Christopher Kincaid's Blog, page 41
April 21, 2019
The Firefly’s Lovers
This story was collected around 1887 when the American William Griffis visited Japan. Many of Japan’s early Western visitors during the Meiji period collected and recorded the oral stories they encountered. IN JAPAN the night-flies emit so brilliant a light and are so beautiful that ladies go out in the evenings and catch the insects […]
April 19, 2019
A Look Back at Winter Anime 2019
Lately, I’ve taken to watching current run anime instead of just older stuff. Winter 2019 proved to be a bit of a slow season for me compared to previous seasons. But I found a few that caught my attention. I also watched a few that left me wondering why I spent the time. Others I […]
April 14, 2019
The Relevance of Natsume Soseki for Us Today
Japan’s novelist Natsume Soseki remains relevant for us today. Soseki grew up during the upheaval after the fall of the Shogun and the rise of the Meiji period. He numbered among the first Japanese to live in a Westernized Japan. His experiences of modernization mirror what we experience today with our own transition into attentionization, […]
April 7, 2019
Anime and Manga’s Buff Men and Male Body Image
Much has been said about the impact of commercial images of women with rare or impossible body shapes. Despite all the analysis, little has been done to change this problem. Frankly, it’s because dissatisfied people consume more. If you like who you are, you don’t buy as much makeup, diet plans, gadgets, gizmos, cars, and […]
March 31, 2019
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 […]
March 28, 2019
My Book “Under the Cherry Blossoms: An Introduction to Japanese Tree Folklore” is Available for Free
To celebrate spring, you can download “Under the Cherry Blossoms: An Introduction to Japanese Tree Folklore” for free between Friday, March 29th and Tuesday, April 2nd from Amazon. In the book, I discuss the different types of tree stories you can find in Japanese folklore. You wouldn’t think trees would be exciting, but Japan has […]
March 24, 2019
The Problems with SEO, Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, concerns many anime bloggers just as it does businesses. SEO is a package of techniques that are supposed to attract search engines like Google to your content. The best SEO is supposed to get an article onto the coveted first page of a search. Few Internet users go beyond the […]
March 17, 2019
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 […]
March 10, 2019
Income Inequality Lessons from the Edo Period
Income inequality has been a world-wide concern in recent years. But it isn’t anything new. Unequal distribution of wealth has appeared across history, and we can look toward these periods for lessons. For example, the Italian Renaissance was funded by what we would today call the 1%. Families like the Medici lavished their wealth on […]
March 3, 2019
The Dangers Behind MyAnimeList and Goodreads
We’ve been trained by the so-called free Internet to disregard the value of our information. Although this begins to change, we still don’t think anything about leaving a comment on a YouTube video or keeping our MyAnimeList pages and Goodreads lists updated. Of course, these services are useful. YouTube suggests videos I would miss otherwise. […]
