For the past few weeks, I’ve been getting myself into an anime mood. Before this, I never loved or hated anime. There are some great anime movies out there, but not many. A lot of people seem to think that anime is silly, or cheesy, or a bad excuse for actual animation. I agree that not all anime movies are great. In fact, most of them are rather overdramatic and loud, but there are many times where I can safely say that the anime movies I’ve seen are better than most Disney and Pixar movies. I watched many anime movies during the winter break, but there are three that really stand out for me. These films are all incredible, and I believe everyone should watch them. Your Name I’ll start off with a film that most people know, or at least have heard of, which is Your Name. Just like everyone says, this is an incredible film. I’ve had many friends who’ve had their whole perspective on anime changed because of this movie. I can understand what they mean. This is a breathtaking and emotional film. The premise is simple. A boy and girl get their bodies swapped back and forth each day, and they are forced to live and communicate through messaging and calling each other. It sounds simple, but the film actually gets more complicated as the story goes on, and sometimes it becomes extremely difficult to understand. I think the reason so many people love this film, including me, is the characters. The relationship between the boy and the girl is extremely natural and realistic. This is something I tend to notice in all anime movies. Most movies typically focus on an entertaining plot, with action sequences and moments to always keep you on the edge of your seat. Anime movies are more character driven. Nearly all of them I’ve seen focus a lot on the characters, their motivations, and their goals. I’m the kind of person to always prefer characters over world-building. It’s why I loved the Harry Potter books so much. Yes, there’s a lot of world-building in Harry Potter, but it focused a lot on the characters and their development throughout the series. It’s why I’ve never really gotten into the Wheel of Time or Way of Kings series’. They’re good books, but they’ve never really hooked me in. Your Name is a simple story that has so many meanings. There are tons of messages that this film brings to the table, like love and youth. The dialogue is great and never gets boring. It always knows when it’s trying to be funny, and when it’s trying to be serious, and that’s one of the best parts of the film. The constant shifting tone combined with the witty dialogue makes this a very entertaining film. In most comedies, the film doesn’t really work so well when it’s trying to get emotional since the dialogue is still funny and light-hearted. However, this film has great dialogue that sticks to the mood. It never feels out of place. Both the subbed (which is the Japanese version with subtitles) and the dubbed (which is the English voices dubbed into the film) versions are great. While Your Name is fantastic, this is surprisingly my least favorite of the three films I’m going to be talking about. A Silent Voice This film takes the word emotional to a whole new level. It’s simply an amazing film, maybe even a masterpiece. It communicated with me so powerfully. It’s not just another film about how bad bullying is. It’s a film about self-esteem, self-confidence, and redemption, and it’s incredibly well done. The story will literally cut your throat throughout. A young man named Shoya decides to make amends with a deaf girl named Shouko that he bullied years ago. It sounds boring, but it’s surprisingly great. It conveys messages and themes that are very relatable like depression and self-hatred, but never goes too over the top to where it feels fake. The characters are all very memorable, and I never really hated any of them. They all have personality and don’t feel like unnecessary substitutes to the main character. They’re integral to the relationship of Shoya and Shouko, and they constantly develop and change. Part of what I love so much about this movie is the realism. It has zero supernatural or fictional elements, leading you to feel more immersed in the story. I’ve also felt that having the characters head into a magical world, or fighting a group of fictional monsters, lessens the themes of the story. It’s why I didn’t like Your Name as much. It’s a great film, but it has a lot of supernatural elements that we can’t really relate to as well, like body swapping and time travel. The movie is always entertaining throughout its two hour runtime. The dialogue is well written and communicates to not only bullies, but people around the world who are worried or anxious about their lives. It speaks so well to introverts. Shoya learns to love himself as he tries to gain a friendship with Shouko. He always imagines an “X” on everyone since he can’t properly look anyone in the eye, but as the film goes on, he starts to take those “X”s off one by one. A Silent Voice is realistic, emotional and brutal. It left a lot of my friends sobbing and sobbing, and almost left me doing the same. Every scene adds something new to the story that I can’t fully describe it all in one sitting. I loved this movie and I can recommend it to anyone. Be warned though: it tackles lots of depressing themes that can be a little saddening and frightening to some. But if you can deal with that, then you’re in for one of the best films ever made. Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms This is the type of film that I can’t describe in words. It’s so
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Conservatives Want to Ban All My Favorite Books, by Emma, 9
Something I know from personal experience is that Melissa, by Alex Gino, is an amazing book that has been praised widely for its inclusion of the LGBTQ community. In 2016, it was awarded the Stonewall Children’s Book award. The book is about a transgender girl who wants to be Charlotte in her class production of Charlotte’s Web, but is not allowed to because her teacher says she is a “boy.” The novel used to be called George, but people complained that Alex Gino was deadnaming their character, and the title was changed to Melissa. While a lot of people think that Melissa is a great book that addresses the problems that transgender kids face, it has been banned by many school districts. The book has been moved up and down the American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Challenged Book list, from number three to number five to number one on the list, before becoming the first most banned book ever. The Wichita, Kansas public school system banned the book from its district libraries, and when the book was included in the Oregon Battle of the Books, two school districts removed their students from the competition in retaliation. Those critical of the novel said the book had “sexual content,” of which there is none whatsoever, thereby mixing up sex with gender identity. Some critics went as far as to say that Melissa just did not go with or reflect “community values.” However, it is important to learn about real issues like this in the world, and these “community values” should be expanded to include all people. Some people simply disliked the novel because they thought a book about a transgender girl was not appropriate for children. Children should know about the real world, and they shouldn’t be banned from learning about what actually happens. Insisting that young people shouldn’t read these books signifies that transgender people or members of the broader LGBTQ community are somehow “wrong” and that their existence should be hidden. While this news may be outrageous, this is not the only recent book to be banned by schools. New Kid, by Jerry Craft, is also under the status of “banned.” While Melissa was banned because it was about a transgender character, New Kid, a graphic novel about a Black boy from the Bronx who attends a school full of rich, white kids, was banned for bringing up the subject of racism. New Kid was banned from Texas schools after a parent had complained that it promoted “critical race theory,” which is not actually taught in public schools. What conservatives call “critical race theory” is actually just the history of racism in the United States. According to someone from the far right, the words “white people owned slaves” is critical race theory. Right-wingers are upset about people knowing the truth, because the truth is embarrassing, infuriating, and could very well help overturn the whole system. As I move on, you will begin to see a pattern. Books that are banned are banned for the fact that reading about the topics they contain makes certain people “uncomfortable.” Another banned book, The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, is a novel about a Native American boy living on a reservation struggling at his new all-white school. This book was banned in the Stockton, Missouri School District because of violence, bad language, and sexual content. Many banned books address issues that conservatives don’t want to address. The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-time Indian is about racial injustice. In one scene from the novel, the main character punches a white boy for bullying him. Critics of this book claim this promotes violence, and, while this scene is indeed violent, it shows what the main character’s school is like and the violence that racism produces, and it impacts how the rest of the story works. This book was also banned for bad language, but the idea of swear words just circles around random words which have somehow been considered as “bad.” This book was also banned for “sexual references,” which are probably the scenes where the character talks about women’s bodies. While this is problematic in some ways, the book uses this to expand upon the character, and just because you dislike something in a book, doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be allowed to read it. The way this novel addresses these topics is realistic, but its right-wing critics use the novel’s references to racism and violence as a jumping off point to challenge it. All of the challenges to these books either mix up terms or want to suppress certain topics. In Melissa, critics confuse sex and gender. In New Kid and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, critics want to suppress conversations about racism and violence. Why do we need to tell young people that a topic is not appropriate for them, or that they can’t read a certain book? Why do some adults think that young people don’t have the ability to read difficult texts and think about their meaning? If they are concerned that young people will struggle with understanding these books on their own, all the more reason to teach them in schools. Books should not be banned; they should be discussed. I am nine years old, but I don’t shy away from books with demanding content. Important questions and issues should not be hidden from young people because they might find them challenging or confusing. All books worth reading require discussion; no book requires banishment.
Introduction to my Music Blog: Vulfpeck & the Pressure of Success
Hi, my name is Kathleen, and I am going to be blogging about music! I really love music and it has impacted my life in so many ways that I would have never imagined such a broad, yet general, yet subjective matter could cover it all! I think that music is something that everyone can enjoy. It has something for everyone and there are so many ways to access it that honestly, sometimes I wonder how people do not know more about it. For example, you do not even have to look for the most popular music, or the “coolest” artist. Even just humming your own tune is like connecting to other people through a collective creativity. This is beautiful because we do not all need to listen to the popular stuff, the cool stuff, or emulate the cool rock stars, the “popular” kids, or the “indie” kids, etc. I do not like those stereotypes because I believe that they keep people outside of the music community by saying that you must enjoy a certain type of music to be interesting and recognized within the community. While it is somewhat true that you need to be famous or successful in order to make a living from music, you need to be able to be different and stand out. I think that people should not feel pressure to be famous and make an abundance of money. Music can be your livelihood and pay your bills, as for famous people. But it can also be a hobby or a passion, too. And there’s nothing wrong with keeping a passion to yourself. So, if you feel pressured to be famous and have all this luck and success from your music, I believe you do not need to feel that way. I am saying that from firsthand experience… During the pandemic, while I was in online school, I went through a patch of hyper-fixating on those super successful, young musicians. They were the same age as me! I was honestly jealous of them. But over time, I realized that they also had a spur of luck. I told myself that their luck was going to be mine—that all I was missing was that luck. I was going to do everything in my power to get that luck and get to that place where they were. And maybe I was hazy from online school taking up my life, or maybe it was also childish behavior that fed into these ideas. But I also think that if you’re a musician and have a passion for music, you will probably feel the pressure of success at some point. And I feel for people who feel that way because it is not just for music. It is for anything. People feel that their only salvation is to be famous. If you are trying to pay the bills, that may be true. But you can still perform even if it can’t fully support you financially. You can still meet new people and grow your passion without it having to be your full-time job. There is another side of music, the more wholesome side, wherein you make music and participate in the music community just for the sake of doing it. And this is the idea I want to cultivate with this blog, starting with a conversation about one of my favorite bands, Vulfpeck. A while ago, my band teacher told me that he was playing in a church later that week and that he was performing a song by a funk band called Vulfpeck. He played me one of the songs by the band, and I was immediately intrigued. I had never heard of this band before nor heard the song, and it was amazing. The song was called “Christmas in L.A.,” with the lead singer being Theo Katzman. I was blown away by the tightness of the band. They were so connected and well-coordinated. Vulfpeck really emulates the wholesomeness of the music community. They add so many intricate details, for instance—in one song—bells, to make each song intriguing. Their music is a dreamy and upbeat escape that snaps you into a haven of funk. I have been opened to a whole world of their music filled with impactful, slow, meaningful, emotional and all-around beautiful songs. And there are also some songs—songs that are almost humorous like one called “Funky Duck,” or one called “It Gets Funkier.” Their humorous attitude towards their playing is also really inspiring. In the music video for one of their songs, “Birds of a Feather,” their band leader, Jack Stratton, is playing pancakes and hitting them with spatulas instead of drumsticks. It is hilarious! You can tell that they have a lighthearted attitude towards their music, and this is something I want to emulate. The songs are a great escape when I am feeling down or if I want to celebrate my happiness. I do not think I will stop listening to them anytime soon—they’re great! I hope that my discussion of some of the aspects of the music community as well as the band Vulfpeck has inspired something in you, or changed your perspective, or introduced you to something new. Please enjoy this video of me playing a cover of the song I mentioned, “Christmas in L.A.,” and have a great day!
