Hello everyone, it’s been a month or so since I’ve created an OWLS post for a tour. December was a little too busy for me. I was working on a lot other projects like #TheJCS and some other things which took a lot more time then I thought I it would. So being a solo blogger, I feel like I had to cut losses somewhere and it was OWLS that took the hit unfortunately. Sorry, I’m back now though and better then ever. Let’s do this OWLS post :D. Before that, a word about what that is for new comers. (Maybe I should have started with that?)
About OWLS
For those of you who haven’t heard of what OWLS is may be asking me and other people what that is. Well, that’s an easy question to answer. OWLS, also known as Otaku Warriors for Liberty and Self-Respect, is a group of otaku bloggers who promote the acceptance of all individuals. There will be no judgement of people based on gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, or disability here. All of this is about humanity for humanities sake and hopeful betterment. Each month, our members are given a topic to write about and each of us approaches that topic in our own way. If you want to know more, please click here to go to our OWLS Blog Page. Find us here and maybe you can join us! We are always looking for more people. With this, we jump into this month’s prompt.
Our first prompt of the year and decade from our Chief Creative Officer Lynlyn is Visions.
Happy New Year! Since it is a new year, it’s a new you! This month we will be talking about various pop culture mediums that focus on envisioning “the future.” What type of future do we want for ourselves, our communities, and the world? Also, we will be sharing our goals and plans for the new year. Once again, happy new year!
Examples:
Digimon
Pokemon
Fullmetal Alchemist
My Hero Academia
Respect The Small Things
I looked at the beginning of this post and the easiest thing that came to my mind was shonen battle series and even mecha. Writing about Ed and Al’s journey to reclaim their bodies and also save Amestris and Amuro Ray’s fight for the hearts and minds of Earthnoids and Spacenoids in the Universal Century felt a little too obvious to write about. I know there is a lot more complicated things going on in those series and series like them then that, but I wanted to try something a little quieter and a little different.
Physical Activity isn’t the only way a person can pursue and fight for their own future. Words, actions, relationships, and thinking also have a lot to do in the process. After all, not taking an action is also a form of taking an action. Kind of confusing, isn’t it?
Chasing a Dream in New Game!
Surprise! I watched the first season of New! Game recently. Before I watched the next season eventually (after watching Raising Project), I wanted to talk a little bit about it. On it’s surface, it’s a CGDCT (Cute Girls Doing Cute Things) series featuring office girls. Our newbie by the name of Aoba Suzukaze joins a game design company by the name of Eagle Jump right out of high school and is filled up with other cute girls. A set up for a lot of things like cute things which do happen while they are designing a game
But there are so many things going in New Game! that makes it have some depth to it. Aoba didn’t go to school like her friend Nene did. She jumped right into the gaming industry in order to pursue her dream and future goal. The same thing her idol in the company, Kou Yagami, did around her age. Another person that stays up all night at the office working on characters. Aoba worked hard at drawing characters, learning how to use software program to install them in the computer, and then sometimes even have to say up at night to do it. They both had to make sacrifices to do all of that, but Aoba and Kou find enjoyment in what they are doing. This is fighting, just not in the way you would expect it to.
Tsuki ga Kirei and Keeping a Relationship
Tsuki ga Kirei is a simple romantic series about two junior high kids by the name of Akane and Kotaro falling in love for the first time and trying to maintain their relationship. There is so many things that always get in the way from their relationship becoming perfect. First are their ambitions. Akane loves running and is exceptional at it while Kotaro is struggling at getting his writing career started by being published. Not to mention the fact that Akane is going to move away soon and their different grades and everything. Tsuki ga Kirei is a soft and quiet series, but it’s so pure in what it wants to do. That is centering an anime on this relationship.
I really think that the relationship between the two of them is the fight for their future. Being a completely hopeless romantic, I think that “I want to be with you with for the rest of my life” is a perfect life goal for one’s future. Why? Because relationships are hard and take a lot of work to be fully formed and function. There are compromises and sacrifices all over the place that need to be taken for it all to work. Completely counts to me. A relationship is definitely a way to improve one’s future if it’s the correct one. Another detail worth considering here.
Sound of the Sky and Finding a Future!
I’m cheating a little bit but talking about a series that I just reviewed last week, but yeah, going to do that. Sound of the Sky is a CGDCT series centered on military girls stationed at a town in the middle of nowhere in a post apocalyptic setting. Kanata, our protagonist, joined the military to learn how to play the trumpet/bugle in the military. With that, I’m going to talk a little bit about a special episode that I didn’t, episode 13 or the epilogue. This is the episode directly about the future. Kanata goes around town asking people about what their dreams or and finds out that she doesn’t have a long term one yet.
If anything, finding a future goal is the first step into achieving something. Yes, Kanata has her trumpet playing and she’s gotten pretty good sense the beginning of the series where she could barely make a noise on the mouth piece. Now, she doesn’t know what to do next and that’s ok. All Kanata has to do is figure out later which is fine. She’s only 16 after all. Following around Rio’s dream for now until she figures out her own works too. That’s another kind of push for the future and let me tell you, a lot of people get it wrong. I feel like that sometimes.
Bringing It All Together!
I think I furthered my point into exploring what it means to push for the future. It doesn’t mean punching and beating up the bad guy as hard as you can so they can’t destroy the universe anymore. Or even whatever Gundam and LOGH are dying by attempting to stop the cycle of war and annihilation from continuing and only sometimes succeeding. With that last one, I think the current USA-Middle East nonsense is coming into my brain. I can’t help it, sorry. The world is going to hell and it’s impossible to stop.
Everyone fights for their future. That’s what making decisions is about. Whether you make a decision or choose to defer, you are still making a choice that effects you and people around you. As I’ve learned since I’ve been around for a while now, life is hard and complicated. No one can fight for you the way that you want to the way you can. Unless some people you are incredibly deep into your corner. So make the best choices you can for your life and your future.
Thank you for reading, everyone. Hope that wasn’t a little too preachy and didn’t knock other people who wrote their OWLS posts too much. If you want some more OWLS posts, Pinky posted a great post about Yu-Gi-Oh yesterday and I think you should go out and read it. More then solid post for something I have some nostalgia for. If that’s not enough for you, Matt Doyle is talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation on Friday and here is a place that you can check out who has posted in this OWLS tour. Thank you for enjoying our tour, everyone. Look forward to next month’s tour as well.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 
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