Author Archives: sdshamshel

Genshiken Karaoke in Akihabara

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Or should I say, “Genchoken.”

To celebrate the Genchoken CD release (Genchoken being the bi-weekly radio show which accompanied the broadcast of Genshiken 2), otaku will be able to briefly live, Genshiken style, at Karaoke Pasela in Akihabara.

There, customers will have access to a karaoke room with a Genshiken-themed decor and sing to their hearts’ content. And to make it as authentic as possible, the only songs allowed will be from things that exist in Genshiken, e.g. Kujibiki Unbalance and Ramen Angel Pretty Menma. They will also be playing the actual Genchoken CD as well.

To top it all off, if you’ve bought the Genchoken CD and you sing Kujian/Menma songs in the Genshiken room, then you can enter a drawing to win some autographed swag from the cast of Genshiken.

Existence of specific Ogiue-themed merchandise unknown at this time.

Oh, blind purchasing how I missed you and your devilish ways

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I was at Kinokuniya today, and decided that while I’m there I should totally buy something. This presented a problem, as there are plenty of manga there I’d like to pick up, but I’d be worried about getting locked into a very long series (Otokojuku), or fear of spoiling an anime I’m already watching (Shugo Chara!) or might get more episodes at some point (Bamboo Blade).

So my policy was to buy volume 1 of something I had no idea about. Something I wouldn’t recognize off the bat or have any preconceived notions of. Not easy, when you spend a good portion of your day reading, watching, or reading about the stuff.

In the end I decided to pick up what appears to be a seinen manga called “La Sommelière” and it appears to be about a female bartender. You know, as opposed to a just plain Bartender. I haven’t read through all of it, but you can expect a review at some point.

In any case, I’m pretty glad with my purchase as it fulfilled my desire to give a new series a chance, so that I don’t come at it with any preconceived notions or feel I’m retreading any old ground.

(It also means that I have no idea how long the series is supposed to be, so I don’t feel bad about not buying much more of it.)

The True Appeal of Izumi Konata

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Konata is a surprisingly good character. There’s something very endearing about her and for a long time (since I finished watching Lucky Star), I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but now I know.

I’ve heard from numerous people that they think Konata’s popularity is because she has the same tastes as and acts like a male otaku. That’s not necessarily off the mark, but it’s a little too simplistic. The actual appeal of Konata is not simply that she’s an otaku, but that she’s an otaku who’s not afraid to show that side of herself in public.

I think there’s a fear within everyone (but particularly relevant to dorks) that if they reveal too much of themselves that people will think less of them. They will either believe they cannot make any friends, or that their friends will stop being so friendly. Konata stands in the face of all that. Where most of dvd-and-figure-buying comrades falter, Konata is able to confidently declare to her “commoner” friends that yes, she loves Haruhi, yes, she goes to Comic Market, and yes, she is indeed an otaku.

Combined with some of Konata’s more poignant scenes, such as the Hirano Aya concert or some of her conversations with her dad, Konata shows that she’s not just an impossible ideal for otaku, but that it’s possible to both feel weak and strong at the same time.

Konata, one might say, is the opposite of Ogiue. However, unlike, say, Kohsaka from Genshiken, Konata doesn’t appear to be too perfect. Sure, she’s athletic, sure she’s friendly and outspoken, but in the end she is still genuine to her own interests, still has her own doubts and insecurities, and really isn’t that much different from the otaku from which she is derived.

Oh boy. You have sold me now.

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The last Godannar DVD arrived today, completing my collection, and by last I mean the first volume with box as I purchased volumes 2-7 earlier in a nice deal.

Inside the box was an ad for Gravion Zwei, which is a few years old by now, but it certainly caught my eye. Below is the ad’s text, reproduced for your enjoyment.

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EFFEMINATE HEROES! GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS! GRAVITY-DEFYING BREASTS!

Hold on to your feather duster! With a legion of perky maids and more FAN SERVICE than you can shake a stick* at, Gravion Zwei has all the action, comedy and MADCAP ADVENTURE you’ve been looking for!

*No, not that stick!

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…

…Really? I mean, really?

I’m no opponent of fanservice (I bought all of Godannar after all), but damn ADV, are you trying to make people too embarrassed to show your DVDs in their homes? I mean, unless it’s full-on pornographic anime you could at least use some restraint, some clever lines which sum up the show in a reasonably tasteful manner.

Harsh Virtual Reality: Ressentiment Volumes 1-2

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I’ve made it a bit of a hobby within a hobby to pursue Otaku-themed anime, manga, and games. There’s the naive fantasy (Comic Party), the painfully cynical (Welcome to the NHK!), the awkwardly humorous (Otaku no Musume) and of course the cautiously optimistic (Genshiken), among others. But now there comes another player, Ressentiment, a story so drenched in ugliness and negativity that it is by far the most pessimistic of all the Otaku-themed works that I’ve seen.

…or is it?

Ressentiment takes place in the not-so-distant future. Takuro, a sad, pathetic, ugly 30 year old man living with his mom and working a dead-end job discovers the h-game. Except in this age of man, the h-game has reached unprecedented levels of realism, to the point that the girls in the games believe they actually exist within the context of their worlds.

Takuro purchases an artifical girl, Tsukiko, and expects what we all expect from these sorts of games: gratification be it instant or otherwise. Tsukiko, however, is an anomaly among virtual heroine-sex objects in that she already has someone she loves and spurns the advances of Takuro. An even bigger surprise is that when Tsukiko bites Takuro’s hand, the pain and effect transfer over to reality. This is Not Normal.

Takuro must deal with the fact that he has now been rejected by women not just in real life but also in what should have been a fantasy world. The truth of Tsukiko’s highly irregular programming is also slowly revealed.

The thing that keeps me from saying that Ressentiment is totally sad and depressing and a completely negative outlook on the otaku is that while much of the focus is on otaku trying to escape from their own sad lives, it’s not just otaku whose lives are ugly. Practically every character, even the attractive ones, have their own crippling issues to deal with. The characters have horrible personalities, horrible habits, and even horrible hygiene, but they all to varying degrees have to butt heads with reality in their own ways. While the otaku’s fantasy world is very plain to see, the other characters have their own ways of escaping their lives. In a sense, it’s easy to say that the otaku are pathetic, but everyone else is equally pathetic. And to be pathetic on some level is to be human. Those who try to deny this fact are given the harshest wake-up call of all.

To steal a quote from Kino’s Journey, “The world is not beautiful, therefore it is.”

It remains to be seen if the characters themselves ever realize this.

The Immortal Who Watches Animation

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I am troubled when people deride an animation for being too “old” without considering its other merits, and I think it’s a matter of broader perspective.

While we can look at older animation from our perspective today and see how far we’ve come be it 2d or 3d, don’t forget that today will become yesterday and years down the line the industry will have progressed even further technically and technologically, as well as in the realm of ideas (I hope). It feels kind of odd to think that all this fancy stuff going on today may even become laughable in the future, but as I think about it more I begin to wonder if the technical stops becoming a factor as more and more time passes. That is to say, if I were immortal and could watch hundreds of years of animation go by, I think after a while I would stop caring about realism or the pursuit of realism. Realism is just an example and it could be anything.

That all said, I personally also tend to put great emphasis on watching an animation with knowledge of the context in which it was produced and shown, because many achievements made by animations have to be viewed through the lens of society or history. It’s the other side of the coin perhaps, that while I can argue against people not watching an anime because it’s old, I can’t argue against people watching it for that very same reason.

The Pre-Prequel: Eureka Seven: Gravity boys & Lifting girl

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While this site isn’t called Eureka Maniax, it would have been a close second. I really, really like Eureka Seven, and I’m always eager to get my hands on anything E7-related.

Eureka Seven: Gravity boys & Lifting girl is sort of an unusual title, in that it is part of the greater Eureka Seven canon, but its place in the timeline is as a prequel to the Eureka Seven PS2 games, New Wave and New Vision.

GB&LG takes place during a time of peace, before the Ref board was even considered for use on LFOs. Sumner Sturgeon, 14 years old and youngest son of the prestigious Sturgeon Family of military officers, has spent his whole life being spoon-fed through privilege, but he wishes to be known for more than just his last name. Ruri, also 14 years old, is a girl with an incredible talent for Ref-ing (or Lifting as it’s called in the English translations), but who has to disguise herself as a boy named “B.B.” as women aren’t allowed in competitions. An abrupt meeting between Sumner and Ruri sets both of them on their respective paths to adulthood as Sumner chases the images of B.B. and the girl and the independence they represent, not knowing both are the same person.

Volume 1 of GB&LG focuses primarily on their daily lives as 14 year olds in a time of relative peace. Volume 2 sees them grow to adulthood and  enter the military, setting up the beginning of New Wave. Renton was also 14 years old when he first met Eureka and joined Gekkostate, and this is a very deliberate move on the manga’s part.

Overall the manga has a very nice slice-of-life feel to it that the original anime is missing simply because of the context of the series and the utter importance Eureka and Renton have to fate of the world in the anime, where even fairly episodic chapters have much greater ramifications. Obviously, that also applies to GB&LG to some extent, especially because its events trigger the PS2 games which in turn influence the anime, but not much of that is seen. The focus is on mainly the characters and not the world around them.

In this respect, I like Volume 1 more than Volume 2, as Volume 2 feels rushed and disjointed, as if it’s racing to position all of the characters in time for New Wave. It gives no time for the events, big and small, to really sink in, as the reader is instantly whisked off to another place and possibly another time within a few pages. It’s something that I think would have been better served being split into two separate volumes.

That said, I do recommend it, and I like it more than the Eureka Seven manga adaptation. However, don’t expect the story to be as epic as either the main anime or manga, because it isn’t. Treat it like a normal story of school kids, who barely know of LFOs, trappar, or their true natures.

Well Holy Crap: Eureka Seven Movie Announced

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Anime News Network reports that Eureka Seven has been greenlit for a new movie to come out whenever.

This is, of course, very very good news. There’s no real word on what the story’s going to be like or about, but I have complete faith  in BONES.

This is perfect timing too, as I finally received my last Eureka Seven DVD, and as a result also finished reading Gravity Boys and Lifting Girl.

Review of that pending.

Who will tomorrow choose…for Otakon?

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I guess this is what you would call my choice for second Otakon music guest, now that JAM Project is a reality. The chances of it happening are probably slim to none, possibly moreso than JAM Project.

My pick?

Bitou Isao.

First is the Worst, Second is the Best: Tower of Druaga and GONZO’s Digital Distribution

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GONZO has thrown down the gauntlets and has enlisted the help of real live fansubber(s) to distribute its anime to the English-literate world with near-synchronized-with-Japanese-television releases of its new show, Tower of Druaga. As such, there are two important things to talk about: the possible benefits and consequences of this new distribution method, and the content of the show itself.

While GONZO would not exactly be my first choice as the pioneer company (such as Geneon), I applaud GONZO for doing this, though I think they should excise Crunchy Roll like a nasty boil. It’s not the kind of site that I think any animation studio should be associated with, and it may come back to bite them in the ass. As for the actual distribution method of Official Subs on Youtube and Other Places, I feel that even if I personally do not buy the show, I have been exposed to the series enough to begin making a decision, and that is very important to me as a consumer and as a fan. The other thing is that I really have no motivation to pursue higher quality fansubs when I am being provided episodes, translated, straight from the studio much faster than any speedsubber can manage. I don’t know how much of a loss GONZO is taking on this, but if their goal was to beat out the fansubbers, they’ve done so rather effectively. On top of that, the subs are actually quite good, and do not suffer at all from our fears of Engrish.

The actual show is surprisingly entertaining, as nothing in the show seems to quite make sense a la Haruhi Episode 1. While I suspect there’s going to be some shenanigans regarding what’s fantasy and what’s reality, the real highlight of this first episode is how terribly contrived the main character Gil’s idea of an epic tale is. It points out the main flaw in a lot of this sort of entertainment, as well as the fact that D&D games do not translate well to actually compelling stories because everyone will want their limelight in a D&D game, while in a story there should only be one protagonist at a time. It makes me wonder if GONZO is somehow also poking fun at itself and its reputation for plots which fall apart due to contradictions and hasty decisions.