Just some free wheeling thoughts.

1. Eventing is expensive, but it is a good stress relief for me.
2. Unfortunately eventing causes backlogs on my weekly viewing. I’m slowly breaking them down, but I really need to prioritize Hinamatsuri, so it’s up next. When I went to Japan last month and saw Rietion do her solo stuff, it was really good that I had been up to date on Hinamatsuril. It also had been good that I was fond of the show, and her character Anzu. It made the event just that much more better. But what was surprising was that Hinamatsuri wasn’t even the most crass anime this season. That title belongs to Golden Kamuy.
3. Golden Kamuy is a western. I didn’t know I wanted a western as an anime until I started to watch this. It’s a great blend of cartoon humor (of the dick and poop variety) with good world building and a compelling overall story, but also these elements that are undeniably Western, such as a “white man” working with a “native woman” surviving outside of the civilization. It’s even got a murder hotel episode. It also makes me think of the Quintin Tarantino films that evoke this kind of a feel but going at it via “cool” rather than “soul.”
4. Soul is what I’d use to describe Megalobox. It’s a bit of a regressive work thematically because it wants to have two dogs fight each other, no matter what. If salvation of our souls come down to this kind of depiction it is no surprise humanity can’t have nice things. At the same time it is a pretty somber homage to the whole Ashita no Joe concept, even not including the literal homages. The package overall felt like it has a lot of soul going for it, whatever that means, so I guess it is okay. I just slightly struggle with its science fiction roots.
5. Maybe this is kind of like Hisomaso, where the story is very clearly about women in the JSDF (and in Japan generally) with what they do with their lives, but I cannot be bothered with it because of 1) fighter jet dragons, 2) fighter jet dragons, 3) this aesthetics + fighter jet dragons. So goes the level of discourse.
6. Which is also to say, Shokugeki no Soma this season does a better justice of Hokkaido than Golden Kamuy arguably, and that’s a feat worth celebrating. In as much I want to give a SO to food celebrity Tony Bourdain and his passing, it is works like his, and this, that really brings out the soul of why people eat the way they do.
7. Recently I’ve seen people refer to IP/cartoons/games with idol characters as idol things. I see why, but I feel people are not really using those terms to describe those things while understanding the differences between the two. It bothers me because the performance of people pretending to be fictional characters is different than the performance of people who are, as described best as, idols. An actor acting as an idol is going to do the same thing as real idols on stage, but they’re not the same. One goes home from a job, the other is in actual idol industry. More importantly, one is fiction, the other is reality. At best it is some kind of reality where fiction plays a role, and it deserves to be recognized differently than the other kind of reality that I’m referring to.
8. This is also a funny way where fiction and reality blurs, and a lot of Westerners don’t seem to realize the difference–it is admittedly not the easiest difference to keep in mind, and part of it has to do with the way language evolves. This headline is one example of what I’m talking about, and it’s probably the most egregious mistake I’ve seen (partly because it’s just wrong, like if this was written by a JP site it would probably get corrected by industry). On twitter people casually use the term but that’s where it also happens.
9. Otakon this year will coincide with a demonstration involving that Charlottesville white supremacist group in downtown DC, which will likely draw not just counter-protesters, but a lot of police. It’s reasonable to be aware and concerned about it, but it is unlikely to repeat the same tragedy last summer because, frankly, the police failed big time in Charlottesville. The DC police will unlikely repeat–it has protestors just about year-round.
10. Otakon…I guess summer is here. Back to worrying about the party I will throw at AX and how I’m dying trying to break even! LOL. Are you going to AX? Please come to my party and have a good time. We are even trying to bring a new JP DJ to the lineup and I’m dying to announce him.