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Fortune Doesn’t Favor Fools
In seventh grade, my friend Jackie thought it would be fun to have our fortunes told for her birthday party. After loading up on Chinese takeout and piling into her mother’s station wagon, we arrived...
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Food, Friendship, and Five
“But you know, terrible food has value in a sense too. I mean, do you even remember the food we ate in that place? I can’t remember the taste of it at all. In that place, eating was just another...
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You Have Finally Realized It: Watching and Rewatching Mawaru Penguindrum
Human beings are such dense creatures. “I hate the word fate. Births, encounters, partings, success and failure, fortune and misfortune in life. If everything is already set in stone by fate, the why...
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A Pale Yellow Voice and a Blue Young Woman
Prior to Twelve revealing his synesthesia to Lisa by telling her that her voice is a “pale yellow,” another character in Terror in Resonance had already been associated with that same color by her...
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Tippecanoe and Pariston Hill Too
Following Chimera Ant – where Hunter x Hunter challenges humanity’s collective existential crisis in an arc that is equal parts uplifting and depressing – manga artist Yoshihiro Togashi knew exactly...
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The One Thing I Can Always Do
Before I knew it Even my nonsensical dreams Passed me by And my feelings were tangled. Run, run! It’s the one thing I can always do. - From “Ambivalent World,” opening to Bakemonogatari episodes 6-8 I...
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A Me-Colored Sky: Aikatsu! and Artistic Inspiration
Creativity springs from familiar and unlikely places. As an artist, of any medium, one can fluctuate between immediate compulsive reactions to life experiences in addition to falling back on a...
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Terror in Resonance and Playing by the Rules
Monopoly is, and always has been, a boring game to me. Growing up, my brother and I would try to spice things up by playing something we called “Mafia Monopoly.” This is a fancy way of saying that we...
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Mary Had a Little Lamb, My Fair Lady: Terrorism in Mawaru Penguindrum and...
“Anyway, do you really think those guys have a future?” - Five, to Lisa Mishima, Terror in Resonance, episode 8 Five has a future. She chose – according to Nine – to stay in the Rising Peace Academy,...
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The Musicbox Mechanism of Samurai Flamenco
“And start to feel mortality surround me. I close my eyes and think that I have found me. But life inside the music box ain’t easy. The mallets hit the gears are always turning. And everyone inside...
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Amusement and Apathy in Amagi Brilliant Park
The four young women in the image above don’t appear to have a care in the world. Joking around and laughing with one another, they head out, enjoying the day together. Perhaps they’ll go to a café or...
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Mistress of the House, Rin Tohsaka
The Fate franchise has previously both bored and terrified me. What little I experienced of it – Fate/Zero and varying descriptions from close friends who happened to be fans – felt too heavy both in...
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A Brief History of “I Look Up as I Walk” in Anime
“I look up as I walk, So that the tears won’t fall, Remembering those spring days, But I am all alone tonight.” - “Ue o Muite Arukou,” lyrics by Rokusuke Ei, 1961 Signed on Sept. 8, 1951, the Security...
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Senshi, Shitennou, and the “Miracle Romance”
The sung benediction of “Miracle ro-ma-n-ce,” in Sailor Moon‘s opening, “Moonlight Densetsu” never resonated with me in spite of its inherent catchiness. For me, Sailor Moon was never about romance....
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[Twelve] Snow Halation
Sometimes, we’re all idiots. The second season of Love Live! School Idol Project was full of ups and downs. It was largely unable to maintain the strength of its predecessor, and floundered without...
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[Eleven] The time that I watched the Kill la Kill OVA on a business trip.
Late August of this past year, I was informed that my presence was required at a weekend-long business trip in Oklahoma. Without delving too much into my day job, the majority of my peers are in...
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[Ten] Learning to understand my peers, and Amagi Brilliant Park.
With two days of long meetings, and forced fraternization, coming to a close, my boss rose from his seat at the table. The waning moments of this business trip, he said, were to be spent talking...
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A Story of a Doll and a Snake: Tsukimonogatari
“That is why this is the beginning of the end. About how a human named Koyomi Araragi. About how myself, Koyomi Araragi, is going to end and begin.” -Koyomi Araragi, Tsukimonogatari Koyomi Araragi...
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The Loneliness of an Invisible Storm
One day, while listening to a friend speak about music, he remarked that he often dislikes listening to strings only. He was quick to add that this was a personal preference, but expanded on the...
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The Rolling Girls and Elder Siblings
I’ll never know what it’s like to be a younger sibling. Growing up, my personal heroes were ones well beyond the scope of my immediate family. At their closest, they were charming upperclassmen, and...
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