Category Archives: Modern Visual Culture

August 13, 2006

Ayako Kawasumi Otakon 2006 Redux

By omo

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.

Continue reading

9 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture

August 12, 2006

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

By 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.

Continue reading

3 comments | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture

August 11, 2006

The Tried and Tiresome Sound of the Cicada’s Cries

By omo

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.

Leave a comment | posted in Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, Modern Visual Culture

August 10, 2006

I Love Simoun

By omo

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.

13 comments | posted in Modern Visual Culture, Simoun

August 9, 2006

Geneon After Dark or The Alternative Dimension of Licensing Hell

By omo

When the day ends, you hang up your coat, put your guns away, lean back, feet up, and air out your tiredness. We did that at Geneon After Dark.

Unlimited Corny Jokes Works ALL THE TIME!

Geneon After Dark is the name of the panel Geneon used to describe their 1am Otakon 2006 industry Q&A where cuffs are mostly off and the fanboy producers (and fangirls) giggled with us. I rather liked it last year when I went crazy and committed various forms of idolatry against Nana Mizuki. Speaking of which, I did forget to reiterate the question why there’s no movement on that front…

The panel itself is fairly simple. We sat, they pitched a trailer, they solicit a few questions regarding that thing, we raise our hands and get picked, we ask, they answer, and we get a free item. Rinse and repeat. A few clips later they opened up to general questions, but we had videos to see all throughout the panel including the Hellsing Ep2 previews. The floor opened up a lot more after we saw that.

The freebies they gave away were pretty good. I think I was the 3rd person to get picked so I had a wide variety of choices–piles of scrolls and t-shirts, and a lot of random stuff. It was sad, though, because the only thing I want I can’t have (a box of autographed incest given to some Hellsing fan), and the second thing I wanted is…from Kyo Kara Maou. Yes, a shoujo anime that I don’t even watch. It was a tin of something. I decided to just go for my 3rd pick, at least it’s g. I would say “damn you” for getting that Fuu figure, but I don’t even want it that much.

I think a big problem with a gathering attempt like this is that some of the audience are just plainly clueless. If you didn’t know what Black Lagoon was at that panel, well, that might be the sign to you that you need a clue before opening your mouth; let alone ask a long-winded question that makes no sense and cut into Q&A time. On the other hand a lot of the audience very much keyed-on when it comes to pointed questions, so props to them. I think this really shows especially when nearing the end of the panel I feel a lot of us were just dying to simply get some plain Q&A, but with the freebie-giving-away in the way we couldn’t get the questions out and have that dialogue going unless you’re a knowingly-rude person like me who does it because it’s supposed to be done. Terry(?) was the Geneon guy picking hands and he was trying to get to everyone who hasn’t had something–nice try but bleh. People were just raising their hands and asking dumb questions to get stuff. Since the panel didn’t conclude until 2:30, I was mad tired and didn’t want to stay around to hear all the chit chat post-panel, partly because the Good-Question-to-Bad ratio is probably too high, and I am just done airing my laundry for the day.

That said, I did stay for a couple round with…that other producer guy. I would have made my rounds to Stephen but he was pretty busy with the music people and I didn’t want to line up. And that brings us to our real topical point:

No one will ever license Futakoi Alternative.

If you recall, Geneon licensed UFOTable’s “big hit” Dokkoida. And you might also notice, if you pay attention to hype and fan clamoring, Dokkoida isn’t exactly a hot title. I think even in the fansub-sphere it didn’t make a lot of noise. Or much of noise at all. A speedy sub was all that was left in the path of an excellent but sadly forgettable show for most people, it would seem. What’s wrong with UFOTable? What’s wrong with you (who did not buy Dokkoida yet)? That’s not a big deal compared to what awaits Futakoi Alternative.

The brief conversation we had with…ugh, what’s his face next to Terry? Sorry for not remembering your name at 2am in the morning. In any event, said Geneon Guy professed his love for Dokkoida?! (and o/ for you brother) earlier which reminded me about Futakoi Alternative, one of the few titles I hunker for license-age. Naturally I brought up the topic later and he countered with something like “Well, the Japanese licenser will probably want to sell Futakoi too, and I don’t know about you but Futakoi is…”

A-yep. Futakoi is, yeah. Not a title Geneon would really like to license, at any rate.

So there we have it. It’s not the same kind of licensing hell Macross Zero is stuck in. It’s definitely not the same kind of licensing hell that Random Shoujo Series is stuck in, but that one might affect Futakoi Alternative indirectly if Dokkoida just doesn’t do well enough to justify it from the bottom line. In retrospect this situation probably has played itself out in the earlier years of fandom especially with game licenses. How do you get a “Tsukihime” without a “Tsukibako” anyways, right? How did businesses overcome that? I suppose licensing two shows is different than licensing one and ignoring the game counterpart.

More importantly, just what do we fans have to do to get a piece of it? Sucker a company, or wait for one, to license Futakoi vanilla first? I don’t really like the idea of that, but it might be the only thing left to do. Got any bright ideas for us threesome fans?

Certainly no more “Alternative” shows! Unless the original isn’t crap, anyways.

5 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Futakoi Alternative, Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop