Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
The Bone Clocks
My Hero
Academia (僕のヒーローアカデミア)
Ok, this is another anime, but this is a series and not a movie so it’s different enough I talk about it on a minutely basis and think about it non-stop. for me to include. As if I had a choice. I am obsessed with this show. Based on the popular Japanese Manga by artist and scribe Kohei Horikoshi, My Hero Academia is set in a world where a majority of the population is born with a heroic super power (called Quirks), Midorya Izuku is a shy, kind-hearted middle-school student who wishes to become the world’s #1 hero, taking after his idol, the great All-Might. All-Might is a hero who has it all: strength, influence, power and a smile that never fades, so there could be no better influence for a growing student in the world of quirks. The only problem is that Izuku was one of the few people not born with a quirk.
One day, Izuku is minding his own business and is attacked by a small-time villain, only to be rescued by All-Might, who, after seeing Izuku’s passion and kind-hearted nature, transfers his own quirk to him, helping up the ladder he couldn’t climb. Izuku then enrols in All-Might’s Alma mater: UA High School and from there learns to better control his newly gifted quirk to attain his dream of becoming the #1 hero. Not only because of the amazing and unique characters, not only for the beautiful animation or the exciting plotlines, but politically, I genuinely believe that this show has the power to help heal the world. I’m actually being serious about that. It is a show of pure empathy, for the poor, for the greedy, for the selfish, for the fearful, My Hero Academia rises above all of the prejudices in its wake and takes the viewer to new heights with its capacity for caring. The show is pure love and I hope everyone watches it so it can do its job and help make the human race the kinder species it is supposed to have evolved into.
Excerpt Chapter 1
8:08 a.m. That’s what my clock says as I burst out of my covers. I must have fallen out of bed again. I know this because I’m staring at it from the other side of my room. There was luck to this particular tumble, however: I’m only sixteen minutes behind! I wheeze as I lift myself up, kicking the sheets from my ankles like a half-swaddled baby. The same old tapping returns, persistent and loud, and I walk over to my ground-floor window, lifting it dramatically in an effort to shoo the seagull pecking at the pane. The blunt-billed bird squawks as it flaps away. I slam the window closed, keeping the cold morning air off my skin for a few more minutes.
My shower was lukewarm and my breakfast fictional. This is the best I can hope for on Tribute day at my place of work: Montage Tower. The building may be taller than most, but the work is still lowly. I lock my bedroom door out of an irrational precaution; my roommate is still upstairs. It’s his third day off this week, and it’s silent, but I know he’s awake because his door is slightly ajar. If anything were to disappear from my room, he would be blamed for it regardless, as either a successful thief or a failing watchdog. I collect my earbuds, phone, and wallet combo and silently make for the exit. As my door card reaches the scanner, a magazine bricks the window, launched from the top of the stairs where Sam now stands.
“Almost hit you, Dan!” he shouts down to me in his usual
excitable manner.“What is it this time? I’m already late.” I almost don’t reply.
“Page twelve—the blue chaise longue!” He points at the once airborne catalog, which now sits crumpled in my hands.
“I’m not dragging a chaise longue home for you!”
“It’s not for me, it’s for Shanty,” he says, partitioning himself
from the blame.I spin the catalog around and read the cover. “Scratchwork
Furrrnishings.”“It’s only small—twenty-five by sixteen.” He holds his hands out
like a puppeteer.“Can’t your hamster just sleep in your bed with you?”
“No. He has an erratic sleeping pattern.”
A silence lingers.
“Fffffine,” I reluctantly sputter, throwing the catalog onto the
floor in a sulk.Sam giggles and retreats back into his lair of aspen shavings and
lavender. I finally scan my door card, which sounds a cheery beep of
freedom.Do you remember the colors of your life? How it used to feel before you became responsible and independent? Everyone does, I guess. Three shades usually cocoon themselves around the memories: the Blue Stage, the Purple Stage, and the Gray Stage. I am at Gray and dreading what comes after. The Blue Stage is the oldest. It consists of the memories of when you were a child. An only child. Not specifically you, but me. I forget how to separate myself from the situation sometimes, Sorry. Anyway, my childhood could only be described as glowing.
Mom and Dad were always here for me, breakfast table mornings and dinner table evenings. They both worked interesting jobs, each excelling in a separate creative field. My mother was a software programmer; a good one too. The start-up she worked at grew from a hole in 5 the wall to an admired business. Similarly, my father was successful in his career as an architect, not of towering superstructures but of small, respectable buildings in which families could live happy lives.
Those homes are gone now. I was around thirteen years old when I realized I’d never heard my parents fight. In fact, I hadn’t seen any anger from them at all. Not toward each other.
Not about work, or money—something which we were never without. Eventually, as my teenhood set in, I attributed their constant state of bliss to a secret drug habit, hoping to one day join the gang. But I was wrong. I found this out soon after Purple reared its ugly head. My life as a teenager was a lot slower than when I was a kid, and that aforementioned blissful family atmosphere quickly started to crack. Dad’s work hours increased. Taxes were the same, but he wasn’t, not with the stress he carried to keep the family “secure.” The same could be said for Mom. The company she originally worked for was poached and absorbed into a much larger company named Hourglass Industries—the place that now owns the building I work in. I think I repressed the name of the original, probably for the best.
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