Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by ur mum)

1. This savagely manly poster Randall and I found at Otakon: Honestly, with a poster like this, how can you deny the quality of this show?
2. The opening: God, fucking disco dude. So great. It literally smells like good pulp.
3. This goddamn shirt: How can you not like this shirt? I mean, if someone came up to me wearing this shirt, I just wouldn’t be able to argue with them. Know why? Because it’s a shirt that has a guy with gun-arm on it. A smoking gun-arm. And know what he’s saying? “Who is trying to make my babies cry?” You just can’t argue with that.

I think once I get to watching this and Hokuto no Ken, I’ll have my fill of manly ’80s anime for a while.

Sequel to this post. People who know me well enough will know I live in two places– Boston during the school year, and Washington DC during the summer. This is my room in DC. While reading this post, please listen to the Galaxy Express 999 theme.

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Needed a sub because there were too many words that I couldn’t understand.

As far as hilarity goes, this one was probably back down to the level of episode 1. This is mostly because I don’t find Kaede all that funny. The whole split personality gag doesn’t really click with me. She’s amusing enough though. Not really a fan of blond hair, however.  I liked Tarou though. What made me laugh at the first two episodes were how they took very serious issues, such as stalkers, and didn’t take them seriously at all. Tarou is an illegal immigrant girl living in Japan under a fake name (clearly fake, because I believe Tarou is a boy’s name?) with a bunch of other illegal immigrants. The level to which this issue is mocked is almost offensive, and thusly incredibly hilarious. Tarou also worked as a hilariously sarcastic commentary on Japanese society. She was saying everyone in the country is so nice, because they call people cute even when they aren’t, and that certain kinds of people are “nice” to little children. God, that last part killed me.

Direction wise it was the standard Shinbo fare. By now I’ve gotten used to the style of the show, so none of its stylistic eccentricity really wows me, but it’s all good. I didn’t really like how the opening scene in the class room lasted so long, but it did produce some nice shots. Overall it was the same as always, but good.

Just copying colours from the official images right now. Will adjust them later to my own tastes.

Photo because I don’t feel like scanning this monster yet. Going to fix some things post scan. Things such as Yoko’s body (oh god the curves are all wrong), fix Rossiu’s eyes and probably nix Leeron all together to make more room for Kamina. Probably going to have to fix the robot, too.

Original Post

Here is the Otakon comic. Report is now posted to the site, and can be viewed on the blog. Podcasts sometime next week if I can divine audible audio from the recording. Pictures whenever. Someone tell me a good place where I can bulk upload. Flickr?

Don’t really have much to say now. Hayate is good. Nagi is so cute. I think I may like a tsundereko, help. Need speedier Gurren Lagann subs. That’s it.

So this thing called Otakon happened, and I figured it’d be good to go to, so I did. It was pretty fun. Better than previous years, probably because I wasn’t stuck in the trenches and actually got to walk around and have some fun. This was my fourth year there (and sixth convention ever) so by now the shinny glow of being surrounded by anime and its fans has worn away, and I’ve began to approach each of these events with a very cynical attitude. Another thing which has happened as a result of this is that I don’t remember cons that well at all (I could only remember my first few cons event by event.) Now they just come off as giant blurs. I can pick out key points though, which is what I intend to do here!

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The SA banning thing was fun for about a day, but the glow is slowly wearing off. I’m sure the same could be said of the nogoodnicks who made attacks on my various online dwellings, too. So, to quote my hero, “it was fun, but now it’s done.” Makes a good story for the kids, though.

Anyway, moving on. Otakon is basically tomorrow, and I think I am more or less prepared. Gotta pack a few things up, then just leave at the right time tomorrow and hope for the best. The only problem is I may have to hold back on my spending, as it seems I’ve spent a good portion of my income already! These damn pillowcases don’t come cheap*. I’ll have to limit myself to $300, or maybe even $200. It’ll be tough.

Well, that’s it. See you all after the con!

Random Moon Knives pic to close the post~

*yes, I really did order all of those

Thanks, SA. You’ve made my life so much better.

I’m serious.

Hey guys! Remember this?

Well, it didn’t take ‘em very long!

Kinda sad because I won’t be able to post in ADTRW anymore, but whatever. It was fun while it lasted!

I feel this song best characterizes this event, except for that I won’t be meeting anyone again. Because I am

Original Post

I actually finished this about a week ago, but didn’t want to post it right off the heels of the last comic, so I decided to wait. Not sure how fresh the news is now, but it’s not a month old or anything, so I feel posting about it is relevant. For those who don’t have the slightest idea as to what the comic is about or what I’m talking about, kindly make your way over here.

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is a pretty spectacular just two episodes in. It bleeds with the sexiest brand of negativity I’ve ever seen. I love it! I simply love it! Also, Shinbo’s direction is as experimental as ever. This is probably his best work already. I may actually start blogging it episode by episode and be a true blue cliche anime blogger! Hurrah! Ugh.

Gurren Lagann 16 was all recap. Nothing in the way of newly recorded lines or anything which left me a bit cold. It just felt like a long music video. The ending sequence with all the concept art was real nice though, and the post timejump footage looks promising. I’d really like some of that concept art in an artbook. Here’s hoping.

Ok, that’s all for today. Got some stuff to do. STUFF.

…I made a forum for the site?

I marked off mine.

Tildes are maybes, ticks are more than maybes. Since I went down the schedule just marking things off, I wasn’t aware of what overlapped until the end. Thankfully, most of the tilde choices are overlapped by ticked choices, so it won’t be hard to choose which one to go to. Some ticked events overlap, but there are doubles of those, so it’s basically a choice of which one to go to. Friday looks mostly free, so I guess that’s the main shopping day.

Also, is it just me, or is there no rave? Does this mean I can’t make snarky comments about anime nerds raving now?

Oh yeah, I see that badge pick up on Thursday is between 5 and 10. Does anyone know when people start lining up? I’ve never done this before.

Episode 2 was just as good, if not better than episode 1. I actually laughed at a lot of it raw since I could get the basic gist of things. I only fear that it’ll become a bit formulaic. Once again, this episode also started with Itoshiki trying to kill himself, Kafka stepping in in an attempt to stop him, but actually making the situation worse, and him asking “WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF I DIED?!” This is funny once or twice, but I hope they mix it up a bit in later episodes. However, the show had a great chance to show a lot of “its stuff” this time around. Episode 1 was mostly introduction, but now they can get on to the good stuff.

Also a ton of references. I caught a Hidamari Sketch nod, Motsu, Konata and MASSUGU GO.

Oh, and it looks the opening and ending remained the same. Someone told me they’d be different from episode 2 and onwards. I guess not.

Hahaha, oh my god. This is something else. Ok, the plot is an evil organization called the Plutos are out destroy the human race because the human population is approaching TEN BILLION and the world will run out of food and resources! By their logic, humans will and fight and kill each other when times are tough, and they’re probably right. So, the solution? Kill the human race so the Plutos will be all that remain. Wow, very clever guys. So basically what they do is go around TOKIO PLUS (I’m guessing Tokyo Plus, but who am I to argue with Urban Vision’s spectacular subtitles?) setting bombs everywhere to do what bombs do, which is explode and kill people. Also they go around to science labs destroying all the latest technology. I don’t really know why they do this, but I think it’s so their technology will remain superior. If that’s the case, wouldn’t it make more sense not to destroy it and just use it for themselves? Whatever. Anyway, the main character, Takeshi, through some horribly contrived plot device comes across the POLY-HELMET which allows him to transform into HURRICANE POLYMAR and teach these baddies and thing or two about JUSTICE. Oh, he works under some dumb third rate detective in a house over water, which is literally falling apart under their feet. A lot of jokes are centered around this fact. Also a lot of jokes are centered around the landlady who always comes around trying to evict them because they haven’t payed their rent in a year. There is also a talking dog. Or something.

Yeah, Hurricane Polymar has next to nothing going for it when it comes down to the normal things that make stories work. All the characters have about one personality trait, the plot is similar to something I wrote in third grade, and the humour and action elements mesh so awkwardly, resulting in a hilariously bad 60 minutes. However, the animation is absolutely wonderful. Extremely fluid and well rendered, especially the fight scenes. The direction also shines, too. This being an early Shinbo work (this is why I watched it, after all), it has a lot crazy colour schemes, hard blacks and dramatic lighting. We get a good helping of odd camera angles and experimental animation techniques too (some of which includes horribly superimposing LENS FLARES fucking everywhere.) Unfortunately the characters designs are pretty bad. By the guy who did Kite, and his stuff just doesn’t appeal to me. It just looks funny.

In the end, Hurricane Polymar is a pretty hilariously bad OVA. It’s good to watch once, but you probably don’t want to watch it again. However, from the point of view of Shinbo scholar, it’s quite interesting. It’s cool to see a lot of the things he does now taking shape in this OVA, from the strange use of colour to the extremely dramatic lighting. Most of this stuff is delegated to the first episode though. About half way through episode 2 Shinbo kind of stops trying. But still, if you watch it from that perspective, it’s a little fulfilling.

Hurricane Polymar came in the mail today…

For those who don’t know, Hurricane Polymar is a 2 episode OVA (based on an older TV show) directed by Akiyuki Shinbo from around the mid ’90s. It has no US DVD release, so I found a used version of the subbed VHS for $9.95 on Amazon.

Here is the opening. It’s like luls Soutalker op.

For some reason they thought they needed backstory, which was what episode one was. All set up to the crazy stuff we saw in the OVA released whenever ago. It’s not bad setup, but it’s also fairly generic setup. It’s probably needed though, to structure the series or something like that. It’s mostly LULS I WANNA FLY IN THE SKY and then the military comes along is like WELL NOW YOU CAN LULS. That’s basically it.

The animation is very well done, especially the combat scenes in the beginning. It seems JC Staff can do action right when they try! The character designs are very good, and to my liking. Not overly generic but not too different either. Strikes a good balance, I’d say. They all look very dainty and fuckable!

I don’t really have too much to say about this show at the moment. If the series develops to be as good as the oneshot OVA, I’ll be happy. I’m intrigued, and will stick around unless it really goes south.

This show just… this show. And I don’t mean that in a good, Gurren Lagann way. This is like absolute epitome of otaku trash. This. This thing right here. Uh, the plot? Some mage named Arcs escapes inprisonment in magic land… or so he thinks! They kind of turn him into a duck because he did something naughty. Enter Ink-chan, who runs into the duck. The duck gives her magical powers allowing her to turn into a magical girl with the most fetish ridden costume I’ve ever seen in my entire life. She decides to use her new appearance to approach the boy who she has a crush on without feeling embarrassed, to teach him English so he can get into University (preferably with her.)

This show is crazy with the pedo overtones. CRAZY. I was rockhard for the entire 24 minutes, but for some reason I felt guilty. THIS DAMN SHOW. THIS FUCKING SHOW. Ink is like childish as hell. She acts like she’s five. Or maybe four. She’s also really short. God. This is like probably the most moe you can get (though watch Japan prove me wrong.) To be honest, this kind of moe doesn’t appeal to me. It feels all too produced and in your face for my tastes. I prefer more honest and/or subtle moe. For example, things like Cardcaptor Sakura or Kamichu. This is just too… TOO GODDAMMIT.

The animation is fairly good. Clean, moves well, but not especially note worthy. It’ll be nice it keeps consistent, but I think it won’t. I forgot what the music was, but it probably sucks anyway. The op/ed/whatever song they played is pretty spastic and crazy, probably too much so for even me. I don’t know if I’ll keep watching this. Maybe for another three episodes anyway. At least the duck is funny.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=7pfnqsEEEpo

Though it’s already made its way around the world and back by now.

Here is a scanslation

Mention SaHa and I’ll black list you as spam

Original Post

Here is a comic. Updated today instead of Saturday because I wanted to get it out while the news is still kind of sort of maybe fresh. With hope a comic about the Eva movie trailer next week. The joke here is rather cliche, but I enjoy the over the top presentation. Also, it’s a Death Note parody, mostly parodying the anime. I think the art turned out better than expected. Would have liked prettier/more of Tina though, but the nature of the comic lent itself to showing Rets more, so I did. Also, here’s the podcast I forgot the upload last week. It’s kinda super old now, as we talk about Gurren Lagann from the point of view of ep 10! Chances are I’ll be recording with another guy about episode 15 and other things.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWj2mCm5TU

Thanks, Something Awful and Harakiri.

Dumping the Good and Bad thing since these first episodes are just too good to be bad.

When I saw the opening shot of this show, I thought it was going to be like this for about two seconds. Anyway, this is a pretty good show. It’s more of the same (which is quite a good thing), just cranked up a notch. Louise is more of a tsundere (on both ends) and Saito is a bit more of a pervert. Makes for great comedy right off the bat.

This is about the fourth show I’ve watched raw, so I didn’t understand much, thusly will not be able to comment on the story elements. I can comment on everything else, though! Like the animation! It’s pretty damn good! I really liked the first series for its consistent high quality animation, and it looks like it’ll be the same here, if not better.

Season 1 had pretty forgettable opening and ending themes, but it’s different this time around. The opening song here has far more punch than the last one, and the same goes for the ending. I quite like both of the songs, and figure I’ll listen to them a lot once the singles hit. As far as their respective animations go, they’re fine. Nothing to write home about, but not horrible. Kind of sad that the opening doesn’t have much Siesta. Makes me worry about her screen time in this season. The ending is quite charming actually. A little silly, but fun.

I can’t tell if the background music in this season is recycled from the old one since I didn’t really pay attention to the background music in the last one. Shiro, help me out here.

Of course, the main reason I liked this show in the first place was for how raunchy it was. The thing that got me into the first series was all the fanservice, and I’m happy to see that the second series in delivering it in spades as well! Everything from Louise’s nightwear to Siesta’s large breasts, it’s all here. Also, it seems the general raunchy tone is back, which pleases me greatly. However it’s not so raunchy that it feels cheap. It gets the balance just right, at least for me.

So yeah, this is a good show. Watch it if you liked the last one. Both series in general have “appeal” as Omo once put it (I would go back and find the exact entry but that’d probably entail reading a lot of Manabi Straight entries) so I think anyone who likes Japanese cartoons will get into it. The thing with Zero no Tsukaima is that it strikes a perfect balance with the all the elements most people want out of a show, so there’s a little something for everyone here.

The Good: Just about everything! Yuuko Goto’s even in it!

The Bad: Since it’s SHAFT the TV animation will be all over the place but fixed for the DVD release

Ok, if you hate this show you simply have terrible taste and can’t appreciate art. It’s that simple. You’re a moron if you hate this show.

So yeah. This is Akiyuki Shinbo’s latest opus, SAYONARA ZETSUBOU SENSEI. I would explain the premise, but this guy does it better. Probably because he can read and understand Japanese while I can’t. I couldn’t understand a damned thing in this show, but fuck was it beautiful. Animation wise and direction wise. This isn’t some cheap ass Negima!? or Hidamari Sketch– this show looks like it has money behind it. Well, at least the first episode. I don’t have much hope for the rest after this, but I know it’ll all be fixed for the DVD anyway.

On Hidamari and Negima!?, I noticed aspects of both in this. I had a theory that Shinbo was treating Negima!? as a playground for directorial weirdness (but eventually gets bored about 7 episodes in) and Hidamari Sketch as an opertunity to try new looks and styles. Some shots in the show are similar to that of Negima!?, such as the shots of the classroom’s name placard; while some shots borrow Hidamari’s style of using big blocks of solid colour, manipulating only the shapes with little or no lineart. Shinbo’s trademark dramatic lighting is here too, along with a lot of silhouettes, and odd colour palettes. Shinbo’s also taken on a very classic Japanese look with this show, but I’m not sure if that’s more the influence of the comic or him just indulging in his own interests.

Strangely enough, and this doesn’t happen too often, I noticed the background music in this show. It’s spectacular stuff! Really complements the feel of the show. I’ll be picking up this OST as soon at it happens. I don’t remember the opening and ending too well, except for that they were good.

The opening and ending animations on the other hand are also quite good. Well, this episode opens with an opening that’s all text, with photos of a bald guy flashing at some point (he appears throughout the episode too, sometimes as a censor to cover girls’ privates. It really kills my boner.) The ending animation is absolutely gorgeous. I’ll reiterate my first statement somewhat here– if you even care about the art of 2D animation, you will like this ending. It is a MASTERY of what 2D work can do. Ok, maybe I won’t go that far, but it’s quite fantastic.

In my mind I’d like to think this is Shinbo’s dream work, in the same way Paprika is Satoshi Kon’s dream work. I’ll come to an exact conclusion about that once I’ve seen the entire series though. It wasn’t too long ago (well, I guess it was) when I saw the first episode of Negima!? and caught the Shinbo bug, thinking the series was going to be great. Because of Negima’s steady declide of directorial merit (that said, it’s leagues above a lot of other crap out there) I’ll still approach this one with a degree of caution.

I do have to applaud it for successfully scratching a big itch of mine that has gone unscratched for far too long. The “extremely artsy fartsy dark comedy itch.” Been bugging me for years.

Original Post

Was going to post this today but it kind of got lost between my dentist appointment, work and me operating on 4 hours of sleep. Anyway this was written like a week before DtB was licensed and completed just as it was licensed, hence the title. Haruhi-centric comic planned for next week, and I have about 4 weeks of ok comics planned out.

I would write more but I’m gonna write about that new awesome Shinbo show on the blog.

Art site has been updated with terrible loli porn. Needless to say, it’s NOT SAFE FOR WORK.

The Good: Itou Noiji designs, fairly good production values

The Bad: Another reason to throw me in the slammer

This show is pretty moe. All the girls have real big Itou Noiji eyes and everything is all colourful and stuff. The animation is fairly good, and does justice to the designs. Given production quality of this episode, things shouldn’t look too bad from here on out, especially considering that it’s only 12 episodes. The fairly new Studio Barcelona is handling the animation work. I was a bit unsure of their future works after seeing Dai Mahou Touge. While DMT was animated competently, it was hardly OVA standard (but what is OVA standard nowadays…) However, the quality of this episode gives me hope for their future productions.

Er, back to the show, the premise is pretty CCS clone, except lends itself to a shorter runtime. Characters are all your typical eroge/anime cliches. So really, nothing special here past the animation. The main girl is pretty cute. She cries a lot. I bet she cries during sex in the game. I like the criers (NSFW link).

This show will probably serve to be my generic trash show of the season. It’s hardly anything worth talking about, but so long as the animation remains good and show remains marginally entertaining, I’ll watch it until I get bored.

According to these guys it may just be happening.

MORE NEWS AT THINGS DEVELOP, LIKE A PREPUBESCENT GIRL BECOMING A WOMAN.  

NSFW after the jump.

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Go nuts.