The Chuuni Corner

Anime reviews, Chuunibyou, and other writings

Tag: Land of the Lustrous

February 28, 2019

Review/discussion about: Houseki no Kuni

Houseki no Kuni / Episode 1 / Phos responding to and listening to Cinnabar

Make way for CG stardom

(For a better fundamental understanding of characters, please check out my previous essay on this exact topic, “Houseki no Kuni, Toy Story, and Understanding Characters”.)

The geological timescale views singular months and years as unregistered blips on a radar.

To us regular folk, though, even just a tough few hours at work can seem like an eternity. We value our time greatly, thinking about that joke we heard the other day or looking forward to that cool party in the weeks to come. And, as the saying goes, “Time flies when you are having fun.”

That’s why the here and now is so precious; the present is a valuable existence we can almost never take for granted. In this time, a curious anime titled Houseki no Kuni emerged, and the fact that we’re lucky enough to have it around should not go unnoticed.

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January 31, 2019

Houseki no Kuni, Toy Story, and Understanding Characters

Houseki no Kuni (left) / Toy Story (right) / Phos and Woody smiling

Can a character be understood in a more refined way?

What does an anime about a bunch of gemstones and a film franchise about a box of playthings have in common?

If you said, “They both feature talking inanimate objects,” you’d be correct. If you said, “They both are really awesome projects,” you’d be correct as well. And if you said, “They both represent landmarks in the CG space within their respective mediums,” well, guess what? You’d be correct once again.

There’s at least one more major commonality between them: Houseki no Kuni and Toy Story each host a diverse cast of characters who build their tales into how we view them today. So, having recently finished the former and having always being a big fan of the latter, a question arose in my brain: What really does go into making a character?

This essay will take a look-see into characters. How they are defined, what impact they contain, and why understanding the distinctions among them is worthwhile. Furthermore, for comparative purposes, relevant examples from Houseki no Kuni and Toy Story (what with its fourth iteration on the way) will attempt to illustrate the topics at hand.

Hopefully, the approach and the examples will make it easier to grasp these concepts while also adding in a bit of extra fun. If nothing else, it should serve as a primer for those new to these points and a refresher for those who already have a knack for them.

Without further ado, let’s get started!

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