Omonomono

Yeah, yeah, you guys are probably sick of people blogging about True Tears. I wouldn’t know because I’ve been taking a minor break from reading blogs (if one can do such a thing) and writing blogs. I do understand that it’s a show that offers some persuasion to both mind and emotion to express just how… moe? it is.

Thankfully I don’t have a weakness against the backside of girls’ knees (or am I confusing it for Aria?). I think. And I’ve long since gotten my meganekko thing under control. I’m pretty good against porn generally. Most other forms of fanservice have the reverse effect on me (save when it’s well-done).

Am I the only one who wanted to have at Jibeta’s feet? I bet it tastes good.

Hm, I thought I already wanted some imagawayaki.

Hiromi’s feet is a wholly different matter. It’s really an inadvertent use of fanservice that turned into awesome.

And here’s why it’s awesome. So awesome that I’m going to spend many hundred words to talk about it.

Continue reading

I have reached a major turning point in the quest to pursuit it as a fan and to promote it as a fan, so I figured I should share what has happened, and what will continue to happen.

A time long ago, in a galaxy not-so-far away…

There were some blogs and news sites that reported the unveiling of Makoto Shinkai’s latest work, strangely titled “5 Centimeter per Second – A Chain of Short Stories about Their Distance.” What was really remarkable was that a 720p trailer was released to annotate this major news item (at least, for people who cared for avant-garde Japanese animation).

The summer of 2006 was a time of uncertainty. The Hi-Def format war was just underway and the waves of heavy blows had only begun to clash between the two camps. Seeing a Hi-Def trailer for an anime film, straight from the Japanese Horse’s mouth, was an oddity, even if it was norm for big-budget productions. It’s not a secret (at least to me) that a fair number of TV anime was already being produced with HD in mind, and even some are aired as such. But the media tycoons here, let alone the more fiscally conservative Japan, was not too keen on jumping on the bandwagon, even if Blu-Ray has pretty much gotten Japan locked down from the get go.

The strange title and the fragmented telling of 5cm was already pretty much a “huh” since it was hard to say what it was about, besides that we can see it may very well be another film long-distance relationship. It was surprisingly sci-fi free, but with that rocket we can’t tell for sure. Not everyone then picked up that it’s a three-parter. Just about no one knew the last part was suppose to be a “cap” and a music video. The winter 2006 trailer didn’t really help either.

(The Star Wars nod is not too far off, as I thought back to what happened.)

As fandom and fans approached the winter of 2006, babble about 5cm has generally quieted down. Stuff like Paprika and Tokikake was in the mind of the anime film buffs. The steadfast Shinkai fans preordered the limited edition R2 DVD box sets, as it would come with Tenmon’s soundtrack (and so far, no way else). The fortunate Shinkai fans waited to see it in theaters in spring of ’07. I was neither.

(Come to think of it, 2006 was one hell of a year for anime if we added these two works to 2006’s umbrella of fandom-rocking productions.)

I did get to read about the film, and at least watch a nice sub of it later in 2007. I was so pumped about that fansubbed Episode 1 (Oukashou) that I made everyone I knew watch it at Otakon 2007, where they promised a screening with their 35mm programming track. Not only was its reception mixed among my friends (as it was decidedly depressing for some and outright outrageous for few; as many liked it however), they screened a DVD with crappy resized option selected. It looked horrid. Prodding the Otakon forums after the fact did little good besides that ADV has dropped the ball (in an usual manner of how industry reps drop balls at cons, I guess).

And showing it in such horrid way is the greatest injustice you can do to one of the prettiest film I’ve seen. Having been promised a 35mm run by ADV, it was a kick in the balls. Hearing it being licensed was great news as it was announced around 2007 con season. I was so looking forward to it too.

That summer marked the start of a small chase for me to catch 5cm in a proper 35mm showing. I know ADV did stuff in Texas with all their theatrical releases, but it was a little too hard to justify traveling down there just for that. Plus, I had no idea where to start looking for information tied to their local showing. All in all, I only managed to catch two other “screenings” of 5cm since, so I guess I wasn’t really that hardcore at all.

A whopping year later we’ve finally seen this work in its original 35mm beauty. The NYCIFF screened it twice in three weeks; I caught the last showing today.

It’s been a long year since the seeds of anticipation bore fruit. Even compared to a nice, high quality rip of the original DVD, seeing it on 35mm was a notably more powerful experience. Details between light and darkness jumped to life; deep ocean blues and the pitch-dark, starry sky gave a particular depth that made Episode 2, Cosmonaut, a glittery magic that probably will escape most people’s displays (unless your display can show some very awesomely deep black levels, anyways).

This was probably my fourth real “experience” with this film. Not counting the time when I watched it piece-wise or doing it at home, anyways. At today’s showing there were a couple hiccups which interrupted the screening (thankfully nothing really major), and we had to take a 5-minute break between episodes 2 and 3. I realized this actually significantly changed the way we viewed the ending because the awesome kid-friendly atmosphere of a typical NYCIFF showing really cuts into suspension of mood. I sort of took pity to this one mom who was reading the subs to her child as her child wasn’t old enough to read that fast.

A bit of funny: as usual NYCIFF major features always demo a short before the actual feature. For today’s showing there was this stopmation Russian fairytale. It’s only fitting that 5cm is also licensed in Russia, I guess.

What’s next? I’ve done chasing this film, so odds are I can happily pluck down some money for the Hi-Def version of the film (along with Beyond the Clouds) later this year. Hopefully we can see R1 licensees release them with translation soon after.

Animazement strikes again as the most common anime con destination in North America for older voice actors.

Seriously, what is going on?

It’s one of those conventions that I wish I can just ignore. But on Memorial Day weekend this year, it seems to mean I might have to go down there to North Carolina and kick some ex-blogger in the butt and find some curry to eat, or something.

And it’s not to downplay the other guests they have lined up, like Kumiko Watanabe. And Trunks.

I hope I don’t have to explain to you who Mitsuishi Kotono is. But much like some of the previous Animazement guests, she hasn’t really had a big day under the spotlight, in terms of the more developed seiyuu-idol community. She’s pretty much just a once-popular voice actress that somehow still commands legion of fans who’s been doing this for a while.

Legions, I tell you.

This is a different way to look at characters as constructions compared to the currently accepted notions of what they are in anime and manga. Note this probably doesn’t apply to real people, but the principles may be truisms to some extent. And what I’m about to say is probably common sense anyways.

Put aside what you know about tsunderes for now. It’ll just get in the way.

Japan, culturally, is a group that value subtle forms of communication over overt ones. A person who stands, sits, walks, and otherwise does what s/he would normally carry on daily communicates by the way s/he stands, sits, walks, and stuff s/he otherwise does daily. It’s not to say they don’t commute overtly, but that is just a necessary part of the deal. It’s hard to exchange marital vows with body language only, right? A typical confession scene is beautiful because it’s an act that symbolizes the coming-to-terms of a bandwagon full of feelings, and not merely the expression of those feelings. The viewers have long knew those feelings before the character does, anyways.

But the ability of one to express these feelings, within the social and cultural constrains of interpersonal sensitivity and elegance, on top of the usual fears of social rejection and self-rejection, can be a tall order for some. We can break down the tsundere archetype (and many others) in these terms.

As a character, there are some feelings which motivates, drives, and explains the thoughts and actions of a character. In fulfilling the character’s fundamental motivation (such as being compelled to satisfy a growing feeling of affection of our Tsundereko for the Harem Lead, for example) things will get to a point where s/he has to internalize these feelings and motivations. Then s/he has to externalize them. Depending on what and who the character is, we will see that they will have varying success to do both. In essence, the expression of “tsun” represents a process of feelings being internalized, and the expression of “dere” represents these feeling being externalized.

Maybe some examples help to explain.

1. The Hard Tsun. What makes a hard tsun “hard” is an incongruity between the character’s normal image and the way the character cope with his/her feelings (when being ‘tsun’). How drastic the incongruity is, the harder the Tsundereko she is. While the schtik of a tsundere hinges on the two-face element, it achieves a uncomfortable disjoint rather than the cute outburst of the stereotypical tsundere. In translation, the Hard Tsun is a brute. She just overpowers herself with something else to let the emotion pass.

2. The Ordinary Tsun. For characters like Rin Tohsaka and pretty much a large portion of ordinary people, we don’t really have a lot of experience dealing with emotions of romance, affection and infatuation. Especially as teenagers. For archetypical anime girls, there may be some of that “maiden in love” thing going on which really hits the “moe” buttons for many, that perhaps “sprouting” becomes an adequate analogy for an intangible feeling, but overall we’re just inexperienced. Sometimes this inexperience shows up in body language, which is also another approach or outlet for expression in anime and manga. In translation, the normal tsun is…normal. We see the character struggle to cope with her feelings in a sensible fashion, but is still having a tough time with it.

3. The Real Tsun. It’s harder to pinpoint an example, but the real tsundere is someone who has the same inner struggle as the Normal Tsun, but is more of a klutz at dealing with her emotional circumstances. It’s not a cut and dry line between this and the Ordinary Tsun, and some are more klutzy than others when it comes to expressing that strange feeling.

4. The Un-Tsundere. Some people are faster with dealing with unfamiliar feeling than other. Of course a large portion of TV anime is about high school romance and stuff like that, so this is more the unexpected state of things. There’s some difference between this and the Ordinary Tsun; both can run into awkward situations and attribute like suaveness and courage are perpendicular to how well they handle their own feelings. For example, Yuumi Hoshino would not be a tsundere, but Asuka Sakino would be, although both of them have a very good grasp of their feelings. Yet, in general, Asuka deals with her feelings with some maturity and courage unlike Yumi. Both of them are klutzy but one is more proactive about it.

I’d like to end this post with Clark Kent. The alter-ego of Superman is a klutz because, well, he’s in restraint of his super powers when living a life in incognito. Being a minor klutz is almost endearing to his love interests at times, but also it lends him credibility as a harmless and unguarded individual that you don’t need to watch out for. It also makes good juxtaposition to his alter ego in some sense; that you’re not some hired gun by The Man, but you’re just a normal guy doing what you’ve got to do.

Props to the notenki among us I suppose.