More like this
Autumn Splinters the Moon – A Haiku
Happy Autumn. Happy Fall. Happy Hop-tu-Naa! Happy Harvest. Happy Samhain. There is something stirring in the airs of Autumn. Gets me every year. To celebrate the skies of…
A Very Belated Ghost Hound Haiku
Sorry, Bel - I totally forgot. Read more
CLAMP’s Visual Haiku
Source: By: Peggy Sue Wood I was recently introduced to the idea of a visual haiku and my first thoughts went to CLAMP. For those of you who…
A Journey of the Heart – the Places of BokuYaba
When it comes to Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu, all my usual boundaries as a fan go straight out the window.
Shigeru Mizuki: War Haiku
I think of Mizuki and the ghosts who walked with him to the end of his days, and I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere along our path…
LiA Bespoke Project : A BokuYaba Senryuu For Dark Flame Master
With 136 brilliant BokuYaba chapters in the books, how am I supposed to limit myself to 17 syllables and no spoilers?
How to Savor Winter Haiku
Winter haiku intend to make you feel the cold, the quiet, and the loneliness associated with the season. Literature can resonate different meanings for the writer and for…
Review—On Haiku, by Hiroaki Sato
Hiroaki Sato reveals how the radical brevity of the haiku genre contains worlds within worlds. This is a book to cherish, and which nurtures in return.
I wasn't expecting to like BokuYaba this much
Your sacrifice was not in vain.
Top 10 Contest Prizes – Three Top 5s (and a Little Haiku)
Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone for supporting LiA this year. Read more
Review—Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku
Well-Versed: Exploring Modern Japanese Haiku is a collection of roughly three hundred modern haiku by different poets, curated from Ozawa's commentary in the magazine Haiku Arufa over the…
Review—Grit, Grace and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer
Haiku Poetry for the Summer Olympic Games
A-Yokai-A-Day: How A Wager Led to a Child’s Decapitation
With only three stories left in this year's A-Yokai-A-Day, it's time for me to plug my Patreon again. If you like these stories and illustrations, I do this…
Architect A – A Lovely Ache
I caught Architect A at the Fantasia movie festival this year. It's a lovely short animation from Korea that has had a lasting presence.
A-Yokai-A-Day: Munemushi
If you’d like to join me and many others in painting a yokai a day this month, all you have to do is paint, draw, or create any…
A-Yokai-A-Day: Shinshaku
If you’d like to join me and many others in painting a yokai a day this month, all you have to do is paint, draw, or create any…
A-Yokai-A-Day: Kanmushi
If you’d like to join me and many others in painting a yokai a day this month, all you have to do is paint, draw, or create any…
A Together Post – A – Rama
Insert *crying natsuya kirishima because it looks sexy and my blogger mean a lot because lita is a sap* It’s been a long time since you saw this…
A “Monster” of a Time
It doesn’t matter what kind of organization you are in, whether is it something as simple as an office setting, where you may have a dozen or so…
A-Yokai-A-Day: Kanshaku
If you’d like to join me and many others in painting a yokai a day this month, all you have to do is paint, draw, or create any…
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Zatō Who Met a Bakemono on a Journey
Today's story talks about a monster called a bakemono (pronounced bah-keh-mo-no). Like yesterday's henge, this is not a specific monster's name, but a generic term for any monster.…
A-Yokai-A-Day: How a Tsuchigumo Turned into a Woman in Kaga
Tonight's yōkai is a tsuchigumo: an interesting term with a lot of history. Literally it means "earth spider," and they are depicted in scroll paintings as gigantic monster…
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Kurita Genpachi Slew a Bakemono
As I mentioned, the Mononoke Ichi yokai market and hyakki yagyo night parade was yesterday in Kyoto. This was the first night parade since the covid pandemic, and…
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Hashii Yasaburō Ferried a Ghost
Tonight's story is one of my favorites in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. Something about the ghost being upside-down is so creepy and visually striking. Not only that, it's part love…
It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Gojo Cat!
Check out these cute Gojo as a cat pins from ShraRaiDesigns! They’re such cute designs – I love them! They also have other awesome designs like a ‘sad…
(REVIEW) A Mage, a Barrel, and a BLAST OF TEMPEST
Maybe the real BLAST OF TEMPEST was the friends we made along the way.
A Couple of Cuckoos – 02 – A Princess in a Doghouse
At the breakfast table, Nagi is adamant that he’s not going through with the marriage, but his parents, who very much still possess delinquent streak, will book no…
Be a Creator, Not a Consumer
Because I work at a library, it strikes me how much people consume. Most of our circulation centers on DVDs and technology. Many patrons, particularly retirees, watch a…
A-Yokai-A-Day 2020 Lineup
Thanks for reading A-Yokai-A-Day, Pandemic Edition. 2020 has been a rough year, but at least we live in an age where we know more about diseases and cures…
What Makes a Spoiler a Spoiler?
This is something I wonder about sometimes, which a certain Tweet caused me to reflect on again: People have different degrees of tolerance when it comes to spoilers.…
A-Yokai-A-Day: Hakoiri Musume
October is here, and you know what that means. A-Yokai-A-Day is upon us! Every day of the month, in celebration of Halloween, I will be painting and posting…
A Beautiful Sketchbook of a Film
On an Oscar nominee by Cartoon Saloon.
Taking a Break for a bit
Hello readers! Thank you so much for your support over the last 2 years while I have been blogging. When I first started writing this blog was more…
A-Yokai-A-Day 2020 Lineup
Thanks for reading A-Yokai-A-Day, Pandemic Edition. 2020 has been a rough year, but at least we live in an age where we know more about diseases and cures…
A Silent Voice: A true tearjerker
After hearing so much about this anime, I finally went ahead and watched the movie on Netflix. I didn’t know Kyoto Animation had made A Silent Voice until…
A Bird? A Plane? Great Saiyaman!
Great Saiyaman was just that guy. SUPPORT US ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/totallynotmark FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/totallynotmark FOLLOW ME ON TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@totallynotmark
Building a Beginning: Rent-a-Girlfriend
Okay, one more time: The beginning of a narrative is supposed to do a lot of things. You know, it really SHOULD do a lot of things. The…
When a Scanlation Causes a Cancellation
In this week's Please Save My Money, Krystallina covers creator Shikke cancelling Chapter 2 of BL manga Pink Heart Jam due to scanlation.
A-Yokai-A-Day: Hakoiri Musume
October is here, and you know what that means. A-Yokai-A-Day is upon us! Every day of the month, in celebration of Halloween, I will be painting and posting…
A Conversation With Me (A Conclusion)
Hello everyone. Thank you for following this project on for the longer time that it happened for. Given the nature of these things where I ask for answers…
Be a Creator, Not a Consumer
Because I work at a library, it strikes me how much people consume. Most of our circulation centers on DVDs and technology. Many patrons, particularly retirees, watch a…
The Devil is a Part Timer!! – S2 E07 – A Boom, a Whoosh, and a Hug
The first day’s haul at the beach shack is beyond Ms. Amane’s expectations. Emi meets with Maou, Ashiya, Urushihara, and Camio at the lighthouse to discuss Amane, who…
The Devil is a Part-Timer!, The Devil is a Part-Timer! Season 2
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Denzaemon from Amagasaki Met a Bakemono at a Hot Spring
Today's yōkai is another generic-sounding "bakemono." It may have been a shapechanged kitsune or tanuki, although they often prefer to play tricks rather than outright kill their victims.…
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Killing Turned a Man’s Hair White
Tonight's story may seem a bit weird to Western readers with its focus on "killing." What may seem to some as simple hunting or fishing, whether for fun…
A Magnet!?
Deku unveils a new power, Magna takes down one of the Dark Triad, and Boruto has a whole bunch of speedlines. 3:10 - My Hero Academia 313 18:14 - Undead…
A roadmap.
Delay, delay, delay, delay. Why do I even bother sometimes?? I look at this blog and I see the last post was back in November, when I talked…
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Maō Who Turned into a Woman to Hinder a Monk’s Passing
Tonight's story talks about a maō. This word is made up of two kanji: 魔 (ma; demon, devil, evil spirit) and 王 (ō; king). It's a generic term…
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Unshō, a Monk from Shima Province, Escaped from a Poisonous Serpent
Tonight's yōkai is another serpent like the one we saw a couple of weeks ago. Contrary to my normal pattern of leaving yōkai names untranslated, I use English…