The Otakusphere: The mindworms are here

You ever have one of those songs that you love, but if people caught you singing it out loud they’d give you some weird looks. I’ve got a few of those, but the one I really want to start with today is “Cheer Up” by Reel Big Fish. The main refrain goes:

“I’ve got a funny feelin’ we’re all born to lose
And I’ve got a funny feelin’ that this life ain’t worth livin’ through”

Here’s the song if you want to get that earworm stuck in your head.

Anyways, we’re going to talk about some mindworms today in this weeks trip around the Otakusphere.

Anime Maru is like The Onion for anime. I liked the “story” about the Spirit Airlines plane that landed in another world, and this story about the fact that the average anime protagonist probably doesn’t know how to read. I mean with all of the adventuring they’re going on and the fact that they’re probably dead or aliens or dead aliens, why would they know how to read.

So I’m probably going to have more to say about this post from Irina about Gatekeeping, but it’s the post so good that I need to talk about it twice. I mean I realize I’m just cheerleading a blog that you already know about, but YAY!

Talking about mindworms, Karandi makes some interesting points about horror. I wonder how Hell Girl or Another fits on the list. Personally, I feel like the shows that do horror the best tend to build up suspense. But I’m not a real horror connoisseur, I mean if we’re going to talk about hard-boiled detective fiction and why Yojimbo is just Red Harvest, then I could say something, but I don’t think Halloween is about hyper-masculine archetypes shooting people.

So this is not just a clever way to link to my response post, but I do think Scott made some interesting points about trying to pick apart a series too much. Check out his post here.

I’m always interested in people going in deep on series they obviously loved. I caught Dewbond’s post earlier this week when I was sitting in my car before going to a meeting. For a series I’ve never read, it was still and enjoyable read, and made me kind of interested in it.

And Keiko answered my questions for the Sunshine Blogger Award, so I’m sharing her answers.

So on the local front, I wrapped up three posts about the first disk of Evangelion. I have an idea about how the angels are nonsense monsters, but I don’t think it’s the right time for a post on that.

If you’re interest in reading my posts you can find them here:

We are all Shinji Ikari. Why Hideaki Anno hates you, (and himself)

Is Misato Katsuragi a pedophile or a parent?

Sad Shinji in the rain and other pretty pictures from Neon Genesis Evangelion