November 2025 Newsletter Upload

src/newsletter_desc.json

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 	"link":"2025-01-1",
 	"title":"January 2025 Issue",
 	"desc": "In this month's newsletter, we will dive into the action-packed worlds of shonen and seinen anime! From iconic battles to mind-blowing plot twists, we’ll explore how these genres have captivated the hearts of anime fans worldwide. You will find masterpieces like Umineko, SBR, and JJK and hidden gems like Ajin. Let's dive into the stories that have shaped anime history!"
+},
+{
+	"link":"2025-11-1",
+	"title":"November 2025 Issue",
+	"desc": "To unmask the stories that linger after the credits roll, MASK’s latest newsletter is trading the punchlines for some serious reflection. We’ve curated a collection that dissects the tragedy of the Ghost of Sparta, questions the frantic pace of the anime industry, and redefines the weight of Heroism. From the ethics of power to the quiet reality of loneliness, this edition covers the full spectrum of emotion."
 }
 ]

templates/newsletters/2025-11-1/01#tragedy-of-kratos.njk

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+{# Ready for review #}
+<div class="page">
+    <div class="article-full">
+        <h2>The Tragedy of Kratos: The Ghost of Sparta</h2>
+        <br>
+        <div class="article-author">By: Caschinaissance</div>
+        <br>
+        <div class="article-content">
+            <h3>Introduction</h3>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Kratos is the main character of the video game franchise God of War. He is also a demigod and one of the sons of Zeus. If anything, his journey is full of blood and betrayals, which we’ll talk about here.</p>
+            <br>
+            <br>
+            <h3>The Ghost of Sparta</h3>
+            <p>
+               &emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Ares orders Kratos to destroy the village where people worship Athena. Kratos obeys his orders and enters the temple and butchers everyone; however, Ares had secretly transferred Kratos’ wife and child to that place, and Kratos kills them while he is blinded by the power he was granted by Ares. Later, he regains his consciousness, and all he feels is  regret. He killed the only two people who cared for him and loved him no matter what, and in return, he couldn’t even save them from himself. The village Oracle also curses him for his sins by making the ashes of his family stick to his body forever.  With skin as pale as the moon, he gets the name Ghost of Sparta. Ares wants him to be an emotionless, ultimate warrior by removing emotional attachments. Ares succeeds in doing so as well, but Kratos leaves Ares and works for other Gods to get his revenge on Ares. We can see that Ares succeeded as he planned as he killed Ares himself. In the first game, it can be observed that Kratos questions his humanity but slowly embraces vengeance over time.
+            </p>
+
+            <br>
+            <br>
+            <h3>Zeus</h3>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;During Kratos’ pursuit to find the Oracle of Athens, Zeus grants him the ability to use his thunderbolts. Later, he disguises himself as a grave digger, and Kratos finds him digging a grave at the temple of Athens. When asked, he says that he is digging the grave for Kratos. Later, when Kratos is taking Pandora’s box to Athens from Pandora’s temple, he gets impaled by a log thrown by Ares. Kratos falls to the underworld but rejects his death and tries to climb out of it. When he reaches the top, he finds a rope that takes him back to the grave dug by the grave digger. Kratos is unaware of the fact that it was Zeus who saved him from death to kill Ares. </p>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;When Athena tells Zeus about the rampage of Kratos, he disguises himself as an eagle and takes away as much power as he can from Kratos and transfers it to the Colossus of Rhodes. Kratos believes this is a work of Athena, and when Zeus sends the Blade of Olympus, the blade which he used to end the war between the Gods and Titans, Kratos trusts Zeus. He drains all his energy into the blade and destroys the Colossus. Again blinded by his power, Kratos mocks the Gods while getting hit by the palm of a falling Colossus and becoming powerless once again. Zeus takes the blade of Olympus and lets Kratos rot in the depths of Hades. Kratos, realizing that he had been used by the Gods once again, gives up until he is approached for help by .. </p>
+
+            <h3>Gaia</h3>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Gaia tells Kratos about the history of Zeus and the Titans. She tells him about the Sisters of Fate who have control over the Thread of Destiny. She guides Kratos to seek the sisters’ help if he wants his revenge on Zeus. Kratos goes through the island of Sisters, encountering many people who seek them as well. Cronos, the father of Zeus and the King of the Titans, gives the last of his magic to Kratos for his quest. Atlas also gives his power to Kratos. </p>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;When the sisters are defeated, Kratos travels back in time to the moment Zeus betrays him and challenges Zeus. He realises that he alone cannot defeat all of Olympus, so he goes back through time to get help from the Titans during the Great War.  Kratos climbs Mount Olympus with the Titans and challenges the Gods once and for all. This time, Kratos stood no chance against the ruler of Olympus, Zeus threw Gaia and Kratos off the cliff. Gaia betrays Kratos and lets him fall to the underworld, telling him that this is not his battle, but it is the battle of the Titans. Later, when Kratos comes out of the underworld, he chops off Gaia’s arm and states that it is indeed his battle only, while she falls off the mountain. During the final fight between Zeus and Kratos, Gaia returns and swallows them both in the hopes of destroying them; however, Kratos kills Zeus as well as Gaia with the power he gets from Pandora’s box.</p>
+
+            <h3>Athena</h3>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;At first, she promises to erase the traumatic visions Kratos suffers from, but later, when Kratos kills Ares, she just forgives him of the sins and doesn’t do anything about the visions. Betrayed by this, Kratos goes so far as to kill himself and jumps off the cliffs, but Athena doesn’t let him and tells him that he is the new God of War. This immense power takes complete control over Kratos; he was a human no more, he was the God of War. With this responsibility, he caused chaos and battles much fiercer than the ones that occurred during Ares’ reign. Due to this behavior of Kratos, Athena seeks Zeus to prevent Kratos from becoming like Ares or destroying the Gods.</p>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Later, when Kratos defeats the Sisters of Fate and uses their powers to fight Zeus, Athena sacrifices herself to save Zeus. Athena told Kratos that without Zeus, Olympus will fall, and all of Olympus will try to protect Zeus for this. Late, Athena revealed that Kratos’ father was none other than Zeus in her final moments. Knowing that Kratos just killed her half-sister, who had helped him the most throughout his journey to end Ares, was too much for him to bear. However, it turned out that the sacrifice of Athena for Zeus brought her to a higher life form. She now had her own intentions to rule Olympus so she made a plan for Kratos to open the Pandora’s box again where she kept the good things of universe when Zeus had kept all the evils inside it, she guided Kratos the path to get those powers to kill Zeus, she planned to take those powers from Kratos after Zeus dies so she can be the ruler of Olympus. Skip to the part when Pandora's box is opened again, and it turns out that it’s empty. That means when Kratos opened the box to kill Ares, he got both the things sealed in it, but the power Athena had sealed in there wasn’t active until Pandora helped him and gave him Hope. With that, Kratos was finally able to kill Zeus, the ruler of Olympus. But seeing the condition of the world, the number of sins he committed, and no more purpose being left of him, he uses the Blade of Olympus and stabs himself, leaving Athena powerless and bringing an end to his suffering once and for all.</p>
+
+            <h3>Conclusion</h3>
+            <p>&emsp;&emsp;&emsp;Throughout his journey, Kratos has sought many beings for help, but the power they gave him ends up blinding him and rendering their plan useless, and while they try to help, Kratos kills them and gets his revenge. This tendency of Kratos to get blinded by power so easily is the reason he wins or loses the battles. But in the end, with the power of hope, he is blinded no more. Hehe says, “My vengeance ends now,” and proceeds to end himself accepting the fact that he was his greatest enemy all along. </p>
+            <div class="article-end"></div>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+</div>

templates/newsletters/2025-11-1/02#seasonal-anime-cycle.njk

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+{# Ready for review #}
+<div class="page">
+    <div class="article-full">
+        <h2>How the seasonal anime cycle is ruining anime pacing</h2>
+        <br>
+        <div class="article-author">By: RamitIsKing</div>
+        <br>
+        <div class="article-content">
+
+            <p>If you were to ask any otaku:  “What anime is the best of them all?”, the answers you’ll get from someone who is just dabbling in anime are the mainstream answers: One Piece, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Attack on Titan. An anime veteran who has watched more old anime might say Code Geass, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Monster, etc. Someone who has watched too much anime might suggest a Makoto Shinkai movie or something of a passion project, like “Uzumaki”; however, did you notice? Out of all the titles I mentioned, none are <b>12 episodes long.</b></p>
+
+            <h3>What is the seasonal anime cycle?</h3>
+
+            <p>The current anime release schedule follows a “cour” system. A “cour” is of 3 months, and there are 4 cours in a year. Incidentally, they align with the four major seasons observed in Japan: the winter season, from January onwards. Spring season, April onwards. Summer season, July onwards, and Fall season, October onwards. Modern anime airs 1 episode weekly in 1 or 2 cours. With a bit of math, we see there are 12 or 13 episodes in a cour. This system began around the turn of the millennium. Before that, anime used to air for year-long tenures. Which led to insane runtime hours of old anime. Let's not delve into how this system came to be; let’s examine how it has impacted modern anime.</p>
+
+            <h3>The formula that worked for old anime:</h3>
+
+            <p> Old anime had a simple concept. Hook the audience in the pilot episode or the first few episodes, and then take your time to deliver to build up towards a climactic fight. 2 examples that come to mind are Naruto and One Piece. The pilot episode for Naruto hits hard when Naruto saves Iruka sensei. Even after the pilot, the show does not pull punches, up until episode 13. The show then slows down to introduce more characters, create character developments for the main cast, and build up the climactic fights. Even the show’s first filler episode shows up at episode 20.</p>
+
+            <p>Coming to One Piece, Eichiro Oda does not stop pulling punches until the 5 crewmates enter the Grand Line. Imagine 50 episodes, which would be a self-sufficient anime in itself. (In fact, Oda Sensei had worked on a one-shot manga called “Romance Dawn”, which was never serialised, but the entire East Blue Saga in a nutshell was Romance Dawn) However, after that, even One Piece fell victim to fillers, even when skipped led to the good-paced Alabasta saga and then the worst-paced Skypiea Saga..</p>
+
+            <h3>How did the seasonal anime cycle evolve?</h3>
+
+            <p>Modern anime often takes only a single episode or even half of it to hook the audience, and only 12 or 24 episodes to either complete a beautiful story, or complete a major arc of the story. Their pace is so fast that fillers are out of the question. But due to a lesser number of episodes, the quality of each episode skyrockets. Be it an action scene or cinematic drama, or a jaw-dropping landscape, you might just find all three in one episode. A recent example would be Chainsaw Man, exploring Denji’s grim outlook at the rather dazzling world with an insane fight scene and his interaction with Makima, all in a single episode.</p>
+
+            <h3>What did we gain from the seasonal anime cycle?</h3>
+
+            <p>Modern anime has almost zero filler episodes. To the point that fans ask Gege Akutami to add a few filler episodes to Jujutsu Kaisen just for beloved characters to get more screen time before they inevitably die.</p>
+
+            <p>Pacing is not a parameter you control now; either you deliver fast or be banished to the obscure anime realm. Attack on Titan cannot take the gas off the pedal for even a single episode, or else a dinosaur that appears for 12 total frames in the opening seems like foreshadowing to something big about to happen.</p>
+
+			<p>Long anime are now a thing of the past. You won’t find a single modern anime that crosses 200 episodes. Most of them do not even hit a century. But this did cause an abundance of anime titles that span almost every genre and niche that exists in media.</p>
+
+			<p>As fans, keeping track of what anime comes out becomes a lot easier if you just know what season it will be airing in. You need not check your calendar for reminders every single day; just the day of the week suffices. Instead of frantically checking for a new episode everyday, I only to wait every Thursday during the summer 2025 season to catch the latest episode of Dr Stone.</p>
+
+            <h3>But we lost something very important:</h3>
+
+            <p>Well, not specifically ‘we’, but anime itself lost control over pace. The industry “standard” has formed the 12-episode mold, but not all stories fit in this mold. Some fall short, and some have a little extra content, not enough to pan out a 24-episode run time. Rather, most stories do not fit the mold. We saw the death of slow anime. Side characters do not get screen time unless they are going to influence the plot. It has become so bad to the point that IF you see even the slightest detail in the design of someone in the background not yet introduced, like a fancy necklace or something, you bet they are going to get a side story.</p>
+
+			<p>Chainsaw Man was just about getting started when Denji took care of the Katana devil. But season 1 ended there. The sequel came out 3 years later in Chainsaw Man the Movie: The Reze Arc. It had to build its own hype and recap its own cast because everyone had forgotten. It could not use the hype season 1 received, and I blame the 12-episode limit. Chainsaw Man could have covered the Reze arc with 6 beautiful episodes and ended season 1 without being sudden.</p>
+
+			<p>ReLIFE, a romance anime where the main character loses his job, but he takes a pill to age back 10 years, becomes a high schooler and gains high school experience for a year. The plot progresses normally, but we are left with a cliffhanger in episode 12. The main character's crush turns out to also be an adult who chose to age back, as well. At this point, the side characters had pretty much wrapped their arcs, so there wasn’t a lot of content for a season 2.Hence ReLIFE had to release 4 OVAs to wrap up the story, when a 16-episode season would have created fewer complications.</p>
+
+			<p>Solo Leveling is also a victim of the pacing problem. It was insanely hyped for its action in the source material, but when it was translated to anime, it was just action. The pace of solo levelling was so fast, it was just one fight after another. You can literally not name a side character other than maybe Jinwoo’s sister in this show. This does an injustice to the world-building that comes with anime on the longer side.</p>
+
+            <h3>Is there a solution?</h3>
+
+            <p>“Oshi No Ko” had an interesting solution to this issue. It aired with a 90-minute episode 1. It was a hook like no other; the main characters were established, having already gone through a traumatic event, and a timeskip occurred. It made episode 2 feel like a sequel rather than a season. In the end, season 1 hit hard in its 12-episode runtime and ended satisfyingly. A clever solution to the mold issue.</p>
+
+            <p>Another solution to this issue is to screw the seasonal cycle entirely and produce 14-15 episodes to correctly pace the show. An example would be Blue Lock season 2 with 14 episodes or Re:Zero season 3 with 16 episodes. However, this is unfeasible for any title without the hype to back the disruption.</p>
+
+            <h3>Conclusion:</h3>
+
+            <p>I could go on and on about different anime and their issues with pacing, or list off more anime like Oshi no Ko. But I think we need to address the fact that not all stories deserve 12 episodes; some deserve more or less to iron out their arcs. I mean, if Attack on Titan can get away with its final season, we can expect a change of heart or a change of way in presenting anime other than the mould. Or we can just binge another season of My Hero Academia!</p>
+
+        	<div class="article-end"></div>
+        </div>
+    </div>
+</div>
+