Trivia that matter
I’m not following any current show. ((I’ll get to Ping Pong eventually, but I’m not in a Yuasa mood right now.)) Instead, I’ve been watching old favorites such as Mouretsu Pirates and Jubei-chan: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch. Sometimes you just want to spend time with old friends.
1. Memo to a lawn-care company: 7 a.m. is too damned early to run a lawnmower outside my window.
2. Anime is low priority right now, but it is worth mentioning that The Comic Artist and His Assistants set the record for the most quickly dropped series ever: 50 seconds, and it was that long only because my hand wasn’t right on the mouse.
I have another new toy, and I’m going to continue to be scarce here for a while longer while I figure it out. While I’m gone, you might want to drop in on Josh, who’s blogging his way through the alphabet. I particularly like his entries for G, J, R and S. There’s also this:
And don’t get me started about clown masses. If you want proof that Satan is real…
Update: Read also Eve Tushnet on Last Call.
You can also watch some fine unlicensed anime on YouTube, such as Kenji Nakamura‘s first and best series, Mononoke
(I wonder if Tushnet has see any anime beyond Tokyo Godfathers. I’d really like to see what she can find in such works as Mononoke and Serial Experiments Lain.)
Here’s the track list from 「よつばと!」イメージアルバム「よつばと♪」, which I’m listening to right now:
よあけ
よつば、めをさます
よつば、とーちゃんをおこす
とーちゃん、にどねする
よつば、とーちゃんをおこす（はげしく）
よつば、おなかがすく
あさごはんのしたく
あさごはんをたべる
あとかたづけをする
よつば、でかける
よつば、こうえんであそぶ
よつばとえな
ふたりでおえかき
とーちゃん、はたらく
よつば、おなかがすく
はらへったおんど
ひるごはんのしたく
ひるごはんをたべる
おひるね
なつのごご
ひとりでおえかき
よつばのちいさなだいぼうけん
よつばととーちゃん
ゆうすずみ
とーちゃんとおでかけ (ー Odekake and fine)
オカイモノのうた
かえりみち
カレーをつくる
カレーをたべる（とてもおいしく）
おふろにはいる
きょうもいちにちたのしかった
おやすみなさい
またあした
If you see Japanese characters, that means that the database is set up correctly.
I finally found out why I couldn’t use non-English characters on my weblog. If you used Fantastico or something similar to install WordPress, as I carelessly did several years ago, it would set “latin1” as the character set in MySQL instead of UTF8, thus changing all the kanji to question marks. It’s possible to fix the database, but it looks like a nightmare for someone who prefers to do as little coding as possible. I figured it would be much simpler simply to start a new weblog and import the old data to the new site.
So, welcome to the new weblog, pretty much the same as the old weblog. I’ll be doing some tidying-up over the next week or so, and soon it should be no uglier than its predecessor.
If you see a box with a question mark where a picture should be, click on the box. That will bring the picture up.
From episode one of Captain Earth, yet another ridiculous adolescents and mecha show that I made the mistake of sampling.
From episode one of The Irregular at Magic High School, which looks like it will involve class warfare of a sort in one more damned high school story.
I might watch more of the latter show, or I might not. The only shows this spring that interest me are Ping Pong, because of Masaaki Yuasa, and Mushishi, because it’s Mushishi.
Update: Ubu has read the books on which The Irregular at Magic High School is based and found them “really good, fairly deep.” I probably will watch more.
Inevitably, ponies have appeared in Glie.
My minimum standard for singing is Hatsune Miku. If a vocalist can’t sing at least as well as software, he has no business near a microphone. Similarly, I can define a minimum standard for art: if an artist can’t paint or sculpt at least as well as Hozuki no Reitetsu‘s Nasube, he needs to master his craft before exhibiting his efforts. If his works are easily mistaken for trash by the cleaning staff, they’re not art. ((John C. Wright: “Go into a modern art museum and look at the trash on the walls. Bomb the museum. Go back through the wreckage and see if you or anyone can see any change.”))
John C. Wright watched the second Hobbit movie, “this craptastic jerktrocious smegbladder of a film“:
To be quite honest, the actress Evangeline Lilly is not only quite attractive, she handles both the demands of the acting and a physical stunts very well. Indeed, I am afraid I have a bit of a crush on her, with her long lustrous hair, her finely chiseled cheekbones, her kissing-soft feminine lips, her soft curves aching with the promise of luscious loveplay … Oh, wait a minute. I am think I am looking at Orlando Bloom. Er, never mind. Sorry, Miss Lilly.
… But I am glad that Ishmael and Queequeg will appear in the sequel.
(For the record: I found Jackson’s version of The Fellowship of the Ring barely tolerable and was disgusted with the rest of his Ring cycle. You’d have to pay me to watch him trash The Hobbit, and pay me well.)
Afterthought: Lousy though they are, Jackson’s movies did make DM of the Rings possible.
*****
My more economically savvy readers may think that all of this is so obvious as not to need to be said, but listen around next time you hear some far less savvy young people talk about what people “should have” and what people “need” and what things “should cost.” You might get a surprise. Nobody has, apparently, ever explained to these people that neither money nor pharmaceuticals nor fully-trained doctors grow on trees. It’s just an astonishing thing, but the fairies don’t distribute goods and services.
I thought immediately of Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita, in which the fairies sometimes do distribute goods and services. This may be related to the fact that the English-language title of the show is “Humanity Has Declined.”
Continue reading “The stupidcallafragilisticexpeallidumbass stupidity hammer”
… (yesterday, actually) Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur debuted. (The live-action first half of Gertie is here.)
*****
Today’s headline: Russia Issues Terror Alert For ‘Moose And Squirrel’
*****
So, what is the state of animation a hundred years later? Let’s take a quick look at the winter 2014 anime season.
The only show I can recommend is the hellish comedy Hozuki no Reitetsu. Much of the humor depends on knowledge of Japanese legends and folklore as well as contemporary Japanese culture. If you’re not familiar with the story of Momotaro, for instance, you’ll miss many of the jokes in the first episode. Even so, enough of the humor survives translation, ((Sometimes excessively free translation; e.g., in the fourth episode, the rabbit’s victims are tanuki, not badgers, but “We don’t need no stinkin’ tanuki” doesn’t have the same impact.)) and this account of the life of a competent, dour oni in an underworld populated largely by flakes and silly people nicely illustrates the close relationship between humor and horror. It also features the second-most bizarre ending animation of the season, starting with the second episode.
If you’re interested in the art of animation, Space Dandy might be worth watching. (There are episode-by-episode discussions here.) The title character is an unsympathetic jerk, however, and the stories aren’t particularly interesting. It’s probably best enjoyed without subtitles and without sound.
The third episode of World Conquest: Zvezda Plot reminded me of Cold Turkey and Yasutaka Tsutsui’s “The Last Smoker,” and I wondered if it might be another Excel Saga. However, the fourth episode was merely weird, and the fifth dumb, and I’m losing patience.
Witch Craft Works has the winter’s most bizarre ending animation. It’s also the second series to feature an iron maiden (but not Iron Maiden). Five episodes in, it looks like the dweebish protagonist is caught in the middle of a war between the witches of order and the witches of chaos, and that every female he knows is more than she appears to be. It also seems that he himself has a past he doesn’t know about. I hesitate to give Witch Craft Works a recommendation. Every episode adds complications and new characters, and I will be surprised if the crew can bring the show to a satisfactory resolution in just twelve episodes. However, thus far it’s held my attention, and, despite the female lead’s over-ample bust, fan service has been negligible.
Nothing else I’ve sampled is worth mentioning.
Beware: Valentine’s Day is next week. (From episode five of Hozuki no Reitetsu.)
From Episode four of Hozuki no Reitetsu. Translation by Crunchyroll.
The human mind requires regular doses of absurdity to maintain sanity. Not just any nonsense will do, though; otherwise, you could obtain your recommended daily allowance of absurdity by perusing the editorial page of any newspaper. The best nonsense is as rigorously logical as it is absurd, e.g., Lewis Carroll. The anime industry supplies much nonsense every season, and winter 2014 looks to be particularly rich. Here’s a quick look at some first episodes to see which might be properly silly and which are likely just dumb.
A recent genre of anime is travesties involving Oda Nobunaga. There are two this time, Nobunagun and Nobunaga the Fool. One involves a military-otaku girl who wields a gun embodying the spirit of Nobunaga; the other has mecha. Both feature random historical characters, from Joan of Arc to Jack the Ripper, and both feature lots and lots of action. Yawn.
Silly/dumb rating (enjoyably absurd = 10; just plain stupid = 1): 3 (both shows)
An imperious little girl riding a pink bicycle with training wheels intends to conquer the world in World Conquest Zvezda Plot, and she just might do it. There are lots of explosions, and many strange people wearing masks run around, acting threatening and shouting slogans. So far, it makes no sense at all — which is not necessarily a bad sign, but I do expect some exposition in the second episode.
Silly/dumb rating: 7
I sampled three separate shows about people with magical powers, two of them in high school settings. Magic is more contagious than the flu in Magical Warfare. Norio Wakamoto is a frog familiar in Wizard Barristers. A young man learns that he is a princess in Witch Craft Works. There are also giant armored bunnies.
Silly/dumb ratings: Magical Warfare, 5; Wizard Barristers, 6; Witch Craft Works, 5.
Space Boobies Dandy is nothing like Cowboy Bebop. The first episode was pure farce. This could be fun if the writers are deft, but Dandy is a flake who could easily become tedious. I suspect the dub is unwatchable.
Silly/dumb rating: 6
Robot Girls Z is an improved Love Pheremone (not recommended), in which the not-quite-competent heroines present a greater threat to their city than do the villains they fight. It could be fun, but the third short episode was too off-color for my taste.
Silly/dumb rating: 5
In Tonari no Seki, a student maintains his sanity at school by undertaking various complicated projects at his desk in the back of the classroom, such as building a Pythagoras-Switch arrangement using erasers as dominoes. This annoys the girl at the next desk over, and she annoys me. The best part was the music, which reminded me of Masaki Kurihara.
Silly/dumb rating: 4
Hell is a complicated place in Hozuki no Reitetsu. Hozuki is the demon king’s right-hand oni, handling crises, solving problems and raising goldfish flowers (which are nothing like Nematanthus). I usually find “slice of life” series tedious, but this slice of afterlife has promise.
Silly/dumb rating: 8
I’ll probably watch more of Hozuki no Reitetsu and World Conquest Zvezda Plot, and maybe Space Dandy and Wizard Barristers. The rest — meh. At least there’s more Kill la Kill.
I’m not compiling a top-ten list of this year’s anime because I didn’t watch ten series all the way through. These are the shows that I started and didn’t quit watching in disgust or boredom.
Tolerable
I Couldn’t Be a Hero, So …: It sagged badly in the middle, and there was more fanservice than I care for throughout. However, Yu-Shibu pulled itself together for a satisfying grand finale. Also, any show that espouses the free market deserves credit.
Life is busier than usual right now, and it will be a week or two before I have time for a proper post. Until then, here are a few odds and ends.
• The true and proper words to the traditional Christmas carol:
• Some more silly stuff I’ve come across recently:
• If Kyousougiga ends well as well as it began, it likely will be the second-best show of 2013 (I don’t expect any current series to top the second half of Shin Sekai Yori). Here’s a tune from the OST that illustrates one aspect of the show. If Carl Stalling wrote anime music, it might sound something like this:
• Kill la Kill is currently in the middle of a tournament arc. Once that’s resolved, I expect that the show will shift gears, and then we’ll see just how good it really is.
• Arpeggio of Blue Steel, when it isn’t annoyingly silly, has been a surprisingly good series. Ubu has more to say about it. See Jusuchin for episode-by-episode discussions, with plentiful spoilers.
• Despite my better judgement, I’m still watching I couldn’t, so, etc. The creators can’t decide whether it’s a comedy, a fanservice vehicle, an action story or a romance; too often, it’s none of the above. Still, it’s just interesting enough that I want to see what happens. I wish Fino were in a better show with better writers.
• Today’s quote:
History is satire, and histories that are simply serious are simply false.
… Dr. Who debuted. If it had been an anime, it might have looked something like this:
What’s the word? Oh, and stop by Google today if you haven’t already. Update: the doodle is archived here.
Episode seven of Arpeggio of Blue Steel was mostly just plain silly, with the “mental models” of the warships behaving like infatuated adolescents. The show is partly about about artificial (or alien) intelligence, as embodied by the models, acquiring human-like emotions and behavior, but this was ridiculous. Oh, yeah, it was a beach episode, too. It was set on Iwoto/Iwo Jima, and, as I anticipated, there was no indication that the writers had any awareness of the geological nature of the island.
Episode seven of Kill la Kill was also subpar. All the absurd invention and energy couldn’t redeem the trite moral: wealth isn’t necessarily a blessing. (I would like to verify that for myself, though. Would anyone care to subsidize a few months of luxury for me?) It’s still worth watching, but I expected something better.
Incidentally, I recently discovered that Kazuki Nakashima, the “series composition” guy for Kill la Kill, also wrote the play that Oh! Edo Rocket was based on.