Comments on: After Life, Angel Beats! and anime blogging

By: Peter S

Peter S — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:10:59 +0000

WordPress is blocked in China. But tonight it’s strange. I can access the WordPress home page, something I hadn’t been able to do before, but I can’t access any of my blog stuff. Come to think of it, I can access one other WordPress blog (I just thought of it), so I don’t know what’s going on. And for a while, tonight, I could access YouTube, but it’s blocked again now.

Little to report about anime in China. At the hotel in Qingdau I found Naruto on TV, a two-episode block from 6-7, I think, dubbed into Chinese. But here in Heze I haven’t found anything more than regular cartoon fare. But I have no problem bittorrenting episodes from the usual suspects, so I’m catching up.

By: bateszi

bateszi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 22:23:39 +0000

It’s a weird series for sure, and quite uneven. It’s also weird to have a series about death set in a school, where the energy is all about youthful exuberance and eyes on the future.

Anyway, I’m glad you liked this post. This was one of those that I wrote in one sitting and posted on the same day. I wasn’t sure about how people would react to it, but after a slow first night of reading, the responses have really given me a boost in confidence! :)

By: bateszi

bateszi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 22:17:44 +0000

Yeah, I guess it’s just a matter of perspective with regards to how one sees all this. I used to look up to a lot of anime bloggers that have stopped blogging and moved onto something else or just disappeared completely, in the same way that I’ve lost contact with some old school mates. Thinking about it now, though, you’re probably right in saying that work is a better example for this sense of ‘purgatory’, because when someone does leave, there’s very much (for me, at least) a feeling that this is the last time we’ll ever see him/her again. At school, I was still naive enough to think that I’d know all these people forever! Angel Beats is weird, then, because it’s a school anime about accepting death, which is obviously contrary to what school is supposed to be about :)

(Also, I’m flattered that something I said popped up in your mind outside of this blog. I hope I haven’t made you cynical or anything!)

By: bateszi

bateszi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:58:57 +0000

No, I think the place beyond After Life’s purgatory is just referred to as “eternity” with your one, best memory. So, it’s not a physical thing. You live in that moment forever, which is a kind of heaven, I guess? :)

By: bateszi

bateszi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:50:55 +0000

The feeling/tone of that last episode of Angel Beats really surprised me. The series was quite uneven overall, but the way things went in the end undeniably affected me.

(Thank you for another year of reading this blog, too, Ivy! :))

By: bateszi

bateszi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:47:45 +0000

I will add your suggestions to the list, Krozam. Out of the 8 you’ve nominated here, I’ve only seen the first episode of Yakumo, but I’m quite interested in Kaichou wa Maid-sama and Otome Youkai Zakuro, so I’ll check them out at some point. As for the others, I’m more inclined to let the dust to settle and see if they survive the test of time.

By: bateszi

bateszi — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:39:37 +0000

It’s fascinating to me that we both aren’t blocked and that you’re surprised that we aren’t! :) You should try writing something about your experiences as an anime fan in China, I’d love to read it! (Something tells me that you might be a bit too busy for that, though.)

By: TheBigN

TheBigN — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 16:59:43 +0000

Interesting parallels being brought up into this post. Now that I think about it, Angel Beats!’s focus on the transience of highschool/life is an important point of the anime. But that focus probably was not brought out as well as it could have been. It’s definitely an important one as we go through life.

By: coburn

coburn — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 16:42:05 +0000

I remember your writing in a similar vein about working life – that we spend hour after hour with people, then one day we never see them again – and found myself thinking about that a lot when I actually had to get a job.

It’s quite different to all these melancholy-of-leaving-school scenarios (vote K-On!!) where the environment is supposed to be a formative ideal. I’m not sure what the ideal career is, but a lot of people nowadays seem to work in a way where everything (colleagues, positions) is constantly being shuffled around (dynamic!). To me at least, that sort of inbuilt impermanence, where few people really know one another, is more like blogsville than the emotional bonds and dramatic breaks which school involves.

By: dengar

dengar — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 14:20:45 +0000

For whatever reason this movie reminded me of the Casper the Friendly Ghost live-action CGI movie, where Casper has to stay a ghost until he can solve his unresolved problems. I really like the one memory angle, it immediately made me think of what my memory would be. Did they say in the movie what the post-purgatory after life was like?