Category: Animation

Beyond healing

Priorities

There’s “iyashikei,” or “healing” anime, “… created with the specific purpose of having a healing or soothing effect on the audience. Works of this kind often involve alternative realities with little to no conflict, emphasizing nature and the little delights in life.” In general I find these shows annoyingly bland. The few such that I like, I enjoy in spite of, not because of, their soothing nature.

On the other hand, there is what I think of as “convalescent” anime, shows to marathon when you’re starting to recover from an illness. Something invigorating with a good story and likable characters is what I want then, and the better efforts of Tatsuo Sato are perfect. Mouretsu Pirates has served me well in the past. A few days ago I watched Shingu yet again. It works every time.

I grabbed a few more screencaps along the way.

Continue reading “Beyond healing”

Return to Tortalia

I was in the mood for old favorites this evening, and realized that I hadn’t seen Kunio Katou’s The Diary of Tortov Roddle in several years. As I recall, it was on Crunchyroll for a while, but it’s gone now. Fortunately, it’s on YouTube, in two chunks, and here they are. The music is by Kenji Kondo of the Kuricorder Quartet.

Katou subsequently made La Maison en Petits Cubes. It may have won an Academy Award, but it’s actually very good.

Above the hot zone

I expected that at least one of the many active volcanoes on caldera-ridden Kyushu would land on the New Decade Volcano Program at Volcano Café, though I wasn’t sure which it would be: Aira, Aso, or one of the less-publicized ones. This weekend NDVP #4 turned out to be the Aso Caldera and, yes, it is potentially extremely nightmarish.

There are three more to go. From the comments to the Café post:

BillG: So this is #4…. I can’t imagine there are three worse scenarios..

Henrik: Trust me Bill, there are. One marginally more so, one decidedly worse and the final one so utterly mind-blowing that eventually Hollywood will make a blockbuster movie of it.

I would guess that one of those three is either Campi Flegrei or Vesuvius; the other two, I have no idea. I note that five of the volcanoes announced in the NDVP so far are in Asia and none in South America, and there are a lot of interesting mountains and lakes in Central and South America.

You can watch the Nakadake crater at Aso at the JMA site. The link to the camera is highlighted here (“Aso grass Chisato,” according to Giggle Translate):

Aso grass Chisato

You can usually see a plume of steam and gasses when the weather is clear, and occasionally some incandescence.

Update (9/13/15): Aso had a bit of a cough today (or tomorrow, depending on which side of the International Date Line you’re on).

Update II (9/18/15): … and coming in at #3, it’s Campi Flegrei.

Physics and technology, plus magic

The most dangerous person in the trans-gate territories.
The most dangerous person in the trans-gate territories.

One of the finest examples of sheer geekery I’ve ever come across is the comments thread to this post of Steven’s.

Of current shows, I’m watching only GATE and Ushio and Tora. Both, however, are very good in their different ways and are sufficient to make this a good summer for anime.

A better ensemble

Update: The ninth episode of GATE was a major disappointment, and I’ll probably skip it in future rewatches. However, it did give Rory a chance to wear something more tasteful than her usual ita outfit.

I won’t settle for the lesser of two evils …

… but I won’t vote for Cthulhu, either. Instead, here’s my choice for 2016:

Straight talk

• But they’re fictional characters! you say. And Donald Trump is real?

• But it’s against the Constitution! That might have been true in the past, but no longer. Nowadays, the meaning of the Constitution depends on what side of the bed Anthony Kennedy gets up on in the morning. It’s just a matter of picking the right day to present the question.

• But they’re not even from our world, let alone our country! Big deal. The same is true of the lousy golfer currently in the white house.

Do I expect Lelei and Rory to win? Probably not; I have a poor record with political endorsements. But there’s no question that an intelligent, responsible mage and a semi-divine warrior would do a better job leading the country than the present administration or the clown who wants to run the circus.

Continue reading “I won’t settle for the lesser of two evils …”

Grab your hard hat

Sakurajima, from episode 5 of Katanagatari
Sakurajima, from episode 5 of Katanagatari

The volcanic webcam star Sakurajima might be heading for a major eruption in the near future. The Japanese Meteorological Agency has raised the alert level for the Kagoshima area to “4,” advising residents in the districts nearest the volcano to prepare to evacuate.

While there are numerous webcams pointed at the Kyushu mountain, the only one I’ve found with a reliable night-time view is on the JMA’s page. Starting at the bottom of the list, it’s the first entry with a four-character name.

For further discussion, scroll down to the most recent comments here. The JMA released a statement here (pdf). It’s in Japanese only, but there are interesting maps and charts to study, and you can copy and paste the text into Giggle Translate.

Shichika, Togame, Sakurajima
Shichika, Togame, Sakurajima

Katanagatari, by the way, is a very good show.

Update: Meanwhile, in Ecuador …

Advice to parents

Pina colada

Think carefully about how you name your children, even if you’re fictional characters. This goes double when you’re royalty.

Preview of the next episode

One of the novelties of this week’s episode of GATE is that next week’s preview was in the middle of the show. I’m curious to see if there will be any Wagner.

Update: Yep, there was a little Wagner, with helicopters.

Continue reading “Advice to parents”

Reimu goes to Caledonia

Here’s “Bad Apple” arranged as a strathspey/reel combination. I made two recordings, the first solo piano, the second strings, ((Solo fiddle would have been better, but none of my virtual violins sounded right.)) piano and bass. The score is here.

Two Bad Apples (piano) (Right-click the titles to download the mp3s.)

Two Bad Apples (strings)

*****

Memo to the Brickmuppet: Non-existent tornadoes are rarely dangerous. Lost sleep because of faulty sirens is a greater concern. Also, what the hell is a “vibrant and rewarding social life”? The words don’t go together.

Hybrid vigor

While there are plenty of Vocaloid cover versions of popular songs, examples of live human vocalists covering songs originally “performed” by software singers are less common. They do exist, though, and Wagakki Band‘s first album consists entirely of Vocaloid songs. Even without the novelty repertoire, the group is noteworthy for their lively combination of traditional Japanese instruments and hard rock. I’m curious to hear their second album, which features their own material.

I think this is the original, with Hatsune Miku.

If you’d like to play along, there are plenty of arrangements here.

(Via Vocaloidism.)

Continue reading “Hybrid vigor”

Gensokyo inverted

Minor and major

Touhou melodies generally are in minor modes. However, if you invert them — e.g., where the original goes up a major second, the transformed melody goes down a major second — you frequently get bright, cheerful major key tunes. I combined several inverted themes and made a piano rag out of them. Here is the “Gensokyo Rag.”

Touhou music aficionados might find it interesting to identify the original tunes. The excerpts from “U.N. Owen” should be easy to spot, but the others may be more challenging. Standing on your head might help.

You can download it here.

Update: The sources of the tunes I used are identified below the fold.

The score is up at my MuseScore page.

Continue reading “Gensokyo inverted”

Unbelievable speed

That is faster than my usual cruising speed on my bicycle, but if you're planning to bop around the solar system at 25 k/h, pack a lunch.
That is faster than my usual cruising speed on my bicycle, but if you’re planning to bop around the solar system at 25 k/h, pack a lunch.

I sampled a few of the summer offerings on Crunchyroll. Classroom Crisis‘ chief distinction is that every single one of its characters is annoying. It also make unreasonable demands on one’s willing suspension of disbelief. Pass.

Just how densely rocky is the asteroid belt? There's no way you could navigate through this at 25 k/h, let alone 250,000 k/h.
Just how densely rocky is the asteroid belt? There’s no way you could navigate through this at 25 k/h, let alone 250,000 k/h.

GATE, on the other hand, might be very good if it doesn’t overplay the otaku card. See Steven for comments and screencaps. Update: There’s a more detailed discussion of the first episode here, with lots of screencaps.

I eventually dropped every spring series, though I might yet finish Rin-ne and Etotama. Mostly when I watch anything, it’s either an old movie — Airplane! and This Is Spinal Tap are still very funny — or neglected anime — Shounen Onmyouji deserves a license rescue, and Un-Go, though partly spoiled by too many novelties, provides something to think about and warms my cold, cynical heart.

I recently discovered that Hulu has The Avengers from the 1960s, with Diana Rigg and the late Patrick Macnee in glorious black-and-white. I’m pleased to note that Steed and Mrs. Peel remain excellent company. Checking just now, I see that Patrick McGoohan’s Secret Agent is also available. I’ll have to see how well it corresponds to my memories.

… and now back to the inverted world.