes breaking, the braided cord does the same.

But despite maybe not knowing what those traditions mean, the grandma recognizes their importance as a piece of herself and a piece of her ancestors and believes in passing them down. And although some people (Mitsuha’s father) might not understand why she does this, in the end, she is the only person in the entire film that recognized that Mitsuha is somebody else, and apparently, she also had that special ability to switch places with someone when she was young. She was also the only person that did not question Mitsuha when she told her to leave, and she had trust in her granddaughter and the ability gifted to her by their gods. The same is said with the creation of the special sake. At first, Mitsuha is embarrassed to be doing that in front of other people, but she understands its importance as a tradition in her family. And it is because she puts half of herself into that sake and brings it to the shrine, that Taki can drink it and save her.

I also thought that one specific scene regarding the lost records was very interesting, but I missed exactly what it meant when I watched it today, so I did a little bit of research to figure it out. But I will still explain my findings in this post, because I thought it was really important and gave me a deeper understanding of this piece. When Mitsuha read what Taki wrote in her notebook, “who are you”, and the teacher was lecturing about the grammatical format of those sentences, one student asked about a specific dialect of that word, one that was only used by the elderly now. I think that most closely ties into the core theme of this piece, truly understanding another person. I think that this is one of the things that was lost during the big fire, the true reason why the word exists, but it is important to note that the shrine people thought that this idea of knowing someone was so important that they created their own word for it. And without remembering exactly why, this is something they felt that they NEEEDED to pass down. This idea of asking who are you, at a deeper level than just what is your name.

And this ties into what he wrote on Mitsuha’s hand. She checked there to see his name, but instead found I Love You. And while the very first time I watched this piece I cried in frustration over that scene, I realized how beautiful it really is now. He didn’t write it to be cheeky or to mess up the plot. But this instead ties into that idea of looking deeper than just someone’s name. He loved her as a person, and that true connection will give her more strength than knowing something as superficial as his name. Because she can remember his name all she wants, but that is worth nothing if she forgets how he makes her feel. And we see that through this piece, as they search for each other years and years later, with no recollection of who the other person is and no retainment of the memories they made. But they truly understand each other, and I think that is what keeps them going.

Another thing I wanted to touch on was Mitsuha’s dad. He is an absent father in her life and left her up to the grandmother to raise. He blamed himself for his wife’s death and pushed away her traditions and culture, in favor of a corporate job as a corrupt politician. He explained to the grandmother as he walked out that he fell in love with his wife, not the shrine. He did not embrace her traditional way of living. However, we see the opposite with Taki. He has no reason to walk all the way to the shrine with Mitsuha’s family to put the sake in there. He also had no reason to carry the grandma all the way there and back. That was obviously strenuous work for him in Mitsuha’s body especially, but he respected the customs of the people he had started to get to know. And when he was exploring the city, after he found out what happened and had nowhere else to turn to, where did he go? The shrine. Taki accepted and trusted Mitsuha’s traditional culture, something her other classmates her age made fun of her for. And while other classmates laughed at her and called her disgusting for making the sake, he actually drank it. And it was because of this belief that he was able to switch back into her body and work to save her town. So I think this piece is also a sort of call-to-action to go back towards traditional beliefs.

But even just beyond that, Taki accepting Mitsuha’s culture is him accepting her in her entirety. And when Mitsuha dies, he still holds that connection to her. He seeks her out in life, for years and years. Why? Because he has the thread she wove, that piece of the shrine, that piece of her traditions. And even after the events of the town being saved, he still continued searching for her, looking for the other half of himself that was missing.

But we see that Mitsuha’s father does not retain that same after-death connection with her mother. And perhaps this is because he never really accepted her culture. He loved her as a person, but if he didn’t accept every aspect of her, including her abilities and her connection to the shrine, then maybe they weren’t soulmates like they thought.

Overall, I love this movie, and I’m sad that I am missing the discussion for it, but I am glad that I got to watch it today and really analyze it.

Hetalia

I remember watching Hetalia for the first time when I was in middle school (6th grade?). I thought it was a cute and funny short show, and I really liked the characters, but at the time, I didn't know much about the historical context of the show or the relationships between different countries. Rewatching it now, I have a lot of thoughts...

I think the first thing that needs to be addressed is the portrayal of different characters. It is understandable that Japanese creators of this show would not want to paint Japan in a bad light because well... nationalism and view counts, but it felt like Japan was by far the "best" character. A lot of the other countries in this piece were either presented as stupid or annoying, and Japan was the quietest one who seemed to be the smartest character and voice of reason in this piece. Of course, they did add in some negative stereotypes about Japan, like the fact that he is awkward in social situations and is an otaku, but compared to the other countries Japan is portrayed a lot better. As for the other countries, I found it very creepy and weird the way Germany was portrayed. It made me uncomfortable watching it now and see Germany's character be represented as a strong, confident male who is objectively attractive. There was little mention of the crimes Germany committed, and I honestly did not see much negativity surrounding this country at all, which I think there should have been. Of course, the other countries were also full of stereotypes (America is loud and annoying, Italy is creepy around women, etc. etc) and I do think these are harmful and if this piece was released today I don't think this would slide.

I also want to address fan culture as talked about in the article. I find it understandable that this show has a lot of female fans who ship these characters, especially since there are no main female characters in this show. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, but it was interesting to learn about. One thing that might be a bad thing is the fact that when young people consume this media and might not have the historical background, they might sympathize with Germany, not understanding that this is a fictional character and in no way representative of the way WW2 went down. But again, I don't know if that is necessarily the show's fault. But I think that if the show worked a bit harder to really portray events more realistically and the severity of them, it would overall be a much better show.

I still like Hetalia. I think it is a very cool concept, but the execution could have been a bit better, especially when it comes to portraying the seriousness of the events of WW2, and it should be more careful when it comes to portraying the stereotypes of different countries.

angel-is-not-creative

Hetalia

I cannot rate this with a good conscience ❤

I have autism and Hetalia is my special interest so this is literally 3k words long and I have absolutely no regrets. I could have gone on longer but I wanted to remain relevant to the class. If you don't reply to me I will cry.

I'm gonna break this into a few sections so you can skip around. I'm going to try and stick to just season 1 with this discussion, which won't be too hard cause it's the most insane one. Also, I just want to say that I wrote this all before I read the attached article and I'm now seeing that I literally could have written that article because I know everything about Hetalia.

When do we cross the line between stereotyping and just straight-up racism?

Hey, why are we idolizing WWII Germany?

Oh, we are portraying war as silly and funny, okay cool.

Is this Japanese Nationalism? (a surprisingly controversial argument)

The Sub and the Dub are 2 totally different shows

The Fandom (and linking back to other class-related terms)

Okay I'll name one good thing

Alright, let's get started.

A lot of people will argue that Hetalia is not racist at all because they are making fun of everyone. If you are portraying all of the countries as their most common stereotypes then it evens out in the end. I would argue that this is in fact, not the case. Especially when you set your show during WWII. I will give Himaruya credit in that he mostly focuses on European countries to make fun of, making a lot of the stereotypes less so targeted at minorities. However, a lot of these jokes are still highly insensitive and frame some countries in a worse light than others

Just look at the difference between how Northern Italy is portrayed as opposed to Germany or Japan. Or how France is a predator, Belarus is into her literal brother, and Spain is seen as a creep. It is often times mocking an entire country's intelligence, appearance, or personality. While it is not always that serious, it does lead me to the second point.

When you personify a country and mock it, you aren't just mocking a piece of land, you are mocking an entire population of people. These jokes may seem harmless but they can still be hurtful. While I don't believe that liking Hetalia translates to your actual views on world events, it can unconsciously impact your real-life thoughts and behaviors.

(also why does Britain see imaginary magical creatures, what is that referencing? According to the wiki, it is some popular folklore story of a rabbit who lives on the moon but like.. what? If Himaruya was doing this much research into these countries' cultural backgrounds why is he portraying them like this?)

This show portrays WWII Germany in too positive of a light for my liking. I've noticed a trend in anime where they seem to love Germany (or Germanic aesthetics) a lot (AOT I'm looking at you). Now I'm not well-versed in the interpersonal relationships between Japan and Germany, but the idolization is not it. The way that Japan in this show is portrayed as being literally obsessed with Germany is the biggest example (Italy is also shown having an immense appreciation for Germany and is often gushing about his positive qualities, even writing him a song while he was being kept prisoner). But I mean look at how Germany is portrayed, even his stereotypes are mostly positive, he is hardworking but helps out his fellow allies, makes great food, and is super strong. His only negative trait is that he sometimes doesn't understand social scenarios and that makes him very awkward. However, he will always go out of his way to try and better understand his friends (like Italy) by purchasing books to try and help him learn the appropriate way to act in scenarios).

This is 10x worse in the dub but we will get there. When one of your main characters, the one you are portraying in the best light, is a literal war criminal hot anime boy, you can understand why I would be concerned. I mean they gave him the whole blonde hair blue eyed appearance like come on. Now I'm not going to go into depth on fandom or anything here but Hetalia knows that its demographic is young tweens (primarily girls) so how can you be surprised when this portrayal of Germany leads to WWII fanfics sympathizing with Germany and 14 y/o girls in German military uniforms doing questionable things. (also Germany becomes a canonically gay character in Hetalia in like season 4 or something and that just makes me so mad, like yeah, of course, the gay character is WWII Germany that so cool) (okay, I would like to clarify that technically Sweden is the only confirmed gay character. Sweden is bad representation though because he has one-sided feelings for Finland and makes him uncomfortable by constantly referring to him as his wife)

I mean yeah, obviously this isn't going to be an accurate portrayal of history but some of this is just totally misinformation.

Austria invading Germany is literally just Austria annoying him in his house for a really long time. But also there's like actual wars... and like all of the events of WWI are canon... and like there are some really serious episodes

Also, we literally see a bunch of countries going to war personally, like fighting on the frontlines. Which to me confirms that these people are all literal murderers, like mass murderers lowkey.

Do you know how many weird USSR jokes there are throughout this? So many. Lithuania is pretty much just in a running gag where he keeps getting manipulated by Russia into coming back to live with him. (Yeah, there are so many USSR fics as well).

ALSO! why is the American revolution portrayed as the saddest thing to happen thus far, the storyline is stretched out from episodes 16-20 and it is all drastically different from the tone of the rest of the show. Britain is literally on his knees crying saying that he can't shoot America (which also implies these countries can physically harm/kill each other). Like that is the war you wanted to make all sad and sentimental? Why? Is this how Japanese people think that we view the Revolutionary war? Because that is a pretty inaccurate view.

Anyways back to the original point. Some historical events should not be played for laughs sometimes. It is incredibly disrespectful for actual victims of these tragedies to portray these events as funny or goofy.

Though I will give credit because Himaruya does make all sides of the war look like idiots who have no clue what they are doing, which is a sentiment I can get behind.

As a both non-Japanese and non-Korean person I can not really give my opinion on this however I can share with you both sides of the argument. This is mostly in relation to the original comic strip, but has some relevance to the anime as well. I just wanted to bring it up because it is interesting to me. (This is briefly mentioned in the article but I wanted to expand on the argument).

You may or may not have noticed that there is no South Korea character in this show, however, there was in the original comic. In the comics, South Korea is a pervert who is constantly touching Japan and he also takes credit for the inventions of other countries. Now I'm obviously not going to go into the past history of these 2 countries because that would be incredibly long but the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia and determined that it was a "crime against South Koreans, akin to slander". So yeah, South Korean people were not happy with this portrayal and the character was inevitably removed from the anime before release. (This is a real picture of the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia, the corner shows South Korea groping Japan inappropriately)

There are two opposing views to the Japanese Nationalism take and I'll link them both (Belittling Japanese Nationalism Hetalia: Axis Powers is the title of the first one)

The first one pretty much argues that Hetalis is not Japanese nationalism because it paints Japan in just as negative of a light as all of the other countries, no one is left out of being made fun of. Japan is seen as socially awkward, emotionally repressed, and obsequious.

The second argues that Japan is often shown to be more intelligent than other characters as well as often being of the voice of reason (especially compared to China) and most of his negative attributes are not nearly as harmful as some others in Japan’s case, even his “negative” stereotypes are inoffensive, as they pose no threat of meiwaku.

I think we see in the dub that Americans are a little more willing to make fun of themselves. Though there are a few good Japan self digs, like the capitalism joke in one of the first episodes.

Oh boy I've been waiting for this.

The dub is 10x more offensive than the sub. Most people consider it a crack dub.

So many of the jokes are rewritten that it is practically a different show. The sub is from a Japanese perspective and the dub is from an American perspective.

First of all the accents in the dub are so bad like it is actually atrocious. Japan is really annoying because not only is his voice stereotypical but he always says 'nani?' instead of 'what?' as if that is a normal thing that people do. The narrator is the best part of the dub and she is hilarious.

So I don't really feel comfortable even typing out the jokes here so if you want to hear them I included the time stamps for the three nazi jokes I remember in season 1 (the last two being worse).

Episode 1 (1:35:1:38)

Episode 7 (2:13-2:19)

Episode 48 (1:28-1:31)

Those are just a few examples and it gets worse. The dub literally had no reason to include these jokes because there is not even an insinuation of them in the sub and it makes literally everything a million times worse.

I will give the dub some credit for being so utterly ridiculous that it's funny. I will provide a few timestamps for the funniest jokes that only appear in the dub from the first 19 episodes (but I really recommend looking up Hetalia dub funny moments on youtube because some of them are really priceless):

Episode 13: (1:45-2:05)

Episode 14: (1:12-1:22)

Episode 17: (0:59-1:15) (2:06-2:11)

Now I've had this post typed up for a bit and originally I wasn't going to talk about the fandom but after reading the article that he assigned (and going through the fandom unit), I see that there is a lot of reference to fandom in particular so I want to at least mention it.

Not the 2 biggest problems with the Hetalia fandom are racism and the fetishization of gay men.

As mentioned in the article, there have actually been multiple fan incidents of them dressing up in WWII German military uniforms Germany/Prussia cosplay, and standing in front of temples with fake guns or doing nazi salutes in convention photos (If we want to bring racism and fetishization of gay men together there were two people who kissed in a holocaust memorial museum in Italy and Germany cosplay... there is no picture of this so it might be a rumor but it was well-known so it is worth mentioning). There were also a lot of people using imperialist Japan flags in cosplay/fanart and writing incredibly inappropriate fanfiction about real-life events.

If you would like to see any of these incidents feel free to look up "Hetalia the Boston Incident" I don't really wanna include the photos here.

The fetishization is not unique to the Hetalia fandom, but it is amplified to the max. Obviously, within Hetalia, there are almost no female characters, so this leaves only male characters to be shipped with one another. Now suddenly Germany is an uwu gay bean and not an actual war criminal. At the moment of writing this Hetalia has 32105 M/M fics on ao3 which is only one of the three fanfiction sites, with ao3 not even becoming popularized until after the peak of the Hetalia fandom. (the most popular ship being America/England who refer to each other as brothers in the show as England raised America, showing another problematic part of the fandom). I would argue that Hetalia has one of the gayest fandoms (My Hero Academia is giving it a run for its money though) and I agree with the article that it is inaccurate to say that this is only done by straight cis women. The fact of the matter is a lot of queer teens used Hetalia as an outlet to express their own sexuality through these characters. The straight women that do fetishize BL are likely only doing so because anime creators suck at writing good female characters.

I think that the "level of gayness" turns straight fans away from watching the show (again MHA is the same way today) as it is hard to interact with the fandom without seeing some yaoi content. However, many people view this as something wrong or cringy, when in reality it is a normal part of fandom culture. When gay people have such little content that is actually gay, you cannot blame us for creating our own through characters that we like/relate to. Again, I think the only issues that arise here are the problematic ships that give young people a bad impression of relationships (abusive, incest, pedophilia, etc) or the arguable problematic ones like China/Russia or Lithuania/Russia as again these are real countries with real political relations. (However, I will never forget the time that there was Russia/China fanart on the news, maybe they approve and I shouldn't be complaining)

The thing is, Hetalia only seems so bad because the fandom is so large and so young. A lot of shows have fandoms that sexualize the characters and have kinda problematic fans, but the sheer volume makes things seem worse. This is something that we covered when we watched Genshiken, but there is a lot of negative stigma behind this fandom in particular, but it is just a loud minority that gets a lot of news coverage between fandoms.

It also raises the question "Is a show responsible for the response of its fans?"

Because while Himaruya has no control over what people do with his characters or how they interpret a plot, if a majority of people are leaving your show spouting vaguely racist rhetoric and interpreting your show one way, isn't there some validity in that interpretation? I think a creator has to be aware of their audience, which in this case is a very young and impressionable audience who might not understand how offensive some of the things they are doing really are. They don't hold the same ability to separate fiction from reality.

That being said Hetalia had a large impact on fandom culture as a whole, largely starting things like 'ask a character' panels (along with like homestuck but we don't talk about her). If you go to any convention you will probably find a Hetalia cosplayer, and if you watch any dub there is probably a voice actor from Hetalia there.

I also want to mention Hetalia is also a fandom full of cultural capital, If you don't know every niche fact, you're not a real fan, If you haven't read Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart you haven't even met the entry-level requirements to be a fan. There are also no characters that are too sacred to be altered within the fandom. If you want to put Germany in a maid dress have at it, if you want to see all the characters as girls you're in luck cause Himaruya literally drew them. Fanfictions can take place anywhere from WWI to the present day and you can put any characters in any scenario and make it believable. There are thousands of pieces of fanwork, fan art, fangames, and fan AUs. These characters are malleable to fit your personal preference and there is really no way you could be mad at this as Himaruya does this himself, with no real established canon.

a Hetalia fan once said, "No one cares if Hetalia was written by a Japenese Imperialism apologist when you're 31 chapters deep into a human Au soulmate fic about Austria inviting Prussia to see his boyband perform in Berlin"

Himaruya is also the king of moe characteristics because he turned these Hetalia men into any cute thing he could think of, Chibi versions (Chibitalia), female versions (Nyotalia), and cat versions (Nekotalia). He has no reservations about drawing the characters in a dress or in cat ears. He gave the characters human names to allow for more standardized human AU's and made a DS dating game. He encourages fans to take his characters and use them in their fanworks as they see fit, canon is up to interpretation itself. I think Himaruya himself was a huge part of fandom culture (not that I could tell you cause no one knows anything about the guy) and saw how the female characters were often treated by fans and turned it on its head, allowing for females to sexualize the males this time.

Also, none of the male characters in this show resembles a Hegemonic form of masculinity. Even the most masculine character in the show (Germany) can be seen doing more "feminine things" like wearing a dress or proposing to a man. Which, you know, I guess is a good diversion from things you would typically see in an anime of this nature (but again there are a lot of instances of characters being feminine being played for laughs, like a man being girly is something inherently funny). Feat. Germany proposing to Italy with a tomato ring.

I am Hetalia's biggest hater, however, I cannot deny the impact that it has had on my life and how much I love to talk about it. Hetalia is what introduced me to anime and fandom (and tumblr) for the first time. I met a lot of people I still talk to today because of this show. It encouraged me and a lot of other people to actually get interested in history. Thanks to this show I can identify every country in Europe, and it was a lot easier to remember historical facts if I just imagined the Hetalia characters. Also, Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart is a literary masterpiece and there is a reason it almost has a five-star rating on goodnotes (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22064556) I love you George DeValier I hope you're doing good wherever you are.

I would like to make it abundantly clear that despite everything I've said that might make me sound like a woke blue-haired liberal, I don't really think this show is some horribly racist show or that the people who enjoy it are racist. I just wanted to provide a deeper outlook on the impact a seemingly dumb show can have on real people. I can't really blame the show for the terrible response of the fandom and it did honestly get better in later seasons that are not focused on WWII.

Despite all the bad stuff, it is a relatively funny little 5-minute watch, and you can really just jump in at any point you want to. If you don't take it as seriously as I do you might even enjoy it a little.

If you actually read this far I have major respect for you, I'm really excited to see what the general consensus on this show is.

Prussia and South Italy were my favorites in case anyone cared

If you're wondering why I didn't do my presentation on Hetalia despite my extensive knowledge, it is because I would be incredibly biased and I would go off the rails I think.

Also, my biggest fear is current Hetalia fans finding this and killing me, that might seem irrational but the Gundam fans found me last time so I wouldn't put it past them.

beefmastersblog

I liked how long and detailed your blog post was, it gave me a lot more insight into this show than I had previously had. Hetalia was also one of the first anime I've seen and helped get me into the anime scene, and I really did enjoy it, I thought it was cute and funny and at that time I had little understanding of history. But now, after rewatching it, I see a lot of the things you are talking about and how, for example, it does paint Germany in a positive light which is a pretty bad thing. I also thought it was interesting that you pointed out that idea of hegemonic masculinity in this show. I also noticed that the first time I watched it and I think that was something that drew me into the show. Overall, great blog post, thank you for all your insight into this show!

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

I've never heard of Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and I didn't know it was a game until I opened up the links. I was quite confused for a second, but after watching the scenes, I see why this piece was selected for us to write a blog post on. Despite being a game, it has a lot of deeper themes and motifs to it, which is something I don't find very often in games. So I thought that was actually very cool.

To begin, this piece has a lot of environemntal themes. The natural land our characters live in is declining and their land is shrinking, which is very similar to what is going on in our world with global warming. I liked the idea of Titans, and the fact that they are also slowly dying off due to pollution and human causes. I think that is a very unique way to portray this idea of environmentalism, and I haven't seen it done in a game like this before. I really liked the ways in which this game tied into what we see in our real world, and I like how this shows a different perspective on an environmental piece.

Another major theme is this idea of our place in the world. I thought the idea of these blades were very important, especially the way that they are completely under the control of their owner, and if their owner dies then their memory gets completely cleared, which basically starts over their life, as they have no memories, and therefore identity to be their own. I think the fact that they look identical to humans is an important theme, because it brings into question something we have been talking about a lot this semester, what makes someone human. These blades aren't considered human by their users, yet they look and act just like people, other than the fact that their motivations are completely driven by their user. This brings up a question of what it really means to be human and what constitutes enough identity to really be a person.

Finally, the last thing I want to bring up is corruption of power. We see that the main antagonist of this piece, Jin, is motivated by a desire for revenge, and his way of achieving this revenge involves hurting absolutley anyone or anything that gets in his way. This is a common theme we see in a lot of stories, but I think what makes this interesting is that it is presented in a much more complex way. It reminds me a lot of things we see with powerful people here, specifically when it comes to other countries and some of the recent international conflict. Some leaders are held up on things that happened far in the past (gives similar vibes to revenge….), and are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want without much regard for the impact on other people and their lives. We've seen this plenty of times throughout history, and I feel like we are seeing it now with certain global conflicts.

Overall, while I don't think I will ever play this game since I am not a big gamer, it was cool to mix things up for this class and view something a little bit different than our typical anime.

jpt1311-blog

Xenoblade Chronicles 2

As I am presenting on this set of videos for the game Xenoblade Chronicles 2, I won’t give away too much of the information being talked about tomorrow. I will be talking about one of the themes which is the delusions of grandeur. In the 24th video of the playlist, we start off with seeing a room of scientists and analysts attempting to regain balance from the war waging outside the station. It then cuts to the professor who is experimenting on the Conduit talking about how creating a new universe and new life is something only a god could do but now he will be able to achieve the same. This seemingly is pushing his human agenda of wanting to have the ultimate power and wanting to play the role of god. Towards the end we see however that this professor regrets doing what he did as it caused suffering for all his people and it brought to light just the vastness of the universes and how even by creating what he did there was no way to escape the overwhelming power of who or whatever is out there in the great beyond. We can see this coming into play in the real world all to often with many powerhouse countries and wealthy people feeling as though they have the ultimate power and decision over life and death of the vast majority of people. Without getting political we can see countries building nukes and waging war in order to fulfill the idea that they deserve to be in control of everyone when in reality they are just someone filling a spot in the grand timeline of the world’s lifespan. Overall we have seen world leaders attempt to play the role of god and we know that with humanity being built the way it was, no one person should hold all the power as no single person has the best intentions for everyone. In the reading when talking about alchemy and the role it can play we read “It shows how alchemy in its many forms was just as empirical in its orientation as the mechanical or materialist forms of science that eventually triumphed. The main difference was that practitioners of alchemy believed that the secrets of nature represented an underlying divine unity that was manifest in the material world. Mechanical science was equally theological, but it posited that God was distant from nature, denying that nature itself might hold meaning." Overall now I want to play the game....

angel-is-not-creative

I'm interested to see your presentation because I'm not sure I fully digested the plot. The role of god aspect should have probably been more clear to me with how the ending played out. The plan of wanting to end (or even save the entire world) are incredibly linked in delusion and this need for power and control in every aspect of life.

beefmastersblog

I really liked the way you tied this piece to things that we currently see going on around the world with countries and leaders trying to play this God role and have absolute power. I feel like those delusions of grandeur absolutely apply, and I am so glad that you brought it up and made that connection, because that wasn't something that I immediately thought of. I'm really excited to see your presentation tomorrow!

angel-is-not-creative

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

I loved the environmental aspect of this movie, and I think that is what differentiates this movie significantly from other war-type movies we have watched in the past.

I really enjoyed Nausicaa as a protagonist and I think that she is constantly able to think rationally and do what is best for her Valley. It's refreshing to see how much she cares for the nature around her and how she puts effort into caring for the creatures and growing plants of her own.

As a princess, she does not have to do all the things she does, like journey out into the Sea of Decay, she could just give orders from the comfort of a tower, but instead, she puts in a great deal of effort to protect her valley. She is willing to put herself into dangerous situations for the sake of the people she is governing.

At the surface level, Nausicaa might seem like a naive pacifist, but in reality, she is fully aware of the violence of the world and is able to make violent decisions when it is necessary. She finds no joy in these actions but understands that she needs to do them, however, she never does so unnecessarily and will always result in another form of conflict resolution first.

In the end, Nausicaa is able to end the rage not by an act of violence, but by sacrificing her life to the creatures. She was more than willing to give up her life to save the valley, and to make sure the humans stopped fighting the creatures. Because of her kindness in the past to the creatures, she is brought back to life, bringing hope of human survival in any circumstance.

(a little short this time around but just you wait til next Monday)

beefmastersblog

Personally, I really loved this piece, also because of the environmental themes of it. I totally agree that Nausicaa is a great example of a leader who is willing to put others first and is willing to put herself into dangerous situations for the sake of her people. I think that is especially notable because, as you said, she is a princess and doesn't technically have to do any of that. If she wanted to she could just hide inside and let other people do all the hard work. But I think that the fact that she does go out and try to find a solution is a testament to her character. It's also amazing to see that she is able to find a peaceful solution and is able to end the fight without resorting to violence. She is a great example of a selfless leader who is willing to make sacrifices for the greater good, even if it means sacrificing her own life.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

I actually really really enjoyed this piece. I haven't heard of it before, and I definitely think it is one of Ghibli's most underrated pieces (even though technically it was made before Ghibli was founded-- but for these purposes and since it is my blog post and I am the final jurisdiction here, it is a Ghibli piece).

I liked that we got to watch a piece that had environmental themes to it, and I feel like that was what made me like this film so much. The story takes place in a world that has been devastated by wars, leaving behind a toxic forest that is inhabited by giant insects, which are feared and hunted by humans. At the same time, there is a war going on between kingdoms, as one wants to use a massive bioweapon to eradicate the forest, but Nausicaä believes it is worth preserving and saving.

The film portrays the toxic forest as a living entity that is fighting back against the humans who have destroyed the natural world. It is depicted as a complex ecosystem, with plants and animals working together to maintain balance. The Ohmu, the giant insects that live in the forest, are shown to be peaceful creatures that only become aggressive when their home is threatened. Nausicaä is able to tame them when she sees them, despite everyone else's fear of them, and this is a reflection of her love for nature and her trust in it's goodness.

One thing that I thought was really interesting was the fact that the toxic trees weren't always toxic. They became that way because of the polluted soil they were growing in, but when placed in healthy, clean soil, they became healthy plants. I think that is a testament to humanity's destruction and pollution of our natural resources, destroying pieces of nature and in turn, destroying ourselves. If the forest wasn't polluted in the first place, it would not be a danger to humans who disturb it. And again, if people just left it alone, it would not fight back.

Another thing that I thought was really beautiful was the fact that despite how the humans felt about it, the forest was actually still beneficial, as it was discovered that the plants actually purify the polluted soil, leaving clean water and earth underground. I think this is also a reference to a lot of natural beauties of this world. Often overlooked because we don't think they serve a purpose, a lot of times they perform functions that we don't even realize. And because of that, we often destroy any natural beauty that isn't protected by the government, and that is very sad.

Overall, I thought this was a really great piece, and I'm glad I got to watch it. I think it really puts into perspective the importance of protecting nature and our environment, and it's a great reminder to us all to take care of our planet before it's too late.

angel-is-not-creative

SwampCon

I have to admit, I was a little embarrassed walking through all the Honor Society students and the middle school science fair kids in cosplay at 9 in the morning but I persevered.

I did go to high school in cosplay once for spirit day however I was insufferable in high school so I try not to think about it. I've never been to an actual convention before though so this was a first.

I am pretty heavily involved in fandom culture but god I was shocked by the amount of anime I did not know. I also felt incredibly old because where were the Hetalia cosplays?! I didn't see a single one and it just feels like as a community we have forgotten our dark past. Though I did see a homestuck cosplay so I have some hope left.

I attended for the entirety of the day on Saturday, most of my time was spent volunteering but I did manage to spend $80 somehow like I really don't know what came over me.

Volunteering was very nice and laid back and it is something I will likely be doing next year as well. I was a bit upset that I didn't get to check out the maid cade because I was so busy but I know that it will be back next year so it's cool.

I really enjoyed watching the kpop dancing panel, I don't know anything about it but the dancers looked really good and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.

To be honest, I don't think I have complimented this many people in my life, there were so many cool cosplays and a lot of them were from some of my favorite shows (lots of sk8 the infinity which I loved, a few soul eater and danganronpa ones as well).

The artist alley is where I lost all of my money. There were so many talented artists with amazing pieces and I'm a huge sucker for supporting small artists. Here is my haul (plus a pair of horns that are not pictured).

For the record I have never even seen My Hero Acadamia I just really love Present Mic and this print was just so cool I couldn't not purchase it. The posters are so amazing and I had to stop myself from buying more things. These were all an investment into my happiness and honestly, cash isn't even real money.

Javi's bad fanfiction reading panel was so funny, I feel a little guilty for contributing in the emotional turmoil of a couple dozen people with my very enthusiastic vote for the most horrendous fanfiction known to man, but also I think those people left just a little more cultured. Fanfiction is a vital part of fan culture and we cannot deny how much of it is just straight-up horrible and frankly disturbing so much of it is (I read over 15 million words of fanfiction last year so I am qualified to speak on this). I did have to leave a little early because at that point I had been at the con for over 12 hours and was starting to fall asleep in my chair.

I met a lot of cool people throughout the day, and it was really nice just knowing that you already have a shared interest. Within the first few hours of being there, someone asked me if I was a "button, keychain, or sticker autistic" and when I told them I was a sticker autistic they handed me a swampcon sticker. It was a really nice moment for me I don't know why.

The other volunteers were also all so kind I didn't really come to the con with anyone but I was always talking to someone throughout the day because everyone was so friendly and open. I even got to talk about Hetalia ships with someone which just made my day. I ran into a lot of you guys there as well which was so fun. If you saw me after like 1 then my wig was off because that thing was way too itchy to wear for a full day, I only made it like 4 hours.

Next year I will not be spending all of my money and I'm gonna drag some of my friends along to make sure I get to do all of the activities like maid cafe and the Miku concert (I did not attend but I helped pass out glowsticks so you may have seen me hehe). This was actually so much fun and I would have attended on Sunday as well if I didn't have so much homework to do.

This was me at the beginning of the day with my volunteer badge :P

beefmastersblog

Ahhh swampcon was super fun, I'm glad you got to experience your first convention and got the chance to cosplay, that is always very exciting!! I also really enjoyed volunteering a lot more than I thought I would, especially because they gave us food and I always like food. I also liked that I had the chance to help out at such a cool event. I also will probably be doing that again in the future.

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