D23 Expo 2015 coverage and photos

Last week I spent three days from Friday, August 14th to Sunday, August 16th at D23 Expo in Anaheim, California. It’s a convention celebrating everything and anything Disney, from their beloved animated movies to their other properties like Marvel and Star Wars. It’s a fairly new, bi-annual convention that was first held in 2009, making 2015 the fourth one. Besides spending one day at the relatively small Equestria LA, D23 Expo is the first non-anime convention I’ve been to. Despite having its flaws due to an overabundance of attendees, all in all I had a great time…

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Photos of my Frozen collection

Credit to linked pixiv user

If you’ve seen some of my tweets (or a couple of blog posts) during the past year, you’ll know that I’ve been obsessed with Disney’s hit movie, Frozen. I can always gauge how much I like something by how much money I’m driven to spend on it, and since I first saw Frozen, I’ve amassed quite a collection of merchandise that I’ve been wanting to share…

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Yumeka’s top 20 favorite animated movies (#10-1)

Credit to linked pixiv user

Continuing from last week’s post, I’ve been counting down my top 20 favorite animated movies, ending today with my top 10…

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Yumeka’s top 20 favorite animated movies (#20-11)

Credit to linked pixiv user

This is a favorites list I’ve been wanting to make for a while and now I finally feel like I’m ready! As many of you know, I’m not just a fan of anime but of the animation medium in general, especially animated movies. But despite being a fan of animated movies long before I was a fan of anime, I never actually made a list of my favorites. So for this post and the next, that’s what I’ll be doing…

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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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When to take a break from anime


How many Disney characters can you spot?

In past posts I’ve talked about forms of anime “burnout,” from personal anecdotes about people I’ve known who lost interest in anime over time, to discussing exactly how/why someone would burnout on anime. But today’s topic isn’t so much about losing interest in anime as it is simply taking a break from it, which can be a form of preventing loss of interest in the first place…

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A plunge into My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

Credit to linked pixiv user

If someone told me thirteen years ago (when my anime fandom was just taking off) that down the line I’d get into My Little Pony again, I probably wouldn’t believe them. Actually, I was never really into it before; I remember having a few toys and watching the old cartoon a bit when I was very young, but that’s it. So how did it come about that a few years ago this somewhat forgotten franchise suddenly burst into new-found popularity among an audience much older that its creators intended?…

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Visual realism in video games versus anime

In a recent post on deluscar, Kai brings up the fact that video games have become a lot more “realistic” than they used to be, especially in visual terms thanks to advanced technology. But he also argues that even though they’ve taken on this new level of depth, they still can’t display the same level of realism as anime and perhaps other animation can…

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Growing up in a world of fandoms

One thing that I’ve often thought about is how our generation is the first to experience full immersion in the technological media world from childhood to adulthood. If you were born in the 80s or later, you’re among the first generation of kids to grow up in the media-centered world of cable TV, video games, video rentals, and most importantly, the Internet. Anime is one among many fandoms that have been able to flourish because of this sudden proliferation of technology we’ve seen come about in just a couple of decades…

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Anime and endless possibilities

The question of why we enjoy watching anime is a very basic one, but probably one we don’t often think about unless prompted. In an old post I wrote a couple of years ago, I listed some general reasons for liking anime such as the great variety of stories and emphasis on character development. Today I wanted to go further with one of the reasons I listed for liking anime – because it’s animation – and discuss why that’s so important to its appeal…

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