You should probably expect this from me every once in a while — that is, in this post I am going to trace some of the Gothic tropes in Shin Mazinger Z. The Gothic is sort-of my thing — or it’s becoming so. Seriously, though, it all makes sense. Trust me.
Actually, it’s the seventh, but I figure now’s as good a time as any to stop numbering them and just admit they’re a (semi-)regular feature. Woo!
Anyhow, this time I’m doing an essay called “Coming to Terms” by Gary K. Wolfe. It’s short, so hopefully I can get this entry done before the scourging weather wipes my house out of the valley in which it nestles.
If you’re following at home, you’ll already know that I started Aria: the Animation. And I just finished it. I know there’s a bunch more of it, but I dunno when I’ll finish it — if I learned one thing (and I’d like to think I learned several, but still), it’s that I can’t really shotgun Aria. You ever eat so much candy that, while still hungry, the thought of sugar makes you ill? It doesn’t mean the candy is any worse, you just really need a steak. That’s sorta what happened to me, though luckily each day found me ready for more. Sleeping off the sugar crash works, it turns out. Anyway, this post might ramble all around a bunch of different topics, but if you’re okay with that, let’s get started.
I’ve recently been badgering nearly everyone I know with this quandary I’ve landed myself in: how does science fiction work, and what does that mean for my study of anime? (go all the way to the end, it has a happy conclusion)
Maka says, Read a book! Or she'll take your soul.
It’s been quite a while since I posted anything worthwhile. I suppose it’s possible that will continue after today, but whatever. This is a little different from most of the AiC entries, as I’m going to post a piece I wrote for my SF literature class. It is much in the vein of the AiC posts, sort-of; that is, when he gave us grad. students the assignment (we’re crashing an undergrad. course), he said it was a completely arbitrary assignment that would never be published anywhere. We’re meant simply to respond to two critical essays he gave us. I riffed on them in the way I will, sometimes, and have no idea if it’s what he wants to see. I’m turning it in tomorrow, so we’ll see. But I just wrote the last paragraph and I’d talked to Pontifus about posting it when it was finished. It is. So, uh, woo. The essays are “On the Origins of Genre” by Paul Kincaid and “Science Fiction and Literature — or, the Conscience of the King” by Samuel Delany. (Kincaid’s most recent book is up for a non-fiction Hugo this year, by the way.)