Trivia that matter
Those following Madan no Ou to Vanadis might find a map of its world useful. I found a couple at a wiki devoted to the show. (I tweaked the contrast of the first to improve readability.)
Advice to cartographers: Legibility trumps stylishness. Pseudo-black letter might look pretty on the page, but it’s a pain to interpret. Please stick to plain fonts such as Helvetica or Times Roman.
“Pirate” beats “ninja” easily, and “samurai,” too.
(Illustration from Amagi Brilliant Park, episode seven. Chart from Google Ngram Viewer.)
(From episode six of Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu.)
Good question.
I’ve never been that interested in yachting, but I could change my mind. (Via Steven.)
I’ve never any interest in football, European or American. Perhaps I’ve missed out. (Via the Brickmuppet.)
Perhaps not. (Via the Borderline Boy.)
It’s time to order next year’s calendars. I found a number of possibilites here, notably Girls und Panzer and Hozuki no Reitetsu. Others of note include Cardcaptor Sakura, World Conquest Zvezda Plot, Arpeggio of Blue Steel, Hyperdimension Neptunia, Natsume Yujincho‘s Nyanko and the third Madoka Magica movie.
There’s plenty else there — lots of cheesecake, hundred of dogs, Mt. Fuji, Naruto and similar franchises, all the usual stuff. There are also curiosities like the Karel Capek calendar, which is about tea, not robots or newts; the lifestyles disease prevention calendar; and, the maritime self-defense force calendars, both male and female.
More curious costumes here.
(Via Eve Tushnet.)
*****
Madan no Ou to Vanadis is doing a lot of things right and is probably the best show currently airing. Nevertheless, there are still mistakes, such as the use of swords in an era of plate armor.
It’s Halloween today, right? Time to get the bag of chocolate out of the freezer.
There’s a fine line between spooky and silly, as Frëd illustrates in this footnote to American history.
*****
There’s a lot of anime suitable for Halloween, from the many iterations of Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro (including in particular Hakaba Kitaro) to Soul Eater and Hozuki no Reitetsu. If I had to pick just one, though, it would be Kenji Nakamura’s Mononoke. Here’s one of the two-episode stories:
The entire show is on YouTube, but it’s available for such a reasonable price that there’s no excuse not to buy your own copy of this probable classic. ((I don’t declare anything a “classic” until it’s at least ten years old, and Mononoke is from anime’s year of wonder, 2007.))
*****
*****
If you’re looking for a proper Halloween post, Isegoria has a bunch of them.
Memo to those watching Madan no Ou to Vanadis: Jusuchin has saved me the trouble of stitching together full-length portraits of the new war maidens. I have to say that, while I don’t mind tasteful fanservice, Sophia’s attributes are well past the point of diminishing returns.
The moment I lost interest in Yuki Yuna wa Yusha de Aru, a pale pastel imitation of Madoka Magica.
There are a number of other current shows I’m not watching, which I may or may not discuss when I have more time. Until then, here’s a safety video from Air New Zealand.
(Via Bayou Renaissance Man.)
In addition to the usual nendoroids, figmas, keychains and the like, I expect that there will also be Madan no Ou to Vanadis chess sets available soon.
As of episode three, Vanadis looks to be the keeper of the fall season.
“Is She U.N. Owen?” is probably the best-known piece of music from the vast Touhou Project, ((except possibly for “Bad Apple“)) and you can find innumerable versions in every style, from orchestral to nightcore, on YouTube. I stumbled across the one above recently while looking for something else.
Another version of the tune, impressive yet ridiculous.
Incidentally, “U.N. Owen” is not “Death Waltz.” This is “Death Waltz:”
Update: Yet another version of “U.N. Owen,” this one by Floating Cloud.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VpNvGNRlFaE
For those of you who believe that no show is complete without chibis, there is a brief ONA supplement to Madan no Ou to Vanadis out there.
Pixy invoked Haibane Renmei in his post on PuPiPo. Pete also was impressed. I’ve watched the series of fifteen four-minute episodes twice now, and I’ll probably watch it again. I’m not going to discuss it in any detail; it suffices to note that it is funny and poignant, and that there are indeed parallels with the tale of the charcoal feathers. Instead, here are some screencaps.
I’m not watching any more of Gugure! Kokkuri-san. Read the entry for “Tengu” here and you’ll see why.
A couple of Dickian moments from today’s viewing:
(Gugure! Kokkuri-san)
(Joshiraku)
And a couple of duckies:
There might be several shows worth watching this fall, after several seasons of slim pickings.
The protagonist of Madan no Ou to Vanadis is an archer and honorable noble from a minor province in a corrupt kingdom. He is captured on the battlefield by a “war maiden,” who dislikes boring battles, and who doesn’t wear armor, or much else. It’s too soon to tell where the story is going; my guess is that Tigre will have to choose between his homeland in the decadent kingdom of Brune, and the apparently more healthy kingdom of Zhcted where the bright and comely war maiden lives. The series is written and directed by Tatsuo Sato, the man man responsible for Shingu and Mouretsu Pirates, two of my favorite shows. It looks a bit boobalicious for my taste, but I expect that Sato will tell a good story. There are screencaps below the fold.
Aside: Repeat after me: Critics. Are. Idiots. Exclamation point. For example, here’s what the jackasses at ANN wrote about Vanadis.
Amagi Brilliant Park could very well be the first Kyoto Animation series I watch all the way through since Suzumiya Haruhi I. The protagonist, an abrasive, narcissistic former child actor, is drafted, at gunpoint, to reform a decrepit amusement park lest the fairies who live there lose their homes. Although Seiya is an unpleasant character as the story begins, the writer is careful not to make him repulsive, and the fairies are not the cloyingly sweet sort that bore children and nauseate adults. Two episodes in, it looks like it will be at least good.
In Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu, a high school boy with a fascination for girls with paired ponytails becomes a warrior in a powered suit with twintails himself. It’s as silly as it sounds. It might be fun, as long as it doesn’t turn stupid and the writers quit with all the double-entendres. There are screen caps below the fold.
Gugure! Kokkuri-san is the oddest show I’ve seen in quite some time. A little girl who lives alone declares that she is a doll. She summons a fox spirit with a Japanese variant of a ouija board, and Kokkuri, the fox, decides to haunt her, i.e., be her guardian. Sometimes Kohina, the girl/doll, is drawn as a human, sometimes as a doll. I think it’s intended to be a cutesy comedy, but it’s a rather unsettling one. Probably during the course of the series Kohina will gradually become more human while acquiring other supernatural friends, but there’s a danger that the show could lurch into something like the final episode of Bottle Fairy. There are screencaps below the fold.
Update: Gugure! Kokkuri-san is off my watch list and is not recommended.
If those were actual inflorescences of Amorphophallus titanum and Rafflesia arnoldii, Seiya and Isuzu would be treated to the gentle aromas of dimethyl trisulfide, dimethyl disulfide, trimethylamine, isovaleric acid, benzyl alcohol, phenol, indole and other distinctively fragrant molecules.
It’s just possible that Amagi Brilliant Park is that rare thing, a KyoAni show worth watching.
