So this is a story all about how
my life got flipped, turned upside-down
And I’d like to take a moment
Just type it out
I’ll tell you how I became a P as an American.
Author Archives: omo
About omo
That IM@S Flower Thing
February 2014: True Anime Japan
This morning I woke up to the news about how AnimeJapan is trying to pitch to a billion different IPs and attract 100ks of visitors. And that is well. I mean putting aside the splinter years of ACE and all that dark history, I think when cons like JX and AX have 100k+ of visitors (turnstile), while Japan doesn’t quite have a con like that (ie., Comiket is not like that), it’s sort of an industry pride issue. I mean, they’re calling it “AnimeJapan” and that can’t be more obvious. AnimeUSA peeps should be like, hur hur hur.
You know they mean business when one slide says basically this:
I think they’ll hit their 100k count handily. I just hope AnimeJapan retain ACE’s liberal policy of region-free live streams.
But forget about that. I want to write a real life tourism plug for Japan for February 2014. Why? Here’s the list of things I personally want to see (of varying amount of interests, granted):
- Sapporo Snow Festival/Snow Miku Feestival (Feb. 5-11)
- Yui Horie’s next live (touring)
- Love Live @ SSA
- Ray is touring
- KOTOKO is touring
- Mingosu is touring
- There’s a full-blown Uchoten Kazoku event (fhana!!) (I even could have applied for a ticket w)
- iM@S @SSA (but you know this)
- …there’s a MariIro event? LOL
- ChanYui “Charming Do” promo meet&greets
- FictionJunction YUUKA lives (with other FJs), and later individual lives for her and Kajiura teams in Feb.
- Sumipe event
- Yanagi Nagi live event (FFFFFFFFFFF can’t go, conflicts orz)
- JAM Project is touring
- Sakura Taisen Paris team kayo show (FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF I would totally go to this if I can get tickets) (Aipon is even in this) (Feb. 13-16)
- Sphere 5th anniversary events
- May’n is touring
- Aoi Eir is touring
- Yukarin is touring (with 2-day SSA live)
- Milk Lariat 6S (lots o anime idols)
- Yuki Aoi commemorative event
- Junko Iwao birthday live
- Chiaki Ishikawa concert
- Nakagawa Kanon live (Kaminomi event)
- Sakakibara Yui live
- Steins;Gate events
- ….And a lot more I didn’t list.
Despite being the shortest month of the year, February 2014 has way too many good events. And I’m not even listing things like movie screenings (Mouretsu Pirates!) plus not even everything has been announced yet. Granted on a typical month, there are a ton of events going on at any given week, but this is just crazy.
If you had to go to Japan for events, this month is it! Really, I mean, it has something for everybody. And a lot of something for a select group.
Zvezda’s Magical Realism
I had to think long and hard about Zvezda episode 1 because it’s all I had to go with until yesterday, and I had to write something about episode 1 of Zvezda. I sort of understood what the “problem” was but only now can I put it into words. Let me just preface that Zvezda’s problem is not so much of a problem but a matter of perceiving certain visual/thematic signals and tuning into it. I have no problems with Zvezda’s first episode as far as its sort of whacky sense of world-building or its revealing outfits for our two pettanko groupies. In fact I really enjoyed the show, especially now with episode 2 down the optical nerve hatch.
The problem is more about what we ought to expect from looking at the visual cues about the world depicted in Zvezda. We begin with a flash-forward to see a desolate future, populated with ruined buildings and crumbled remains of a civilization. What stands is a Kate statute of yay tall, and a narrator. Then we see a mostly-mundane present with an anime girl holding exaggerated grocery bags and a curfew with silly purchase mechanics. The armored vehicles. Then we see Kate on a bike for children. The gas mask. Then it starts to slip right around there I guess.
But by that point we’re about half way through episode one. The rest of the episode is a magical beat-down of SDF forces. This isn’t Bombshells from Cat Planet but we’re operating on the same level, in some ways. Except Zvezda didn’t say a bleep. Aliens? Magic? Espers? Time travelers? Haruhi? This is the key information they withhold, and they hold it to your face.
For those of us who aren’t primed to look for that in episode one, I suspect you might have a better time than I. I wouldn’t know, however, because I was spending equal times mulling over how to explain this, versus looking at silly ANN links about how certain reviewer said it was selling something. Must have been a slow week at work?
Anyway, compare this sort of world building with, say, Shinsekai Yori, which is more about not knowing what you don’t know. Zvezda is kind of like you actually know you don’t know, so you actively look for things to fill in that gap in your mind, except of circle or square pegs it’s giving you half naked loli-shaped pegs. Not that I am complaining or anything.
Crowdfunding Is Just Danketsu, Isn’t It?
As someone who consumes a lot of iM@S crap, the word danketsu (団çµ) gets floated around a lot. The term just means unity in this context, but not knowing Japanese that well I can’t give you all the nuances of the term.
In my mind, the joy of fandom is partly based on sharing. It multiplies; it’s not a zero-sum game. It might be a zero-sum game regarding your bank account, but the things you get in exchange can be priceless, or so I think. So when the opportunity came for some bros and I to set up a flower wreath at the iM@S SSA concert this February, how can I say no? And by extension I want to share that joy with you as well.
You here meaning the fans of idolm@ster, and people who want to partake the joy of fandom. And it’s easy. The opportunity here is that you can financially back our plans to set up a ring of flowers decorated with a catchy English phrase (in the usual Japanese tradition of 2 or 3-liner plate) and a commissioned fanart, AND, send a message to the idols of iM@S.
What we will set up in the very near future is a page where you can donate via Paypal and it will give you a field to put in a short message. You can donate any amount (although Paypal does charge a fee so you have to exceed that) and then put in your message. It’s that simple. What we will do with your money is put it in our pockets to reduce our out-of-pocket costs of paying the flower vendor, the commission artwork, and making a booklet of your quotes. What we will do with your message is to screen it (this ain’t no im@s confessions), translate it into Japanese, and put both EN and JP text in said booklet. Because we aim to translate your words, you have to keep it short (maybe < 300 characters) and get it in before Feb. 1. Also because we plan to print it in a neat booklet. The flowers will be delivered by a flower vendor in Japan (Ever use an internet flower service to buy flowers for a wedding/funeral? Same basic idea). The booklets will be given to the idols at SSA (there’s a gift deposit box system setup for this).
We have been working at this for a couple months now, so things are already pretty much set design-wise. We are in the process of finalizing the deal with the flower vendor and figuring out how to print and deliver the commission artwork. We got an experienced call book maker on the booklets, so it will probably follow that kind of format. The total cost is still in flux but we’re looking at at least $400. Probably a chunk more depending on printing and shipping costs.
We’re also planning to print a bunch of the booklets for people who donated over a certain amount. Like $10 or $20. Not important but it just means we’ll have to pay for shipping LOL and do fulfillment. Also, we’re open to taking your donation in person if you happen to run into one of us, and you can send us your quotes via ordinary methods. We’ll figure out something.
At first, we want this project to be limited to American Ps. But it slowly expanded to English-speaking Ps on this side of the Pacific. Or NATO. Whatever. It’s kind of funny because our project has a USA-bent to it but I hope that doesn’t stop anybody. It’s also funny because we can’t just keep this to ourselves, by force or by will, it’s naturally “The World Is All One” kind of a thing. We do, however, hope that people will take this donation seriously. It’s not a big deal if you are not a fan, but I hope you consider liking iM@S! It’s the one thing that brings us together, and by contributing you become a part of it. This is not Kickstarter. This is danketsu.Â
If you have any questions, please post in the comments below. Hopefully the site will go live next week. The deadline will be ~Feb. 1st, so think about what you want to write!
Wizard Barristers: On Consent Searches
In the United States, the Fourth Amendment puts a limitation on what the government can or cannot do when it comes searching a private individual. TL;DR – what cops can or can’t do to take your stuff. And it’s actually not that hard to get a good grasp of what governs when can a cop take some evidence from you in order to use it against you in a government proceeding (read: trial/prosecution/hearing). The rule of thumb is probable cause. TL;DR #2 – is there a reason to be suspicious of you?
In Wizard Barristers, Cecil basically recites this in front of the two officers who wanted to look into her bag after learning that she’s a Wud. I’m glad Umetsu didn’t use “Wug” because HAHAHA. Aside from that, it kind of occurs to me that anyone who can spit back the general rule for consent searches in a spot like that is probably pretty cool. From a law nerd point of view. And she did it with just a couple sentences.
I mean I can’t do it.
That said, all I know about Japan’s laws in terms of consent searches is that they’ve modeled their constitution with part to the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, which includes the Fourth Amendment. (See Article 35.) Which is probably why Cecil spit back the same legal rule (at least, in the Crunchyroll subtitles) as the American version of the issue.
You guys have your guns and tanks. I have my law stuff. Can I get a Penumbra-of-Rights-chan mascot? How about Ford v. Dodge-chan? But I guess since Cecil is just an average anime character, we have yet a long ways to go. By combining a crim-pro procedural plot and a magic sub-class of humans we are maybe half way there. Maybe the Butterfly partners (Chouno & Chouno?) have special powers regarding to law. That’s one level of meta that Umetsu can overcome for sure. It might be dumb, but I’m ready.
Episode one? It’s great, I like it, both jarring and unpleasant yet surprisingly fulfilling at the same time. This is the Umetsu that I know. It also takes the crown for the most “IT’S NOT FOR KIDS” anime this season in terms of the “ADVFilms” era of anime barometry. [Of course the most family unfriendly anime this season is Nourin.] So much for Watanabe’s new show.
PS. The site is kind of useful?
