Japanese has around 1,200 onomatopoeia divided into 3 families (Kadooka, 2009.; Inose,n.d. ). That’s around 3x more than English has. Onomatopoeia are words used to represent calls of animals, sounds of nature, sounds of people, and other sounds (Alilyeh & Zeinolabedin, 2014). Luckily, manga doesn’t use all of these sound words. However, it’s common for manga…
Category: Understanding Anime
Symbols of Summer: Power Lines and Cicadas in Anime
Have you wondered why anime shows power lines with cicada chirping in the background? Power lines and cicadas seem to be a strange association, but for many, overhead power lines are a part of home. They are a common sight in Japanese towns and cities . Unlike many countries where power grids are underground, the…
The Ending of Samurai Champloo
Samurai Champloo is one of the reasons why I like anime. It was one of my first exposures to anime for better or worse. It is hard to enjoy Hershey’s chocolate bars after eating Swiss chocolate. I watched Samurai Champloo before Cowboy Bebop. Perhaps this shapes my opinion of the show, but Samurai Champloo is…
Musings II: Magical Girls, or, Empowerment VS Sexism
Magical Girls puzzle me; they make me feel intrigued and desperate at the same time. That is not just because of my, admittedly, relatively limited experience with shōjo (‘[for] girls’) anime genres – until recently, I preferred adventure fantasy, which is sadly, but undoubtedly, shōnen (‘[for] boys’) material of the most popular order. No, Magical…
Objectification of Women in Anime
Where does enjoying beauty become objectifying? What does it mean to objectify a woman? A man? Does anime do it? What does it mean to objectify someone? Objectification is defined as when a person is regarded as an object. There are 10 aspects to objectification (Papadaki, 2014). I will use Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion…
Kill la Kill: A Masterful Subversion of Fan Service
Kill la Kill, at first glance, looks like one of those shows designed for horny teen boys by a horny teen boy. Nearly naked women battle each other for the pleasure of male onlookers. Only Kill la Kill has far more to it than that. I will be honest. At first watch, this anime made…