The Yard Sale
Ok, so it’s more than 3 things.
10. Loli Otaku Girl and the moe factor.
9. Humor.
8. You can download it real fast-like.
7. A Kyoani anime.
6. Pop-culture references that are not rebranded!
5. Hear songs from other anime.
4. It’s what people are talking about, you want to stay in the loop.
3. Serafuku FTW (the OP).
2. I need fansubs for Hidamari damn it!
1. Lucky Channel.
My blog is totally seasonal.
The wave of new anime, the sweeping change of weather, the longer hours under the sun–as much as a person is in tune with his surroundings changes along with his environment. A new but familiar light shines on the things he sees and in return, he expresses himself in a new yet familiar way.
The anime scene, too, is seasonal. Speedsubbers change gear as some study for their collegate finals and relocate to their summer residences while others find extra work and slack to pick up on the new wave of anime coming this current season. The American fan circuit buzzes with anticipation for the summer con season while raging over their hormone-driven moe obsessions in increasing intensity. Fans, like lovers, find new affections while settling their older, character-defining, past follies in the niches of their personal histories. Perhaps it will make them wiser rather than more jaded?
It’s time to change your desktop wallpaper?
For many it is also a numerical change; like a sinusidal wave, the amount of disposable income for all of us weans and surges. Some are finally recovering from their End-of-Year tallies; others are already tapped out from the few first-big-sales they ran across this year. Many more hold on, for better or worse, in anticipation of something more beautiful coming this year.
In the never-ending circuit of screen caps, figure reviews, and new announcements it really pays to take a step back and breathe. Get lost in something else; refresh yourself with a cheaper pasttime for a short while. And I say this with less figurative speech than you think.
Take a clue from Sola’s Matsuri (and I suppose also the Seiou Seitokai, if you’re a night person) and just lay back and enjoy. It’s good for you, and probably good for everyone around you, too.
I think Touka Gettan wins for this season’s most thought provoking anime for me.
Reeling from the shocking brutality of Bokurano, I think I’ll stick with joking incestuous references and gender-bending dimensional stone swords and frilly girl-on-girl action if I wanted to be confused and disturbed at the same time.
Episode 3 had an impact on me. I think partly because how it reminds me of Melody of Oblivion at some of the key scenes; partly the musical score reminded me some of the best stuff that came out of the entire YamiBou thing (namely this somewhat-indie album released in 2002 for the game). It really captures both the oddish feeling you get when you’re just totally lost in a self-sustained universe where our familiar rules don’t apply, and something grand is happening and you just don’t know what it is?
But really, let’s talk about spreading body fluids with people you shouldn’t spread body fluids with. In some ways tackling social taboos are one simple ways to get some sort of message across. In Utena and Melody, it’s pretty clear. Yamibou had the same element but it wasn’t really a driving force. In some ways the anime unfolded in a much more…sane way that the message made sense rather quickly as the story unfolded.
Not so with Touka Gettan. And it’s exciting to see all that ground work already. Too bad it’s way confusing without giving us the focus at the same time.
And is it me or Momoka is like…Mamiko but isn’t?
This rant is brought to you by my drive to find the reason why some people care about Lucky Star the extent that they do.
One thing that keeps me glued to my computer & fansubbing is that every 4 months we get a wave of entirely new shows, new concepts, new set of characters, new setting, and a chance for the various studios and production companies to slug it out for our attention (and eventually our money). From a money & business perspective, this is shooting yourselves in the foot. Free market & competition aside, it makes a lot more sense to just find one winning formula, milk it as long as possible and run with what you’ve got as far as you can. That’s what Shounen Jump does (and how they’re losing subscribers is just natural), and generally what franchise management focuses on. This doesn’t mean you keep a show on the air or manga in publication as long as you possibly can, but the longer you do it the more economical it becomes, in a lot of ways.
And that’s true for a lot of the media we consume in the US. It’s only with the influx of new sources of revenues (like home video sales, network television) that we’ll see more divergent shows catered for a new market, and as a result a more diverse set of shows.
Don’t get me wrong I’m making no comment on the quality of shows that are short or long; in other words, it applies to every show out there. Also, there’s a sense of emotional and time investment with the typical shounen jump formula. Once you become intimately familiar with a series, you now have an emotional stake in the story, and you will come to like it forgive it more. You will also become easier to amuse by the said show.
But on the flip side, there are always things that defy these explainations. Lucky Star is probably something that sort of does. While once you crack its crazy-sugary candy shell laced with loli, the content is really not at all different than the relatively-sane competitor Hidamari Sketch, strength of the Kyoani Brand coasting on the good will of its success with Suzumiya Haruhi, Kanon and Air go a long way to explain (at least, one of several possibilities) the situation we have right now.
Oh wait, I’m suppose to explain how it defies that? I guess that’s the question I have that I can’t answer. Perhaps this is all just me trying to grapple with a psychological complex. Like how people who invest in mutual funds should have invested in, say, index funds instead. Or how the only subber for Hidamari Sketch is 2/3 of the way through the half-season series but there are almost as many releases of Lucky Star episodes one and two combined. Or is it just an omen that only one or two group will finish off this average slice-of-life 4-komi comedy fluff show, once people realize Lucky Star is, lack of a better word, average?
But I don’t think average is really the right word. It does have Aya Hirano (so what?). It is a show by Kyoto Animation (okay, that’s a bit more relevant…). It’s got a darn catchy opening sequence with an equally odd (but grows on you…like fungus) song to go with it. It’s got no taint of TEROGE so the lolitastic character designs don’t get its way (but somehow it bothered people in Manabi Straight? WTH?). Some of us who are more “LOL otaku” laughs at the fanboy jokes and enjoy Konata’s mythical incarnation (she’s a sphinx–aside from being a permanent loli x otaku), but the otaku jokes and references are the stupid-funny kind of references (and lame; real otaku do it PPD way). I guess that’s why people get those jokes.
Perhaps that’s the rub. Lucky Star (and to some extent, most of the other Kyoani works) is like teflon. While it’s unclear as to how the mechanism works and the reasons why, our expectation when we think about, watch, or discuss a Kyoani work is different than how we would talk about someone else. I don’t believe this myself, but when you watch Lucky Star the negative expectations just don’t stick. The very good production quality coupled with a very solid execution helps to give you that near-perfect first impression, especially if you walk into the show without prior expectations.
Hei is awesome. Bastardly so.
Finishing the pilot episodes of Darker than Black was hard only because I had to wait a week, and the first episode didn’t leave a lot to my mind to chew on except to anticipate. Thankfully the second half delivered without any problems.
But why am I getting Jigoku Shoujo vibes? I can see that episode 3, from previews, is likely to be a bit of repeat, in a “girl of the day” sort of way where Hei runs in with his Chinese charms and gets away with his mission on the graces of his target/client. If BONES can deliver up these girls of the same or higher caliber regularly… well, I’m not complaining.
The problem is dealing with those Jigoku Shoujo vibes. There’s a perpetual mystery the show revolves around, and it’s not likely going to tackle them throughout the course as an ongoing matter, but revelation will come in pieces. At least, I’m guessing. Hei’s teammates and the other persistent characters only makes the Jigoku Shoujo thing worse (What’s up with the stoic girl sitting in a river?), along with the subterfuge crap that’s going on.
It’s not a good vibe, but I trust Okamura to deliver.