Category Archives: industry

Once Upon a Time, a Girl Finished Her Grape Soda: Up

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Up once again shows that when it comes to mainstream 3D animation, there’s Pixar and then there’s everybody else. Or to put it differently, the only studio not trying to be Pixar is Pixar itself.

People sometimes ask me why I like anime so much, and though I’ve mentioned in the past that to an extent it is a very personal thing independent of average level of quality in anime, there are still certain recurring traits that keep me coming back: emotional sincerity, respect towards the viewer, respect towards the medium itself, the ability to take simple premises and elevate them. Up manages to fulfill all of these and more. That is of course not to say that the reason Up is good is because it’s “like anime,” because it really isn’t, but its approach and understanding that even for a kids’ movie (or perhaps especially for a kids’ movie) not everything has to fall neatly into place remind me very much of the reasons why I got into and continue to enjoy animation. You can do so much when you’re not limited by reality, and to understand that is to understand that what I just said applies well beyond the visual aspect of animation.

Like Wall-E, Up is a very emotional movie which dares to use a hero that is not just unusual because of the way they look, but because of how the entertainment industry has restricted the roles of certain character types. In the case of Up it is Carl Fredricksen, an old man who used to sell balloons who decides to use his remaining stock to float his house to South America to fulfill a lifelong promise. He inadvertently brings along a young boy scout analogue named Russell, an eager but physically inept boy.

Carl’s curmudgeonly demeanor masks the fact that he was once a wide-eyed but shy boy dreaming of fun and adventure (somewhat similar to young Russell), as well as a man who was very much in love. It’s a mask that we are allowed to peer behind throughout the movie, giving Carl a very strong presence in every scene he’s in. We can see in his current attitude and actions the life he has led up to that point. His interactions with Russell show how easy it is to perceive the elderly as distanced from the rest of society, as well as how incorrect that notion often can be. Carl is an interesting and deep character, and I do not use the word “deep” lightly. He moved me, moved me to tears and smiles and left a deep impression.

Placing an elderly man in the main role of a movie animated or otherwise is a bold move in an entertainment industry which tends to devalue the elderly. Even when they are featured prominently in movies, they are usually placed in teacher roles, or meant to be comically cranky old men. While there’s been a recent trend for older main stars in movies as Hollywood’s big names realize their years are catching up on them (e.g. Sylvester Stallone in Rocky Balboa), most often the message these movies send is “check us out, we can still hang with the young guys.” Up however is different. Carl Fredricksen is not an old man trying to play a young man’s game. He is doing what he feels is necessary precisely because he’s old. There is no denial, there is no shame.

While I said that the movie’s strengths go well beyond the visual, there is no denying that the movie also looks good. Its style is something that I think registers with everyone no matter your age. It’s bright and colorful without bombarding the viewer and overwhelming the retinas. Character designs and backgrounds, are soft without seeming entirely innocuous. The overall three-dimensional design is of course excellent, as expected of Pixar, and if you decide to watch it with 3-D glasses, Up never overwhelms you with shots designed to tell you JUST HOW 3-D THIS MOVIE IS, unlike many other 3-D movies. The use of recurring symbols in Up is also excellent in a way that I rarely see from movies. This is not abstract symbolism, but rather the movie establishing the significance of small but emotionally precious objects, and whenever these objects are referred to or used in any way you know how much weight is put behind them, much like anything Carl says or does.

Up is exactly what a family movie should be, in the sense that it is not just a family movie. Go by yourself, go with your friends, go with your kids or your parents. It’s an intelligent movie which respects the intelligence, both mental and emotional, of its audience, and engages them with such sincerity and power that anyone who sees the movie will feel like they’ve come away from the movie well-rewarded. It will be a reward well-earned because it is almost impossible to feel like an idle observer with Up.

Imagawa and the Pile of Money in Eternity Island – A Dilemma in Anime Direction

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Imagawa Yasuhiro does not have very many works tied to his name in a directorial capacity, but mention the ones that he has worked on and you will tend to get very positive reactions from some very loyal fans. His most prestigious work is probably the Giant Robo: The Animation OVA series, an intense labor of love that took many years and many more delays to complete, while his most famous work in America is probably Mobile Fighter G Gundam. And in my personal opinion, he is an astounding director. Possibly more than any other director, he has the ability to take the endless dreams of childhood and translate them into something mature and complex while still remaining faithful to those childhood notions. So why does he get so little work?

We have his latest work, Shin Mazinger. You look at this series, and see a lot of areas that seem to suffer budget-wise. The opening consists entirely of reused footage. Scenes are repeated over and over, and a lot of shortcuts are used. However, the show is still amazing, and still coming out without too many hitches. Sub suggested to me that Imagawa is so much of a perfectionist that the more money you give him, the more likely your anime will never see the light of day because he’ll be too busy making his animators re-do everything to get that one moment just right. As mentioned above, he took practically forever to finish Giant Robo OVA, but he was also kicked off of Shin Getter Robo Armageddon for taking too long. But with Shin Mazinger, where his spending power is limited, Imagawa is forced to make decisions and the result is something that is both Great and On Time.

Imagawa is thus the kind of director to whom you could give 25 cents and he would make the most astounding animation ever that will challenge your very ways of thinking. Imagawa would take those 25 cents, create GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE LEGENDARY EAGLE, and when the show reveals that WASHINGTON AND THE EAGLE WERE THE SAME FIGURE ALL ALONG (like two sides of the same coin one might say!!), you will notice that your ass is no longer in your chair.

Money is to Imagawa as Time is to Tomino Yoshiyuki and No Editors is to Kawamori Shouji.

Another Vertical Vednesday Descending From the Heavens

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Once again, Ed Chavez, owner of the MangaCast and new marketing director of Vertical Press wants to discuss manga with YOU, yes YOU tomorrow, June 3rd from 6:30pm to 8pm at Kinokuniya on 6th ave and 41st Street in Manhattan.

For this Vertical Vednesday, Ed will be discussing Shoujo’s often-overlooked cousin, Josei. For those of you who don’t know, Josei is manga targeted at OLDER women instead of young girls. There may also be some discussion of the Guin Saga series of books. If you’ve never heard Ed Chavez talk about manga, I highly recommend that you go because you will inevitably learn something from him.

1st US Go Go Curry Eating Championship Results

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The Winners Are…!

1st Place: Joseph F. Menchetti

2nd Place: Dale Boone

3rd Place: Don Moses Lerman

Congratulatons to all the finalists and I hope they don’t regret all that eating. Even if they do, I’m sure they’re used to it by now.

5 Men, 1 Destiny, Countless Calories, and the True Japanese Spirit: Go! Go! Curry Eating Championship

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Tomorrow is a momentous event where indomitable wills gattai with iron stomachs in order to take on a foe relatively new to eating competitions in America: Japanese-style curry, courtesy of my favorite Japanese curry joint, Go Go Curry, located on 38th St and 8th Ave in Manhattan. No, I am not participating in this event, though I have a keen interest in it, and anything that spreads the reputation of Go Go Curry is fine by me.

This, my friends, is the First Annual Go Go Curry Eating Championship. Unlike the preliminaries where the rules were about speed, this is about both speed and capacity, and what you have to remember is that when it comes to eating competitions looks can be deceiving.

Curry is not a difficult food to eat quickly (you don’t even have to CHEW it if you don’t want to), but because it’s rice and thus carbs, it can really add up after a while.

There will be pretty much no seating available, so I suggest that you do what I do and watch it on justin.tv. And then afterwards, maybe get some curry.

There’s an Elephant in the Corner and Her Name is Haruhi

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So they tried to sneak an ALL-NEW episode of the Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu into the season 1 re-airing, but tripped up in the end and left people anticipating its arrival. No more tricks, no more magazine covers to mock the fans. The episode’s come and gone, and fun was had by all. Of course, there’s nothing to stop them from doing this over and over with anything Suzumiya Haruhi-related, and the fans will gladly punch themselves in the stomach for it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as the makers and distributors of Haruhi have a unique relationship with their fans.

We saw it with Lucky Star and its meta-self-referential humor which knocks down not just the 4th wall but keeps charging and makes a gigantic hole in the wall behind you as well. Kadokawa even licensed and created a mini-series out of the hit doujinshi series Nyoro~n Churuya-san. They are so aware of their fanbase that they might as well be standing on a pedestal dangling Haruhi merchandise and offering goods in exchange for your undying love and devotion and fan-generated content. It’s kind of like Gainax, but only a step further as Gainax has at the very least presented an air of distance, unlike Kyoto Animation which is right there in the thick of things high-fiving the audience and taking photos with them. And yes, I know my two metaphors just contradicted each other. Let’s just say that they decide to occasionally jump down from that pedestal.

And this newfangled Haruhi has something else to say:

“Enough with the DANCE openings and endings. We are laying to rest the beast we created. Move on, anime! Move on, fans! Well not too much, we still want you to do our Haruhi and Lucky Star dances.”

Will anyone heed their advice? Only time will tell.

Give it let’s say… about 16 years.

Understanding the Girls of K-On!, Instantly!

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Now this is an interesting shot from episode 6 of K-On!

All four characters are in the same place, and just from this one still you can get a basic idea of their personalities. On the flipside, if you already know the characters then you can definitely see that this is instantly accurate.

In general, K-On! pays a good amount of attention to these sort of things, and I think it’s characteristic of Kyoto Animation in general. Some wonder why others are so fond of Kyoto Animation’s various works, from Haruhi to Lucky Star to various Key adaptations, and the answer is care. These are not just moe blob shows with no real content, they’re visually rich with a good sense of timing and comedy (or tragedy as the case may be). K-On! is no exception.

Bad Writing vs Bad Translation

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The Eureka Seven manga was released by Bandai Entertainment alongside their anime release. For those of you who haven’t read the manga but have seen the anime, it’s a different take on things with I think less solid storytelling but still has its good points. However, the dialogue in the English language version was often very awkward-sounding. It didn’t sound like people actually talking. Lines which were supposed to be “cool” or “dramatic” ended up landing with wet thuds. I had read a bit of the manga in Japanese prior, but as I finished it up with the English release, the flow of language in it continued to bother me. I had to wonder then, was it the translation, or was the original writing simply that stilted and it was my lack of complete Japanese fluency that didn’t notice it originally?

Whenever I read a translated manga where the dialogue seems off or unusually poor, I have to wonder where the blame lies, seeing as how there are so many people and factors involved. You have the original writer, writing in their native language, coming from their own culture, and then you have the translator, adapting to their own native language, keeping their own culture and readership in mind for just how much they change or allow to remain “as is.”

Is it that the translation is bad? Or is it that the writing wasn’t so great in the first place? And if the writing is bad, do you massage it until it becomes fine and readable English prose? It sort of goes beyond the literal accuracy vs spiritual accuracy argument when you have to factor in a source which may not be regarded as the pinnacle of literary talent. And it’s something that without proper research can be difficult to detect, aside from a few obvious examples where you can just tell the translator was struggling with a very Japanese-sounding sentence. “The burning passionately me now challenges you to a duel!” That sort of thing.

And then you throw money into the mix.

Let’s say that you’re a translator (and who knows, maybe you are!), and you’re giving the script to some work with achingly bad dialogue, like say, Government Crime Investigation Agent Zaizen Jotaro, and as much as you think there are definitely better works out there, you’ve been handed this and your company’s supposed to make a profit off of it. Do you try your best to salvage the bad writing and make it presentable? Or do you show it for what it is? And if so, are you prepared for idiots like me to accuse you of doing a poor translation?

Vertical Vednesday Vhen and Vhere

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Ed Chavez from the MangaCast is now the marketing director for the New York City-based Vertical Press, home of titles such as Black Jack and To Terra. As such, he is holding the first of what looks to be a series of “Vertical Vednesdays,” the contents of which I have no clue about. However, seeing as I’m in New York, I’ll be joining the crowd so that we may bathe in chocolate and deliver manga to orphans.

Everyone will be meeting TODAY at 6:30pm in front of Kinokuniya on 6th ave and 41st street in Manhattan. If I see you there, and I know who you are, I’ll say hi. Maybe I’ll give a firm handshake. Really, I’ll play it by ear.

“Vogiue.”

Pokemon Reflects the Changing Times

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The Pokemon anime is making the transition to digital broadcast in the coming months in Japan, and I think it more than anything else marks the beginning of the end for standard television.

The Pokemon anime is older than some of the kids who are fans of the show in the first place. It’s seen some of the most significant changes in animation and entertainment in our time. The anime started in 1998 with cel animation and a somewhat limited budget resulting in somewhat limited animation. As Pokemon reached international success, the show clearly improved, and by the time the 2000s rolled around it was starting to go into digital animation, eventually converting over completely. Along the way there’s been multiple movies done in both cel and digital, and now we have a new era upon us of widescreen, high-definition, digitally animated, digitally broadcasted Pokemon. And that’s not even talking about the basic changes in episode styles and themes that are the result of starting with a primarily Japanese audience and moving into an international one.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? Very few anime can say they’ve seen the world change around them as it has with Pokemon.