Anime’s three “building” categories

An interesting thought occurred to me recently in terms of how anime series are structured. It seems that most anime series focus on “building” one out of three narrative aspects – either building the story, building the characters, or building the world. Some focus on two out of three, a few manage to focus equally on all three – but it’s intriguing to think about which of the three each series is most concerned with…

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Aria and a pure slice-of-life experience

I recently finished watching the 13-episode first season of Aria. It caused me to recall a discussion that was circling the blogsphere back in August about the true definition of slice-of-life. Now that I’ve seen Aria, I know why many consider it perhaps the best example of this genre…

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