On Thursday, July 18th 41-year-old Shinji Aoba entered the front door of Kyoto Animation with gasoline and set the building on fire. The fire killed 33 and injured more than 30 (Romo, 2019; Associated Press 2019). Twenty of the 33 were women. They were trapped in a stairwell leading to the roof of the building….
Tag: Anime
JapanPowered isn’t just about anime (even if the bulk of it is). You can find all different types of anime in this section.
The Visual Depiction of Taste – Food Wars
I enjoyed watching Iron Chef back in the day, but when I first saw a Food Wars preview on Crunchyroll, I had little interest in it. As you likely know (if you’ve followed JP for any length of time), I don’t like fan-service. It stops anime from being more widely accepted in the West (of…
Kaguya-sama: Love is War Actually Made Me Laugh
I’m not one for comedies, anime or otherwise. They usually strike me as dumb and trying too hard. My sense of humor leans toward satire and slap stick like Takeshi’s Castle (if you haven’t seen it, go watch an episode on YouTube right now!). When I saw Kaguya-sama come out in Crunchyroll, I decided to…
The Ancient Magus Bride and Being Alone
The animation style of The Ancient Magus Bride caught my attention, but its themes grabbed my thoughts. The show has a sense of wonder to it. Magic is a wonderful–sometimes dangerous–but always awe-inspiring part of the world. Through magic, the lonely Chise comes to know the strange magician Elias. At its heart, The Ancient Magus…
Reveling in the Ridiculous: Anime is Tame
Despite how odd anime and manga appears, with their fan service and visual language and odd stories, they’re tame compared to Japan’s literature. I spend a fair bit of time beating up on fan-service, but fan-service doesn’t compare to shunga and the woodblock print books from the Edo period. Manga has roots in ukiyo-e, or…
Examining the Rising of the Shield Hero Controversy
Well, it looks like anime has another controversy on the order of Goblin Slayer’s episode 1 content issue. Across various review websites, such as MyAnimeList, people have spoke out against Rising of the Shield Hero because of a plot device used in the first episode. Rising of the Shield Hero looks to be yet another isekai…