Geek with Family

The Divining Pendant

(Major Spoilers Ahead!)

It is a wonder that I am still alive.

Throughout most of my childhood and adolescence a divining pendant determined my health. Whenever I would come down with something as simple as a cold or as complicated and mysterious as a thyroid infection every Valentine’s Day, my mother would solicit the help of her New Age guru Don. Based upon my birth date, name and a physical possession of mine he would psychically prescribe exact daily dosages of vitamins and herbal remedies. A divining pendant (a New Age crystal on the end of a chain) that I assume would point to the right drugs for the cure amplified his psychic ability. If you are detecting a hint of skepticism you would not be far off. However, the fact remains that I was never sick long and I have a relatively clean bill of health considering that I can count on my hands how many times I have made an office visit to a conventional doctor in my 26 years. Am I lucky or is there some method to the madness of the divining pendant prescriptions? What is luck? How is this fate determined? Is it controllable?

Continue reading Vision of Escaflowne - Anime TV Series Analysis - Fate and Luck

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Knights Scream, Princesses Cry

(Major Spoilers Ahead!)

Anime, with all its progressive ventures into the future of humanity, cannot get past the stereotypical gender roles required to add up to a romantic adventure’s sum. The audience must feel the pain and yearning that the lead female romantic interest feels as she waits and prays for her man who is off in the war. The man of war or knight expects his woman or princess to be home praying for his safe return. The princess is expected to breakdown under the overwhelming will of the knight. She can only provide support through prudent advice and the warm memories she has left her knight to think of in his darkest times. The woman must maintain a good and virtuous face for the common people so as not to alarm them to the knight’s hardships. It is an accepted notion that the knight will feel angry and get caught up in the overblown tempers of war screaming his way to victory while the princess will tend to domestic issues and go to bed crying every night when she receives bad news from the front lines.

At least that is what conventional epic romances strive for.

Continue reading Vision of Escaflowne - Anime TV Series Analysis - Gender Roles

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Your butt is falling asleep from the hard plastic chair you have to sit in while you try to listen to the finer details of today’s lesson on acute triangles. Eyelids droop around the classroom due to the drudgery of math. The sleepiness is contagious, and you soon find yourself drifting off. You dream about your high school crush eating lunch with you in the cafeteria - corn dogs and crinkle fries. In the middle of lunch and when you’re about to kiss your crush with a mouth full of dog on a stick you wake yourself up with your own snoring. The math class is still there, with its dry erase board, outdated computer terminal, bespeckled instructor and bored class. Somehow, you are surprised that you did not wake up into an anime dimension fantasy complete with familiar yet fantastic princesses, dragon to slay with your giant mecha suit of armor and a world to save with your newly awakened superpowers.Anime characters may act surprised when they are magically transported to some shadow dimension, but we know that they have to expect it the whole time because it has happened so many times to fellow classmates and peers. If I was an anime private school student that had a tendency to drift off into sleep or faint away at the slightest over expenditure of energy I would definitely want a dimension jumping friend.

Continue reading Nodding Off in School - How to Magically Transport Yourself to Another Dimension

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