Anime

[Hachimitsu]

I forgot to post here for a while.
Brian, thank you so much for that detailed description of the intro. I found the floating heads of the girls in the Buddha heads.

Hal, it is so nice to see you posting in the anime thread!!!
I may give Outlaw Star a try once I candownload again in January. Have you tried Code Geass? That is what got me into mecha. I tried Gundam 00 but the premise is so lame (any good Mecha you could recomend Hal?)
And yes Mith, many people have pointed out that the main characters in Code Geass look similar to a couple of Clamps past characters.

I only watched the first couple episodes of FMA Brotherhood and I just didn't have the time for the streaming and waiting for stuff to buffer (a couple of times I have had buffereing issues on the Funimation site) I may give it a try later.

I have not seen Ponyo, and I love My Neighbour Totoro so I don't know if I will check it out.

Currently I am checking out a couple of the new things comming out although this season is lack lustre. I am watching Kobato (from Clamp), Nyan Koi (it's quite funny so far), Fairy tail (leave me alone, I like it), and currently I am trying out Letter Bee (Tegami Bachi). It is a very interesting anime, and it is very very dreamy. So far I like it but I have only seen up to ep 2.

Since I have been listening to quite a few anime podcasts and have been trying out stuff that came out before 2000. I really liked the movie They Were 11 (which is a shoujo although some guys doubt that, it's just not the typical shoujo), and I have watched the first 4 episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena. It's pretty obvious it's 90'sbut it's pretty interesting, and the music is pretty different. So far the premise is quite odd but I want to know how it turns out. It's about a girl named Utena who wants to be a prince, and this girl Anthy, who is the Rose Bride. (Iam guessing our Anthy did not get the name from that anime).

Anyway, has anyone tried out a couple of the series I've mentioned? Does anyone listen to anime podcasts? I find them pretty useful.

[halplm]

I have not watched Code Geass. From what I've read, it's heavy on drama, which is something I've been trying to avoid recently.

Contrary to that attempt however, is the new release of Evangelion 1.01, which is a complete retelling of the Evangelion story from scratch in 4 movies.

The first two are out in Japan, and the first just got released in the US on DVD a couple of weeks ago. The first movie is basically the first 6 episodes of the show, but much higher animation quality and there are some clear changes in direction from the original story. From what I've read, the second one has even more radical changes.

While it is clearly a retelling of the story, there are intriguing possibilities that it is actually more of a sequal or alternate version, much like the previous movies could be interpreted. I have high hopes, actually, that this retelling may tie all the various versions of the story into a cohesive whole, which would be impressive, and a crowning acheivment on a troubled career for Hideaki Anno.

As for Mecha that I've enjoyed. The previously mentioned Godannar is quite funny at times, but is entirely embracing all cliche's in mecha anime . The one I enjoyed most previous to that, which is somewhat more unique, but also heavy on cliches was Full Metal Panic.

[Hachimitsu]

I have heard Full Metal Panic is good. I will give it a try (eventually). I have a lot to try in my 2 terabytes . Thank you so much for explaining the new Evangelion movies. I have never seen anything associated with Evangelion and I did not know what part of the story they were telling so thank you for explaining.
As I am home for the holidays, my anime viewing has dropped significantly. At least I have podcasts to listen to. On Monday one of my anime enablers is coming by and I am giving her some stuff. Hopefully I will get some recomendations, maybe some more 90's stuff.

[Hachimitsu]

I cracked under pressure as I am stressed about the possibility of losing funding for the upcoming semester. I have watched up to ep 26 of Revolutionary Girl Utena (on a teeny tiny netbook screen). It's some really weird messed up stuff, but I like it, it is not a typical shoujo at all.

Where the heck do they get these plots from? Also I wanna know why the heck Anthy rolls up her hair in this awful frumpy hairdo. Gah!!! Also seeing it I totally feel the 90's vibe. (The 90's was when I was first exposed to anime.) I even recognized the bishies and the creepy quasi sexuality. Also crazy hair colours everywhere you look (pink, purple, green, red and different shades of blue). I do like the shadow puppet girls, although they are kind of weird.

Also I realize now, that current anime does not use repeat footage, since Utena is a good show, but they do use some repeat stock footage (like Utena going up stairs). They even repeat a speech (about a chick and an egg, a speech which they make fun of later on).

The plot, is difficult to explain, but basically, Utena when she was little, her parents died and a prince showed up and made her feel better and gave her a ring (with a rose seal). Utena was so impressed with him, she wants to become a prince herself. When she is in high school, she ends up challenging somone to a duel, which isn't allowed, but he notices her ring (from that prince), which means she is Duelist (this is news for Utena). The duelists fight to win possession of the Rose Bride and the plot thickens from there.

So far I would totally recomend it and I notice that when I watch older anime it makes me appreciate the new stuff. (Just comparing spinning roses in Utena and Ouran high school host club shows a big difference.)

[MithLuin]

Where the heck do they get these plots from?

My friend asked me who I wanted to bring back to life, since that seemed to be a common thread in the anime plots I related to her (mostly FMA and Tsubasa RC).

There is a bit of fantastic craziness in anime plots, but that's part of what makes them fun!

I have not watched Code Geass. From what I've read, it's heavy on drama, which is something I've been trying to avoid recently.

Erm, yes. Very heavy on the drama. There's an insane plot twist at the end of each of the first 8 episodes, and that continues through most of the rest of the series. Lelouch (the protagonist) is a Chessmaster and/or Magnificent Bastard, so you get these elaborate, dramatic plans to take over the world (no, really), but something always goes wrong at the last minute, because the universe hates him. So, drama overload! All sorts of family issues, secret identities, and best friends trying to kill each other. Politics, Fighting mixed with Politics, and just plain old fighting. (And a brief sound episode extra) These clips aren't overly spoilery, but should give some indication of what type of series it is (they're all from the first season).

I'm completely obsessing over it at the moment, but I suppose it will wear off...eventually. Maybe after I write a few massive fanfics, I'll get it out of my system.


Oh, and I also picked up the first volume of Tokyo Babylon, so I could look at early CLAMP (1991).

I know it's based on a video game, but I'm interested in Valkyria Chronicles. I only saw a couple of episodes, but I think it'd be fun to cosplay Alicia

[Hachimitsu]

Oh Goodness Mith, TV Tropes. I spent the whole day there the other day trying to understand Revolutionary Girl Utena as I finished the series.

Code Geass is very heavy on the drama but that is a part of what makes it great. Then they amp it up at the end of season 1. I will never ever forget that. I think thaty was one of the most daring season enders I have ever seen, animated or live action. Also I think it solidified for me Code Geass' unpredictability which is what I love about anime (even if it's unpredictability frustrates me sometimes).

*shakes head at remembering end of season 1 of Code geass*

Have you heard there is a new project for Code Geass? It's sort of like this new manga story based on an original charater.


Since I just finished Utena I have some comments. Although I ended up frustrated with the end of the story I am still pleased I watched this older anime. Although it's very symbolic and some of the stuff I wasn't sure if they were making fun of certain tropes and stylings (is the spinning rose overload supposed to be funny? I think it is), I think the anime is very very worthwhile and people should watch it. I especially appreciate it as it's not a typical shoujo. (Also I realize why Anthy had that awful frumpy hairdo).

Here is some of my comments from just finishing the anime
*Crossposted from B77*
spoiler
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(The creepy quasi sexuality is now freakin creepy overt sexuality, with incest no less!!! Why do the Japanese like the incest!!! Not to mention most of the characters are extremely under-age!!! In the later half of the series it gets so sexually charged and disturbing. The lead is freaking 14 years -old!! Jury is like in grade 10!!! She looks almost 30!!! The art for the movie (which I have heard is pretty bad, so I am not going to watch it), seems even more overtly sexual to the point where everyone looks slutted up. Many of these these characters are in middle school!!! Gah!! )
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END SPOILER
OK now that that rant is over, other comments.
After being quite confused (and frustrated) by the ending, I did some reading (on TV tropes), and some thinking, and I do understand a little bit of the symbolism now.

In general I am a very literal person and symbolism usually goes over my head, so if I have to interpret symbolism to understand stuff (like the ending of an anime), I usually get frustrated, confused and dissapointed. (The whole reason I marathoned the show was to avoid those feelings!!)

I do understand now that Utena is about deconstructing fairy tales, and I think there is some femininsm in there and I did understand that during the show. The stuff I did understand were quite interesting commentaries on fairy tales. Makes me wonder why people tell their children fairy tales when looking at it from the perspective of RGU. Both males and females are stuck in very very restricted roles and I am now realizing it says a lot about the roles men and women are stuck in today. Also RGU is in the same vein as Shrek!! *giggle*
Most of the other stuff I am really lost. SPOILER
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(Although I do think Anthy is an evil character, she is also a victim deserving of some sympathy. (The shining glasses/candle scenes I did not notice certain things until it was pointed out, and it majorly creeped me out. I still do not know what the candles symbolize though ) )
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END SPOILER

I did realize the shadow play girls give a simplified version of the episode . I think I will pay more attention to them, when I re-watch the show, since I have heard it's very good on the re-watch. (I love shows like that.) The more I talk about the anime I realize how deep it is.

I think though that before I rewatch the show I need to get over how sexually charged the series is and how freaking disturbing some of the characters truly are. (Also I need to get some assistance with the symbolism, the whole cutting the rose off the duelists symbolism was totally lost on me, but I get it now though.)

Thanks to TV tropes I now know what a shadow archetype is!!

Going back to Neon Genesis Evangelion, I heard that the symbolism drove people nuts and some stuff simply does not make sense and was not worth analyzing. Considering my track record with overly symbolic stuff, I had actually avoided NGE and had I known about the symbolism and creepyness of RGU I proabably would have avoided it too. (This is why I majored in sciences rather then arts.)

I think though that when all the new NGE movies come out and if I hear they make some sense I may give the movies a go. Like I said in another post I am slowly realizing how great older anime is and how there is some really good shoujo that people should take a look at. (I find some people write off shujo altogether) They were 11 and Revolutionary girl Utena are really cool examples of how great shoujo can really be.

EDIT to fix spelling.

[Hachimitsu]

D'oh I thought I posted more recently in this thread. Anyway, I have volunteered myself to be model in the kimono fashion show for Anime North. What am I thinking?

[Hachimitsu]

ZOMG, I did some reading on kimonos and all the pieces a person needs to dress properly. I did not know it was so complicated!! I have 2 kimonos I bought about 2 years ago. I knew I needed obi, but I did not know about all the other pieces. (There is like 10 pieces, and then shoes, and then hair accessories, all of which have different names. )

I am going to see what the Kimono programming lady can do to help me out, and then I got to mine the .99 bin at some ebay sellers.

Since I have been reading up, I have learned the different designs on a kimono are appropriate to wear for different seasons. Even the hair ornaments are suitable for different seasons. I now understand why the Japanese adopted western clothing.

[MithLuin]

Haha, very cool! I hope you enjoy being a model

Western clothing could be very elaborate and complicated too, remember. It's fairly simple now (at least in comparison to kimonos), but...well, we had corsets and neckties, and lots of rules about what you could wear in what season.

I did hear about the new Code Geass project, and don't know what I think of it yet. Code Geass was oh so carefully crafted to appeal to everyone (ie, make $$$), so I'm a little leery of this third season just being a case of milking a cash cow. But, I'll probably at least check it out to see if it's interesting. A different time period/setting/characters appeals to me more than a continuation of the storyline would, since the ending of R2 wrapped up most of the conflicts pretty tidily. It would have had to have been a '20 years later' or something to have a story worth telling. Going back to an earlier time and exploring the alternative history of the Britannian empire could be pretty cool. We'll see.

I am currently embroiled in my Code Geass AU epic fanfic, which breaks off during the Bloodstained Euphy episode of the first season. This should keep me busy for awhile.... For Want of a Nail.

The only anime/manga I've been looking at recently is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which has been doing a beautiful job of following the manga. The English dub is out now, and I enjoy that, too. (It's nice to get *two* new episodes a week ). I did end up watching the rest of Valkyria Chronicles, and it was okay, but....nothing particularly special. It was a best-friends-fall-for-the-same-girl storyline, mostly, since the war plot never really amounted to much.

[Hachimitsu]

OK, I did Anime North and the Kimono fashion show. I will write a little report on AN later, but after dressing in a kimono, I found I really enjoyed it. I have some pictures and stuff, but right now I will just post a video of the fashion show. A friend recorded it for me. I will have pics up later. Also about the complexity of Kimono's. I now don't think it's quite as complex, it just hasn't been practiced by a lot of people anymore. I know, I will definitely be in the fashion show next year.

Enjoy: Kimono segment of the Mega Fashion show. Co-ordinater Christine .S (That lady is amazing, she is the one in the African fabric Kimono)

[MithLuin]

Wow, those look really difficult to walk in, but you did a great job! The platform shoes were crazy, though.... I really liked the African print one; you can tell she knows quite a bit about kimonos .

Thanks for sharing .

[Hachimitsu]

Has anyone read Ghost in the Shell manga or watched the movie?

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

News has come out that Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika, and Paranoia Agent and more, has died.

A lot of the folks on here may not have heard of him, but he was one of the most interesting and imaginative directors of the 21st century, whether in anime or not.

The news first came out on Twitter, which led to the following blog post, calling it a rumor, but it was later confirmed:

http://www.cinematical.com/2010/08/24/r ... 1963-2010/

I have not seen it on any major English-language news sites, but Kon had not achieved widespread recognition outside Japan except in anime circles, which is unfortunate.

BrianIs AtYou

[Hachimitsu]

It was announced today that Satoshi Kon, the maker of Millennium Actress, Perfect Blue and Paprika, died. Died of pancreatic cancer at 47!!

This sucks major. There are not many higher quality anime movie directors left.

There was one movie left that he was working on called Dream Machine.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

What movies/works of his have you seen?

The first of his films that I saw was Millennium Actress, and it was a stunning film.

The following is the trailer for Millennium Actress, which really does not do the movie justice, since the integration of the art, music and storyline is so intricately planned and executed that no set of excerpts can really do it justice.

Millennium Actress Trailer

Music was an important part in the film, in addition to the art, and the following is an example of one of the beautiful themes from the film:

Chiyoko's Theme

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Here's a story/awkward moment with my Dad, watching "Tokyo Godfathers":

In the early part of the movie, there is a scene where they jump off the train and the transvestite starts singing.

My father says, "Boy, that woman has a really deep voice!"

I stutter out...uhh...uhh...were you paying attention, Dad...that's not a woman...and I then had to explain all the very obvious references earlier in the movie (e.g. the virgin birth reference at the soup kitchen, and the soup kitchen worker's later reaction when she sees him with the baby, the constant reference of the other two homeless to the transvestite's identity etc).

The scene with the transvestite's singing is right near the beginning of the following:

Scene after jumping off train

Tokyo Godfathers Trailer

BrianIs AtYou

PS

http://makikoitoh.com/journal/satoshi-kons-last-words

[Hachimitsu]

I thought I would give this thread a bump.

I was re-reading the thread and on page three I stated, I would never watch Grave of the Fireflies. Crucifer has now convinced me to (via Facebook). I will only watch it if I have a box of tissues and friends to comfort me.

[Hachimitsu]

Alright I getting ready for Anime North 2011 this weekend. I am on 4 panels and I am modelling for a fashion show.

Panel 1: Katanagatari(sword story) and Bakemonogatari (ghost story). Has anyone seen either of these series and has any comments?
Katanagatari, I sort of raged about some plot aspects on my fb, but I feel much better now. Also, the art is unique and very very pretty and the soundtrack is quite well done among other things.

Panel 2. Black kids like Anime too
This year we trying for a more structured format. Dunno about food this year.

Panel 3. Tsubasa and xxxholic I have 50 chaptrs to read. Good luck to me. Hopefully I get some done today.

Panel 4: Graduating from Shounen Jump. This one seems the most difficult one. I just joined up to help a friend. We are going to discuss Seinen and Josei manga. Also we have to provide video and pictures. The feature Seinen I am covering are Yotsuba&, Emma, and Drops of God (a wine manga). I know very little josei. My featured clip will be Princess Jellyfish. Anyone who knows anything about this subject please offer up some comments.

[Impenitent]

Goodness, Wilma, it all goes over my head! I know nothing at all about Anime so I'm rather awed by your knowledge.

[Hachimitsu]

The last thing is the Kimono fashion show. SInce I am going to end up wearing some kind of dancer outfit (I think it's confirmed now), I need face make up. Makeup similar to Kabuki AND geisha type makeup except several tones down to be closer to my skin tone. We did some experiments. First a person face actually gets covered with a waxy substance to flatten the eyebrows and have a good surface for the makeup to go on. The traditional white geisha makeup was mixed with some super dark foundation when we did the makeup test and it just looked like I dipped my face in baby powder.A small ammount of the white powder is very very powerful. After some finagling and putting another layer of foundation we had a skin tone down, but ran into problems with redrawing my lips and eyebrows, and blush. The powdery traditional makeup kept sliding off of the foundation. Also the reds looked orange. Curently I am in pursuit of some pressed powder, that is cheap and the Fashion show co-ordinator is working on some substitute colours for lips and eyes.

The makeup is so heavy that a person actually has to "wash" their face in baby oil first and then wash off the baby oil. Just plain soap and water can take up to an hour and there will still be remnants.

I am quite excited about the fashion show and I have my dressing and makeup time already assigned. Woot!!!

Yesterday I had some Skype chats to work out panel stuff and I think we have some good subjects to discuss. I feel more comfortable about Graduationg from Shounen Jump which is classed as a workshop. I should have mentionedin my last post that it's about manga and anime that is aimed at an older audience. Shounen Jump being a manga anthology magazine aimed at boys from 8-15.

I am currently working on a handout and trying to blitz those chapters of manga.

[Hachimitsu]

The calm before the storm. Getting settled in the hotel and had the final makeup test done.THe Japanese like big contrasts in their traditional makeup. Just took it off. Now I am just trying to finalize stuff for panels.

Oh and a co-panelist of mine had posted the video for our first panel of Black kids like anime too.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link4

The vid quality may not be the greatest but at least it is something. (I found out about these links like 2 days ago.)