Manga Thoughts: Vinland Saga 13

With the Vinland Saga anime adaptation picking up again right when I’d decided to put myself sixty-odd “old” anime episodes away from watching anything not on that timeline, it seemed the right moment to get to the thirteenth double-length volume of Makoto Yukimura’s original manga. The twelfth volume had concluded with Thorfinn and his fellow voyagers setting sail for the west of their world and Vinland itself at last. Getting to that point as a mere spectator to the story had been affecting, but from the moment Thorfinn had begun to dream of going to a new land beyond war and slavery, for all of his own efforts to master himself first of all I had to keep facing thoughts of “but can they get beyond what’s carried inside everyone?” The previous volume had made a point of showing the worm was already within the bud.
( Into a new world )

Sixty Years Since Mighty Atom: 1994

With a new month came another year’s worth of anime to select an episode from, just as with each day of the month past. By now, though, I’m getting to the point of anime that had been relatively fresh when I joined the club at university (in that still-antique time when a title could be a year or two old and still be percolating through the (North) American fandom...) Having skipped the opening episodes of the original Macross itself this time around, I was still ready and willing to acknowledge that “Macross matters to me in particular” with one choice among sixty by watching the first episode of Macross Plus.
( “Dedicated to all pioneers” )