Trivia that matter
How do you entice youngsters to visit places of worship? If you are the chief monk of a Japanese Buddhist temple, you embrace anime/manga culture, with anime-style statues of a Japanese deity, cosplaying temple maidens, J-pop tunes and videos, decorated vans and a maid café. Somehow, I don’t think this is likely to catch on in the Catholic Diocese of Wichita.
(Via Beneath the Tangles.)
Addendum: On a related note, Ken the Brickmuppet visited a certain Shinto shrine last summer.
A couple of timely poems by Kobyashi Issa, via another Steven:
New Year’s Day
New Year’s Day–
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.
**
New Year’s Morning
New Year’s morning:
the ducks on the pond
quack and quack.
If you need New Year’s resolutions, Dr. Boli has some for you. (Years ago I resolved to make no more New Year’s resolutions. It’s the only one I ever kept.)
*****
I haven’t watched enough anime this year to warrant a year’s end summary. Instead, I’ll refer you to DiGiKerot’s. (I fully concur with his award for Katanagatari. Learn to use spoiler tags, folks, and don’t describe plot twists in the first few sentences of your posts.)
Grades for the 2010 shows that I watched more than two episodes of:
Asobi ni Iku Yo — C+ (B+ for the story and characters, minus a letter-grade for excessive fanservice.)
Katanagari — A
Kuragehime — Incomplete (A, if the second season that had better be in the works is as good as the first; otherwise, B, for too many dangling threads)
Summer Wars — A
The Tatami Galaxy — A
There’s much else I watched part of an episode of, but I have less and less patience for drivel, no matter how popular.
*****
It’s about time: Steven reports that all of Master of Epic has finally been subtitled, nearly four years after it first aired. I’ve watched the first ten episodes so far (and just downloaded the eleventh). It’s yet another anime adapted from an RPG, but instead of inventing twelve or twenty-six episodes worth of plot and characaters, the makers instead made a sketch comedy out of it, something like a fantasy Saturday Night Live. The skits often fall flat or run on too long, but enough of it works to have sustained my interest over the years.
Update: I finished Master of Epic. It’s not “terrible,” but aside from the “Waragecha Five” segments, too much of it is too lame to recommend. It’s a pity; with better writing, Master of Epic could have been a effective treatment for overexposure to MMORPGs and fantasy worlds.
*****
Here’s a quick little number puzzle for the new year. What is the next number in the sequence? It’s not 71. What does this sequence represent?
23
27
31
39
43
47
55
59
63
I posted a similar puzzle on my other website a year ago. When is the next time this sort of puzzle will be timely?
(Via John Salmon.)
By this time every year, I’m thoroughly burned-out on the usual Christmas songs, and I suspect that I’m not alone. Here are a couple of offbeat seasonal tunes that might be eccentric enough to be listenable. These are from Masaki Kurihara’s second Yotsuba& album.
“Yuletide Town”
“The Day Santa Comes”
In other seasonal news, scientists are gradually understanding how Santa does his job. (Via Steven.) Meanwhile, Dr. Boli points out a reason to endure Christmas pageants.
I visited my family last week. While there, I spent more time watching American teevee shows then than I have in all the previous 30 years. My folks don’t have cable, so the menu was mostly ancient reruns. In my last post, I suggested that early televised anime was not very sophisticated. Well, compared to I Spy, Dororon Enma-kun is a brilliant example of wit, subtlety and charm. I endured about ten minutes of a drearily preachy episode of Dragnet; I can’t think of any anime I’ve ever seen that was half as lame. Of contemporary series, I saw several “CSI” shows, which were slicker than, but not really much better than, The A-Team. The highlight of each evening was Wheel of Fortune, believe it or not, and at least half the time of that was devoted to commercials — the same damned noisy, stupid commercials, over and over and over and over again and again and again.
There was also an awful lot of “news.” I have a low opinion of newspapers, but sometimes they actually do convey information. Televised news is too dumb even to be a joke.
*****
National Review doesn’t quite know what to make of Hatsune Miku. I gather that there will soon be an English-language version of Miku; this is one of the very few reasons I have ever found to consider working with Windows.
*****
Here’s a nice piece of Taiwanese animation:
(Via Beneath the Tangles.)
*****
I don’t have a car, but if I did, this is the “coexist” sticker I would prefer on my bumper:
(Via Dustbury.)
Life, always messy, has become even more complicated than usual, and I’m going to be absent from cyberspace for a while. Here are a few quick notes before I disappear.
• For those interested in unlikely crossovers, there’s finally a new page up at Sailor Ranko. How frequently the webcomic will be updated remains to be seen.
• We are living in the golden age of anime right now. If you don’t believe me, watch an episode or two of a recently-exhumed ancient series such as Mahou Tsukai Sally, Yusei Shonen Papi or Dororon Enma-kun (the last concocted by anime’s weird uncle, Go Nagai). Then watch some of the better recent shows such as The Tatami Galaxy or Kuragehime, and note just how far anime has come over the years.
• I’ve been obsessively following the events at Merapi in Indonesia. As major volcanic eruptions go, this is nothing extraordinary — spectacular though it is, it’s little more than a cough compared to Pinatubo in 1991 — but Java is one of the most densely populated islands on the planet, and this time Merapi isn’t following its usual script. The best source of information in English is Erik Klemetti’s Eruptions weblog, including the hundreds of comments.
Update
Continue reading “Briefly”
Recently I’ve been spending more time watching volcanoes than anime. In particular, I’ve been keeping an eye on Java’s Gunung Merapi, which is currently in the middle of a major eruption. (See Eruptions for continuous coverage.) There’s a webcam perilously near the mountain. It’s not always online, and when it is, the lens is likely to be be covered with ash. But when conditions are right, the view is spectacular. (Update: the camera is out of commission again and probably won’t be working again until things cool down. That may be a while, since this is apparently Merapi’s largest eruption in 50 140 years.)
Update: It looks like the view at night is clearer. I’d like to send someone to Java with a bottle of Windex.
Update II: Here are a couple of videos, this one and that one.
Update III: Some very good pictures here. And here.
Update IV: When the camera isn’t working or is covered with ash, you can check the seismographs. Here’s what’s been happening during the past 24 hours:
(For some reason, the preview image looks pale grey or invisible, depending on the browser. Click on it to see it at full size in full color.)
More Miyazaki pumpkins can be seen here.
Haven’t carved your pumpkin yet? There’s a Totoro Jack O’Lantern stencil here.
(Via Steven Riddle.)
Here’s where this was shot. As far as I can tell, this is for real, though the people probably look closer to the hot stuff than they actually are because telephoto lenses compress distances.
The New Zealand mountains Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe were Peter Jackson’s stand-ins for Mt. Doom, but the video above is closer to my mental image of Tolkien’s volcano. (Tolkien is said to have modeled Mordor on the perpetually erupting Stromboli.)
Ubu watched Linebarrels of Iron so you don’t have to.
*****
“This is either going to be a laugh riot, or I’m going to want to hurt somebody.”
The one in pink is Sherlock Shellingford, not to be confused with Sherlock Holmes.
Just wondering: what exactly does the word “milky” signify to the Japanese?
*****
Here’s the second-most impressive Touhou video I’ve seen: ((The most impressive remains this one.))
Then there’s this:
*****
I enjoyed The Triplets of Belleville — one of the few movies I’ve seen in a theatre this century — and I’ve been waiting impatiently for Sylvain Chomet’s next movie. Unfortunately, The Illusionist is apparently a disappointment.
*****
Can’t get out for your morning run because of the weather? Crank up your organ and dash through Chopin’s “Revolutionary” etude:
(The 19th-Century Czech pianist Alexander Dreyschock played this piece with left-hand octaves, which is at least as impressive a stunt as this.)
(Via Frëd.)
YIPE!, “the costume fanzine of record,” attempts to come to terms with anime in issue 2.9, now available for download. Of particular note are Karen Dick’s recollections of her enthusiasm for the Leijiverse, illustrated with pictures of the costumes she made thirty years ago. There’s also some discussion of conflicting fandoms, an interview with a costumer, more reminiscences, and pictures. In addition, the writers admit the obvious:
Face it folks, anime may be a medium not-entirely-catering-to Sci Fi, but it produces more Sci Fi and Fantasy than American television. Better quality, too.
The manga magazine Young Jump has published a history of the Ig Nobel prizes, noted here and here. There’s no translation, but the images speak for themselves.
The 2010 Ig Nobel prizes will be awarded September 30. Fans of Moyashimon will be interested to know that the theme of this year’s ceremony is “bacteria.” Scheduled events include:
The Bacterial Opera: World premiere of a mini-opera about the bacteria who live on a woman’s front tooth, and about that woman. Conducted by David Stockton. Starring Maria Ferrante, Ben Sears, Roberta Gilbert and Thomas Michel as bacteria — and Jenny Gutbezahl as The Woman. Pianist Branden Grimmett. Costumes by Jenn Martinez.
Microbial Miniconcert by Evelyn Evelyn (and their friends Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley)
Pre-pre-show Boston Squeezebox Ensemble microbeconcert in lobby (begins at 6:45 pm), led by Dr. Thomas Michel
Pre-show Pathogenic Bacterial Pianoconcerto by Maria Eliseeva
*****
If you get tired of reading manga and watching anime, you can always watch the Japanese Vesuvius. Sakura-jima has been puffing away quite energetically recently, and this webcam has a good view of the active crater. (If you click on the cross-hairs, you can take control of the camera for a while.) It’s best viewed during daylight hours in Japan, though allegedly, if you’re lucky, you can occasionally see some incandescence and lightning at night. (Update: Visibility might be impaired by clouds, particularly when tropical storms are in the region, as is currently the case.)
Words versus image. (From episode six of Asobi ni Iku Yo.)
*****
Courtesy of ANN, it is now possible to watch the unclassifiable anime Oh! Edo Rocket online.
*****
Attention designers: Note the third special category for Costume-Con 29‘s Future Fashion Folio:
REDESIGN YOUR FAVORITE ANIME CHARACTER ($100 in cash prizes sponsored by Karen Dick): You know what your favorite characters wear in that anime you love, but what do YOU think they should wear when they’re out of uniform (or when they get drafted into the military), or on that special date, or going to that themed costume party? Extra points for believably recasting anime characters in Broadway musicals to suit the theme of the convention.
You don’t need to be any kind of an expert costumer or an artist to enter designs, nor do you need to be able to sew. You don’t even need to plan to attend Costume-Con (I won’t be there — New Jersey is a bit out of bicycle range).
*****
Sushi and spaghetti; or, to be is not to be: a comparison of Asian spirituality and Christianity. (Via First Things.)
*****
(From Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine.)
This has absolutely nothing to do with the otakusphere, right?
(Via Steven Greydanus.)
It’s been a bit warm here in Kansas, though not as warm as Oklahoma. However, it’s a tad chilly in California.
If you’re planning to corrupt youthful acquaintances with anime this Christmas, you might want to check out the current weekly specials at RightStuf. Among the drivel and trash are such things as the complete sets of Bottle Fairy and Mao-chan, each for $15, both suitable for all ages (but keep them away from jackass anime critics). For school-age and older, there’s Petite Princess Yucie for $26. The outstanding bargain is the complete collection of Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit for $20. Moribito was the third-best show of the banner year 2007 ((Second-best was Oh! Edo Rocket, due out soon from Funimation. The best was Dennou Coil, which remains unlicensed.)) and I can recommend it unreservedly for all grade-school age and older. The protagonist, Balsa, was my choice for the outstanding anime babe of all time.