gingerholic's Blog

Anime Relations: Dungeon Meshi

This anime should be renamed to 'Halloween Cooking 101: How to Eat Ze Bugs and Be Happy'. It’s funny how the powers that be aren't even trying to be subtle anymore with their blatant propaganda. Below is a sample of "delicacies" highlighted in the show:

Craving noodles for lunch? Got some slime innards for ya!
Want lobster for dinner? How ‘bout them scorpions?
Feel like incorporating chicken into your carnivore diet? Rooster with a snake tail anyone?
Got an appetite for fried food? Let’s try some bat tempura!

The "food" is literally poison, but let's pretend it's an alternate universe where up is down down is up for a sec. What about the plot? The story is preposterous with MC kun supposedly looking to save his sister after she got devoured by a dragon, yet he takes his sweet time savoring a slime shabu while vigorously searching for GMOs to test new recipes. Priorities. If you fancy a series about real food go watch Yakitate Japan, Food Wars and the like. If you absolutely have to watch this then don't watch it before any meal, unless you want to lose weight on purpose.

Anime Relations: Dr. Stone

This show is ten billion percent propaganda masquerading as a run-of-the-mill shounen anime.

I am sure it’s a coincidence that Dr. Stone was released in the second half of 2019, just prior to the declaration of the worldwide pandemic the following year. And it just so happens that the story emphasizes the importance of ‘science’. Oh not to mention some of the characters suffered from pneumonia, totally not an admonition of a common complication from the recent pandemic. In fact, it wouldn’t be farfetched to say that Senku is the animated version of Dr. Tedros/Fauci/insert your country’s virology mouthpiece here. Sure it’s hard to imagine an old fart with green spiky hair like the Super Saiyans from Dragon Ball geeking out on science, but you get the point. Here are a few quotes from the anime showcasing its predictive programming:

“I’m going to use the power of science to rescue every single person!” - Senku
“People will buy any cheap lie if it’ll justify being lazy. You’ve already fallen for my magic…” - Gen

The anime itself is nothing special - typical shounen starring a Gary Stu type protagonist (Senku) with a rowdy airhead sidekick (Taiju). The plot is uninspiring with a bunch of NPCs cheering whenever Senku perfects his experiments, although it’s quite laughable how he touts about making “two million years of progress” when there is absolutely no concrete evidence that humans existed beyond 6,000 years ago (alright for the sake of this show let’s call it 10,000 years since the characters were petrified for 3,700 years). It’s like an elementary school kid acting all smug when all he does is regurgitating some garbage he heard at the indoctrination camp. I also find it despicable that he is depicted as some sort of deity, again in the name of science (as shown by his surname: Ishigami, ishi as in stone and gami/kami as in god), similar to how certain individuals were put on the pedestal during the pandemic to be worshipped by the public. Heck, even the naming of subsequent seasons is deliberate (‘Stone Wars’ and ‘New World’ - in that chronological order, with the end product being the ‘reset’).

Bottom line: Dr. Stone is an excellent example of how anime is used by the powers that be to prime the masses for their upcoming script. However, if you want to watch it for pure entertainment then don’t bother - it’s not exhilarating, at all.

Anime Relations: Otonari no Tenshi-sama ni Itsunomanika Dame Ningen ni Sareteita Ken

This is one of those anime series where a fan-based Doraemon ending would fit, i.e. the whole shabang was just a dream of the protagonist (Nobita dreaming of Doraemon for escapism, and in this case that would be Amane dreaming of his ideal gal/motherly figure). The dream goes a little something like this: valedictorian/best gal next door cooks dinner for the protagonist and occasionally lets him lie on her lap, and in return he buys stuffed animals and jewelry for her as tokens of appreciation. The girl then blushes and covers her face with a cushion due to embarrassment while the boy is totally oblivious to her obvious attraction to him and thinks his crush is only one-sided on his part. The detachment from reality is further magnified when the boy suddenly becomes unrecognizable to his fellow classmates when he styles his bangs a certain way which is a total game changer, transforming a somewhat autistic teen into an attractive guy getting hit on by random female strangers. Dream repeats on an infinite loop until the protagonist wakes up.

In retrospect I'm not sure how I managed to finish all 12 episodes; perhaps I was secretly hoping this anime wouldn't turn out to be so mundane but it did, like watching paint dry - that's four hours of time I'll never get back.

Anime Relations: Jigokuraku

If I didn't know better I would've thought Hell's Paradise was a prequel to Attack on Titan in an alternate universe.

First off, you have a group of prisoners on death row sent to an island called Shinsenkyo in search of the 'elixir of life' which supposedly grants immortality. The island itself is divided into three regions: Hōrai (inner), Hōjō (middle), and Eishū (outer) similar to the three walls (Sina/Rose/Maria, respectively) on Paradis Island highlighting the social hierarchy of the inhabitants. Next, you have these 'Tensen' folks running experiments on humans with the elixir, reminiscent of Eldians running experiments on the titans (aka former humans injected with spinal fluid). What's more, you see Sagiri serving as the female guardian/executioner of Gabimaru, mirroring Mikasa's role in Eren's life.

The first few episodes were a bit of a snoozefest unless you're into head chopping, however the story started to gain momentum after the MCs teamed up with this Groot character in Hōjō. To sum it up, I'd say Hell's Paradise is like taking a trip to Hotel California, where you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.