Omonomono

November 20, 2007

Living Vicariously Through Others Rocks in the 21st Century

By omo

LOL Eminence Symphony Orchestra is tender loving melodic euphoria? Even when recorded?

With stuff like youtube life is so easy to share with others. Weddings, birthdays, trips and vacations, anime cons… and there’s orgasmic orchestrations of some of the best anime music out there, live!

And blogs, too. So you can connect with the you that wasn’t there, but someone else who’s fortunate enough to enjoy it first hand. Uh, who was there? Negativezero? I dunno. Where’s all the Aussies at?

So it came and pass, a night in fantasia 2007 anime edition. And to the point, there are some cool stuff to check out:

Porco Rosso Medley. Seriously, they need to do more of Ghibli stuff that I like. Or just bring back their one old show >_>

Le Portrait de Petit Cossette.

The overplayed musicbox Melody from Noir.

Lullaby. Oddly enough I’m more familiar of this from Kajiura’s Fiction CD. It’s very nice to have an instrumental version though.

A Bunch Of Stuff From Tsubasa That I Don’t Care so much.

Some Xenosaga and .hack stuff that I’ve heard from their earlier show, but different instruments. And there’s two more from Xenosaga: main theme and Lamentation, which wasn’t in their earlier shows.

And out of nowhere came Lilium! This version is sooooo different. Same song and all but, wow. Yes, this is the Elfen Lied opening song.

Along the same lines, what the? Fly Me to the Moon? Makes me want to dance.

There was the usual autograph session afterwards. And Q&A at some point. She speaks English…sort of!

Pics here.

Liking Eminence for most people means a long-distance affair. It’s just not possible to go to their shows on a regular basis without serious dedication, time and funds. It’s hard to say if seeing and hearing them over the internet just makes me want more or what, or makes me sad that I can’t really go to their shows sans extraordinary circumstances. Ah well.

Anyone going to the Ko Ootani show in December with a camera? :)

13 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

November 20, 2007

Why Am I Still Watching Ninomiya-kun?

By omo

I don’t know.

Well, fanservice was never really my forte. I think over the years I’ve learned to enjoy it, and at the very least the fanservice in Ninomiya-kun is not terrible… To be precise it’s not really very serious fanservice–it gives you all the frills but it doesn’t give you much thrills. For some that’s a serious problem, but for me it’s just the right amount.

But even so, I think I’ve always stood firm on the line regarding the value of fanservice. Regardless if I can appreciate the sort of fanservice in a show or not, it has to serve a greater purpose. There has to be meaning behind the fanservice. It is not not in the sense that fanservice has to be a part of the plot–no, that is nonsense for a requirement–but fanservice has to serve some overall purpose in terms of the writing and direction.

For example, a recent episode of Blue Drop showed off some of the protagonists (notably, an all-girls bunch) but it was in line of the direction of the series–a balance of slice of life and strange alien mecha…crap. But it was clearly fanservice in some of the way things worked out, such as Miichi’s contemplation in the bath, and Hagino’s response to our spontaneous heroine as she jumped into the ocean. It was up to the viewer to find those things distracting or not.

Switch to Ninomiya. He is constantly tortured by his classmates and his sister and put in compromising situations. The international super agents that he and his sister are, the show has plenty of “reasons” to have the Ninomiya entourage dressed in skimpy wears suited for the tropics. And they do. But what was much more powerful was, say, episode 7’s prelude segment with Rika’s strange 4th wall fantasy about propaganda. It’s both satire and a joke rolled up into a fanservice package! That’s the stuff I like.

Needless to say I was less amused later on in the same episode when Mayu went bonkers and changed clothes. It was a silly joke, I suppose, but it didn’t really serve much beyond what it is–suddenly you have this girl dressed up like a cheerleader crossed with a nurse and crossed with a dominatrix, trying to stab you with a syringe full of unknown chemicals. I guess for some that’s amusing enough in itself, but it doesn’t cut it for me.

I laughed harder when Reika’s meeting with some unknown Arab-looking man was interrupted. So, yeah. I know Ninomiya-kun is one of those low budget crap shows on the menu right now, but it had some substance going into the series at first. The chemistry is right. But it looks like the show’s going nowhere right now, and that’s just too bad.

5 comments | posted in Blue Drop, Goushuushosama Ninomiya-kun, Modern Visual Culture

November 16, 2007

From Xenoglossia to Repeating Themes in Soundtracks

By omo

A lot of people didn’t think iDOLM@STER: XENOGLOSSIA was any good. Well, it wasn’t; but looking closer you can see that it’s not consistently bad or mediocre, but a mixed bag.

I actually finished (if one can call watching just the first episode and 18-26 “finished”) watching the show a few weeks after it finished airing. A recent fansub of the last episode came out finally, so I’m sure for some of you this show is still a little fresh in the mind.

The mixed bag is most impressive in the high quality of production value. In fact it’s pretty good throughout the episodes I’ve seen. The choreography is average for mecha but pretty enjoyable when it’s just a bunch of dressed loli flinging axes and other instances of non-mecha stuff. There’s a lot of good visuals that goes alongside with good production value, at least.

But what made me want to blog about this mixed bag is the music. There are some parts of the show where it’s plainly invisible while accompanying the show, but there are parts of the show where the music shines. Just by looking the role of the music in the show, it reminds me a lot of Mai-Hime.

Mai-Hime is one of my two most favorite Kajiura soundtracks, but the music for that show was a lot more repetitive than other Kajiura’s works as many of them are rearrangements of the main theme. The focus on a central theme expounded across the series (and on the OSTs themselves) was the way Mai-Hime BGM worked. Xenoglossia, likewise, focused on a handful themes and Tsuneyoshi Saito’s various arrangements were quite good.

Well, I guess for the soundtrack buff, Xenoglossia is going to be a hit and miss because most tracks on the CD are straight out of the show, and the show, well, is mostly silly. There are some pretty great tracks, though, especially if you like piano or a slightly more jazzy style. There are some more classically orchestrated stuff as well, and for me those are a cue when they pop up in the show, to pay extra attention to the music.

Oddly enough I didn’t care much at all about the main theme (which is aptly the first instrumental track on the first soundtrack), although it seems to be penned with the idea that it’s going to pluck your sentimental strings or whatever as a fan of Xenoglossia might feel when they relive the more emotional moments of the show. I thought the various arrangements are much easier to listen to even if they aren’t as… interesting.

But overall, the two soundtracks to Xenoglossia are pretty solid, as far as anime soundtracks go. Tsuneyoshi Saito also worked on some notable shows like Fafner, Nazca and Denno Coil, so that should give you an idea what sort of stuff he writes. I think there is some FF6 music with his name on it, too. Xenoglossia is probably the odd one out from Saito’s collection?

4 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Modern Visual Culture, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

November 13, 2007

Captive Audience

By omo

I think the first 8 minutes of ef – a tale of memories episode 6 is made of pure win. It is the sum of a delightful dialog that I have been trying to have with the rest of you in these past few years, boiled down in a very pointy and simple, directed scene about living for yourself and living for others, tersely paralleled with a creator’s dilemma in his artistic pursuit.

The subtle irony presses on even in the soundscape. Tenmon’s accompaniment with Makoto Shinkai’s early days is not without meaning. The simple chords (or whatever those wiggly lines next to them are called) pierces a slightly heated, poorly acted, but lively dialog. What leaks out was that subtle, fourth-wall prodding that have been pressed through the scenes of this anime series since episode 1. The writing and the dialog talks about a weird, artsy show like ef itself. And the people who make and appreciate them.

The episode started patently out of the DVDs of Soul Taker; flat-pressed rail road crossing, a silent parting only dressed by a roaring locomotive; but it is a declaration of war rather than an unconfessed complex.

But how does a girl figure into all of this? I’m sure a lot of you are rather more interested in the plot elements. Kyousuke was always “that special something” which made the ef anime different than anything else out there for me, so it is good to see the main romance story involving him.

The sharp declaration, the clever, alter-perspective recap to connect episode 5 and 6, well, is electrifying but also a little wacky. I guess I will have to live with that.

As the episode progressed the intensity of the direction dwindled. With Chihiro we see a lot of softness (although it makes good material to spike up things like with that sheep, those painted glass, a singular reaching arm). It’s that Renji-puppy-love, maybe. His mom is definitely a pretty lady that is also pretty funny. A little less funny was his neighbor-friend. And probably way less funny is Renji’s adviser. I guess they’ll save that for his back story with Yuuko.

The episode ends with some tender moment between Kei and Kyousuke, and Kei and Hiro, and showing you why ef is taking advantage of the anime format by doing some cool stuff that wouldn’t be so easy to do.

5 comments | posted in ef, Modern Visual Culture

November 11, 2007

A Girl’s Last Regret

By omo

…is not getting to know November 11 a little better.

Eternity approaches. The feeling of solitude escapes its frail shell through the cracks of the oncoming holiday season. Weather changes from warm to chilly; perhaps your coworker has caught a cold and you try your own best to beat the bug. At any rate, all of this is to pass through the flight of time. In a blink of eye we will be reading Jeff Lawson’s post about his favorite anime being better than yours, along with everyone else that partake in the half-trollish, half-festive tradition. The urge to recall what happened early this year fills you invariably with happy and sad memories at the same time, or worse, a chilly void of “wow, what have I been doing with my life?”

Eternity is here, in some sense. For girls like Chihiro Shindou eternity has been severed into pieces; each night’s sleep leapfrogs her from one small reality to the next, guided by written continuity from the hands of an equally fragmented author. A little sheep grazes at the lawn it is chained, perhaps, to its eventual death. However, what that little sheep fails to realize is that life keeps going. She may be limited by her chains but the sum of herself is more than the recollection of self. It’s the fact that eternity is here. It’s the story about memory, and how we perceive them and express them.

Pop quiz: Why did Nayuki asked Yuuichi if he remembers her name?

Answer: Kanon 2006 FAILS.

But good o chap Jack Simon will live on with those who remember him. And I think even if he doesn’t exist as a real person, he is pretty inspirational as an icon of those who can keep his cool all the while doing the thing he has to do.

6 comments | posted in Darker than Black, ef, Kanon, Modern Visual Culture