By TheBigN

What type of cancer would it be? Something slow-growing, yet considered incurable like a chronic lymphocytic leukemia? Something that could have been avoided if people didn’t use certain things too much, like smoking with lung cancers? Something that’s silent until it’s too late, like some forms of pancreatic cancer? Course, I have problems with hearing this metaphor in the first place, as it paints moe as something that’s negative, bothersome, and ultimately ruinous for anime, and I wonder why? Whether you agree with that or not (and I feel like I’m simplifying things too much here, in my opinion), I feel like moe is used as a scapegoat too much, where people use it as the answer du jour for whatever ails anime, and I never feel comfortable about that.

Is the answer really cancer?

I feel more uncomfortable about it since moe is a complicated concept with different definitions for different people. For myself, I mostly see it as something that one feels: something that one becomes or gets whenever they see something that appeals to them in that way, like a character trait, or a random thing. From that I believe that one can feel moe for anything (glasses moe, train moe, show moe, etc.), and that whatever instills that feeling presents a sense of innocence, cuteness, pleasure or whatever the hell you want to call it. And that makes you want to do something to it, be it wanting to observe them, protect them, care for them, care for them in your pants, whatever. But who says that’s really the right way to look at it?

And it’s why I get confused when I hear that a show is moe, or when people refer to characters such as “moeblobs”. Terms like that make me get the opinion that the people who use them call things moe to mean that these things contain characteristics solely for the purpose of appealing to that “moe” sense. And is that sense a certain type of cute properties or properties trying to be cute (if it’s sorta like that, then why the hell not call it just that to be more specific)? Something like that I was talking about before? Something more implicitly sexual? Something just for otaku? A certain type of aesthetic for others? Something that burns with a fiery passion of manliness? Something that you know when you see it? Something devoid of any productive value? Something else?

Regardless, most of the time, to me the usage sounds derogatory, as in there’s no other worth to these shows/characters/things other than pandering to a certain subset of people that aren’t the people saying these terms (who are also the ones making things  bad for everyone else, from what I infer as well). I worry/think too much about what’s meant by those terms, since it gets to the point where I refrain from saying that a character/shows is “cute” or “adorable”, even when that’s the case to me. Those words to me sound like buzzwords that can be easily connected to moe, and the more “negative” aspects that seen to come with the term (male “dominance”, titillation, pandering, easy money make, not artistic/special) and so on.  And I wonder in turn that that means about me, who thinks these things about some anime I watch and some people that I like in these anime. Even the people who openly like moe seem to keep that worry in mind.

It seems that this is why K-On! sucked for some. Somehow. I just shrug.

I also wonder about how moe is leading to a decline of anime, and possibly a death. I think I get the argument that as anime focuses more on “moe” or whatever the term’s supposed to mean in more works, the audience becomes more and more focused to the lowest common denominator (in size of audience and in moral standing, hurr hurr hurr). And because apparently most recent shows produced only cater to these individuals, how can the industry sustain itself as that niche begins to get older, and there doesn’t seem to be a will to make more works that cover a larger audience (again, clarify if I’m totally off here), or something along those lines?  One could claim that the seeds are sewn for that, but there’s no answer to that question for the moment, especially since we haven’t reached that “dire” situation yet. But to that, why is moe considered to be so limited in that respect (the amount of people willing to watch shows containing more apparently obvious examples of it)? Don’t different types of moe appeal to different people, and so on and so forth?

For something that seems complex, how come a lot of people (including myself) try to simplify moe so much, and then use that simplification as a scapegoat, or as something to look down at? I’m not saying that it doesn’t need criticism, but doing it that way seems like an easy way out. And yay victimization, but I also sometimes sort of see it as an “Us vs Them” argument, since sometimes it comes out to me as it the main reason people pick a bone with moe is that it’s not the anime they want to see, and are just hating on it because it’s there. I can get that some people don’t like it, but to phrase things as if it’s a scourge on anime that needs to be eliminated to me sounds like overkill. It’s why I keep asking what a person means whenever they say that a show/character is moe. Since there isn’t one set answer for what moe is, how come many seem to treat it like such?

I mean, there are different types of cancers out there with different prognoses, treatments and such, but it’s all considered to be bad. When looking at moe in that aspect, it isn’t that problematic, is it? Do I have it completely wrong?

After all, Madarame is pretty moe.

You’ve seen this video before on the blog, but it was one of the first things I remembered when I first heard of the news yesterday. For better or for worse (better in my opinion):

I’m not sure many people on earth now are as influential as Michael Jackson was. Or if not that, I’m not sure there’s someone else who could somehow bridge various gaps between different groups of people like he could with his music, despite all of the other eccentricities and controversies surrounding the man. I mean, lol anime even. Life goes on. Rest in peace Michael Jackson.

By TheBigN

Aaron Copland’s Rodeo animated by Eleanor Stewart

More Zetsubou-sensei? Yorokobusu shita!

(I sure hope I got that caption right.)

Volume two of Del Rey’s translation of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei arrived a couple of weeks ago, and, if anything, it’s better than the first volume.

Del Rey’s designers have done a good job paying respect to Koji Kumeta’s color work with their simple cover designs (which contrasts with the busy-ness of Kumeta’s pages — see below).  This volume, like the last, comes with many pages (10 this time) of notes at the end, including a few in which the translator admits defeat (”Unfortunately, analyzing this map in detail would take as much space as the entire volume…”). But all is not lost — along the way the reader is learning about many running jokes in the series.

But they do an admirable job, despite missing an opportunity to put Kumeta’s under-the-dust-jacket Komori joke (”Hey! Don’t open it, okay?”) on the “Stop! This is manga! You’re going the wrong way!” page.

The Tanabata wishes on the right include, "I wish to be a person from the future", "I wish to be an alien..." (poor image quality is due to my scan, the print quality in the book is excellent).

This volume includes the “Commodore Perry” incident (comparatively sane, if one recalls how that was done in the anime, though it does include its own madness), Zetsubou-sensei does doujinshi, and the chapter which concludes with the men of the town lining up to receive attention (in the form of criticism) from Chie-sensei.  There are ten chapters in all, some of which I don’t remember from the anime, though my memory of the series may be poor.

As noted above, the volume has ten pages of notes.  It also has eleven pages of extra material that goes far beyond the typical “author’s notes” at the end of manga.

The print quality is superb — my scans do not do it justice.  Kumeta’s work — with its high contrasts and delicate lines — deserves no less.

By TheBigN

I’m definitely not the first to find and link to this K-On! MAD (yes, I know some of you are probably saying “Not another one.”, but meh), but I think it’s an awesome combo enough that it needs more exposure.

Coming off the recent episode, I’ve also found that whenever KyoAni tries to add in some melodrama to the show, like in this previous episode with Ritsu and two episodes ago when Azusa was wondering if the club was where she really belonged and stuff, it comes off as awkward to me. Not bad, but awkward. Some of it is probably due to me reading the source material beforehand (which will make me really enjoy this next and last broadcasted episode), but I also think that a certain pace/feeling has been set for K-On!, so breaking it up is a little disorienting. Granted, Ritsu’s situation was much more so than Azusa’s which made sense given here character, but to me it was still noticeable.

And as for the series ending broadcast next week, if there’s more K-On!, that would be nice, but it definitely wouldn’t be nice to see the overzealous fans and detractors (especially the “bandwagon hater” types) come with it. Just saying.

I've been tired for a while myself.

More proof that "it's all about Tamaki"

Volume one of the Bamboo Blade manga arrived in the mail the other day.  Despite sharing this blog-space with TheBigN, I was a late-comer to Bamboo Blade, but I’m intent on making up for lost time.

Kendo comes to life on the still page

It may be because I watched the anime first, but the manga is…merely okay.  I think the series truly benefited from being adapted into anime: I like the anime character designs more (especially Tamaki and Kirino), and, while the manga artist does a good job conveying the action of the kendo bouts, there’s no compensation for the loss of motion and sound.

An endpaper sketch of Tamaki by the manga's artist Aguri Igarashi --- more like the anime, less like the artist's own work in the manga

This volume of the manga introduces our main characters in the Muroe High kendo club (save for Saya and Satori), and takes us roughly to the end of the second episode of the anime (we’ve seen hints of Miya-Miya’s darker side, but, beyond a stolen smoke and a fierce moment as she wields a bokken in the kendo supply shop, little of her other personality).

So far, at least, the anime was a faithful adaptation of the manga.

For me, Coach Ishida is the least interesting of the characters, and, to my taste, he’s a bit too prominent in this volume, sharing the focus with Tamaki.  Kirino is almost invisible, though her pleasure at sweat is highlighted at one point.  I hope to see more of Kirino in future volumes — and I will be buying future volumes, of that there’s no doubt.

Bamboo Blade OST 1

One of the lesser-recognized aspects of the Bamboo Blade anime is its soundtrack.  Senba Kiyohiko’s soundtrack collections are a wonderful find for a fan of improvisational drumming.  Both the first and second collections include extended cuts of fourteen minutes.  I don’t remember noticing the

Bamboo Blade OST 2

music (beyond a few clacks of woodblocks) while watching the series, but was thrilled by the CDs the first time I listened to them, especially the extended length of many of the cuts.  I’ll be on the look-out for more of Senba’s work.

All the pieces are there, assembled by thumbs.

Update, one week later: This post starts out negative, as that was my first reaction to the episode.  Then as I thought about it more and more (as I wrote this post) I began to appreciate how the episode had been put together.  The end result was a complete reversal in my feelings, such that I think this episode is actually quite good.

I’ve tried to believe.  There’s been a lot that’s quite good about this overly-maligned series.  But really, this episode was almost bad enough to be worthy of the disappointing Allison and Lillia.

You can see that they’re trying.  The climax wasn’t a deus ex machina — we see all the bits of the machina being assembled, Macgyver-like, from things that have been introduced earlier in the series or in this episode, and it’s easy to see that something is going on.  There’s pleasure to be gained from seeing how all the clues we see will be put together.

Unfortunately, some of it requires prison-guards with an almost Imperial-Storm-Trooper-like inattention to detail, plus there’s a small coordination problem that is glossed over: how does solitarily-confined Kuniko communicate the plan she’d hatched, during her three-days of punishment, to her co-conspirators?

The creators of Shangri-la actually try to account for the problems.  We see the prisoners exploiting the corruption of some guards; the inmates stage a fight, creating a plausible cover-story that a potential weapon is to be used to get revenge against another prisoner; we see the components for the escape being assembled from parts we can understand — alchohol distilled from fermented orange juice, hydrogen generated by an alchohol-catalyzed reaction — the hydrogen was introduced in an earlier episode as fueling explosions used in the logging operations; we see a vital component tossed from Kuniko’s window and discovered lying in the dirt by one of the prisoners.  There are lots of significant looks and exchanges that only make sense once you see all the pieces put together. The only “luck” involved may be the timely arrival of the ice-shrapnel storm.  Even that is accounted for: Kuniko sighs that the “weather prediction was right, for once”, when it arrives.

I imagine this episode actually works in the novel (which is not something I expect is true of Allison and Lillia).

On screen it still adds up to being disappointingly unbelievable. What tries to be a plot built by MacGuyver feels like it was built by Rube Goldberg, instead.

Update: The one thing I will say in its favor: paradoxically, the more I think about it, the better it looks: the mis-direction worked on me as well as the prison-guards, I suppose.  It’s just that first impressions count for a lot (moreover, the escape is followed by a few happy coincidences that are poorly timed to win this viewer’s sympathy).  This series has shown signs of being very subtle and clever, this time I think it was too clever by half.

Update update: PSGels keeps the faith, I think with some justification.  As I said in comments there, it’s possible that, in the context of the entire series, this episode will come to seem less contrived than one’s original impression leads one to think.

By TheBigN

(sorry nekosasu. )

Okay, I’ll admit that even more new The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi is nice to see. The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan was more than enough for me, and I’ll definitely be missing those and the Nyoro~n Churuya-san short episodes, but now that there apparently are more episodes related to the first series coming down the pipe, I’m not complaining at all. At the same time, I’m not going to lie; I would have really enjoyed seeing the reaction if the accidental leak about “Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody” turned out to be false. When I see how some people get a little too obsessed with something (myself included), it’s nice to have some cold water moments to keep us a little more grounded, I think.

It would be nice if Mikuru willingly took Haruhi up on this offer on the bed.

One thing that makes me lol though is the lack of Kadokawa RAEGing that was present before this episode came out now. There’s still some, but I guess since people are getting their Haruhi fix right now, there’s no need to criticize the sadists and evil dictators over at Kadokawa. As anime fans, I guess we’re all masochists in a way, but there’s something to be said for the dedication of all of the fans in this case who are rapturous right now. Glad to see the Haruhi fans of that level finally get that ecstastic and glorious release, but I guess I wish it was a little cleaner?

Two other things:

1. The comparisons between Haruhi and K-On! as if they were literally fighting each other piss me off , and it’s probably something that I really shouldn’t be getting worked up over. But when I read that sort of message in posts, I think to myself “Why should it matter as long as you enjoy either/both show(s)?”, and I see others have the same question. I mean, we all know that the winner of this “duel” set up is KyoAni.

2. The posts that are so hating on Haruhi and the show’s fans that overdo it to the point where it seems like they’re just trying to be cool/counterculture on purpose are lol. Calm down, guys.

Haruhi has something to say to those people who can not calm down.

I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes

How scary is it that all I had to do was type “I tho…” into the browser search-box, and its first suggestion was the quote I was looking for?

The sky above Kuwait was the color of television tuned to a dead channel

Hanners is in despair while PSGels likes what’s happening.

I like it, too, less for the interpersonal drama and more for the political tangle, with Japan a wholly-owned subsidiary of Atlas Corporation, and Ishida Finance nibbling at the edges, different factions at work within Atlas itself, and Metal Age (or at least Nagiko) pulling at the knotted strands of the Atlas Corporation, too.

I can sympathize with Hanners’ complaints — there are a lot of strands running through this show; but, like PSGels, I’m happy with how they’re braiding them together. I am growing increasingly interested in the novels that this series adapts — I can imagine quite a few favorite books that might look this chaotic (but promising) at this point in an anime adaptation, so I’m willing to be patient.

The central portion of this episode was divided between the sack of Kuwait and hinting at Kusanagi’s heretofore hidden significance.

Annoyed at the competition, Karin decides to leverage the assets of the Japanese government to tinker with Kuwait’s balance of carbon payments, drawing the Serpent into the market, exposing them enough to be able to track down their data-stream. Atlas, informed by spies in the Japanese government (it may be that the Japanese government is essentially a subsidiary of Atlas at this point) is watching, too, as are Kuniko and her grand-mother, aware of a ripple in the market force, the bank-balances of a million souls crying out.

Kuwait ends up bankrupt (think of poor Iceland’s financial troubles), their remaining assets in hock to some outsider — and don’t think the post-CO2 economy has no use for Kuwaiti oil, it’s still a good raw material for plastics, after all. Karin has an idea that Serpent is a shell-corporation based in a Pacific island chain, but Kuniko’s preternatural adaptation to reading the flow of her grandmother’s data-wrangling allows her to pinpoint the location exactly.

Kuniko, it seems, is Nagiko’s Medusa.

Double double, toil and trouble. Market churn and economy bubble.

Somehow, Kuniko’s intuitive leap finds its way to Atlas, who decide to leverage some American assets to wipe out the shell corporation and much of the surrounding island — with an expenditure of CO2 that sends the value of the dollar plummeting.

It has all the tension and drama of a dog-fight, with dialogue that would fit on the bridge of a starship — dialogue that reveals a good deal about the speakers (Nagiko, Kuniko, Ryouko, and Karin, in this case), and hints at factions and hidden interactions within Atlas and the other parties in the show.

And that’s just the Kuniko part of the story.

I have a theory that Hiruko is Ryouko’s version of Medusa, but that will have to wait for another time.

Beyond the borders of Gensokyo, Flandre rages in her cell