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June 19, 2014

Anime Next Tidbits; Lunatics; Jibun Reset

By omo

Time to do another introspection post. The nutshell is if I don’t have time for anime I probably should make time for it–albeit from games or blogging or something. Taking it from sleep is too unfair to the other things I do (including anime) so it’s only fair if I cut back to catch up. It’s not to say I’ll stop blogging or anything like that, but the long lapses between blog updates may be the case for the foreseeable future, until I recover.

As to when I will recover I don’t know; June is the down month and things swing back into orbit again as July, August, and September each offers at least another weekend excursion to “anime land.” Then there’s the second-hand feels-getting from IM@S 9th tour that will happen between now and then, coming to a close in October as a bunch of the North American P contingent that I know are going.

While on that note, Anime Expo is pretty much lined up now. Otakon should be letting loose its first real volley this week (Sumo wrestlers and HAYAMIN AAAAAAH), and somehow I think Trigger might visit again. This year’s AX is also a great year to skip, and I totally should have done that. I’m thinking as much as I want to know who Otakon is bringing over this year already, I think I enjoy the anticipation more than the probable letdown that is bound to occur. Otakon brings over good guests, don’t get me wrong, but they rarely hit–they typically make a fan out of me afterwards more often than not instead. And then there’s Misao or Hayamin or whatever she is called.

On the con side, I want to just jot down some more thoughts.

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3 comments | posted in 3D-2D Modeling, Conventions and Concerts

June 13, 2014

On Attention Management, Whining about No Time to Do Stuff

By omo

This blog post is brought to you by having LLSIF crammed down one ear and OFA down the other. My weakness, apparently, is video games, not anime.

Few things say "Summer" harder than this crossover

I live in a bizarre world where j1m0ne watches and blogs more about anime than I do. Probably because I just don’t have the time to watch crap. I’m like 3 behind Daimidaler and Soul Eater Not (Soul Eater Not is kind of hard to watch, admittedly). I barely can keep up with No Game No Life, Love Live, Nanana, Diamond Ace and Ping Pong. I still would love to catch up on Brynhildr and Kawaisou, and I just caught up with Chaika. [BTW Ping Pong is far and away the best anime this season. There might be a tad of the “Asian” factor but still.]

Why is this?

  1. I go to too many cons. It’s okay that I give up my weekend time traveling to fun places (Toronto! Chicago! Seattle! Boston! And then there’s “scenic” Somerset, NJ …) but this means it’s really hard to watch anime. The funny thing is this is just an excuse in that I know other people who went to the same cons I did and are caught up. For me the time is second to how going to cons just drains me of attention-focusing juices so when I get home after work I’m prone to do not much.
  2. I have too much extracurricular things. I’ve been taking the past week easy but I do write for JTOR and have other stuff to do. Like this blog. I also went to see that FUNI-attempt at Ghost in the Shell in theaters thing couple weeks ago. I met up with famous Dutch blogger Psgels earlier this week. Lots of stuff to do. It’s summer in the city and it’s all fun stuff. I guess this is the kind of thing that separates people who sit at home and watches everything and those who don’t.
  3. I have too much non-extracurricular things. Like real-life obligations that are related to the cons I go to, pushed back by the cons I go to, and just in general.
  4. I have a job that just takes a lot of time and mental wherewithal.
  5. I haven’t been sleeping as much as I’d like, because of above things, and it makes watching slower and contemplative stuff more difficult (See: Soul Eater Not).
  6. One For All. I’m about two thirds the way through my first run and it feels just kind of like a streamlined version of IM@S2. The main difference here is that the story isn’t so much settled on just one character that you pick, but you actually do have to raise everyone, so it feels a lot more game-y. The story does come in chunks as you pass specific ranking goals. The new appeals mechanics are interesting but I haven’t really had the time to explore them because I’m too focused on making money and gaining EXP. Times like this make me appreciate the English-language scene for the various IM@S games, as when I started on IM@S2, there was a lot of text written for it so it’s easy for me to just research. Now I have to play it the “hard” way.
  7. I’ve been playing the English version of Love Live School Idol Festival mobile game. It’s fun in a way where IM@S is fun in that I want to jab my ears until they go deaf. I have to say, the music is actually better in LLSIF than, say, Shiny Festa, except the singing take a step back so a balance is achieved. I think the main difference is that in this event/microtransaction driven game the pressure is on to grind, versus in Shiny Festa the fun is in the gameplay and the videos. TL;DR, one is a job, the other is a hoobies. Unfortunately I already have too many jobs.
  8. Last but not least, Million Live. Because having four jobs is not enough. I can go on, but this mobage takes the opposite spectrum–if you want to rank, it still takes good amount of play time. If you want to rank without paying, then it’s like four times the play time.

It’s like this strange concoction of sleep deprivation and fake idols [like Jumbo Shrimp] that swims in my mind. It’s like knowing I want to watch Puchim@s, I want to watch it on FUNi and “support” whatever, but it’s such a PITA to do 3-minute episodes on a site that is a pain in the rear to search through hundreds of episodes. I’m too lazy to torrent. Too lazy to search a xdcc bot on the web and input like 50 GETs. I guess I’ll just wait for the director cut version in a few months/year.

It’s not easy being cheesed out of your time and money.

PS. Is it me or the Snow Halation episode kind of underwhelming? Is this how people feel about M@STERPIECE?

PPS. My idle mind is full of idols lately. Maybe that is not a coincidence, at least I feel that way.

PPPS. Speaking of which, I started doing some slides for that panel I wanted to put together, just because why not.

7 comments | posted in Bishoujo Gaming, Idolmaster, Love Live, Modern Visual Culture

June 10, 2014

Anime Next 2014: Wrap

By omo

What do you do when ten guys and Luna Haruna want to take a picture together?

It is pretty funny because after the memorable photo op, one of the main promoter person wanted to see if we can help her promote Luna. I guess that’s not a problem, if people want to do the work. But it’s a little weird since the lot of us are DDs and we like the whole live aspect and the fact that Luna is pretty much textbook “small and cute” as far as appeals go. FWIW, Luna is very much the harajuku-style fashionista, but also otaku. She’s got this slightly dorky feel to it that comes off as endearing, but at the same time very professional about her fan interactions. I can see why clothes look good on her, but as mentioned by others, she’s no Ray.

Anime Next is in my proverbial back yard, so it was trivial to attend. To up the difficulty I decided to host a BBQ so that made extra work on my end. Not a big deal, other than hosting about 6 people in my place and we watched Chokaigi one night, and played MJ/OFA the other. And I think we watched episodes of Jojo and Mangaka and Assistant because, why not?

Season 1 Episode 7

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Leave a comment | posted in Modern Visual Culture

June 5, 2014

Serendipitous P

By omo

Reading Author’s anecdote is like seeing a scale from a fish that you were riding all year, as you look back fondly after you’ve gotten off it and went home from the adventure. Except this is someone else’s scale and you are pleasantly surprised as he was that he has it.

I say the scale of a fish because this thing crosses oceans and exists on an unimaginable scale. The problem here is that we can say, “maybe you should watch Madoka because spawned the top grossing late-night TV anime movie, as if you need another indication to know the magnitude of the thing” and it only lightly signifies the issues with your average east-meets-west situation when fans of “obscure” things collide. This tortured analogy for all the Producer-ness, Producer-hood, or whatever it is, is just a poor attempt to explain how amazing it is to find fans who flew to Canada to see Harami, or fans who flew to Saitama to see Harami (and others). It’s this crisscrossing of people who are doing rather irrational fan things yet find beauty within. I mean, in a nutshell, some folks flew overseas to attend events. That’s not too unusual these days. But that’s just a single fragment or patch in a mural that depicts the kind of CUTE COOL PASSION a stadium full of nerds with glowsticks that people do not see when they see a news report or a synopsis video. It’s the fan-iceberg beneath the surface. And it’s a pain in the butt to describe this iceberg in full.

It might be why I am playing Million Live, so when I run into a P I have something for show? Or why all P should make business cards?

In that sense, as someone who lives in a world where nobody knows IM@S (eg., the USA) and half of those who do only do so at an arm’s length, even those who like idol anime (and this is part of the “problem”) or whatever, that’s both good and bad in that it makes the chance encounters even more beautiful, but I lack the resistance. I mean in the end IM@S is no different than any other media mix franchise, something Japan does in bulk and all the time. Just because this one sticks, for all the (right) reasons, it doesn’t mean all that much beyond that we have bonded as friends. Does this mean every seiyuu from 765Pro visits the USA I’ll have to travel and attend an offkai? Ouch.

It’s doubly problematic because IM@S, comparatively, is also a very broad and wide fandom with a varied history and a lot of assets and entry angles for fans to latch on to. Just like those people who build shrines of characters, or the koebutas that chase after the voice talents behind the 2D, or just plain gamers (because as far as idol games go, IM@S is pretty deep), we are sort of all for one. Not to say other fandoms don’t have these problems, but let’s just say Love Livers have it easy.

If The World Is All One is the feverish dream of a victim from chuunibyou, then One For All is the reality marble that turns dream into 2.5D reality. It ends when you wake up, still, but at least now you can look up strategy guides for it.

It reminds me of that song from Sakura Wars 2.

It’s beautiful, in a way, because of the direction the franchise is taking. I am more interested in the characters from Million Live and Cinderella Girls. The voice talents behind them are very good, if ultimately a different type of talent than the ones from the main group. This is the kind of pivot that I can get behind, if you know what I’m saying.

1 comment | posted in Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

June 3, 2014

The Value of the IM@S Movie

By omo

Think of this as part two of my IM@S movie trip-down-memory-lane. Thanks to Aniplex for updating the official site with not just a really awesome sketch of Kotori and her 765 coworkers along with a thankful letter, both from Goripon, but the box office final numbers. 2ch did the math for us and that puts the IM@S movie as 6th all time for late-night TV anime spinoffs in the past 10 years. The list is below and I’ll just take this time to annotate how many times I’ve seen it in theaters LOL.

Otonashi Kotori

Column 1 is total box office (hundred million yen), column 2 is opening weekend (hundred million yen), third column is yy/mm of release. To give you an idea, 20.8å„„yen is about 20.8 million USD if we go by 1 USD to 100 JPY. This means IM@s grossed 6.7 million USD or so, and K-ON the movie made more money in Japan than a lot of movies in the US??

Again, this chart only lists “late-night anime” movies in the past 10 years. Your Lupins and Gundams and Ghiblis are on a different scale altogether.

20.8億　4.00億　13/10　Madoka Rebellion – US screening, probably didn’t count
19.0億　3.16億　11/12　K-ON – Missed this one ;_; Just on home video.
10.4億　1.98億　13/08　Anohana – US screening, probably didn’t count
*8.5億　0.89億　10/02　Haruhi – US screening at a con, definitely didn’t count
*7.0億　1.18億　11/02　Macross F part 2 – Missed this one completely (even on home video…)
*6.7億　1.40億　14/01　THE IDOLM@STER – 5 times!
*6.1億　1.30億　14/02　Tiger & Bunny R – Missed this one completely
*6.0億　1.18億　12/09　Tiger & Bunny B – Missed this one completely
*5.9億　1.39億　12/10　Madoka Beginnings – US screening, probably didn’t count
*5.7億　1.72億　12/10　Madoka Eternal – US screening, probably didn’t count
*5.6億　0.87億　13/04　Steins;Gate – Once, JP screening. Waiting for a US screening when, FUNi?
*5.5億　1.23億　12/07　Nanoha 2nd A’s – Only on home video
*5.0億　1.01億　13/02　Index – Didn’t even wanna.
*3.8億　0.61億　10/01　Nanoha 1st – Only on home video
*3.1億　0.52億　11/06　BASARA – Nope
*2.8億　0.38億　10/01　FateUBW – Only home video
*2.3億　0.40億　12/03　Strike Witches – Only on home video
*2.2億　0.56億　13/09　Chuu2Koi – I wish
*2.0億　0.39億　12/06　Library Wars – Nope
*1.4億　0.30億　14/04　Tamako Love Story – I wish
*1.0億　0.32億　12/06　BLOOD-C – Nope
*1.0億　*.**億　13/03　Hanasaku Iroha – Once in Japan, once in US at a con.
*1.0億　0.22億　11/06　SoraOto – Only home video
*0.8億　0.12億　10/12　Fafner – Nope
*0.7億　*.**億　10/04　Trigun – At a con, didn’t count
*.**億　*0.2億　14/02　Mouretsu Pirates – Once in Japan
*0,1億　*0,1億　13/01　Wake Up Girls!  – At a con, didn’t count; plus streaming (!)

Questions and comments–

How does the tokutens factor? I already mentioned that IM@S movie has some wicked tokuten and that definitely got people to go see the movie more. This goes hand-in-hand with my second question, how does the SSA live, OFA, Puchim@s and general revival(?) of the IM@S franchise the past few years matter? I mean I go watch IM@S for the feels more so than anything, and those feels are in large parts due to non-anime-related factors.

The “same” question is also asked in a different way: how many people in those box office counts repeat customers? Would it be fair to take the post-opening weekend numbers and cut it down on a per-theater basis? And compare movies that had a lot of tokutens and those that didn’t? Not sure if that works or is meaningful. Maybe someone good with stats can give me a hand here.

Others commented on that how the IM@S movie preorders aren’t going as hotly as the box office would indicate, which is partly why I think ultimately IM@S movie’s box office numbers are largely inflated (by some value of largely that is totally debatable) by repeated viewers, many who probably won’t buy multiple copies of the movie. Yours truly included. So that effect is more pronounced. To put it into perspective, when I went to those 8:30 AM showings at Shinjuku back in Feburary, the movie has been out for about 3-4 weeks already, and I count 40+ attendees the two times I went. That week the bonus goods were the Goripon 765Pro shikishi that you get randomly out of 5, which is probably the second most expensive tokuten during the movie run (what was the most expensive one is now the bonus of IM@S manga #3, which is chapter 00 of the manga).

Another obvious difficulty is the lack of numbers. Aniplex has been very forward with the box office numbers, as seen here. We have the numbers from when the movie finished its main run back in March and went ninja for its road show, at about 6.45M. So that gives you an idea. But we have no other movie to compare it with? Anyone knows another movie where the numbers are out at the various points?

Anyways, this movie is truly a product of a lot of passion and you can see it unfold. I hope we all can see it soon.

Leave a comment | posted in Idolmaster