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Inuyasha - The Final Act To Stream Mondays

Schedule change! New episodes of Inuyasha - The Final Act will now stream Mondays instead of Saturdays. That change starts with episode 11, which will be available Monday, December 14.

See you on Mondays!

Death Rules
As much as we keep advancing in medicine and technology, death is still a step ahead of us. It is the final frontier, and one we still know very little about. That’s why, throughout the ages, we’ve created figures like the Grim Reaper, Anubis, and the Shinigami. If death has a form, we can find a way to understand it. We also create realms of death that are bound by rules and laws much the way our living civilizations are. Whether it's the Egyptian afterlife or the show Dead Like Me, it’s calming to think that death will be the same as life. There will be no surprises after that last big surprise. 
 
One of the reasons Death Note is such a delightfully uncomfortable story is that it corrupts that reassuring idea of the rules of death by breaching the boundaries between the realms. Light doesn’t just have the simple power of life and death, which is something any human can gain against another. He has the power of Death, something preternatural that shouldn't exist in our reality. With normal death, you can at least try to fight it. With Death, there’s nothing you can do.
 
But Light is just borrowing the power of Death and doesn’t fully understand it, and so he’s not invincible. He is stretched between the rules of both realms, given an awesome power, but still limited by his mortality. He refuses to make the deal for the Shinigami eyes, and so he has to discover people’s names the old-fashioned way. But unlike most Shinigami, he is devious and finds ways to work around his humanity. He wants to create the perfect world, the perfect life for the good people who live on it. But by relying on powers that originate beyond our human realm, his endeavor is corrupt before it even begins. 
 
And so Light is fated to lose from the beginning, and not just because Death Note started as a shonen manga, and such stories always end with good triumphant. This story isn’t just the battle between Light and the police. It is the epic battle of Life versus Death, of order against chaos. In our own lives, death is inevitable, but in our fiction we can prevail. Whether we imagine facing a Ryuk or a Hades at the end of our journey, being able to bind death up in rules and form can give us peace.
 
-- Pancha Diaz (Death Note manga editor)
Bleach: Soul Smackdowns

Being a Soul Reaper in Bleach is a serious profession, but let's face it, it's also fun to lay down the laws of the Soul Society and give Hollows (or even other Soul Reapers) a good spanking when it's deserved! We've assembled our picks for the most devastating smackdowns from Bleach season 1 -- click here to view the video collection and enjoy!

What Are You Eating?!
There’s this character quirk that I’ve noticed in manga. I don’t know if it’s prevalent enough to call a stereotype, since my sample size is all of two series, but its appearance across genres in Honey and Clover and Bleach makes it worth noticing.
 
I call this character quirk “women who cook weird food.” These women are not always bad cooks, although apparently Honey and Clover's Ayumi (Ayu) is that as well, but they can cook freaky bizarre dishes with skill. Ayu and Hagumi (Hagu) have their Mintkin and Apple Curry, and Orihime from Bleach has whatever it is that makes people think there’s something wrong with her taste buds. Orihime has got one recipe with leeks, butter, bananas and red bean jam, but we never get to see the end result. I'm guessing it's a casserole.
 
This phenomenon is to be distinguished from the whole “women who can’t cook” thing, which does make some sense. Woman are supposed to be able to cook, and when a character can’t, it’s either shorthand for how unladylike she is (Akane from Ranma 1/2) or how odd it is that a pretty woman can’t cook (Usagi from Sailor Moon).
 
But the weird food thing is stumping me. Is it just supposed to highlight the character’s underlying weirdness? Is it the equivalent of dressing characters in “alternative” outfits like arm socks and Doc Martens with a prom dress? See, she wears glitter tights and eats jellybean sandwiches! How delightfully odd!
 
Is this a Japanese take on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl movie character archetype (Think Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown or Zooey Deschanel in anything)? And how did it come to be? Because when I think back to my days in a sort-of art school setting, it was the dudes who did weird things with food.
 
Examples from my dining-hall memories:
 
  • Sour cream instead of yogurt with the fruity granola breakfast thing
  • Wasabi on toast instead of jam
  • Tater tots with grape jelly (This was a dare, but he kept eating it until it was all gone!)
  • Pizza Salad Sandwich! Two slices of pizza, ranch dressing, and various stuff off the salad bar (Full disclosure: this is actually really good.)
  • Orange juice and Coke. Even worse, pink grapefruit juice and Coke
  • Bacon and chocolate pudding (I think you can buy this at stores now.)
  • Corn (from the salad bar) and vanilla frozen yogurt
 
After jogging my memory, I now remember that I used to eat chili two times a day for three months. (Chili was the first sign of winter at University of California Santa Cruz.) But, I’m no closer to discovering the truth of the weird food trait. I think this calls for rewatching the Honey and Clover anime. As “research.”
 
— Pancha Diaz, editor, Bleach, Honey and Clover
Love for Nana K.

All of the characters in Nana go through some harrowing character growth during the course of the story, but Nana Komatsu's journey is the one I find most personally satisfying. (Read more on Nana's characters.) I know a lot of people have trouble identifying or even sympathizing with her, to the point that they have trouble getting into the series at all. And I’ll admit, there are times I want to reach across the barrier of time, space and fiction and give her a good shake. But I’ve always rooted for her, even though I haven’t always identified with her.

When we first meet Nana K. (aka Hachi), no one really needs her. They love her, but they don’t really need her support, emotionally or otherwise. Nana K.'s best friend Jun totally has her act together and knows exactly what she’s doing. She easily slips into a relationship with Kyosuke and, for all Nana K. or the audience knows, has no need for a friend to share boyfriend gripes with. Neither of her sisters seems to require Nana K. for typical sibling stuff, and her parents have each other and their more reliable and radical offspring to depend on. It’s not that these people don’t care about Nana K., they just don’t need her the way she longs to be needed.

That need to be needed is what drives Nana K. to have all those crushes, to have the affair with Takashi Asano. It’s even why she doesn’t try to win Shoji back when he cheats on her. In her mind, romantic love is the only way she’ll get the need she wants. And the way romantic love is held up in most societies as the end goal, the ultimate prize, that which will make you whole, it’s really not surprising that Nana K. gets caught up in the fantasy.

But at some point, starting around when Nana O.’s tough exterior begins to crack after getting back with Ren, Nana K. starts to get her needs met outside the bounds of a traditional relationship. She starts to cook for Blast and bask in their appreciation; she becomes their #1 fan and cheerleader and thrives on giving them support. She becomes something of a sister to Nana O. and a mother to Shin and finds a love where she doesn’t have to comprise. In the wilds of Tokyo, Nana K. makes her own family, and she resists the best she can when fate tries to break them up. This time, she has something worth fighting for.

— Pancha Diaz, editor, Nana manga

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