March 2011 Archives

I've made brief mention of the anime convention I'm attending and providing content for this weekend. If anyone is in the area and planning to attend (and just to let you know, the convention is sold-out so you would have had to make that decision a while ago), I thought I'd post what I'm doing and where I'll be so you can come up and say "hi" at the convention. Just so we're clear, though, no stalking allowed :)

Just as a note: because I'm nice and feel like as many people as possible should get a chance to see my recs and materials if they'd like, I'll be uploading my handouts and posting a link to them here after the convention is completed. I might even consider uploading my clips if people seem interested enough. Just remember to credit me if you happen to use them, since I've put days of effort into all the materials.

Sorry that I haven't really been very present this week at the website, guys. I'm in the home stretch of trying to prepare for a convention that's coming up next weekend, and I have loads of work to do (this is what happens when you volunteer to be on and mostly run 9 panels, ugh). Next week's book club posting may end up being a bit later in the afternoon depending on when I get back from the convention.

Windy Tales Episode 1 Discussion

Windy Tales Episode 2 Discussion

Episode Summary

Nao and Miki, accused of not doing a whole lot in terms of activities as the digital camera club, are given an assignment; photograph athletics club member Atsuko while she prepares for a local tournament. Nao, Miki and Atsuko agree that an action shot of her running would be best to submit to the athletics journal. Atsuko explains that she loves the feeling of running when the wind races past her body, something to which Nao and Miki can relate. The three talk about the lack of student participation in their particular clubs, something that seems to be an effect of the drop in the number of students attending their school.

When they begin their attempts to capture Atsuko's image, a number of problems appear. The two photographers have a difficult time taking a decent shot because Atsuko is simply too fast a runner for them. They try all sorts of techniques, including riding a bicycle, to keep up with her long enough to take a steady photograph. They even consider riding their bike down a steep hill, until they remember that there's a police station located at the hill's base. Things seem a bit daunting until Miki puts her mind to pedaling as fast as she can, and with her determination, Nao is able to get the photo that she wants, which she decides to enter in a photography contest.

Happy Spring, everyone!

Windy Tales Episode 1 Discussion

Windy Tales Episode 2 - Summary

Nao and Miki make plans to follow Taiki-sensei to his village in the mountains, but Nao is surprised when she arrives at the train station the following day and Jun tags along. Miki thinks that it might be helpful to have a boy along, a statement with which Nao seems hesitant to agree.  When the three arrive at the home of Yukio, Taiki-sensei's acquaintance, Taiki-sensei doesn't seem very happy about it, but Yukio is accommodating. When Nao tells her that they're all there to learn about the wind, she shares some stories about their village of wind-manipulators. Taiki-sensei seems willing to show the kids just about anything other than how to control the wind, but they meet an elderly man in town who offers to teach them the skills they need to harness the wind's power.

The old man's advice and teachings seem odd at first, until Miki is able to conjure up enough of a breeze to move a small flag. Nao comes to the conclusion that being able to control the wind might have something to do with being in love (it no longer seems coincidental that Miki and Jun have been spending so much time together), but a talk with Yukio makes that particular conclusion seem less likely. The evening of the festival, Taiki-sensei orders the kids to stay inside and to lock the windows which upsets them; the festival was their reason for showing up, after all. Nao decides to brave the strong wind anyway, and Yukio accompanies her to the grove where all the men are making their stand as the violent wind batters them. She witnesses the final moments of the elder who was so kind to teach her the ways of wind manipulation. When she returns to school, she finds that she's developed skills that she never had before.

I thought I'd touch on this, since I'm encoding a lot of video and can't use my computer for much else. Many anime blogs post very comprehensive previews of upcoming anime seasons. I generally don't because there's a lot of work involved and I'm someone who watches a bit of each series anyway, so why worry? But, since I'm here and have the time, I figured that I might take a look at some upcoming series that interest me, and explain my thought process about them (even if it turns out to be incorrect in the end - my optimistic expectations tend to get smashed sometimes). One thing I can definitely say is that my opinions are probably a bit different from those of many of the more mainstream and group-updated blogs, so take that how you will.

As a note, I'm using this chart as my primary guide (click here for a larger version):

The Epic of Griffith by ReggieSmalls (DZ Studios)

A very odd choice of audio, which recounts the epic of Gilgamesh with amusing wordplay and some choice scenes from throughout the Berserk anime. Here, Griffith stars as the titular hero.

Journey of a Witch by StarMasayume (StarInMyPocket Productions)

I really liked Tweeny Witches; it's one of those rare shows that seemed inclined to allow various animators to shine  and had a very creative approach to its visual direction. It's only really big sin is that it bit off more than it could chew plot-wise; with a few threads edited out it might have been more palatable to the masses. This AMV pays tribute to the heroic spirit of the series protagonists, Arusu, Sheila and Eva, and features some of the beautiful artwork and animation the show has to offer.

Katanagatari Trailer by Wrote

Watching this trailer only reminds me that I really need to watch the rest of this series. From what I've heard, it begins in a very standard way and then, around episode 4, becomes something much better. Anyway, this is a great trailer for the series that highlights some of the beautiful and unique artistry. There might be spoilers, I don't know; I've only seen the first episode. But this certainly makes me want to clear out some time to watch the rest.

Despite what the title may seem to say, I�m not questioning the ability of girls to kick all sorts of butt. I have, on occasion, risen up and mightily kicked plenty of booty (just humor me, please). What this is referring to is a post on the Funimation blog from a couple of weeks ago regarding the company�s participation on some sort of a thematic video offering on the Playstation Store. I could barely believe it when I clicked on that link, and found a post that pretty much celebrated the fact that Funimation has a habit of picking up trashy, questionable properties that feature women fighting each-other while wearing very little in the way of clothing.

I�m not going to deny the fact that many of the characters from the featured series are good at what they do and exhibit plenty of fighting prowess. But why is it that so many series that feature women of considerable physical power also have to undermine this aspect of those very characters by putting their bodies on display? My theory has always been that perhaps the creators of these series see women�s power and their potential ownership of their own sexuality as a very dire threat to some archaic social order, and so it�s an example of their reassurance to their viewership � �don�t worry guys, they might be able to beat you up, but at the end of the day, their bodies are all ours to do with as we please.� This, of course, doesn�t assume that everyone watching these shows has this sort of thing on their minds, but the fact that I rarely hear much outrage (or even many minor complaints) about it means that it�s not something that many people take into consideration, and that in-and-of-itself makes me sort of sad.

What also bothers me is that Funimation has plenty of series in their library that feature kick-butt women who aren�t reduced to sexual objects (or, at least if they�re considered sexy, they own it, and there�s nothing wrong with that). Their inclusion of Claymore on the list is a definite start; while almost the entire cast of that series is made up of female warriors, it�s never a question of the characters being on display for anyone. Lia de Beaumont of Le Chevalier d�Eon comes back from the dead to avenge her own death. Ogata Rin of Rideback helps to lead a government revolution, for crying out loud. Maka Albarn of Soul Eater punches a Kishin (read: really powerful evil being) right in the face (and lives to tell about it!). Frankly, this could have been an opportunity for Funimation to take the high road and feature some very good series that treat their female characters with some modicum of respect and dignity. They completely missed said opportunity, and decided to spend even more time promoting anime that feature large, unrealistic breasts as major selling points (I mean, the Sekirei ad campaign featured the tagline �boobies for the win!� after all), while also promoting an anime that features the woeful climax of having a now-brain-damaged female character reduced to eating dog food off the floor of a warehouse (and no, that doesn�t link to a video, but rather to the very review that tipped me off to how horrendous Master of Martial Hearts truly is).

Unfortunately, the anime fandom can be really hard to navigate for those of us on the lookout for interesting, well-balanced characters of any gender. There are plenty of glistening bishounen and buxom, bouncing bijin � easy stereotypes that appeal to broad audiences. Try to find someone who�s more than that, someone who can be human while also being superhuman � I�ll wait. It�s definitely a tough proposition and it�s so rare to find someone who really fits the bill. But there are so many better choices than some of the ones that Funimation came up with here, and it frustrates me that they seemed to take the low road, and gleefully so. I�ve mentioned a few here, but feel free to share any female characters (Funimation catalog or not) that you find particularly interesting in the comments.

Have you guys checked out the first episode of Fuujin Monogatari (Windy Tales) yet? The first Book Club post is up, so come on over and share your thoughts!

Over the last few days, I've observed so many people demonstrating support for Japan in the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami. People have offered not only emotional and moral support, but have put a lot of money towards helping out while the country recovers. I'm really impressed by how so many members of the anime and manga fandom have stepped up to be supportive.

Of course, there are bad apples in every bunch, and this situation is no exception. While I don't think it's constructive to call a lot of attention to these folks, I've found myself compelled to mention how angry it made me to see some anime fans griping about delays in their weekly simulcasts or whining that the next episode of Star Driver wasn't being broadcast on the day that it had originally been scheduled to. It's been just... very frustrating to occasionally encounter stuff like that, especially after having seen video of towns literally being washed away by the overflowing tides. The idea of someone acting so entitled to something that they ignore the circumstances of the people who are there to provide it for them is something which has bothered me since my days of working in retail; the complete lack of empathy and disconnect from problems of greater importance can get a little disheartening after a while.

I can get over a few whiny anime fans, though. What's really been sort of distressing to me are the people who seem to have it in their minds that the earthquake and tsunami are in some way karmic retaliation for the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yes, I've seen that come up more than once. Kind of sickening, huh? Rather than sit here at the keyboard and make myself even angrier by arguing against that line of thinking, I'll link to an article which does a much better (and less emotional) job of explaining how sometimes we feel compelled to blame things which might have no real cause (other than natural) on others:

The Japanese Quake, Pearl Harbor, Karmic Payback And Cognitive Biases

Essentially, when bad things happen to us, we want to shift the blame to someone, but when we do bad things to others, we blame it on unavoidable circumstances (like a storm making us late to an appointment) without affording the other person the same benefit of the doubt. It's actually a very eye-opening line of thinking - knowing that you might be doing the very same thing to someone you love (blaming your significant other for making you late when really it wasn't intentional on their part) makes you stop and think about the blame you're laying everywhere. Food for thought.

I promise something cheerier and more anime-related as the week goes on, I just needed to get that off my chest. In fact, Here are some nice pictures drawn by artists featured in Morning, Evening to help inspire victims of the earthquake.

I'm undecided on a format for these posts, so I might be trying a few things out for the first couple of weeks. Let me know if you prefer one way or another.

Windy Tales Episode 1 - Summary

Nao is the president of the 2-member digital camera club, and spends much of her time on her middle school's roof taking photographs of the sky and, she says, the wind. One day she sees something unexpected - a flying cat - which startles her enough that she falls from the roof. She's luckily left mostly unscathed, since her fall was slowed by a well-timed gust of wind. However, her classmates and teachers all treat the incident as a suicide attempt and react accordingly. Though Nao would love to go out to the roof to take another look around, the school principal makes it an off-limits area for the time being.

Nao recruits her friends Miki (the other member of the photography club) and Jun (her male classmate who she's known since elementary school) to help her locate the flying cat, but with so many cats lounging around town the search seems futile. It's only when Nao returns to school and sees that the door to the roof is open a crack that she gets any answers. Another of her classmates, Ryouko, is not only on the roof but feeding the very cat which Nao first saw take flight. Ryouko explains that the cat manipulates wind currents to stay aloft, and that it learned this skill from the girls' teacher, Taiki-sensei, who used it to cushion Nao's fall. Ryouko tells Nao that Taiki-sensei returned to his hometown to attend a wind festival, and Nao gets Jun and Miki to accompany her as she pursues him.

By now I'm sure that everyone is aware of the devastation in the aftermath of the magnitude 8.9 earthquake that shook Japan and caused a tsunami that resulted in even more damage to both Japan and other countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. I woke up this morning to early video footage of the destruction, and spent some very tense minutes wondering whether friends of mine living and working in the country were all right (they are, thank goodness - though one friend of mine got to spend the night trying to sleep on the floor of Narita Airport).

While I've read some very entitled comments throughout the day (whining about delays in anime broadcasts... you're doin' it wrong!), I've also been so impressed by the outpouring of support from the majority of the anime/manga/Japanese culture fans who I'm friends with on the internet. I think that there's a strong desire to help out the people of Japan and other countries who have been affected by the disaster. While this may be redundant at this point, I feel like it's part of my duty as both an anime fan and a student of Japanese culture to stress that no amount of help in this situation is insignificant and that people should give as much as they're able, whether through monetary donations or simply words of support. Here are a few places people can go to help:

Anime News Network has posted a list of web sites where individuals can donate funds to the relief effort. This includes the Red Cross organizations from multiple countries (I've posted a donation to the American Red Cross already today), as well as various other charities.

Just for good measure, Lady Gaga is offering a wristband for sale which reads "We Pray for Japan," with all proceeds going to the relief effort.

Let's just remember that, though many of us enjoy Japan primarily through its cultural exports, it's the well-being of the country's people that's most important right now. Let's all show our support any way that we can.

ETA: Crunchyroll is now matching relief donations dollar-for-dollar at their website.

Manga creator Takehiko Inoue, of Slam Dunk and Vagabond fame, has drawn a series of �smile� art pieces in response to the disaster. (via ANN)

Have those of you participating in the book club watched episode 1 of Windy Tales yet? Just checking *wink*

Paranoia Drift by Maniaki (Geniun)

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, while most definitely a good movie, quickly became a woefully-overused source for AMVs. I can understand why; it's a film, so that means that an editor need only rip one DVD and be familiar with just 2 hours of material rather than an entire series spanning multiple discs. Unfortunately, when something's utilized to the point of exhaustion, it's hard to get enthused about it. This AMV, however, takes the material and puts a decidedly different spin on it, creating a very psychologically-unsettling end product.

Piece by Piece by Megamom (OYEP)

The beauty of the music in our dreams... I originally didn't care for the use of diegetic sound in this piece (and normally don't in general in regards to vidding - I usually find it distracting), but after a re-watch it kind of grew on me. I think it gives the AMV a sense of liveliness; a little sprinkle of reality to go along with the almost unreal beauty of the mundane world.

Smiley by qyll (Izzle Kizzle Studios)

I have this knack of falling in love with shows that attract teeny-tiny fandoms. My favorite anime of all, Dennou Coil, sadly does not get enough love when it comes to fan works, which is why I was so happy to find this AMV. It really captures the kind of child-like, scavenger-hunt quality that the show has during its more mundane moments, as if this secret world of children exists only just below the surface where we adults can't see.

Or, perhaps I should say, let's begin this quiet, meditative journey into the world of Windy Tales. Though my personal preference might have been to take things at a quicker pace, the majority of the readers who responded with a preference said that 1 episode a week would be the right pace to take, at least at the outset.  This will actually turn out to be something of a blessing for me because I'm going to be spending a lot of my free time this month preparing for the Anime Detour anime convention, where I am hosting or co-hosting something like 9(!) panels, as well as helping out with some AMV-contest stuff and apparently participating in the Iron Artist competition(!!). In short, I'll be busy beyond belief for about the next 3-and-a-half weeks, so 1 episode at a time is just about right. After that point, or maybe at the halfway point in the series, we can decide whether that pace is still working or whether we'd like to change it.

So when should we start? I thought about this for a while, and decided that I'll be posting a discussion post each week on Sunday. That should give people the first half of the weekend to watch the episode (if they lack time during the week, as I know some people do). So that said...

Please watch Episode 1 by/before 3/13/2011.

Or, at least, know that I'll have a posting up with some thoughts about the first episode by that point, so don't be surprised by it. I'll be offering my own thoughts and observations, as well as maybe posing some questions. While obviously no one is obligated to say anything, this will be more fun if people offer their own opinions, so don't be shy (I don't bite, unless, of course, you say something abusive, but then that's only ever happened once or twice). I actually want to know what people think, especially since I haven't watched the show before now either.

I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts! Just as a note, Unfabulous released a translated version of episode 9, so if you've grabbed their other higher-quality released, check for that one at the website provided in the previous post.

(Whoops, fell asleep on the couch last night and forgot to actually post this, silly me!)

Flushed by ScoobINSMDBZ (Divine Illusion Productions)

It seems like many of the AMVs I link to are either very heavy or totally goofy and cracked-out, so how about something cute, sweet and fluffy for once? This Kimi ni Todoke AMV is a pretty straightforward Sawako x Kazehaya tribute, and is distinctive in its cuteness. It's a nice feel-good AMV that makes one wish for Spring to finally arrive.

Blame it on 2009: A Good, Good Year by Dr. Faux Pas, Ileia (Corndog Vidvids)

A fun compilation that pays tribute to many anime from the year 2009 (and surprisingly, I'd agree that the majority of the anime selections that appear in this video were pretty good shows, or at least entertaining in some way). It's one of those situations where I marvel at how many sources were used and how cohesive the video turned out to be in spite of it.

The Perfect Pair by Kosmit

Isaac and Miria are silly, silly criminals. This AMV features a few of their more ridiculous schemes and plans, as well as their over-the-top personalities.

Eden Awakening by vinylvengeance (Mad Science Labs)

Freedom is one of those series that I really kind of liked, but which hasn't gotten a lot of appreciation amongst the broader anime fandom. It's often a little cheesy, but I do appreciate the ideas behind it, as well as the interesting animation style. This AMV presents the first half of the story with some manga-style framing, which works fairly well.

I'm sort of amused to report that, rather than offer up a ton of series from which to choose, most of the people who replied to the previous post about the book-club seemed to be interested in one of my sample suggestions: Fuujin Monogatari (Windy Tales). I'm actually sort of happy that so many people showed interest, because I've never watched the entire thing myself and have really wanted to. So I think it's a good choice to start the book-club off on the right foot.