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

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If you follow my Pixiv account you would have seen me uploading these as they were completed. Of course, I censored them for Pixiv.

Oh man, last night at MIT they were giving away free shit. Considering I’m dangerously poor, I jump at any opportunity for free stuff, and boy did I jump!

Well, I guess I only jumped a little. I had to carry this all home by hand, you know! Anyways, we got some VHS tapes here, and the quality of the programming ranges from good, to bad, to ugly.

• The Good- Tenchi Muyo In Love, Urusei Yatsura Beautiful Dreamer: I actually own all of the Tenchi films on DVD, I just picked up this old release because my buddies and I watched this movie on VHS a long while back. This is the Japanese subbed version, though. We watched the dub. Since that’s all Potomac Video had. I haven’t seen anything Urusei Yatsura at all, but I hear this movie is pretty good. It’s directed by Oshii, so I guess it has no choice but to be good.
• The Bad- Dangaioh: A friend of mine loves Dangaioh as corny 80s fluff, which is reason enough for me to pick this up. It’s only Part I, so I have to find the rest some place. Also, I feel it should be noted that Dangaioh’s opening is so amazing that it produced a video even more epic than the one of the black guy singing Ai wo Torimodose.
• The Ugly- Dog Soldier: This is AWO approved horrible anime. While I was talking about this, other great titles like MD Geist and Crystal Triangle where brought up. Apparently one guy there owned Crystal Triangle on LD. Crazy.

I also got a page out of a Gundam calendar. It’s all bent up and stuff but I can still probably find a place for it on my wall. There’s always room for Master Asia.

Original Post

Really, one has to wonder if these two are even friends, considering that they never seem to have a nice conversation with each other. One also has to wonder why Hikki has an Ideon poster. And why him and Rets share the exact same expression. I kind of like this comic. I don’t like it as much as the last one, but I still think it’s ok.

A podcast happened earlier on in the week. I talk with omo and lastarial about 5cm Per Second. It’s a pretty good episode, so you should listen to it.

I’ve signed up for Project Wonderful. It’s working pretty decently right now. Please bid on this ad space if you want it. That’s all I got to say.

Real life’s been making pretty harsh assaults on me as of late. I’m trying my best to find some work for the next two and a half months. I need some money for various personal endeavours. One’s quite big, and other is quite… small, and cute, and probably smells good. Hopefully these three applications I’m filling out at the moment will get me somewhere. I just need money, man!

Lots of summer shows are coming to a close, and the fall season is just about a week away. Zero no Tsukaima season 3 ended in usual 0nT fashion, in that in crammed way too much into one episode and nothing was resolved. But hey, you don’t care, since Louise is hot, Siesta is hot, and Tiffania is hot. That’s what really matters. Nogizaka Haruka ended pretty well, albeit predictably. One thing that kind of bothers me about the series is how, even in the last episode, the animation never got back onto the level that it was in the first episode (and arguably episode 7.) Hopefully they’ll cleanup the show for DVD. It certainly doesn’t look bad, but it could stand to look better. Both Koihime Musou and Macross just ended, but I haven’t gotten around to them. Macross hasn’t been subbed yet, and I haven’t had time to get to Koihime yet. But I will.

Windy Tales is pretty interesting. I thought the first two episodes laid on seriousness a bit too much, but episodes three and four had a good slice-of-life vibe about them. I can appreciate the art style, but I’m not really sure if I like it. I’m going to stick with it, even though I’m not totally sold on it.

That’s all for this week. I don’t know what I’m going to do for next week, but with luck we’ll see an update.

Yup, you guessed it! Another long and boring personal post is coming up, so turn back now if you’d rather not suffer through this crap. I’m sure you have a backlog of Zettai Karen Children subs to get through.

Every space pirate, Tao master and outlaw in the galaxy knows this already, but Cartoon Network’s Toonami block finally came to a close just about a week ago. I can’t say I honestly care all that much, but for a while Toonami was one of the most important parts of my life.

But let’s back up a bit. Toonami is not what got me into anime. Pokemon is what got me into anime. Before Pokemon, I didn’t think much about anime. I saw some Sailor Moon commercials and stayed away since it looked girly, and of course girls were icky back then, so I didn’t really bother with it. My cousin told me to watch Pokemon, so I did. I really liked it, and after a couple weeks of watching it I fired up my 56k modem and browsed the internet for anything and everything related to Pokemon. It was through these searches that I came upon the word “anime” (mostly thanks to AniPike) but I still didn’t really think much of it. Pokemon back then was just another cool thing to do. Another cool cartoon. It didn’t consume me. That changed with Toonami.

It was in the summer of 1999, I believe, that I was talking with an acquaintance of mine. He expressed his fondness for Dragonball Z, a cartoon I had heard of but never thought to watch since it seemed ever so violent. I wasn’t much for violence. However, he insisted, so I opened my mind a bit a gave it a shot. On Toonami, of course. I loved it. And from that point on, I would be watching Toonami religiously for next 7 years.

Toonami solidified my interest in anime. It was on Toonami that I learned that there was more to anime than just Pokemon. I became interested in mecha anime through Toonami (thx Gundam Wing wwwww), I developed a liking for sci-fi adventure through Toonami (Outlaw Star) and I finally saw the various Tenchi TV shows that went with that movie my buddies and I rented a long while back through Toonami. Toonami, for a good number years, was the most important part of my weekday afternoon.

As I was going into high school, Toonami changed into a weekend-only block. I still watched it, but was more interested in Adult Swim (which at this point was a really cool block of TV itself. More on that in a potential later blog post.) I still thought the block was super cool, but it just became a routine. I was getting into digisubs at around that time too, so dubbed anime on TV became less attractive.

I stopped watching Toonami when I went into college. I didn’t have a TV, and by that point I was 100% into watching anime in Japanese. However, as you can see in this blog post, I can still reminisce fondly about Toonami. It truly was a very important part of my life, and I have nothing but fond memories associated with it.

One thing I really liked about Toonami was how the creators had a genuine love for anime. They really did their best to promote this stuff as really cool, as demonstrated in their various impeccably made commercials. They put out shows that otherwise would not have been shown on US TV. I mean, who would have expected Tenchi to be shown on Cartoon Network? No one. But they did it. And that’s why they were awesome.

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Ok, we’re back. In this show we’re talking about this 5cm Per Second movie made by some guy called Makoto Shinkai. Some pretty deep discussion goes on, along with me not being able to form sentences at all. Omo sounds kind of robot in this episode, and I don’t know how to fix that. Sorry!

Guests

• Omo
• Lastarial

Songs

• Opening Song– “One more time, One more chance” by Masayoshi Yamazaki
• Ending Song– “Who Put The Bomp” by Me First & The Gimme Gimmes

Original Post

I won’t lie, I actually really like this comic. Yeah, Mursaki and Rets Kurenai didn’t turn out just as planned in those second and third panels, but aside from that I like how this one came out. This comic, like the last one, was slightly censored for the front page, and the untainted version can be found here. If it gets the point where a majority of the comics for some reason have NSFW content, I’ll just smack an 18+ warning on this site and be done with it, but for right now things are mostly safe.

Going to be dusting off my old headset tomorrow and recording another exciting episode of the Mistakes of Youth Podcast, so look out for that over the next week or so. Also, I’m looking for some other people to record further shows with. This is mainly a message for the people I know personally, but if anyone else is interested, give me a buzz. If you’re someone I don’t know personally, and would like to record, I’d like for you to have a blog (or proof that you have worthwhile shit to say) and I have to be able to stand you as a human being. I’m a total asshole, and people easily bother me, so you know. I think I wanna do a show on Strike Witches and perhaps Nogizaka Haruka. I have people in mind for the latter though, it’s just a matter of if they’re up for it or not. I kind of have someone in mind for a Strike Witches show, but I’m not sure if he even has the right facilities (mic and shit) for such a thing. We’ll see.

Gankutsuoh’s style seems to be losing its cohesion eight episodes in. It worked perfectly for the opening episodes, but it seems less planned now. Aside from that, the show is still pretty good. The Count carries each episode, since all the other characters are idiots. I also think the Count has what I’ve dubbed as an “AD Field”, or Absolute Drama Field. Whenever he’s around anyone, people just start dueling each other, get poisoned, or other random shit like that. You can’t just have a quiet afternoon chillin’ with this guy. He’s fucking hardcore.

Strike Witches ended better than I expected. I won’t say much, since I’m playing around with the idea of writing a full review, but second season wo kudasai! Or something like that.

So yeah, that’s it for tonight. I’m not tired since for some reason I drank Mountain Fucking Dew at M IT, but I’m out of stuff to rant about, so that’ll be it for this week.

For some reason, a lot of current OVAs don’t have good openings. All attention is put on making the show proper, so openings just tend to be an afterthought. What you usually see is just reused footage from the show matched to a song, or sometimes there simply won’t be an opening animation at all. There are rare cases where this doesn’t happen, but in my experience such things are few and far between. Negima Ala Alba’s opening animation is much like a Polish movie poster– it takes one random aspect of the show– the number 31– and just runs with it. Shaft is known for making amazing somethings out of nothing, and this opening does just that.

Like I said, it simply takes the numbers up through 31, sticks them in little circles, and has spectacularly sexy English credits bounce them around. It’s a 2D designer’s wet dream. Each and every cut of this is just so professionally composed– not mention well-timed with the hot opening theme– that I find myself watching this opening over and over… yet there’s only one real frame of character art across the whole thing!

Good on you, Shaft.

(Note: I kind of have this mental post backlog that I’m burning through at the moment. I have time to kill so I might as well)

There are nice people in this world. mt-i is one of those nice people. Out of the kindness of his heart, he offered to mail me some manga (complete with furigana) for me to try my hand at reading. I didn’t ask for anything, he just did it. That’s pretty cool of him. I emailed him a big thanks, but I should probably send another one out since the guy deserves it. NSFW after the jump.

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Ok, so last weekend I was chillin’ with my buddy Seiya over at his place. Aside from just sitting and talking about random shit for hours, drinking Pocari Sweat, and generally just making a lot of noise, we mined through his collection of old anime stuff. I think I have his permission to post pictures, so here we go.

Right when I walked in I was greeted by two domestic LD releases of Akira and Project A-Ko.

It wasn’t long before he broke out the old issues of Animage.

Wow Japanese 3D animation went nowhere over the past 10 years.

I like this picture.

Look at this top 100 list. All of these characters are cel animated! And the first three are all Hayashibara!

God, so gay. And that little heart in the corner is just the icing on the fabulous cake. But seriously, where did Trowa get those muscles?

GA GA GA GA GA GA CUTIE HONEY FLASH. I need to see Gao Gai Gar, man.

This came out blurry, but you can still tell it’s absolutely hilarious.

Domestic Tench TV LD. Yeah, fuckin’ domestic. Seiya, man, where do you get this stuff?

Who needs Bandai Visual when you got this bad boy?

Yeah, that’s what you think it is. This is probably the most epic part of this post, only because we didn’t feel like taking out the GIANT First Gundam TV series LD boxset.

I had no clue this poster was so huge.

Oh, what could have been! I need to read the rest of this! Damn you, Viz!

Voltron on Betamax. That’s all I got to say.

DON’T YOU WISH YOU WERE HIM. I KNOW I DO.

Here’s the deal: For a couple of days during the summer I was holding down the family lair on my own. As such, I felt it was a perfect opportunity to fully otaku-ize my room, if just for a few days. Of course, this simply entailed whipping out the hug pillow and making Kodomo No Jikan posters visable, considering my room in its normal state doesn’t look all the different from this. However, due to these slight changes, the room became complete, so naturally I just had to photograph it again and then post it up on the interwebz.

What follows is something like 30 photos. They will be accompanied by witty commentary when I deem necessary.

The door lets you know just what the fuck you’re in for.

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Alright, I’m just going to come out and say it: The Golgo 13 movie (or, Golgo 13: The Professional, as it’s known in the States) is an absolutely horrible movie. Having just seen about 14 episodes of the TV series, I knew kind of what I was in for, but never did I guess that this movie would reach such heights of complete unadulterated terribleness. This is pure garbage, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s absolutely the worst thing one could ever think to watch. And that’s what makes it worth searching out.

When I say searching out, I mean Google searching. This movie is not by any means worth your money. It’s junk, but it is worth pirating, and you do get your effort’s worth in the end, since this movie is terribly entertaining for the 90 minutes that it runs. It’s a party that plays out like a pulpy comic book, with stunts that defy the laws of everything, larger than life characters that could never exist in this world and 3D CG skeletons that fire revolvers into 3D CG skulls. It’s almost a perfect mix of pure and utter shit that just nearly pushes this movie into “so bad it’s good” territory.

Just nearly, though. What keeps this movie from working at its full potential is Dezaki’s direction. For some reason, the man treats this as an art film, taking every possible moment to be as goddamn experimental as possible. This however isn’t altogether a bad thing. In fact, I quite liked what he was doing until the last 20 or so minutes, when shots just stopped making sense. It’s the climax of the film– there’s no room for awkward directorial choices that entail repeating the same frame of a crazed old man’s face over and over again on the screen; nor is there room to break out the 1983 computers to render some helicopters that look straight out of Comanche 3D. Except worse. Yeah, I know you guys thought that 3D opening was cool– I thought it was ok myself– but seriously, 1983.

Speaking of that opening, it’s quite a piece of work. It would be almost good if they could’ve worked out how to make the animation not jump all the fucking time. Perhaps also mix in some cel-animated naked ladies to go along with that snazzy jazz piece for the full James Bond effect.

Anyways, time to cool down. I’ve shat on this thing long enough, so let’s switch gears and talk about the stuff I didn’t find totally awkward or ironically good. The animation is really great 80s stuff– very fluid and organic looking, with great lighting and shading effects. There are a few unfinished cuts floating around the film, but they’re few and far between. The music is also wonderfully 80s, and suits the film well. It’s a lot better than that horrible synth shit they use in the new TV series.

Really, the only thing that keeps this film from being totally BALLS TO THE WALL awesome is Dezaki’s approach to directing this thing. Which is weird, since he can do stuff like this well. The Space Adventure Cobra TV series is a great straight up action piece, and has no pretensions at all. But then again, the Cobra movie, also by Dezaki, is another wannabe art movie. Maybe he feels he has to prove himself as a director when he’s making big things– I don’t know. But what I do know is that the only person who can make that kind of shit work is Shinbo, as demonstrated in his confused masterpiece SoulTaker.

But with all that said, I do recommend this film for a one off, or for something to watch with your buds. It’s very entertaining, not too long, and delivers pure 1000% trash, even with all that distracting arthouse direction.

Over the past several years, there have been three iterations of Mistakes of Youth. There was one big one, which was actually online for a number of years. Some of you readers may even remember it, even though I wish you wouldn’t. However, before that, there was something else—a set of comics that never made it past my friends and me in junior high. This set of comics, made in late 2002, was Mistakes of Youth in its absolute most primitive form. Most of these are terribly embarrassing, but there is one that I’d like to share, simply because I still find it amusing to this very day.

Yes, that’s Brad and Rets playing on a PSX (which should go to show you just how old this shit is, though I think I had my PS2 at around that point) and Brad dumping shit into the machine. This was, and still is, the absolute height of humour. One interesting thing about these early comics is Brad. Right when I introduced him, he was a total asshole. And he has remained a total asshole to this very day, though I guess at this point he’s more of a disgruntled asshole.

A few months back I was cruising the dark and shady alleys of Perfect Dark searching for music by Ohtsuki Kenji. I was really into his Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei work back then, so I wanted to see what else the man had put out. In the end, I made it out with three albums, all held tight in my dirty digital clutches. One was a disc called COME OVER TO THE DEEPEND, which was in fact not by Mr. Ohtsuki but by a band called Coaltar Of The Deepers, fronted by his buddy NARASAKI. Their stuff was pretty good (I still haven’t listened to the whole album) but I was disheartened that it was not in fact a Ohtsuki Kenji Production. The other two .ZIPs were by a band called Tokusatsu, titled NUIGURUMAA and Wata Ippai no Ai Wo.

Tokusatsu is one of the two bands that Ohtsuki Kenji was a vocalist for, so you hear him belting out lyrics in his same awesome voice over these two albums. But to be totally truthful, I was a little disappointed by these. I, as a pirate, felt like I didn’t get my $0 worth since both albums weren’t filled with potential Zetsubou Sensei openings. But I was younger then, naive. A whole three months younger.

A little while ago one of my buddies asked for my Ohtsuki Kenji stuff. I obliged, and as I was uploading the albums for him (no, they’re not on the server anymore) I was listening to their stuff again. I actually liked it a lot more. Once I pushed away my expectations, I noticed that Tokusatsu was a band with a lot range, with pieces ranging from slow jazz to hard crazy rock, to just…wacky shit.

Perhaps Ohtsuki’s other outfit, Kinniku Shoujo Tai, is more pure rock, but these two Tokusatsu albums are a good mix of stuff to just kick back and listen to. I do, of course, intend to actually buy these. Wata Ippai no Ai Wo is out of print, but you can still buy NUIGURUMAA and some of their other discs.

As a service to the good people of the internet, I’ve uploaded one of my favourite songs by them, Dancing Babies. I like to think it’s a precursor to Ohtsuki’s NHK end theme, Odoru Aka-chan Ningen.

Original Post

Yeah yeah, I’m wild, crazy, and free of all morals, but I like to keep the front page of this site fairly work-safe, so as such I’ve censored this comic. Do not fear, though, for an uncensored, and funnier version of the comic does exist. Inspiration for this one came from the room rules present in my new digs. I’m living in kind of a boarding house situation right now, so the rules are stricter than when I was living an apartment, but I can deal. Anyways, I found rule 9 to be funny, so I just drew a comic around it. Oh yeah, I guess I better credit some doujin artists here, considering I’ve stolen some imagery. The books in the panel four are the works of You Nagisawa, Koume Keito, Miki Miyashita and Atsushi Yamasomethingorother. The desktop image in panel five is by this awesome dude.

I was planning on re-watching Nadesico at MIT since they were showing it, but when I went there today I saw they were playing the release with all the horrible overlays. It was fun to see the first four episodes again and pick up on some of the early clues and nods to future events, but I’m far too much of anal purist to watch something from ADV’s darkages. I’ll still pop in for Windy Tales, though. That show’s pretty ok, but by the time they got to it I was nodding off.

Zero no Tsukaima has hit a pretty good balance between plot, character stuff and fanservice. I’m actually getting into this little rescue plot they have going on now, and Louise’s inner struggles are cute. Of course, I still watch it for the skin, and it looks like the next episode will deliver that well.

You really gotta feel sorry for the guy in Detroit Metal City. His life is just fucking terrible, and I don’t know if I should laugh at him or cry with him. That’s not to say that the show isn’t totally hilarious, because it is, it’s just that poor Negeshi doesn’t get a break! Also, I know it’s terrible, but I have both the metal opening and the Flipper’s Guitar-ish ending themes stuck in my head. AT THE SAME TIME, GOD.

That’s all for this week. It’s pretty late, so I’m gonna plop myself in bed and try to sleep in. Try, since waking up at 6:30am all summer has ruined me forever. Now it’s pretty much impossible for me to sleep past nine, but dammit I’ll try!

It’s that time of year again! Time to purchase giant books of poster-sized illustrations that are passed off as calendars simply because they have some numbers running down the side! Seriously, who actually uses these as calendars? I know I don’t! But yeah, preorders are going up, so it’s time to buy. In past years I’ve usually ended up with three to four of these hanging on my wall during the year, but this year I’m keeping it simple. I’m getting just one calendar. Reason for this is because I want to save money for, uh, something, so I’m trying to be as thrifty as possible. However, despite my best efforts, I only managed to narrow the selection down to four!

• First up is the annual Evangelion calendar. I got the 2007 Evangelion calendar which was pretty good. The art was trying so hard to look like Sadamoto, but wasn’t quite there. The guy gave it the good ol’ college try, though. The main thing that put me off about this one was its total lack of Misato anywhere! Shinji and Kaworu get a gay gay gayed up page and Misato gets nothing? What gives, mang?! Anyways, when I was about to get the 2008 one last year, it was sold out. I didn’t get too pissed since I figured it lacked Misato as well. Then the scans came in! I’ve already had an Evangelion calender once before, but the idea of potential Misato material and art from the new movies is enticing…
• Second up to bat is the usual Gundam option. Truth be told, the only Gundam calendars I’ve bought have been of Seed Destiny (yes, I admitted it, laugh) and just general Gundam. Since I’ve already had two Gundam calendars in the past, I’ll probably steer clear of this one. I do want the resulting scans, though!
• Gurren Lagann is up third, fighting the power as always. I have the 2008 GL calendar sitting next to me right now, and it’s pretty cool. But you know, while I appreciate them collecting all the great eyecatches together in one package, I really wanted more original art out of a GL calendar. From the looks of it, this one seems kind of different– more like a “traditional” anime calendar (but still pretty small from the description.) I’m not sure if I actually want this– I may just hold out for the scans.
• And last but not least are everyone’s favourite trio of Absolutely Lovely Children! This is the one I’ll probably end up buying, since there won’t be a Zettai Karen Children calendar next year, and the show itself is pretty alright. I’m not as mad over it as I am for Hayate (which is the current big boy calendar I have hanging up) but this calendar has potential to be filled with lots of yummy art of our cute little preteen espers.

I’ll think about this over the next couple of days, but I’m really leaning towards the psychic kids. You guys should probably buy one of these things, too. Like, buy them through clicking these links. Doing so might give me money! ( ‘3′)

Alright alight, I’ll admit it– I’m taking Japanese classes at my school. I’ve been taking them for something like a year now, and this semester I’ve moved up to the intermediate-level class. I don’t know what took them so long, but it’s only now that they’re setting the cheesy learning videos loose on us. The Japan Time’s Genki stuff is pretty dry and bad, but one thing I’ve really taken a liking to is Erin Ga Chousen, or Erin’s Challenge.

The middle one is the titular Erin. The robot’s called N21-J, and the stupid yellow thing is Mr. Horigon. I actually like the robot, even though he’s totally useless, but Horigon can burn in hell. Anyways, as you can see from the image, this shit’s corny as all hell. I do however prefer it to the horrible Le Café des Rêves show I had watch when I was taking French in high school. That shit was terrible.

But yeah, Erin ga Chousen follows Erin, an exchange student from the UK (イギリスから来ました she says so enthusiastically) as she tries to fit in with Japanese society. The episodes are a mixture of B-grade 3D animation mixed with cheesy live action segments that are meant to teach students about Japanese culture and shit.

We didn’t have time to watch the whole thing, but in this first episode, little cartoon Erin jumps inside some rift in the time-space continuum and comes out the other side as a flesh and blood girl with a somewhat less moe voice, but still manages to be pretty cute. From there she goes on to attend Japanese school and pretend she’s a foreigner even though she’s quite obviously Japanese.

The one thing that struck me about this whole affair was just how moe cartoon Erins’ attire is. She’s all up in the ribbons, short skirts and even thighhighs. Nevermind her big beautiful anime eyes and aforementioned moe moe voice. Seriously, who’s her seiyuu? But in the end, cartoon Erin just can’t do it for me. She’s cute, but she’s just a little a 3D rendered graphic. Nothing worth posting on danbooru. After we went back down to the class, I figured I’d forget all about Erin and crew. That was until the professor presented me with what was probably the most dangerous handout I’ve ever gotten in a class.

Yes, Erin has a manga! Manga Erin has big bright eyes! Poofy blonde hair! A smile that could kill! She’s too cute! I wanna fuck her right now! Prof only gave us two pages of this, but it seems like it covers the live action stuff from the show, just in comic form. It’s really well drawn, and I bet if I looked hard enough I could find some Rule 34… and if there isn’t any, get to it… because Erin’s friend, Saki, is pretty hot too…

I really hope my Japanese teacher somehow finds this post. That would be most hilarious.

Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook by Patrick Macias and Izumi Evers, with illustrations by Kazumi Nonaka

The image of the Japanese schoolgirl is one that many a Japanophile fantasize over and romanticize to ridiculous degrees. But really, who can blame them? With the way that these girls are presented in anime, manga and games, you’d think they were were angels straight out of heaven. However, those of us keen enough to realize that Japan isn’t at all like its cartoon counterpart know that such an image simply doesn’t jive with reality. However, upon opening this book, one notices quickly that the reality behind these girls is much stranger than the fiction.

Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno takes us straight into the belly of the beast without any warning. The introduction throws you into a club with Patrick and crew as they do some research for the book you’re holding in your hands. The image painted by this opening text is one of youth, excitement and energy. Nothing too strange, really. But as your eye scans these opening pages and actually starts to notice the accompanying photographs, you realize that this whole affair is anything but normal. And once the introduction ends, things really get weird. In the best possible way, of course.

Spanning from the late 1960s to the present day, Inferno covers all the major movements in Japanese girls’ fashion, complete with interviews, photos and Macias’ unique brand of writing. In each chapter, Macias puts you right in the middle of the movement, involving you with these girls and their era personally. Simply put, it feels like you’re there. This is actually pretty incredible, considering Macias himself wasn’t even around to experience some of these movements, which just goes to show how great this book is.

It’s evident a meticulous amount of research and love went into writing this, as each chapter contains a comprehensive history of each movement, but at the same time is presented in a very conversational manner. Macias talks to you. He knows this stuff back to front. He’s seen some of this stuff happen, and for the stuff he missed, he talks to people who were there, reads old magazines and just digs around. Then he just tells it all to you, and you simply can’t help but be mesmerized.

This book isn’t all a history lesson, though– as the title states, it’s a handbook. So, between Macias’ witty and entertaining discourses on various fashion movements, the book comes with various “How To” guides, “Day In The Life” segments, interviews with current/former Gals, and each chapter ends with a list of “Must Have” Gal items complete with “Ideal Boyfriend.” This mixture is one that produces a most entertaining read.

Another notable aspect about this book is the design and illustration work. Izumi Evers, the designer, lays out the book very well, and pushes the aesthetics appropriately over-the-top to compliment the subject matter. Similarly, Kazumi Nonaka’s illustrations are detailed, colourful and have a doll-like look to them that works well with Macias’ witty writing style, and interacts nicely with Evers’ design work.

Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno is simply a great book. It’s fun to read, informative, and just nice to look at. If there needs to be complaints to make this review complete, the ending of this book is a bit abrupt. It would have been better if there was a closing statement after the final chapter– a section where Macias could reflect on all this and provide some witty opinions. But that’s being nitpicky. It does come with this “WHAT GAL ARE YOU” test at the end, which is clearly hours of fun for the whole family.

Go out and buy this if you haven’t already. You don’t even have to care about fashion or Japan at all– this book will make you care. Because it’s that good.

I could have sworn this said SHERYL NOME

This train was apparently going to a very special place!

Spore was taking over Harvard Square station.

Found this… thing in Newbury Comics…

…and I found this goddamned thing in Tokyo Kid.

Original Post

See! I told you it’d be the same joke again! And this comic is more poorly written than the last. I really gotta learn to streamline my writing like Penny Arcade. How does Tycho do it? Man’s a genius. Next week’s comic will be actually funny though, don’t worry.The art here is kind of fine. I’m still trying to find a decent way to do eyes. One thing I noticed about most modern styles is that they don’t really do eyelashes that much. Some modern styles still do it, but it’s kind of rare. The way I draw eyes is kind of held over from the 90s. I like having the eyes spike out the way they do, but at the same time I want to make my style look more modern. But first I guess I gotta learn how to draw bodies, lawl.

MIT is screening a lot of things I’m actually interested in, so as such I’ll probably be there every week for the next couple of months. Last night they showed Gankutsuoh and Mushishi. Gankutsuoh looks like it was a SHAFT show pushed up to 1000% and set against Windows 95’s 3D Maze screensaver. And it mostly works, aside from some really bad 3D stuff at times. The story thus far is pretty interesting, and the Count himself is pretty badass. The whole thing is terribly gay, though. I mean seriously. Mushishi is good, just incredibly slow. By the fourth episode was I falling asleep. It’s not a bad show by any means, but they gotta space that shit out with episodes of Detroit Metal City or something. They also showed Nogizaka Haruka, which was the same as always. The guy in front of me panned it as terribly generic. While it is, I would have argued that it also does this, that, and the other thing but I was entirely too tired. I blame Mushishi.

I started reading Otaku no Musume-san again, but this time in Japanese. I downloaded the first 3 volumes raw off of Perfect Dark a while back, and have only recently attempted reading them. It took me about 30 minutes to get through chapter 7, but I almost understood it 100% of it due to the (really tiny) furigana. The chapter was mostly chatter between kids, so future chapters with adults speaking may get difficult… but I’ll try my best! (by the way, if anyone can suggest to me any other manga with furigana that I’d like please let me know…)

Another thing I’ve been reading lately is Patrick Macias’ JAPANESE SCHOOLGIRL INFERNO. I’ve had this book since Christmas, but have only now gotten around to reading it. It’s a great book, as expected. Patrick is an amazing writer and can really get you excited over anything. I had no idea the history of Japanese schoolgirl fashion could be so interesting, but it is. Of course, the stuff Patrick covers is positively bizarre, but his writing really involves you in the history behind this stuff. It’s almost like you’re there yourself! After this I may read Fresh Pulp, or something.

That’s all for this week! I’ll see you all later.

Click for bigger

Finished the background. Will complete later today or tomorrow.

I’m so glad all of this stuff is starting in October, rather than in September like I originally thought. I was wondering how I would be able to handle twenty more shows on top of of the fourteen I already have going. Thanfully, that is not the case, and by the time this new season rolls around, about everything I’m watching right now would have concluded.

This season isn’t looking all too hot. While nothing looks super horrible, nothing looks totally good either. With most seasons I can usually pick out one show that I know I’ll love (eg Kodomo no Jikan, Kure-nai, Gurren Lagann) but there’s nothing really like that this season. I hope at least some of these can surprise me!

Man, I just gotta watch this

• Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei: More Zetsubou Sensei cannot be a bad thing.
• Kannagi: Watching for the KyoAni connection alone. The plot seems fairly standard but will be good with the correct execution.
• Kyou no Go no Ni: I actually really dig the new art style– it seems closer to that of the original manga. But considering the OVA covered all of the manga material, I hope this anime-original stuff isn’t bad… or maybe they’ll just adapt the manga again, I don’t know. I just hope for tight loli asses.
• Michiko to Hatchin: Ok, maybe I lied when I said I wasn’t able to pick out one show this season that I’ll just love. Michiko to Hatchin just might be that show. It bleeds Cowboy Bebop (Watanabe is the “music producer”), and just seems like tons of fun. The only problem is that Manglobe is working on it. They made Samurai Champloo, which was a good show– but they also made Ergo Proxy. Yeah.
• Tytania: This is apparently Legends of the Galactic Heroes sans ten billion episodes I have to watch. Sold. (Though, it looks kind of gay)

Man, I should probably watch this

• Casshern Sins: These character designs, man. They’re like retro and modern at the same time. I’m interested in this simply because it’s a remake of an old property, and it may even be good considering Madhouse is behind it.
• Clannad ~After Story~: Ah, so this is the part where things get all depressing and mellow-dramatic. Sweet! After Tomoyo’s OVA, I’m a little sick of Clannad, but hopefully with this series it’ll redeem itself.
• ef - a tale of melodies: I wasn’t totally taken with the first ef series, but I liked it well enough, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t watch the sequel. Also it’s by SHAFT, so it’s basically guaranteed to be good.
• Hyakko: Random school girl comedy. None of these can live up to Azumanga Daioh in my book (yes, point and laugh) but these types of shows are always fun. I kind of like the character designs.
• Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae: Jigoku Shoujo is such trash, but I watch it anyways. If the writers can keep things mildly entertaining, I’ll be happy.
• Shikabane Hime: ZOMBIE SCHOOL GIRL KILLS ZOMBIES AND GAINAX ANIMATES IT. Should be good.
• Ride Black: I’m not totally sold on the premise, but the combination of a Gainax and Ghibli director, plus Madhouse, along with some cool artwork knocks this one up a notch or so.
• Tentai Senshi Sunred: No one will sub this :(
• To Aru Majutsu no Index: I’m all for moe nuns and J.C. Staff.
• Toradora!: I tried to read the manga, but the translation was just soooo bad. Hopefully the anime will be good, so I can just watch that instead. J.C. Staff make good stuff, so it probably will be. I like the character designs, even if they are wildly different from the originals. Main girl is cute.
• Yozakura Shijuusou ~Yozakura Quartet~: Watching entirely for the character designs, but the premise has potential to be entertaining.

Man, I probably shouldn’t watch this

• CHAOS;HEAD: The premise is amazing, but the character designs seem too generic for even me. It’s by Madhouse, but they’re doing like five-thousand things, and this show will probably get shafted on the animation budget.
• Ga-Rei Zero: I like the character designs, but I probably won’t watch this unless it gets rave reviews.
• Kurogane no Linebarrel: This show had potential to be s-CRY-ed 2 with awesome missile spam and robots, but it’s by Gonzo so it’ll suck. Has an English site for some reason.
• Kemeko-DX: Romantic comedy with good artwork. Hopefully it’ll be above average, but my expectations are low.
  
• Macademi Wasshoi!: This looks really panderific in a bad way, but I’ll give the first episode a shot since I have a poster of it up in my room.The artwork is kind of weird.
• Rosario and Vampire CAPU2: Why do I subject myself to pain? But who knows, maybe this one will have an animation budget or something.

Man, fall’s gonna be busy!

Man, I’m really trying my best to save money. But I walk into Tokyo Kid all the time and buy nothing, so I figure today I may as well invest in two things I’m interested in. Strangely enough, they’re not weird things like bedsheets or pillow cases! They’re books! Like, with words!

Faust vol 1: A collection of written and illustrated fiction along with some essays. Despite having some xxxHolic short story and a bit of Kara no Kyoukai, I bought it because there’s some essay about the evolution of otaku. And hey I guess the Kara no Kyoukai book can’t be too bad, right? I mean the anime is pretty ok.

The book’s localization has big names like Andrew Cunningham working on it, so the translation work is most probably impeccable.

Shinigami no Ballad vol 2: I got the first volume of this for free, and I liked it so much that I decided to actually buy the next one. According to MyAnimeList there’s 10 of these, so provided the stories don’t get too repetitive, I’ll read this thing to the end.

There’s some other books I’ve seen around that I want to get as well, but haven’t because I need to save cash for DVDs. Black Lagoon volume 1 looks promising, but for some reason it’s like 12 dollars. I have no idea why this is– maybe it can also make fries. I also wanna get Megami Deluxe vol 1, because it’s a decent collection of Megami posters I don’t have. The copy they have at Border is kind of funky though, like too many curious little boys have flipped through it.

Current
Chi’s Sweet Home: Pretty easy to catch up on considering each episode is only three minutes. I watch them in sets of four here and there.
Code Geass R2: Oh lawd.
Golgo 13: ….
Hidamari Sketch x365: This show almost has the best Shinbo opening ever. Almost, since the best Shinbo opening is the second SZS opening. Neko Mimi Mode gets an honorable mention.
Koihime†Musou: Still junk food. Half-way done.
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki: Yuuko Gotou is a butterfly girl. Win.
Macross F: I kind of don’t care anymore. Not like I don’t like it, but eh. Who cares.
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu: Has slipped into being kind-of-sort-of generic, but I don’t care. It’s done well and I’m actually archiving the episodes!
Sekirei: I can enjoy me some tits, too.
Slayers Revolution: Where is it.
Strike Witches: Still the best of the season.
To Love RU: SAIGO NO CHANCE NOW IS THE TIIIIIIIIIIIME. Better than Rosario+Vampire.
World Destruction: Disposable action series. Has Toru Furuya.
Zero no Tsukaima ~Princess no Rondo~: Almost as good as season two. Kind of slipped down into season one level of good.
Zettai Karen Children: Plot’s getting pretty intense.

Birdy is on hold.

Will write about the upcoming season soon. Lots of regular looking stuff.

Original Post

Character centric humour? Unbelievable! Though, I’m not sure if this one is really funny. I just wanted to write something about 0nT. I hope it’s funny though, since the next comic is basically this joke again. This comic kind of feels like corny anime humour, so if you like that (as I sometimes do) I guess you’ll like this. By the way, they’re in Staples. It’s time to buy school supplies.

Time to finally address that question I asked to all of you about a month ago regarding what you want out of the comic. Like I said earlier, I won’t 100% implement any of these suggestions, but I did read them all and took them into consideration. One big one was that the humour is too obscure. This is not something I will change, since this comic is built around obscure not-quite-PPD-level-but-more-Hayate-level anime jokes. One other suggestion was to flesh out the characters more, which I do kind of try at. I’m not a great writer, and I’m no master at defining character traits, but I do try my best to improve. I’ll just say that yeah, I’m working on it, and hopefully… maybe these characters will be memorable and live on in your hearts forever! Yeah right. But I’m trying. And the last notable bit of advice was to just keep doing what I’m doing and improve, which is what I’m doing anyways. Or trying to. So, thanks for the comments. They were helpful.

Anyways, on to other stuff. One show that’s been surprisingly enjoyable has been World Destruction. Despite the dumbass premise, the show actually manages to be very entertaining. It’s a popcorn-flick type of entertaining, but still entertaining nonetheless. All the characters are fun, and each episode is written decently enough. The best episode ever was probably when they pit Toru Furuya and Shuuichi Ikeda together as rival characters… and these characters were both cute little teddy bears. It’s great.

Nogizaka Haruka has kind of gone down a quarter of a notch from its opening episodes, but I still like it a lot. Haruka is consistently delightfully moe, and her younger sister Mika is the kind of mischievous loli I love. I hope another season is greenlit, since one cour isn’t really enough.

Code Geass is really bad. But it’s gotten bad in the same way that I assume Kazuo “PEE IN MY EYES TO WASH OUT THE BLOOD” Koike manga is bad. It kind of lagged in the middle because the writers were taking their bullshit entirely too seriously, but now it’s relaxed back into being wonderfully over-the-top and nonsensical. What’s sad about the show at this point is that the damage done, and it’s not Taniguchi’s fault. I really wanted to see his original concept– what he had in mind sounded like it could be s-CRY-ed-level good, as opposed to this season which is very School Days. Except not as cool.

And that’s all for this week. I have a day or so off before classes start, so in that time I’ll try to crank out this other comic and get back on track. Later!