Why You Should Watch: Violet Evergarden.

Violet Evergarden is a slice-of-life drama focusing on the title character’s time as a professional letter writer. Orphaned Violet was raised to be a child soldier and ended up losing both her arms on the battlefield; the show catalogues her journey to recovery after the war is over, both physically and mentally.

This show definitely has a slow start. The first couple episodes are a bit uneventful, and you won’t immediately have a connection to any of the characters, least of all Violet who is clearly suffering from emotional trauma and has difficulty communicating with others. But once you learn Violet’s backstory and she starts going on more emotional/serious letter writing errands, you will be captivated.

I don’t think I have ever cried as hard and as often as I did when watching Violet Evergarden, and I cry pretty often at anime already. It’s absolutely heart wrenchingly sad at times. But it is ultimately a story about recovery and reconciliation with one’s past, as well as learning how to love.
The worldbuilding in this show is pretty well done; at first glance it seems like just another fantasy world with made up pseudo-European town names, but the backgrounds and characters are incredibly detailed to the point where visualizing different parts of the country becomes easier as you’re exposed to more information and new characters. And of course, the entire show is beautifully animated. I’m a huge fan of Kyoto Animation, and they never fail to impress when it comes to visuals.

Violet herself is such a great character and one you will definitely grow to love, despite her shortcomings in the beginning. She clearly suffers from PTSD (Posttraumatic stress disorder), as well as extreme feelings of guilt for all the harm and destruction she caused as a soldier. Her hardships in life have affected her to the point where she has to completely restructure how she conducts herself after the war, and everyone who cares about her tries so hard to help her out, which is incredibly heartwarming.

Despite its heartbreaking and sometimes downright depressing episodes, Violet Evergarden is a story about hope and love. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the drama or slice of life genre.

GIRL POWER!

 

I am constantly seeing people (usually men) claim that most women in anime are poorly written and that’s why people tend to dislike those characters. And while there is some merit to that statement, the conversation is a lot more nuanced than you’d think.

Firstly, I would have to agree that in many shonen works, because much of the emphasis is on a male main character’s development and his interactions with other male counterparts, the women in those shows usually end up being delegated to either love interest, plot device, or fanservice. This definitely happens and I’m not going to deny it; Sakura in Naruto is a good example, and I’m sure it’s not difficult to think of others.
However, my two biggest gripes with this attitude is 1. it’s less often a criticism of misogyny in the industry and more used as an excuse to hate on female characters, and 2. it completely ignores the fact that there are a wide variety of genres outside of shonen where women are written perfectly fine.
There is much to criticize about the anime industry, I completely agree and I always encourage it. And I understand that this conversation is very binary when it comes to gender, so that’s something else to consider. That being said, 99% of the time I hear someone say “well anime women are just poorly written”, it follows them saying something about how much they hate Ochako Uraraka from MHA, or Misa Amane from Death Note, or how they don’t have any favorite female anime characters because ‘they’re all bad’.
I’m not gonna lie, Misa really grated on my nerves when I watched that show, and I’m obviously not claiming that disliking a female character makes you a misogynist. But if that is the only time you want to bring up how the women in anime are written, maybe check yourself. Or, expand your horizons!

Something I desperately need people to realize is that other genres such as slice of life, josei, romance, even seinen sometimes are much more likely than shonen to have female characters in the lead. Anime such as Chihayafuru, Love is War, Toradora, and Violet Evergarden to name a few all have complexly written female characters. Even Madoka Magica (which is technically thriller) is very well written and almost the entire cast is made up of young girls.
A lot of this might come from the fact that romance and slice of life are much more likely to have female mangaka/creators behind them, and that is certainly a factor, but it is not the only factor at hand. The majority of Hayao Miyazaki’s Ghibli films feature a strong female lead, and he is a man. A few of the above titles I mentioned are written by men as well. While it is always a benefit to have gender diversity in the writing room, I don’t think manga authors being male is an excuse for them to write female characters poorly.
(This isn’t to say that shonen always has poorly written female characters, either; one of my favorite anime of all time is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood which is categorized as shonen yet is consistently praised for its complex female characters… though it is, you know, written by a woman)

In conclusion, if your statement that ‘female characters are poorly written’ isn’t being used to criticize misogyny in the anime industry, then you really need to do some introspection. Or you know, watch a rom com once in a while.

Review: Horimiya.

Wow.

I know, it sounds okay: high schoolers, relationships, pretty standard, right? I saw a lot of positive buzz for this when it premiered in January 2021, so I expected I would like it, but it only took one episode for me to fall, hard.

It’s so well done: the animation, the story, the characters, the dub script, the voice actors.
What stood out to me was how the characters felt real. The joking, the teasing, the fake arguments that turned into real ones, it all felt like I was hanging out with my friends.How to explain the appeal? It’s a fantastic mix of humor and emotion. It’s not that Hori and Miyamura are trying to be people they’re not at school, it’s just that they have “public” selves and “private” selves. Hori isn’t faking any conviviality in the classroom, but she never volunteers that after school she’s the sole guardian of her kindergarten brother and takes charge of housework and mealtime. Miyamura’s presumed-gloomy demeanor is partially due to his introversion, but is also calculated to help hide his multiple piercings and tattoos that run afoul of strict school dresscodes.

So when they inadvertently let the other see them in their afterschool state, and with Hori’s younger brother enthusiastically attaching himself to Miyamura, they get friendly. And soon, that spills over into school, forging new friendships in the classroom even as they continue to keep their non-school selves apart from existing friends.

And the friends get their own time in the spotlight! The narrative circle expands, first to Hori’s two closest friends, then the student council (who, contrary to normal anime narratives, are not evil or scheming), then to Miyamura’s contacts. And each time I thought, are we finally going to run into a problem? And each time I was wrong.
Because one of the things that impressed me most about Horimiya is the lack of villain. I think it’s worth a minor spoiler: there is no big climax where both protagonists’ private selves are revealed to everyone else. No, the main point, if there is one, is along the lines of accepting one’s public/private selves, and the potential for hurt–but also potential for connection–when you let chosen others see your private self, whether that person is a lover or a friend.

That’s not to say this is a series with no drama or tension. It’s a romcom, not one of those “iyashikei/healing” shows I detest where nothing happens and everything is gentle. But the drama and tension is mostly between decent people and other decent people who are struggling with a crush, or not reacting well to someone else’s actions, or figuring out how to handle their emotions because emotions are hard.

Worth watching? Yes. My gosh, yes. Complete at 13 easily-managed episodes, this is absolutely ranking as one of my favorite things I’ve watched in years.

Is Geto Suguru alive inside his body?

 I'm in an analytical and theoretical mood (to which I'm also lazy to actually check out my resources again). So here is my take on this theory

In this panel we obviously see Geto's body reacting to Gojo's words. It's not as if the body had some kind of muscle memory that reacted once it heard Gojo by like freezing or twitching. It was a very obvious action of Suguru trying to choke Kenjaku/himself to be free and stop being used (like Satoru was saying).

So once that you discard the idea of muscle memory, we hope that Suguru is actually alive inside of his body just not in control. But how? He was supposed to be dead but we don't actually see the moment that Gojo finishes him off or that he finally dies, though by Satoru's reaction at the station we know he believed the man is dead. Then there's two options:

1. Somehow Kenjaku was there when Geto was claimed dead and got in his body then. And Geto was still alive despite the looks so he was trapped with the curse.
2. When Geto's body was discarded (because you know he was in school ground I think) Kenjaku found it and decided he was a good and strong vessel.

In both options Suguru's life would depend on the curse. As we know, his technique is curse manipulation by ingesting them but we don't if he could do the same with curse that inhabited his body. If so, which is what I think, the energy that Kenjaku holds brought him back to life or it's been giving him stenght for over a year.

That covers the theory on how can he be alive plus gives us the hope that he will be able to take back his body if he keeps on feeding from the energy. Because this panel reminds me of this other one of Itadori stopping Sukuna earlier in the manga when he had only eaten one finger. That means that Kenjaku isn't as strong as he could be, giving Suguru the chance of moving his arm.

I imagine that inside of the body there might be a domain (much like Sukuna's in Itadori's body) where they could go against each other and Geto would be able to exorcise the curse.

Just a theory. 

Review last chapter: Haikyuu!!.

 

First of all, Haikyuu is my favorite manga and anime. So, you won't see any negative comments here because the last chapter was all I could ask for. I can’t believe it’s over. I never wanted it to end, but here we are. 8 years and 5 months: this was the duration of Haikyuu.
The final chapter is more like a love letter for us, the fans. This chapter bring back so many characters and gives everyone a send-off that isn't really a send-off, because this chapter is to remind us that, that even the series is over, the characters will continue, even if we as an audience won't get to see them go on.

This chapter is so powerful, is like start from the beginning. They make it to the 2020 Olympics. In fact, Furudate talk about that some years ago and it finally come true. In chapter 401 we can see Hinata and Kageyama with the Japanese volleyball uniform, that blows my mind. There’s a simple kind of beauty in this. I don’t know how to describe some of the parts, because I don’t know how to feel about them ether. Haikyuu is about volleyball, and even the manga is over there will always be more volleyball. 

Being able to watch Hinata grow up like this makes me very happy. I saw all his way, all his falls, stumbles, and achievements, seeing him wear the Japan team uniform as he had always dreamed of, I don't know, it's like a cup of tea in the coldest night of winter.

And we can see Oikawa again. The one who could never reach the national became the principal setter for Argentina’s team. The only thing that came to my mind in that moment is that he deserved that.  Across the manga and the anime, we can see how much he work, how he overworks himself and how frustrated was. But he did, and he is happy. He is really happy.

To be honest, I’m really satisfied about the end, we could see the development of most of the characters, how they are in their adult life. How Tanaka marry Kioko, how Osamu makes her onigiris restaurant, how all of they grew. And how much they still support Hinata.

Haikyuu is not only a sport anime. Haikyuu is more than that. Is about don’t give up, about work hard and make sure you know you can do whatever you want. Is about how to be gentle, how to understand someone’s feelings and thoughts, how to respect that to.

It taught me that I need to continue, no matter the obstacles, no matter the opinions, no matter that everything goes wrong from time to time, the important thing is not to stop, the important thing is to know where I want to go, the important thing is to know that I am capable of to get.

Thank you Furudate sensei, thank you so much.