One of the great sadnesses of not being able to go to Japan this autumn is that I have missed the 10th Anniversary Madoka Magica Exhibition... Luckily there is this report at least, but how I wish I'd been there ( Read more... )

I always keep a recorder handy when I'm working. When I'm stuck for ideas, I often find that a bit of jamming on a descant really helps me think (while robbing anyone nearby of that capacity, sadly, but what are you going to do?). It's been that way for a long time - roughly since I gave up recorder lessons at primary school. My favourite ( Read more... )

I just finished Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes (1926), which I'd been meaning to read since forever, and I'm very glad I did. It's funny, and sharp, and Laura's gradual metamorphosis from Fanny Price to Mother Shipton is handled really well. One of my friends on FB called it "stealth SFF", which seems fair enough. I should say that I was ( Read more... )

Kilmeny look'd up with a lovely grace ( Read more... )

I was kind of annoyed by a Film Programme discussion the other week with Stephen Woolley, the producer of The Crying Game. The thing that annoyed me was this discussion of the film's famous twist:

We started the campaign [not to reveal the ‘twist’] in the UK. I wrote a personal note to all the film critics when the film was released, and I think ( Read more... )

Oh my! I only just realised, serendipitously, that the voice actress who plays Kaname Madoka in Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the same person who plays the vampire queen Mina Tepes in 2010's Dance in the Vampire Bund - which I reviewed rather lavishly here.

DITVB, and Mina in particular, made a huge impression on me when I watched it, despite being ( Read more... )

In my Madoka Magica psychodrama, the part played by Sayaka Miki is of course central, and never more so than in her attitude to irrevocable decisions and regret. (No, this is not a post about Brexit.) Before she decides to become a magical girl she worries about regretting it later; having taken that step, the refusal to regret becomes for her a ( Read more... )

I'll be off to the ChLA in Columbus, Ohio on Tuesday - stopping for a night en route to stay with Rebecca in Boston. Is anyone else here likely to be headed to that conference ( Read more... )

Good. My mission to squish Work and Fun together into a kind of beige doughy lump called Firk (aka Life itself) continues apace, as my proposal for a paper at this year's Children's Literature Association conference on the theme of Animation has been accepted.

My title? “Shoujo versus Seinen? Dual Address and Misdirection in Puella Magi Madoka ( Read more... )

I've been trying to 'lay down' (as the young people say) some more Madoka Magica tracks recently, and today I had a go at 'Taenia Memoriae', which as I understand it (not having the Latin for the judging) means "Ribbon of Memories". And indeed that's very appropriate, since it is the background music for the scene toward the end of the final ( Read more... )