I was messing with Spaceplan, a popular clicker game, and it was pretty fun. Then I watched Saekano Flat episode 4.
Author Archives: omo
About omo
Early Thoughts on the Bang Dream Social Game
Bang Dream is a media mix sort of a thing where characters and performers come together to produce a rock-band-oriented experience. Up to this point, the most unique thing about Bandori (henceforth) is how it employs the voice actresses to play out these fantasy girl band scenarios by actually having them play also the music that accompanies their vocals. In short, the selling point for Bandori is the “cool” thing about youthful girl rock bands but brought closer into real life. (Just to clarify, this is only in the live part; the recording uses professional musician playing.)
Now I say “closer” because ultimately voice actresses are not pro guitarists/DJs/drummers/etc. (handful of exceptions aside), and there is a large chasm between a real girls’ band trying to make it versus actresses playing instruments and acting out their characters who are in girl bands. But at the same time, it’s not a stage show in the traditional sense, when something like Roselia happens, as you can see in this video.
Or rather, it is a form of stage show. There are an assortment of bands in Bandori, with Poppin’ Party taking the lead in both the musical production (they have over a dozen original songs already), and the narrative attention in terms of the ongoing anime and manga. Roselia seems to be second. None of the other Bandori bands have performed live AFAIK. The lives for Bandori so far are the standard seiyuu event kind of thing, with the exception that the girls actually play the music you listen to (for … the most part). Continue reading
IM@S 765ML First Time In Taiwan
Hooboy, where do I start? Do I begin with how I ninja’d another weekender to Asia, but it’s the first time I did Taiwan in this way. Do I talk about the fans at the show? Do I talk about the show? Or the various uchiage and stuff like that? Or Kuro’s teleporter?
I think the most important thing about 765MLTW is that it’s the first oversea solo IDOLM@STER event. The second most important thing is that they pulled out (some of) the stops, both to introduce the charm of Million Live to new fans as well as giving veteran fans some unusual, unexpected, or brand new collaborations and combos.
How to Put a Smile on Someone’s Face; Or, Dicks for Everybody
????????? https://t.co/UYCu2fv7RY
— ????/4.25??????? (@ibuking_1114) April 12, 2017
Do people ever “introspect” other people? I mean, I wonder about what and why I do the things I do, but sometimes I wonder about what motivates other people to do the things they do. For example, why do people pursuit a career in voice acting in Japan? From the various interviews I read, it might be that someone is into acting since their youth or someone finds the entertainment biz a calling, or they are inspired to become the same kind of people who voiced their favorite characters. Maybe they are pivoting from another part of the entertainment business. It’s kind of what made Masumin-sensei penned the titled “Sore Ga Seiyuu” to an extent, I’d like to believe.
The reality is this is just a fun exercise for me to get better at figuring out why I do the things I do, and at some level I think we all can practice more both empathy and critical analysis, even if with partial information this is more for luls rather than any serious analysis. In as much as the pretty and young Japanese voice actresses I follow on twitter put up their selfies or make inside jokes among each other, I wonder what’s really going on. I guess they’re all having some fun, to some degree, and that is well in itself.
The light-hearted take on this is that, when Ibuchan was a wee little girl, did she (or her guardians, perhaps more importantly) imagine that she would be voicing a precocious light novel character (the type she’s been quite adept at playing) and saying “girls like dicks” on TV, in a distant day in the future? I mean, the bigger question that some of us have already made peace with is, why do eroge seiyuu exist? I guess it’s no different than AV idols to some level, but all the world’s difference in another. If there is a demand, there will come a supply I suppose. If this is the ultimate logic flowing, that seems rather mercenary-ish and is very likely underplaying the complex thing that colors human motivations for these kind of life decisions.
But at the same time, I think it’s because when Kido Ibuki did it in Eromanga Sensei episode 2, it was hilarious. It was scandalous (especially/mostly because of this meta dimension) and ultimately a fun approach to get the viewer’s attention to our new character. From a script writing/original novel point of view it made a certain sense (with pros and cons attached) but having it voiced by our “kiyoi” 19-year-old (cute Japanese teen talking about dicks, ladies and gentlemen, even if it was acting) adds that level in which only a multimedia adaptation (namely, an anime) can add, similar to seeing awesome fiction become even more awesome visual SFX in a Hollywood adaptation kind of way.
All of this is to say, it puts a smile on someone’s face. And maybe that’s all Ibuibu wanted to do.
PS. If you enjoyed it, I think you should let her know!
PPS. Good to have a fan blogging it here.
PPPS. My own opinion on the dick thing is that it’s a nice joke in the story to set the tonal swings Megumin brings, but Sagiri remains the heart of the series, in terms of her interactions. Like Oreimo this show is about interactions–namely actions, and reactions. The dicks joke just set a certain bar, and while we’re playing footsies with incest and other icky things, there’s all these fruits that are now suddenly low-hanging-seemingly. Why not? As to Eromanga Sensei, I expect to be fully entertained, because I know it will. The rest is bonus.
PPPPS. I did not forget about Tsugumomo, at least. Maybe I forgot to mention it, LOL, but it’s good contrast.
The Meta Game: 2017 Spring Edition
It’s sort of well-understood that otaku TV anime play to the meta. By this I mean it’s about defining, deconstruction, reconstruction, spins, and swapping of existing/known genres and archetypes. It’s a continuous cycle of creation where frameworks that are successful are reused with modification to create something similar but new. New ideas that work often gets grafted into other existing frameworks for added effect. Things also don’t always work out as intended.
What’s interesting about this season’s meta (like a new expansion of M:TG or Shadowverse, as the comparisons may be) is that there are more attempts at misleading or misdirection by giving off generic vibes than not. Last season I think the biggest “gotcha” was in Fuuka, but the most successful misdirection was Kemono Friends, where the audience were treated to this borderline “so bad it’s good” CG animation as a means to help us engage the right part of our collective consciousness in order to parse the surprisingly sincere and nuanced story. Two seasons ago the well-received buttocks anime, Keijo!!!!!!!!, also has this sort of a play to it where viewers go in expecting one thing, but got something quite different. Even original anime projects like Haifuri played this trick via marketing, and it’s unclear to me if it actually fooled anyone. The oft-panned Mahouiku is sort of the victim of not reading the meta correctly, which was using this baited setup to provide a very traditional story, ultimately kind of disappointing the audience. I think this season we will see a few others play out this way as more shows pick up on the meta.
To clarify and disclaim, by “misdirect” I don’t want to imply that there was some kind of intent behind the process. It may be intended or it may not. There are some cases in which the marketing material or the production style was done to give people contrasting expectations, but some cases are not. I think Kemono Friends is a good example where there isn’t an intent to do quite that. Sure, media mix projects often do employ marketing to manage our expectations and solicit interest to a degree, but I want to highlight the shows in which these things get into the “art” of it, as it were, enough that you want to sideboard your deck against the meta, as the analogy goes.