Or, Whence the Urge to Burn and Protect?
I’ve been having odd thoughts lately, mostly when I walk to and from class — but also in the shower (both places from which ideas emerge). Where does moe come from? That’s the question underlying our work here today. I’m not going to quibble about the definitions of what moe is, I’m going to try to examine where it comes from.
Augh. Obviously, if you bothered paying attention to my efforts to engage in the now-traditional “12 moments” project, you know I failed. Mostly I blame my too-busy semester, during which I watched almost no anime. As my professor (who sometimes reads my blogs — hello, if you’re reading this one!) said, it was indeed true that I had to put my anime blogging aside for the semester. I’m going to try not to take four full classes like that again… it’s, uh, a little extreme.
But you’re not here to listen to me whine (or are you? Maybe we’d get more hits if I just whined about things). I’m going on an adventure through an essay by Robert Scholes called “The Roots of Science Fiction.”
Oh Lord, you’re probably thinking. This again.
Sorry I am late with my first 12 Days post. I had to spend yesterday studying for my final exam, which I took this morning. So here I am, hat in hand, to do two posts in one day — as Pontifus and I are alternating, the even days I’ll be posting here and Pontifus at his site, then the odd days I’ll be at my site and Pontifus here.
So anyway. Rideback.
If a man were porter of Hell Gate…
Fanservice! We all know it, we all, ah, have a strong opinion about it. Is it good, is it bad? Is it neutral? Can we even say that about something so polarizing?
[note: I wrote this back in July. My semester continues terrible, and I should really be reading theory, Dickinson, and James Hogg right now. But I've decided to post this, which is really unfinished. I wanted to make this a post of three sections, examining a show in each. As it is, it works as the beginning of a mini-series, and hopefully once the break arrives I can write parts two and three.]
The Tick protects. . . The City.
Where does Bakemonogatari take place? In a city, that’s in Japan, which is a country in a world that has gods and ghosts. But the city is strange. Not on its own behalf — it’s not a warped place, like Sunnydale or something. It’s stranged for the inhabitants by the events that take place within it. Or really, perhaps it is stranged by the people themselves, making their own surroundings into mystery.
No, it’s not SF.c’s anniversary, or even the anniversary of my adoption into the SF.c gang; it’s a far more important date. On this day my beard is one year of age.
Yes, it’s been hard, and like any relationship ours has gone through its share of rough patches, but we’re still together after a year. It’s remarkable. A lot of people said it would never work.
As the title indicates, this is an addendum of sorts to my last post, which you can find over here: ["A Terrible Darkness"]. At Ghostlightning’s (sort-of) request, I’m revisiting Shin Mazinger and the Gothic in light of the thirteenth episode, “First Love? The Beautiful Lorelei!”
