What’s So Good About Anime Anyway? [Part 1!]

I want to talk about the accidental properties of anime that were lacking in American cartoons as the time that anime exploded, the things Nickelodeon and Hanna-Barbera could have leaned into even before anime inspired them to do so.

I want to think explicitly about the things I try to apply in my own work even only under the surface.

I want to focus on craft and considerations that go deeper than “big eyes and blue hair.” I want to dig deeper than style.

I want to talk about what’s so good about anime.

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First-World Balling

Balling on bus line, balling on a bikeballing in the top half, Malthus hit a spike forget bling and swag , just pass me the mic balling in the suburbs, hot water, life is tight

A/C, fireplace, pool, pool table, car with a sunroof, loft if I’m able playroom, study room, master bedroom’s bathroom a six-bedroom life and my bed’s king-size

and I

get free books so I read like a pimp backpack so loaded that I walk with a limp no war on 1st street, I fight like a wimp but I think like Diogenes, richer than him

and my

uncle, fat uncle, royal uncle, got gout ‘disease of the kings,’ he’s a king no doubt too much red meat and beer, Doc said go without at least he’s got a hot nurse with a Bardot pout

and I’m

Balling in the daycare, balling since three balling with the campus, university balling in my armchair with ballers on TV balling in the top half, and I’m free

is there an accountant around to count my worth? I must be someone to see the happiest place on earth and I go with my friends, yeah, back and forth some kids’ve never been there, but I’ll go once more

and I got

so much liquid wealth, yeah fresh water is pelf I spend hours streaming it hot over myself 8 glasses a day, straight-up chugging for health I can dump down the sink if I don’t like the smell and toss extra dollars for the bottles as well

and I got

boxes, boxes, every food in stock, rich and foxy, gourmet of the block ice cream, ice cream, cooler than cold fridge humming, humming, to keep off the the mold more cream than Polo, living large I can YOLO

I make it rain with grain, floss all nice with rice bring on the burger, pizza, tacos, with a single call and do you really wonder why I’m so tall? And how I look so clean, so hot to y’all

Where do I get this, wits and the strength to ball? And how I dress so right like a baby doll and how I feel so good, talk sharp with gall because my life is good, I got my drink and food, I am

Balling on bus line, balling on a bike balling in the top half, Malthus hit a spike forget bling and swag , just pass me the mike balling in the suburbs, hot water, life is tight

and I

got all the consoles since ‘94 maybe I don’t play dreamcast anymore but HD 3D puts me in the war So I seen everything from ‘nam to WW4

(I’m just kidding. The worse fights I’ve seen were a playground brawl, some drunk dude in a bar, and my dad’s ex-wife’s fit... I’m good at handling a super-soaker, though, Nerf. Video games. Life is tight!)

Bending English with J-Pop: FictionJunction YUUKA

But yeah, to be more explicitly pro-Asian in a way that fits National Poetry Month, I want to talk about what non-Native and bilingual speakers of English taught me about how to use the language. Some people call it “broken English” or even worse “Engrish,” but I’d like to think of it as bending English, a language which was a flexible mongrel. I mean, as a fan of AAVE/Ebonics and skin-official siblings of the coiner of “based” and “bling,” I should know a thing or two about the extra-boxilar possibilities of English.

The non-Native and bilingual speakers in this case are all J-Pop and J-Rock artists, hence the blog title.

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Don't Call it A Comeback?

Hello Blog,

It’s been a while.

I take breaks from you in order to prioritize fiction, I know; and I should be writing more often. I actually have the rest of my current novel’s plot arc beside me on a small handheld notebook page.

I take breaks from you in order to write things that I sell, yes, but sometimes I want to write for free, for myself. I do plan to detonate this website if I get published for kids, or at least develop some other place the <18s can find and research me.

I take breaks from you from in fear that my students may look me up and judge me for sharing all my Queer Black Geek traumas. I’m a grad student now, a TA.

I’ve also been assuming that nobody reads this blog. Sure, people have reached out through my contact form, but nobody reads my blog.

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Farewell Epilogue: Why I’m Never Queer In My Bio

This is Maya again, closing in on the Twin Cities Arc Season finale, Chapters 26-32.

This is supposed to be retrospective of how I’ve changed of my growth as queer neurodivergent person, although I hardly feel comfortable claiming labels I’ve learned in the last few years. This may be the first time I’ve called myself “neurodivergent” and I resisted for so long because I didn’t want to seem like I was using my illness as an excuse. Quarantine has been similar enough to my upbringing, however, that I’ve been forced to grapple with my inclinations and habits, what’s easy and natural to me versus what’s new and difficult. One thing I’ve had to acknowledge is that I wasn’t raised following schedules and juggling activities so I still have a slower life pace than many people, and get more easily overwhelmed.

I hate admitting weakness like this. I hate even the idea of any limitation on me.

That brings me to today’s topic:
Farewell Epilogue: Why I’m Never Queer In My Bio
(1800 words, 14 minutes)

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Farewell Prologue: My Life as A Female Incel

Hello Dear Readers,

This is Maya, here to close you out of the Season finale of the Twin Cities Arc, Chapters 26-32, years 2014-2020. Fin and RIP.

I normally don’t put personal blogs on my site like this, but preparing to leave the city that made me a writer is a special occasion, don’t you think?

Minneapolis/Saint Paul are the cities where I came out as queer and the cities where I started therapy necessary to do some of my favorite writing. Any retrospective of how I’ve changed—especially as a writer—would have to cover my growth as a queer neurodivergent person working to heal from trauma. I also believe that any discussion of past growth should also include areas of future.

I won’t list all my achievements here because it’s basically everything on my Writing page. There are also some personal achievements, like meeting both sides of my family for the first time and learning to feel secure in my Blackness.

Right now though, I want to talk about queerness and divergence via a past-minded and a future-minded piece: My Life as A Female Incel (included below) and Why I’m Never Queer In My Bio (coming next week). Part 1 begins below.

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Quotidian Speculation on the Other Side of Revolution

When I am not finishing my read of A People’s Future Of The United States., I have been trying to watch Angela Davis lectures with my minimal Internet. I began reading A People’s Future as part of Harmony Neal’s “Making The Future Irresistible” a class designed to get us thinking about what the future could look like once freed of biased expectations of who should be in the future, who should be centered, and who should shape it.

I am still wondering how to create an Irresistible Future.

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