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.
That aria; I wondered if I’d recognize it. And I did. It’s Mozart, isn’t it? More specifically, that’s the aria which I heard a famous soprano refer to as the “Revenge aria”, because those staccato segments are brutally difficult to get exactly right, and if she blows it everyone will be able to tell.
Am I remembering correctly?
As to Sailor Ranko, that’s surprisingly good. But the art sure goes to hell starting with chapter 4!
The aria is “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” from The Magic Flute, in which the Queen of the Night orders her daughter to kill Sarastro. When sung by a capable soprano, it’s electrifying. When sung by Miku, it’s a cute novelty.
I gather from skimming through the Sailor Ranko forum that the webcomic is on hold because of health problems. One of the projects there was to replace all the original art with better drawings, but that hasn’t advanced beyond the fourth page of chapter three.
Stephen,
Mozart meant it to be fiendishly difficult because it was meant for one and only one singer. That was the original Queen of the Night, who happened to be his sister in law. Josepha Hofer, the singer in the original production, was by all accounts an agile vocalist with a wide range, and Mozart literally wrote the aria to showcase her abilities.
There is another aria for the Queen of the Night, and it is just as difficult.
Interestingly enough, as mentioned in the wikipedia article linked above, is that Mozart’s, at his last moment, was imagining Josepha singing the high F of that very aria.
Quiet, quiet! Hofer is just taking her top F;–now my sister-in-law is singing her second aria, ‘Der Hölle Rache’; how strongly she strikes and holds the B-flat: ‘Hört! hört! hört! der Mutter Schwur!’.