Category Archives: Popular Culture

April 15, 2007

Of Choco Coronet and Porche 911 – New York International Auto Show 2007

By omo

Growing up in the United States means that what’s native and comfortable for me is, well, what’s around me and not what’s not around me. But my slightly more complicated life circumstances as a Chinese-born American (still nothing compared to Manabi’s travels) may make me more accustomed to yakitori and some strange Asian pastries as well.

But nothing about my middle-class upbringing will dim the shine off a showroom Porche 911 Targa 4.

Some breed of Porche 911

Well, that’s not quite the car Misaka Kirihara drives (is it?), but you get the idea. (By the way I :wub: the Cayman, it’s probably the dream car in my overly practical imagination).

When the Taiyaki Thief made her rounds, some people were cheated this staple snack for young people (I’ve never seen an old person eat a taiyaki, now come to think of it). It’s a pure coincidence that after doing my annual visit at the New York International Auto Show that I went into a bakery and see, for sale, choco coronets. What’s odd is that the store is more than half way across town from the Javits Center, and yet, fate would have it that I stepped into it, unplanned.

The auto show is a fun fare. It’s definitely something you take your kids to, and for people looking to buy a car, it’s the sort of research opportunity that you shouldn’t pass up. I mean, you really could compare side by side something like an Audi S6 next to a Caddy CTS V, then plant your butt inside a Ford Fusion because the line for the Shelby 500 is a bit long. All for fun and not for any kind of chance of buying those cars (well, this year’s Ford Fusion is a nice pick if you’re looking for a new car I suppose).

Highlights (no pics because, well, didn’t really take many):

  • The new Sienna is like the old one, but with a lot more juice; too bad you can’t tell sitting there. The new-new Town and Country, though, wow. Dang. That is pimp.
  • The prices for those overly expensive Ford pickups are going down, which is good. Honda’s Ridgeline is still the top pick for mid/full size “refined” ride, although I can understand why you’d buy an Avalanche.
  • The new Acura RL channels a lot from Mercedes, and for the price it’s quite the luxury.
  • But for some more, the Infiniti M45 is still tops. The new G37 is, well, rewarding for those who are patient; it really blows the G35 away as far as interior and, most importantly, body styling. If you think the G35 coupe is sexy, well the G37 is way sexy. Too bad I dunno if I could say the same for its new 3.7L engine.
  • The two Nissan/Infiniti concepts, Rogue and the EX, respectively, is going to cater to your Murano-buying crowd without the excessive price tags. Look for them probably late this year.
  • Surprisingly, BMW manages to wow me with the 3-series convertible. It is very sweet if you are looking for that kind of experience. If you like the VW Eos and wanted something more luxurious, this is worth looking into. Speaking of which, the Eos and the GTI (I like the pimped out one on the floor…forgot what special name it had) were nice, but Rabbit totally disappointing.
  • Which is a lot more than I could say for Mercedes this year. You go, woah, S67 AMG. And like, move on to cars they actually let you sit in? If I wanted to stare I’d go stare at the very sexy Lexus LF-A concept or the Ford Interceptor concept; or the Audi R8 which was out a year ago but didn’t make the show last year.
  • The new Audi S5 gets me excited. Being a minor fan of Audi’s designs and looks for some time now, seeing the RS4 repackaged in a more reasonable (but probably still overpriced for its lower-than-expectation performance) S5 is something to hope for, as more data roll out for the new car slated for later this model year.
  • Miscellaneous things…well, the new Accord 2-door reminds me a lot of a much better looking Altima for some reason (with a dash of Toyota’s FT-HS prototype mixed in). Hopefully this is the new “break” they need. Funnily enough the Altima 2-door concept is going the same places. The new Saturn Astra looks less ridiculous than the prototyped(?) Scion xD, for what it is worth. Subaru, this year, really toned it down; the Tribeca and WRX for 2008 both looked much more “normal” and less oddball. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing but I don’t hate it. I did really like the Demon concept. Very sweet.

The day ended for me with some powerwalking to both catch restaurants that closes too soon and trains that didn’t leave too early (thankfully). I went into a Nathan’s by the train station and had a chili dog with a corn dog (no pictures necessary I hope). Cheers to some Coney Island memories.

…..Right. Back to the choco coronet: it is what you think it is; a bread outer structure that is then filled with some kind of chocolate filling. As with most Asian pastry, the filling isn’t very sweet, so the chocolate-ness isn’t overwhelming with the fairly light bread. I was surprised that I wasn’t totally disgusted with it. Maybe because the place I got it from was Korean, but there was a lot of filling which made eating it the “smart” (by Lucky Star’s standards) way not very practical, as soon you will be licking both sides. In the end, I’m with Konata; head first.

Sort of like this post.

5 comments | posted in Conventions and Concerts, Darker than Black, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Lucky Star, Off Topic, Popular Culture, Red Garden

March 1, 2007

New York Comic-Con 2007 – Not Enough Pancakes

By omo

I haven’t been to a honest-to-goodness scifi/comic con since forever, so I figured why not when a couple old friends invited me to go with them this past weekend to the NYCC. Unfortunately Friday was my only free day that weekend and one of my friends can’t make it, making the ordeal a little less worth my while. I think it worked out well because the other friend I went with was someone I just didn’t talk to much after we parted ways however so long ago. Old friends got lots to catch up and all. Even if I had to buy a weekend pass as a result.

Friday is suppose to be the less crowded day, mostly because unlike an anime con, a larger part of the demographic works. Even if they go straight to the con (which opened at 4 for non-industry folks), they probably would have waited at least an hour on line after they have gotten to the convention. If they gotten out of work at 4:30 and took their 30 minutes of NYC commute-time to get there (30 minutes being generous), I would still have them beat by 2 hours.

The con itself is inside Javits Center, which is actually HEUG (bigger than BCC, where Otakon sits). But I think the con only uses about half of it. Lines weren’t so bad Friday, and that’s only because unless you wanted to go to the panels (and there weren’t really any interesting ones Friday), there’s only one thing to do.

Actually, there are a bunch of panels that I would go, but they’re all industry only. Poop. I think the only panels I sat in on was the TAN panel for 5 minutes, and most of the Stan Lee talk. He is a jolly old dude who doesn’t deserve half of the fame and glory he gets, and I like him for saying so. Very charismatic guy. I was in the TAN panel for 5 minutes only because it was mostly full of rambling from chatting girls who appeases TAN viewers (I get TAN but it cost extra so I avoid it) and have nothing substantive to say.

Yea, I spent most of my time in the exhibit hall. It feels a lot more professional because there are a lot more “pro” vendors with nice displays compared to even big anime cons. You’re talking about basically all the comic book studios and publishers, plus people like ADV and Viz. I think Brocolli had something there? I stole some pens, heh. AAA had a display of some kits, but nothing super fancy. One vendor actually had store some cool kits (like both Fate figures). I would’ve picked up a copy of Puerto Rico (as it’s the flavor of the week with the board gamers I hang out with) except the one vendor that carried these kind of things didn’t have it.

What else was amusing? Some Korean manhwa booth gave out random samplers and made reference to gay sex? I didn’t catch that. Actually there were some other funny stuff, but most of them involve my uncanny friend, so I better not share with you all as he’s probably overly sensitive about people talking behind his back on the intarweb. Oops.

Wizard of the Coast booth was fun. They made you do their game demos (or watch at least) for a chance to win some fairly good prizes. I got away with the Eberron settings book. Their Star Wars miniature game looks fun too, so chalk one up for lure with loot. I think they even had their board games and collector edition PHB as prizes. I’d say that’s worth the $20-30 and made my trip even.

Sadly, there are not much in terms of pictures. Just from my pinhole phone cam. I didn’t even take many pictures. Hit up Google or something for actual pics, I guess. There were a handful of costumers on Friday; some pros and some casuals. I like this cute girl in imperial navy officer outfit, for instance. Some girl cosplayed V and I noticed it’s a girl right off the bat? The quality of cosplaying is higher partly because, I guess, there were more pros at it, and only people who knew what they were doing wore something… including this random kid who walked around as Optimus Prime and a boombox.

Wish I could have:
*came back on Saturday and attend the Suzumiya Haruhi panel
*were into gaming to catch the significance of the game-related booths were
*go to the industry panels
*see Colbert
*not catch a bad cold on the next day and be unable to post this blog entry until today

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Leave a comment | posted in Conventions and Concerts, English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Popular Culture

February 16, 2007

Franchising Abstraction and Open Endings

By omo

A simple existence

If you’re ever partial to nail-biting bickering about trivial nothings, we’re having a contest here. It’s on right now and have been for a little while, and will continue for the next month and plus some. The difference between this and SaiWhatever is that there’s promises of gift prizes at the end of the long, hard-fought road. Read the rules for what little details there are available.

But more pertinently, as people struggle to come up with every possible kind of incentive under the sun to get those swing votes, I’m just drawing out one point for further attention.

Let’s take Type-Moon’s Fate/Stay Night for example. It’s a good example because I have to remind myself of the pictures I still have yet to take (at least you don’t get snow in Singapore! lol. Jeff Lawson so should get a figure photo blog going…) and blog entries yet to be written about F/SN’s cast of characters. What do you get when you remove, say, Saber, from the context of the game/anime story? Who is Saber?

We know by the game/anime setting, that she is a magical being summoned to fight in a contest. She is also a heroic being, who died and now lives again for the purpose of this contest. We know it’s a she; we know she is a swordswoman. We know she has blond hair and blue eyes. We know she wears armor like nobody’s business–probably dating her to an age where wearing that kind armor was practical (disregarding anime’s crazy design licenses for impractical character designs). She speaks with a fairly solemn voice, and is a serious individual. Most of her official character art reflect that as well.

Now we look at Rin Tohsaka in the same way. Rin is a she, too; and also a serious individual. But beyond that the two quickly diverges. Rin is darker, and sports a design style that is a little gothic but also much more Japanese-schoolgirl. She expresses a variety of attitudes and feelings with her facial expression and body language that is missing from Saber. She has an attitude. In fact, she quickly reminds me (at least) of the Oujosama archetype.

The two of them, Saber and Rin, are characters in a franchise. We know a lot about them without knowing what happened to them in the anime or game. Such is sort of the mode of modus operandi of anime concept design and character design that we are used to and see in mainstream anime stuffs. Anime companies sell franchises, not just video on DVDs or ads on TV. They attach products to concepts, and be it story, character, or even just a name, this is how you make money selling from video games to cell phone straps to massager to maid cafe services.

And it is not so the case for every anime character under the sun. Take Youko Nakajima for example. To me Twelve Kingdoms is an awesome show that more people needs to watch because it captures the feel of a good high-fantasy with strong characterization. However it’s a fairly typical example how the characters don’t really live beyond the screen or pages of text that detailed their adventures. Sure, that doesn’t stop anyone from attaching stuff to these characters for $$$ (save maybe this), but in the minds of fans and readers, do these characters live on? Do they drive us into mad fans? Maybe. Is this the kind of fandom that makes us want to write slash fics and doujinshi? Maybe. Is the fandom dimension that makes all the difference between a character chained to the original work versus a character liberated?

I felt that Youko Nakajima is a character imprisoned by her story. Indeed the magnificence of her existence is really meaningful mostly in that context. And it isn’t like Twelve Kingdoms is lacking in interesting elements in the setting–it’s full of interesting stuff, in fact. The Shokei and Suzu arc, rather than building on an epic story of coming-of-age for a high school girl, puts it in the perspective of a life-long (in this case, could be hundreds of years) drama series serialized in juvenile fantasy novels. Could it be that Youko is chained to the serial nature of her story?

We want to know what’s up next with her. We want to take part in her character growth and the continuing discovery of the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. But to do that we can’t venture off on our own…

Alas. Is this yet another case to be made about the power of freedom of creative expression, a gift from creator to consumer, who in turn, become also a creator? It’s a content-layer concern that is very subtle and amusing at the same time.

So chalk one up for open endings!

4 comments | posted in Fate, Franchises, Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture, Twelve Kingdoms

February 13, 2007

Altered Reality

By omo

I read an article on BBC about Steve Jobs and his amazing power to alter people’s perception of reality. The details are not important but it got me thinking.

People Who Think Red Garden Is Ugly Needs To Learn What Ugly Is

KyoAni’s Kanon does very much the same things. Once you boil it down, Kanon is a protoharem, and many games (and ergo, anime from eroge) follow its footsteps. There’s not much magic once you get past its sad-girl-in-snow exterior and see what it is for yourself:  a parade of angsty pitiables that gives the audience what they want, with enough ambiguity and implications that drives the mind and satisfies the flesh.

And like reality, while footsteps in the show is clear and distinct, they’re too often just messy trails of indentations and slush. The successors don’t get it quite right. What is behind Yuuichi’s gradual recollection, Nayuki’s two famous lines, and Ayu’s plushie is not merely poignant plot devices that twist the dagger sticking out of the hearts of its audience. They’re ways in which the storyteller alters the perception of what is really going on.

To use a more concrete example: Mai and Shiori. We’ve seen how both of their stories unfold. The two makes good examples because they are both characters looking at the same kind of tragedy unfolding in their lives; one is someone directly influenced (in fact, Sayuri is easily the Kaori-equavalent in Shiori’s story), the other is a bystander but key to fulfilling the dying’s wish. Yet, why does it feel so different when Shiori reveals her inner struggle with us at the last moment, versus Mai revealing her inner struggle with us? Or if they feel the same, why doesn’t it feel different? After all, Mai came into the picture without her mother where as Shiori is literally dying.

Perhaps I ask these questions to try to figure out why I feel better about Mai’s story and feel worse about Shiori’s story? Shiori is the girl with all that she has to lose. Maybe it just means I feel better about Yuuichi and Kaori after seeing what Shiori had to go through?

At any rate, to take a step back from that, again, you can see that in reality the two are one and the same, but if you put aside your personal feeling about Mai or Shiori (as in, don’t think with your groin), we’re revisiting the same theme over and over again. What makes this repetition exercise fun is the Kyoani Reality Distortion abilities, and Kanon itself.

Much like how gentle but unending snow transforms the mundane landscape into “winter wonderland” and makeup can turn geek to gorgeous, such is the art they practice. The artisan makes not just footprints, they make pristine footprints. They don’t just make an alarm clock, they make an alarm clock that is more moe than the stash of anime porn you got hiding under your bed. They may lift real life landscape into their animation, but they transform the nine-to-five into five-to-nine.

3 comments | posted in Kanon, Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture

February 4, 2007

Manga Blogging Anime

By omo

I guess I should be upfront about it, so here it is: last night I joined Rah-Rah and Wildarmsheero (I’ll term him W for short) in a chat, recorded for your pleasure. I think it’s pretty fun, even if a little too fun for my taste. I listened to it too afterwards, and I think two out of every five words I said was inaudible. Maybe it’s better that way?

But we can go on and on and on about Manabi Straight. I think at this point there’s just so much that you can say, only words alone is economical enough to capture it. I know W’s been doing this comic with his friends for a while, and I know it’s a bit of a blog kind of thing, except it’s done through pictures. (Hint hint for him.)

I think the webcomic-blog format is pretty powerful, because not only images can say a lot more better, but the typical webcomic format elevates blogging into a whole new dimension. You basically invent a new world, and your mouthpieces–the characters–can do stuff that otherwise is not possible or difficult to express with words in a short span of time. Yea, people’s attention span is getting shorter every year, so I believe there’s a lot of promise there as a format for even everyday blogging. Indeed a lot of webcomics are like blogs already.

Still I think in the hands of an artisan, words are just as powerful. Nobody-hacks like myself resorts to memes to get the same across…. Which is why I said MASSUGU GO!

Plus it’s fun to say it. Only if catchy clapping music queues itself automatically when those surrounding you suddenly have no clue what’s going on and cannot find a retort…

4 comments | posted in Blogging, Manabi Straight, Modern Visual Culture, Popular Culture