February 2011 Archives

A couple of friends introduced me to this Youtube channel a while back, but I sort of forgot to give it a good look until tonight. But what a great find! While the channel might have a somewhat... dubious title, it becomes clear soon enough that the recipes don't involve actually cooking with dog as an ingredient, but do involve a dog as the video host/narrator. The recipe videos are a veritable cross-section of popular and well-known Japanese dishes, ranging from melon-pan to Christmas cake to a very cute bento boxed lunch. As someone who truly enjoys both cooking videos and Japanese cuisine, this is a really great find. Oh, and did I mention that they're conveniently in English?

Here are a couple of my favorite videos so far:

After a couple of days I ended up receiving quite a few responses from people interested in participating in an anime watch-along or "book-club" as I've been calling it, which is great! Since there seems to be enough enthusiasm, I figured that I would go ahead with it and see what we come up with.

The most important order of business is, of course, to figure out a series to watch. Personally, I'm very open to suggestions. My "to-watch" list is enormous, and my "I want to re-watch this" list is also pretty massive, so I'm actually more inclined to leave it up to those of you out there to choose. Just a few ground rules:

Let's keep the episode count to a manageable level. I'd be willing to watch series of a length up to 50-ish episodes (for example, Cross Game or perhaps the two seasons of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex), but just judging from my own personal viewing history, my attention span tends to fail right around episode 40 or 50 and there are very few series of that length that I've even been able to finish. So sorry, no One Piece or Doraemon at this time.

Let's try to stay away from anything that's pure fanservice. I'm actually very open to anime from just about any genre, including those which might include some nudity. It's not my favorite thing, but I can deal with it. What I can't deal with is watching shows that are non-stop, wall-to-wall exploitation or which might have a story, but which bury that beneath panty shots or unnecessary sexuality. This goes for both "traditional" (i.e. aimed at straight males) ecchi series and yaoi series. I don't discriminate :P So try to use your best judgment and let's keep things PG-13 for now. Oh, and nothing that's too violent either.

Let's not be judgmental about where we're getting our episodes. While I'm under the impression that most of the people who visit this site are from North America, I'm sure there are also readers from other countries. Not every anime that's licensed in NA is similarly available elsewhere, and vice-versa. Not everyone has a lot of disposable income to be spending on DVDs. While I can assure you that, if we decide to watch something that I can get on DVD, I'll buy the DVD, I'm not going to bug anyone else about how/where they're watching something. No one else should, either.

Let's be open-minded! Whatever we end up picking might not seem like something you want to watch, but give it a try - you might be surprised! Speaking from experience, watching anything is more fun if you have people to discuss it with, and even if a show isn't to your tastes, talking about it with others might help you to discover an angle that you hadn't considered before. You might end up appreciating it!

So, with that said, how about some suggestions? Like I said, I'm very open. I'm even willing to re-watch some series that I wasn't a fan of in the first place, if others are interested in watching it. I pledge to be as open-minded as possible. Here are a few suggestions to get your ideas flowing:

• Rose of Versailles (39 episodes) - The shoujo classic which tells a tale of family duty and romance set against the backdrop of the French Revolution. While most modern shoujo series set their sites on high-school, this one has a decidedly different feel to it since it deals with European nobility. It's a series that I think everyone should see at least once, especially since many people consider it a partial inspiration for Revolutionary Girl Utena.
• Fuujin Monogatari (Windy Tales) (13 Episodes) - Nao is a member of her school's photography club, who mainly shoots pictures of the sky and clouds. One day when she's on the school's roof, she sees something strange - a flying cat! I've only seen the first episode of this, but it seems like a neat little slice-of-life show with a unique visual style and a touch of natural magic. I'm certainly interested in watching more of it.
• Someday's Dreamers (12 Episodes) and Summer Skies (12 Episodes) - These are two stories which take place in the same "universe" and appear to have similar story arcs, but are sort of divergent in tone and execution (some people favor one over the other; I tend to think it's just a different purpose and feel). In this world, there are people able to use magic. In both series, the main characters learn about using magic and the type of ethical nuance that entails.

So how about you guys? What are some of your suggestions? Anything that anyone out there has been curious about, or is there something you've been dying to watch and have just been waiting for an excuse? Let me know in the comments, and I'll do a follow-up later in the week so we can vote on it!

Nausea in D Major by Cyanna (Aquiline Studios)

I looooove Nodame Cantabile, so much so that I consider it as one of my top 10 anime series. I've seen very few AMVs using footage from the series, but many of the ones that are out there are pretty good. This one takes a humorous look at the relationship between Nodame and Chiaki, from Chiaki's POV. Here, Nodame becomes the girlfriend from hell, made of goofiness and bad habits.

KinoPOP by Creed_FR (Soul's Team)

Perhaps the most memorable aspect of the Arakawa Under the Bridge franchise was its visuals, since the humor was often spotty (though it did hit me the right way quite a bit) and the story kind of fell short of where it could have gone. This AMV is kind of an overview of the show's visual techniques, cut together competently.

A Psychedelic Lovers' Dream by drewaconclusion ("It's a Trap!" Productions)

Talk about super-obscurity, how many of you out there are familiar with the short (half-hour?) OVA, 1001 Nights, based on Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations? I found the clip by chance some years ago, and it's a fascinating blend of different animation styles and orchestral music which creates a story about two lovers. The AMV is a meditation on that (some of the imagery is sexual and might not be safe for work).

Longed for Him. Got Him. Shit by godix (Nazi Death Kitty)

This AMV is interesting not so much for its subject matter, which is fairly standard, but for its unusual use of the frame. The editor uses a non-standard aspect ratio (1600 x 400) and plays around with it to help tell the story. It's fascinating, even if one isn't necessarily into the anime or the music.

I don�t know if anyone else is like this, but there gets to be a certain point during the Winter when I simply lose my drive to do much of anything, including keeping up with blogging. It doesn�t really help that, once my first episode reviews are completed, things really start to slow down � Winter is always extra-sparse in terms of shows, too. Sure, I could be talking about the numerous topics that pop into my mind during the day� but the lure of my comfortable bed is sometimes much too strong to resist.

Last week during a conversation in the comments section of another entry, an idea was brought up that might help to keep the site�s content fresh (when everything else is frozen) and help to eliminate some of my personal backlog, as well as allow me to re-watch some things I�ve been meaning to for ages. It�s not really that I lack the time to do these things, but there are just times when I lack the personal motivation, so my solution was to make myself accountable to other people. In a nutshell, I�d like to start an anime �book club� of sorts, and do posts about our progress here at the website. I�ve actually tried participating in something similar to this before � ANN has held a similar watch-along in the forums previously. My problem with that was that the ANN community is simply too large and I didn�t really feel like I was participating in a discussion as much as I was sharing an opinion along with many other people who were also sharing an opinion (what I mean is that the forum was/is impersonal unless you have a very flamboyant or in-your-face personality, and the posts about the show we were watching lacked the kind of back-and-forth that makes discussions more fun).

I�m mostly making this post to see if anyone else reading is interested in pursuing something like this. Even if there were just a few people, it might be fun to try out, and it certainly might be an opportunity to beat the Winter blues (though if anyone by chance lives in the Southern hemisphere, they probably aren�t in the same rut that I�m in a the moment!). Sound off in the comments if this sounds like something you�d like to have a hand in, and we�ll go from there. If there�s interest, we�ll deal with show suggestions at a later time.

Skin by irriadin

A bit rough, to be sure, but for a first AMV it's quite good. It's a retelling of Claymore that distills the story down to its core elements and themes. Clare's past and her relationship with Teresa become fuel for her quest for revenge against Priscilla.

The Stage by Cross/Fade (AMP)

Love, love, love this. What an awesome combination of sources - scenes from Nodame Cantabile and Aoi Bungaku (the "Hashire, Melos!" portion) are joined to illustrate how wonderful the combination of music and acting can be when paired to create drama. The AMV is only about 3 minutes long, but it paints a great picture of both what happens on stage and what goes on behind the scenes to bring a play to life.

Dragon Screamer by MimS (AMV-France)

I'm... just sort of surprised that this even exists. Giant Killing AMV that's mostly just like Soccer! Awesome! Action!. Well-made and fun.

The Outlaw Ogata Rin by Trisa

I am really a fan of Rideback, mainly because I think it's a really cool story of a woman who's lost her way and who's able to find some meaning in life again. This AMV twists that story, and paints the main character as an outlaw and a killer. You don't need knowledge of the show's plot to understand the story here. And ooooh the pretty, pretty pictures (the other, more shallow reason I like this show).

I was asked by a friend recently whether I had any ideas for a list of romantic anime for a Valentine's Day list (here are his picks; a good range of classic and current series). This may come as a surprise to some people, but I find that very few anime claiming to be romantic actually are; most of the time it seems like the "romance" genre marker is merely indicative of male and female characters engaging in humorous pseudo-romantic hijinks or melodramatic angst-fests that are inserted into comedy, action or ecchi series. Call me crabby, but I feel particularly underserved when it comes to anime romances.

On one hand, there are shoujo series which focus on teen romance. I generally find these types of shows fairly innocuous and often times pretty innocent, but therein lies the problem; many of the characters are new to love and dating, and so the main story arc of the show is concerned with how they overcome their virginal shyness and eventually confess their love for each other. On occasion these types of shows can be enjoyable - despite the fact that, as of right now, the main characters of Kimi ni Todoke still haven't fessed-up to their feelings, they're all so innocent and likeable that I couldn't possibly be frustrated (and woe unto he or she who comes complaining about the show to me - they'll be thoroughly ignored). Most of the time, though, the shows aren't constructed nearly well enough to make the foot-shuffling and indecision of the protagonists seem charming, and the frequency of characters behaving poorly to each-other in many shoujo series makes me wary of getting too enthusiastic about the genre.

On the other end of the spectrum are what I call shounen-style romances, mainly because I don't really have a better way of classifying them. They're ones with a male main character who gets most of the focus. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but these shows have a really bad habit of turning their female characters into one-note stereotypes, and that's something that will never really sit well with me. I put most harem series under this umbrella, and magical girlfriend series too; these types of shows, whether they're more action-oriented or have a more laid-back slice-of-life feel to them, all reek of entitled wish-fulfillment to me, and generally come across as sexist (and the same could probably be said for most reverse-harem series too, but those are exponentially less frequent these days).

And then of course there are the same-sex relationships portrayed in anime and manga, which more often than not seem to fetishize the same-sex relationship being depicted rather than weave a tale about two people falling in love in a non-contrived manner. As with the other two, this isn't absolute across the board, but it can sometimes seem that way.

Perhaps the problem is that Japanese animation is generally so gender-focused in its appeal; the demographics "shounen" and "shoujo" are often so absolute that shows made to appeal to those demographics seem extremely exclusive, almost as if someone hung a "no girls allowed" sign outside (or "no boys allowed," choose your flavor). What's really lacking are series that are simply about developing relationships, where both individuals involved in the relationship are offered character development. It's not often that I see a series where the characters feel extremely real to me; it's kind of sad that what we accept as "realism" in characters often simply boils down to a slight tweak in a well-worn stereotype, or a situation where a normally one-note character has the added charm of a bad attitude, or wears the false mask of a contrived "dark and/or mysterious" past.

The best that I've been able to do lately is with things like Ristorante Paradiso, which takes what seems like a very squicky set-up (21-year-old girl travels to Rome and begins to fall for a much older gentleman waiter) and spins it into something classy and refined; not only are there distinctly romantic undertones to the story, the two main characters both undergo really exceptional story arcs where they each come to terms with something that's held them back in life. I also have a soft spot for Nodame Cantabile, especially the latter two seasons; it's rare that an anime series dares go beyond the initial confession of love to examine difficulty of balancing a career with romantic pursuits. It's also very funny, which of course qualifies it not so much as a romance, but more as a romantic comedy, but at the very least it doesn't sell either aspect short.

I probably sound sort of curmudgeonly, but all I'm really trying to say is that anime's particular talent of blending genres unfortunately hasn't provided us with many really good romances, at least which appeal to my admittedly particular tastes. Where's the love?

Sugar Voodoo by pink sugar

I'm kind of a sucker when it comes to good uses of nostalgia material, and this AMV really fits the bill. Who can resist the joining of David Bowie's Enchanted Package... uh, *ahem* I mean Labyrinth with Princess Tutu? No one, that's who. This is a really enjoyable AMV that goes on just a liiiiiitle bit too long, but I can't really fault the author too much - having made a few AMVs myself, I realize how difficult it can be to come up with even a couple of minutes of material, so the fact that this one stays relatively strong for more than 5 is a pretty good accomplishment.

Warzone by Relliknl

In sharp contrast to the other Flag video I posted a while back, this AMV focuses less on the human aspect of the show, and more on the military aspects. I'm not as big a fan of this approach, but I do like it when AMV editors use lesser-known sources in their work, so there you go. It's certainly well put together.

Deception by requiett (12th Illusion Studio)

Using the trailers for Inception might not be especially original at this point, but coupling it with Akira does something that I didn't think would happen - make me want to watch Akira again. This AMV makes good use of some of the weird, hallucinogenic imagery from the film, though some of the lip synch is a little bit off (it's not a major problem or a deal-breaker, just an observation based on the fact that the lip-flaps in Akira were more faithful to the spoken dialog than they often are in other anime).

Silhouettes by LantisEscudo (Honou Productions)

Is it bad of me that I probably spent more time thinking about how tedious it probably was to do the color masking than what the AMV was actually trying to say? Anyway, this AMV uses strong splashes of color to boil down the roles of the characters in Utena to core fairy tale concepts. I don't know how much I agree with it, but it's certainly an interesting idea.

Now that I'm several weeks into the season, I thought I'd pop in to share what I've been watching from this season and what I'm not. I'm actually watching more series than I thought I would, but that in itself isn't really much of a surprise; the same thing happened last Winter, mainly because there weren't a whole lot of series from which to choose and I ended up watching some things of dubious quality just to keep from being bored. Anyway, here's the scoop on what I've been watching:

Carry-overs from Fall 2010:

Star Driver (18 Episodes) - I warmed up to this series even more once it entered its second half. It seemed as if much of the first half was devoted to frivolity, and I'm guess that made a lot of people impatient; I think what was really going on, in retrospect, was a whole lot of set-up and character development which is paying off now. I was very impressed by the few episodes leading up to the conclusion of Mizuno's story arc, which helped to emphasize the unsettling feeling I began to have regarding the island and its customs. And then, of course, there was the conclusion to the last episode which featured Keito prominently... let's just say that I'm anxiously awaiting the explanation for that.

Sweet Tooth by Ileia (Corndog Vidvids)

First off is a video with a good moral lesson - eating too many sweets is bad for your dental health. Some cute, Honey-centric clips from Ouran High School Host Club set to Green Day's "Novocain."

The Cyrus Virus by Ileia (Corndog Vidvids)

Please don't hurt me! I can't be held responsible if this silly song gets stuck in your head for days and days. What's cool here is that a fairly annoying pop song was put to good use, its infectious nature telling an entertaining story. I don't know if this is the first Summer Wars AMV that I've seen, but it's certainly an amusing use of the footage.

Stupid Couple by jubjub2

This AMV does a good job of presenting an overview of the completely silly and dysfunctional relationship between the two protagonists of Lovely Complex. It's a high energy piece that does a great job of highlighting the frantic, silly nature of the show and the two characters' love-hate relationship.

The Darkest of Places by Kosmit

There never was a brighter, cheerier song about anal sex. At least, I've never heard one. The bizarre relationship between Senjougahara and Araragi serves as a nice backdrop for this song.

Pointy Face by Ultimatetransfan (UTF Enterprises)

In honor of Kaiji getting a second season this Spring (!), here's a rather obvious combination - Akagi and Kaiji with a remix of Lady Gaga's "Pokerface." All the scenes look totally ridiculous out of context, but the shows are totally intense and I can't wait for more Kaiji.

Kuragehime (Princess Jellyfish)

Number of Episodes: 11

Production Company: Brains Base

ANN Encyclopedia Wikipedia Funimation Video

Brief Overview: The women of Amamizukan all have a few things in common: they like to geek-out, they carry more than their share of anxiety about the outside world, and they want nothing to do with boys or the stylish denizens of Tokyo. The intervention of a cross-dressing "princess," as well as the impending sale of their boarding house, is the beginning of a change in their collective perspective.