Cabin Boy Brendan

Brendan is the Con Artists’ laid back Cabin Boy, who wants to encourage people to slow down and appreciate simple anime done well as an alternative to shows whose enticing busyness is naught but sound and fury.

I was dimly aware of anime from an early age, with exposure to afternoon broadcast fare from DiC and Saban during my grade- and middle-school years, and I hung at the fringe of Toonami during high school. Also my folks rented a couple of Ghibli movies. Arguably the anime with the biggest impact on me at the time was The Vision of Escaflowne, whose abortive run on Fox so fascinated my father that he imported a complete collection.

It wasn’t until halfway into college, though, that I started down the rabbit hole in earnest. A friend of mine introduced me to Azumanga Daioh, Oh My Goddess! (OVA & movie), and Di Gi Charat, forever instilling in me a deep appreciation for slice of life shows, nineties OVAs, and surreal nonsense. Shortly thereafter I managed to fall into the college’s anime club, which opened to me the floodgates of possibilities.

I’ve found that I primarily enjoy anime as relaxation, so, while I appreciate occasional action, I tend to gravitate away from shows that seem like they’re heavy on adrenaline. The tone and aesthetic of what I watch are very important to me, and, indeed, many of my favorite anime are mood pieces in which very little actually happens. Of the Con Artists, I’m the most likely to enjoy slice of life and iyashi-kei.