Monthly Archives: August 2006

Ayako Kawasumi Otakon 2006 Redux

Ayako Kawasumi

The least I could do for my fellow seiyuu fans is to do a brief retelling of the Kawasumi panel at Otakon. You probably can find other retellings out there, but I’ll try to add more and flesh it out. Anyways, it has been only 8 days since the panel, so we’ll bound to see more (especially press coverages) in the coming months.

I do have to apologize, though. I spent a good amount of the time at the panel standing really close to the front, where the acoustics sucked. I missed out on some stuff, as a result. In fact, both of Otakon’s 400-level panel rooms had the same problem: it was very difficult to hear what the sound system is piping through if you sit at the very front, or on the panel. Actually in terms of the Kawasumi panel, the result was that the Q&A session was done AX-style–everyone lined up at the mic in front and we fired questions from the front of the line. Basically, we just walked right up to Kawasumi and The Ukulele Translator Guy (“Taka“) and delivered our requests and questions at a close proximity.

Also, since there were no flash photography to be had, pictures were not so easy to come by–good ones at least. The ones you see in this post are all props to Sapphire & Co. with the assist. I didn’t get any good ones….well. Short story which I’ll recite below.

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Ori, Ochi, Onoe, Oh What the Hell, Omo?

Ever tried to kiss someone wearing glasses? It's not easy.

B+.

I think if I were to bust a move and pull some contacts together, to make a game from RenPy, I could construct something rival to this.

However you really still have to give it props.

The effort that goes into it.

You can taste the blood and smell the stinky sweatiness from a day’s hard work.

No liberal use of the paragraph HTML tags can reflect just the amount of respect I have for the format where every sentence is its own mouse click.

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The Tried and Tiresome Sound of the Cicada’s Cries

Yes, Eureka7 != Higurashi

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni is, by all means, a wonderful telling of a fairly creepy story. Those who’ve seen it look forward it being solved; the rise and release of tension, and the confusing reconstruction of its repeated performance like an eternal groundhog day. The rustic, country Japanese feel the show gives it an unique flavor as the bulk of the show ran over the course of this summer.

But like its powerful performance in the OP animation sequence that shadows what is to come in an episode, the rest of the series pales to the first 5 episodes, the first story arc “Onikakushi.” It’s not particularly surprising–the most powerful trick of a horror thriller is surprise, and after its first performance most of the surprises have transformed into speculation and exposition.

For sake of coherence and narrative integrity, the piecemeal visual novel is adopted into small, repeated performances, each replay spiraling up the complexity and gruesome ladder. And as it should. As the audience familiarize with the, sadly, one-track-path Higurashi is taking, even if we cannot fathom the precise mechanism the plot works off of, we know the color and flavor out of its prior consistency. The ultimate saving grace that comes of Higurashi’s narrative, maybe, is its ultimate appeal to the supernatural: Oyashiro-sama. Maybe it’ll actually poise itself to try to leave that unanswered!

If I was a compulsive curious Sherlock, I might be amused with trying to figure out the mechanics; but I am not. It’s sad to say, but at this point of the game I am just done with Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. It may still have a lot of tricks up its sleeves, but they’re all of substance, not of mannerism and flair. While nothing has been explained, nothing needs explanation. Maybe it can promise me that somewhere down the next 2 arcs something more exciting could happen, but for someone who watches it out of the fresh scare and creep and, well, the awesome OP/ED sequences, I just don’t think I can believe that easily.

I remember when I was younger and less jaded, I lived in a country with a lot of cicadas. Their cries marked the call of the season and invariably if you want to have a good night of sleep, you learn to live with their twilight symphonies. After moving to a place where there are no cicadas except the rare one or two per acre, you notice their distinct cries. It very well may be the same trick in play with When the Cicadas Cry.


I Love Simoun

I spend a lot of my leisure time with people on IRC. It rubs off on me, that pattern of behavior, you know, the entire bit about conveying emotion through emoticons, capitalization, image macro links, and just very clever asshattery. Jaded and now gotten used to the usual tricks, it is amusing what can be salvaged for my tarnished mental innocence, left floating in the gutter that is known as the internet.

Perhaps that’s why every time when I tune in to the plight of the Chor Tempest, I am right there as if I am Guraghief! Ah, this is the essence of the Battle Miko fetish, is it not? Or better yet, the best spin on the children of war theme? A symbolic coming of age?

But like most rewarding things in life, it doesn’t come to you without effort. Simoun is totally a show that got the shaft from the fansubbers at the get-go, but the fault lies on Simoun itself for being the best internally-consistent, unconventional fantasy setting probably since Last Exile. On top of that, the massive cast, the steadfast pacing, and a confusing (yet important) beginning can leave viewers bored, confused, disinterested, or all three.

However it has rather solid production values. Simoun boasts a competent voice acting cast, and it is directed by the director of Ranma 1/2. Working what’s left from their Fate Stay Night splooge, Studio Deen does what they do best: gorgeous (animated) illustrations. They’re frameable paintings, for crying out loud. The 3d-CG Simoun aerial fights covers their still-frame butts this time around, and while that looks cheap and takes getting used to, it doesn’t bother me after a few episodes. The music is nothing to write home about, but it is good.

If you are curious, definitely give the Wikipedia entry a read, or refer to Hashihime’s Simoun pages for quick reference.

What really captivated me was the focus on character drama. While we can pun away all day and night about the “they’re not really girls!” thing, Simoun presents itself very similar to a shoujo version of Last Exile–in fact the whole Tatiana and Alestia angstfest is a glimpse of what we see in Simoun. As opposed to renegade mercs, Chor Tempest is a parade of priestesses, offering their usual, but deadly, prayer to their theological object of affection when they dance in the skies.

On the other hand, you can look at it not too differently than day soap–it’s full of surprise, innuendo of rape; illicit relationships; people empathizing each other, people manipulating each other, and people growing up. Falling in love, falling from faith; claiming success, losing prestige. The whole nine yards. It’s a lot more subtle than offerings you find from Strawberry Panic, so it’s a little less “exciting.” At the same time, it deals with something that is just much more fundamentally resounding in me that I have to take it seriously. I just can’t do that for a 3rd rate Marimite spoof.

And again, there’s the whole children of war aspect. It’s blatant that shrine maidens are not meant for war (at least outside of Touhou). The mixed expectations crossed with the sacrilege of turning tools of worship into weapon for destruction goes beyond merely the secrets hidden within the Spring of gender crossing or the Simouns machina themselves, but in the heart of the Simoun pilots, or Sibyllae. It’s being backgrounded over time as the series marched on, but with the interplay of its setting, the enemy states against the Simulacrum, and the variety of priestesses for the one and only Tempus Patium, there’s so much stuff there that a 26-ep run will not exhaust it all.

So go watch it already! At least you can enjoy all these gorgeous vectoring of the eyecatches while fully realizing just how awesome this cast of half-misfits really are.


Trap-chan, Fanboy, Tool, Punk’d, and DQ – A Convention Primer

You call this a Roberta cosplay? Shame.

Another way to look at a con, from a top-down framework, is how anime cons serve several purposes across the board. I’m going to try to list the most prominent and attractive reasons here in an archtypical form, but who knows, some people come to cons for very specific things sometimes. Anyways, the follow framework basically categorizes the average con-going crowd into 5 types, and one could describe the population of each con event with these categories. It’s possible that one person exhibit multiple, even all of these traits. However generally there will be one guiding, overpowering tendency–or else how would you know which panel/event to go to?

The Cosplayer. The general trend in anime cons in the US is that cosplaying is a necessity. This is actually a divergence with cons in Japan where cosplay is a very distinct activity either as a means or as an end. Today, con cosplay has gotten to the point that anyone can cosplay and go about doing any kind of thing. Crossed with other activities such as doing a skit at the masquerade, a hall costuming contest, LARP, or even just for meetups, the cosplayer is ultimately engrossed with costuming. In as much as race cars are meant to be raced, a con is a race for those well-oiled costumes. Ahem. Of course more traditional use of cosplay as booth-babe-age also happens, even in Artist Alleys type places. Some do it for only the attention whoring aspects. There are also a lot of people cosplaying just for the giggles, but 9 out of 10 of those are crap cosplays or creepy old people.

+: They give anime cons its flavor. They’re dedicated (it takes work to get a costume together!), and generally pleasant.
-: They tend to be attention whores, and prone to drama. Also too many cosplays just suck these days.

The Fanboy. It’s hard to find people who are very much so in this category, but often times these types exhibit signs of obsession. They would line up for a certain event at the expense of other, leisurely fun things to do. They have 1-track minds when it comes to *the thing* they attend a con for. Like the typical fangirl at a Yoshiki autographing session. Or my French friend who’d travel to the US just to see KOTOKO. Honestly, they’re generally a good group and they make cons fun for everyone; on the flip side they can also manifest for the worst, and all it takes is just a couple bad ones to ruin some event.

+: They’re the ones that cons are meant to cater to in the first place. They welcome our guests of honor and gives everyone something to talk about. Also dedicated, but only to their respective fans and whatever they worship.
-: Too much dedication makes a certain event difficult to access for normal people. Need to shower more. Scares normal people.

The Cruiser. I’m probably squarely in this category half of the time. We go to cons for what a con is–its programming. We browse through the cosplayers much like how we go through a stack of promo posters at the dealer’s room. We go from one panel to another. Depending on how hardcore you are about it, you could take it easy and even go visit the local attraction when traveling to a faraway con. Taking time to eat, rest, and even go to bed early if there’s nothing interesting going on at the end of a tired day. Lining up for the masquerade is something we do out of tradition, and we always have a blast at the AMV showing. The sad thing about this group is that they are not too passionate about everything, even when hanging out with friends.

+: They’re the bulk of con goers. Relatively normal.
-: Often conceited and selfish, prone to burn-outs at cons because they’re just here, and not for something specific. Make dealer’s room line really, really long.

The /b/-tard. I use this word not only in the familiar 4chan.org sense, but in general. Cons provides a context that not unlike how 4chan provides a context for anonymous posters of random pictures. With decreased inhibition from peer behavior, lack of sleep, use of certain substances, what have you, they may go around glomping random people, hold up stupid signs, mosh at the wrong time, whatever. Elevated case can involve inappropriate crossplaying and other kind of stuff you don’t want to know.

+: They’re funny.
-: They’re jerks.

The Social Butterfly. This is the type of people who comes to con just to socialize. They could be any of the above categories, but that’s what keeps the coming to cons. Usually also because it’s just a lot of fun to watch /b/-tards make fun of themselves, and it keeps them up to date with what’s going on. These social people are often veteran con-goers, and can resemble late stages of a burnt-out Cruiser or Cosplayer. Sometimes a very dedicated fanboy could also be at a con purely to socialize outside of seeing only 1 event. Sometimes this can describe certain con staffers!

+: They make cons worth coming to year after year, despite the change in programming.
-: They can get in the way if you’re one of the other type of con-goers. Also drama-prone.

To me, ultimately anime cons are giant parties, or a congolmeration of several parties strung together, both chronologically and geographically. Compatible people hang out in each of the party types. For example Saturday night, you have your Cruisers and Cosplayers and Social people at the masquerade, with some /b/-tards. Rest of the Cruisers will be out at dinner with other social people. Some Cruisers with Fanboy leanings will be with other Fanboys at the programming they’re interested in, along with /b/-tards doing whatever they can get away with in the halls hanging out with other Cosplayers not doing the Masquerade. At a panel like 4chan, you get a good mix of Fanboys, /b/-tards, and Cruisers who reads 4chan. At a panel like Geneon After Dark, however, it’ll be mostly just Fanboys and whichever Cruisers are still not tired at that point. The Social Butterflies are probably at various room parties, hanging out at the hotels, or karaoke. It’s party-after-party-after-party like an endless game of musical chairs.

With the framework laid out, there is one thing on my mind that you can use it for–to plan your next con-going experience for maximum profit! If you want to skip lines, pick ones with the least Cruisers. If you want a lot of LOL, go to the /b/-tard things or one with a lot of Fanboys. If you want some con atmosphere, hang out with the Cosplayers. And always, have some Social Butterflies in your con networking map. If you want to know what’s hot and what’s not, ask a Fanboy, a Butterfly with fanboy tendencies, or an expert Cruiser. If you want to stay safe, stay away from the /b/-tard things.

I hope this is helpful.