It’s time to finally make that announcement about Reference Resource Mondays that you all might have been thinking about if you’ve been looking for it every morning and not seeing it since last month.
It is no longer going to be run every week.
Simply, I haven’t been reading blogs as often as I should be. I’ve mostly been focused on A) Internal stuff on the site B) Life in general C) catching up to anime and manga that I’ve left for dead for weeks. Just when I think I’m out of the woods on that end, I end up choosing to not go read articles. And thus, I miss out on articles that have been worked on for weeks.
And that sucks.
Not everything I read is great, or even good, but then there are a few that stand out and are interesting, thoughtful reads, and I would love for you to read them, even if it draws you away from this site for a bit. There are interesting writers out there, it’s just a case of finding where they are and, once you find them, highlighting their efforts.
So, I’m simply doing RRM every two weeks. I have fantastic articles that I’ve read and want to share with you involving anime, manga, etc. So I will continue to do that, I just hope consistently.
Now let’s get into this week’s RRM!
- Here’s a fascinating talk between Naoki Urasawa and a former Shonen Jump artist who stopped because drawing weekly was hell.
- Illogicalzen, on Hibike! Euphonium and what it tells us about the pressures of high school life:
“Outward harmony is preserved in many different ways. While in the West a person is supposed to have opinions, which he or she voices in public, in Japan, opinions, if held at all, are kept to oneself, or carefully blended with those held by others. This is not entirely unique to Japan, and even in the West there are plenty of situations and places where personal opinions are best kept private, or potentially create significant friction, alongside other problems. However, the Japanese language is structures in such a way that it sounds as if one is constantly seeking agreement. Even a contradiction will start with a phrase like: ‘You’re absolutely right, of course, but…’ so, although the Japanese can privately disagree, conflict is hidden behind a bland veil of politeness. And when serious differences do come to the fore, they often lead to emotional crises ending in a complete rupture of the group.”
- I’ve seen people suggest using VPNs to watch anime in region-locked places. Here’s why it, in this case, won’t help bring anime in the Philippines.
- Here’s an article by Kathyrn that shows how Shoujo manga has influenced people in the West, despite the low sales totals and lack of English editions.
- This is, believe it or not, one of the things you need to know about the Trigger panel at AnimeNEXT:
“OK! Lets deal with the most important part of the whole panel: A new episode of Inferno Cop in which is a Inferno Cop and Little Witch Academia cross over.
It is the combination we never thought of but always needed.”
- I’m confident that I didn’t link to this article merely because of the picture you’ve seen at the top, but mostly because it addresses people and them saying they’ve phased out of manga.
- Goldy explains that despite the position of a voice actors, hey, they’re not that much different than you:
“….having to sign all day, take pictures, talk, and probably hug or shake hands with 100+ people every day is tiring and the last thing they want to do is be asked again after all that for more autographs, pictures, etc. on your way to dinner or your hotel room to sleep. Is that the cost of being famous? No, it shouldn’t be. VAs don’t have to come to cons to meet their fans, but they want to because it makes them happy to see their fans happy.
But really, you don’t need to see the behind the scenes thing to still respect voice actors at a convention as fellow humans who are making the world a little brighter with their voices.”
- If you want to know what’s going on with Satoshi Kon’s The Dreaming Machine, Madhouse, and working with Mamoru Hosoda and Hayao Miyazaki, then you need to read this interview that Ink did.
- Finally, why do grown people spend money on characters that are either made to be desirable by nature or too kiddy for school? Yes, I’m talking about anime pillows and figures!
Your Turn!
If you would like, I encourage you to send me your own articles, tweets, or videos of interesting stuff to me so I can highlight it in the next RRM. You can either send it by email, Twitter, or Facebook.