More here.
(Via NRO.)
Update: A collection of eyjafjallajokull links. And one of several webcams.
Postcards from Iceland
Category: Whatever
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
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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.
“Today I Die”?
Recent arrivals
I don’t watch as much anime as I used to, but I expect that I will always retain some interest in the art form. Now that my financial situation has improved from nightmarish to merely frightening, I can budget some occasional purchases. Noein and the first seasons of Slayers and Ah! My Goddess TV have been on my to-buy list for years. What I’ve read about Kurau and Moon Phase piqued my curiosity, and the discs were cheap. Mao-chan will give me an opportunity to compare the judgements of Steven and Zac Bertschy, and it might be a good show for youngsters. About UFO Princess Valkyrie — well, I suppose I ought to have a token fanservice title in my collection (Divergence Eve/Misaki Chronicles fails as fanservice: the character designs are too exaggerated, and the story and characters are too interesting). Steven says the story is pretty good, and there’s a bus full of catgirls. Finally, I generally prefer reading books to watching dramatizations of books, and Fuyumi Ono is a good writer.
Other items on my to-buy list: Gurren-Lagann, Baccano!, Moribito (books and DVDs), Witch Hunter Robin, Mysterious Cities of Gold (another possibility for youngsters), perhaps Negima!? and Seven of Seven. When they’re available, Oh! Edo Rocket and at least the first few discs of Soul Eater. I would add the rest of Utena, but it’s out of print and the company is bankrupt.
What I’m most looking forward to, however, isn’t anime. It’s been about 30 years since I watched The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin. I would like to see if it’s as good as I remember.
Spies like who?
A friend and I are planning to attend Costume-Con 28 next year, and we need to start working on our costumes soon. The theme is “spies.” I’m too tall for Boris and she’s too short for Natasha, and I’m not particulary interested in James Bond, or most other spy movies for that matter. So, I’m wondering what spies there are in anime worth considering. Let’s see: there’s Tenhou and Tenten from Oh! Edo Rocket, and Yomiko Readman and Drake Anderson from Read or Die (I don’t think I should ask my friend to be Nancy). I’m sure that there are others. What other pairs of spies are there?
Update: Are you a fansub team looking for a new project? Consider tracking down and translating the video of the stage play Oh! Edo Rocket. There are some brief excerpts here.
Calling all classicists
Vicipaedia needs otaku who can write decent Latin. The anime and manga pages are pathetic. (I had several years of Latin, but that was a long time ago in a different century, and it would take more time than I can spare to regain competence.)
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Another entry for the “ducks in anime” file:
From Negima Ala Alba OAD #2 (not recommended).
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I discovered that the software used to animate Hatsune Miku is freeware, available here. It’s surprisingly capable. Here’s Miku dancing Maurice Bejart’s choreography; compare it to the final minutes of this. ((I recommend skpping the first six minutes unless you are a Bejart fanatic.)) Unfortunately, like Miku herself, it’s not for Macs.
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More random nonsense:
An animated stereogram. It works, too. There are more here. (Via Cartoon Brew.)
“Not only does it save time, but it’s really stupid, too.” More poem generators here.
Can’t find anything you like on the radio? Set a few parameters and generate your own music.
I did not need to see this:
Spoiler
.
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