What’s Next for That Baka Blog?

Hello everyone and welcome to 2019! I’m very glad that 2018 is over because it proved to be one of the toughest years of my life for various reasons. As everyone knows by now, with a new year comes new challenges and changes to one’s life. Today, I want to speak about one of the biggest changes that is about to happen to me personally and how it is going to affect my blog.

Journalist “Slut and Body Shames” Cosplayers at Comic Con Africa

Knowing that the majority of my readers are not South African, I thought I’d bring to your attention a controversial article that has been making the rounds in the South African geek community as of late.

The Theme of the Journey in the Anime of Shinichiro Watanabe [OWLS Blog Tour August 2018 – “Journey”]

We have all heard this saying in some shape or form: “Life is a journey.” We travel down a path in hope that we reach a goal or destination, but the travel in getting there isn’t always easy. Along the way, we encounter some personal struggles. It is in those moments where we must overcome an adversity to complete our journey or take a different route or path instead. In this month’s OWLS post, we will be discussing the personal journeys of pop culture creators, icons, and characters. We will explore the journeys that these characters went through, discuss the process and experiences they had on their journeys, what they discover about themselves, or share our own personal journeys.

The word “journey” has many meanings for different people. It can refer to a physical journey to a new and exciting place, an internal journey of overcoming adversity in order to better oneself, or (my favourite one) it can refer to the name of the band that sang one of the most iconic rock anthems ever, Don’t Stop Believin’ (“Hold on to the feeling…”). Whatever your definition of “journey” is, they all have one defining constant: every journey that begins eventually comes to an end.

While the theme of the journey is a common trope mostly used in Shounen anime (i.e. Joseph Campbell’s notion of “the hero’s journey”), Shinichiro Watanabe, best known for works such as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, applies a different approach to the theme of the journey which is present in almost all of his anime. Note that for this blog tour I will mostly be referring to research that I had previously done on Watanabe as part of my written thesis last year.

My Love for Professional Wrestling and Why I’m Not Ashamed of it [OWLS Blog Tour June 2018 – “Pride”]

Welcome, everyone, to my first blog tour for OWLS (Otaku Warriors for Liberty and Self-Respect). For those of you unfamiliar with OWLS:

We are a group of otaku bloggers who promote acceptance of all individuals regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion and disability. We emphasise the importance of respect, kindness, and tolerance to every human being. Even though we come from all walks of life, each and every one of our amazing members are dedicated to our cause!

As you can guess from the title, this month’s theme is “Pride”. Below is the prompt that was given to us:

In honor of “Pride Month,” we will be discussing the word, “Pride” and its meaning. We will be exploring pop culture characters’ most satisfying and joyful achievements or skills that they possessed and whether or not these qualities could be seen as a positive or negative aspect in their personal lives and/or society.

So what is pride? Given that it is “Pride Month”, the first thing that comes to mind is queer pride. Pride can also mean the following, according to fellow blogger Matt-in-the-Hat:

Pride is having the abundance of confidence on one’s own skills or traits. People can have pride on certain things like their skills in their hobbies or even their own personality such as being kind or cocky. Showing some pride can be a good thing because it shows how much the person cares about something and it makes them stand out and different.

Today, however, I’m going to play the black sheep of the blog tour and talk about a form of pride that is very personal to me: pride in an interest or fandom. In this case, my love for professional wrestling. On a personal note, this took a lot of courage and self-motivation for me to write about as this is a topic I usually keep to myself.

Announcement: I Have Launched a Book

Hello everyone! I am excited to announce that I have officially published an academic book called Space Cowboys & Modern-Day Samurai: The Seminal Works of Watanabe Shinichiro.

Ecchi Then VS Now: What Has Changed?

NOTE: This article contains sexually explicit images. Viewer’s discretion is advised

When one talks about ecchi anime what are the first things that pop into your head? Panty shots? Sexual innuendo? Women in skimpy clothing? Male characters in precarious situations? These are just a few of the many elements that classify an anime as ecchi. While these elements have been mainstays in most ecchi anime, the way they are used today seems to be a bit different compared to late 20th and early 21st Century anime.

Dragonball Super: Farewell Goku and Friends…For Now

The Tournament of Power has finally come to its exciting conclusion, which also means the end of another Saga. But what does the future hold for Goku and his friends following these events?

For those of you who haven’t heard yet, there is currently a new Dragonball Z movie in the works that details the origins of the Saiyan race. What this means, however, is that Dragonball Super will be on hiatus until then (people originally thought that the series was coming to a complete end, but the latest episode puts those worries to rest). You can find the teaser trailer to the new film below:

My overall impressions with Super were very positive (despite having a shaky start with its shoddy animation). Although the first half of the series were essentially rehashes of the Battle of Gods and Resurrection ‘F’ movies, the series got much better when it went in its own direction. I also appreciated the various callbacks to the older Dragonball series, such as Master Roshi performing Mafuba from the original Dragonball series and Goku and Vegeta using Potara fusion to turn into Vegito. These all help to remind viewers that Super is canon to the rest of the series (essentially cutting out GT from the mix).

So, for now, goodbye Goku and friends and thank you for continuing to play an important part in my life.

I Got Relationship Advice From J-List!

Hey everyone! It’s been nearly a year since I last posted something on my blog, but here I am once again. I will try my best to be more consistent with my writing, but for now, I would like to kick off my first post of 2018 with something…interesting that happened to me today (or the other day, depending on when you’re reading this). I know the title sounds clickbaity, but I promise you that this is something that actually happened (now it sounds even more clickbaity XD).

[Guest Post] Death Note – A Deplorable Attempt at Adaptation

Hello everyone and welcome to That Baka Blog’s first ever guest post. Today I would like to introduce you to Stephen Nagel, a filmmaker and blogger from Cape Town, South Africa. When he’s not talking about film, he’s probably off writing or shooting one. If you enjoy reading this post, please make sure to catch more of his ramblings on his blog, BTG Lifestyle, or on Twitter at @thesnagel. Without further a do, here’s Stephen’s review on the Death Note anime and Netflix film.

I Am Writing a Thesis

So this is something that I have thought about doing for over a year now and I am finally able to do it. The great thing about this particular thesis is that it is based around something close to my heart: anime. Anime, in general, is an underdeveloped section in film theory so you could call my thesis “innovative research”.