“I’m ok with just being ok.” Monsters University and Pixar’s Talent Manifesto

source: OxyG3n at Confessions Of a Disturbed!

Pixar’s poetry lies in the mixing of pain with sweetness. What I love about some of their films is that there’s a true sense of heartache that fuels them underneath the mirth.  Across fourteen feature films there have been several narratives they’ve explored, occasionally more than once; love and loss, parenthood, religion, self-improvement. The theme that strikes me as the most inherently interesting—and the most unusually brave considering its status as children’s fare—is the ongoing musing of talent vs. mediocrity.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Part 1: Beginnings

source: Pixiv

When we’re presented the same story in different contexts, we’re made privy to different things. Our perception of stories is at the mercy of the medium, the storyteller, the point of view, or the order in which it’s seen. Many variables affect presentation, which in effect alter the outcome of what we receive. Puella Magi Madoka Magica the television series was ostensibly about magical girls engaging the forces of evil through the use of powers acquired in a magical contract. The first Puella Magi Madoka Magica movie, while containing the same characters and housing the same plot as the first eight episodes of the television series, is more specifically a classic Greek Tragedy borrowing freely from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

It is the story of the inevitable downfall of Sayaka Miki.

The Ani(ca)me(ra) and Lensing a Critical Lens

It’s more than likely that, in the recent past, you’ve seen a film. It’s equally likely that you’ve watched an episode of anime. It likely wouldn’t surprise you if I were to state that both have much in common. This, we assume, is a given; both are distinctly visual media. After all, in spite of their numerous differences (voice-acting, acting, audience), what strikes us first and foremost is that the objects of fascination in both are images. We don’t read, we don’t listen, and we don’t even partake in; we saw, we’ve seen, we’ll see^[1].

Ashita Dorobou and Manic Pixie Dream Girls

One night, bored and trawling the web for reading material, I landed a seinen romantic comedy that promised the addition of laser-beam-firing alien antics. A recently completed four volume series, so far 13 scanlated chapters of Ashita Dorobou exist in English. While those chapters deliver on the promised romantic shenanigans and alien antics, it is the relationship between the protagonist and his ex-girlfriend that sparked my curiousity, for in the very first chapter I noticed the resemblance to that newly-coined romantic trope, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Colloquium: Lupin III – The Woman Called Fujiko Mine Episode 1 (NSFW)

“Now, stop what you’re doing. And look upon me as your heart beats fast.”

ajthefourth: Warning! This post will contain NSFW images. If you are at work, you probably shouldn’t read this post. Why?

Because, if one thing could be said about this series, it’s that Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine is sexy.

Sexy in a way that one rarely sees; in a dangerous manner that is as provocative as it is alluring. This series isn’t meant to make you comfortable, just as the promise of intercourse, at first blush, is hardly something comforting. It’s meant to make your toes curl, your knees quiver, your breath catch, and your heart rate quicken instinctively when you see something like this: