All in the anime harem family
The "harem" genre is sociologically the strangest anime has to offer, and the most frustratingly resilient.

Apocalypse not now
The world is always about to end and never will (until it actually does).

The atonement of Pacifica Casull.
Why Scrapped Princess symbolizes the core tenant of Christian theology better than (the movie version of) The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Baseball according to Drucker
My translation of the introduction to Japan's 2010 bestseller about high school baseball and business management.

Before and After
South of Hokkaido, Japanese houses aren't likely to have central HVAC, high pressure hot water, or insulation.

Creating a Kindle ebook
My roundabout way of preparing a manuscript for the Kindle Direct Publishing platform, including my XHTML template.

Dances with Samurai
Tom Cruise and Edward Zwick perversely managed to remake Dances with Wolves into a celebration of feudal privilege.

Gang rule
One of the most peaceful countries in the world really likes shows about people getting the tar beat out of them.

Girls kick butt
Especially when that can of whoop-ass is being delivered by a woman.

I watched the whole thing
Anime series I heartily recommend. More "best of genre" lists here, here and here.

Japan's "Protestant Reformation"
Quite disparate religions in entirely different countries seem to follow remarkably similar patterns of convergent social evolution.

Kids these days
Life really was worse when you were growing up, especially if you grew up during the Warring States Period.

The known unknowns
The "fog of war" has and always will shroud the battlefield. It's not a conspiracy. It's human nature.

Let there be incandescents
"Green" technologies that make economic sense don't have to be mandated by law.

Life is a sim
If you want to understand Japan, simply keep in mind that it's a nation of 128 million introverts.

Mimi o Sumaseba
My translation of the manga that became the basis for Whisper of the Heart.

Nanami Madobe
When it comes to Japanese product mascots, Microsoft out-cutes Apple.

No way to wage a war
A mindless devotion to the simplistic idealism of romantic primitivism in popular entertainment is making us stupid.

Occupy the past
If we can't learn from the past, at least we can refrain from trying to live there.

The Pacific War on screen
Attempts to make the war movie politically "relevant" more often that not results in absurd historical revisionism and glaring anachronisms.

"Pathological" and real science
The rational scientist is no less susceptible to self-delusion than the witch doctor or faith healer. People believe what they want to believe.

Pelagius and the fools
A paper about the nexus between Mormonism, Pelagianism, and narrative structure I gave with Stephen Carter at the 2007 Sunstone Symposium.

Playing by the rules
Creativity is more about knowing when to color within the lines than being imaginatively uninhibited.

Showa nostalgia
Japanese look back at the 1950s with pretty much the same sentimentalism that Americans do.

Silver linings
Japanese much better prepared to make the kind of economic "sacrifices" our political scolds like to go on about.

Speaking truth to (gasoline) power
Environmentalism is like a religion, except that getting into that green heaven will cost you a whole lot more than a measly tithe.

Stupid on Star Trek stilts
The television franchise I love to hate and can't stop watching.

Three visions of a distant shore
What Philip Pullman, C.S. Lewis, and Joseph Smith all have in common (more than you might think).

Timeless fashion
The kimono has been around for centuries and will never go out of style.

The "truth" is worse
Why the Book of Mormon musical is the best publicity the church could ever pray for.

The "uncanny valley"
Thanks to the digital revolution, motion-capture animation is getting too good to be believed.

Up with introverts
Understanding America's most misunderstood and misrepresented minority.

What I believe
Neil Gaiman pretty much sums it up and says it all.

Yaoi 101
It's not slash and it's not even gay. It's as realistic as lesbian porn, only with the polarities reversed and written with the romance audience in mind.

Yuri 101
What you'd get if you took the "porn" out of lesbian porn and added stuff like character and plot.