Ramblings on Mural Jr. and Slaying The Nothing Riddle

The Nothing Riddle is the centerpiece of Mural Jr., the halfway point of the song and Lupe tells you what he’s about to do as early as the fourth bar: “Pause for applause, evolves to what was never here.” Using the first Mural as a guide “If we doing what’s already done”, the original goal was to create art until he reached Nirvana. This achieved “nothing” or absence in the Buddhist sense (Mu) of becoming spiritually cleansed and free, because he’s poured out everything from within the self into the mural. Mural Jr.’s first half shares a similar goal, even if it chooses a more destructive path to reach the same destination of nothing.

If Great Artists Steal, I Love Boosters

“This ain’t a pen, this a paintbrush and I intend to rearrange how they paint us.”

Seeing Is Believing in The Colors Within

To see is to witness something’s existence, usually outside the self while belief is acknowledging the same feeling internally. For most people, there’s a disconnect between the person we publicly present to others on the surface and the sincere thoughts underneath. But for Totsuko, seeing is believing. Not quite in the sense of premonitions, which may be cautioned with believing half of what you see, but something more all-encompassing. Her kaleidoscopic worldview allows her to visualize everyone’s invisible emotions as tangible colors of the rainbow, unique to each person. The problem is it’s already an uphill battle to convince others to see your point of view under regular circumstances and communicating one’s best qualities in broad strokes of hue feels nearly unbelievable, let alone understandable. At least, from the outside looking in.

Pac-Man Never Ceases to Amaze in Drill Music in Zion

During the Ebro in the Morning interview, Lupe said one of the album cover’s meanings is Pac-Man and there is a metanarrative involved. I was initially unsure if he was trolling due to the vibe of that whole interview, that is until I learned he already mentioned Pac-Man in relation to Tetsuo & Youth back in January 2021. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to know if he went deeper than just highlighting how he adopted the naming conventions of the Pac-Man family for his Mural trilogy. I also remembered that the painting he chose for Tetsuo & Youth roughly translates to Man Eating Tiger or simply, The Eating. It’s eat or be eaten in Pac-Man, so I figured it would be worth a shot to see where this rabbit hole goes.

2018 Top 30 Things I Would Dress Up As A Dinosaur For

Roar!

In Loving Memory of Only Yesterday

From a photograph of woven fabric to the dreamlike title card, you go back and forth between the present-day clarity and the flashback scenes slowly fading away. Pieces of the watercolor backgrounds are hazy as memories tend to be. You get the gist of it, but it’s not completely clear. Lacking the whole picture, always hung up on fractions and you still don’t get how they work.

2017 Top 30 Things I Would Wish A Nice Day

Apparently, a Bon Jovi album too, but doesn’t mean as well as Maria.

Who I Admire

Last Christmas, I felt my writing had improved from the previous year and decided to make an additional JoJo post to celebrate. This year, I’m doing the opposite and looking back to fifteen years ago. The plan was to put out another one of my usual posts sometime this month, but that obviously didn’t pan out. All I’m doing here is just retyping what I’ve found on this old, wrinkly paper, but maybe that’s enough to get me motivated again. And so, without further ado, the source of my childhood admirations.

Kakegurui and A Toast to Indulgence

Sayo Yamamoto has frequently toyed with typography in her OP/ED work and not just with the type itself, but also how the credits transition in and out. Michiko and Hatchin squashes graffiti-style fonts until they vanish and Arakawa Under the Bridge rushes uniform, round-ended strokes into the frame. While it’s common to see credits fade, there’s a specific manner in which Yuri!!! on Ice’s blurred history comes into focus or Fujiko Mine’s english lettering is etched away. In addition, the latter slides each section of the logo through a revolving door of sorts until wordplay becomes gunplay. Space Dandy maneuvers through characters of the alien alphabet like asteroids. Persona 5’s first and last characters swirl in opposite directions before colliding like lightning to spell out the entire name, only to dismantle itself again into a monochrome ransom note. Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul maximizes all this to its logical extreme, where type is blown up to absurd proportions, consuming half the frame, if not more. Her latest effort returns to the simplicity of Rozen Maiden: Traumend’s sparkling transitions and also reminds me of the jittery cast shadows in Psycho Pass. Foregoing unhinged experimentation for refinement, focusing on the indulgence of the characters, rather than the creator.

Highs and Lows of The Eccentric Family 2

With no clear destination in mind, disconnected telephone poles sprout about the cluttered pop-up book of Kyoto and its dizzying buzz of alcohol in the air. But behind the muted mischief, a towering tanuki descends into the shape of the mountains and from this dialogue of highs and lows, captures color in The Eccentric Family.