Before I say anything else, I think it’s important to tell you that Immortalliumblog is coming to an end. I set up this blog back in 2019 with the intention of running it for three years to see how it would be received. Unfortunately, even when many of my goals went unfulfilled, I persevered and continued to produce content until this year when I finally decided that the time spent writing and maintaining Immortalliumblog is needed desperately elsewhere. However, I didn’t want to stop without first explaining myself so I decided to write one final article in which I would not only be looking back at Immortalliumblog as a whole but also how you’ll be able to access this content in the future.
Let’s start with a brief look at what some of my goals were. From the beginning, I was hoping to foster a community who would hold active discussions with me and each other about the various topics I wrote about, helping to highlight potential subjects to discuss and expanding on any questions I’d have from researching for the article. Unfortunately, this was an area which failed to materialise over the lifespan of the blog with only the occasional comment.
I find myself occasionally thinking back to the year 1989, interesting given that I wasn’t born until 1993. So then, why does 1989 have any relevance to me then? The answer is rather simple, that being that I consider 1989 to be the year when Western animation finally made its comeback! Why? Good thing you found this article then because I’m going to go over the issues Western animation had prior to 1989, what the significance of that year was and the impact it has had ever since!
Prior to 1989, Western animation was in rather poor shape. In fact many now call that era the Dark Age of Animation! The box office failure of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty in 1959 along with the death of theatrical animated shorts and the rise of television, which necessitated cutting costs in order to be profitable and a pivot towards children who were more receptive to the simpler animation than adults, resulted in animation becoming disregarded as an art form. Of course, it’s important to mention that this term applies primarily to American animation as animation was thriving in Japan during this era and many other countries such as the UK and the Soviet Union were producing plenty of critically acclaimed animated media. Additionally, I also want to point out that there were still creative talents in the American animation industry at this time such as Don Bluth and Ralph Bakshi but even they struggled with financial issues and people’s distaste for animated works.
I was watching Ultraman Taro when a kaiju, Enmargo, appeared that caught my attention. Bearing a sword and shield, his crown adorned with the kanji for King and his chestplate reading Great King, I immediately recognised the influence for this kaiju, King Yama. Of course, the only reason I recognised this in the first place was because of his prevalence in Japanese media. However, I thought that, at least in the West, knowledge of him was obscure enough that I should take a look at who King Yama is as well as some of his appearances in Japanese popular culture.
Let’s start by taking a look at who King Yama is. Yama has his origins in India, specifically within Hinduism, where he serves as the god of the dead. As Buddhism spread from India, he, along with numerous other deities, were similarly dispersed and reinterpreted by various regions and cultures. The Buddhist interpretation of Yama made him a dharmapala, a wrathful deity, who presides over Narakas, the Buddhist hells. When he reached Japan, he was named Enma, often King Enma or Great King Enma. As a result, his impact on Japanese culture with regards to the concepts of hell should not be overlooked.
I’m not a big fan of going to the cinema and much prefer watching films from the comfort of my own home. However, I’d be lying if I said that I’d never seen value in the experience with perhaps the most memorable being when I went to see Paranormal Activity. The audience’s reactions made for an oddly engrossing experience, one that’s hard to replicate at home unless you had a crowd of people over. Paranormal Activity ended up becoming a megahit and a considerable reason came from the assistance of a then little-known studio called Blumhouse Productions. Given their impact on the modern horror landscape, I thought it might be worth taking a quick look at Blumhouse Productions, its history and why they are particularly notable.
Originally founded by Jason Blum and Amy Israel as Blum Israel Productions in 2000, the company’s original purpose was the production of low-budget films where directors had creative freedom. However, this method didn’t start out too successfully with Jason Blum remarking that the films he made were ones “that nobody saw”. Alongside producing the film “Tooth Fairy” which ran counter to the company’s style, he also came across Paranormal Activity in 2007. After a couple of years and a few hundred thousand spent on post-production, amusingly many times more than the cost of actually making the film, it was finally released in 2009 and ended up becoming one of the most profitable films of all time with an estimated gross of over $190 million worldwide!
I was doing some research regarding the formal way of Japanese sitting but, much to my surprise, I found a few lists detailing different ways of sitting as well as the context and methods behind them. As you may imagine, I didn’t expect to find so much detail about something that I would consider to be as basic as the act of sitting down. Given how fascinating I found the topic, I thought I’d share a few examples of Japanese style sitting as well as some facts about them.
Let’s start off with what may be the most recognisable style and the reason why I was searching for information in the first place. Seiza, written with the kanji 正座 which means proper sitting, is used for formal situations and consists of kneeling down so that your knees and shins are on the floor while you rest your upper body weight on your heels. While this is expected in many situations, this method can inhibit blood flow and cause paresthesia. However, there have been arguments that seiza can improve your posture and strengthen your muscles. The fact that many Japanese households and buildings have tatami flooring also helps to limit potential damage and make sitting seiza easier.
An example of an anime character sitting seiza style.
The Harvey Awards are something that I can distinctly remember hearing about from time to time whenever a manga won an award there. I knew it was prestigious but I never thought about what the awards actually were. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at the Harvey Awards, a little bit about their history, the current categories and manga’s place at the awards.
The Harvey Awards were established in 1988 and are named after Harvey Kurtzman, one of the founders and editors of the magazine MAD along with a variety of other work. They were first held at Chicago Comicon and have gone through a variety of locations with their current being New York Comic Con. The Harvey Awards are presented for achievements in comic books and have covered a wide variety of categories such as Best New Series, Best Anthology and, what I would’ve known them for, Best American Edition of Foreign Material. However, these have since been reduced to six categories.
It’s been a while since I wrote about horror on this blog and, so, I thought I’d come back to the topic by discussing a very interesting series of films by musician turned film director Rob Zombie. The Firefly trilogy, not to be confused with a popular one season TV series with the same name, is absolutely fascinating to me not just because of the films themselves but also the transitions in style from film to film. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to share some of my thoughts on Rob Zombie’s Firefly trilogy, what I think of each film and the trilogy as a whole.
Of course, we’re going to start by taking a look at the first film in the trilogy, House of 1000 Corpses. Originally filmed in 2000 but whose release was delayed until 2003 due to behind the scenes issues with the content, House of 1000 Corpses introduces us to the Firefly family who capture unsuspecting travelers and subject them to all sorts of torture, sadism and mutilation. House of 1000 Corpses was Rob Zombie’s directorial debut and it feels, from a technical perspective, easily the roughest out of the whole trilogy. It is also very tonally different from the other films with a much more over the top and goofy feel. That’s not to say that there isn’t good stuff in this film, the soundtrack is great, there’s some very interesting cinematography and the mixture of comedy and violence can be quite satisfying but it’s still what I’d call a mediocre experience.
For many years now, there’s been a TV series that I would love to see released on physical media in the West and that’s Thunderbolt Fantasy. Besides the fact that it’s a Japanese-Taiwanese coproduction, perhaps the aspect that will stand out the most to people is that it’s created using glove puppetry. This is augmented by several elements such as CGI but this visual style has always stood out to me as being wonderfully stylish and distinct. While the puppetry used in the show is Taiwanese, specifically that of Pili International Multimedia, it made me wonder about the history of Japanese puppet animation which I’ve found to be quite fascinating!
I was recently recording for Victory Achieved Gaming, specifically Ori and the Blind Forest, when, among many other topics, Kathlynn and I began talking about Avatar: The Last Airbender due to the upcoming Netflix show. While it proved to be an interesting discussion, it did end up highlighting a particular difference between myself and other fans and, upon watching it again in editing, I thought it might be interesting to do an article where I share some of my opinions that diverge from the mainstream and briefly discuss why.
1. The Legend Of Korra Is Better Than Avatar: The Last Airbender
I might as well start with this opinion since I’ve already touched on it and is what ultimately inspired me to write this blog post. I personally believe Korra to be a superior show to The Last Airbender which is something that I’ve rarely heard, if at all, from other people. However, I do have reasons as to why I have this opinion. Firstly, I don’t think The Last Airbender is as great as everyone makes it out to be. Don’t get me wrong, I do like the show overall, but I have a few issues with it. I actually bounced off the show when I first tried to watch it, finding the humour too juvenile and overwhelming the drama of the first two episodes. I eventually came back to it and persevered which is when I ran into my second problem. The first season has quite a few episodes that seem standalone and not important to the overall story. This eventually turns out not to be the case but it takes almost the whole series to finally see their relevance. I was finally drawn into The Last Airbender in the second season but these blemishes as well as a few other issues mean that I’m not as enthusiastic about the show as some others are. In contrast, I was instantly enamoured with The Legend of Korra due to its tighter storytelling and, in my personal opinion, superior balancing of humour and drama. Additionally, The Legend of Korra took several concepts from the original series that I felt was underdeveloped and fleshed them out beautifully. I’m not saying that The Legend of Korra is without its flaws but they interfered far less with my enjoyment than they did with The Last Airbender. Thus, I personally love The Legend of Korra more, in some ways much more, than The Last Airbender. I may be merely one of very few who believe this but this is something that I believe in completely and unerringly.
I’ve been playing The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles recently and, upon encountering a certain character, I paused, staring at his name and thinking to myself “Is this that famous Japanese author I’ve heard about?” A cursory bit of research quickly confirmed my suspicion but I quickly found myself intrigued at his experience and the impact that he’s had on Japanese literature. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at Soseki Natsume, a man who’s often considered to be the most important author of the Meiji era.
Soseki Natsume was born in 1867, with his birth name being Kinnosuke Natsume, in a rapidly changing Japan which had only ended its policy of isolation, Sakoku, and was in the process of Westernisation and making contact with global powers. Soseki ended up learning the English language and began working as a teacher at several schools. At this time, Japan’s relations were rapidly growing, which would eventually lead to the signing of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902, and, in 1900, Soseki was chosen by the Japanese government to study English literature in Britain, making him the first Japanese to do so.
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