Yumeiro Patissiere: Let’s Bake A Magical Cake

Well… stuff happened, and I guess there is a new periodic writer here in Link, someone I’ve known for a couple of years now. You may also know him for his twitter account, or for his associations with others around the Internet, for good, for bad, or for laughs. To that end, I’m hoping for another interesting opinion on anime, looks at shows that people don’t necessarily consider, and useful knowledge about fan culture and beyond (but isn’t that always the case with people here?). Here’s to a fun experiment. – TheBigN

by Link

Spurned by the seemingly unique “Professional” time skip sequel, buzz over the past few months, and Aoi Yuki’s marvelous, lovable voice, I decided to marathon Yumeiro Patissiere up to its current 46^th episode. This was quite the fine idea on my part for this feels like a 90s shoujo treat, likely thanks to Studio Pierrot’s influence. Honest and pure without targeted moe elements, YumePati almost comes off as too simple and standard. But that’s part of its charm.

I don’t think there needs to be yet another link to this, but…

I feel like I should still direct readers to a full translation of Satoshi Kon’s Farewell Letter done by Makiko Itoh if they haven’t seen it yet and they’re interested. It’s hard not to feel something while reading it: the graciousness, the humor, the open honesty, the feeling of facing his next adventure head on, and so on. As I commented in another post that linked to the translation:

Reading his farewell letter, I thought to myself, “this is the same Kon that I’ve seen in his works”, and it made me smile despite the situation. I only wish I was able to meet the man himself in person while he was still alive.

It’s still surreal in a way, even though I only know him from his work in anime and manga. Omo at least is able to explain it in a way better than I could in regards to that.

At any rate, having just received this in the mail today, I’ll at least be able to get just a little bit more into the mind of a very interesting gentleman.

Satoshi Kon and His Legacy To One (Loser) Anime Fan

By TheBigN

In the fall of my Freshman year of college (where I really started developing my love for anime, all things considered), I found out that my college anime club always had some sort of special anime to show during the time of Halloween. Obviously the work had to have some sort of relation to the themes of the holiday, and usually the tone of whatever  is shown is related to horrors and thrillers of some sort, and not being a fan of those genres (heh), I was a little apprehensive about what was planned. For that year, the special work was a movie called Perfect Blue, about an idol who decides to make a career change to become more of a mainstream figure in entertainment. The film introduced me to the idea of idol culture in Japan, the perceptions and expectations that go with it from those that are fans of the culture, and what happens when those perceptions and expectations are not met or worse, completely dashed. While the story itself was probably more exaggerated in terms of what happened to young Mima, recent stories about the troubles of Aya Hirano among others shows how serious those hopes can be, but I’m digressing here.

The namesake character from Paprika. By deliciosa: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=4665812

Aria fans: GN6 on December 28

by dm00

This is the Japanese cover. The English cover will probably have that 60s-era futuristic font for the title that TokyoPop has used on the other volumes.

First Taisho Baseball Girls, and now this. Merry Christmas.

Sentai licenses Taishou Yakyuu Musume

by dm00

We agree, Koume.

It’s “Slice of Life”, TheBigN! Is it?

So I’m a little surprised at the sort of play that NovaJinx’s post on slice-of-life has started to get, since I had thought that the general idea . And it’s cool, especially the fact that there’s a discussion on a concept that has started to get over-used a bit too much in qualifying anime works recently. It’s kind of at the point where I kind of refrain from using “slice of life” in discussion anymore, since I worry about if I’m using it correctly or not (and it seems like wikipedia itself is a little unsure about application of the term at least), of if I should even use it to describe shows or whatnot. But it’s not like the overuse of term bugs me, but rather how it’s overused, especially since there’s been an established meaning.

Here. Have some random noise come at you now.

Otakon 2010 Days 2 and 3: This One Might Hurt More Than Expected

Right, time to finish this one up. Picture and text spam incoming.

Chise from Saikano.

Otakon 2010 Days 0 and 1: This One Might Take A While

By TheBigN

I can’t say that right now, I’m still under a post-con hangover or something like that. But it still hard for me to make an effort to type something up about it since there was a lot of stuff done during the con. But for general impressions of Otakon 2010, I was very pleased with how things turned out. Despite there not necessarily being anything present for me to really care about as a focal point, the panels I went to, guests I experienced and (as always) people I met and re-met were awesome. It gets me fired up for going next year if I can, but unlike this year, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that. As always, we’ll see what happens in the future, but it would be hard for me not to make every attempt possible to come next year. That being said, here’s I guess a (quick?) summary of Thursday and Friday.

Sheryl Nome, Ranka Lee, Klan Klein (micronian mode) and Mina Roshan (sans glasses). Note the "special" meat buns Ranka has.