Category Archives: Franchises

February 11, 2012

Ghibli Challenge #END – Arrietty, Graves of the Fireflies

By omo

This is it (minus a couple stubs that I lost).

I figured I need to wrap it up sooner or later, and it’s already late.

Because I saw only a screener of Arrietty and I’m not suppose to blog about it until some pre-determined time, I’ll keep my impressions mostly focused on the things you really should know. Well, I guess given it’s due out next week, RIGHT NOW is the time to blog about Arrietty, right, Disney? Never mind that the Japanese Blu-ray has been out for some time.

So I saw Arrietty some time in January. I figured it would be a great way to cap out the 12-days-of-Ghibli thing I’ve had going. And it was. Except it was not the 12th film. More like the 10th film. And I didn’t ever get to number 12. It was on a snowy afternoon that I trained up the west side to Symphony Space. The place was packed, given that it snowed quite a bit the night before. Lots of kids, as it was an 11am showing.

Well, no matter. I made it just in time and the screening was even delayed. I figured it also had to do with the snow.

Walking out of the theater I was actually stoked to find out that the NY International Children’s Film Fest, the #1 destination of new anime films in the city, was hosting A Letter to Momo. That and Shinkai’s Hoshi ou o Kodomo. The latter I’ve seen enough times (thanks Otakon!) and knowing what the former is, I am really excited. You should go see it when you can. Anyway.

Arrietty is awesome in the sense that there’s a real impression of scale and sound and smallness and the oppressiveness of large, vertical archetecture. And there’s some parkour-ish stuff. The dub was solid. For Ghibli, it’s rather intense.

Also, gosh, that hairclip. SO MOE.

Film #11 was Graves of the Fireflies, and I cheated here: It’s just something I saw on home video because it has been way too long since I’ve last seen it, I had to come up with something of an opinion on the film for a feature I’m working on for Jtor. I’m always kind of conflicted counting Graves as a Ghibli film, because it is not–they don’t own it. It is Ghibli-made, so that’s what counts, but as a result of not owning it (or rather, their parent company not owning it), you never get to see it along with the rest of the Ghibli films and they can’t publish it in the same trade dress that Disney is pumping out in Japan for the BD re-releases of Ghibli’s lineup.

I’m not sure what is there to say about it besides that it’s definitely the best Takahata film. I would also like to call it the best slice-of-life anime, motivated because that’s what it is and I want to mock people who group anime by such a label.

The other thing is, as much as it is a quality war flim, Graves was a much better experience for me as a film about poverty–the inability to meet the needs of the neediest in society. Sure, there’s this war context that drives the changes in the lives of the children, but it is a giant decoy. The problem is not so much about the circumstances, but the human relationship that was driven and tested by the circumstances. When you stop and actually think about the story (something I recommend you do with caution, for Ghibli films, unless it is Spirited Away) you might have different opinions based on your context with WW2 in Japan. But that’s not really the focus here. It’s plainly the tragedy as a result of the war and the breaking down of the social structure, that safety web, which normally holds a society and the people in it together. It isn’t that everyone in Japan is a starving war orphans–in fact, plenty of people are doing fine, even if many are strained by the events going on. It is the most vulnerable and unfortunate among society that suffers the sort of fate we see in Graves.

What is truly shocking is that this is something that happens over and over again, across the world. Even today. But if you were stuck on the war context you might not be able to connect the dot. I mean, ever read The Grapes of Wrath? Many different things can drive that sort of unraveling of societal ties. War is just the easy one.

Of course, I think the film can be enjoyable if you just allow yourself to wallow in the pitifulness of it all. And maybe that is its intent. But I think that would be short-changing a fairly powerful portrayal of suffering. Furthermore, it’s really a downer! How can you enjoy something like this without at least contextualizing it a little? It’s like, it feels bad feeling good seeing the way those slick American bombers were illustrated, bringing horrific suffering to innocent civilians. But dude, they’re so shiny!

And thus ends the Ghibli Challenge. GKID’s Ghibli festival has already made landfall in California and some other place I think. It’s going to be Austin this month, so catch it there! Catch it everywhere!

Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture, The Secret World of Arrietty

February 9, 2012

Fate/Extra

By omo

There was a reason why I am really behind on my Haikasoru reading. Or at least one of them being Fate/Extra. It is also the first Japanese RPG-type game that I finished to some degree of completion since Valkyria Chronicles 1, which was a long time ago.

Lamenting on lack of time and interests aside, one of the biggest draw for Aksys’s localized version of the thing is (aside from being translated) hearing Tange Sakura as Saber Extra. The Red Saber. The Saber with see-thru skirt. Whatever. I kind of enjoyed that a lot, despite PSP’s built in size limitation in terms of how much voiceover it can possibly hold.

I went for Rin in my only playthrough, on the other hand, and they really need to give her more lines.

The only lure left is to play through the game again using Caster, with Saito Chiwa. I mean, right? I don’t think they were beating around the bush at seiyuu selection.

There’s a little bit of me inside wanting to play it through again just so I can get to Ryogi Shiki, but that would be a spoiler–well, not exactly. She’s one of those optional unlock bosses you can find in the New Game+ scenario.

There are a lot of interesting things to Fate/Extra that nobody talks about. Probably because it really is not important, and those who would probably can’t withstand the tedium of playing rock paper scissors so many times.

I wonder if it sold well enough to warrant Fate/Extra CCC, or at least so I can download it by the time I end up with a Vita (which I assure you is not likely this year). On that note, I should say something about my SIGNIFICANT DISAPPOINTMENT with GameStop with their preorder program. It happened that I preordered the game before I moved, and I forgot to change my address on my preorder when I did. Eventually it came up with GS by the time they wanted to bill me, so there was a back-and-forth. When the issue was resolved with GameStop CS they decided to not ship me the preorder bonus with the game. I sent an email and they said they will ship it to me, except it has not yet happened. And this is about 3 months ago now. Because I totally would not have bought the game physically (or even with them) otherwise!

As for Red Saber, I think her story is kind of sound although I have a hard time buying in. It seems to mimic reality a lot better than normal Saber’s plea to genderswap, which somehow made it easier to question the details?

I guess the only angle I have on Red Saber’s legacy is one that is like Guilty Crown’s Hare’s First Love. Not that it’s like how history paints it. And here ends with answering one spoiler with another. It’s unfortunate that I’m doing a cop-out here, since all the interesting stuff are probably spoiler of some sort.

Speaking of not-spoiler material, at one point in the game I realized there are actually only so many R/P/S patterns to memorize, and they don’t even all show up on the same level. It worked great because you get to run each level of the dungeon maybe 2-3 times per game-week. All I had to do is go through the fights once and it’ll come to mind which moves to guess when it comes down to guessing. It also helped that Saber was very error-tolerant.

Well, it’s a fun diversion, if it took a little longer than I wanted. I probably didn’t have to grind so much near the end. Is it worth it? Only if you like Type-Moon and the voice cast/moe/otaku nature of it. But you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. What you probably didn’t know is, unlike some possible kusoge, the system is smooth and doesn’t try to get in your way. As long as you remember that the square key teleports you and the triangle key skips the dialog, it’s a good time.

I mean if “omg Omo finished a JRPG! It can’t be good” makes sense to you, well, you should be happy that this reaffirms the same.

7 comments | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, Fate, Modern Visual Culture

February 1, 2012

Nisemonogatari Is All Fanservice, All the Time

By omo

Back in the day when I served Google ads on my own blog hosted elsewhere I wrote about the nature of pornography and at some point Google flagged me. Probably because there’s bots for those things. But if you read my posts from back then, I don’t do anything that the word implies on my writing here.

The same can be said of Nisioisin’s animated Nonexistent Youths in Nisemonogatari. Actually we should be talking about Bakemonogatari, because that show is also similar in that there’s all this porn. Maybe not all the time like Nise, but Bake has several moments where I have to wring my brow and consider what I was truly watching.

Unlike people who shy away from the source material, Nisioisin’s treatment of his characters is key to understanding what actually is going on in Bake and Nise from the perspective of the anime adaptation. Granted, all I had was a few books translated into English, but Nisio Isin is pretty much writing like the database animal was living on his sleeves. JP mentions that so far the scenarios and set pieces in Nise are all like what you would find in a doujinshi for Nise, and it’s painfully obvious once we reduce the scenes to what they really are. What you all should know is Nisioisin’s works are all like this, or at least every one that I have looked into. I think the naming scheme he has adopted for the whatever-monogatari stories says as much about the interchangable, mash-up set pieces of his works.

By focusing the plot on these well-understood scenarios, it allows the director to do whatever the hell he wants in the mean time. That allows the story to highlight these quirky characters that live like pixel-perfect, graphed conical equations sharply focuses on the stress points that these well-curated tropes–the word trope seems woefully inadequate here–and their intended effects. It is the difference between showing you a picture of a snake and showing you the word “snake” instead, but both the image and the word behave the same. It’s like, who cares about what the snake is actually? You know what it signifies and you know how it is in your mind, you just want to get to the money shot (which in this case, for readers of Nisioisin, the animated versions of their favorite things).

Oh wait, that’s an actual SHAFT trick isn’t it?

[Next up: SHAFT draws a shark and writes SAME a hundred times in a cut in the same episode.]

When Nadeko went full-frontal in Bake I was pretty uncomfortable. I understood all the stuff that was going on (perhaps too well). But when Shinobu enjoyed her bath with Koyomi I was nowhere nearly as queasy. I think I was suppose to react to it not unlike the way he harassed Hachikuchi. Am I suppose to react to it the same way when Kanbaru got naked and wrestled Araragi? Or when Nadeko tried to seduced the same? What does that say about Karen and Tsukihi?

Well, I don’t really think how we reacted to those things are important. It’s more important to note that we reacted to those things, and not to the fact that 4 episodes in we have barely started on the arc’s main story. To me it says nobody really cares exactly what those plot events are like (unless it accumulates into some awesome fight scene that SHAFT couldn’t animate in time), but we want to see Senjougahara tilt her head or Nadeko play Twister. So here we are, full of it in Nise. That is fanservice. And if you watched Nise episodes 1-4, every episode is full of fanservice, from start to finish. It’s by far the most fanservice-y thing on the air right now.

So when we talk about the discomfort some felt when Shinbo revisits one of his favorite subjects–the aged loli vampire–we have to take that into perspective. Is fanservice expected in a fanservice show? Is this fanservice somehow different than other fanservice? By what measuring sticks are you relying to make that distinction? Is that stick one that retracts or extend upon arousal? Do we even want to know? Can we couch our hard-ons with some, well, context? I really don’t want to go and read people’s valid objections and come away with “man these people are prudes and hypocrites.” Because that’s not who you really are.

I suppose there’s always a lack of dutch angle porn on the internet, and SHAFT works hard to remedy this.

22 comments | posted in Bakemonogatari, Modern Visual Culture

January 29, 2012

Cultural Exchange: Roman Baths, French Metalwork, Boats and Cars

By omo

First of all, I want to share this WSJ article which summarizes a prevalent East Asian attitude about Elitist Japan.

Then, go watch Thermae Romae. It’s an enjoyable show. Not because what is amusing about that show is how it subtly extol exactly that virtue. But what’s even more amusing is the way our time-traveling designer/architect adopts those technologies for his own use.

I mean, it’s almost offensive if you read it too deep.

[Also, when I see Mingosu on stage I always think “FLAT-FACED TRIBE” now. Also #2, inc. iM@S post.]

It makes the cultural exchange in Croisee a little more palatable (rather than boring, I suppose) because now you have at least two cultures of similar status trading things.

As opposed to, say, in Aria, which is more just tourism.

The other day I read an article about how Sony is considering shutting down its battery manufacturing operation within Japan and moving to some other Asian country. That’s how everything in the electronics industry is going these days, as well as many others. But there are still some consumers who cling to that national brand/identity as a synonym as quality. It belies the nature of IP and mass production, at least by today’s standards. Of course, I am not going to disagree to the observed reality that at times, one factory can produce something better than another producing the same SKU, but usually there is some specific reason that can be (and often is) resolved by engineers, managers, and employees, on the road to globalization. I mean don’t Honda and Toyota spend a ton of effort and money to fight this problem?

I think more concretely, and importantly, there’s something to be said that in the end, at the end of the day, at last, we can enjoy Thermae Romae as a fun piece of entertainment. It is just like how I can surely enjoy the tastes of the best French cuisine made in Japan, or the best Japan has to offer, imported from Ohio. Or go to Uniglo and see how everything is made in the same countries that makes clothes for every other brand anyway. This is the truism that props up this whole cultural remix-ism and give people even the slightest reason to give it damn.

6 comments | posted in Aria, Modern Visual Culture, Thermae Romae

January 24, 2012

Judge Book by Cover: Winter 2011 Edition

By omo

Another year, another season, another activity under the sun. Three-ep test time, right?

Danshi Koukosei no Nichijou – Nichibros is great fun. But I am not compelled. I think Nichijou was more compelling, despite significantly less gut-busting fun. Maybe it will grow on me. Maybe not. It’s still a lot of fun though.

Symphogear – Only if Polyphonica was like this. That said I ought to drop it. Wake me up when Minami Takayama shows up again. What is up with Nana Mizuki and crap anime anyways? At any rate, the weird feeling that I should go suffer through Blood-C first before this prompts me to do that first before watching any more Symphogear. Which is probably unlikely.

Kill Me Baby – It’ll probably be fun to watch at 2x speed. But not for me.

Ano Natsu de Matteru – Probably my most anticipated anime coming out of the first 3 episodes. There is a warmth to the characters and the animation radiates love. Kind of like how iM@S was. And believe it or not, Ichigo Morino (kind of wondering what would go with Umino) takes the spot of the first fixed pose PVC moe girl figure I ever owned. But actually, even if none of what I said just now is true, I would’ve put AnoNatsu in the #1 spot on the strength of episode 3 alone. It’s just a terrific piece of witty rom-com in the span of 23 minutes. It’s this kind of stuff that elevates late-night otaku fantasy into the realm of something that can be taken seriously as entertainment.

Mouretsu Pirates – Definitely my most anticipated anime going into this season. Does not disappoint. I am fine with the slow pace.

Rinne no Lagrange – This and Aquarion fight a bitter fight to see if it can fit into my even more restricted anime viewing time. It has an edge because it is on Hulu.

Aquarion EVOL – Just like the old series. But unfortunately I didn’t like the old show that much. I get the feeling it will be a mid-season call for this one, or will it have more staying power than Gundam AGE? One weird thing I noticed is how watching the OP and ED without any subtitles drastically improved my viewing experience. It’s like there is a saturation point in terms of what happens on every cut at any given time. The credits actually reduces the load on my sensory organs, but the subtitles (especially my favorite Karaoke subs) pushes it way over the edge and you missout that immersive experience as your eyes begin to ignore the stuff the subs breaks out from one moving frame to the other. Or at least it was for me.

High School DxD – Boobs are great, aren’t they?

Nisemonogatari – I wish I could just say “Boobs are great, aren’t they?” Definitely will finish it, simply because despite how much I find Nisioisin’s tricks worthless, they are quite entertaining. Also, at this point how can anyone take this show beyond pure fanservice? I have a hard time taking it seriously at all, maybe at the most as a funny word problem.

Papa no Iukoto wo Kikinasai! – Better known as Papakiki or “Listen to Me Girls, I Am Your Father!” it is more like, well, a planewreck than a train wreck. The first two episodes does a great job making a serious matter serious in this heavily saturated genre of man meets loli. The only question left is will the man meats loli? Also, the sempai character is kind of interesting.

Knight in the Area – Sums up why I have a hard time embracing shows like Cross Game, which I further contemplate if it has to do with why sports manga will never fly in America. Also, carwreck lol.

Another – I generally dislike horror as a genre, but this show is so gorgeous I don’t know if I can drop it. Also, Chihiro vibes where? Episode 3 ends with a very nice punch. Too bad she was my favorite moe character in the show; also makes a great first target.

Amagami SS+ – Glad it only has 2-ep arcs. First arc was kind of dreadful actually. But at this point I might as well finish. Good thing about 2-ep arcs is that any bad stuff only lasts for so long before another two reroll. Rihoko arc has proved to capture a bit more of the charm from the first series already!

Inu x Boku SS – I’m blogging it over at Jtor, and so far it is a deviation from what we typically expect out of David Pro. While I’m not holding my breath on it I expect it to be actually entertaining enough along the lines of, say, Maid-sama. Except instead of the annoying feminist blunders, it’ll have a lot of fujoshi baits. Or I hope. Ending is a great little nod.

Thermae Romae – It’s short and sweet. Being educational is a bonus. Also I’m really happy that it is only 6 eps long, because I’m not sure how much more of this I can handle.

Poyopoyo – It’s short and sweet and I can handle cats like this.

Recorder and Randsell – It’s short. Watching this on CR makes me wonder why am I not watching Morita-san or GDGT Fairies instead? But being on CR and being short means I can watch it on the commute.

17 comments | posted in Amagami, Ano Natsu de Matteru, Blood, Modern Visual Culture, Mouretsu Pirates, Rinne no Lagrange