Omonomono

[Okay, so wordpress just ate the ‘finished’ version of this post and spit back at me the revision prior to completing, so I lost maybe 2-3 paragraphs worth of blargh. Which is disturbing why it happened. Sigh. Anyways, here’s as much of it as I can recollect.]

I think I got True Tears, but I’m not sure. Something didn’t click.

I finished watching it a week ago, and I’ve been thinking about it when I could. Maybe it would be helpful to watch it alongside Simoun’s bonus material (thanks Media Blaster!) where the director,Junji Nishimura, gave some insights into why Simoun was the way it was.

I looked towards Simoun for answers because the two are actually quite complimentary. The key difference between the two is that Simoun did not follow a standard, dramatic formula; True Tears was a straight forward love-triangle. The rest of the two shows, from abstract reads of the mood down to the use of still-frame, traditional illustration stills, are quite similar.

They are also different, of course, but what puzzles me about True Tears is the purpose of the tears allegory. In a nutshell it simply symbolized [and I quote myself] the exchanging feelings, expressing them, and appreciating the other person. Shinichiro even got to appreciate his mom and dad; his mom appreciated what Hiromi is going through; and Hiromi with Shinichiro’s struggle with Noe.

But is that it? What does it mean?

Of course there’s also the Raigomaru/Jibeta story. The problem with that is the story itself is a parallelism for the character development pattern in the show, for the audience, and yet at the same time the characters projected themselves onto the chicken in a conscious manner. Both Noe and Shinichiro looked at Jibeta and Raigomaru similarly and expressed themselves through the chickens, identified with one or the other chicken throughout the course of the show.  It got complicated when you start to think too deep; how did Noe know what Shinichiro drawn in the book before the last episode? Why did she wanted to throw Jibeta into the sea? And if seeing Shinichiro dance is her “Raigomaru sees Jibeta fly” moment, why did she jump afterwards? Or are they switched?

I guess understanding the last couple episodes symbolically will be key to understanding True Tears. Too bad I don’t.

I’ve read elsewhere that Simoun is much like a WW2-era war drama involving airplane pilots and attached love interest pining for their return, looking longingly down the stretched runway and into the skies. I suppose, fittingly so, such was exactly how True Tears ended. Minus the runway.

It just dawned on me, believe it or not, but Makoto Shinkai’s 60-second tribute for NHK’s Ani*kuri really is a lolcats reference.

Icanhascheezeburger, the premiere site for lolcats pics, shows that generally lolcats fall into two categories of images. I think the picture I posted up there is a good example of what the two common lines are.

Probably more aptly, Neko no Shuukai is, like most lolcat pics, the same nod towards the two-faced nature of our feline masters. It’s either at your domicile being a cat looking for cheezburger, or in your base killing your mans with its gigawatt mekara BEEM! Or hiding your bodies or trying out some bad puns. Whatever.

(First, a bit of admin: we’ve had some service interruption on Friday and it’s an ongoing issue, hopefully I’ll have time to resolve it this week.)

JAM PROJECT is coming to the United States of America.

Bring it on?

I don’t really care for 90s arena rock music, but the essence of their burning soul is undeniably attractive. I own a few of their CDs but rarely will these albums make the trip to the mp3 player/cd changer/etc simply because it’s not easy listening.

Otakon purposefully tries to reel in different sorts of performers every year because I think they value the diversity that’s within the kind of “visual culture” context that Otakon works within. JAM Project, personally, embodies the heart and soul of a particular subculture of this visual culture nonsense that has been long neglected. Are there any other band that embodies the concept “anime” + “music” in greater perfection? It’s a little ironic but understandably so, that cons will invite pop rock artists and jrockers to perform, because they are just straight-up performers with little agendas otherwise. JAM Project, on the other hand, is much more purposeful, even if they are also just performers not unlike any other at the core.

JAM Project historically is a “supergroup” of ???. ??? as in a lot of people will have some problems make sense of them. Ichiro Mizuki is the original leader of the team, who sort of retired (part-time member status?) not too long ago during a lull of the group’s activity. And interestingly enough, JAM Project’s membership includes an international individual who’s known for his works in Brazil, Ricardo Cruz. The other folks currently a part of JAM Project rocks out anime-style. So you have a few old guys, a few young(er) folks, and a guy from Brazil as an associate. And they rock out and jump around like nuts! Okay…

Still, and again, ultimately JAM Project is true to its namesake–it’s about Japanese Animation songs. If you don’t know the shows they sing for you wouldn’t know who they are. The careers of the men and women of JAM Project is the precise marriage of the two (well, and also tokusatsu). What does it mean as a musician when the works you produce are just half of an interactive relationship? Is it really surprising that hot-blooded arena rock becomes the primary means of expression for them? It’s both why they’re so powerful as performers but also eternally relegated to a very niche audience. They are not a group or performers that we can easily pigeonhole into some kind of categorically familiar thing. JAM Project is its own, unique thing.

Personally, what makes JAM Project interesting is its international perspective. Of course for oversea fans their perception will vary depending how much old school pop anime they’ve swallowed, or if they happened to be a Masami Okui fan or something, but this world tour folds well into the recent effort for the anime industry to export and explore their cultural “cool” globally. Will Americans be too “cool” to receive them? Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, it’s time to get prepared:

1. SKILL karaoke. Simply because it’s pretty awesome the first and second time I’ve done it, I should do this again. For it to be possible, I have to recruit a few helpers to scream along with me. Post or email (click on my name at the bottom of this post) if interested ;).

2. Get in shape. I’m going to jump around a lot. Well, if KOTOKO threw a show at the 1st Mariner Arena that’d be a good way to practice…