Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by EXCELLENCE!)

A month and a bit ago I said that while I enjoy SHAFT’s adaptation of Dance in the Vampire Bund, my feelings for it are complicated. After ragging on the background music for a bit, I launched into a 700 word rant about how the show looks, then kind of forgot where I was going. Now that we are further down the line, the issues I have with the show have begun to weigh heavier due to the passage of time, and I wish to address them more explicitly.

I actually kind of like the background music better, now. There are some really good tracks, and a handful of tracks that create a suitable atmosphere for the action on screen. There is still that one really bad track they use for action scenes. In fact, I think the staff knows it’s really bad which is why a lot of actions scenes have no background music. Which is a problem, since action scenes generally need some high tension music.

However, my main issues lie with the show’s function as an adaptation–both story wise and visually. While I am as enthusiastic about the show visually as I was the last time I wrote about it, one thing I neglected to mention was the degree to which the show is visually broken. Since Tsukuyomi -MOON PHASE- (The show allegedly had awful animation when it aired. I never saw the TV cut, but I have seen screencaps, and they’re not pretty.) SHAFT has managed to keep their shows more or less presentable for their TV airings, but still punch them up for the DVD release anyway. Due to inner conflict within one of their outsourcing houses along with one of their mainstays–Silverlink–working on Baka to Test, SHAFT has been having a tough time, despite their success with Bakemonogatari. You’d think that they’d have more than two inbetweeners at this point, but they don’t. To make matters worse, while  Bund does have a lot of talking heads, it does have a fair amount of action, and considering the most spectacular action scene that the anime has covered so far was shafted (ooooh!) due to the lack of manpower, time or money, it’s fair to say that there are some issues with this production. Never mind the fact that they couldn’t settle on a visual style for the show and kept messing with various filters episode after episode until they found something that worked.

Direction wise, it’s bit more SHAFT than Shinbo for my tastes. Through the passing years it is my understanding that Shinbo has had less and less influence on what the members of SHAFT do, guiding them in broad strokes as opposed to fine ones. This isn’t bad, as they’re taking the man’s style to heart very well, but I feel something like Vampire Bund deserves the genuine Shinbo touch. There’s not enough weird colours and odd camera angles. Episode seven–despite how broken it was–was pretty good, though. Episode eight wasn’t too bad either.

But my main issue is simply that a good part of what has aired so far has covered a part of the manga that I feel is simply not as interesting as the rest of it. I was excited with how SHAFT mixed up the first couple of episodes, so the subsequent falling back on original material was a little disappointing. I still think what they did with episodes four through seven was better, but not better enough.

Actually, that’s my main issue with the whole show–it’s pretty good, but it needs an extra punch to send it into the realm of awesome. I’m betting that most of this punch will come in the form of a complete visual facelift for the DVD release. Presumably, this visual facelift will be so awesome that any issues I have with the first half of the series will be nullified, and the whole show will just be awesome. They did it with Tsukuyomi, and look how awesome that show is! Don’t let me down, SHAFT!

When one is 10 episodes deep into Baccano! a lot of shit has already gone down, a number of mysteries are being answered, and the show’s confused narrative begins to take on a fairly solid shape. On the other hand, we’re 10 episodes into DRRR!! and not much has happened. I can see why some of the people who really liked Baccano! may not like DRRR!!. Actually, I imagine it’s similar to why I’m not too hot about Summer Wars but love Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. Baccano! was a weird mix of a lot of charming elements that came together to make a pretty neat show, albeit one that’s not too accessible because of how confusing it is for a good portion of its runtime. DRRR!! retains some of the same elements, but strips out a lot of Baccano!’s very unique elements. At the same time however, it becomes something the mainstream can appreciate a bit more easily than Baccano!.

DRRR!! is set to run for 2 cours, so it’s unfair to compare what has happened in 10 episodes of it to what happens in 10 episodes of Baccano!. That said, nothing much has really happened thus far in DRRR!!, as mentioned before, but it is nevertheless quite interesting. This is due to well done foreshadowing, an intriguing setting, and a cast of interesting characters who don’t really need much of a story to make them interesting.

Much like Baccano!, one cool aspect of DRRR!! is how it takes an otherwise normal setting and puts an abnormal spin on it. Lots of anime does this–in fact it’s almost staple of anime–but DRRR!! can pull it off with style. The designs of the characters, as well as the clothes they wear don’t stray much from the bounds of reality (that said, I imagine each charater’s closet is filled with 7 sets of the same outfit). Similarly, the show’s backgrounds don’t depict a bright and colourful Japan, but instead project something grittier made from Photoshopped photos of Ikebukuro along with a dark no-nonsense colour scheme and crowds of grey people going about their business.

When Heiwajima Shizuo throws a guy a hundred meters down the street into truck or throws a vending machine at someone, it’s given the kind of over-the-top presentation it deserves, but since the look of the show is so down to Earth, the feeling one gets when seeing that is a bit different than what one feels when Misaka fires off her Raingun and flips a car over. One is lavished with a cartoonish amount of shine and polish, while the other one is far more subdued and restrained. That’s what makes the setting of DRRR!! so interesting–the way in which it balances unreal with real.

It goes without saying that what makes this setting interesting is the wealth of eccentric characters that occupy it. At this point the most interesting players are those who are clearly operating on the wrong side the of law. Between ridiculous car chases (Kyouhei, Saburou, Erika, Walker), the flinging of public property (Shizuo), and simply unreal levels of dickery (Izaya), the things these characters do are just fun to watch. Of course the slightly less interesting side of things–the side that mostly resides in high school–has a subtle air of mystery and insanity floating about it. Not to mention hints of moe (a must, clearly), mostly manifested in the lovely Sonohara Anri.  There’s also the titular Dullahan, Celty, but strangely enough she’s the least interesting part of the equation. Her fretting over things is kind of funny, though.

All this comes together to create a strong sense of intrigue, along with small amounts of foreshadowing. Back when a lot of anime often ran for two cours (let’s say from the mid 90s to mid 00s) the first half of the show would often be composed of one-shots used to introduce the characters and get one acquainted with the setting. But when that 13th episode would come about, things usually got kicked into overdrive for a big showdown at the end. DRRR!! is doing that first half extremely well. At around episode 10 the cast is more or less fully introduced, the setting is established, and enough hints of an overarching plot are dropped to leave people wondering just what the hell is going on. I only hope that they’ll be able to deliver.

I also hope that they never actually explain why some of these people have super human strength. Kind of like Giant Robo.

Original Post

Even though they have changed their tone a bit regarding this issue, the fact that we’re still talking about editing anime in this day and age is quite nostalgic. When I was younger I used to read sites documenting the multitude of edits done to various Toonami offerings as well as sites which provided photographic comparisons for the original DBZ edits (there used to be this great site called Dragonball Z UNCUT).

At this time I was also watching anime on VHS with my friends, and attempting to download full episodes of random things in the form 20mb .rm files which took something of the order of  four hours to download. So, yeah, props to FUNimation for providing an impromptu trip down memory lane with this little controversy. It’s almost especially funny that FUNimation is the source of all this mess, considering not too long ago they were doing an impressive job of pissing off fanboy purists with their dub of DBZ.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve not been very vocal on the whole Handley issue on this site simply because every other blogger, podcaster and Twitter superstar has beaten the issue to death. However, upon FUNimation’s announcement regarding their editing of SHAFT’s Dance In The Vampire Bund for US release, I feel that something something has to be said. I realize that what I’m saying has been repeated ad nauseum by pedos and non-pedos alike, and considering my preoccupation with the underdeveloped female form, I understand that there will be a certain degree of bias here. But whatever.

No matter how objectionable a drawing is, in the end it’s simply that–a drawing. Whether it’s a dude fucking a dead girl in the brain, a guy getting torn apart, or a man having his way with a young child, no matter how gross one may find such things, they’re drawings, and they shouldn’t be illegal. I’m not even going to push the “artistic expression” angle. Yeah, a lot of the stuff you find in LO does have a high degree of artistic merit, but in the end a lot of the people who partake of this stuff just want to jerk off. And that’s fine, they’re just drawings.

Honestly, considering how harmless drawn imagery of a man and a young girl having sex is (it’s not uncommon for the girls in LO to give consent, strangely enough), I’m surprised that the iron fist of the law hasn’t come down on far more grotesque drawn imagery. Take the types of violent and sexual imagery I mentioned in the above paragraph–why aren’t people losing their shit over that? I’ve flipped through a bunch of comics–both American and Japanese–where some pretty awful stuff is going down. Heck, violence of that same level happens in Hollywood movies. Why isn’t that stuff banned? I mean, I find some of it offensive. I know this is an argument that’s been made countless times, but how is grotesque violence okay and relatively benign imagery of two people having sex not? Especially when they’re just drawings. I mean seriously, these guys should be arresting people for owning Waita Uziga books if they’re to throw poor Handley away for drawings of fake girls getting fucked.

Again, I know this has been beaten to death and has already been communicated in a far more eloquent manner, but there is no victim when an issue of Comic LO drops. No one is hurt in the making of that publication. Real children are hurt in the production of real child pornography, and those criminals are the ones we should be after. The people who partake of cartoonish depictions of minors engaged in sexual acts are sometimes people who do prefer real children, and sometimes people who  just like drawings. I personally just like drawings. However, if one were to make our harmless fantasy drawings illegal, who are they protecting? If anything the dudes who like real kids will just go out and rape real kids, and guys like me will have to tread cautiously when looking at something that hasn’t harmed anyone in its making.

Anyway, enough of that. You’ve heard it all before.

As far as FUNimation’s decision on Vampire Bund goes, I can’t blame them, but they’re going to be lucky if the first volume can push 50 copies. If that. Honestly, I think they could have left that one problematic scene in and no one would have noticed. The US release of the manga got away with that scene, along with all the others where every lovely detail of Mina’s wonderful body is put front and center. Heck, the manga is probably dirtier than the anime considering just how often Mina is naked. The only real graphic depiction of Mina’s naked body in the anime is that scene. Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to show a grown man rubbing oil on a naked little girl on US TV or even release something like that on DVD. If it involved a real child. Like I said above, these are drawings. Who cares if there’s some scene in a cartoon where a kid is naked. It’s totally harmless.

Since this Vampire Bund license was likely a tie-in with their Baka to Test license, they were low on options. And we are living in a world were a man has been arrested for owning comics. But I still think it’s dumb.

Original Post

Yeah, another comic about SHAFT, but not about Vampire Bund! That said, the next comic will be about Vampire Bund again due to recent events. After that I’ll try to think of something new, I promise!

For those not in-the-know, Bakemonogatari changes its opening per story arc, and the opening SHAFT has come up with for the final arc–Tsubasa Cat–features what looks like either a man or a very dumpy woman dressed as Hanekawa Tsubasa photographed against various locations around Tokyo. Of course the imagery is in black and white, and has a neat little grain filter over it. The opening can be viewed here in very questionable quality, but if you haven’t watched Bakemonogatari at all yet, you should! It’s a pretty sweet show if you like good design work and witty script writing. I should really write something substantial about the show at some point.

I know I said I’d try to squeeze out three blog entries a week, and since then I’ve only produced one. I did put forth that it was an impossible proposition, but if time allows I’m going to try and put something else out tonight. There are a lot of things I want to blabber on about, it’s simply a case of finding the time and words to do so.

Anyway, until next week!

Me and a few other guys have been watching this show all by ourselves. Not like we really have a choice–a show like Kirumin doesn’t captivate viewers in huge numbers here the USA, and on top of that not much of it is translated. So since most of you can’t really watch and comprehend the show, it’s probably worth it to lay down what makes each episode a good time.

Kirumin is simply solidly entertaining. Between inspired writing, cuter-than-cute character designs, and fairly solid production values, it’s pretty a well put together package. Since it’s a year long series (for kids, I think) it takes things slow. There is an underlying plot hinted at from time-to-time, but it’s not important yet. In fact, the show has only just addressed its full title–Animal Detectives Kirumin–a cour and change into itself with the three main girls and two main guys starting up a amateur detective agency.

If there’s one thing the show is not short of, it’s creativity. The way in which the girls combine their powers and solve cases is always amusing and oftentimes quite clever. The cases themselves are often focused around cute and harmless things–common themes are lost pets, missing property, the odd missing movie star and maybe an animal is acting weird every now and again.  More often than not the case will have something to do with animals, and the girls will find that they understand “the feelings of animals” better by the end of the episode. The solution to the mystery is pretty clear early on, but watching the process of the girls figuring things out and using their heightened senses is very entertaining and cute. Things tend to come an explosive conclusion, which is where a lot of the surprises are.

But more simply than that, the show is just so darn cute. Look at these girls, they’re just adorable! Kirumin has some of the best character designs I’ve seen in a while. Perhaps because it’s a kids show, the girls’ wonderfully fluent hairstyles alone are adorned with more childish flourishes such as heart-shaped locks of hair, bunny-shaped hair ornaments and good old fashion hair ribbons. Beyond that we have immensely sparkly eyes with levels of detail that give Paul “Otaking” Johnson’s five tones of shading a run for their money, incredibly cute casual outfits as well as school uniforms, and impressively round cheeks that manage to remain consistently rosy. On their faces, of course. What were you thinking?

But real cuteness isn’t just skin-deep–you have to be cute on the inside as well, and these girls have appropriately cute and childish personalities to match. Mikogami Riko (the center one, and main character) is spunky, driven and very competitive. She’s one of those girls that can take on “the boys” (as is sometimes said with a hint of sexism in across various anime.) Rimu (glasses) is obviously the more bookish type. She’s nerdy, and has a knack for photography and journalism. Their older sister, Nagisa has that classic mixture of sternness and sweetness that most onee-san have, but is also quite reserved and has a tough time dealing with men.

We then have Kanon (rendered lovingly here by Nyama) voiced by Tange Sakura (!!) who is a scheming vampire who just moved in from overseas. She’s friends Riko and Rimu during school time, but outside of class she will at times try to foil their plans from the shadows. There’s also two boy characters–Ken and Tamao–who are part of the Kirumin detective agency, and are always a main fixture in each of the cases. Ken is your typical hotblooded boy, and often butts heads with Riko, while Tamao is the nerd, who actually has Coke bottle glasses (Rimu’s glasses are just swirly.) There’s some other characters too, such as the three girls’ slightly eccentric parents, Kanon’s mom who thinks she’s a member of Cat’s Eye along with her her lazy and bubbling pretty-boy subordinates, and a mysterious man named Parse.

It’s worth noting that the tension between Ken and Riko is pretty hilarious, and is made even better by the fact that Kanon has a crush on Ken, which makes for a cute love triangle.

The show looks pretty good, especially considering its year-long runtime. While not always consistent, the characters are always rendered fully and never really look half-done. Good attention is always paid to the details. The colours are bright, full and cheery, and match the equally bright and imaginative backgrounds. There’s really nothing much in the way of noticeable animation shortcuts, but at the same time each episode doesn’t look like this. Special mention should be made of the opening, which is really great and well composed, especially considering it’s made primarily of animation loops.

So yeah, Kirumin. It’s a neat show. Much in the same way that Zettai Karen Children was the under-rated, year-long kids show that was I was pushing  a few years ago, Kirumin is the what I want people to seek out now. Of course, Zettai Karen Children was actually translated. I mean, we did our best, and I can only hope those other groups out there are giving it their all. But some of it is out there in English, so watch it!

Original Post

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another comic about SHAFT and Shinbo. Next week is probably going to be about them, too. What can I say, they make great cartoons, but they’re also hokey enough that I can make fun of them. But speaking of noise filters, the more acute of you may notice that I have been applying it to the past couple of comics. I’m doing this because I think it gives the art some texture. It looks good on my screen, but I’m not sure how it looks on others. It’ll probably come and go according to my mood.

Also, I realize I’ve been rather quiet on my blog lately. I don’t like apologizing for not posting, as I feel one should post on their blog at their leisure, but there’s things I want to talk about and it’s simply a matter of me sitting down and typing them up. This is impossible, but I’m going to try and shoot for three Actual Entries (ie, not art or comic rants) a week. I also have some more podcasts to get out, but Audacity being the influriating program that it is has caused me to make negative progress.

Oh, and just so’s you know Mistakes of Youth will be at Anime Boston at the beginning of April. NOT ONLY THAT, but if you read my Twitter (don’t read my Twitter) you would know that I have a panel there. It’s going to be called The Life and Times of Akiyuki Shinbo. It’s on at 7pm on Friday in panel 309. That time and place my change, so Watch This Space for any changes!

Anyway, hopefully I can drop some more interesting words on you guys soon. Later!

Download

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Just some dickish commentary between me and Alex on Ian Condry’s SOUL OF ANIME lecture which wasn’t all that interesting, but you can listen to it here.

There was no part 2.

Guests

• Alex Leavitt

Songs

• Opening Song– “Kyuuryoubi-san” by Omokage Lucky Hole
• Ending Song– “The Joker” by Brasil ‘66

I only post my doodles when they’re of anime directors.

Shinbo looks too dashing and almost looks like my dad circa 10 years ago. I tried to draw Sadamoto at the end, but I forgot what he looked like.

It’s been tough for a Gundam fan lately. Unless you are particularly fond of the alternate universe offerings that have more or less defined Gundam for the past ten years, there’s been nothing much us devotees to the original series can really sink our teeth into and appreciate beyond some manga in GundamAce that I can’t read, and some neat model kits I don’t have time to build. Oh, maybe we can sink our teeth into Ring of Gundam. Or at least try.

But you know, we have nothing to worry about now. Gundam Unicorn is here. And it’s tasty.

I don’t even understand what’s going on beyond the basics so far! Big Japanese words go straight over my head. But that doesn’t matter. The punch that this first episode packs obliterates any language barrier one may have. This shit is a spectacle. I am not afraid to say that it is in fact what Gundam fans have for ages been longing for.

Let’s be honest UC fans–ever since First we’ve had to live with compromise. First Gundam is dated, but we can appreciate its raw spirit despite its sometimes poor production. Zeta Gundam is great, but it takes some time to get on its feet. Even when it comes to big-budget affairs like Char’s Counterattack or 0083, we kind of let the story side of those works slide a bit since they look so damn pretty. No one can agree on 08th MS Team. I guess 0080 is good, but I haven’t seen it in so long that I don’t even get the hamburger joke people always make. What I’m getting at is that this first episode of Unicorn can be enjoyed completely without compromise. The animation is slick, the plot is engaging, and the characters so far seem great.

Gundam Unicorn is clearly a reply to years of fan prayer. The First Gundam movies are amazing–there’s no question about that–but in the end it is a cartoon made to (initially) sell simplistic toys to children, and this simplicity is reflected in the look of the animation. However, because of First’s very realistic approach to war, it established this mindset in UC fans everywhere that the UC universe concerned itself with real, gritty war, even if it doesn’t really look like it. It’s serious stuff. It has gravity to it. Even if Char does pilot a bright pink Zaku. Excuse me, red.

As I mentioned before, previous big-budget Gundam series which have tried desperately to answer the cries of fans gave it the good ol’ college try–came out pretty great–but no one can agree on which one is good. I’m really jumping the gun here, but I have a feeling Unicorn will be universally embraced.

This first episode is a perfect mix of classic and modern. There are some traditional Gundam tropes sprinkled throughout, as well as some typically ridiculous scenes that can only really happen in a Gundam series. But they’re pulled off with high levels of class. Alongside these scenes  is a developing plot that I already find engaging, despite not fully understanding it. This too is of course handled with the same amount of class. The whole episode in general has a very serious streak, and evokes an epic tone skilfully.

As I alluded to before, the animation is more or less phenomenal. There is some dodgy 3D work at times, but for the most part this is film-caliber stuff. Characters make pronounced and full movements, the camera isn’t afraid to move around, and the world is convincingly alive and breathing. Mobile suit battles aren’t simple exchanges of beam spam. This is a show in which 30 seconds are spent on a Zaku making a suicide run at an enemy suit while the various pieces of its frame slowly come apart due to being nearly destroyed moments earlier. This is a show in which fights have actual choreography. Suits move around, dodge, and fire with intention. Nothing looks stiff. Background music that fits like a glove doesn’t really hurt things, either.

The character designs are a breath of fresh air. Yasuhiko Yoshikazu is one of my most favourite artists of all time, and seeing his designs come to life by way of anime designer Takahashi Kumiko fills me wholly with joy. Specifically the girls. Maybe I just like poofy hair or something, but these girls are hot. Well, Gundam girls always have been, but in a time when anime has more or less perfected the art of making girls look really cute, the girls in Unicorn shine bright. There’s this scene where one of the main girls, Audrey, eats a hotdog. She blushes at the end. It’s pretty moe.

Well, that ended on a perverted note! Anyway, all I’m saying is that Gundam Unicorn is what a lot of us have been waiting for. If further episodes can somehow find a way to top this one, we’ll be looking at the greatest Gundam show ever made.

Original Post

I find that amongst some anime fans, there are those that think like computers. For instance, when an adaptation of a popular manga takes one step away from the original story, fans label it a failure because the outcome doesn’t fall within their narrow set of expectations. Perhaps if they were to realize that these changes actually make the story better, they would simply break down.

That said, this comic is primarily about the initial reaction to the first and second episodes of the show which were overwhelmingly negative (for a variety of reasons, not just inaccuracy) but that seems to have cooled down now. To be honest, I’m actually still not sure how some of the added plot elements work together–such as the new girl, and Akira’s loss of memory. I think his loss of memory is addressed in episode 7, but I’ve only seen it raw thus far so I can’t be certain. There’s also some other issues with the show that I want to address, but not now. It’s good, but I think that more so than any SHAFT show in recent years–even Bakemonogatari–this show probably needs to be watched on home video.

Oh, there’s some new podcasts about Comiket. They’re kind of bad, but if anything I hope they help bring you into that moment that was Comiket 76.