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Iyashikei: Gems of Anime

Iyashieki.

Whether or not they know it, this is a subgenre of anime that most fans know and many can probably recall their first experience with it.

Why is that?

Perhaps we should back up and ask what “iyashikei” is first.

Iyashikei is a Japanese word that means “healing” and, according to TV Tropes, is a genre focused solely around creating a soothing effect on the audience. They tend to be set in worlds with little to no conflict in order to create that healing effect. That’s not to say this genre is free of conflict; the conflicts just tend to be on a very small scale without high stakes. There are some that defy that part of the definition as we’ll see later in this list.

So how is this obscure, niche genre something most anime fans know?

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Many of Studio Ghibli’s films create the healing sensation that the niche iyashikei genre is known for. Movies like Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away, and My Neighbor Totoro are the biggest examples. If you enjoy those movies, then there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy these particular series. These are in no particular order.

K-on!!

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K-on!! is perhaps one of the most popular and mainstream of this particular genre in the anime community. Many people have undoubtedly seen it, but it’s a pretty great, accessible place to start looking into the genre past Studio Ghibli. It simply follows the adventures of the Light Music Club as they struggle for relevance in their school and to bring new members in.

This is the quintessential “moe” anime. It’s basically cute girls doing cute things and also a very great example of the genre. While it is moe, there is still very much a story structure. The characters, though humble and down to earth, are the main driving force in it. From Yui’s ditziness to Mugi’s occasional complete lack of knowledge of how the world really works, this is a bit of a longer anime that will warm your heart.

ARIA The Animation

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This one is reaching way back into the archives of modern anime. The first season of ARIA aired in 2005 with thirteen episodes. Despite that, it remains extremely highly rated on MyAnimeList. With a ranking of 1061 and popularity of 1008, those numbers speak for themselves. Due to that, the anime does run at the older 4:3 aspect ratio rather than the modern 16:9, so be prepared for black bars up the side of the screen. Despite the era it was created in, the animation is still detailed, fluid, and absolutely breathtaking.

This is a very simple, lighthearted series that focuses on the three main characters, Akari, Aika, and Alice, as they attempt to become full-fledged Undine or professional gondolier guides. The setting of this particular anime is Neo Venezia on the planet Aqua in the 24th century. Aqua was formerly the planet Mars, terraformed over several generations after tragedy befell Manhome (formerly Earth) and made it more difficult to survive there. Neo Venezia is a faithful replication of Venice, Italy, hence the focus on gondolas.

Neo Venezia is a place of magic, wonder, and supreme beauty. Life is relatively uncomplicated for the girls, filled with amazing magical moments large and small. One episode focuses on Alicia, Akari’s mentory, attempting to take her to a special place in a forest. They fail to find the place Alicia wanted, but they find another place of beauty and wonder in its place.

That episode sums up the entire anime in a nutshell. This anime is less about the destination and more about the journey. It fills you with a joy for life and appreciating the small moments in ways many other anime can’t replicate.

This is a longer series with three seasons. The first and third have thirteen episodes and the second has twenty-six. There are also a couple of OVAs.

Natsume Yuujinchou/Natsume’s Book of Friends

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Natsume Yuujinchou is another series that reaches back to older modern anime, but it’s a standout in the genre. The first season aired in 2008. On MyAnimeList, it has the overall ranking of 175 with its popularity being 278.

This series is based around Natsume Takashi, a young fifteen-year-old boy that can see youkai. His parents died when he was young and he’s been bounced around from family member to family member who didn’t want him until his current guardians actually did. There, he discovers a book his grandmother, Reiko, had. She could see youkai like him and, when she was young, collected many of their names in a book. As names give power, every youkai in the area and even many humans want to get their hands on the book for their own ends. Natsume’s goal is to return the names to the youkai so they won’t be enslaved.

While this premise sounds complex compared to the others on this list, for the most part, the plot is simple enough to follow along. It may also sound like it gives a formula to every episode, but it doesn’t. Many episodes do focus around giving youkai their names back, but plenty also focus purely on Natsume and his human friends. There are two also ongoing subplots that are somewhat high stakes that involve two humans trying to get the Book of Friends. However, these higher-stake plots only pop up once in a while with the focus mainly being on the shenanigans Natsume and his misadventures with the youkai world.

This is definitely quite the long anime with over fifty episodes, but that’s split up over six seasons with each having about eleven to thirteen episodes. It’s a time investment if you wanna watch everything, but it’s in small enough chunks that it’s easy to get through. If you’re a fan of Japanese mythology, slice of life, and/or just a story that flows slowly over time with character development, this might just be the series for you.

There are many more examples of iyashikei anime out there such as Tamako Market, Kamichu!, Barakaman, and many more; this is just a small sampling of anime that might help get you started in the genre. These series are honestly a great remedy after having a stressful day or week.

Sources:

Aria The Animation. (n.d.). MyAnimeList.Net. https://myanimelist.net/anime/477/Aria_The_Animation

Iyashikei – TV Tropes. (n.d.). TV Tropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Iyashikei

Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume’s Book of Friends). (n.d.). MyAnimeList.Net. https://myanimelist.net/anime/4081/Natsume_Yuujinchou

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The Dungeon Run: As Seen by a D&D Fan

To preface an article on something with such a rich history as Dungeons & Dragons, I feel it’s best to start from the beginning, or more specifically, where it began for me. I was in college about the same time Geek and Sundry first started putting out their infamous Critical Role show and hadn’t the foggiest idea about D&D other than some guide books on monsters I had picked up as a kid to use as inspiration when writing stories. I’d heard about it, of course, but only in vague references, and the most I understood at the time was that it was a popular game of some sort.

In class one day I glanced over at my friend’s computer and saw that she was looking at a picture. I recognized in my distant childhood memories a beholder, a floating abomination that looked like a meatball had been given a maw of razor-sharp teeth, a giant central eye, and eyestalks all over its body, each of which could fire a magic laser with different effects in order to royally screw with whoever had the misfortune to stumble into its path. After class, I asked her about it and she said she was perusing a digital copy of the Monster Manual. I asked what it was, and from there fell down the proverbial rabbit hole.

Five years, several campaigns, and multiple characters later, I find myself in the dubious position of reviewing Caffeine’s show called The Dungeon Run and asked to write an article while sounding like I know what the heck I’m talking about. While I had seen trailers and the like, I never looked into the show before now simply because I had other things going on, including ongoing campaigns of my own, and knowing how long sessions can run in an average game, it wasn’t too hard to imagine a similar experience playing out in front of me on a screen. Obviously, I had a lot of catching up to do. Hopefully, if you’re reading this you don’t have to go diving into wikis and the like to figure out what The Dungeon Run is actually about, but if you do, I’ll save you some time and give a brief overview of what’s going on here.

The Dungeon Run is a live RPG show where five adventurers are set loose in the fantastic world of Ain. The characters are played by notable actors: Katie Michels from Brooklyn Nine-Nine plays the gnome bard Lily Dumblestuck; Morgan Peter Brown from the film Ouija plays the human warlock James Quillus; Ron Ogden from Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies plays the orc barbarian Uggo; Jarred Kjack from James Ellroy’s L.A.: City of Demons plays the tabaxi rogue Siv RedThistle; and Jessica Lynn Parsons from S.W.A.T. plays the fire genasi wizard Fahima Tadhg. The group’s Dungeon Master, Jeff Cannata, is also an actor, known for the web series The Further Adventures of Cupid and Eros. The show premiered on Caffeine’s streaming site, with episodes being ported later to YouTube.

So, as someone familiar with D&D, what did I think of the show, and what can people familiar with the game expect from it? What makes The Dungeon Run fun to watch for veteran DM’s and players?

Honest, short answer: the same thing that makes every D&D game enjoyable.

To be clear, the show isn’t going to be for everyone, just like there’s no one true method to playing the game that’s for everyone. Some people will think the rules are too lax, or too strict. Some people will dislike the story, or the characters, or the player’s decisions. And that, too, is a part of D&D as a whole. It attracts such a diverse array of people, such that there are so many opinions and beliefs and ways to play the game that there’s no ‘right’ way to do it anymore. It’s amazing, really, especially when you consider that it came out in the 70’s, and people old and new from different backgrounds and experiences STILL play it.

Some people will point out how interactive The Dungeon Run is, how the audience can affect the outcome of the story, and while to a degree that makes it interesting to watch, it’s not an entirely novel idea. There’s an early episode of Critical Role where they have an encounter that was stated to have been provided by the chatroom. While it may help draw in people who have never played before or are relatively new to the game, the interactivity of the game isn’t going to be the main point that brings in veteran players, at least not entirely.

What about the quirky cast? An orc, a tabaxi, a fire genasi… heck, there’s even a subrace of gnome that doesn’t appear in the player’s handbook! For new players, seeing such variety before them is entrancing, and it certainly is interesting to see such a wide array of uncommon races being played. But again, having people playing something other than the bog-standard races found in the player’s handbook isn’t necessarily what makes a good campaign. While playing as a race you’ve never played before may enhance the roleplay somewhat, it’s not the only factor that makes a character interesting.

So what does it? The miniatures? The maps? The mind flayer puppet at the start the show? What’s the main draw of the Dungeon Run that will make veterans of the game want to watch?

The same thing that makes people want to play the game in their living room with crudely-drawn maps and toys bought for their kid. You don’t really need anything fancy to have fun playing D&D, or even just watching it. If the DM can spin a story that draws the players and the audience in, if the characters work well together or bounce off in ways that are hysterically funny, if everyone is having a good time… then that’s all you really need.

There’s a reason Dungeons & Dragons is lauded as one of the best roleplaying games out there. It taps into the magic of storytelling and invites the players to become a part of it, and the audience to watch it unfold. Sure, you can have the audience tweak it by having them set up encounters or provide magic items, and that makes it more interactive and fun for people who want to be a part of the action. But even without that, if for some reason you don’t want to spend money or you can’t get in on the fun of throwing monsters at the players, The Dungeon Run still holds promise for fans of D&D, new and old, for the same reason any home campaign does: the promise of a story yet to be told.

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Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 4 Analysis

Episode 4 of Steven Universe really highlighted the importance of being together and taking the time to bother with your friends. We start the episode with Steven trying to have “together breakfast” with everyone but they’re all busy with one thing or another. When he finally convinces one of them to try, they become greedy and try to eat the entire breakfast themselves. However, this nor any other obstacle stops Steven from trying to bring himself and his friends closer together and eating the “together breakfast” well… Together.

After fighting monsters, swimming through oceans and many more obstacles they finally all eat together but not in the way we thought. The current together breakfast gets destroyed so they all make a new one together. Only to end up ordering pizza because they can’t eat it all even with all of them there which was a great comedic touch to the already hilarious aspect of Steven going through leaps and bounds just to have breakfast together.

However, what if we as people tried with as much effort as Steven did to be together and interact with each other? Human beings were created to commune and be together, to deprive someone of that is no greater pain. What if we set aside our differences and just said: “Hey, let’s stop fighting and try to understand each other”?

What if we tried solving problems through dialogue instead of with violence and cruelty? This is just one man’s opinion but I think the world would be much happier if we all had a together breakfast. Let this episode be a reminder of unity and interaction, something we at AAOG stand for above almost all else. Unlike Pearl, Amethyst and the others, strive to carve out time for your friends and loved ones. Not only they but you will be much happier.

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A New Challenger Approaches: New Super Smash Bros Character in This Week’s Nintendo Direct!

A New Foe Has Appeared!

Smash Bros. Ultimate fans rejoice! For those who have been waiting to find out who the fifth and final fighter is this season’s DLC, you don’t have to wait much longer!

Nintendo has announced that they will be unveiling a new fighter to the roster of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on January 16 this Thursday. That’s right, this Thursday at 6AM PT/ 9AM ET. The Nintendo Direct will run for about 35 minutes so we’ll most likely get a hefty in-depth look at the character and how they will fare against the rest. Maybe even some additional announcements alongside the character reveal.

Obviously, this won’t be the final character that Nintendo will be adding. Nintendo has confirmed last September that more DLC characters are in development. After last year’s latest Nintendo Direct, game director Masahiro Sakurai stated, “To me, it feels like the finish line is sliding farther away,” Sakurai said. “You may wonder, ‘How much longer can he be involved in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate?’ But I’m also excited. Adding more characters into the game will mean that more worlds will be added to the series. And ultimately, that will mean that there will be an even greater opportunity to delight the fans.” So, if it turns out the character you’re hoping for is not the one, fear not there is still hope!

Speculation

As the Internet eagerly waits for the announcement on Thursday, the Internet is doing what it does best in these trying times of waiting, overreading. The Internet is currently speculating on the promotional image of Sakurai in Nintendo’s latest tweet about the livestream announcement. The image shows Sakurai in what looks like a peace sign but with three fingers up. This could simply be a cute image of Sakurai throwing up a clumsy peace sign, but in the hands of the Internet it is something more.

Many have dissected what the three numbered peace sign means. Is it a pose similar to another character like Crash Bandicoot or Sonic? Or is it representative of a game title like Devil May Cry 3 or Kingdom Hearts 3? The possibilities are endless. It’s most likely that the promo image means nothing but it’s still fun nonetheless to see theories even the most ridiculous.

Sakurai has created a game with such a wide variety of characters that it could easily triumph Avengers End Game as the most ambitious crossover ever. It’s just so exciting to see the world of Smash Bros get bigger by the day.

Could it be Waluigi will finally have his spot? Or will it be Goku? Smash Bros. has the tendency to cast a wide net when it comes to characters for their roster. I have really high hopes for Sora from Kingdom Hearts. We’ll just have to wait until then to see what Nintendo has in store for us!

In the meantime, while I wait for Sora, be sure to check out our Kingdom Hearts live streams! Our Kingdom Hearts Livestreams are every Tuesday and Thursday on Twitch!

You can also catch our previous VOD’s over at The Geek Game Room on our website!

The Geek Game Room

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Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 3 Analysis

In episode 3 of Steven Universe, both Steven and the audience learn the important lesson of being able to help despite not having the same abilities as everyone else. Many of us now the pain of not being able to help or just not being able to do something in general because of something that seems to set us back. We see in episode 3 that Steven knows this pain all too well and yet he still strives to help out however he can with what he has. Even if he can’t use his gem yet and help in a more grand way like the others his role is still vital.

Steven helps by providing inspiration, doing smaller things such as carrying vital items to their mission and even finding his own unique ways to fulfill bigger duties. Our limits don’t may interfere with our ability to do certain things but they don’t have to stop us. We just need to think on our feet and find ways to work with and around our limits. This also serves to highlight the fact that smaller acts can be and often are just as vital as the larger acts.

You can’t light a fire without rubbing 2 sticks together or pressing the button on a lighter, you can’t cook food for the hungry without doing the seemingly menial task of gathering the ingredients. Regardless of your limits, there is always some way to contribute and in a way, only you can.

There are things that only Steven can do that the other gems can’t and without him, they wouldn’t be able to complete their mission in the grand scheme. Our limits present a unique opportunity to offer help in ways only we know how and remember that any limit can be surpassed. However, while surpassing our limits is always possible we also need to learn to work with our current limits until then? Will you learn to do this like Steven or will you wait for a change that isn’t going to come unless you make it?

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Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 2 Analysis

Episode 2 of Steven Universe showed us a lot about where Steven comes from and it’s not particularly fancy or special, a single father who himself admits is no one particularly special. Yet something that stuck out to me is that despite this, he still took pride in where he came from and loved his family deeply despite their shortcomings.

Don’t think that we can’t do the same no matter where we came from, if we came from a place of struggle then we can take pride in what those struggles taught us, if we came from a place of peace then we can be glad about the fact that we knew love abundantly and can, therefore, show it abundantly. If we came from poverty then we can share with others the struggles we overcame despite that poverty and show that we can become great despite being born into not so great circumstances.

As Steven and his father are keen on saying, if every pork chop were perfect we wouldn’t have hot dogs! The world is full of pork chops, take a chance on being the less appreciated but more sophisticated hot dog and see where it takes you! In other words, try embracing your heritage no matter how dark. Our heritage is something we’re stuck with but it doesn’t have to define us, however, not letting it define us doesn’t mean we have to discard it either. Learn about your heritage, embrace it, try to see the good in it and if there isn’t any, inject some good into it by the life you live!

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Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 1 Analysis

Time to delve into the universe of Steven with Steven Universe! See what I did there? Episode 1 was a great episode and I went into it blind so this article might be a bit less informed than others.

Steven at first glance seems like your average teenage boy, he likes something called Cookie Cats to an almost obsessive extent, seems fairly optimistic and friendly and a tad lazy. However, we learn pretty much right off the bat that Steven has something that makes him unique to others, in his belly button he has something called a crystal gem that I must say is pretty cool looking. We also just as soon learn that this gem has led to quite a bit of bullying towards him and yet I noticed that it didn’t phase the pride he took in having something that made him truly unique.

I know full well how much it hurts to have things such as scars, deformities, etc. made fun of but what if we did life Steven does and turned those perceived flaws into our greatest strength? What if we accepted our flaws and turned them into something that could be used to strengthen others and ourselves?

Before Steven even has any known good reason to see his gem as something good he’s already accepted it and later in the series (I assume) he learns to utilize its power and physically use it to protect those around him. Some of us have flaws we can’t use in and of themselves for anything but we can inspire others by showing acceptance of and confidence in our flaws despite the hardships they might bring. Let us follow Stevens’s example and flaunt our supposed flaws to the world and use them to empower others and ourselves by showing that flaws can indeed be strengths!

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RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 9 Analysis

RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 9 was a real tear-jerker. The thing that stuck out most to me was Juane coping with Pyrrha’s death. I think it was pretty clear throughout the first 3 volumes that they loved each other and if it wasn’t clear then, it was certainly made clear that Juane loved her in this episode.

He spends most of the episode deeply saddened and thinking about her and even visits a statue of her made in memory of her, placed where she trained before coming to Beacon no less and he’s seemingly inconsolable for the time being. How many of us can relate to Juane’s struggle with coping with the loss of someone he loved? Most if not all of us have suffered a loss of love at one point or another and no matter how many we lose it never gets easy. Things like:

“She should be standing here!”

“Why was it her that had to die?”

I’m sure many more questions cross his mind. Just as we all do, he goes through the all too human process of doubting, questioning why, feeling despaired and all that loss entails. But when we lose those we love it doesn’t truly have to be the end of them. Sure, they aren’t physically with us anymore but their memory, what they stood for, what they believed in and the impact that had on all they met stay with us.

On top of all these things, since they’re gone any memory of their legacy and the changes they tried to make must come from those they knew, it must come from us. Physical loss doesn’t have to be the end of a bond, all the things mentioned above are what make a bond live on beyond death but we have to choose to face the pain and continue clinging to those memories. And who knows, perhaps there’s a life beyond this one we will meet them in again one day. Will you allow their legacy to be forgotten in time or cling to their memories and build onto that legacy?

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RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 8 Analysis

RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 8 is a great mix of comedy and drama despite the fact that it starts off with Team RWBY and crew in prison. Qrow keeps his sarcastic and joking demeanor despite being locked up, the Grimm Reaper comically and casually says these people are her enemies despite the fact that she clearly cares at least somewhat for them. The guards are comically aloof. I felt this was nice change of pace from the constant tension of the last few episodes.

We also get a great bonding moment between Reaper and Ruby as Reaper teaches her how to increase her power and tells her the importance of her eyes. Finding good in bad situations was a major theme in this episode I felt. Despite the revelation of Ozpin and Salem being lovers, Salem possibly being justified in her want to bring destruction and being imprisoned they still find the time to learn, joke around and strengthen their bond.

This episode really reiterated that there’s almost always a silver lining, another joke to be made, another important lesson to be learned, another to teach and much more. If there isn’t a clear silver lining to be seen then we can draw one ourselves and if there isn’t any relief to be found, we can rely on the strength of our bonds to be our relief even if the person isn’t physically there.

The bad and stressful situations in our lives can make this silver lining all the more clear and give us perspective. Whether it be that things might not be as bad as we think, or that they are but we can overcome them, the bad parts of our lives shouldn’t be dismissed or hidden but instead learned from. Like how Reaper learned to thrive despite the loss of her eyes, like how Yang learned to live again despite her PTSD and Qrow learned how to be a better leader despite his struggles. You can grow but the question, will you let the pain help you grow?

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RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 7 Analysis

In RWBY Volume 6 Chapter episode 7 we come to the end of a rather legendary revelation, Maria who’s been helping team RWBY is the legendary and almost mythical Grimm Reaper. I’ll let you guess what her previous occupation probably was.

We start the episode by seeing the Grimm aren’t the only thing she’s good at battling, she also holds her own against quite a few enemies at once. However, this fight ends with her losing her eyes and we learn that the only reason people desire her is for the power of her eyes. This is something I can resonate with deeply and I’m sure many of you can as well.

Many of us have gone through the pain of only being wanted for what we can give at one point or another. For others it’s the opposite, we’re outcasted for what we lack. We can see that the Grimm Reaper hasn’t lived an easy life not only due to her eyes being the cause of a lot of struggle but also losing them and losing presumed fame and possibly fortune she had due to her feats. However, by the time of her appearance in the series we see that not only has she found a way to deal with the loss of her eyes but she starts to form a bond with Team RWBY.

The scars of her past and the pain of her losses start to mend due to this newfound bond, I find that the Grimm Reaper is a shining example of what can happen if we decide to continue on despite our pain and loss. Those things do not have to be the end for us or define us, pain can go away and the void that loss leaves behind can be filled. We can find friendship and bonds but like the Grimm Reaper it’s up to us to make the decision to not give up, no one can make that decision for us. Will we let our circumstances define us or will keep moving forward and find a new definition? Only we as individuals can answer this, what’s your answer?

Geek Culture

Iyashikei: Gems of Anime

K-on!!

ARIA The Animation

Natsume Yuujinchou/Natsume’s Book of Friends

The Dungeon Run: As Seen by a D&D Fan

Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 4 Analysis

A New Challenger Approaches: New Super Smash Bros Character in This Week’s Nintendo Direct!

Speculation

Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 3 Analysis

Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 2 Analysis

Steven Universe Season 1 Episode 1 Analysis

RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 9 Analysis

RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 8 Analysis

RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 7 Analysis

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