July 29, 2014
I Probably Should Get Around to Watching the First Two
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July 27, 2014
Love Lab
A 13 episode CGDCT series from last year, Love Lab passed beneath my radar though I became tangentially aware of it when I tracked down the source of some animated .gifs I had appropriated for some posts. I initially avoided it like the plague because I looked at the poster and drew the erroneous conclusion that it was based on a dating sim.
Realizing my error, I recently gave it a shot and discovered that it is...different.
Not a vampire...honest.
Meet Riko. She is an athletically inclined young lady from a modest middle class background. While not naturally gifted academically she has worked her butt off and through sheer force of will succeeded in transferring into the prestigious Fuji Girls School. She's got a couple of things going for her, she's extremely athletic and has that "mysterious transfer student" vibe, and as such a number of the student body are in awe of her. Our heroine is oblivious to this or her nickname "Wild Rinko" in part because she has never been popular. As a kid she hung out with the boys, who she frequently beat up and earned a reputation as demonic horror wench...the fangs probably exacerbated this.
In any event, one day she is instructed by a teacher to drop some papers by the student council office, where, having forgotten to knock, she makes a horrifying discovery.
First some background...Maki, the student council president, is extremely good at her job, a straight "A" student and greatly admired by the student body and teachers alike, so to walk in on her and find her making out with a comfort pillow named Huggy in the student council office is officially scandalous.
Well it gets worse. It seems that Maki has been using the student council to conduct experiments, and role playing sessions (with Huggy). She's turned it into a Love Lab in order to prepare herself for...romance.
She's already mastered the dramatic bloody cough
The fact that any contact with boys is grounds for expulsion only makes this abuse of school facilities more scandalous and dark secrets must be kept. Riko is drafted into being the POTSC's aid, partly in order to keep Maki's secret and partly to give a non-pillow perspective on Maki's ideas. When Riko points out that most of Maki's notions are stark-raving cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, Maki gets the impression that Riko's extensive experience with boys is actually extensive EXPERIENCE with boys. Riko's failure to clarify this complicates everything further and hilarity ensues as several other oddball students are drawn into this dark circle of depravity.
Love Lab breaks no new ground but it has very high production values and is a thoroughly pleasant show. The soundtrack is minimalist but surprisingly effective. I laughed and enjoyed it though the series has very limited rewatch value as most of the humor is based on surprises. It does get sappy towards the end as things begin to come to a head and some late series developments are not really resolved, I'm not sure if it was cut short or ran an episode too long. Nevertheless, I did not feel robbed or insulted and the show is upbeat, amusing and double entendres notwithstanding, not at all vulgar.
No really...
That is a matter of personal opinion.
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July 26, 2014
A Minor Tidbit...Scarcely Worth Mentioning
An interesting peek at what Disney is doing with the franchise.
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July 24, 2014
Well THAT was an Amusing 15 minutes.
"Yay! We're back!"
The episodes are a bit longer this time around (14:45 with credits) and they really have upped the production values. There is also quite a bit of action, though not at ALL what I'd expected.
We do learn a few important things.
The preview trailer is somewhat misleading.
Soda cans in Vale are NOT made out of aluminum.
It's strongly implied that Blake is in a lot more trouble than has been apparent.
Turkey and scallions do not go together as well as I'd have thought.
The episode has everything, murder, intrigue and a bizarre and silly 7 minute food fight that is about as spectacular as anything they've done yet. The voice acting is still uneven, but Jessica Nigiri does a very good job as Cinder (there was some speculation that her brief scene in last season's stinger was a fluke).
Also, as a catch phrase, "Don't play with your food." is wanting.
However, this was, all in all, a very promising kickoff for the second volume. This is definitely on the watch list.
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I Had NO Idea This Thing Was Real
Do want!
I'd seen this thing in some TV shows but I'd always thought it was a special effect.
The Williams WASP was designed to meet an Army from the 1970's. It actually fulfilled all the requirements but twas not adopted as the Army beleatedly decided that the requirements were ill-considered.
Good grief! With a range of 30 miles it's really not all that much more impractical than a motorcycle for commuting. It can fly above traffic and the fact that it flies means it's significantly less dorky than a Segway.
This is the future we were denied!
Someone must make this happen.
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08:59 PM
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July 23, 2014
While it is Certainly Good to Have a Goal
...in some cases it may be better to continue muddling through life until one can settle on a goal that is both attainable and productive.
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July 22, 2014
The Current Ghibli Film: "When Marnie Was There"
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July 14, 2014
15 People
RWBY is interesting not the least because it shows how much technology empowers small groups of limited means to do things that not long ago would have been possible only with a major company, considerable capital outlay and then only after persuading the suits to back the project.
Volume two builds on the lessons they learned by doing volume one and boasts a greatly expanded production staff....of 15 people (about a third of whom are also part of the cast).
Thus, the total cast and crew of this series is now in the vicinity of 20 people. This vastly lowers the hurdles to producing ones vision, and the internet largely solves the distribution issue. This is a game changer, and it's just starting. The production diaries remind me of some of the things I've read about the early years of silent films, before the studio system was established,where things had to be figured out, but there was a lot of creative freedom.
Now, while I've liked RWBY, it is true that there are criticisms of this particular show,...it's a superhero version of a Japanese highschool show set in a high-tech Hogwarts. Plus there are technical issues and the first volume ended on a bit of a nonsequiter. However, the show's cast and crew are, in a lot of ways, blazing new trails which will become very interesting paths indeed as more and more people get out there and produce stuff. A lot of it will be utter crap of course, Sturgeon's Law will still apply, but a group of people no bigger than a mid-sized doujin circle (or an APA for those that remember that niche of American fandom) and with similar initial capital outlay ( Poser Pro costs $450.00) will be able to do animated shorts and distribute them, free of the gatekeepers who even today presume to tell us what we shall see.
This is an exciting time. If I had talent, I'd be ecstatic, as it is, I'm merely pleased and hopeful.
UPDATE: Heavily edited the post.
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July 06, 2014
I am Unsure
...if Arpeggio of Blue Steel is brilliant or just bonecrushingly stupid.
I was initially leaning towards this peculiar earth versus aliens show being interesting with some annoying tendencies when suddenly this happened...
Now I fear it's going to be one extreme or another.
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July 05, 2014
19 Days to Go
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July 03, 2014
6 Weeks To Go
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June 09, 2014
Ahhh Vocabulary....
Tonight, due to a certain series of events, I found myself looking up the word "Therian". After some initial confusion I found that which I was looking for...and yet did not need to know.
This in turn caused me to ponder the additional befuddlement that might result if any of them find themselves 'connected' to a platypus.
Pondering such ponderables is not particularly productivel. Thus, we'll try to atone by posting this bit of art for Ubu, who has pointed out some information that looks to be worthwhile indeed.
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So...What's On ?
more...
I'm suffering from acute fogeyism.
Most of the best anime shows I've watched recently have been recommendations. Now, I sit and look at the current and approaching line-up and see a vast wasteland, but there must be something that doesn't suck.
So what's good in the world of anime?
As "Good" is highly subjective, here are the shows that I've most enjoyed over the years.
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June 01, 2014
Desensitization
I had never thought of A Certain Scientific Railgun as a particularly cheesecake heavy series. Even the "beach" episode seemed pretty demur to me and the lead heroine's habit of wearing shorts under her skirt appeared to be a nice mockery of the squalid trend of gratuitous panty shots.
It turns out that I must just be desensitized to this sort of thing. Someone named "John" has summarized the entire series in two minutes and forty three seconds and t turns out that the series is nothing but cheesecake and violence (not necessarily in that order).
Also dudes in wolf masks, which my desensitization caused me to miss on the first viewing.
Seriously though...
Just over a month and a half after watching the first half of the series I finally got around to finishing it.
My verdict: This show is pretty darn good.
A lot of full length series fall apart towards the end. This one did not, and provides the audience with very satisfying conclusion.
Furthermore, Mikoto Misaka is one of the more likable female leads in recent years, being decent and well grounded as well as very smart. She's also believably written, as are three of the four leads. As for Kuroko...well she's quite entertaining, though she is....well....she's flawed*.
Don't whine Kuroko, you know it's true.
The series writer, Seishi Minakami was a protege of the late Satoshi Kon (and did the screenplays for both Paprika and Paranoia Agent) and he throws in little non-explicit bits that develop the characters with some subtlety. For instance, there is, occasionally, a mention of Mikoto collecting merchandise from some Sgt. Frog inspired children's show. In most shows this would be a bit of perfunctory 'cute' ticket punching. In this show, the little frog fobs actually come off as poignant. They speak of a girl who because of her power, had to grow up a lot faster than most and as she approaches college longs for the childhood she skipped. Saten is well intentioned, hard working and quite brave, but she's occasionally quite obnoxious to Uiharu. She's a teenager and the stress and anxiety of not having any powers (in a world where they often define one's worth) is causing her to act out a bit.
Even the episodes that at first glance appear to be filler, (with one exception) manage, in retrospect, to develop the characters and/ or advance the plot.
Note that if you clicked on the video above, it includes about EVERY bit of fan service in the 720 minutes of the series and removes some context in the process. 'Railgun is surprisingly light on the cheesecake. While it's not entirely kid friendly in that regard, Mikoto is an unusually admirable heroine, the show pretty much renounces nihilism and it extols the virtues of decency.
This series was a thoroughly enjoyable ride.
Amongst all the teenage-superhero-highschool-cop-shows this is one of the best. Even without that significant caveat A Certain Scientific Railgun is well above average.
(*She tries (and fails spectacularly) to drug and presumably molest Mikoto at least twice...I mean good Lord, she's pretty much horrible. The only reason she's a "good guy" is because she feels personally invested in her identity as a Judgement officer, likes the power she gets from the job and is the vector for getting Mikoto and the others involved in the larger story. Yes she's comic relief, but.... )
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May 26, 2014
Enjoy the Holiday, But Forget Not Why You Have It.
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May 24, 2014
About 6 Weeks Left To Go
I see the twins are back. (I just wasted ENTIRELY too much of my evening crawling through that with the pause button).
UPDATE:
The arm reversal between her and Jaune compared to the season 1 OP is a nice touch. It looks like JNPR are indeed going to be the duteragonists.
Velvet's team certainly looks interesting.
I find it interesting the CRDNL is included.
Wow. The Rooster Teeth eye catch is really irritating.
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May 20, 2014
This Squirrel Nut Zippers Video
...really captures some of the key elements of early '30s US cartoons.
(Madness being the most important one.)
It actually doesn't start 'till 0:38
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Well, I Know What I'll Be Watching This Winter.
Like the previous one, this trailer for the upcoming Yamato film has no animation. But it's 31 seconds long as opposed to 16. Also, there is music this time, music that will mean nothing to those who did not watch the old show. The rest of us however, are a bit enthused.
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A Bit of Lost History Found
I just received this via E-Mail. I seem to recall hearing about it years ago, but had no idea it was finished or available or especially on You-Tube.
Behold! The long lost 1946 collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali.
This has been up since 2011 so I guess that Disney just put it out there due to its experimental nature, historical interest and the fact that its a short.
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The Memetic Madness That is Fandom
Having finally finished Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions - Heart Throb I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, though it's not quite on the same level as its predecessor.
The original show, in addition to being funny, was a touching, beautifully portrayed love story that amongst all the hilarity, involved Rikka coming to terms with her loss and getting her act together. The sequel has her pretty much back to where she was for most of the series...except that Rikka and Yuta are definitely a couple. I confess that at first I thought the two of them were just joking with regard to Rikka's active fantasy world, but alas no, and no explanation is given for the regression. Were it not for specific references to the Christmas party in the first serie,s this show could easily have been set during the same time frame as that show...and it might have been more satisfying.
Whereas Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions is about moving forward and growing up, '...Heart Throb' is, in many ways, a renunciation of that. On the surface the show glorifies stability above all else and seems actively hostile to the notion of personal development. For instance, the new character Sophia comes dangerously close to character development...but dodges that bullet with great verve and skill. Great effort is made to ensure that everything remains exactly as it is at the beginning*. I know nothing about the source material for this show, but the this glaring difference makes me wonder if the sequel is a response to fan complaints.
However, the show is quite entertaining in its own right and it made me laugh out loud several times.
With the two main lovebirds relationship pretty much fixed, there is some development exploration of the other characters.
Nibutani in particular, actually comes off as quite likable and decent in this series. She is an important part of a rather unexpected dynamic in the show that it is a bit deeper and more nuanced in its view of Otakudom than one might expect.
Despite the show's overall tone of aggressive Otaku affirmation '...Heart Throb' is not entirely sanguine about the subject. There is a somewhat creepy cour (with VERY creepy undertones) that involves the implications of fandom as a cult and it's handled pretty well...imaginary magical battle notwithstanding.
The show is cute, wacky and often quite weird...
...and occasionally even weirder still.
While it is not quite as good as its predecessor in that it does little to advance the cast, it is still a thoroughly enjoyable show
*...well...except for Isshiki, who is last seen dealing with a development that might or might not be truly horrible for him...the writers are rather vague on that point.
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