The Animanachronism

This coin is an ugly reproduction of the world’s hawtest sculpture

My English private education was very educational (see above), and one thing it taught me was that when you put a group of teenagers together under pressure, they turn to various things for support. Some take to food, or to drink, or to mind-altering substances, or to some previous habit or hobby (such as foreign animation) in a newly obsessive way. One thing that everyone will turn to is, to a greater or lesser extent, other people. In certain cases (and there will almost always be some) that means sex. (more…)

Yup, young men will do’t, if they come to’t; / By cock, they are to blame.
[Warning: today's captions may contain gratuitous quotation]

There is a special kind of feeling which certain stories can provoke. It is a kind of nausea, a sick feeling in the pit of the stomach, combined with a tightening in the chest and tearfulness (though actual tears are not required).

I’m writing here about tragedy, tragedy not in the strict or the loose sense of the term. The strict definition of tragedy is a thorny question which need not concern us. The loose idea of tragedy (’tragic equals sad’) is inadequate for my purposes: there are many sad things which are not tragic (why, Key, fancy meeting you and your Keychés in this paragraph).

For the purposes of this entry, tragedy portrays the suffering of a character who is neither good nor bad, often through a mistake on their part. Tragedy provokes cleansing pity and fear. I should at this point give the customary spoiler warning (for School Days and Code Geass), and also point out that this post contains two bloody images which may disturb readers of a sensitive disposition. (more…)