T w e n t y S i d e d

Seems like every otaku does this at some point. There are already plenty of good anime dictionaries out there, but I wanted to make my own. I’m putting it here so I can link back to it as needed. I’ll update the list as I accumulate new words.

This is also part of a wordpress plugin I’ve been working on, which I’ll talk about more once it’s working.

:LEXICON:

EDIT: I disabled this plugin on this site. It is really cool to have, but it needs a little work. I didn’t like the way it would hit EVERY instance of a word within a post, instead of just the first instance. It was also fond of seeing keywords within URLs and thus breaking links. This was a fun plugin to write, but it needs a little more polish before I can trust it to work without making a mess once in a while.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

My wife and I finally got an evening together and finished off the last disc of Someday’s Dreamers.

The story takes the familiar “magical girl” theme and turns it on its head. Yume is a mage. Mages are rare. Unlike every other magical story I’ve ever seen, their powers do not lend themselves to combat. Mages don’t fly around, zapping bad guys with colorful energy blasts. Instead, they perform localized miracles. In the series, we see the girls repairing vandalisim, rejuvenating a worn old house, and (in a moment of foolish teenage passion) bending the Tokyo Tower.

They don’t fight evil. There is no super-evil in this story. Instead, Mages work for the government. People apply for various miracles (Mage actions) and the Bureau of Mage Labor will dispatch a Mage to show up and attempt to solve the problem. In the series, Yume and her friend Angela are both mages in training, and are working towards their certification exam.

As part of their training, they learn that there are rules about how they are allowed to use their powers. Mages are not allowed to use their powers to control life. Making someone younger, healing injury, or curing disease are all forbidden. They are also not allowed to do other magic that may cause trouble, such as creating money.

Magic is hard to understand. In one episode we see Yume try to use her magic and fail. Every other time she tries she succeeds. We never come to understand what makes a particular action easy or hard. I don’t think we’re supposed to.
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Someday’s Dreamers: Ending Thoughts”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Looking around at what is popular as of late, I can see certain patterns emerging. It’s subtle, but for those with a keen eye you may notice some aspects of anime garner more attention than others. After careful study, I’ve distilled this data and come up with what I believe to be the most optimal titles and phrases for a new anime blog:

Robot Ninja Girls
All White Cotten
Pantie-Fu
Fan Services
Full Metal Bikinis

Note that if you were to name your blog “Robot Ninja Girl’s All White Cotten Pantie-Fu Cosplay Battle” it would cause the internet to explode, so don’t do that.

UPDATE: The next morning. I realize I’ve just made a post that will be an uninteresting dead-end for many eager Google searches. Haha! At least I didn’t use the word “tentacle”.

Oops.

BONUS UPDATE: Steven comes up with his own, and then shows me up by using his Japanese skills to make something that rhymes in Japanese and alliterates in English. I’ll get him for this.

Also, I notice we both left out “Schoolgirl” and “Catgirl”. How did THAT happen?

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.