Author: Don

Pausing for a moment

Life has been insanely busy, and I don’t know when I’ll have time to catch up with Zombie and Level E or collect my thoughts about Madoka. Until then, here are a couple of links.

Jonathan Tappan writes about Buddhism, particularly as it figures in anime.

Don’t ever let anyone try to embarrass you because of your taste for anime. Whatever you’re watching, it isn’t as pointless as the movie eat, pray, love:

This is an alien story told in an alien language with alien grammar of an alien culture of which I know little and understand less.

(Via Professor Mondo.)

Bonus link: TWWK takes a brief look at Shusaku Endo’s Silence.

Round two

Who are the most frightening girls in the poll at right? You can vote for up to three. The top five will advance to the final round, where they will face the winners of the first round, Lucy/Nyuu (Elfen Lied), Shion Sonozaki (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni), Chloe (Noir), Enma Ai (Hell Girl) and Haruhi Suzumiya (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya).

Grrr

So I finally peeled the shrink-wrap off Gurren Lagann and put the first disc in the drive to see if it really is the greatest achievement of mankind since the invention of distilled spirits. The DVD player refused to play it. I took a close look at the disc, above, and I was not happy. One of the other discs in the set also has noticeable delamination, but it doesn’t extend into the data area.

Fortunately, Mac the Ripper was able to read enough of the disc to make a playable copy. Several hours later, I am wondering whether Kamina is the manliest of men, or the greatest of jackasses. Or both.

Miscellany

Which of the fansub groups working on Madoka produces the most accurate translations? I watch the first sub available of each episode so I can see it before the otakusphere is rife with spoilers, but for rewatches I want to view the one that best catches the shades of meaning in the dialogue.

Steven has an interesting hypothesis about Madoka:

Spoiler

Madoka was a mahou shoujo before, and a really good one. But she was utterly miserable, having lost her family and nearly everyone she loved to the witches. Homura was her last remaining friend, and decided to become a mahou shoujo so she could use her wish to make Madoka happy.

Homura’s wish was to give Madoka back the life she had lost, the family and friends and places that were gone. And that’s why Madoka’s life is a bit surreal, with the strange house and the school built of glass walls and everything seeming just a bit off. It is real, in a sense, but it was created by Homura’s wish.

[collapse]

At this point it is very clear that Madoka is a horror story involving children, closer to Bokurano than Sailor Moon. It’s an interesting exercise to watch the opening and note the misdirections and outright lies.

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Since Funimation is streaming Fractale, I am not downloading the fansubs. This has been frustrating. How many more times will the broadcast be delayed? Will I live long enough to see the final episode? Similarly, I am not downloading Kore wa Zombie desu ka?, Level E or Gosick since they are on Crunchyroll. This has also been frustrating. I get very tired of playback stopping every 45 seconds while the buffer reloads.

This illustrates two reasons why streaming is the least desirable way of making anime available. I really do want the videos on my computer or on DVD so they will always be readily available, regardless of the whims of the licensors or the vagaries of internet traffic.

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Just wondering: was there some sort of big sports event this past weekend? The “Stuporbowl,” I think somebody called it.

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Gotta catch ’em all.

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Humor and horror are closely related, as anyone who has read Saki or followed Akiyuki Shinbo’s career knows. Or who follows politics. Both are responses to the perception that something isn’t quite right. Consequently, abrupt shifts in tone from comic to horrific to WTF? in shows like Kore wa Zombie desu ka? or Level E rarely bother me. Both series remain on my watch list.

Gosick, however, I am dropping. Victorique is too abrasive to be sympathetic, even if she is literally a prisoner of the library, and the perpetually flustered Kujo is not a good foil for her. The mysteries aren’t interesting enough to compensate for the lack of chemistry between the characters. ((It’s a bad sign when I know the solution to a “locked room” mystery before the writer finishes presenting the problem.))

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Today’s Sailor Moon crossover:

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Perhaps relevant to the neverending fansub debate:

(Via the other Steven.)

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Anthony Sacramone, formerly Martin Luther’s assistant, is starting a new religion:

1. We believe that Pantu Baba, the Vile, the Irascible, the Arbitrary, eternal and almighty god of all that is was or ever shall be, has created all things in a fit of pique. Which explains Detroit. And Comcast.

It does make more sense than Scientology.

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This post is brought to you by the letter “I.”

(Via Zontar the Enormous.)

Not quite a rant

A comment on an earlier post:

There appear to be two underlying assumptions in your post.

1. Everyone or at least the majority of anime fans share your taste and thus would agree that everything in the first list are all very good to excellent while those in the second list range from mediocre to vile.

2. That if you believe that something is very good to excellent for you then you are entitled to it and if you can’t get it legally it is necessary for you to acquire it illegally.

1. No. The items on the first list are good, period. I don’t care what anime fans think. In anime, as in all other popular arts, there is at best a weak correlation between quality and popularity. I do not give a damn about bestseller lists, Nielsen ratings, ((I got a phone call from a Nielsen representative a few months ago. He was audibly startled when I told him that I don’t have a teevee.)) the top forty, box office rankings, Academy Awards, Emmys or the Nobel Peace Prize. They’re all meaningless. And I really don’t care how a show fares in the ANN ratings.

2. No. It would be good if the people and corporations that hold the rights to excellent anime were to make it freely available to all interested for a reasonable price. However, they can do any damned thing they want with it, including burying it forever, and I can claim no legal right to see it. There are also plenty of problems with licensing anime for sale outside Japan, some insoluble. The firms that do license anime choose what they think the typical anime fan will pay for. Disappointingly but understandably, they usually shy away from the eccentric and unclassifiable, preferring conventional series and fanservice. ((Fortunately, there are exceptions, e.g., Oh! Edo Rocket.)) I can only hope and wait, and wait.

But.

Back in ancient times, I read about a band called Gryphon. They were a progressive rock band influenced by Renaissance music, and they played recorders, krummhorns and bassoon as well as guitar, keyboards and drums. The description was interesting, and I wanted to hear them. ((They opened for Yes on an American tour. According to legend, at some concerts the audience booed when Yes took the stage because they wanted to hear more of Gryphon.)) Frustratingly, no record shop in town had any of their recordings, and of course no radio station played them. A few years later I found one album in a used record shop. Their other four records were not released in the USA. However, I could find plenty of records by such incomparable performers as The Rolling Stones, Diana Ross and the Supremes, and The Osmonds. ((Younger readers might not realize how difficult it was to find particular books and records in the dark ages before the internet. I made trips to every used book store and record shop within bicycle distance at least once a month, hoping to find the out-of-print books I wanted to read and the interesting music that radio stations couldn’t be bothered to play. It was possible to special-order some books and records through shops, but it often took months for your order to arrive, and the recording of “The Magic Flute” you requested was apt to mutate into a Mahler symphony by the time it finally arrived.))

There’s a happy ending to the story. Many years later, I got a 14,400 baud modem for my work computer. I found a dealer online specializing in old prog rock, and he had the CD reissues of four Gryphon albums. I found the fifth at Amazon.com. So, just a quarter-century after first learning about them — a mere instant in geological time — I finally had a complete set of Gryphon’s original recordings.

There might eventually be a happy ending to the anime story. Perhaps, like Gryphon, Dennou Coil will be available in North America after twenty-five years. Or it might take half a century, as did Tezuka’s Tales of a Streetcorner. I’ll be dead by then. And I have little hope that the animation of Masaaki Yuasa and Kenji Nakamura will ever be available in North America. ((It will be interesting to see if The Tatami Galaxy, currently being streamed by Funimation, will be licensed soon for download-to-own or disc in North America. I doubt that it will be, despite its excellences.)) I want to play by the rules, but I am tired of waiting.

Pedantic footnote

The sorta-official alternative title for Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica is “Puella Magi Madoka Magica.” Grrr. “Puella” (“girl,” nominative singular) is a feminine noun in Latin, so the proper form of the adjective “magus” (“magic”) is “maga,” not “magi.” I suppose whoever is responsible was trying to avoid calling the show “Magical Girl Magical Madoka.” I’d suggest either sticking with “Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica” or just calling the series “Magical Madoka.”

Update: Maureen interprets the title differently in the comments below. She may well be right, but I’m not convinced that it’s what the SHAFT staff had in mind.

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Irresponsible speculation: between whom will the final battle be?

This post is brought to you by the letter “K”

Recent searches that brought visitors here:

charles solomon doesn’t like anime — Who’da thunk it?

analisis de cat soup and cat soup analysis — Cat Soup makes more sense if you don’t analyze it.

anime about knitting, anime knitting, knitting anime costume, anime knitting pictures — What exactly is the connection between anime and knitting? Can the Japanese be trusted with balls of yarn?

kawaii german — Yes, it is possible to be both cute and German.

kawaii fujiyama — When I think of examples of “kawaii,” volcanoes don’t immediately come to mind.

critics of kawaii — We’ve had New Criticism, Marxism, Deconstruction, Postcolonialism, Feminism, Postmodernism and worse, so why not Kawaii Theory?

kawaii student organizer — Is this someone who works with cute students, or someone cute who makes a nuisance of herself?

… and inevitably, kawaii knitting.

spike jones your red scarf matches lyrics — I think you mean Guy Marks.

mahou shoujo angst — She needs more ruffles.

divergence eve misaki chronicles nude scene — Divergence Eve is not a good choice for fanservice. The story keeps getting in the way.

A tale of two lists

Here’s a list:

Animal Yokocho
Binchou-tan
Dennou Coil
Hakaba Kitaro
Kaiba
Mind Game
Mononoke

Here’s another list:

Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan
Eiken
Galaxy Angel Rune
Ikki-Tousen
Otoboku: Maidens Are Falling For Me
Peach Girl
Princess Princess

The anime in the first list are all very good to excellent; those in the second list range from mediocre to vile. Guess which are commercially available in region one? Until the situation is reversed, fansubs will remain necessary.

Six

Ubu is currently following eight shows. My tastes are different than his, and there are only six that have caught my interest this winter. Still, that’s noteworthy. During all of 2010, there were only four series that I watched more than two episodes of. Even in 2007, the best year ever for anime (Dennou Coil, Oh! Edo Rocket, Seirei no Moribito, Mononoke, Baccano!, plus an odd little thing called Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann), I don’t think I ever had more than four series on my watch list at any given time.

Here’s what I’ve seen at least three episodes of, in order of interest:

Mahou Shoujo Madoka?Magica — Beware the kawaii. Seriously.

Fractale — The best show Miyazaki’s done in years.

Kore wa Zombie desu ka — Magical girls, chainsaws, vampire ninjas, dancing chibis….

I expect that I will watch each of these to the end, and they will go on my to-buy list when they are licensed if they end as well as they began.

Level E — Alien bishies are jerks, and baseball is the key to interstellar amity. (Bonus points for an opening theme that rocks hard, sung by a singer who sounds like a grown woman, not a little girl.)

Yumekui Merry — Don’t hide that magical midriff under a waitress uniform, please. Oh, and what happened to the cats?

Gosick — What is in that pipe?

If Level E becomes stupid or obnoxious, I’ll drop it. If Yumekui Merry degenerates into a monster-of-the-week show, I’ll drop it. If Victorique doesn’t learn a modicum of tact (“Ho. Ho. Ho. Ho. Ho,” indeed) , I’ll drop Gosick. But for now, I’ll watch at least one more episode of each.

Noteworthy also is that Funimation and Crunchyroll are streaming four of these. I’d strongly prefer download-to-own, but I am glad nevertheless that I don’t have to break international copyright law to watch them.

Good havoc, bad havoc

I’m currently downloading the restored version of Da nao tian gong, or Havoc in Heaven, a Chinese animated film from the early 1960s. Ordinarily I would mention this on my animation weblog, but the film is worth noting for historical reasons:

The Shanghai animation scene had gotten going in earnest in the early 1950’s, once things had settled down from WWII and the Chinese Civil War, and had gotten bigger, better, and more successful. This film was the last one made there, and it was a critical and commercial success, getting all kinds of awards.

Shortly after this film was released, the entire industry was shut down by the Cultural Revolution. It’s one of the lesser crimes of that terrible event, but a crime nonetheless. The sheer mastery of the animation form in this film offers the promise of much that might have come after, but didn’t… because it didn’t fit within Mao’s idea of how the nation should be.

New poll: who’s the most frightening?

I ended up with 31 nominees for the title of “scariest girl in anime.” There will be two preliminary rounds, in which you can vote for three. The top five in each round will advance to the finals.

Here is the list of candidates:

Bernkastel (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)
Chloe (Noir)
Diva (Blood+)
Dokuro-chan (Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan)
Eda (Black Lagoon)
Enma Ai (Hell Girl)
Eva-Beatrice (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)
Gretel (Black Lagoon)
Haruhi Suzumiya (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Hitagi Senjougahara (Bakemonogatari)
Kaede Fuyou (Shuffle)
Kirika Yumura (Noir)
Lain Iwakura (Serial Experiments Lain)
LamdaDelta (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)
Lucy/Nyu (Elfen Lied)
Maria Ushiromiya (Umineko no Naku Koro ni)
Miyabi Aizawa (Great Teacher Onizuka)
Miyu (Vampire Princess Miyu)
Mylanndah Arkar Walder (Battle Athletes)
Nanami Yasuri (Katanagatari)
Punie Tanaka (Magical Witch Punie-chan)
Rena Ry?g? (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni)
Revy (Black Lagoon)
Rico (Gunslinger Girl)
Road Kamelot (D. Grey Man)
Ryoko Asakura (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Satomi Ozawa (Shadow Star Narutaru)
Shion Sonozaki (Higurashi no Naku Koro ni)
Tiriel (Shakugan no Shana)
Urumi Kanzaki (Great Teacher Onizuka)
Yomi Isayama (Ga-Rei Zero)

If there is someone missing whom you think should absolutely be on the list, mention her in a comment. I might be able to squeeze one or two more candidates into the second round.

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To nobody’s surprise, Cowboy Bebop placed first in the “best opening” poll, and Baccano did very well also. What I didn’t expect was Lucky Star‘s strong showing. I doubted that it would even make the finals, but for a while it looked like it would overtake Cowboy Bebop.

Here are the final standings:

Cowboy Bebop (23.0%)
Lucky Star (17.0%)
Baccano! (12.0%)
Haibane Renmei (12.0%)
Paranoia Agent (9.0%)
Higurashi No Naka Koro Ni (9.0%)
Last Exile (9.0%)
Serial Experiments Lain (4.0%)
Noir (3.0%)
Toradora (3.0%)