So those who download fansubs don’t buy DVDs?
Category: Whatever
Notes in passing
Here’s a list of “20 Must-See Movies to Share with Your Kids.” There are some significant omissions. (And some questionable inclusions: e.g., the entire Disney 2D animation catalogue? Even in their glory days there were plenty of klunkers. And I’m sorry, Julie Andrews might have sung nicely, but even as a youngster I resented what Walt Disney did to Mary Poppins.)
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I see that there is going to be more To Love-Ru anime. Why?
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In case I have any readers here in Wichita: next week I plan to spend some time at Anime Festival Wichita. Look for a large, hairy non-cosplayer behind a camera.
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Iceland has been in the news a lot recently. It’s worth noting that Japan also has more than its share of entertaining geology. Sakurajima, for instance, has been putting on quite a show for decades.
This is an exciting time for geologists, by the way. African is splitting in two, and there will soon (i.e., in about 10 million years) be a new ocean where the rift zone is now. (Via Darwin.)
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I’m pleased that Funimation has rescued the ABe animes. Serial Experiments Lain is essential viewing for anyone with the slightest interest in cyberpunk, and everyone should see Haibane Renmei at least once during his lifetime. (Texhnolyze has been sitting on my shelf unwatched for over a year now. I’ll get around to it eventually.)
I’m also pleased to learn that I will finally be able to see the rest of Revolutionary Girl Utena. I just spent several minutes trying to think of any anime as strange as the first arc of Utena. Let’s see …. There’s Cat Soup, though that kinda, sorta makes sense; maybe Angel’s Egg; Mind Game; perhaps Yuasa’s other works — and that’s about it.
More Zhzhh
Exceedingly miscellaneous links and videos.
Via Jonathan T., Jonathan C. on “adapting” anime for western viewers.
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From kowai to kawaii: the Queen of Night’s aria, sung by Hatsune Miku:
Update: This aria (but not this particular “performance”) has been voted one of the top ten arias of all time. (Via Steven R.)
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Mono no aware: Steven Greydanus on the trailer for Tales of Earthsea:
Here is a mainstream Japanese animated film with a trailer that has an evocative, haunting power that eludes virtually the whole of American animation—and that’s just the trailer. And it’s not just American animation either, but pretty much the whole Hollywood machine. What was the last Hollywood box-office blockbuster that made you think of beauty, loss, longing and mystery? (Yes, other than The Lord of the Rings.)
Whether this particular film turns out to be good or not, it’s part of a cinematic culture that aims at, and sometimes achieves, something that isn’t even on the radar in Hollywood. This trailer reminds me of how I felt during the first five minutes of Howl’s Moving Castle, even though the film ultimately turned out to be a disappointment: Just the promise of the first five minutes, even a promise unfulfilled, was worth more than some American animation studios have delivered in whole films if not their entire outputs.
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American mecha: spiders for now, but eventually they’ll get to Gundams and EVAs (via the Borderline Sociopath):
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The Lelouch Lamperouge Picture Show: Is there such a thing as “anime camp”?
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I suppose it’s not that surprising that there is a large fanfiction community devoted to Ranma 1/2-Sailor Moon crossovers. Still, I did not expect to find a Sailor Ranko webcomic.
Another damned meme
I’ve got plenty of projects to work on, so let’s waste some time with animated movies. Blame Cap’n Flynn (alias “Kashi”) for this one.
X what you’ve seen
O what you saw some but not all of
Bold what you particularly liked
Strike-through what you hated
Update: Joining in are Jonathan Tappan and Cullen M.M. Waters. And Maureen the Suburban Banshee.
Update II: And apparently also someone at deviantart.com, but because of the way links work there, I can’t find out who.
Postcards from Iceland
More here.
(Via NRO.)
Update: A collection of eyjafjallajokull links. And one of several webcams.
Today’s quote
From the comments at John C. Wright’s place:
johncwright: If I had written EVANGELION, not only would I have have written an ending, but I would have explained both the first and second impacts, and the relation between the Qabala, the ghost of the mother hidden in the Eva, the spear of Longenes, and the point of Ikaru’s plan.
false_keraptis: Mr. Wright, as a science fiction reader, I am willing to entertain outlandish and unlikely premises, and my disbelief can be suspended from the lightest and most fragile of strings, but you’ve gone too far here. To suggest that Evangelion could ever be made to make sense to anyone is simply ridiculous.
I do ride a bicycle …
… and Cardcaptor Sakura is an old favorite, but I don’t think I’d ride an anime itachari like this around Wichita.
(Via Alafista.)
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John C. Wright previews his next novel, which features the Nine Samurai Vampire Warlocks of Kyoto. There may also be skin-tight latex nun suits. ((Permitted as of Vatican II.))
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Care to propose a caption?
(Via Dustbury.)
“Wisdom isn’t cheap, and we pay for it with pain”
Jonah Lehrer takes a positive look at something very near and not the least bit dear to me.
The Birds, Part Two
I’ve downloaded a number of first episodes from the fall and winter seasons, but I have yet to make it more than half-way through any of them. Some might actually be worth watching, e.g., Durarara, but I’m just not in the mood right now. I sent off an order for some older titles yesterday — the Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex, Moonphase and Black Heaven boxed sets (and a set of El Hazard playing cards) — but those are likely to remain in their shrink wrap for a while. I have things other than anime on my mind, and if I do pop a DVD into the drive, it more likely will be an old favorite like Shingu than anything new.
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A couple of silly links:
Another example of silhouette animation, this one recounting the avian terror in Clerkenwell.
If you play Dungeons and Dragons, stay out of prison in Wisconsin.
Waving as I pass by
Life is complicated these days, and anime is low priority. I’ve heard good things about Kimi ni Todoke — I gather that the protagonist is Aspie-ish, which could be interesting, handled well — and I plan to download it when I see a batch torrent. Otherwise, though, nothing else recent looks worth the time.
A few random notes:
Via Pete, here’s a look at a deluxe Russian edition of Haibane Renmei.
Many in the otakusphere have been writing about the decade in anime. Uh, guys, you’re jumping the gun. Just as 2000 was the last year of the 20th century, 2010 is the tenth year of the first decade of the no-longer-new century, not the first of the second decade.
Disappointing musical news: Kayo is leaving Polysics. The band apparently will continue to tour and record, but it won’t be the same without her robotic persona and bleepy synths. Who else can possibly shake the pompons in “Peach Pie on the Beach”?
I bought myself a Christmas present, the basic edition of Filter Forge. It’s something like Reaktor for graphic artists: you can download thousands of filters made by other users, or you can roll your own from the tools provided (if you get a fuller version). There are a couple of examples below the fold. Warning: they’re based on a snapshot of myself, and I am not cute. Once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
Odd and ends
Since there is a series of Sailor Moon Gundams, it’s inevitable that there would also be a Gundam Sailor Moon. This is one of the entries in the current Sailor Moon Redesign contest. The styles and quality of the entries vary wildly, but some are quite eye-catching. I rather like this Sailor Mercury:
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Recent searches:
japanese duck cosplayers — 11 times.
inhaling the universe
tancos ???? — (Chinese for “Air Force Base”)
3d stereoscopic cross-view babes — I recommend anaglyphs instead, like the ones in this classic Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.
this is not fun anymore in japanese — It probably isn’t much fun in English, either.
is daffy duck a boy or girl
lain piano sheet music yoshitoshi abe — I don’t think ABe did the music for Lain
raymond scott lain — I don’t think Raymond Scott did, either.
serial experiments lain the three stigmata of palmer eldritch — There’s a term paper there.
adopt a miku hatsune
shoujo anime 2008 they put milk in a saucer
kawaii gif queen of dorks
utena gnosticismo
adults that watch kaiketsu zorori — Hey, it beats these.
hatsune miku christmas album — Probably more listenable than Sailor Moon’s, or Bob Dylan’s.
guu hale feminist
kawaii critical analysis
anthropology kawaii
horror kawaii — Look here.
ouran satire not — Ouran, satire, is too.
priss asagiri armpit
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Toon Zone is publishing a series of posts on animation during the past ten years, including anime. I would have chosen Kaiba over Kemenozume, but I fully agree with the #1 choice on this list of shows that ought to be licensed.
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For any Chestertonians out there, here’s G.K. Totoro:
… or is that Totoro Roosevelt?
(From here.)
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Friday linkdump
The website for Satoshi Kon’s current project is active. Yume-Miru Kikai looks like a significant departure from Kon’s previous work, at least visually, and unlike Paranoia Agent and Paprika, this “future folklore story” might be suitable for all ages.
An appreciation of the background art of Oh! Edo Rocket.
For anyone who’s ever said “Huh?” at a renaissance faire.
If you’re in the Minneapolis area, you can catch a performance of “A Christmas Carol” in Klingon. (Via Maureen the Suburban Banshee.)
A three-dimensional Mandelbrot set? (also via Maureen.)
Bored with caricaturing Roman Catholicism, manga artists have discovered the Eastern Orthodox.
An old interview with the late John Sladek I came across recently. Sladek, discoverer of the thirteenth sign of the zodiac (Arachne, May 13 to June 9), ((For the morbidly curious, my own sign is “No parking — violators will be towed at owner expense.”)) was one of the last century’s best satirists and is of my favorite writers.
Meep.
Keep an eye on those ducks:
Public service announcement: the complete Dirty Pair TV is out there, subtitled, if you know where to look.
Ugh
I have no intention ever of watching Queen’s Blade. I hope I never meet anyone who writes about it. ((With the possible exception of Ubu, who reported on the first episode of the first season (not for the squeamish).))
Update: Evidentally, my point isn’t clear. One of those who wrote about about Queen’s Blade titled his post “I would love a tentacle rape,” which is distasteful enough. The other gratuitously used one of the most offensive words in the English language.
Odds and ends
Spoiler
[collapse]
Several otherwise sane and sensible people recently have been posting their Champions Online or City of Heroes characters. I thought I’d check the games out. Fortunately for me, the former is Windows-only, but the latter does have a Mac client and a free trial period, so that’s how I spent a couple of lunch hours this past week. (Actually, I spent the first lunch twiddling my thumbs while the client downloaded nearly three gigabytes of additional content — if I had realized that it would do that, I wouldn’t have bothered.) It is fun to play with the character creator; you can make a (rather skanky-looking) schoolgirl, which isn’t possible with such sites as Hero Machine. The game itself, though, looks as dull as every other MMORPG I’ve visited, as far as I could judge from the tutorials (I tried both the heroic and villainous options). It’s nifty to design colorful avatars, but “jogging heroically” to fight random enemies is tedious. I’d rather listen to music —
— which is what I do in Second Life. My initial impressions of SL were rather negative, and if you want to find intelligent people to discuss anime with, you’ll do better hanging around Steven’s place. But there is lots of music there, some of it good, and there are other people with tastes as wide-ranging as mine. It’s possible to stream music from your computer to sites within Second Life, which I’ll be doing Saturday evenings for while. If you have a SL account, stop by Grizzy’s Café between 6 and 8 p.m. SL time (i.e., California time; between 8 and 10 p.m. in the central USA time zone). Tonight I’ll be playing very miscellaneous Japanese music, from Yoko Kanno to Hatsune Miku.
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I’ve sampled some random examples from the fall anime season. So far I haven’t finished a single episode. Surprisingly, the one I watched longest was Kämpfer, this season’s attempt to create the ultimate anime. Let’s see … we have
• high school students
• fighting
— with guns
— with swords
— with magic
(… but no forks)
• sailor fuku
• panties
• sexual ambiguity (question of definition: is a guy who actually changes to a girl truly a “trap”?)
• a meganekko
• henshin
• absolute territory
• .4 Rushunas — and that’s the hero. He also runs like a girl.
I hesitate to say whether there are any moeblobs or tsunderes in the show. I think one character qualifies on both counts, but that isn’t my field of expertise.
That’s in just the first fifteen minutes or so. There are also hints of a developing harem, a ridiculously powerful student government and perhaps a vast conspiracy. I expect future episodes will include copious steam. There are unlikely to be nekomimi, mecha or winged people, but I wouldn’t put it past the writers — it really is a silly show. Sad girls in snow are probably too much to hope for.
My only hope for the fall season is Kuuchuu Buranko, or Trapeze, whose crew includes Kenji Nakamura and Manabu Ishikawa of Mononoke.
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A couple of odd links:
Quote of the week
Miscellaneous nonsense
In lieu of a substantive post, here are some random links.
For anyone who has ever operated a sewing machine: famous last words, cosplay edition.
“Oh look, a Windows ME install disc!” (Via Eve Tushnet.)
George Lucas is no engineer. (Via First Things.)
Someday I may forgive Dale Price for posting this. (Alarming fact: Before Star Trek, Shatner acted (if that is the word) in the pilot for a teevee show about Alexander the Great, costarring Adam West.)
Does the use of accordions violate the principles of just war?
For what it’s worth (very little), I’m now on Facebook. This was research for work, believe it or not.