Columns

Dear DC,

You started over.  No one can go back and read anything to clarify things.  You have superheroes with tons of power: Stormwatch is incredibly surreal and abstract and Batman owns an international crime fighting company with half a dozen sidekicks.  These aren’t things we can just jump into and understand. We need to be eased into a universe where the forces of good and evil span multi-verses, and especially when gorillas have their own invisible city.

With constant updates from Viz’s Neon Alley, it shows how much they hope for this kind of anime distribution will work out. In a sense, it is something that is good for anime fans across the United States, whether they show the particular shows they are into. Online distribution such as Neon Valley, Crunchy Roll, and even Funimation are not only a great way to get the product out to the audience, but to show that there are people out there who are excited towards anime.

At the end of the season, it’s more difficult than ever for a show to mess with the audience’s expectations. We know the setup, the stakes, and the characters as well as we possibly can, so there’s only so much room for big surprises. Will the hero foil the villain’s evil plan? Probably. Who will be killed off? Not anyone who’s already had their contract renewed! Will sets that they don’t need for season two be blown up? You’d better believe it! But in between, Arrow does an admirable job of bringing everything together with a few zigs and zags along the way.

With Mother’s Day rolling around, it’s interesting to think about the influence of mother’s in anime. While it is typical to not see parents in most anime these days, the ones that do show up usually have a strong influence on our protagonists. With Attack on Titan, while Eren’s mother is only seen for a short period of time in the first episode, it is her untimely fate which gives him the motivation to keep on fighting the titans.