Attack on Titan and the World Hungry for Flesh

If there's anything that I haven't done in a long time, it is to enjoy a pretty good manga and anime. Not because anime or manga is for kids and that I have outlived that kind of enjoyment at this age but Attack on Titan is definitely not for kids. It has a higher character death rate than Game of Thrones where any character can practically just get squished like a bug, ripped to shreds, and get eaten.

The thing that attracted me to the anime is because I have the game on my 3DS and the plot twist that humans are nothing more than caged livestock just waiting to be devoured by gigantic humanoids known as Titans. This anime provides a perspective on what it's like to have the tables turned, when man is no longer on the top of the food chain.

After watching the anime, I proceeded to consume the manga up to the latest chapters. It's interesting to note that in this world within the walls, people are not meat eaters and mostly have a vegetarian diet. Eating meat is considered a luxury.

If our world haven't realized it, eating meat is one of the biggest things that is wrong in our world. As long as we continue eating meat, murdering animals for "sustenance" when we can live without the meat diet then we can never be rid of war, suffering, women exploitation, and violence. I could write a book to elaborate on those things how they are connected but I'm hoping someone had already written one or I'm waiting for someone to do so.

So in attack on titan, because humans are the ones being eaten, and being gifted with intelligence, and determination to cling to life, humans have devised ways on how to fight the Titans back despite knowing that chances are rather small. In order to really defend themselves against the titans, they must fight fire with fire.

"Sadness over a bird killed. No sadness over a fish killed. Lucky are those with voices."

-Saito Ryokuu

AoT also has a number of strong female characters such as Mikasa Ackerman, who seem to have awakened powers and is generally has the mental state prepared for their current situation unlike the protagonist Eren who always seem weak and helpless until he discovered his latent gifts and powers but despite his abilities to be strong, I find it strange that he doesn't seem to have the mental capacities to adapt quickly in the given circumstances. He's still shocked whenever someone gets killed and needs to calm his tits every 5 minutes. He's whiney and I find him really annoying, that perhaps his redeeming quality is that he was given a gift he can use to save mankind and is determined to help humanity selflessly.

Their comic relief was Sasha Braus, who is also known as the potato girl, and pretty much needs to stuff her face with anything at any time. She reminded me of myself when I was living in the temple when I was always hungry. Some argued that she's always hungry because her stomach was used to eating meat because she came from a hunting village where hunting game and eating meat is their pride and glory. She's one of my favorite characters but not much spotlight is given to her, I think she will be one of the characters that you get attached to that the series will probably kill off in the end for a higher impact. Hopefully she doesn't die...

When it comes to love stories and developments the only pair worth noting is Ymir and Christa. Ymir is a strong female character as well that is as well rounded as Mikasa. A blunt girl who always follow Christa around and later in the story was explained deeply why and how feelings over time developed. Their pairing is canon and the creator confirmed it. So they are officially the couple in the series and some of the pairings are still rather vague like Eren and Mikasa where people argue that it's sibling love and that Eren is really paired with Annie. So up to now, no other love story development aside from Ymir and Christa have been confirmed. Their pairing is mostly known as YumiKuri, this ship sails itself.

The video provides a rather apt reaction when the yumikuri was declared canon. I would go ape shit if one of them dies. I will be glad to attend their wedding. <3

Well just because there are many badass female protagonists and that the creator didn't really bother much about gender and sexuality, sexism still exists in this world. It's still a pretty good development that anyone can love anyone here without homophobic judgments.

It's a beautiful anime that I feel will revolutionize future stories. In parallel, their fictional world and ours aren't any different. There is something going on in the bigger picture but humans still prefer to squabble over petty things, are still greedy, and twisted, and that the shining ray of hope lies in someone who is also just as dark and twisted. It is a portrayal of the human condition in a circumstance that might as well have resembled the real life crisis that people are going through.
No one is perfect, no one is good or evil, it is always a play of something in between and that people have done some good and bad things in their lives. It implores the audience to let go of the notion that there are people who purely good or bad but depicts humans as flawed broken people. Only their motivation to be whole differs.

Truth in a Glance

I remember how a childhood friend of mine who was also an artist would talk about truths and lies. How I told him about truth always having time as its shadow. Where truths are elusive abstractions swimming in the sea of lies. It was one of those discussions over coffee that lasts until the next morning.

Artists have done so many artworks that deals with the truth or their versions of truth and it took bravery, skill, and talent to come up with a work about it and I believe that's what's most of us are doing.

I found this article very interesting and provides insights that are worth pondering upon. On how happiness is always followed by sadness, the lack of privacy through surveillance, love, and what is ego in isolation?

Stoicism of the Stars by Bobbi Lurie in Berfrois

The article discussed how even the greatest comedians who can create so much jokes and make people laugh are in fact the saddest people in the world. I've always known that people who make outlandish attempts to heighten their happiness are in fact carrying a heavier sadness. That people who like the simple things in life are ultimately happier than those who aren't satisfied with it.

Reading it made my brain stir for a while over lunch but I know I have to go back to work.

"To be real is an internal affair.
 To be imaginary is to believe one is loved by an "other"
 To be real is to love.
 To be real in love means "to love ins spite of," for then one knows love is not the imaginary story...
 love goes beyond any story... it exists within the bodily sense of being alive."

The first line is an echo of how the universe exists within us all.

"And one must face the fact that most comedians are truth-tellers and, in case one didn't notice, outside of dentists and architects, comedians are the most chronically depressed people on the planet. Still, they laugh. That doesn't mean they don't commit suicide; it means they make you laugh before doing it."

The article spoke of love and suicide and whether one is a comedian or not, if love lacks within oneself and can't be found from the outside, and or from others, suicide is often the result. No comedian, or anyone for that matter could ever laugh at that kind of joke, especially when it's on them.
The thing about people is that some will seek for the truth and in seeking they often get lost even if what they are looking for is in front of them. Seekers are sometimes, just people who just find it hard to accept that what they are looking for exists in everything and in anything. To seek for something in front of you is a waste of time.

Horses and Women

Mary Gaitskill is one skilled writer that brings out the raw tendencies of human beings. I discovered her while  contemplating to buy a snake stuff toy in Glorietta's many book bargain booths scattered around the mall when a friend of mine pulled out a book simply because the title was "Veronica".
And it was good, it was tragically beautiful.

Contrary to Paulo Coelho's Veronika decides to die, in Gaitskill's Veronica, she doesn't contemplate dying then attempts to do so - she denied it vehemently and successfully died.

Here is a short story that connects death and life.

The Mare
by Mary Gaitskill

I

met Velveteen when I was 45, but I felt still young. I looked young too. This is probably because I had not done many of the things most people of that age have done: I’d had no children and no successful career. I married late after crashing through a series of relationships and an intense half-life as an artist visible only in Lower Manhattan, the other half of my life being that of a drug addict. 

I met my husband in Narcotics Anonymous; he lived in the city then, though we’ve since moved to a small town upstate. He makes a good living as a tenured English professor at a small college. A lot of his income goes to support his wife and daughter from a previous marriage, and we live in an old faculty-housing unit long on charm and short on function. Not owning doesn’t bother us, though. We are comfortable, and we are happy with each other. We go out to eat a lot and travel in the summer. 

When people ask me what I do now, I sometimes say, “I’m retired,” sometimes, “I’m transitioning,” and very occasionally, “I’m a painter.” I’m embarrassed to say the last part even though it’s true: I paint almost every day, and I think I’m better than I was when I showed at a downtown gallery 20 years ago. But I’m embarrassed anyway because I know I sound foolish to people here, people who have kids, and jobs too, and who wouldn’t understand my life before I came here. There are a few—women who paint at home, too—who I’ve been able to talk about it with, describe what art used to be to me, and what I’m trying to make it be again: a place more real than anything in “real” life. A place I remember dimly, a place of deep joy, where, when I could get to it, was like tuning in to a radio frequency that was sacred to me. Regardless of anything else, nothing was more important than carrying that frequency on the dial of myself.  

Read more in Vice: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-mare-000811-v20n6?fb_action_ids=3116648053274&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Tragedy of the Great

All too often great love falls for the coward and the weak.

Those who are light and hollow who goes where the wave goes are the types of people who are the bringer of doom to hopeful love. As they embrace the meretriciousness of society with arms wide without question, as they are those who often can't think for themselves, devoid of the consciousness that powers a love that can be so great. But these hopeful love creates a world and sweats for its creation, yet fueled only by the desire to capture love that often times prove to be callow and careless wallowing in its own selfishness.

This is one of my favorite literature that depicts the strength and weakness of the human condition. The Great Gatsby has been adapted to film at least three times but not of the films have captured the emotional turmoil that the characters have experienced as one forces a possibility that could be so wonderful yet also tragic.