Christopher Kincaid's Blog, page 12

Berserk Deluxe Volumes 3 & 4

In Berserk Deluxe volumes 3 and 4, the criticisms I had with the previous volumes fall away. In these volumes, Griffith fades into the background. His influence remains as a background mover of the plot, but his fading gives space for Guts to take the spotlight. In my previous reviews, I wrote about how Guts acted as a supporting character rather than a protagonist. I also wrote about his meat-headed tendencies. Thankfully, these two volumes make great strides in remedying what I saw as deficie...

Enders Lilies: Fun, Difficulty,Beauty, and Lessons

Enders Lilies stands a a beautiful game, but it became too hard for me at the end. Enders follows a young, pure priestess as she works to purify the horrors caused by the Blight, a mysterious energy and rain that corrupts people. To combat these undead, the kingdom turns the Blight into a weapon. The kingdom finds a way to infect people with the Blight to make them immortal but slowly the Blight robs them of their self. The White Priestess has the ability to purify people of this Blight, freein...

The Book of Bushido by Antony Cummins

The Book of Bushido by Antony Cummins summarizes the landscape of bushido history and thought. Cummins touches on the contradictions found in the various writings that form bushido. He explains that the ideas we call bushido weren’t a philosophical system. Rather, each region and time period had their own set of rules, ideas, and aspirations which were later unified and smoothed over into what we now call bushido.

Most of us are familiar with the famed ideals of the samurai: don’t tell lies, be...

Gift Ideas for the Anime/Manga Fan in Your Life

Gift giving can be difficult. Sure, you could fall back to a gift card, and while few dislike gift cards, there’s not as much thought or feeling in them as with a selected gift. Giving a gift that aligns with a person’s interests provides a nice way to support those interests too. I will start with subscriptions, which are a great way to give a gift all year long and move toward stuff you may have not considered.

Subscriptions

TokyoTreat

Each month, a TokyoTreat box arrives in the mail with a d...

Is Bigfoot a Yokai?

Bigfoot, also known as Sasquatch and Grassman, can be found in Native American folklore and in modern sightings. I know many people who have seen Bigfoot or something like it. Not far from my hometown, History Channel filmed a documentary about the Grassman version of Bigfoot. I’ve been all over those forests and had seen nothing except deer and bobcats and some Grassman hunters.

According to Britannica, Sasquatch is “a large, hairy, humanlike creature believed by some people to exist in northw...

Berserk Deluxe Volume 2 Review

Berserk Deluxe Volume 2 covers the “Golden Age”, “Nosferatu Zodd”, and other arcs. As fans of the series told me, Berserk hits its stride with the “Golden Age”, but I didn’t find Guts to be the reason. Griffith steals the show in this arc. He presents a good foil for Guts. Griffith is a bundle of contradictions: genteel yet savage, courtly yet an everyman, manipulative yet caring. He looks to the future. Contrast him with Guts who is damaged, intelligent yet doesn’t use that intelligence, uncou...

Small History and Big History

History has two different and related types: small and big. Big history is what you learn in school. It’s the major events of the past: the American Revolution, World War II, the Thirty-Years War, Sengoku Jidai, and so on. Big history usually has some sort of date you needed to memorize. Small history sits on the ground. It’s the personal stories that interact with big history. Big history influences small history, and small history pushes big history.

Big history has many people writing about ...

Summer 2023 Anime Review Round Up

New anime seasons don’t always interest me. I usually look through the new releases on various streaming platforms, but I don’t follow the release schedule. I don’t use MyAnimeList or anything of the sort. Usually, I read through the descriptions of new releases and give the first episode a watch if the description grabs my attention. Now, I have a high tolerance for bad films. I grew up watching Mystery Science Theater, and few anime approach MSTK’s level of bad stories. Sometimes I will watch ...

6 Ways to Date Like a Samurai

Okay, the title of this article is a bit misleading. Samurai didn’t date as we do; they had arranged marriages. But there are many stories of samurai romances and dating in Japanese folklore. Although samurai were warriors, until the Edo period, they were expected to balance their war-skills with softer skills like flower arranging and poetry.

A person who has not studied poetry is the poorer for this lack, and thus one should study it. One should always be genteel in his speaking. A man who sho...

My 2023 Horror Film List, Snacks Provided by TokyoTreat

When I saw TokyoTreat had a Halloween box, I didn’t hesitate to request one. October is one of my favorite months because of the shift to autumn, at least when the weather behaves, and the spooky season. It’s the first month since March when I feel better. Heat makes me feel terrible. So to celebrate, I decided to spend the month watching horror films.

TokyoTreat, if you aren’t aware, is a subscription service that brings boxes of Japanese treats to your door. Most of these treats aren’t readil...