Mugen Monday - 32nd Edition

There are different philosophies that try to entail what ‘Art’ is supposed to be. Me for one believe in a certain capacity of art, in distinguishing it as art. Mainly that there is an element of transcendence embedded into it. That it allows you to go beyond the confines of your daily rationality.

Much like produced fine arts, writing too is an art, it can be, of course. And in my analysis, I would also say that the aspect of transcendence only comes in, when the art is more than a mere medium to an end.

One has probably heard similar sentences, ‘part of the journey is the journey itself, which must be savoured’, etc. And I do think it holds some credibility to it.

The mind, thinking, tinkering, chattering, is always jumping - like a Monkey - hardly stable, hardly in one place, always fluttering from one image to another, from one thought to another.

But in the experience of the art, one somehow loses oneself. The subject and the object merges into some temporary unity, almost relieving the experiencer from his ‘thought’ - the very tool that was otherwise supposed to help you.

The reason I am speaking of this matter, is to draw a particular point: should art (and in such cases, Anime, or a newsletter dedicated entirely to Anime) be confined to the goal it serves? Because if so, it would serve hardly any purpose to try and enstrange you into this philosophical jittering.

I Instead, should be invoking you into the recent insights of the Anime industry, such as Hajime no Ippo coming to Netflix in the US, or Haikyuu!! The Dumpster Battle movie grossing over 10 billion yen in revenue, or How My Hero Academia is drawing to an end.

Yet all of these falter short in front of art - a beyond aim, beyond goal phenomena. Hence why today, Instead of glittering you with the normal Anime saplings, I decided to arouse your thoughts instead, into perhaps something greater than Anime - art.

(But is art only the frames, the colors, the animations, the music, the compilation of all this, or the thing/feleling it invokes in you?)

Yet, is art falling out of the Anime sphere? Is the industry becoming more profit-oriented, burgeoning rapid mass production of working cliche plot storylines? Well, it might just be.

We plan on doing more stories around this topic, do keep a tab on our website for more insights. After this, to calm you a little down from this philosophical gibberish, we do intend to give you a very easy-to-swallow pill down below (not Viagra).

- From the Editor’s Desk

Rhytham Das, Editor-in-Chief, Spiel Anime