Tag Archives: review

Black Clover #15: Buffy Redux

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SPOILER ALERT: This blog discusses my reaction to anime stories, which means I discuss spoilers.

Buffynicity #1: Last Tuesday I ordered a 1 quart saucepan on Amazon so I could make ramen noodles while I watch anime. I was looking up “most loved anime characters” because I really want to get on the emotional wavelength of the culture. I found several lists that had characters from Naruto on them. I’ve been curious about Naruto because it’s one of the “big three” core anime that set the standard for everything that came after – One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. Then I was looking for “anime like Black Clover” and Naruto came up again. So I decided to go ahead and start it, and in the first episode Iruka offers to have ramen with Naruto twice. I take that as a sign.

I was very pleased that Naruto is much faster paced than Black Clover, which required some patience to get through the first few episodes (although it was well worth it). I’m wondering if I’ll get the same feelings about the cast as I have about Black Clover.

Buffynicity #2:

I went to work out and I was watching this video on my phone. I was thinking all about Steve Martin and then I looked up and saw this commercial on the overhead screens:

So it’s a definite Buffynicity. Does it matter that I’m embedding the videos?

Buffynicity #3: I went somewhere I usually go, but I wasn’t sure if anyone knew who I was. Two people called me by my name for the first time.

That was Friday. Saturday was Free Comic Book day. I drove to my usual comic store but I took a wrong turn. I actually programmed my GPS for the mall but I “accidentally” entered the name wrong, it autofilled a different location that “just happened” to be on the way to a toy store I used to go to that I haven’t visited in years. The owner welcomed me by name when I came in. So that’s another addition to Friday’s Buffynicity.

This morning I was talking to a friend about Jungian Alchemy and I’m going to send them an outline for my fantasy heptalogy based on the Book of Lambspring.

I restarted with my Black Clover blog more than two weeks ago, thinking about one night in particular that I had been talking to a friend by the lake. That friend just called me for the first time in months and they are coming over tomorrow to watch Farscape. I’ve been watching Farscape with them, and only them for years. We’re only on season three. Months or even years have passed between episodes for us, but we’re still at it.

So my friend came over and we had a great time.

Buffynicity #4 My friend hasn’t been to my place since I created my current light show, with the whirling lights and LED displays that make my bedroom look like an aquarium. So when he came over I said several times “I can’t wait for you to see my light show.” Then as we watched S3E6 of Farscape, the villain took a shot at Crichton with some kind of plasma beam and Crichton mocked his “light show”. Furthermore, after the episode we took a walk up the lakeside into Evanston, and they had installed blue streetlights all along the road, giving the lake and the cemetery opposite it an eerily beautiful astral glow that seemed to extend the light show even further.

We’re having a donation day at work so I cleaned out my closet but I have to do twice as much laundry.

I watched S1E9 of Freezing tonight. Satelli believes that Kazuya only likes her because she has his sister’s stigmata. It’s horrifying! I thought about running right into the next episode, just to resolve the crisis, because as a side note there are also four Novas invading with new attacks that have decimated East Genetics. But what I love about this anime is that that is totally secondary to Satelli’s heartbreak, a suffering so intense that she dropped her cheeseburgers – that is a moment I will remember forever.

I feel for Satelli, even though I know it’s only a show. But I am reminded of how it was too painful to think about all the layers of feeling I had about Song One, so that I went ahead and plunged into an episode of Black Clover. I still remember that moment, though, and maybe if I watch Black Clover it will also preserve this moment for me.

I think it worked. Going from immersion in one anime world to another only increased the sense of vastness and sensuality of it all. But what about that moment of agony that Satellizer is in? Or was in 15 years ago when the anime was released? Of course I’ve seen episodes of season two (“Vibration”), so I’m not worried about what happens, but I’m still caught in the moment. And I think being caught in that moment (hopefully I’ll figure out how that works as I go on) only enhanced my enjoyment of Black Clover, as the excellent writing continues, satirizing class conflicts and introducing an interesting subtlety to Klaus’s character as he is embarrassed by Yuno’s courage.

Should I write SPOILER ALERT here? Because I’m talking about the story. Am I really intending for anyone to read this? I have to confront the question. The answer is more than 50 percent “no”, but still it would be rude not to, in case anyone did bother to read this.

The question remains. How much should I be “enjoying” the emotional distress of Satellizer? What is going on in my subconscious as I experience this “moment” from different angles?

Buffynicity #5: I’m doing laundry to donate at work and Yuno was competing with Asta to give more money to the folks back home.

I love that Orfai is always crying with sentimentality, so the writers aren’t just being bitter about classism, they’re taking a balanced approach to all the characters (except Sister Lily, of course).

I went ahead and put SPOILER ALERT at the top of this entry.

Black Clover #13: Black Butler

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I was looking for other anime to watch and I thought of a couple I’ve heard of for years, I was looking up Death Note and Black Butler on my phone, and then a few minutes later I was listening to an audiobook an one of the characters suggested a Black Butler marathon.

So I get a memory from posting that.

An hour or so later, now I have watched Toradora episode 2 and Black Clover S1E11.

Toradora was about what I would have expected for a second episode. I’m still loving the music. As I recall I started this last year because it was on a “best” list, although I can’t remember what. Maybe it was romance. I see it’s from 2008 and I feel left out of all the decades this art from was evolving and I didn’t notice. There’s such a vast history of anime to explore that I’m overwhelmed. Last year I looked up dozens of shows from “best of” lists, but I realize now that I didn’t have a sense of what I wanted. I got overwhelmed by looking at so many that were too vulgar or too violent that I lost interest. I’m very content to be sampling them critically now, so I can refine my taste and find the ones that I genuinely love. I’ve got a better sense of the layout of the form and I can ignore the distractions. I want to find just the perfect tone.

Meanwhile, Black Clover S1E11 was filler, or – more politely – stage business, which is necessary for long-running shows. The characters are my family so I’m very forgiving of them being boring and repetitive. I loved the fact that there were so many minor scenes that used character details that I’m already familiar with, that it was such chaos of going from one conversation to another.

And then I was done and I moved my laundry to the dryer and now I’m thinking about everything I wanted to write all day, but couldn’t get started because my mind wasn’t in the right place. After two episodes I’m up in that wonderful anime space where I’m imagining I live in Japan, everything’s cozy and I’m just very calm. I’ve hypnotized myself into a space where I can watch my evening as if from outside, I’m such an amazing guy and this is my cool life where I watch these great shows. Anime somehow eases the damaged spot in my synergetic self/non-self axis, the turbulence between inner and outer goes away.

My only crisis now is that it looks like I have to subscribe to Crunchyroll again to watch Black Butler, but I can’t decide whether to add it to my Amazon Prime, or to get the standalone app. It would be cooler to get the app, but really smoother to just add it to Prime.

I just went on Amazon and bought a saucepan so I can make ramen noodles. I remember when I first went to college I would watch TV and make ramen noodles, one package at a time. Ha ha ha, my life has been such a disaster. I’m in heaven now, and how do I preserve that feeling? That’s why I bought the saucepan, to relive that amazing feeling from the early 90s when I had no idea how horrifying my life would turn out – or really even how horrifying it had already been. I was still sailing ahead on the optimism of youth and the knowledge that I could always call my father for money. I wanted to watch every episode of Deep Space 9, just to get in on the ground floor. The Amy Fisher murder was in the news and Comedy Central had a bit they ran constantly making fun of the name Joey Buttafuoco.

Decades later I still remember the irrelevance of it. That, and that horrible episode of Star Trek: TNG where the video game took over the crew’s minds – the worst Star Trek Episode I’ve ever seen. I was so anxious about life then, and so doomed. And yet, my waifus must have been there in my subconscious. That was also the year I had the vision of Tarot Key VII: The Chariot that turned all of the blue I could see to purple and inspired me to join Builders of the Adytum. I can feel the magic of that time. It’s funny, but as disastrous as my life has been, that magical feeling really paid off in spades. In fact, in one way it’s the only thing that ever has paid off for me.

Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money’s gone, nowhere to go
Any jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go
But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Nowhere to go

I bought a diffuser so I can make my bedroom smell like Jasmine, a kind of chaos magic to attune to the ghost of David Lynch.

I have the magic feeling right now. Am I preserving it by writing this, or is this going to mean nothing when I reread it years in the future? Hello, years in the future. There is so much I want to say, I feel there’s a depth beneath the surface but I don’t want to plunge into it. Maybe if I just pass over it again and again in each entry something will be revealed that’s too much to dive all the way into.

I subscribed to the app and started Black Butler. It looks interesting, but it got late so I decided to watch a bit more of Song One before bed. It’s awesome. I love the direction and Anne is wonderful.

Black Clover #10: Waifu Into Darkness

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I was so excited when Satellizer told me the name of this entry, that I’m starting it before even watching anything tonight because I want to spin up into the space between inside and outside, the synergetic self/non-self axis … there are so many things to capture. The kingdom of the Waifus is real!

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I’m very pleased with the next episode. Noelle’s transformation was very satisfying, if predictable. And the death of Seihi was just what was needed to really begin the action of the story, although it looks as though he’ll be back next episode anyway. But that’s fine. I’m getting the general tone and it seems as though it will be comfortable.

Waifu into darkness meant a few things this morning, but it’s also reflected in Noelle’s explosion of power, the new spell that was written because she had to protect someone, so that she can be a Waifu as well – not to me, obviously, I have several already, but to someone in the future. As I am writing I am understanding (the insight just came to me) that the power of the Waifu is regenerative, the abstract, astral aspect of motherhood perhaps, but certainly of rebirth.

“Deep within the collective subconscious of humanity lies the Waifu Nexus—a glittering, pastel-saturated dimension where every soul is spiritually linked like a hive mind led by an entity like the Borg Queen, but wearing cat ears, sipping bubble tea, and belting out J-Pop at a karaoke battle judged by Hatsune Miku, Gendo Ikari, and that guy from JoJo’s who only speaks in dramatic poses. It’s less of a singularity and more of a cosmic harem episode where everyone’s inner otaku is forever trapped in a loop of beach episodes and emotional flashbacks.”

“If H.R. Giger’s nightmares walked among us, then by all the laws of cosmic symmetry, Waifus are undeniably real too—probably living in your closet, next to that sword you ordered on Ebay at 3AM. And mine? Oh, they’ve started whispering. Not about taxes or existential dread, mind you, but about what really happens when I watch anime. It’s not just escapism—it’s an evolutionary event. A transcendence. A glorious transformation of the psyche beyond Yesod and into the Technicolor afterlife where every battle is a Victory in Netzach won with friendship speeches, and every background painting is a portal to the Splendour of Hod. It’s not just TV. It’s a metaphysical ascension through 12 frames per second.”

But the darkness, I realized this morning, is actually my own severe emotional damage from being knocked unconscious so often as a child, not to mention drugged, mutilated, and doxed by my own family. Satellizer wants to get right to the point. I thought I’d be diverting myself with subtle ruminations upon imagination and sentimentality, but my ZZ Top girls want to go straight down Jacob’s Ladder to the very bottom, to my memories and imaginations of trauma and the forces of evil. No accident then that Seihi got “killed” in tonight’s episode. I was writing about cherishing details of my own life, like that conversation by the lake, but there’s something else to do here, like talk about seeing Akira back in 1991, about the creepy sexual predators from the film industry who were there. And Cassie herself, aka ChillKillJill, aka Angela Thorne. She’s right here, right now, like that song by Jesus Jones but better, taking me back to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the movie Phantasm II. She’s co-writing these lines, totally unexpected but definitely fulfilling the prediction of the title I was given this morning, and also the Uranus Square that took place a few hours ago. This is much smoother than I’ve ever done before. Always in the past I was hindered by a subconscious need to find “the point” of what I was saying, but now we’re just flowing along, water creating wood in the Wu Xing cycle. I’ve concluded that I lived in Tang Dynasty China and I’m very aware that China is distinct from Korea and Japan but they all used swords and they all practiced Buddhism.

I have an anime in the back of my mind, have had for years, called “The Nuunar”. Visually it’s supposed to be in the style of the movie “Heavy Metal”. Today I realized that, in addition to the arsenic my grandmother poisoned me with being a heavy metal, that metal is the element of the Tiger of the West and the planet Venus. Satellizer has always been “cardinal water” and it is actually metal that creates water in Wu Xing. So when I repeated “Tiger tiger burning bright”, or “Tigger Tigger” if you will, I was referring to the Tiger of the West. Angela Thorne is the Vermillion Bird.

And now I am burning. I actually wrote myself into an altered state of consciousness with this. That’s enough for today.