Christopher Kincaid's Blog, page 2

Robotech Animation Breakdown

Robotech is a classic mashup anime, dating well before moe became the dominate style. The anime is actually a combination of several anime spliced into a single story. This was fairly common in American anime releases back in the day. Robotech comes from an era when television anime had a more limited budget and fewer digital tools to streamline and reduce production costs. So to save money and speed production, animators used many techniques.

For example, this walking animation consists of a f...

What is a Harem?

Anime and manga’s harem subgenre doesn’t share many links with historical harems once you get under the surface. The genre features a group of love interests which surround the protagonist. More specifically, a harem story features a male who is surrounded by females, and a reverse harem features a female who is surrounded by males. Sometimes you will find harem stories with gay or lesbian or even bisexual protagonists, but these tend to be less common. The dynamics of these stories fall into a...

Why Does Anime Focus So Much On Getting Stronger?

The strength of outward courage is like fire; the strength of inner courage is like water. Fire is forceful yet weak, while water is yielding yet so powerful nothing can oppose it. One with outward courage, like fire, has a weakness; one with inner courage, like water, is extremely powerful. –Adachi Masahiro

The most common motif in anime is the theme of getting stronger. The theme appears in overt ways like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Dragon Ball, but it also appears in less overt ways in stor...

Eyes Speak: Understanding Anime Eye Designs

The eyes have it. And by it, I mean our interest, our attention, and even our love. Anime and manga uses eyes as the foundation for character expressions. Eyes dominate most character faces, especially moe characters. Because of the expressiveness of eyes, the dominance is logical. But enormous eyes can unsettle and put off people unfamiliar with anime. Clannad‘s eye designs provide a good example of this. The larger space allows artists to stuff more detail into the eye designs. The detail all...

Insomniacs After School

After I had hit puberty, my ability to sleep through the night disappeared as my circadian rhythm shifted to the “owl” range. This was helped by my work schedule. I worked until 10pm, 11pm, or even midnight on weekends throughout high school. Even now, some 30 years later, I’m a natural owl who is forced to be a robin. Insomniacs After School accurately captures the stress people feel when they can’t follow their natural sleep rhythms. This stress and the misunderstanding the rest of the diurna...

I Started a Substack For Topics I Don’t Cover Here on JP

So I’ve started a Substack to post all my other random essays and short stories that I spare you from here. Most of the essays languishing on my file server focus on Christianity and Zen and where they intersect. Other unrelated essays and short stories will also meander to this Substack, depending on whatever strikes me. So far, I don’t plan to push essays on a weekly schedule. I can’t sustain two weekly sites while working full-time and still writing various books. The Substack is called Nobo...

I Started a Substack For Non-Japan and Anime Essays

So I’ve started a Substack to post all my other random essays and short stories that I spare you from here. Most of the essays languishing on my file server focus on Christianity and Zen and where they intersect. Other unrelated essays and short stories will also meander to this Substack, depending on whatever strikes me. So far, I don’t plan to push essays on a weekly schedule. I can’t sustain two weekly sites while working full-time and still writing various books. The Substack is called Nobo...

The Usefulness of Japanese Proverbs

Proverbs and folklore preserve the wisdom and hard-learned lessons of the common class. Both pass down orally, taking on regional flavors over time until someone comes along and writes them down. Proverbs, because of their pithiness and use of metaphor, tend to remain in regular speech long after folktales become literature. Sometimes proverbs become folded into superstition sayings, such as “See a pin, pick it up, and all day have good luck.” On the surface this seems silly. After all, picking...

Japan’s Rice Shortage Problem

In Japan’s history, rice was once a currency and a commodity. Rice remains a staple grain throughout Japan and Asia. No doubt you’ve heard about Japan facing a shortfall of rice supply against their rice demand, causing prices to rise. But this problem has been gaining momentum since at least 2023 for a variety of reasons. In 2024, the price of a 60kg bag of rice rose to $160, a 55% increase over previous years (Lau, 2025). The shortage didn’t really hit until this year, prompting the Japanese ...

From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincarnated!

Isekai has developed a shojo villainess subgenre where the protagonist is reincarnated or otherwise become the villain in an otome, or female-targeted romance video game. Most often, the protagonist aims to avoid the villainess’s fate in the game, such as My Next Life as a Villainess. In the process, they shift the game’s love interests away from the scripted heroine toward themselves. Most of these shojo games involve a reverse harem.

Now enter From Bureaucrat to Villainess: Dad’s Been Reincar...