Tag Archives: YouTube

Secondary Findings January 2023

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

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Well, it is still the first month of the year, and what better way to start off the year than by sharing some of my more recent favorite things with you, the lovely readers? Also, a slight change in format: for the sake of general organization, I am going to start dividing everything by medium (i.e. movies, tv shows, books, etc) so people can find things a bit easier.

For those who are reading for the first time, Secondary Findings is a series where I talk briefly about all the stuff that is either not anime or manga related or that would not be talked about otherwise. It is a fun way to share a little more about me while hopefully putting people on to some cool media that I enjoy.

Music

First up, here is some of the music I have been enjoying:

Hypochondriac by Brakence

If there was ever an album worth being annoying about, it is this one. I did a favorite album of 2022 list over on my other site, and this…this came in first by a pretty comfortable margin. Elements of emo and math rock, hyperpop, hip-hop, EDM, and pop, basically all of my favorite genres, come together to make one of the most memorable and infectious listening experiences to date. Absolutely slaps.

I Didn’t Mean to Haunt You by Quadeca

Though I certainly was not as big on this album as some others, it does represent a pretty big artistic shift in Quadeca’s career. It is not always the easiest to listen to, but as an experience it is probably one of the most interesting things one could listen to from last year. Of course, concept albums work much better when listened to all the way through. However, more specifically, check out the songs “tell me a joke” and “fractions of infinity” featuring the Sunday Service Choir. It really is some magical stuff.

Games

Now for the games.

Coffee Talk

Even after just a couple hours of gameplay, the charm of this game shines through tremendously. Although, “gameplay” is maybe not the right word for what is otherwise just a visual story where you occasionally mix together ingredients and try your best to do latte art.

Still, it is an imaginative world where the political implications of a fantasy-esc alternate universe with fairies, orcs, vampires, werewolves, and others are filtered through the door of an otherwise ordinary late-night coffee shop run by none other than yourself. It is a great game, especially for people like me who find themselves up late at night with nothing better to do. Might not be worth the almost 15-dollar price tag for some, but I still recommend it wholeheartedly.

Persona 5 Royal

*insert 200-hour-long JRPG joke here*

I started Persona 5 Royal back in 2020, and somehow never found the time to finish it during the global pandemic…huh, funny how that works. However, since graduating college left me with a lot more time on my hands, I figure why not give it another shot?

The game is really solid mechanically and narratively, with Royal more or less improving on just about every aspect of the original. There are more side characters as well as more things to do with your days in between dungeons. However, Persona 5 has always been a franchise more focused on aesthetics, at least for me, and it does that very well. The soundtrack of this game alone is reason enough to at least check it out. Obviously, finding the time to complete a game this long can be tough for people with busy schedules, but for those who are looking for a fun time sink and somehow have not heard about this game, well, here ya go.

YouTube

Here are some videos/channels I think are worth watching.

SugarPunch

I basically spent a good two hours just binging videos from this channel and man was it a good time. SugarPunch focuses primarily on fighting games and their most famous series breaks down the use of various fighting styles in said games, including their history and implementation across various titles.

However, my personal favorite video is linked above and goes into the history of queer representation in fighting games, which to my pleasant surprise is quite abundant. The video is a little bit outdated in regards to the section on Guilty Gear since Bridget was confirmed in canon to be a trans woman upon her release in Strive, but otherwise, it is a great video. Overall, a really fun channel, even for people who are not the biggest fans of the genre.

Smosh Pit

Anyone who was on the internet, specifically YouTube, in the late 2000s and early 2010s probably stumbled across a Smosh video, even if it was by accident. The whole thing has become a lot more… corporate, with one of the original creators Anthony Padilla leaving a few years ago. However, if one good thing has come out of the brand since then, it would be Smosh Pit, specifically their version of a “try not to laugh” series using prop comedy. Something about the regulars they have along with the assortment of guests makes it where the video can go from relatively dry and clean humor to entirely unhinged in a matter of one skit.

Blogs

I’ve never done a blog section in this series, for some reason, so I figured it might be time to change that.

I drink and watch anime – Irina

Part of the reason might be that I am really bad about keeping up with my fellow bloggers. However, if there is one person who I do read pretty consistently, on the part of her putting out genuinely interesting content, it is Irina. I have mentioned her a few time on the site back when it was going by different names, and her perspective on a lot of series and issues within the medium of anime have stayed incredibly thoughtful and reflective.

She recently wrote a piece about the “adorable glutton” trope that pops up in a lot of cute girls doing cute things type series, and it genuinely made me stop and think for a bit about just how much issues of implicit bias towards heavier people go unchecked in media. So yeah, do yourself a favor and go read some more stuff from her. When she’s not being incredibly thought-provoking, which is rare, she’s also recommending anime series-based drinking games and various alcoholic beverages to do them with.

The Afictionado – Alex Henderson

This is another blog that I have been reading for a while, but have yet to properly shout out for just how awesome it is. Given her Doctoral work focusing on young adult literature, Henderson’s writing, even about more casual and very odd anime, takes a decidedly more academic tone and approach, something I try and ultimately fail and replicating.

However, Henderson also has an impressive body of work outside of the blogosphere and academia. One of my favorite articles, as it relates to anime, is one she wrote about Spy x Family and its relationship with queer families. Queer representation is something I try to talk about as much as I can, and I have learned a lot just from reading her articles, so please do yourself another favor and go check out her work as well.


And that, my friends, is pretty much all of what I have been consuming outside of anime and manga recently. Normally these end up being quarterly posts since I do end up reviewing most of the stuff I consume in any given week or month.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

As always, special thanks to Jenn for supporting us on Patreon.

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

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Not Keeping My Promises…

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

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Well, unfortunately, I do not have anyone else to blame but myself here, so yeah…

For those wondering what this post is about, at the beginning of this year I set some goals for myself in a post that was about wrapping up 2021. One of those goals was to put out at least one video on my YouTube Channel for every month of the year. I figured it would be at least a few months in before managing to fail that, but I am very good about outdoing my own expectations.

So, in order to keep me motivated to write and create things, I thought “why not give myself a punishment?” then after thinking about it for a little longer, it became “why not let everyone else come up with a punishment for me?” Since it is primarily the people who consume what I make that I am accountable to, it only makes sense to invite some democracy into the process of torturing myself.

Thus, I’m leaving this up to my readers: Give me an anime/manga/movie/tv series/etc that you hate, some truly awful garbage, and I will commit to finishing it all the way through and writing about it when I am done.

I mentioned in my more recent update how my new rating system will likely have a more positive bend to it considering I don’t usually seek out bad media, but maybe we can test those limits a bit, yeah?

For this, I’ll take the 2 most liked comments under this article, as well as under the tweet linked below. Feel free to submit under both to double your chances of increasing my suffering.

Well, happy submitting!


If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

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What I’ll Be Watching – Summer 2021 Anime Season

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

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Managing productivity? What’s that? I only make videos at 9 in the morning after staying up the whole night.

The summer anime season is fast approaching us, and since I somehow managed to find the motivation to do the thing I have been saying I was going to do for a while, I decided to make a video as opposed to the normal post. Will this be a regular thing for the blog now? maybe. Do I have any control over my own creative processes and motivation levels? no.


What are you watching next season? Let me know in the comments below.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

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Puparia is Incredible

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

Because most of my time recently has been spent at work, doing school, or in crippling self doubt, it has been pretty hard to watch any anime adjacent YouTube as of late. Ok, well, actually that is a lie because I still watch a ton of YouTube, but video essays and anime videos have not been in my content diet as much. However, when I do watch that kind of content, there are a few people that I consistently enjoy.

One of those few is Super Eyepatch Wolf. Not only does he consistently deliver high quality videos, his video series “My Favorite Things” always highlights a range of obscure media. This brings me to the topic of today’s video, “Puparia,” a three-minute animation done by Japanese animator Shingo Tamagawa.

Shingo Tamagawa

Tamagawa himself has a very interesting story. After dropping out of graduate school, he rushed into the animation industry in Japan. Tamagawa knew create animation was what he wanted to do since he was a kid, and so decided that this was the best path towards that end. However, after being in the industry for five years, he began to realize that creating endlessly without much purpose would eventually make him hate drawing and animation entirely. Thus, for a year and a half he did nothing. No drawing, no animating. Then, after this Hiatus, he began working on “Puparia,” using Studio Sunrise’s office in exchange for helping them on a number of projects. Three years later, he released it on his YouTube channel, and it has since gained over 1.8 Million views.

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What is “Puparia?”

This is kind of a difficult question to answer, but one thing it is not is boring. Though the animation is only three minutes long, there is a lot going on that is worth talking about.

For starters, the animation is absolutely gorgeous. Tamagawa made a point to hand draw the entire work, which definitely made producing it a lot harder, but ultimately gives it even more of the abstract feeling that it seems he was going for. This can be seen in a number of places throughout the work, whether it is the opening pan through a strange color pattern, or the infinite rooms that are colored by similarly off-putting color scheme and design. While it is pretty likely that something similar could have been produced through digital animation, the look and feel of cell-animation here is reminiscent of older works such as “Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind” and other early Ghibli works.

“Puparia” does not have any dialogue, at least not spoken, and the only incorporated audio element is a song composed by Steve Reich “MALLET QUARTET: 1 FAST.” Now, I am not particularly well educated when it comes to composition, but the title here seems pretty ironic as it relates to the music itself, because it is not really that fast. The music is actually fairly mid-tempo, and I think that also injects a bit of meaning into the work as well. Additionally, the music does not change much throughout its run time.

The characters of “Puparia” are probably the strangest element of the whole thing. Each scene of the animation, up until the very last one, serves as sort of Vignette, all with a common theme of sorts. The imagery of Pupa and Larvae is found in pretty much all of the scenes, from a girl sitting next to a strange animal in the forest, to a half-naked young man attempting to open a door, only to see a giant insect running towards him. This imagery appears to intensify throughout the work, as the final scene shows a person looking back on a large crowd of people, with the crowd looking back to him, almost asking for an answer to a larger question.

What Does It Mean?

That larger question is, well, complicated. That is to say that it feels as though a lot of what “Puparia” is trying to represent is a larger question of purpose, which ultimately ends up being a personal choice. People reach certain points in their life where they are forced to make decisions that will inevitably effect them for a long time, potentially forever. However, this does not just apply to individuals. Many countries and societies are at a point now where there are lot of important questions that need to be answered about how they want to orient themselves around certain issues.

It is hard not to look at this piece through the perspective of COVID, but even pre-pandemic these questions were being raised. Much like in “Puparia,” there comes a point where indecision will no longer be acceptable. People are looking for answers, and they will find them one way or another, but what answers they find and how they find them are vitally important for the future of our culture, society, and politics.


Had you seen “Puparia” before reading this? How do you feel about it? Let me know in the comments.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

Animated Observations Update #14: The Road to Fusion Fight 2 and Other Stuff from Last Month

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

As I am sure it has been for many of you as well, my last month was hectic. Not only did school start again, but most of my classes have already shifted online, and since I for one do not learn particularly well in an online environment, the adjustment period has been strenuous. Still, a lot of good stuff also happened in the last month. As I mentioned in my last post, I was able to get my first PC, and I have been slowly but surely catching up on my work load. With that being said, here is a quick update.

The Next “Fusion Fight” is Coming Soon!

For those unaware, during the month of July, along with the organization OWLS, I hosted a short story writing competition called “Fusion Fight,” in which writers were tasked with writing a short story in 500 words or less while combining at least two genres.

I had a great time hosting the event, and from what I could tell, those that entered it also had a good time. Given this information, I decided it would be a good idea host another such competition. Currently, I have not had time to come up with many details outside of the fact that it will be hosted during the month of October, and that it will be available to enter for one month. However, I have created a discord server for the competition that anyone who is interested in can join.

I plan on releasing the final details of the competition at the end of the month, when the competition begins.

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Doing YouTube…Yeah, About That.

So…yeah, I honestly don’t really have a good excuse, for you folks or myself. I wanted to get into making YouTube videos this year, and i even bought I microphone back in march for that very purpose. However, my own laziness kind of caught up with me, and well, here we are.

Still, there is no time like the present, as the ever present and somewhat questionably assertive “they” always say. I have been thinking about what kind of content I would want to make on YouTube, but regardless of what it ends up being, I would definitely want it to be different than the blog content, so that you all have a reason to go there instead of here.

I might just spend the last few months of the year experimenting with different kinds of content, so let me know what kind of videos you all would like to see.

Getting Back to it!

I also recently started back as a columnist for another semester at The Daily Beacon, my college’s newspaper. My first article back is already up, so if you would like to go check it out, feel free to do so.

Concluding “Aku no Hana.”

It has been a while in the making, but I finally finished Shuzo Oshimi’s “Aku no Hana” (The Flowers of Evil). I honestly can’t say enough how much I enjoyed the series, and I definitely want to check out more of Oshimi’s work. So, if you enjoyed the “Aku no Hana” series, be sure to stick around. It is highly likely I will be covering more of Oshimi’s work in the future.


Thanks for reading. What have you all been up to? Let me know in the comments.

If you are interested in reading more from me, check under blog to read my most recent stuff, or look below for some related posts. Also, if you would like to support Animated Observations, consider donating on Ko-fi or through paypal, or pledging on Patreon. You can even support by just liking and sharing this post.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

If you can’t, or just don’t feel like it, no worries. Thank you all for reading, and goodbye, for now, friends!

My Favorite Things – 10/15/17

Back in July of this year, YouTuber Super Eyepatch Wolf released a video talking about his favorite things of 2017. It was a well structure video where he talked about all of the things he was enjoying this year, and I thought it was a cool concept. As such, I decided I would do something similar, and list everything I’ve been enjoying as of late.

Anime

March Comes in Like a Lion:

March-Comes-in-Like-a-Lion-CoverI started March Comes in Like a Lion during the summer of this year, and I have been in love with the show ever since. Shaft’s vividly expressive art style combined with the depressingly somber tale of Rei Kiriyama’s journey to find happiness in his current situation makes for one of the best shows to come out in recent years. It takes everything I love about a good slice of life, mature themes, diverse and deep characters, and cranks it up to eleven.

As I somewhat ramblingly documented in another post, I can also very much relate to Rei’s sense of being unsure as to what he wants out of life. His journey is one that, while not many people are likely to go through themselves, many can find comfort in because of the similarities to situations that we all have. For Example, even though Rei has been playing shogi his whole life, he doesn’t really enjoy it the way many of the people he plays against do. The only reason Rei even plays shogi in the first place is because of his late father. Rei plays shogi because it reminds him of his father, not because he has fun with it.

With the start of the second season just recently, My interest has been thoroughly renewed. I’m eager to see if the show’s second iteration will do it as much justice as the first.

Log Horizon:

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While I haven’t actually watched the show in over a year, Log Horizon has continually held my interest because of the large cliffhanger that concluded the show’s second season. After ending the show in the middle of a vital point of the story, I got more than a bit mad. Of course, I later found out that there wasn’t any more material to adapt, as the light novel author had been thrown in jail for tax evasion, and proceeded to get even madder.

Regardless, Log Horizon is a show that is very much worthy of praise. Many have called it the smarter version of Sword Art Online, but I don’t think it should have to cast in the shadow of a show that came before it. Log Horizon takes the premise of being in an MMO and does it very accurately, from the leveling system to the cooldown on abilities and the combat, and in that way exceeds SAO, with maybe a few exceptions.

I hope that in the future Log Horizon will get the continuation it deserves. There is no reason of this high a quality should be left by the wayside to be forgotten.

Phi Brain:

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One of my favorite shows of all time and a show that will never not be one of my favorites, Phi Brain: Puzzle of God takes what is possibly one of the stupidest premises of all time and makes it entertaining as hell. Kaito, an orphan whose parents died while on a trip for work, has always loved puzzles. One day he discover’s that a group called P.O.G. wants to solve the puzzle of God, and obtain all of the immense power that comes with it.

The show immediately becomes a game show like battle series where the characters are fighting against in each other in a puzzle of the week format for a majority of the show, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

Most of the writing in the show is admittedly quite basic, and most of the characters, aside from Kaito and some of the villains, are a bit one-dimensional. Phi Brain is a show that really focuses on the things it does well and gets by doing the bare minimum with other elements. However, I still love it to death.

Video Games

Divinity:

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I am a man with many interests, and video games are very much one of those interests. In Fact, I like a lot of different genres, from shooters to MOBAs to, especially, RPGs. Divinity is a game that I discovered only recently after it was recommended to me by a good friend, and boy am I a fan.

Divinity is a turn-based RPG focused around your customizable characters known as “source hunters” who help fight evil in the world. Your first mission is investigating the murder of a council member in a small town, and in there, you discover your destiny.

Despite the somewhat cheesy story, the game is both challenging and innovative in the gameplay department. Unlike other RPG, the enemies in the game do not respawn, so you can’t level grind in any one area. This makes it much harder to level up and progress through the game, but not to the point where it becomes frustrating, as there is an abundant number of side quest made available to you as the player.

Divinity has been critically acclaimed as being one of the best games in recent years, and I can’t say I disagree. With fun and challenging gameplay, it is definitely one of my favorites.

Smite:

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Not exactly a niche game, but still worth mentioning as being one of my favorites. I remember the first time finding out about it and then realizing I had no experience with MOBA’s whatsoever. Even so, I dived in and gave it a try. I eventually got my immediate friend group into the game, and we spent hours upon hours practicing and having a great time.

Aside from personal enjoyment, Smite has a few elements that make it fairly distinct. The third person view, as opposed to an overhead view, is one that is very often cited, but Smite also has a much lower barrier to entry, as you can buy all of the characters, and any future characters, for just 30 bucks, and there are a ton of characters in free rotation at any given time, which makes it much more accessible to an average player.

What I enjoy most about the game is its lore. Smite is based on the ancient gods of different Mythos, which most recently has included gods from the Celtic Pantheon. Getting to read about the characters and realize that these were deities that people believed in at one point is kind of surreal.

Gwent:

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Based off a game within a game from the well-received Witcher 3, Gwent is a card game that plays somewhat like poker. Each player puts a card on the board each turn, trying to put more power on the board than your opponent. This happens in a two out of three style match, but aside from drawing a few cards after each round, you only play with whats in your hand.

Gwent is, for the most part, a well-designed card game that brings a lot of new ideas to the table. It combines the well-crafted card are of a game like Hearthstone with a completely different game structure to make something new and fun.

Not having played Witcher 3 before, almost all of the cards go over my head, but the lore of the game is still interesting, and even though I haven’t played as much recently, It’s a game I will likely continue to play for a while.

YouTubers

Spectrum Pulse:

Being someone who listens to just about everything when it comes to music, there a few places where I like to go to get recommendations for what to listen to. Spectrum Pulse, run by Mark Grondon, is a Music, Movie review channel that also reviews just about everything, be it pop, rock, jazz, country or whatever.

His reviews are well researched and often times he’ll bring up things that I didn’t even know about the artist and/or movie he’s reviewing. Mark also does a series called Billboard Breakdown where he looks at and talks about all of the activity of the weekly hot 100 list. This series is where I get a lot of my news about popular music and also some things to listen to as well.

LeeandLie:

In a somewhat similar vein, and also pertaining to anime, LeeandLie is a channel run by Amanda Lee who does fantastic covers of anime and video game songs. She does almost everything, from Angel Beats to the recently aired Re:Creators, all with a fantastic voice.

Conclusion

And that’s everything I’ve been enjoying recently. I might start doing a smaller version of this list on a more regular basis. If you guys enjoy anything here let me know in the comments. Until next time, see ya.