Sudan’s struggle is obscured by political upheavals, displacements, and hunger after the fall of President Omar al-Bashir and the 2021 coup, but why has the world turned a blind eye to the ‘forgotten war’?
by Eifion Evans | Today more than ever attention focusses on young people. Newspaper headlines of their activities feature everything from revolution to drugs, student sit-ins to the generation gap, hooliganism to hijacking. Not that the news media are unfair or disproportionate: in a year or two the...
When Gaku Kuze's "Life Lessons With Uramichi Oniisan" anime adaptation was announced back in 2019, we were all blissfully unaware of what 2020 had in store for us. After some production issues that prevented the series from airing as planned in 2020, Life Lessons... finally premiered in 2021. It's comedic how coincidental the themes of this series fit with our own world.
To sum the show and overall premise up, Life Lessons... centers around Omota Uramichi (surname first), a 31 year-old ex-gymnast turned children's television show host. Each episode follows the life of Uramichi-Oniisan on set and outside of work, showcasing a duality that many adults find themselves mimicking.
At its core, this show is a painfully funny expression of how many adults feel as they reach their 30s, facing the soul-sucking abyss known as "reality". I think there's a tasteful and a tasteless way to approach morbid humor, and this show is definitely the former.
Uramichi-Oniisan's bleak outlook on life is often paired in contrast with curious and rambunctious children. He isn't completely transparent with his feelings about life in front of the kids, but sometimes, they pick up on his mindset and he grimly agrees with them. Despite his downtrodden work life, he cares deeply about the children and wants to preserve as much of their youthfulness as possible. The supporting cast on this show are great as well. Some characters induce Uramichi-Oniisan's bottled rage to show itself, and some make him realize that they too are also hiding a part of themselves.
I enjoy this show for a few reasons, but relatability is the biggest reason. I'm now a thirty-something year-old woman who shakes my fist at the cult of capitalism from my own rented porch, and I share the same sentiments as the main character. From jokes about back pain and hangovers to sucking up personal feelings in order to get through work, this show feels like it was written by a millennial for a millennial (though I have yet to confirm if this is true since my search turned up nothing on the author's age). Uramichi-Oniisan feels very human, and I feel a sense of hope for him. I hope he continuously finds happiness even when he's at his most cynical.
Another reason why I enjoy this show is for the art style. I think the studio did a great job helping bring the characters to life. Their unique characteristics are defined as well. My favorite character design has to be Kikaku Hanbee. You deserve your flowers for this character alone, Gaku Kuze. I see the outfits you draw these characters in.
I do want to call out that there is only one woman character in the main cast of this show, Tadano Utano. While I appreciate that she isn't being set up with any of the other introduced characters (ever, I hope), it would be nice to not see her as the only woman in this series, and also to have a character story that isn't centered around her love life.
I implore every millennial or older to watch this show, because it really does encapsulate the lived experience of someone who's been on this earth for a few decades and has gone through some shit. Dark humor doesn't take away the heaviness of emotions, but it's nice that each character perseveres through their hardship. In a time where we constantly experience misery, its important to recognize our negative feelings and not let them hold us back from living.
I'll end this with the best ending theme of 2021, "Dream On" by Mamoru Miyano. This song was a perfect ending to each episode because it felt like that breath of fresh air taken after it stops raining.
Can I really classify myself as a millennial blogger if I don't write about superheroes? I recommend this show to anyone who won't mind vulgar humor, foul language, and cartoon violence. This is not your average animated show.
Spoilers mentioned at the very end of the review. You have been warned!
Thanks to Batman Forever being one of the few VHS tapes I fondly remember watching, my partiality towards superhero movies only grew from there. Since then, I've grown up on media such as Powerpuff Girls, X-Men: The Animated Series, Teen Titans, and more. It's always been there, but oversaturation of such content has never been more apparent until now. Or maybe it has, but I've only just noticed it.
Like all popular things, the superhero franchise exploded and multiplied in the last decade. So many origin stories! So much action! So much heavily implied romance! It all gets so formulaic that you start to wonder, when are we gonna see them do other shit besides save people? Suicide Squad wasn't an exception either, despite its "villain" take. I do admit I enjoyed seeing Margot Robbie playing this playful, sexy, and violent character in this movie and Birds of Prey, so I wanted to know if the television series continued to explore this version of Harley Quinn. Short answer: it did.
I came across this series in 2020, a pivotal pandemic year for all of us. For me, it was also the first year being single after a decade of dating various partners. Perhaps I related and was drawn to Harley Quinn in this way, as someone who needed to focus on herself more than who she wanted to date. Am I projecting here? Possibly, but I'm right! Mostly.
I appreciate that this series is animated. Had this show been live action, I would have stopped in the first episode. 2D violence makes it a bit easier for me to watch, since it's not so gruesome and detailed. I don't get nightmares as easily because of that. Aside from the violence, this show is funny as hell, and it has a great cast of characters and actors. I like that it centers on their everyday life as well as the "I need to save the day!"-type episodes.
Harley Quinn isn't supposed to be looked at as a hero, and this show further drives that point home. She's still playful, sexy, and violent, but she's also still struggling with her own morals. It's very relatable, since she's still making decisions based on what others want, instead of what's best for her. The show does a great job at exploring her growth, and it reminds us that we don't have to be perfect people to deserve a mutually fulfilling love.
Lastly, this final remark will be considered a spoiler, so I'll warn you now to stop reading from here. I appreciate that this show built up a romance in a way that didn't go from point A to point B, as most superhero media does. It took its time, and while each character has made their fair share of mistakes, I still rooted for it. I hope Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn stick it out for the long run.
I read Spy x Family up until chapter 61 in three days. I wanted to catch up with the manga before the anime officially premiered, and I was pleasantly surprised by the story! It wasn't a task to read. There are many great comedic moments and it made me curious to see how the story would eventually end.
Here is the official summary from Viz:
Not one to depend on others, Twilight has his work cut out for him procuring both a wife and a child for his mission to infiltrate an elite private school. What he doesn’t know is that the wife he’s chosen is an assassin and the child he’s adopted is a telepath!
Note: This post will be talking generally about spoilers of events happening in the manga, up until the later chapters. I would recommend skipping this post if you want to consume this manga / anime without any type of awareness of what's going on.
I hold a personal belief that the way humans interact with each other creates a butterfly effect to change a politically charged scenario at a grand scale (e.g. war). Lots of small changes need to happen in order to cause a change of grand proportions. I like that this story's main goal resonates with this belief, so much to the point that even the person who is supposed to catalyze this change is small. The fate of the mission rests in Anya Forger.
Of course, Anya is not solely responsible for making sure things align perfectly. Loid and Yor might be trained professionals, but their lack of education around parenting is clear in various scenes throughout the manga. They have their slip ups, but over time, both Loid and Yor become more adept at parenting.
There are a bunch of secrets between the Forger family, and it's hilarious to see them all try and hide their true selves from each other. Even the dog, Bond, is hiding something! Anya is probably the worst at keeping her secret, but that's expected since she's a child and has the least amount of experience with lying. It's comical that both Loid and Yor are so preoccupied with keeping up their own lies that Anya's exposures go unnoticed.
I really like the main characters, and their different motivations for staying in the family. I love Anya's mischievous yet careful demeanor. And have you seen Loid and Yor? Talk about an attractive pair. We start to see a potential romance bloom between Loid and Yor, and I will be happy either way if they do or don't fall in love with each other in the end.
Unfortunately, there is a glaring issue I have with the series, and it can be summed up in two words: Yuri Briar. That's it, really. I already had enough of that repulsive plot in other shows, and I don't need that here. There are people who genuinely don't see anything wrong with this relationship, but I am not one of them. I think this series would have been fine without his unwelcome obsession over Yor. I'd be fine seeing less of him.
As for what I would want to see in this manga, I'm interested in Yor's continued growth. As of the latest chapter, she's contemplating whether she should keep being an assassin or not. She seems to be motivated by her advancements as a parent and housekeeper. I can also see this in Loid too, but he still hasn't made that decision yet to leave behind his spy days for good. I am eager to find out what happens next.
Since the anime is releasing soon, I wanted to briefly express my praise for the voice actors chosen for Loid and Yor. I am excited to see the pages come to life! Action scenes are always better witnessed in anime to me because I don't have the spatial understanding to choreograph the action in my head.
This is also the first anime I'll watch where I read the manga first, so I am interested to see how my perspective will change.
Note: This post contains content relating to the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie, but no spoilers for the film itself.
(photo from IMDb.com)
From the moment I first heard of the announcement of the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 film release date for Japan, my excitement and interest had been piqued. The release date for Japan was December 24, a date that played a key role in the film itself. I love little coincidences like these.
Fast forward to this week, on the premiere date of the film in US theaters. I wanted to see the movie more than once, and the group of people I went with on the first day wanted to check out the dubbed version. I watched the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen in both English and Japanese (way too many times for each), so I was already familiar with the voice actors for both versions. I'll save my thoughts on the dub vs. sub argument for another day.
I thought that the performances were well done. I think out of all the performances, I really enjoyed Maki, Rika, and Yuta's voices for the dub. Allegra Clark, voice of Maki Zenin, also voices Beidou in my current favorite game, Genshin Impact, so I smiled because I was able to hear them both. You can also start to hear Yuta's confidence in himself grow during the movie through his voice.
Watching the dub allowed me to take in more of the visual spectacles in the film, which is something that I tend to struggle with when watching subtitled anime. This is the main reason why I often need to re-watch the series. The backgrounds were rich, the action scenes were thrilling, and the character designs were great. I think one of my favorite scenes to watch in this movie was the end battle. The movie had a great pace to build up all the action to the very end. It left me wanting more.
I watched the subtitled version the following day. There were some bits of dialogue that I was able to understand better after reading it instead of listening to it in the dub. I also found the Japanese voice of Rika to be a lot creepier and sinister! She sounded like a terrifying character out of a horror film.
Unfortunately, during the subtitled showing, there was a couple a few seats over talking and conversing the entire time of the movie, and I let my anger distract me during the middle of the film. Eventually, I calmed down and tried my best to ignore them. I felt upset because my friend was watching it for the first time and her movie-watching experience was affected by them. Some people need an etiquette reminder.
During the credits, I got to hear the amazing end credit music by King Gnu, who made two songs, "一途 (Ichizu)" and "逆夢 (Sakayume)" for the film. "Ichizu" is my favorite of the two. I get goosebumps listening to that song.
Those who, like me, are caught up with the latest chapter of the manga, will understand the end credit scene and how crucial it is for the next installment of the series. I hope this film is released to streaming services soon, so I can have additional content to tide me over until the next season comes out in 2023.
Even though I wanted to, I decided not to participate in the Climate Strike yesterday. I left this protest to stronger, healthier folks. I’m still recovering from the cold or flu that has kept me home feeling like a wet dishrag this week. The worst if the illness is over, but my head still feels as though it is full of cotton wool.
