Things I'm Passionate About Part 9

This is part 9 of the things I’m passionate about series of articles. A further look into my tortured mind.

1. Movies

I am a massive movie buff. It feels like I’ve seen everything, or that I’m the Rainman for movie trivia. Having spent most of my life alone it kind of makes sense I suppose, that when not studying relentlessly, I’d amuse myself with escapism. Movies being one of the chief methods. They’ve inspired me, influenced my decisions about life, schooling, and careers, they’ve even swayed my decisions regarding some parenting issues here and there I’m sure. For writing about movies, I’d like to write reviews of old and recently released movies, pre-views and my thoughts and speculations on upcoming movies, and for a more personal touch I’d like to write about how they’ve influenced my life. I’d also like to profile favorite actors and the characters they’ve portrayed and maybe how they have also impacted me. All in the hopes of inspiring other people to maybe experience some of the amazing films I’ve seen or to share their own experiences whether they agree with me or not.

2. Anime

Naturally as a giant nerd on the internet, I love anime, once again going back to the that whole escapism business. I really love anime and anime movies that most people love, Dragonball (Z, GT, Super etc.), Sailor Moon (Hitoshi Doi was my first real exposure to anime fandoms, and my daughter is a MASSIVE fan of Sailor Moon now), the Ghibli stuff (most of it), Ghost in the Shell and so many more. But I also love some diamond-in-the-rough stuff that many people haven’t seen. Goku: Midnight Eye, Vampire Hunter D (both the original and Bloodlust), Gestalt, pretty much all things Macross or Robotech. I’m going to focus my writing on this stuff regarding reviews and influences, but I’d like to delve into other topics too. Adding some science to the sci-fi, examining story structures and philosophy, even magic systems. Like with movies I’ll do some profiles also of actors, both English and Japanese, and characters. Their origins and inspirations also. A lot of my ideas for article series are rehashed, but with no overlap of content since the media are so diverse. And I write as much for myself as I do for other people, so it makes no difference to me if I get to keep putting out actual unique work.

3. Manga

You can seldom talk about anime without talking about its progenitor media, the wonderful world of Manga. Most people qualify them as just “Japanese comics” which they are, but they’re so much more too. Manga weren’t just a way to sell ad-space and merchandise the way many North American comics were and are. Sure, there are some that were/are, and some that eventually became that, but I’ve found far more companies and artists that enjoyed telling a good story over making money. Like focusing on telling a good story and if it’s good it will draw fans and make money, versus the idea of trying to tailor make stories just to make money like the North American media industries seem so fond of doing. This isn’t to insult any American creators who are real artists; I love and respect your works also and have spent countless hours of my life in your worlds, I just find American business to be so much more compromising to artistic vision than in Japan. That’s just my take from my experience mind you and I’d be happy to be corrected with actual data instead of just anecdotes and muh feels.

Anyway, that was Part 9.