Parallels Between Buddhism and ‘Puella Magi Madoka Magica’

I stumbled upon this post from 2011 on Listless Ink, a post entitled “Birth of a Goddess, Madoka’s Path to Nirvana – A Study of Buddhism,” which examined parallels between the hugely successful and highly popular 2011 magical girl anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Buddhist doctrine. It’s a thoughtful and convincing essay.

It contains spoilers, of course, for the anime in question.

Let us stretch the parallels one step further. Before nirvana, all consciousness are born, die, and reborn as beings in the six domains of the Desire realm: God realm, Asura realm, Human realm, Animal realm, Preta realm, and Hell realm. This is the wheel of life, the place where Samsāra occurs.

It is surprisingly neat how the characters in Madoka Magica fit into these realms. For example, the deva that occupy the blissful God realm are way more powerful than beings in all other realms. Among their powers include a sort of telepathy and illusion construction. Moreover, one particular class of deva are passionless and sexless. Indeed, this seems a bit reminiscent of Kyubey. [more…]

‘Candid Slice’ on Feminism in Anime

I stumbled across a brief essay on mahou shoujo anime by someone named Heather at a site called Candid Slice, in which Heather toots her own horn about her accomplishments and compares herself to magical girls. It’s a fluff piece, but I decided to link it anyway. I don’t know who Heather is or what she does, so I have no particular comment about that, but I do have something to say about how she interprets anime.

She has her comments laid out in a series of bullets, so I will write responses in the same fashion.

1. Magical Girls Are Chosen

I could feel the magic bubbling up inside me, and whenever I saw an opportunity to help someone, even in a small way, I’d bounce over and do my best — just like a magical girl.

And you were very humble about it, too. Heather goes on from there to praise herself for choosing to get involved in her current life’s work, rather than waiting for opportunity to come along. So she’s a go-getter, and that’s great. Continue reading “‘Candid Slice’ on Feminism in Anime”

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 16

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO

CHAPTER 16: REQUIEM

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A stairwell led down into the shelter. From the top of that stairwell, a patch of black soot radiated out into the street. As Chirops neared it, his nose twitched. He recoiled at the stench of burnt petrol and charred flesh.

A chill ran down his spine at the thought of what must lie in the concrete bunker beneath, a place of refuge now turned into a charnel house. Across the universe, these magical girls of Earth were infamous for their ruthlessness, a ruthlessness that, thanks to their influence, now characterized humanity as a whole. Urbanopolis, as its innumerable enemies well knew, would do anything to survive.

Even kill its own.

The universe is a tomb … Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 16”

Hard Work

Featured image by Lissa Treiman.

I just got notified that I’m going to be working twelve-hour graveyard shifts for the next three nights.

We’re on hiatus until further notice.

The Magical Girl Wikia

There are a lot of blogs and websites dedicated to magical girls, naturally enough, but from what I’ve seen, most don’t stay active. A lot of them that I’ve stumbled upon look like legacies from Web 1.0, or haven’t updated for three or more years.

I did, however, recently come upon the magical girl wikia, which has possibly the most complete catalogue of the genre I’ve seen anywhere.

It has this partly because it’s decidedly generous in what it considers magical girl. Its timeline starts as early as the 1940s with titles like the film Down to Earth. I assume this is because they’re cataloguing the predecessors of Bewitched, which inspired the genre as we now know it.

It’s a good site. Go take a look.

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 13

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO

CHAPTER 13: THE PALADIN

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Jake couldn’t remember the last time he was this tired. They’d been hiking for hours, and the sun was dipping toward the west. His stomach ached, and the inside of his mouth felt rough and gooey. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since breakfast. His calves and the arches of his feet burned. His left foot swelled up, and his shoe felt tight. He limped, and every step sent a shock of pain up his leg. No matter how long he smelled it, he couldn’t grow accustomed to the fetid stench of rotting zombie flesh, which clung to the blood and gore covering Pretty Dynamo, and to the severed hand grasping his leg. Every once in a while, he fell into a fit of retching. Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 13”

Addendum

And as an addendum to my last post, I had thought I might get close to Card Collector Kasumi’s intended look if I played around with the Halloween Magical Girl Creator, and I think she didn’t come out half bad if I do say so myself.

Cassidy Stone and the ‘Sailor Moon’ Puns

Go over to Geek and Sundry to see fan artist Cassidy Stone make the main characters of Sailor Moon look even goofier than they already did.

The jokes are deliberately lame, but the reactions and facial expressions really sell it.

External Links

This is a list of external sites where Jake and the Dynamo is hosted or extensively discussed. This post will update as needed.

Facebook
Patreon
Royal Road
Scriggler
Wattpad

TVTropes

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Branches Out

To increase exposure, I’m working on hosting Jake and the Dynamo in a few other places around the internet. You can see there’s now a Patreon button on your left, right above the Paypal button. The story will continue to be available for free, of course, but if you’d like to put a little change in my jar whenever a new chapter appears, it would be much appreciated and will help me to keep the content coming, and to improve it.

I’m also looking to host the story on Royal Road, which hosts web novels and is, quite reasonably, asking for a verification of my ownership. That’s part of the purpose of this post.

EDIT: As a reader points out, we could use some more J&tD-themed artwork. That’s where any donation money would go first, actually.