The ‘Make It Anime’ Tag

So, uhh it’s been a while since I’ve done a ‘tag’ post, mostly because I’ve been either too busy or too lazy or too forgetful to indulge them! But this one… this one stuck in my brain space for a while and made me think about what I like about anime and what I dislike about conventional Western media. So you know, just standard weeb thoughts y’all! Anyway on with the rules and stuff, thanks to magicconan of The Animanga Spellbook for nominating me!

Rules:

• Thank the person who nominated you and link back to their blog post.
• Choose 1 book, movie and TV show of your choice that you think could work as an anime. (A series of books or movies is allowed e.g. Lord of the Rings, Hunger Games)
  • If you want to pick more than 1 from each section that’s fine. Or if you can’t think of one for a specific category that’s fine also.
• Explain why you think your choices could work as an anime. Maybe the advent of animation would enhance it, maybe the different anime genres could help expand and improve the story. Just go crazy with it.
• Link back to the original post (this post) so I can read people’s suggestions, I’d love to read everyone’s ideas.
• Include Make it Anime in your tags so everyone including myself can find them all easily.
• Nominate around 5-10 bloggers.

And now it begins…

Book Into Anime

I don’t read many books, in fact I can count on one hand the amount of books I’ve read from start to finish… yes it’s that bad. (For the sake of this I don’t count manga as books as I’ve read 100’s if not thousands of manga!) But still to this day, despite my reservations about the author, my favourite book is ‘The Name Of The Wind’ by Patrick Rothfuss. But it’s not because it’s my ~favourite~ that I picked it, it’s because where else but in anime would you be allowed to have a red-headed male character be the protagonist! Certainly not in Hollywood!

Everyone’s favourite male redhead (or maybe just mine).

Movie Into Anime

Oh boy. Too many to choose from really! I mean for me the benefit of anime over a stand-alone movie will always be the freedom to explore and elaborate and so for that simple reason one of the only movies I want to see expanded and explored in an anime is Inception. Dreams and nightmares and the world of the unconscious lend themselves so well to the animated art form that I can only imagine some sort of ‘Ergo Proxy’-esque series set within the world of dreams and for it to be not anything like ‘Paprika’ would be a bonus (sorry if you liked ‘Paprika’)…

I wonder what she’s dreaming about.

TV Show Into Anime

There’s so many TV shows out there whose scope is limited only by the budget of a live action TV series and thus would benefit from an anime adaptation. But let’s not forget the real reason many (mostly myself) are watching anime–and it’s because of the relentless fan service. And what TV show projected more fan service by its name alone (and that unforgettable slo-mo theme) than Baywatch! I mean I never watched a single episode of the show (it’s true, 3D girls have cooties after all) but it’s practically the only live action show to prominently feature “jiggle physics” and that alone nominates it for fan-service stardom. Plus there’s male lifesavers too so this could be the perfect opportunity, not seen since Food Wars, to equalise the fan-service between men and women! Imagine! A show where male and female perverts can watch together in harmony~ this is the true Utopian ideal!

Any excuse to include this gif.

And there’s my 3 picks! Bet you didn’t expect those (or maybe you did, if so good for you for being psychic)! So now I’ve got to nominate some bloggers to participate, if you’ve already been nominated or don’t want to participate no worries!

Rose
Fred
Dewbond
Lumi
Crow

Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed this post as much as I did writing it!

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Your Name. – 20 Question Anime Review

What’s the—movie?! Oh! We’re reviewing movies now?! That’s cool! Yes! Anime movies!

Of course it’s anime, god forbid we review something I’ve heard of… So what’s the movie? Your Name. (2016)

Oh wait, I actually have heard of this movie! Yeah, it got all sorts of great reviews! I definitely remembering hearing about it! That doesn’t surprise me, this was one of those crazy popular hits that seemed to slightly crossover into the mainstream consciousness. Like even outside of anime circles too.

Wow, so this must be some amazing stuff then?! Eh, it’s okay.

Wait, what?! Just “okay” b—but the reviews? And the popularity? I mean I get it, it’s not like I’m so out of touch that I don’t understand why it got to such lofty heights within the zeitgeist but sometimes things that get insanely popular only do so because they tap into something broadly relatable rather than being something nuanced and well thought out.

I felt the same way the first time I went to Shinjuku.

You mean like how Titanic was the highest grossing, most Oscar winning film of its time and then some years later people realised it was pretty overrated? I don’t know why you think I’d ever have seen ‘Titanic’—whatever that is—but yes, “overrated” is an apt descriptor, or rather… actually I think I’ve found a better analogy.

Right, I’m waiting… It’s like whatever your favourite fast food is, for me its McDonalds, I love it when I’m eating it, it’s delicious, and it’s exactly what I wanted! But it’s not like it’s a masterpiece, it’s not like its life changing or worth raving about, it’s something that satisfies but is ultimately unremarkable in hindsight—at least for me.

I get what you’re saying but some people do think this movie is the best anime movie, even with time having passed and hindsight taken into account. Yeah and there’s those who McDonalds or whatever fast food they love, is all they want out of food, and then there’s those who seek more depth and complexity and nuance and originality. (Also not trying to say you’re an uncomplicated person if you love this film, my irl waifu loves this film).

I thought they were going to go a certain way with the film when I saw this scene and I was disappointed when they didn’t.

Oh I get it now! You’re an anime hipster! Wait, what? No that’s not—

—No, that’s exactly it, this thing got crazy popular and you wanted to have a dissenting opinion to try and be different. I fail to see how disagreeing with a common consensus makes me a hipster, besides I never said it was bad film, I just said it was “okay”.

But with this film saying it’s just “okay” is the equivalent of calling it bad. Well I’m not going to disagree with that.

So what’s it about anyway? It’s about a high-school boy living in Tokyo and a high school girl many thousands of miles away living in a rural village, when each of them go to sleep they wake up in the others body! There’s more to it then that of course, but saying any more would go into spoiler territory, the best thing I will say for this film is that it benefits from going in unspoiled. I managed to avoid any and all spoilers so at least I had the mystery going ahead, but even then…

I lol’d.

Hang on a second, be right back. What? *sigh* whatever, take your time…

*107 minutes later* This movie is amazing, you don’t know what you’re talking about! Wait, what?! You watched it? You. You watched an anime film?

It transcends anime; it’s so soulful and powerful! It’s derivative and simplistic and contrived and has plot holes as big as the hole in—

No, no! No spoilers! You said it yourself the movie is best without spoilers! This makes this review even harder to write, you know?

A lot of the time the pacing of this film felt more like a trailer, which really took me out of it.

I feel like you need to specify what you do like about this film, this review has been too negative so far. Positive, huh? Well it’s probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing anime films I’ve ever seen. The visuals aren’t creative or complex or imaginative but they’re still beautiful and evocative… huh, guess I just inadvertently found another analogy for the film itself there!

Aha, and the characters? They are good; I mean the girl is about a hundred times more interesting than the male protagonist. The movie is all the more interesting when it’s about her, or when she’s inside him. Actually now that I think of it, both characters are a lot more quirky and interesting when the other person is inside them, I wonder what that says about identity and gender norms, probably more than I’m able to skilfully articulate, especially since the review’s almost over.

This seems dangerous.

Anything else you wanted to bash—I mean add? Ahem, just that I think there are simultaneously too many ideas and not enough thought put into any of them to make the story feel cohesive or compelling. It wants to do so many things that it feels more like a full season of a show, shortened down to movie length. Where there should be carefully considered explanations or backstory or character development instead is choppy and mishandled plot points served up with serious pacing issues.

Final score and recommendation? Yes, I recommend it, but then again everybody’s probably already seen it and made up there mind on it. I don’t think it’s deserving of the success it got, but at the same time I realise that there’s no point bemoaning it for being successful, the more anime films that get recognised by a wider audience the better. It’s a stunningly beautiful thing to look at, there are some laughs to be had, especially with the body swap scenes, and there’s certainly some interesting ideas but it’s ultimately too ‘incomplete’ of an experience for me. 70 out of 100.