Frozen and the evolution of Disney storytelling

Credit to linked pixiv user
Art credited to 天然風 on pixiv

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you probably know that in addition to anime I’m also a Disney fan, as well as a fan of animation in general. I go to the theaters to see most of the big animated movies that come out in the US each year, but I don’t talk about them much here since this is, well, an anime blog. However, once in a while I feel like talking about other animated works, and during the last week of 2013 I saw Frozen, Disney’s latest animated film, which has been nothing short of a huge hit among audiences and critics alike. It already managed to reclaim the #1 spot at the box office over a month after its release on Thanksgiving, and currently it’s Disney’s highest grossing animated film of all time, beating the previous record holder, The Lion King (though Frozen would still be second only if you add the earnings from The Lion King’s 3D re-release in 2011). After seeing Frozen, I can’t say I was anything less than blown away – it not only managed to recapture the music and magic of the Disney I loved when I was a kid, but it also inverted many established Disney cliches, making for a really unpredictable story. That together with an amazing staff, actual Broadway talents included for the music, it’s not hard to see why it’s such a hit – but I wanted to examine it on a deeper level…

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Defining yourself as a fan

Credit to linked pixiv user

Wherever there’s works of art there will always be praise and criticism, in varying amounts depending on the work in question, anime being no different of course. It’s perfectly normal to feel good when you see that others share in the love you have for a particular anime, and to feel a sting when you find others who passionately dislike it. If you consider yourself a “fan” of an anime, or of any media work really, how much does your fandom define who you are, to the extent that it becomes personal if someone bashes that fandom…

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Fall ’13 reviews part 2 and my top 5 anime of 2013

I decided to combine the rest of my 2013 anime reviews and my list of top 5 anime of 2013 into one post. The winter 2014 season is already upon us after all, so I need to finish up all the 2013 stuff and start checking out all the new shows! XD So much anime and blogging to do and so little time…

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Fall ’13 reviews part 1: Kyoukai no Kanata, Galilei Donna, Gingitsune

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas~ Once again it’s the time of year for me to review the last batch of anime I watched this year before picking my top 5 of the year. Today I’ll be reviewing the first three fall ’13 anime I finished: Kyoukai no Kanata, Galilei Donna, and Gingitsune…

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My 12 moments of anime for 2013

Credit to linked pixiv user

As I’ve been doing since 2009, I’m once again participating in the anime blogsphere’s “12 Moments of Anime” project where we post our personal twelve biggest anime-related moments of the year throughout the month of December. As always due to lack of time, I’ll be posting my 12 moments all on one post here…

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Watching anime raw

Credit to linked pixiv user

In past posts I’ve talked about the subtitle quality in anime we watch, as well as anime dubs, but I never specifically wrote about watching anime in its “pure” form – raw in Japanese without any subtitles. However a recent post by froggykun got me thinking about the what, why, and when of my viewing of raw anime…

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Madoka Magica movie 3 LA premiere

On Tuesday I attended the LA premiere of Madoka Magica movie 3: Rebellion, at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Like last year’s screenings of the first two movies, this event was a lot of fun, although the movie itself left me with a heavy feeling of ambiguity…

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Name that anime

It’s been a hectic week for me due to increased work hours because of Thanksgiving, my seasonal allergies acting up and making me feel crappy, and trying to cram in last minute studying for the JLPT, which is this Sunday. So because of all this, I’m not up to my usual lengthy post today. Instead, I’m just gonna post a quick and (I hope) fun little activity – “Name that anime”…

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How do you stay connected to the anime community?

Since I got into anime in the early 2000s when the Internet culture was just taking off, I can’t comment on how fans stayed up-to-date with anime and connected with each other in the years before then. But it’s very obvious that the medium and its fandom would not be as universally accessible as it is today without the Internet. Thanks to the World Wide Web we can now converse with and share things with fellow fans from all over the world, any time, anywhere, as well as stay up to date on all the latest happenings of the anime world. So for today’s topic, I want to discuss my personal routine for staying connected with the anime community and see how other people’s routines differ…

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The ages of anime characters

Credit to linked pixiv user

As I discussed in a post from a few years back, the majority of characters in the anime we watch, especially main characters, tend to be teenagers around the age of 14-18. There are many anime that feature a cast of older (or younger) characters too, but teenagers seem to dominate if you look at the anime released in any given year or season. In the previous post I talked about why I think school-aged characters are so prominent, so today I wanted to look at the other side of it; anime that feature adult characters rather than teenagers and if the age difference has any significant impact on the kinds of stories an anime can tell…

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