アニ・ノート

Let’s see if the reviewer who awarded “moeblob tripe” to Saki gets her act together:

Okay, sorry to put it so bluntly, but I am officially tired of Kyoto Animation and their talent being wasted on throwaway moe stuff. [] Though I may have issues with some aspects of the story, Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid features some of the most brilliant action I’ve seen in an anime series. Let’s have more of that and less cute brainless high schoolers doing nothing interesting.

I can see a consistent editorial position here.

Via a forum thread come news that ULA now officially lists an Atlas V based GX (Galaxy Express). And to think that I wrote it off. Now that’s what I call persistency in the face of adversity.

Via Gia come the news that the VIZ center that we mentioned in 2007 is on track to open in August. She has a picture and a few more details:

The 20,000 square foot building is located in San Francisco’s Japantown and features five floors. The basement floor will feature VIZ Cinema, which will show various Japanese films, particularly VIZ Pictures’, I’m sure. The first floor features The Cafe, with bento boxes from San Francisco’s Delica (which I’ve eaten at, it’s awesome) and coffee from the Blue Bottle Coffee Company.

The next floor will have New People the Store, “home to all that is kawaii, fun, fabulous, and bizarre.” Basically it’ll be a big Japanese toy shop. Next up is a floor with three shops: Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Black Peace Now, and 6%Dokidoki, all three of which are fashion boutiques: Gothic Lolita, goth/punk, and Harajuku styles, respectively.

And finally, the last floor feaures the Superfrog Gallery, which will, of course, be an art gallery– its first exhibit hasn’t been announced yet, but more details have been promised closer to the grand launch day.

I had no idea how tiny it was. It’s pretty much an west-of-tracks Akihabara sized box of a store.

Also, no anime theme or substore. They want to capture mainstream, not filthy otaku.

Karmaburn:

I’ve still had very limited success convincing people to begin watching Hatsukoi Limited.

He himself admits that the biggest unknown is the ending and the ghost of School Rubmbe. No wonder nobody wants to invest into the show that’s likely to crash to the ground with the next season hook deeply inserted between its tender ribs. I know that it’s excellent thus far and I’m waiting for July.

After having to resort to my immense willpower to complete ep.1, I went to check the final write-up on Tenka Seiha. Behold:

It started out very well, high production values all around, some great jokes, and even eventually a teaser that this Romantic Comedy would actually have a smidgeon of romance. [Emphasis mine — Author.]

My first thought was that one of us was blind. But more likely explanation is that he forgot how bad it was. Over time, I learned to forgive the clip-art jungle and inverted helicopter to Rocket Girls, that almost made me puke in the first two episodes. But then it was fun adventure show that’s impossible not to love unless you’re a rabid hater of space exploration by humans (you know who you are). So, what does Nagasarete Airantou offer?

[I]t was overall a fairly enjoyable show, and the last couple episodes were fantastic. [...] the cast was rather charismatic and it was certainly off the beaten path enough times to keep large parts of it fresh. Tonkatsu alone deserves points for his part in the series.

Capped with an “awful and lame” ending. Oh well.

Cartoon violence makes me laugh.

When I hear “audition” in quasy-anime context, I think about a dude in glasses with an agenda… I hedge here to exclude the auditions for the role of Hitler in “Producers”.

One small thing that everyone seem to miss in the debate is that I have never seen an episode of K-ON. I wished it turned out like Manabi, but I don’t know, so I made no claims about it.

Besides, K-ON only posted 5 episodes, so nobody knows what’s planned except the director. In Manabi the hard stuff barely begins in ep.06 and goes in the open with the evil principal’s speech in ep.07.

Moreover, for a while I hoped the debaters would take a more general view, and talk about the propensity of watchers to see any new series through the prism of the previous experience. To take just one example, when Lucky Star came out, I saw comparisons to Azumanga, PPD, even Haruhi. So, I intentionally ran “Sekirei vs Everything” series (every installment more ridiculous than the one before). This is just how we see things. Is this good, bad, limiting, the only way to construct knowledge? But no, they just discuss what Zaitcev had or had not said. What am I, Chairman Mao?

At least Lelangir tries.

And you thought only the election campaigns in America started eariler all the time. Metahorn opens the season of meaningless previews, with a twist: the paginated format permits to segregate a useful list of OVAs, usually ignored by previewers. New Negima, oh my. Also, does not “15 Bishoujo Hyouryuuki” sound nice? And how exactly does Cobra get an OVA and TV in the same season?

I laughed, I really did, reading how DM misleads the reader with screencaps of Ayato in ambiguous positions. Although, perhaps he doesn’t. Some said before that the whole story is about Ayato killing off members of his harem one by one. Now that’s misleading.

RahXephon is like a work of art, really.

DM’s screencaps are quite effective in making the point. But here’s some text:

That is not to say that RahXephon is trapped in the shadows of its source of inspiration — It is a story of human emotions that stand very well on its own. Perhaps because I’m not fluent enough in the language of the heart to fully appreciate the depths of Evangelion, but I found its presentation of human psychology rather incomprehensible at times, perhaps overly avant garde for the sake of it. RahXephon has its fair share of Alice-in-wonderland moments, but somehow manages to do a better job of tying things together while remaining relevant. In that sense, RahXephon provides a much more engaging and emotional experience.

Indeed. Although, DM obviously didn’t watch the interview that came in DVD extras and addresses the issue of EVA. I’m going to cut and paste from earlier:

Oshii: [...] These days, the fact that there is no controversy concerning copying in animation and that there’s no awareness of it is a big problem. In my mind, the greatest achievement of EVA is that it is self-aware of being a copy. That was a huge change, and it was a big turning point. That’s why I pay attention to Anno. Not about what he’s going to make but as a situation. [...]

Izubuchi: You’re telling me to consciously master that (laughs). But for this job, I don’t really know if it’s a copy [of EVA] of not, but I did feel like I wanted to try and see if that route couldn’t be followed once more. I suppose that might mean that it’s a copy of a route that’s perpetuated to this day.

Look guys, I would like nothing more than for K-ON becoming better Manabi than Manabi. Go wild with the copying, just make it good.

UPDATE: IKnight of Animanachronism comments (no permalink — how disappointing):

If you’ve seen something before, and it resembles what you’re watching now, then it forms part of the basis for understanding what you’re watching now in your mind, whether or not there was any actual influence. This works backwards in time (‘Legend of the Galactic Heroes? Liked it better when it was Code Geass!’), and across geographical/cultural divides (hence why Simoun reminds me of early Biggles), too.

Oh LOL (emphasis mine). Man, I so need to make a special exemption against long series and watch that.

I lost this record in my personal mess, but to follow up real quick on 01: the “bankon” (ばんこん【晩婚】), or late marriage. Firstly, funny how they have words for every odd martial transition. I knew about “saikon” (さいこん【再婚】), or remarriage, before, probably from Mahoraba. Now this. Talk about Eskimo and snow. Secondly, how late is late these days? Does any Christmas Cake quialify (e.g. Kuroi-sensei, Yuri-sensei)? Obviously it was different before, since that’s how Mashiro was confused in the first place.