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

I dunno about you, but one thing I’m sick ‘n’ tired of is old guys complaining about things. I’m talking about those old guys who complain about young kids crowding the aisles of their anime cons. I’m talking about those old guys who complain about their anime not being like it used to be. Anime is the only real fandom I’ve been involved in across my 21 years on this planet, but I have a feeling these sorts of people lurk in the darkness of every single fandom out there. So it’s nothing new. In fact, it’s something very old!

And before anyone makes an ass out of you and me, I am not talking about the individuals who occupy some of the fine internet dwellings that I chose to adorn my blogroll with. Nor am I speaking of those jaded old bats I moaned about some moons ago (they’re annoying in a completely different way). What am talking about are fans of anime, roughly ages 30 and above, that are simply unable to act their age.

In an attempt to clarify even further, the guys at Colony Drop and the Anime World Order aren’t that much older than I am. But the main difference I’m trying to illustrate for you–the readership, who may not see one yet–between these people and the ones I’m complaining about is simply a cool head. The reasons  I read and listen to those two are a) they’re quite entertaining, and b) have well thought out opinions and reasoning. Even if their opinions may run contrary to my own, I can still listen to them, consider them, and appreciate their point of view.

The fans I’m sick ‘n’ tired of are ones who are unable to do this. They bitch and whine like children over the fact that things just aren’t how they used to be, offering nothing in the way of reason. Well, some of the arguments they put forth may be considered reasonable in their minds, but to a level-headed individual it comes off as nothing but noise. And it’s not even a matter of them simply lacking eloquence. You can lack eloquence but still put forth an argument that makes sense.

But what really makes these guys worse than the younger kids they’re complaining about is this: those kids are acting their age. It makes sense for teenagers to act dumb–they’re teenagers. They’re in a transitional stage of their life–slowly and painfully crossing that bridge from childhood to adulthood. It makes sense that they act without reason or thought. What doesn’t make sense is the 300 pound, balding, 50 year old loser wearing a faded t-shirt, his fingers covered in cheese dust from all the Cheetos he’s been eating, with his fat ass lumped on his computer seat, farting and burping once every five minutes due to the seven cans of soda he’s drank (he’s only been awake for five hours), typing up an angry rant on the internet about how his needs aren’t being served anymore.

That is of course the worst-case-scenario. And honestly? I’ve only just noticed fans like these at this past Anime Boston, and have come across only a few in my internet travels. So I haven’t seen many of them. Maybe they really are few in number, and this rant–which is not all that different from the rants I’m talking about–is unwarranted.

But anyway, somethings are–like the Japanese love to say–”can’t be helped.” Like kids acting like kids. However, some things can, and these types of people can easily help themselves. But they first have to realize how horribly broken they are. It’s not that difficult to slim down, go out, make friends, act socially acceptable, and think with a level head. If they did that, then maybe people would be more willing to listen to them, instead of writing them off as–in the words of some awful internet BBS–an “oldfag”.

And before I take off, it’s not as if the moe fan parallel to these guys don’t exit. They do! But I already talked about them.

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Something. Trying to diversify what I draw a bit. I also like flower patterns… does that make me girly?

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I guess this is inspired by Pizzicato Five? Not really. I just had this design on my mind, and needed text to fill in the background, so I chose the title of a P5 song. To make it all fit together, I threw in the Tokyo Tower…

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I’d be more happy with this if it wasn’t a complete copy off of this video. But it was supposed to be that, so I guess I should be satisfied.

Original Post

While there certainly are parody elements in Angel Beats, I find the very setting to be ironic. There was that scene in episode one where the main character was hesitating to fire his gun at the flat-chested, loli-looking Tenshi. I couldn’t help but see this as a metaphor for otaku trying to escape from the grasp of their hobby. But it probably isn’t. I personally don’t really care either way–I’m not all that for or against the show–but I kind of wanted to drive this slight disappointment over this missed opportunity home with Brad, so I did.

I’m not that sold on the artwork in this one, but it turned out fine. My main qualms lie in the brightness of the colours, and Tina’s face in panel 2. Maybe I should lay off the bloom effect a bit more next time. I drew the outlines of the speech bubbles with the tablet as opposed to using the shape tools to create them, in attempt to make the comic look more organic,  but in the end they came out a little messy. I’ll try something different next time.

I haven’t talked about news in a while, but something happened this past week that caught my attention. Aniplex is entering the American market in an attempt to directly market their products to US buyers. While this’ll probably crash and burn like every other Japanese attempt to sell directly to the US, what caught my attention was their plans to release five other series by 2011. This is pure conjecture, but wouldn’t it be neat if they had Bakemonogatari? I mean, this is really fucking crazy, but if this means I could get Bakemonogatari in the US, on BRD, I’d be pretty fucking stoked. It’d be perfect if it were a carbon copy of the Japanese release, just with English subtitles. But that’s just a dream at the moment. It’d be cool, though!

I also haven’t spoken about anime for a while in this space, but I feel something like Beck isn’t worth a whole blog entry, but is too much for a series of tweets to cover. But yeah, we’ve been watching Beck down at the ol’ anime club and it’s pretty amazingly average. I dont mean average in the sense that every element of the show is executed half-heatedly. It’s more like, there’s certain parts of the show that are spectacular, and certain parts that are just awful. The animation is pretty rough, the frequent use of English–both from Japanese and American voice talents–is laughably bad, the direction is really awkward, and the acting is stilted.

But the show has spirit. I’m not sure if this spirit is carried over from the (rather lengthy) manga, or if it’s due to the enthusiasm of the staff, but the amount of effort put into the rendering of the instruments and the show’s constant adoration for rock music is probably what makes it watchable. I mean, it’s not painful to watch, but it could be a lot better. The best parts of the show are easily the opening and the ending. I especially like all the illustrations used for the ending, as they’re not the types of images you usually see in anime.

Next week is more or less the end of the semester, and I have something like three ten page papers to pump out before then. That said, don’t expect a comic next weekend. Later!

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I don’t get this Anime no Chikara thing. Honestly? It just seems pretentious. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word. I think one can argue that something like Evangelion is not pretentious, but you can’t do that with these shows. These shows are actively pretending to be something bigger than they actually are.

Take Sora no Oto for instance. Out of the 8 epsiodes that I saw, it came off as nothing but a formulaic moe-themed slice of life show. And not even a good one, like Keion! or Lucky Star. It was relentlessly boring, and the characters had no soul beyond their tried and true archetypes. Even the cast of Keion! had more pep in their execution than these girls.

Now we have Senkou no Night Raid. I only watched one episode, and it really sucked. It was a run-of-the-mill supernatural action show that had nothing exciting in its execution, characters, or story. The only thing that set it apart from the rest was its setting.

What I’m saying is that these show’s attempts at differentiating themselves from other anime is just lazy, and quite insulting. They stick so closely to established formula and have absolutely soulless execution, but think an unorthodox setting somehow puts them on a level above everything else.

I’m pretty bummed. I had high hopes for this project, because I was really looking forward to some well-executed mature anime that would hearken back to the likes of Cowboy Bebop to break up my moe diet a bit. I guess I’ll just stick to the good things noitaminA does.

Before my memories of this sweet little show get washed away into the deep abyss, there was one other aspect of it I meant to address before I was suddenly handed the most work I’ve ever had to do in my entire college career. This won’t take long, I promise.

The last time I talked about Hanamaru, I mentioned that the show was very refreshing. At least I think I did. I don’t quite remember. But anyway, it was refreshing. While still adhering to established formulas, the show was full of heart and provided an alternative focus to what one usually sees in anime. That focus being on the daily routines of the individuals at a daycare, with adequate focus given to both the children and the adults. I spoke mostly of the children last time I posted about this show, so this time I’d like to focus a bit on the adults.

Probably the most refreshing aspect of Hanamaru was its focus on the lives of the adults. It’s not something often seen in a medium that tends to concern itself with the problems of middle and high schoolers. I’m sure such a focus is more prevalent in manga, but considering such manga aren’t translated (Or translated into readable English. I have standards, you know.) a show which provided fanservice by way of letting us into The World of Adults was a nice surprise.

But what’s so great about adult talk? Honestly a series all about people worrying about paying their utility bills and finding a job in this shitty economy would be rather boring. So it goes without saying that the interactions in Hanamaru have anime sugarcoating all over them, and that’s fine by me. A lot of it focuses around Tsuchida’s non-existent love life, which is a topic that hits way too close to home for a lot of the viewership, I imagine. But it’s done with class.

While I can’t cite any specifics–as I have already forgotten the name of every single secondary character–everyone on the teaching staff has their own fun little quirks, are filled with life, and generally have very good chemistry. The same can be said of all the other adult characters that make an appearance in the show, like the yakuza thugs, the Panda Neko manga-ka, and the parents. Whether it’s the other female teachers urging Tsuchida to ask Yamamoto out, all of them talking about their students lovingly, or simply Tsuchida and Sakura reminiscing about the old days, it’s all fun to watch.

Location also helps. An izakaya is a welcome change from the usual fast-food joint, and the staffroom is a welcome change from the usual classroom. I guess karaoke boxes remain the same whether or not the characters are kids or adults, but karaoke sessions with addition of alcohol makes for some amusing antics.

Kodomo no Jikan touches upon these sorts of things as well, and so does Evangelion. I understand that is a weird pair of names to drop in an article about Hanamaru Youchien, but the lives of the adults in those works also provide a nice amount of spice to a story that mainly focuses around people who haven’t yet reached puberty, or are going through it. It’s not something seen very often, at least in my experience, so that’s why I appreciate it.

Thanks to a tip from a Shinbo/SHAFT fanboy more dangerous than myself, I have found Shinbo Akiyuki’s Twitter account. What kind of deep and insightful comments lie within the man’s 22 tweet long history? Find out here, in a Mistakes of Youth: The Blog exclusive report!

Translator’s notes are in bold and in brackets, @replies are followed by the preceding posts.

March 21st, 2010

• 10:09 PM- I ate yakiniku.
• 10:11 PM- I’m getting tired.
• 10:36 PM- @hekky3 Let’s go out drinking next time. (Shinbo)
  • 10:17 PM- minakichijapon: @hekky3 Director Shinbo is here! (Under a fake name.)
  • 10:26 PM- hekky3: @minakichijapon What! Where? Who? I hope he knows when to stop tweeting so he doesn’t become a good-for-nothing!
• 10:39 PM- @minakichijapon I’ll try to mutter some things.
  • 10:21 PM- minakichijapon: @nobita29432943 Welcome!
• 10:44 PM- Miyamoto-sama has come. [EDIT: Actually he's talking about this guy.]
• 11:13 PM- Miyamoto-sama is doing nothing but eating.
• 11:14 PM- Miyamoto-sama is having some miso soup.
• 11:25 PM- Are you still going to eat, Miyamoto-sama?
• 11:28 PM- @hekky3 I’m having fun.
  • 11:01 PM- minakichijapon: Our favourite writer is arriving now.
  • 11:19 PM- hekky3: @minakichijapon Damn! Sounds like you guys are having fun!
• 11:39 PM- Miyamoto-sama will not stop eating.

March 22nd, 2010

• 12:01 AM- @wome06 Did you get mad? [The post he's replying to is not linked.]
• 12:04 AM- @hikakom Miyamoto-sama is eating right now. He’s not stopping. [The post he's replying to is not linked.]
• 01:07 AM- @minakichijapon Good work today! I’m probably alright. My stomach hurts
  • 12:51 AM- minakichijapon: @nobita29432943 Good work for today! I’m a little scared that tomorrow you’ll have already forgotten about the existence of Twitter ☆.
• 01:19 AM- @hikakom Miyamoto-sama seems to have caught a cold, but his appetite is that of a restless horse. [The post he's replying to is not linked.]
• 01:22 AM- @minakichijapon We should’ve done Udon.
  • 01:12 AM- minakichijapon: @nobita29432943 I’ve made it home. Director, you without a doubt ate way too much. Especially that fish rice bowl, you shouldn’t be eating that!

April 10th, 2010

• 07:23 PM- Junnosuke is here nau. [Probably in reference to this guy. Also, "nau" is a trendy way to say "now". I've translated it up until now, but it's best to leave it as it is from now on... you'll see.]
• 07:32 PM- Junnosuke nau 2
• 08:01 PM- Junnosuke is speaking with a very clear voice. Nau.
• 09:16 PM- Tired of Junnosuke nau. So, I’m going to watch Pani Poni nau.
• 09:20 PM- @minakichijapon I’m interested again nau.
  • 09:19 PM- minakichijapon: @nobita29432943 Why are you in such a sorry state, director? (lol)
• 10:06 PM- @wome06 Are you mad? Nau. [The post he's replying to is not linked.]
• 10:07 PM- @dekisugikunn How are you? Nau. [This guy hasn't said anything yet.]
  

Fascinating!

He hasn’t tweeted since these first 22, but he just may. Am I nuts enough to re-tweet each one then translate it?! Maybe…

Original Post

While not a totally widespread practice, it’s become more common to leave titles of Japanese properties untranslated to appease the needs of the 13-year-old Japanophile crowd. However, this practice seems to limit itself to titles which most Americans can kind-of-sort-of pronounce, not titles in which they’d just trip over the pronunciation. “Kuro Shitsuji” isn’t really that hard to say, but I am sad that I’ll never ever be able to hear a young girl twist her tongue around the name in the Borders manga aisle now. Oh well!

This comic was actually re-drawn a bit. I wasn’t happy with how it originally turned out, so since I had some time before it went up, I edited it a bit. While this newer version isn’t perfect, I feel a lot more conferable putting it up on display. For the few curious parties, the original can be viewed here.

I actually really like how the backgrounds turned out here. Instead of just making something up or tracing over a photo, I simply used a photo as reference, but didn’t trace over it. The backgrounds are quite messy, but that’s what I like about them.

I have a comic all ready for next week, so look forward to an update then. There probably will not be an update at the end of the month, because that’s when I have something like three papers due, and I don’t plan to do them until that week. But then after that things should lighten up, and I’ll have more time to attend to this site.

Later!