A Historian's Draft

Bokura no nanoka-kan sensō Frankly, I have no idea how to write a review of a movie, of all things. But let us try. Having watched the anime Bokura no nanoka-kan sensō (official English: Seven Days War ) this evening made me realize that I do quite enjoy these kinds of coming-of-age stories. It makes me nostalgic, in a sense, evoking a cathartic state of melancholia. Content The movie itself is easily described: a wholesome, slightly bittersweet coming-of-age drama that hardly polarizes. The primary, thematic dichotomy that the plot revolves around is one between two states of being: the world of the adults (interestingly, pretty much all of them are men) who are expected to “suck it up” to society, or at least to the immediate representants of power and status within society, and the prerogatives of the young in their liminal state of adolescence, who are still permitted to stay true to themselves—although their inability, their struggle of coming to terms with themselves is ...

  Introduction I am not a fan of introductions. Indeed, now that I am sitting here and feeling like writing something, I experience this awkward situation of hearing an inner voice telling me, “You need to introduce yourself first!” It is a new blog, after all. (I wonder about its lifetime expectancy already.) But what might be a worthwhile introduction, or a worthwhile first blog post? Perhaps I can try the biographical approach. I read multiple times that for historians—and at least partly I still do consider myself one (hence the punny blog title: who gets the reference?)—the art of autobiographical writing is an enlightening exercise. And biography, theory of biography, that is one of the things I developed an interest into. (Expect me to write about this in the future. Also, puns are an interesting thing: they are supposed to be funny, but we all know they are not.) What is interesting about biography in this day and age is that it is perceived as so anachronistic: o...