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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

If you're going to be at Pretty Heroes, I'll be hosting a panel on Sunday discussing the Top Ten Shōjo of All Time, using scientific (and therefore objectivity correct) methodology 😉 Come and say hi!

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

If you're going to be in Toronto this weekend, why not attend Anime North? If so inclined, here are the panels I will be on. Come say hello!

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Nope, as I was hyperfocused on anime. The wiki originates in May of 2006, so cross reference that to the wayback machine for TVT around that time and you'd probably get pretty close.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Have you ever been curious about the decision by early anime distributors to bring hentai to the US, and how this decision would reverberate to indelibly alter the course of hentai in Japan itself? New Video out now! youtu.be/M2hUsbqSnBM

youtu.be

ℍ𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕚 History: The Anime Artform

YouTube video by Study of Swords

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

Went on the Weeb Crew to talk politics

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Asa de Ouro @asaouro.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Extreme Evoboost but I put DiC Sailor Moon music on it

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Excellent video by Pause and Select about the interplay between development and mediated spaces. Give it a watch! youtu.be/o4y_j329Y_Y?...

media.tenor.com

a poster for the return of the king with trees in the background

ALT: a poster for the return of the king with trees in the background

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

If you're going to be attending AN this year, come by and say hi!

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

It's helpful to understand his framework, but it's been deleterious for popular approaches to the study of mythology because it sucks up all the oxygen. There's not enough public interest/scholarly need to supplant it with something better. Mercifully, not the case with media studies.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

That's the power of influence and reach, his sheer presence in how story (and by proxy popular media) is understood at the popular level necessitates that a wide swath of creatives will have been exposed to that framework and incorporated it into their own work. So it has utility in and of itself

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

That, and he nevertheless was able to pierce the public consciousness by being associated with one of the most popular film franchises on the planet.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

The problem with Campbell is that his theories were outmoded before he got around to publishing them.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

It's a matter of how TVTropes developed, as a half-baked database tilting towards media theory, but that once alternative frameworks became widely accessible, TVT was already dominant in fan culture, and has stymied the adoption of, frankly, frameworks which offer more analytic utility.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

No, no. TVTropes is inherently bad: not only does it represent the absolute worst tendencies of popular media analysis, it's more often than not the reason such poor analysis exists in the first place. It's to media analysis what The Hero With A Thousand Faces is to the(popular)study of mythology.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Absolutely solid video from lextorais talking about a subject which is a major area of research for me, personally. Give it a watch! youtu.be/Ek8uMCg_GbE?...

youtu.be

An Incomplete History of ℍ𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕒𝕚

YouTube video by Lextorias

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

Italy declaring war on Germany ass move. He should be rotting in the Hague.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I don't think one needs to have a vested interest in something to make a case for it. It just happens that I think you're being unreasonably hostile towards a perfectly fine media form, while equating it with things like "overstimulation videos" instead of treating it like the adaptation it is.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I don't listen to audiobooks, nor do I watch films at 2x speed.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I'm explaining how semiosis works, and in doing so, revealing that your definition of passive and active media makes no sense from the perspective of either media theory or semiotics. But it's fine, this isn't really getting anywhere. I'll stop here.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

I guess to go back to the active/passive aspect. You can actively and passively listen as well right? So if someone is listening to an audiobook as ambient noise while attending to some other task, that's quite a different experience than listening attentively to an audiobook by itself.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

They all necessarily involve the reader/listener/viewer in the process of decoding the media they are engaging with, which is an active process.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

All media involves a "reader" in the process, it's just that books use written text, music/audio uses sounds, and film issues images. Semiosis happens in every case, and one isn't really more or less "active" than the others.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Semiosis occurs with the written word as much as it does with the spoken word; so too for images. Or would you make the case that having this discussion via social media is active, while if we were having it in person would be passive?

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

You keep saying "passive/active" medium, but the passive/active aspect isn't dependent on the media itself, but in how engaged the audience is with it. A film doesn't become more "active" with the addition of subtitles, so reading alone isn't a sufficiently distinct factor.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Seems like you really just don't like audiobooks and are looking for a way to justify your disdain? I think acknowledging that they are doing something fundamentally different, and aren't intended to be a replacement for books, would temper that disdain? But maybe your hate it too pure?

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Audiobooks are able to incorporate elements which are otherwise absent, sound design, soundtrack, etc., which if nothing else adds something to the experience. There's no benefit to watching a film at 2x

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

You can appreciate prose read aloud to you, how's that soundtrack going to sound at 2x? Pacing? Sped up footage also has the feature of already established filmic conventions - commonly used to denote comedic intervals; that's going to fundamentally alter the meaning of the film for the viewer.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Again, it's a different experience, audiobooks as has been mentioned, audiobooks aren't a replacement for the works they're based on, but an adaptation, and usually a fairly literal adaptation at that. I'd trust the summary from the audio book listener more than the 2x viewer.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Recitations of novels have been a thing for, well, centuries? Like there are annual gatherings of people who read Moby Dick to an audience? It changes the experience, but it adds new things as well. Trying to digest everything a production incorporates into a film at 2x seems far more deleterious.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Aren't most fiction audiobooks like one person radio plays? I'm not sure how that would be a worse experience of the source material than watching a film at 2x speed?

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

This is only true if you focus exclusively on what was filtered through the OVA boom which, as it was primarily marketed by English distributors, towards young adults and older teens, leaned into the ultraviolent/hypersexual. This ignores the mass of anime which simply weren't localized.

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Journal of Anime and Manga Studies @animestudies.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

Do you study #anime, #manga, #cosplay, or their fandoms? The Call for Papers for JAMS Volume 6 is LIVE! call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/01/... JAMS is full #open-access, and Volume 6 will be published in December 2025!

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I'm genuinely enjoying Beheneko, but its deployment of fan service is very lacklustre. Definitely a show which would benefit from "less is more". I haven't watched it yet, and so can't say with any insight, but this is a criticism I've also seen about Gushing over Magical Girls.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Ha ha ha ha. Noooo. I'm old. Old as balls.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

One day, the Joseph Campbell Foundation will be made to pay for its crimes.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

The last book of the year (I just finished it today). One of the last (collection) of essays Baudrillard wrote, he nevertheless manages to bring his entire ouvre into a compelling totality. While published in the mid aught's, you'd think it was written last week.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

I picked this up after reading Allison, but you owe it to yourself to read "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses", at the cost of a mere 60 pages. An incredibly infleuntial essay, which is perhaps more insightful today than when originally published in 1970.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

Everyone should read this (better still the Seond Editon) monumntal work in the field, by one of the most seasoned writers on the subject. You will simply not find a more comprehensive account of the history of Anime in English.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

A pioneering work, Allison offers an analysis of the state of gender relations through manga, eromanga and even obento in the waining days of the Bubble Economy. It's one of the most widely cited texts in Anime and Manga Studies for a reason.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

The world lost an exceptional scholar with the passing of Mark McLelland in 2020, and this excellent collection of through provoking, and often challenging, essays demonstrates his skill as both writer and editor.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

As it turns out, WWII remains a contentious and fraught topic in numerous aspects of Japanese society, public education included. This wide ranging survey is a welcome resource in the face of one of the most persistent orientalist myths which permeates the western imagination.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

This was an invaluable resource in researching the development of global anime fandom and deftly leans into the crisis of area studies in the best way possible.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

End of the Year Book Recomendations 2024 Edition: You will be hard pressed to find a better intro text on the subject of postmodern theory which doesn't immediately explain why its bad actually. Also features a very creative and engaging framing device.

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Study of Swords @studyofswords.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

That Grinch NTR really hits different once you've read Anne Allison's seminal work, "Permitted and Prohibited Desires".

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