Christopher Kincaid's Blog, page 20

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun Review

Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun surprised me. As long-time readers know, it’s a rare comedy to make me chuckle. Kaguya-sama: Love is War is one of the most recent surprises. Monthly dates back to 2013, but appeared on my Netflix feed, so I gave it a watch. More fodder for JP, after all. I expected the usual…

Using Anime to Heal

To say the past two years of 2020-2022 has been difficult for many people doesn’t do justice. Many people have lost loved ones, suffered mental difficulties, lost income, and suffered through many other trials. Sometimes, you just need to take time to heal. If you are a long-time reader, you know I’m an advocate for…

The Delicate Happiness of “The Guest Cat”

The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide focuses on a childless couple who is adopted by the neighbor’s cat. The novella offers a detailed slice of life set in the late 1980s. It’s hard to believe that is over 30 years ago! The author isn’t familiar with cats, so Chibi’s antics surprise and delight him. Chibi doesn’t…

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang

The Rape of Nanking covers the destruction of present-day Nanjing City by the Japanese during World War II. The book doesn’t hold back. In several chapters, I had to take a break from the relentless atrocities the author accounted. Nanking was the first area the Japanese went after taking Shanghai. The goal was to conquer…

No More Wars: the Edo Period’s Final Rebellions

After Japan was unified under Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and finished with Tokugawa Ieyasu, the Tokugawa government declared there would be no more wars. The final war is a two-part rebellion of Christian samurai, farmers, and other impoverished people. The second part of the rebellion remains the best remembered because of how it ended in…

Sugoi Summer – TokyoTreat Box Review

Ichigo, the parent company of SakuraCo and TokyoTreat, asked me to review a TokyoTreat box. If you aren’t familiar with TokyoTreat, it’s a monthly subscription service that sends you a curated box of candy and other goodies from Japan. Most of the goodies aren’t readily available elsewhere or, as is often the case, you didn’t…

The Nature of Online Piracy

You’ve most likely broken the law by downloading something illegally. In fact, more than an estimated 75% of computers have at least one illegally downloaded file, and 22% of Internet bandwidth is used for piracy (Petrescu, 2018). Scanlations and fan subs are common in the anime community. And yes, they are piracy. Online piracy is…

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie

Shikimori’s Not Just a Cutie addresses interesting themes. Let’s get to them! But first, the summary for those who haven’t seen the anime yet. Not Just a Cutie follows the high school relationship between a boy named Izumi Yuu, who is cursed with bad luck–as in things-fall-and-try-to-kill-him bad luck, and Shikimori, who is an assertive…

11 Steps to Stop Being an Incel

Incels, or involuntary celibates, are men with an unhealthy view of women and of life. Many, of course, would disagree with that statement. They view themselves as more aware of reality. However, the thoughts are self-destructive and can even lead to violence. Some people would say the best way to stop being an incel is…

Site Tweaks

After Google downgraded JP’s listing in search (as Google does every so many years), I decided to review JP’s configuration. I’ve made a few behind-the-scenes tweaks to, hopefully, make JP load faster for everyone. I made sure to give smartphone readers extra attention. Some features have been disabled for you to speed up load times,…