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Japan is at its best in the 80s and early 90s and its youth is at its best, too. Its economy thriving (before China came along), people are out of the shades of WWII, a new generation that balances masculinity of the empire before them and the feminine trend after them: an upward, busy, happy generation. (Indeed, the 80s saw a artistic/humanitarian revival throughout the world after the (mostly) quiet 50s, and the revolutionary 60s, 'we are the world' is perhaps the pinnacle of that time. the world finds a balanced order while moving forward and Japan is moving forward rapidly.)

'Whisper of the heart' is ... the portrait of that happy time at its end. People are busy but hopeful, everybody is civil, there's no strict hierarchy between teachers and students, there's no strong sense of nationalism----everybody is interested in knowledge and wants the best for others, even strangers, in their society. All of these reflects the openness, the upwardness, and the happiness of the time. When they played 'country roads, take me home' together, it immediately bought me to tears (I dropped CLANNAD, did not cry watching AnoHana). The coming separation of the protagonists, John Denver's nostalgia and the sunrise at the end of the movie came together in that song that partially resonate with a greater history: a history of escaping one's motherland into a better place, as well as exploring the vast unknown.

20-th century is the nearest, most horrible and the most interesting century. At the end of it, humanitarianism revived along with hope on a universal scale (when this anime is being written). But look at the world now: much more advanced, producing much more violin, maybe more artistic in a way but much less hopeful, humanitarian and upward. Who knows when will the next 80s come and when will we see the next cowboy bebop or 'Whisper of the heart'? Sigh.

7 for the opening song... Japanese songs really focuses on melodies and this song's melody is idiosyncratically astonishing.

what can i say about this storyline besides cute girls getting hurt that provokes sympathy and superpower that burns money to illustrate but pointless in the end (watch episode in south park for superpowers instead. as my icon suggests, you know where to start...)

another main theme of the story is a sense of terror: scared against the villain's powerful organization... why does the girl has all the magical superpower? Spike: ask DNA. but watch Jormungand instead would be much better if one wants to dig deeper in ... the terrified commoners aspect. (hence i'm not promoting south park to any uncontaminated youth)

it's pretty interesting anime and moreover, it's the first anime to include advanced math formulas in game analysis. in the time of AlphaZero and world-class DOTA and Starcraft AIs, it's definitely offers a better view into game-playing in this time. people should be more aware of what gaming can do to this generation's learning and surviving (so it's interesting in that aspect...? well i did not say that...) cause a lot of learning is self-motivated and the best grandmasters are almost always insanely interested in their own domains (Erdos, many chess and go masters).

but well, ordinary computer games are only fun and not that ... worthy of study...at least ordinary computer games of this time.

So, this is one of the first anime I've watched in my teens... lots of memory. It's kinda strange, I've read many much more 'mature' fictions (Resurrection by Tolstoy, Forgotten Soldier by Sajer, To Kill A MockingBird by Lee, Hunger Games by Collins, etc. the last two are still way mature than Angel Beats!) but never watched much anime, beyond hundreds of episodes of Case Closed and Dragon Ball (both fantastic anime before too many episodes...), oh, and Sword Arts Online.... which serves as my introduction to digital physics together with AB... frankly, looking back, all this anime is good for is its songs, and ... the idea of digital physics. (even its honoring to Dylan is done poorly, perhaps honoring Mr. Tambourine Man instead of Knocking on Heaven's Door is a better option for this anime.) (digital physics: time is slower around massive objects because there's more data there to be possessed versus the more hollow regions, not because of relativity... an interesting school of thought based on idea of simulation)

Anyways, here's how I got into AB: someone played Brave Song (ending) by my ears one day, and I immediately started to watch. I was young and naive, so I finished the whole anime. It's... not interesting at all besides its emotions elevated by the music. "Theme of SSS" calls for emotion only matched by Morpheus's miraculous standup against agents in the Matrix. There are a couple more songs that are at that level, in one single anime, which is really amazing.

Besides that, I can't say anything that is of value of this anime. Judgement and retaliation against the evil after death is a common theme across virtually all mythologies in the world. Reincarnation is alive and well in most religions as well (so I guess the last scene is pretty heart-warming too, but, you know, merely heartwarming). After that, it's just a cat and dog fight that ended with "let's all be friends", a forgiving end-note which is not bad at all yet it makes this fairy tale even more unrealistic. (perhaps I should not advise people to watch Journey Under Midnight Sun or Pillow Man...) "All humanity's emotional pains are anger to their own powerlessness." ---- Wang XiaoBo

8 pts for the wonderful music. everything else are really mediocre stories.

One thing remains to be pointed out:

Autobiographical stories, when famous, are almost always worth retelling (except one that starts with the word "mein"... okay, maybe couple others in history going down that line). This anime falls right into that category (protagonist of this + (perhaps the otaku side of) Jintai in AnoHana = script writer younger self).

Character:
My favorite character is Daiki, because his story is seldom portrayed. Athletes put great amount of effort into their training, when no one pays attention. After they are hurt, no one pays attention again. The difference is that, when they are training they know their pain and sweat is ... all worth the glorious moment on stage; when they got hurt, though, they have no choice but to endure the emptiness. So Daiki's storyline is really interesting.

The other characters are pretty real, too which is why this anime deserves an 8. But I'm sure the popular reviews have said enough to them.

In short, 'your name' is an overrated commercial movie.

Once Shinkai was asked, who would he wanna be if he can choose. He answered: a high school girl, because high school girls have everything. But still, with that in mind, I still felt the huge commercial success of 'your name' is at the cost of some real emotions. (for example, a much less known anime called Wandering Son does much better job at portraying transgender issues and 5cm/s does a much better job at portraying distance.) 'your name' does a decent job portraying karma, but if you dive into literature and movie there's just tons of ... much better example (Cloud Altas, for example). So besides the novelty of body swapping and a decent explanation of karma, 'your name' is simply a relatively imaginative and very commercial animated love story. It does aligns with some of Jung's anima/animus theory, if you think bit more carefully so it's a pretty reasonable narrative, but there's nothing really superb about it.

Childhood memory back! Finally have some time to sit down and write this.

Since I'm sure at this point anyone who still go to MAL's dragon ball page knows what the stories/characters are like, I'd not restate it. Instead, I'll just say what I love about this anime and memories about it.

I grew up in China and came to the States for college. My roommate's from Minnesota. We found out we both watched dragon ball when we were young.

The original monkey king, wukong, was largely a mockery to the Buddhist regime couple hundreds of years ago from a asexual, not-socialized standpoint. The restrictive ... spell on wukong's head is never expressed, either.

Still, the dragon ball is much better than any of the cartoons/movies/tv-series on wukong I've ever seen, except for precisely 3 other ones. The fight scenes are great, the tower to the God is very imaginative, some scenes are very moving. It's my first anime (at an age of like 6) and it's definitely a good anime in its time.

""Goldmund, will you come back?"" ---- Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund, 1930

This magna is about love and gender in puberty in, well, a Japanese high school setting. Yuki, a first-grade high school student, had to dress up as a girl for his sister once and fell in love with his crossdressed figure. Morii, a younger girl that always looks up to the Yuki that plays soccer in middle school likes him and always wants to grow up quicker so that she can be Yuki's girlfriend. Minamo, Yuki's friendless, sensitive, and booksmart classmate, fell in love with Yuki as well but things between these two are a ... bit more complicated since Minamo sometimes liked Ikeda, or the crossdressed Yuki. The story mainly revolved around the love triangle among these three characters.

The story of Yubisaki (fingertip in Japanese) Milk Tea is worth a read because at its heart it's not an ordinary love-triangle or love-n-gon/DA-graph story nor a novelty-seeking story about Japanese drag queens (watch/read Wandering Son instead). It's one of those stories that's worth to retell because it portrays a rather uncommon character, Yuki's psyche very well from start to end. Yuki is fascinated by Ikeda, just like his friend in the soccer team. Much like Goldmund, he liked girls too much (which made me wonder if his parent's divorce has anything to do with it.) The best evidence for this is that he quitted the soccer team to keep his figure. Deep down, he know that he has to grow up and the androgen in him is going to make him look like a man. He know that the perfect female figure is both lovely and cruel. When the winter comes, he gave in to his sexual drive and Morri finally defeated Ikeda (hopefully I'm not spoiling too much). When reading the last sex scene when Ikeda was gone, I cried. The beautiful art near the bottom of Yuki's heart and soul is lost in sex, much like the milk tea at one's finger, after tasting. Indeed, Ikeda moves me deeply and made my doubt if the author has a very close friend who crossdresses or it's a part of his personal history.

(if you've got patience/interest to read Narcissus and Goldmund, read it instead then consider reading this... well.)