Professor
Kenneth Shima
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - Interesting class that involves watching a lot of interesting and unique movies and some short stories/parts of books. Topics ranged from the supernatural to manga to gender. Many involved an uncomfortable amount of suffering, but I feel like most humanities are like that. Watching all the films can take a decent chunk of time. Really opened my eyes to a lot of different perspectives though. Lectures were recorded and involved discussions about the context and history surrounding the topics. Professor Shima had students do group discussions about whatever they wanted to promote socialization. Quizzes were easy and based on just identifying the text/movie based on a passage/scene. Weekly Discussion Questions were graded fairly generously. Midterm and Final paper with no written tests. I'm not a great writer, so I think the grading was not too harsh based on what I got. My TA was great and I heard nothing but good things for the other TAs as well. Discussions were based on one of the works and pretty casual, but mandatory. TLDR; Pretty interesting class that I do not regret taking. Pretty easy but can be a bit time consuming if you try to watch and read everything.
Winter 2021 - Interesting class that involves watching a lot of interesting and unique movies and some short stories/parts of books. Topics ranged from the supernatural to manga to gender. Many involved an uncomfortable amount of suffering, but I feel like most humanities are like that. Watching all the films can take a decent chunk of time. Really opened my eyes to a lot of different perspectives though. Lectures were recorded and involved discussions about the context and history surrounding the topics. Professor Shima had students do group discussions about whatever they wanted to promote socialization. Quizzes were easy and based on just identifying the text/movie based on a passage/scene. Weekly Discussion Questions were graded fairly generously. Midterm and Final paper with no written tests. I'm not a great writer, so I think the grading was not too harsh based on what I got. My TA was great and I heard nothing but good things for the other TAs as well. Discussions were based on one of the works and pretty casual, but mandatory. TLDR; Pretty interesting class that I do not regret taking. Pretty easy but can be a bit time consuming if you try to watch and read everything.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2021 - This class was a complete breeze. A couple readings and viewings per week, and then two papers and a midterm was all that the course required. I will give this warning, however: don't expect to be watching great anime all the time. This course is focused as much on Japanese history as it is on anime itself, and some films/episodes that we watched were either painful to get through or just plain weird. Some really good anime are still watched however, including 'In This Corner of the World' and 'Akira'.
Summer 2021 - This class was a complete breeze. A couple readings and viewings per week, and then two papers and a midterm was all that the course required. I will give this warning, however: don't expect to be watching great anime all the time. This course is focused as much on Japanese history as it is on anime itself, and some films/episodes that we watched were either painful to get through or just plain weird. Some really good anime are still watched however, including 'In This Corner of the World' and 'Akira'.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - Professor Shima is the best lecturer I've met in UCLA. Interesting content, clear lecture, no crazy heavy workload, just write your weekly journal 300 words and one midterm and final paper. He also teaches stuff about Japanese manga, which is naturally more interesting than Japanese movies. TAKE IT.
Summer 2020 - Professor Shima is the best lecturer I've met in UCLA. Interesting content, clear lecture, no crazy heavy workload, just write your weekly journal 300 words and one midterm and final paper. He also teaches stuff about Japanese manga, which is naturally more interesting than Japanese movies. TAKE IT.
1 of 1
