Brian Ruh
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brianruh.bsky.social
Brian Ruh
@brianruh.bsky.social
2.4K followers 3.1K following 3K posts
Independent scholar, PhD in communication and culture, occasional writer, always looking for a new project. I wrote a book on Mamoru Oshii’s films.
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Reposted by Brian Ruh
technihilism.bsky.social
it's weird how growing up you're ambiently & explicitly taught how important it is to overcome moral cowardice and then you have to be governed by those completely consumed by it
January 4, 2026 at 3:05 AM
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older.bsky.social
*banging together two trash-can-lid-shaped copies of the Melian dialogues during every press conference*
January 3, 2026 at 6:09 PM
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yenpress.com
Awajima Opera School—where countless girls from across the country flock in hopes of one day standing on the big stage. Their time at Awajima is filled with as much friendship and admiration as competition and jealousy...

Scenes from Awajima, Vol. 1 is available January 20th buff.ly/iyZHO8M
January 3, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
get-ugly.jp
しまりん 「乗りたい？綾乃には…ピーキーすぎて無理かも…」

Shimarin "Wanna ride it, Ayano? It's too peaky for you"
#ゆるキャン #yurucamp #AKIRA
January 3, 2026 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
cristianfarias.com
Best thing I’ve read this morning, from a human rights lawyer in Mexico. Translation is in the ALT-text.
Twitter thread in Spanish by José Mario de la Garza, a human rights lawyer in Mexico, translated using Google Translate: 1. Overthrowing a dictator sounds morally right. No one mourns a tyrant. But international law wasn't built to protect the good, but to restrain the powerful. That's why it prohibits force almost without exception: not because it ignores injustice, but because it knows that if each country decides whom to "liberate" by force, the world reverts to the law of the strongest. 2. The problem is not Maduro. The problem is the precedent. When military force is used to change governments without clear rules, sovereignty ceases to be a limit and becomes an obstacle. Today it is “overthrowing a dictator”; tomorrow it will be “correcting an election,” “protecting interests,” “restoring order.” The law does not absolve dictatorships, but neither does it legitimize unilateral crusades. Cont’d: 3. The uncomfortable question is not whether a tyrant deserves to fall, but who decides when and how. Because history teaches something brutal: removing a dictator is easy; building justice afterward is not. And when legality is broken in the name of good, what almost always follows is not freedom, but chaos, violence, and new victims. The law exists to remind us of this, even when it makes us uncomfortable. Maduro isn't the problem: he's the face of the problem. Removing him from power would be merely opening the door. Behind him is the machine: Rodríguez, Cabello, the military command, the operators of repression and plunder. If you only change the person at the top and leave the system intact, what follows isn't democracy: it's a reshuffling. And there's something even more difficult: Chavismo didn't just capture institutions, it captured daily life. Economy, media, bureaucracy, employment, fear, favors, blackmail. A country can't be "de-Chavistaized" by decree or by an electoral miracle. The real transition begins when that network is broken without setting the country ablaze. The challenge is enormous, and it's also a moral one: to unite without vengeance, but without impunity. Targeted justice for those most responsible, truth for the victims, guarantees that the rest will dismantle the system, and a plan for people to live again—not just survive. Because freedom doesn't come with a new president: it comes when the state ceases to be a threat.
January 3, 2026 at 2:16 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
I wasn’t expecting a 35th anniversary commemoration of Jello Biafra’s “Die for Oil, Sucker” quite like this.
Collage cover of Jello Biafra’s “Die for Oil, Sucker”
January 3, 2026 at 4:27 PM
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michaelgkagan.bsky.social
I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war
January 3, 2026 at 9:13 AM
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animenewsnetwork.com
[Review] This OVA almost feels like a bit of a monkey's paw where I was given more of what I wanted, but not in the way that I wanted it.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War -Stairway to Adulthood- OVA
www.animenewsnetwork.com
January 3, 2026 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
soranews24.bsky.social
New Year's message from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli will warm your heart with its depth of meaning.
Hayao Miyazaki says Happy New Year to Studio Ghibli fans with new art for Year of the Horse
2026 nengajo drawing comes with a never-before-seen photo of the legendary anime director.
soranews24.com
January 2, 2026 at 4:03 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Dramatic lighting selfies in blue today at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.
Me, in blue, with mirrors and lights behind me Me in blue again, with plastic containers behind me
January 2, 2026 at 11:52 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Neutral good - but door / window / floor vent positioning constrains our choices
ayeyoworm.blacksky.app 👑 AyeYoWorm ➡️ Blerdron✊🏾(🐻 11-5) 🎅🏾🎄 @ayeyoworm.blacksky.app · 2d
How do yall have your beds set up???

I’m true neutral.
January 2, 2026 at 3:40 AM
brianruh.bsky.social
The new year reminded me that Theres this this two page spread in my copy of the Spahn / Hadamitzky Kanji Dictionary.
The Ten Calendar Signs, the Twelve Horary Signs, and the Sixty-Year Cycle ＋千・十二支・千支 The ten calendar signs are a series of ten kanji that originally were used to desig-aste the different days of the ten-day fi jun periods into which a month is divided. Today this series of kanji, known as the + T jikkan, is used for distinguishing the di ferent members of any series. For example, in the text of a three-party contract the three parties will typically be referred to as ff ko ("A"), Z otsu ("B), and if hei (*C"). The ten kanji of the jikkan are divided into two groups of five members each. One group, called Ste, is associated with the yang (positive) principle, and the other group, called 9l to, is associated with the yin (negative) principle. Each member of these groups is further associated with one of the basic elements wood, fire, earth, metal, water, as presented in the following table. In addition to its on reading listed in this table, each kanji has another reading given by its row and column. Thus, # is also referred to as ki-no-e, Z as ki-no-to, PS as hi-no-e,.... and as mizu-no-to. (Indeed, this row-and-column nomenclature is needed to avoid confusion between symbols that otherwise have the same pronuncia-tion, KO or Kl.) The twelve horary signs are a series of twelve kanji that were originally used in ancient China to distinguish the twelve months of the year but were later applied to compass directions and times of dav (hence "horary" signs), the mid noit kani * GO being associated with noon. But the most widespread use of these signs, which are known as the += jünishi, is in associating successive years with different animals, as in "the year of the rat," "the year of the cow," and so forth. The following list gives the on reading, kun reading, and animal associated with each kanji of the junishi, which perhaps should be called the "animal signs." When the ten-element + T jikkan series is aligned with the twelve-element +=* jünishi series and each series is repeated, we obtain a series of two-kanji combinations known as the f kanshi or eto (the sixty-year cycle). When this combined kanshi series is associated with successive years, it repeats every sixty years (as it must, because 60 is the least common multiple of 10 and 12). This sixty-year kanshi is outlined in the following chart, which shows which calendar sign and which horary sign and animal correspond to a given year. Thus, 1984 is a F7 ki-no-e ne year of the rat, and the year 2001, in the 18th year of the sixty-year cycle, is a #E. ka-no-to mi year of the serpent.
January 2, 2026 at 1:14 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
brianruh.bsky.social
Book cover GARY SNYDER Turtle Island with "FOUR CHANGES" PULITZER PRIZE for POETRY 1975
December 10, 2025 at 10:57 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Ok, I don’t watch a lot of tv so I don’t see a lot of commercials, but there was just a Final Fantasy VII-themed ad for mental health during a big US football game. Intriguing.
January 1, 2026 at 9:46 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Our last movie of 2025 / first movie of 2026 (midnight came about halfway through) was The Death of Stalin. It was fine. It definitely didn’t live up to the great reviews, but that’s not the fault of the film itself.
January 1, 2026 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
jowolff.bsky.social
Reviving Heinrich Heine’s New Year’s Greeting that I posted last year. Hope it’s more effective this year.
January 1, 2026 at 7:03 AM
brianruh.bsky.social
I love that they kept the Shirogane-as-Tora-san bit in the new "Kaguya-sama" anime.
In anime style, a young man in an old fashioned hat and suit looks off to the right, as a young woman clasps her hands and gazes after him. A fence stretches into the distance while an airplane flies in the sky above.
January 1, 2026 at 4:21 PM
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thedailytism.com
Ffiona Maw, 36, considered learning Spanish or joining the gym next year, but decided instead to quit suppressing her authentic self in a bid to make people like her.
New year, new me! Autistic woman decides this is the year she’s going to be a massive liability on purpose
An autistic woman has made just one resolution for 2026 – to be as much of a menace as possible, sources have revealed. Ffiona Maw, 36, considered learning Spanish or joining the gym next year, but…
thedailytism.com
January 1, 2026 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
brianruh.bsky.social
Two Japanese fishermen were having a competition to see who could catch the most auspicious fish for New Years. It was a tai.
December 31, 2025 at 3:51 PM
brianruh.bsky.social
Only three more years until people will love machines!
A part of the movie poster for "Ghost in the Shell" (1995). The tag line says "People love machines in 2029 A.D." and "'Who are you? Who slips into my robot body and whispers to my ghost?'"
January 1, 2026 at 7:12 AM
brianruh.bsky.social
Hi 2026 - why the long face?
January 1, 2026 at 5:47 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
wordsmaybe.bsky.social
To share a piece of mine from this year, it'll have to be the one on 28 1/2, Mamoru Oshii's peculiar adaptation of Tetsujin 28. It's a delightful commentary on the work of creating art and Oshii just letting everyone tear into him.
Mamoru Oshii’s Peculiar ‘Tetsujin 28’ Adaptation
Oshii’s movie about Oshii is built for the Oshii heads.
medium.com
January 1, 2026 at 2:11 AM
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publicdomainrev.bsky.social
Illustrations from Japanese fireworks catalogues (ca. 1880s) — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/japanese-fireworks-catalogues #newyearseve #fireworks
December 31, 2025 at 5:47 PM
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aimeekitty.bsky.social
"What was your biggest impact on the Internet?"

I drew the original of this. (I storyboarded and assistant directed on this episode.) (Fry, "Shut up and take my money")
December 31, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by Brian Ruh
drnereide.bsky.social
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
~Carl Sagan~

Every #NewYear reminds us that we are part of the cosmic cycle of birth and transformation.

#HappyNewYear everybody

🔭 🧪 #universe 1/2
A vibrant, face-on view of the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946), a beautiful spiral galaxy located in the constellation Cepheus.The image shows a colorful cosmic portrait with a yellowish core dominated by older stars, transitioning to loose and fragmented spiral arms featuring bright blue clusters of young stars and vivid reddish-pink star-forming regions glowing like bursts of fireworks against the dark backdrop of star-studded space.
December 31, 2025 at 4:43 PM