アニ・ノート

Seen this off-hand remark by Sixten:

[] what is more interesting is [Mr. Watanabe's] stated occupation, “K-On”. Apparently, in addition to being a high-level Magic player, he is a professional musician who plays in a light music (軽音楽, “keiongaku”, or “kei-on” for short) band.

Why, I didn’t know that. Reminds me of a russian proverb: “век живи — век учись” and its vulgar derivative “век живи, век учись, дураком помрешь”.

UPDATE: Omo says that “kei-” does not mean “light” music, but “anything that’s non-classical and non-traditional.” So, if I understand right, heavy metal, punk rock, and rap are all included (says he, anyway).

Wakaranai:

Despite the wholesome potential GONZO dug up for this series, with character design contributions from Range Murata, and an interesting sci-fi premise pinched from a novel, they appear to have failed utterly in converting that potential into a watchable anime.

And that is because of:

Those who live in (alleged) squallor reside in a tiny, rainforest-bound village that is overshadowed by the looming monstrocity of the Atlas city. And of course, this who live in Atlas are cruel and nasty people who seem to prey upon the plight of the poor, be they 3rd-world countries or pestulent guerillas. The poor of Duomo are happy and free-spirited. []

If I wanted such trash, I’d watch some Spirit: Stallion of the West.

[O]bvious enough from miles away how absoloutely massive Atlas was and that they could accomodate Duoma IF THEY WANTED TO. And I don’t blame them for not wanting too, given that half of Duomo are annoying transvestites.

Oh LOL

The animation is my other chief issue with this show, and GONZO’s recent money troubles isn’t really an excuse because they’ve screwed up like this before. Usually they have an exceptionally well-animated first episode and then the quality drops off from there, but not so with Shangri-La, which had a mediocre first episode and still managed to drop lower.

Ouch.

I bet many would say, “GONZO. Maybe they should just die already.”

UPDATE: BigN says:

the claim that “poor of Duomo are happy and free-spirited”, is pretty clearly not true. They’re poor, they have poor medical care, they’re desperate, and, as is often the case, they are divided as to where their salvation lies — Metal Age, Atlas, or perhaps somewhere else? These are not the placid Earth-dwellers living in harmony and peace with Mother Nature, resisting the oppression of their despoiling, capitalist overlords.

See, that’s like TJ said: viewers see what they expect to see.

I ignored this because I saw neither and so I cannot appreciate the joke, but people were sending me tips. Supposedly, the joke picture is histerical if you know what it means.

The post is laden with spoilers, which made me decide that E7 was not up my alley. “That’s some Kino’s Journey-grade material right there” — enough said. But it seems like a quality production, even if DM himself only says “definitely not a masterpiece”.

The imaginery he’s talking about is quite common. Here’s an example from Strike Witches OVA:

I don’t recall seeing anything like it from the Japanese WWII (outside of Grave of the Fireflies, naturally). They always use the Europe. But, any other war in Tokyo is a-ok, in full color.

I find it supremely important that he mentions a blog that I did not read. For the ’sphere!

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that Lolikit censures comments on that entry, even fairly innocuous ones like “I never forget.” Seriously, for the umpteen time: if you posted your comment to your own blog, it would’ve been beyond Lolikit’s power.

UPDATE in the afternoon: And the “I never forget” comments now appears. It was just being moderated. So, why complaining? Is this LJ dorama? If you’re not happy with Lolikit’s comment policies then don’t comment.

As expected, Arashi 02 did not impress me much. The good part for me was when I sympathized to Hajime’s tastes. I had a (little) crush on a woman who was 25 years older, back when I was at the ripe age of 40. The bad parts? Everything else.

OK, that was a poetic license. Arashi is a competent anime, which is not actually bad. But I’m not enthralled by Master (shades of the chick from FLCL, and worse), and she was driving a large part of the story in the episode.

The continuity did not happen, just like that. They just play with fans’ feelings.

Powerful eyes, yes. But it’s a bit too little for the Season 2.

Interesting text: あちゃくらさんは自分の事を棚にあげた. It looks to me to translate literally to “Miss Achakura put herself (her own matters) on the shelf”, which does not correspond to the official translation. But perhaps I’m not that far off and the original idea is how Achakura hoisted herself on her own petard.

Karmaburn:

Everyone else’s favorite, Toradora!, only managed to take the fifth spot, despite leading most of the season. As astute readers surely realize, this sudden drop is largely due to the dramatic turn towards the end of the season. Most people who really like Toradora! seem to really like the relationship drama aspects of the final episodes, but I felt they were ham-handed at best. Maybe it’s because these are high school relationships in question, but I couldn’t help thinking the principals were utter twits. As others have pointed out, this isn’t really drama; it’s melodrama. And it tastes like high school.

Indeed I thought the middle was so-so, and the end much better, because it outgrew the school. Evirus chose to ignore that.

Also, ambiguous picture captions in the post. Just who is the best girl?

This must be appreciated uncut so that I’m going to repost the whole thing as posted to Canned Dogs:

Fender is a manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers and they’re the makers for the bass guitar that is being used by Mio in K-ON. Fender Japan has a staff blog, and they actually made a post about K-on back on the 10th of April which reads:

“Wow K-on is amazing

Sakurakou keionbu… looks really exciting

And the bassist Mio is using a vintage jazz bass (the 62 JAZZ BASS), and she’s a lefty too… it’s so moe.

I have a feeling that this anime will have a really big break.

adios!”

Next you know Fender will be producing guitars with K-on art on it! adios!

adios!

Also, what would Sixten think?

BTW, at the time of writing, 3 out of 6 comments were completely moronic.

While everyone who has his panties in a wad over “legal” (approved by rights owners) “digital” (over the Internet) distribution of anime fixated on Crunchyroll, Bandai uploaded tons of full-length episodes to the old stalvart Youtube. They are all dubbed (the ad banner promises two tracks, but I wasn’t able to locate the Japanese version). I can see Gundam 00 and Code Geass there, and it’s a bit tempting to see what the noise was about in the latter case. I’m not clinically averse to dub. But, no time.

I’m a bit disconcerned by owners taking the stream-only route. The story of two Bandais in America was largely a story of trying to hoist the expensive collectible DVD model on us, and it’s possible that they haven’t given up on the idea. So, they see streaming as a promotion vehicle, not as a broadcast channel in its own right. But it’s not just Bandai. Arashi at Crunchy has no DTO either. Maybe I should “ask John” about it.