I don’t listen to radio at all anymore except during entertaining weather. The last show that I regularly tuned in was Car Talk. I don’t have a car, but that didn’t matter; the real point of the show was the Magliozzis’ quick wit and corny humor. Now Click and Clack have their own animated show. It’s a pity that the video excerpt suggests that it’s going to be politicized garbage.
In other animation news, it looks like I need to see WALL-E.
Via a friend: Sex and Flirting in Japan. (There are no pictures, so it’s almost safe for work.)
Lost in the anime zone with John Ringo.
They’re not anime, and I recall posting them on my earlier weblogs, but they’re worth revisiting: Scientific Truth in Warning Labels, and Cognitive Hazards and other modern warning signs. (Via TexasBestGrok.)
“Definitely time to write some [Associated Press]/RIAA slashfic.” (Via René’s Apple.)
Bonus link: Gainaxing as a source of energy.
Special bonus link: The Costume Hall of Shame. (Via .clue.)
Miyuki Kanbe, the third actress to play Sailor Moon in the SeraMyu musicals, died Wednesday of heart failure at the age of 24.
(Picture from here.)
I don’t have interests or hobbies; I have obsessions. They usually progress like this:
Stage one: What’s this?
Stage two: This is kinda interesting. Let’s investigate it further.
Stage three: This is really interesting. It’s worth a little time and money.
Stage four: This is absolutely magnificent, wonderful stuff. Let’s spend every waking moment on it and annoy all my friends with my enthusiasm. Let’s max out the credit cards, too.
Stage five: This isn’t quite as much fun as it used to be.
Stage six: In fact, it’s starting to feel like work. Let’s do something else tonight.
Stage seven: What a waste of time. The hell with it.
Stage one: Hey, what’s that?
Not every obsession runs through every stage. Photography has oscillated between stages three and five for years and probably will continue to do so as long as I can hold a camera. On the other hand, I spent far too much time in the SCA, and I am very thoroughly burnt-out on that sort of historical re-creation. Don’t even mention Renaissance faires to me.
With respect to anime, I am currently at stage six. I’ve watched very little in the past few weeks, and what I have seen were old favorites, not new shows. I know I should be keeping up with Kaiba, and I would probably enjoy the recent episodes of Soul Eater if I bothered to launch VLC, but right now both look more like duties than pleasures. Rather than force myself to watch them anyway and guarantee reaching stage seven, I’m going to take a break from anime.
Perhaps I’ll spend the summer reading. There’s a whole generation of science fiction and fantasy writers that I haven’t yet seriously investigated, and at least two of them, Tim Powers and Neal Stephenson, are first-rate storytellers if what I’ve read is representative.
So, there’s not going to be much happening here for a while. I do have a few posts in mind, but I’m in no hurry to write them. I’ll be back when I’m back.
Hey, McCain has been ignoring the catgirl vote throughout the primaries, I say Obama should take advantage of this. As a matter of fact, a strong anti-tentacle monster platform would bring in both the catgirls and the Lolis. He could then show show his strength on defense by committing to a crash course of giant robot development. All he would need at that point would be a promise of combat training for all nubile young schoolgirls and he would have the entire geek vote locked up.
On a related note, here’s the most frightening title I’ve heard in a while: The Melancholy of Hillary Rodham.
*****
That other dealer has Geneon merchandise on sale. Haibane Renmei, Someday’s Dreamers and others are going for $5 per disc, and this time there’s no minimum order.
*****
Via Pixy, sophisticated technology in the service of sheer silliness:
And some Leeky Star:
*****
Stranger than anime: the operatic guide to dating.
*****
Yoshitoshi ABe will be in Minnesota in September. It’s a bit out of bicycle range for me, unfortunately.
*****
Update: No. No. No. No. No. No.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Life’s been very interesting lately, in ways both good and bad, and there’s little time for anime. I’ll be back eventually.
Who has “an almost Buddhist sense of nothingness”?
The good news: Not only can I walk (albeit slowly, and with a cane), but as of today I can ride my bike again.
The bad news: Posting here will continue to be spasmodic. I plan to walk and bike as much as possible for the next several weeks to regain strength and flexibility. Other recreations, including anime, are going to be low priority for a while. Of the current series, I will probably keep up only with Kaiba and perhaps Soul Eater. I’ll catch up with Allison and Lillia and the other shows of interest later this summer. I recently ordered the Fantastic Children boxed set, which I’ll probably marathon the weekend after it arrives, and that’s the only older series I will look at this spring.
Speaking of Soul Eater: a commentor wonders how I can find Toshokan Senkou unwatchable because of Kasahara yet enjoy Soul Eater, in which the male characters are “1000% more stupid and irritating than her.” There are three quick responses:
1. There’s only one nitwit in Soul Eater, Black Star. Soul Eater is a competent enough, and Death the Kid is a mental case, not a moron. If Soul Eater were just the Black Star show, one episode would have been plenty, but that’s not the case.
2. Toshokan Sensou and Soul Eater are different kinds of shows. The latter is much more farcical, and what is annoying in one context can be funny in another.
3. Don’t ever accuse me of consistency.
*****
Recent search strings:
tomo takino feet
kawaii stalin
bishie mussolini
britney spears mushi
kawaii religion
If you can explain any of these, please keep it to yourself. I don’t want to know.
I finally watched the first episode of Toshokan Sensou, a.k.a. Library War. It looks like my spring viewing will be Kaiba, Allison and Lillia, Real Drive and maybe Kurenai,1 with Soul Eater and perhaps Wagaya no Oinari-sama for essential fluff.
But not Toshokan Sensou. I could tolerate the absurd premise — the brain police (i.e., “committees of Media Improvement Act”) raid bookstores and confiscate such dangerous literature as books of fairy tales, while a branch of the military defends libraries — if the anime has compensating virtues. And it is a Production I.G. series broadcast in the Noitanima timeslot, so I would expect the show to be better than average. However, the protagonist is a hot-headed fool, too thoughtless to be sympathetic. Toward the end of the episode she rashly attempts to halt a bookstore raid by invoking her authority as a “Private First Class Librarian,” unaware that she needs to be at least a lieutenant to do so. At that point I quit watching. Toshokan Sensou may be intended to be part comedy, but Kasahara is too dumb and annoying to be funny.
At least five groups are subbing Kanokon. Three episodes have been translated so far. Only one group is subbing Kaiba, and only the first episode is available in English. You couldn’t pay me to watch Kanokon. Kaiba is probably the most interesting show since Denno Coil.
There’s something wrong here.
A very short piece by Satoshi Kon:
From here, where you can also find shorts by Michael Arias and Kazuto Nakazawa.
A few notes on the first episode of Kaiba:
• It’s dystopian science fiction. In this world, minds can be separated from bodies and stored on conical “chips.” There’s a market for memories and bodies, and young bodies fetch good prices. The rich, who live above the electrical clouds, can avoid death by obtaining fresh bodies. It’s a dangerous world for the commoners, who are constantly beset by automatons.
• The first episode was mostly scene-setting and action, and I don’t have much sense of the characters yet. The main ones so far are “Warp,” a boy with no memory who has a locket with a girl’s picture, an emblem of three discs on his abdomen, and a hole through his chest, and Popo (voiced by Romi Paku), who seems to be a streetwise kid, perhaps with radical political connections (though we don’t know that much about him yet).
• The art and animation are more interesting than the story and characters so far. I’ve posted some screen captures below the fold, and there are a couple of excerpts on the video weblog illustrating the quality of the animation and the strangeness. The electronic music soundtrack might be worth tracking down when it’s available.
• Visual novelties and energy can carry the show for a while, but whether Kaiba is ultimately a triumph or a disappointment depends whether it tells a good story. For now, it’s at the top of my watch list.
I uploaded a couple of contrasting short excepts from Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game to the video weblog to illustrate why I am so impatient to see Kaiba.
Although Yuasa wrote the script for and directed Mind Game, the movie was based on manga by Robin Nishi, which is also the name of the main character. I doubt that the manga is rigorously autobiographical. Nishi’s website is here; it includes a selection of his work and a gallery.
Yuasa’s credits include Cat Soup and Kemonozume, which, like Mind Game, are not for chldren. Despite the simple character designs, I gather that Kaiba isn’t a kid’s show, either.
*****
Quote of the week:
I will personally be nowhere near this. It sounds like my worst nightmare.
See here for context. (Hint: think blue, count a lot more than two.)
Bonus quote:
Damn ! I so wanted to make this. Oh why oh why did I plan to watch paint dry on the same days !
*****
Fuyumi Ono’s target demographic is youngsters who fantasize that they are adopted. In The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow, misfit schoolgirl Youko discovers that she actually comes from Another World, where she has a Great Destiny. In the newly-translated Twelve Kingdoms novel, Sea of Wind, a boy learns that not only does he not belong in the Japanese family where his grandmother makes him and his mother miserable, but that he is not even human.
I don’t have time to write a review — maybe later — but I will note that Sea of Wind is a pretty good story, though less ambitious than the preceeding volume. I don’t know if I ever will watch the anime based on the books. According to what I’ve read, the anime made many changes to the stories, most of which I would probably find objectionable. (I gather that the anime Youko is a much less sympathetic character than the character Ono wrote about.) However, I do plan to read all the books as they become available.
According to Nick, the book Ono wrote that led to the Twelve Kingdoms series may not be released in the USA. Fortunately for me, there is a fan translation available (though I strongly prefer to read fiction as ink on paper rather than as pixels on a monitor).
Private investigator Rem Ayanokouji can enter into other people’s dreams, where she battles demons who cause nightmares and steal dreamers’ life force. Her activities were chronicled in several Dream Hunter Rem OVAs dating from 1985 to 1992. According to the Wikipedia article, the first episode was originally hentai, but it was so popular that the makers skipped the pornography in subsequent episodes to appeal to wider audiences. The first episode was re-released in a cleaned-up “special version.”
Only the later version of the first episode has been fansubbed, and it may just be the first half of an hour-long episode.1 It’s not exactly a masterpiece, but it does have a certain creaky charm.
… not to mention Romi Paku. Now I’m really impatient to see Kaiba.
Update: Really, really impatient.
*****
Psgels gave Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z the surprisingly high score of 88/100. Last night I was in the mood for something silly and frivolous, so I watched the first few episodes. Well, it’s really silly and frivolous. How silly is it? The girls, Hyper Blssom, Rolling Bubbles and Powered Buttercup, and their arch-enemy, the talking monkey MojoJojo, interrupt their battles for ice cream breaks. Tomboy Buttercup catches a cold from wearing the mahou shoujo short skirt. I posted an excerpt from the first episode on the video weblog that might give you an idea of the show’s flavor. It’s not something I could stand to watch much of at a time, but in small doses it’s agreeably ridiculous.
*****
I also posted a four-minute excerpt from Iblard Jikan, which I mentioned earlier.
*****
I spent the morning at the hospital getting a three-inch screw removed from my ankle. I can now put weight on my left leg, and this afternoon, for the first time this year, I walked. It will take a few weeks to regain full use of the ankle, but at least I can return the wheelchair to the shop now.
Today marks three anniversaries. The Kawaii Menace is one year old. Note that it’s not my first anime weblog. It was preceeded by the defunct Beware the Kawaii, begun on April 19, 2006. The curious can find a selection of the less-embarrassing posts from the earlier weblog in the sidebar listed under “ancient texts.”
It was five years ago today that I began my first weblog, Mixolydian Mode. It focused on music, books, the decline of civilization, and silliness. At that time I hadn’t yet seen any anime beyond Miyazaki,1 and it wasn’t until I discovered Serial Experiments Lain a year later that I began writing about anime. Eventually my posts on anime threatened to overwhelm the rest of the blog, so I started Beware the Kawaii, devoted to animation, Japan and women with blue hair. Mixolydian Mode is defunct now, replaced a year ago today by Scuffulans hirsutus.
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