Kenyons Seminar in Manga and Anime

 moooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo call me cow boi bitches see these hangin on moi all i be doing is mooooooooooo bruh ya be UDDER fooooooooooools  i be pressin pressin pressin al dat cheese fuckin gruyere, swiss, gouda, and brie she be starin at dem curds few and far between me i dont know what you even heard just because i'm a dairy cow don't mean imma she! i be spendin spendin spendin all dat cheese fuckin dollars, pesos, pounds, and rupeees CURD UP YALL. - Sophia & Kenyon //we both really liked Silver Spoon. I started looking at Silver Spoon when you mentioned it in class pretty early on. I really liked it, definitely couldn't look at it and see Full Metal Alchemist which is nice. I learned a lot more about farming then I expected. It was really interesting hearing about the morality of eating meat, how the larger farms were quite a bit less personal compared to smaller farms however both loved thei

First off I'm a salmon avocado roll. 1. I really liked this story. I think its length was perfect, overall though I found it somewhat sad. Maybe it was because of how it was drawn, or because there for most of the story nothing good really happened I just found the whole thing somewhat depressing. This could also be because I'm ending my college time, I'm actually going to become a real adult that this story spoke to me. How you can't be a kid forever but also that you can. I don't totally know but I did really enjoy reading it. 2. I was definitely able to connect to the general theme of growing up that I found in the story. As artists, I feel like we walk a fine edge between adulthood and childhood all the best stories and imaginative ideas I think come from a place in our heads that we've always had but was most active during the younger years. I also related to how Ildeung experience with grades and expectations, though I never have been as intense as stu

So I had never seen Akira, and oh my god I didn't know what I was missing out on. Though the movie was pretty confusing in some points it was awesome, whoever did the fx on the film needed a raise. I can totally see how Akira was the driving force for anime being brought to the west. I plan on reading the manga for it to actually understand the story better. I don't think I've seen a Sci-fi that told the age-old warning that technology can become bad in a better way then Akira. Also, the overall civic unrest along with how it ended makes this movie a great critic of how the world was moving forward. It was awesome.

I have watched quite a few Isekai over the years starting of course with Inuyasha then going on to see Re: Zero, Sword Art Online, and Log Horizon. I never looked at That Time I Reincarnated as a Slime before though, I really like how Slime has evolved on some of the cliches of Isekai. How they didn't just transport into another realm but also changed races, also how it feels very video game-like, however, isn't an actual video game. I do wish some of the characters were a little bit deeper but I guess for this type of show that's not really what it's going for, also I could do with less fan fair but again this is a cliche for Isekai. Overall it's fun and I plan on continuing to view it. 

The Shoujo I decided to read was Our Precious Conversations, which was pretty much a random pick from my Crunchyroll manga reader. It is a Shoujo revolving around romances however in a somewhat meta approach where the book constantly insults shoujo romances. I can definitely see this targeted at young girls, around the age of middle schoolers as the people in the book fit the same age, I think this book though also has some of its targets be for boys as you also experience thought through the main male character.  A lot of the ideas this work pushes are positive for young people, like just overall niceness and being accepting of people for how they are. This definitely is not my favorite book ever but it has a nice sense of innocents and youth that I found refreshing.

I really liked Oishinbo, food manga is always fun and interesting to read. Oishinbo was especially cool because it really teaches you techniques and recipes in a fun way. I really enjoy how Oishinbo explores important things around food as well, such as the importance of the plates in Japanese cuisine, and the long process of making chopsticks. Oishinbo even got me wanting to make some miso soup, I probably did a lot of things wrong but it was quite fun. I was running low on tofu so used tofu puffs, and the dashi was just kombu dashi with daikon to keep it vegan.

For this week I read My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. I really liked this manga its drawn really interesting and simple, however its theme is anything but that. Featuring dialog on depression and self confidence, it's very relatable however still entertaining to read. The exploration of sexuality was very naturally done. I liked My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness so much I continued to My Solo Exchange Diary, I liked this even more. My Solo Exchange Diary really felt like was just listening to someone talk, it was very human. I've always enjoyed books like this, they've always felt almost like making a new friend. I plan on continuing to read My Solo Exchange Diary.

Shonen is probably the type of manga I am most familiar with. My first manga I ever read was Ranma 1/2, having not read this in quite a long time I reread it, it's still is one of my all time favorite Shonen's. I really enjoy how it differs from many of the Shonen I've seen because of the amount of romance that is also present in Ranma 1/2. It does follow many of the same themes of other Shonen, such as having the main character "level up" in their fighting abilities and have mini villain arcs. Ranma having the ability to turn into a girl definitely makes this manga unique, this ability is used a huge amount in this manga to lead to funny and cool situations. I think having Ranma switching gender lets this Shonen be more approachable by girls.

For this week I read Princess Jellyfish. I have read romance or off romance manga in the past, but I haven't read one like Princess Jellyfish. I really liked what I've read so far of it and plan finishing it, I may switch to the anime just for easier viewing but I don't know. I love when manga explores unconventional things in genres and Kuranosuke cross dressing but still being the girly girl was a very cool switch up. Kura is almost the opposite to the girls living in the apartment in almost every way, he's rich, they're poor, he's more girly, they're not traditionally girly, but they each learn from each other and grow. 

I do not usually read horror manga so this topic is very refreshing to me. I have watched and learned about western horror movies and I really enjoy how different the Japanese take on horror is. Reading Itou Junji I noticed how Japanese manga horror does not follow the western horror conventions much at all. Sometimes there is a monster and an innocent however the tales I enjoyed the most were the ones where a super natural force acted on the people. My favorite story I read was Falling mostly because it had pretty much no conclusion or wrap up at the end and really got me thinking on the events in the story. It would be horrific to be in that town and I totally see how people could become angry just because the events happening are so out of the peoples control they just become helpless. I plan on exploring horror manga much more in the future. 

Nausicaa Of the Valley of the Wind is the first movie I ever remember watching, my dad would find bootleg translated versions of Ghibli movies from Thailand. Studio Ghibli is a very important influence on my overall style and beliefs I have today.  The manga for Nausicaa is incredible, one of my top 10 favorites of all time. It's so much more intense than the movie diving deep into this incredible world Miyazaki has made. When Teto dies from the radiation of the god warrior I cried, I'm very glad a class like this exists so more people can read Nausicaa's story and learn and relate to her character in a way that influences them. 

I haven't read much Gekiga except for maybe Lupin III. I really like this style it's open and raw however melodramatic and fun. Cigarette girl is one of my favorite things I've ever read its funny but relatable and doesn't have as of putting charters as something like Golgo 13 though I do enjoy that type of story quite a bit. Cigarette Girl brought something to manga that I haven't personally experienced before and will be looking forward to explore more with further reading.

Ive heard of Astro Boy for ever however I've never learned who actually wrote it, and how much of an influence they've had on manga. Osamu Tesuka's stories are awesome having read Astro Boy a couple of time over the past decade or so, and now learning about his old works his depth of work is awe inspiring. Reading the first volume of Phoenix I couldn't put it down. Phoenix touches on many adult subject matter in a digestible way that lets the reader think on the subject of the reading without having a clear cut meaning pushed onto them. I will definitely be reading more Tesuka.