Admirable attempt to have a pistol shaped like -the other organ-.

I finally caved in to boredom and began watching Gundam 00, two years after its debut and millions of blog posts behind the pack. Despite its giant cast of characters (and plethora of boring voices), Double-O does have substance to it… with the usual quirks which bangs one on the head reminding one: “It’s a cartoon, fool!”

After four episodes, one notices that before being a hack-and-slash show, Double-O is big on politics. This is a refreshing change from the previous Gundam with the country unions receiving no representation other than in the form of crazed idealists and fundamentalists. What irks me is the obviousness of the creative team not having done their homework.

Three hundred years into the future, three shafts 50000 kilometres long with antannae stretching thousands of kilometres wide are the world’s only viable source of energy. While these contraptions are impractical and, more clearly, absurd from an engineer’s point of view, one is able to forgive this implementation for without such ‘marvels of engineering’ biped machines of war wouldn’t exist either.

But what of the change to society and methods of communication? One observes in Double-O that:

• People still use handphones! Are we to believe that a device which has evolved so greatly from a concept in the 19th century still retains its 21st century form in the 24th century?
• People wear the same clothes as well. Fashion hasn’t evolved either. Think of how we dressed 300 years and how we dress now.
• Loser wearing a crappy looking school attire can still attract a voluptuous blonde female classmate.

And some mind-baffling wonders, like:

• Logistical security is still as crappy as it is now, allowing giant robots to be smuggled successfully with raw materials, even after a terrorist organisation with advanced technology declares their intention to fuck shit up (hell, even a state of emergency isn’t declared!).
• Celestial Being has no seniors in it. An organisation which takes on the world is run by a super computer and a company of young adults and teenagers.
• Setsuna diving into the ocean and swimming in his full attire and his unconcerned release of his real name to strangers.

It’s these little things that chip away at the grandeur Double-O could have easily achieved. If the sensibilities of the Takahashi Ryousuke-Nozaki Toru team (Gasaraki, FLAG) were included in the circle, Gundam 00 could have been great indeed.

Johnny, the protagonist, shatters the racial stereotypes of an intruding police officer.

If I was asked to summarise Eden of the East, I’d go: “A conversation in an Alfred Hitchcock movie with someone farting in the background out of the blue and another person shouting “Johnny!” and stripping off his clothes and running around the screen.” Yes, I am disappointed by it. Like Kaiba, it’s a show which didn’t realise its full potential. Unlike Kaiba, it’s a major cocktease.

Points of contention:

• Starts off with much intrigue and innueundo. Show is established be an attempt at bringing plots back to anime.
• Innueundo wins the spotlight 90% of the time.
• Johnny makes every character seem trivial and digs the show deeper into a unescapable ravine of plotstrings with untied ends.
• Tributes to Google, movies and communcation technology appear but do not play a bigger role than being just acknowledgements of existence.
• Show ends without answers and with a bunch of Johnnys colliding with enemy Johnnys.

Conclusion:

• Show throws away substance and puts Johnnys in the forefront. Having a bigger Johnny than your enemy wins the day. Show is also a poorly veiled attempt at coaxing audience into watching planned sequel material.

Doggone it.

PS. For a more interesting discussion regarding Johnnyworld, check out Wabisabi’s blog.

Waiting for Eden of the East to finish its broadcast so that I can gobble it up ferociously. But between a long time back and a long time from now, I see only a nuclear winter.

Boringgggggggggg.

A series of animated clips by a bunch of people to go along with the verses of a 17th century collaboration of poems (a collaboration to accompany a collaboration :O)

After the first 10 minutes one will realise that the clips are not of equal quality. Some are brilliant and some less so, some longer than others, some prettier. The whole film serves as a collage and wine-tasting list for viewers who’d like to see what animation has to offer rather than an true accompaniment to the poem read.

Some of the usual clips from the usual suspects (Takahata Isao, Yamamura Koji) appear in the list. This is a good clip to be treated to bite-sized chunks of their work.

The screenshots will speak for themselves:

In a time when technology allows us to show pictures so quickly that it gives the illusion of fluid motion, the intentional reduction of these optimum frame-rates to create a jumping, fragmented sequence still has plenty of appeal. Perhaps its abstract flavour and rapid transformation of frames gives us an impression of exaggerated speed and excitement, compared to ‘perfect’ animation which we see all the time and may associate with the mundane.

Or maybe it’s just because music videoes still look so awesome in the format.

グッドバイ(Goodbye) by toe.

Everyone should know this one — Ride On Shooting Star by The Pillows, and also FLCL’s ending clip.

:O!!!

Shintaro Kago put up some delicious videoes on his Youtube account recently. In inclusion to being tastelessly hilarious, they also exude a certain magic charm from their 30-minute Flash video feel.

How can anyone not love this guy?

PS. If you want to know more about this guy, check out his manga collective.

Finally, sleep after a hard night's murder.

You won’t find many done better than this installment of KnK. Perhaps it was the realisation that all the words contained in the books could have a better use than simply confusing conversation and weird terms (though lots of it still comes up).

Kara no Kyoukai 5 brings much glory to the sparkling but soulless series prior to its release. It’s nice seeing some guts and willing to attempt something progressive from the people behind the scenes, especially with the knives of corporate expectations held against their necks all the time… or perhaps it was the fear of sinking that made them do it. Either way, your’s truly is both thankful and impressed.

While the effort to use mix and repeat scenes to illustrate the discourse in the show is commendable, the show’s length would probably have been shortened considerably if they were used more efficiently. We certainly do not need to see a door knob being turned 400 times to guess it is the same door knob. The time could have been spent animating more interesting things like Shiki assembling her sword as she and Tomoe talked—I’m sure many, Japanese or otherwise, would be interested in how it’s done. I was also lightly stung by how Shiki explained that ‘a report hadn’t been broadcast’ after all the time was used to repeat the urban scenes and suggest a passing of time (we aren’t stupid). And did anyone think the energetic violin music was out of place for short ride in the orange ‘Harley’?

Tasty!

I think a really good scene is the static camera portrayal of domestic violence. We watch as the drunk Endou dad throws stuff at his wife and then later brings her to the floor and stomps on her from a single undramatic angle. Had it been done otherwise, the ugliness and message of its commonality behind closed doors would probably have been lost. The puppet art displays were pretty. There was also considerable growth for Shiki as a character other than just a crazed knife-wielding chick obsessed with stabbing and Touko as the chain-smoker who talks too much. Proof that almost everyone in the show has inferential skills and instincts sharper than a single micrometer width blade is revealed. Kokutou is again put in an insignificant position by the gods of good measure.

I do wonder what exactly the dude in the top hat was doing in the show. He seemed to be there simply to pop an eyeball and scream like a whacko. A graduate of the school Akaya and Touko attended should probably have been played a special role other than simply being supper. Could he have been added for the sake of having a caucasian with a top hat in the show? For his face to be on the cover art? Perhaps simply to fill the role of the person who would converse with Touko and expound some random things since Akaya couldn’t leave the apartment complex. Regardless, a character like him is pointless; connections with Touko could have been achieved in countless other creative (and magical) ways. When you have a mechahead in 20th century Tokyo, pretty much anything goes.

Not everyone's very good at it by the age of 25.

To end off, I’d like to discuss Azaka and Kokutou’s little fit about the latter ‘liking Shiki as a man or woman’ and than being disgusted when Kokutou seems open to either. Azaka seems to have forgotten that however Shiki acts, she is still a woman physically. It seems safe to assume that even if Shiki had the psychological programming of a man would still be equally attractive to Kokutou as long as she has the required sexual organs and hormones so Azaka’s disgust seems unwarranted. Even if Touko’s words do not confirm that the present Shiki is a girl, a man-Shiki which thinks himself a man both phyically and mentally would have a lot of trouble handling responses from his female body and wouldn’t behave too ‘normally’ (imagine how he’d handle his period). Either Azaka is a confused little girl, or the common sense present in our lives isn’t so common in the show.

Alright, time for bed.

Ahiru

Graceful swan o’ white

Weld your prince’s heart with light

And fall to nothing.

Fakir

Heart and duty one

As ye’ sheild and sword parry

Thank god you’re not Right.

Rue

Moonlight glows vivid

For in blackness all seems white

And your makeup too.

Mytho

Your nonchalant face

Hides a heart willing to give

And the Third Impact.

—

I am proud of my creative mind — It had only two hours of sleep. Now off to work.

]]> http://madeener.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/haikus-for-princess-tutu-and-co/feed/ 0 madeener princess-tutu http://madeener.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/2009s-anime-related-resolutions/ http://madeener.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/2009s-anime-related-resolutions/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:35:37 +0000 madeener http://madeener.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/2009s-anime-related-resolutions/ ]]>

1. Gobble up as many Madhouse shows as possible before getting drafted into military service.

2. Watch Legend of the Galactic Heroes again because it’s that great.

3. Fulfill this blog’s original purpose.

4. Attempt to be a learned person and inflate my ego while resolving step 3.

That’s about it I guess.

Less bullshit, more deflowering.

After three episodes of dubious quality, the animated Kara no Kyoukai series has finally come to terms with itself. Yes, it has awesome potential. Yes, it can be a fulfilling watch. No, it’s not intelligent and profound.

I’m confident the director of this chapter sorted out the pros of the cons of the franchise and made sure he capitalised on what worked. I’d buy the man a beer if I ever met him.

Kara no Kyoukai lit. means the ‘Boundary of Emptiness’. It’s a story of magic women (and one retarded kid) experiencing a magical world and being misguided in and abused by it because while they are able to control their powers, their minds are still of 21st century Japanese teenagers.

Chapter four elaborates on the title and shows us the weak Shiki, the Eros-Shiki, who would have been the third victim of magic in the series if her Thanatos side hadn’t taken control and overcame the former’s weak will to survive and be happy in an uncertain new world. It shows us Shiki is the protagonist of the show because unlike the last two chicks who were consumed by their magic and then promptly defeated, Shiki is the only one with a strong enough will to pull through as the stronger (though it could be argued that Shiki still did fall prey to the world’s magic, having to sacrifice Eros-Shiki to end the fight). This might be a misfortune because Thanatos-Shiki seems to have terminal constipation of sorts but let’s not dive into that.

"Son of a..."

*Choke*

What makes Kara no Kyoukai interesting is how these powers affect the minds of these vulnerable teenagers and their reactions to it with a little horror value in-between. This episode captured this well with its travelling-through-deep-hell-space scenes, Kokutou’s feature karaoke moment and the casual chop-up ones like the one above. The death-line animation was also improved this time to seem more dangerous and unstable rather than appearing like disco lights.

A characteristic of Kara no Kyoukai is it’s abundance of lore. Being a sister to the Tsukihime franchise, there’s much behind the show for the consumer to explore and appreciate. This forms a wall that newbies to the franchise, like me, have to break through before we are able to grasp the series. Understandably, the people behind the scenes are trying to have this show appeal as much as possible to the small number of fans who supply the majority of their income. The script backs the need to cater to the existing fans explicitly as most of the talk and discussions revolve around the lore of the world and does not try to include the clueless layman into it.

While KnK3 tried to avoid this problem by expanding the violence and blood to burn the need for words, KnK4 tackles this problem by  increasing the amount of out cut screen time exploring and delivering an idea of what the mystery is about before Tohko start’s yapping about it (I still have no idea what’s the point she’s trying to make half the time). I also applaud the executive team’s decision to have Kokutou play the singing extra this time to hide his boundless stupidity as a person and character.

KnK fails to be intelligent because the script focuses mainly on ideas in and reactions to the world’s lore and is naive on the whole. Very little is shown how society and powerless mortals like us react to these magics and second tier consequences hardly exist, and none of the shows seem to care about it.

Of course, the story ends again with Shiki stabbing someone. It always does. Nothing much to say here, except that we get to see her grow the Mulan haircut way. It would be nice if for an episode ends in something other than violence, but as I said before, I’m just a lowly freeloader.