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

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At Comiket Day 3 Nippon Banzai levels get shot into overdrive and manifest in completely bias incoherent ramblings in line. At Comiket Day 4, fatigue levels get shot into overdrive and manifest in simple incoherent ramblings. But it’s like that guy said, it’s all about catching that moment, that instant in our lives.

And you can listen to it, if you want!

We did end up meeting Kono Azure. Missed Ryu Moto, though.

Guests

• Chris (Hen Da Ne)
• Anonymous

Songs

• Opening Song– “Yume no Naka E” by Inoue Yousui
• Ending Song– “Ending Chorus: Beginning of the Universe” by Hattori Takayuki

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Once upon a time, there was a Comic Market. Unlike the previous 75 Comic Markets before it, this one was a little different: I was in attendance.

This is the first half of a two-part series that covers my adventures–as well as the adventures of those with me–at Comic Market 76.

Guests

• Mouse
• Chris (Hen Da Ne)

Songs

• Opening Song– “My Pace Daiou” by Manzo
• Ending Song– “I’m Feeling You” by Capsule

Hanamaru Youchien is done in 6 weeks? Say it ain’t so!

Short of doing a full-on review (I may want to save that for when the show is over) I would like to highlight some of the things that make Hanamaru Youchien awesome.

This first one is actually kind of depressing. This show hits me where it really hurts: in Tsuchida, the main character. Now these main guys are always meant to be relatable losers, but very few of them hit as close to home as Tsuchida does. I imagine he’s designed to fit this weird subset of people that are just like me. I’ve taught children before, am nearly just out of college, and am eternally girlfriendless. Well those last two are constants across the genre, but the first one really drives it all home. While I haven’t had a young girl fall for me (which is for the better, I should imagine) I do relate to treating boys you’re teaching as your buddies when you share the same interests.

On that same vein, the show balances realism and the lack thereof in its setting quite well. The kids in Hanamaru are wonderful simply because act like real kids. They’re loud, energetic, inquisitive, and get upset for no reason. And even though it falls back on a set of established archetypes for each character, they’re all executed with lots of spirit. In fact, part of the reason why the show is so pleasant is exactly because it falls back on familiar archetypes for not just the main characters, but for everyone in class. Familiarity is comforting to most people, but at the same time things with lots of familiarity can come off as cheap and by-the-numbers. What makes Hanamaru good is how it injects that aforementioned spirit into the formula with inspired writing, voice acting and animation.

A lot of this spirit is carried in the show’s main heroines, though. Anzu is characterized by her never-ending enthusiasm and energy. Koume is shy, timid, and unsure of herself. Hiiragi is more laid back, and enjoys drawing upon her vast knowledge to help both Anzu and Koume when they need it, and also uses these situations an excuse to wear cute outfits. What really helps bring Anzu to life is how much spunk there is each cut of animation featuring her. Every time she shoots out her arms, wiggles  her legs, runs around, or climbs up something, there’s an extra bit of spark in it. The vocal talents of Shindou Kei complements Anzu’s physical energy with an unrestrained performance rich in soul. Koume’s movements also go well her timid nature. She runs slower than the others, and often fidgets. While  MAKO doesn’t sound 100% convincing all the time (I think the issue lies in forcing her voice higher than it already is) she communicates Koume’s uneasiness quite well. Everything Hiiragi does is calculated, from her actions to her speech. Her movements have distinct purpose, while Takagaki Ayahi reinforces Hii’s cool, calm and collected demeanor. But the cute part is when she tries to keep it all together while being embarrassed.

Beyond the convincing portrayal of the main characters, the show is generally very technically proficient. Apparently Gainax has all of their best talent on this show, and while I’m too lazy confirm that, the show speaks loud enough for itself. Across the six episodes of Hanamaru that have aired thus far, I am finding it difficult to recall a single bit of awkward animation. Everything is smooth, clean, and full. One thing that struck me particularly in episode six was the water animation in the pool. My memory is a little fuzzy, but near as I can remember the water in the pool was always moving. And it wasn’t some cheap CG-effect either–it was completely animated by hand at all times. Attention to little details like that prove that Gainax is really giving it their all. Nevermind the fact that each episode has its own fully animated ending sequence. This show certainly moves better than the rather sloppily animated Shikabane Hime, that’s for sure.

I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface of the enthusiasm I have for this show, but I’m coming up on 700 words so I’ll cut things off here. Bottom line is: Watch Hanamaru Youchien! You’ll be glad you did!

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This is one of those comics that got worse and worse as I continued drawing it. The sketches looked fine, but as I continued on things just become more dire. The end product isn’t too bad, but I’m not happy with it. But that’s the usual story, isn’t it?

I actually really hope we do get some Dullahan porn out of Durarararararara!!, but considering the overwhelming amount of images featuring Anri with a penis in between her giant tits, I highly doubt we’ll see Selty getting fucked in all of her headless glory. I hope someone does it, though. And I hope they do it seriously. Like, not as a joke.

Anyway, until next week.

Damn, this world we live in sure is crazy! The other day a hole in time-space opened in my apartment and some random DVD popped out!

To my complete surprise, the DVD happened to be the Limited Edition version of Ichigo Mashimaro volume 2. What a shock! Limited Edition! I’m so lucky!! Thank you, hole in time-space!

Let’s take a good look at this relic from the past.

Next time that hole opens I’m going to jump into it and jet to the Geneon offices to assure them that, yes, supplies did last. They lasted.

They lasted aright.

Original Post

I think I’m going to give Shinbo a rest after this comic.

I was going to say I have nothing planned for next week, but then I came up with a bunch of really stupid ideas, and fully intend to use them.

(In Shinbo’s head SHAFT animators look like Lupin and Jigen because I was listening to the Lupin III soundtrack while drawing this.)

My feelings towards SHAFT’s adaptation of Dance In The Vampire Bund are–much like a man’s feelings for Char Aznable–rather complex. If you were to ask me whether I like it or not, I’d have to say that I’m rather happy with it. However, there are a number of things about the show that scare and confuse me, and I’d like to address those things first.

SHAFT shows (post-Shinbo era) typically have really good soundtracks. If you were to reach into a pile of SHAFT soundtracks, chances are you’d have a fairly pleasant listening experience. Sadly, this isn’t the case with Vampire Bund. The music is composed by Dobashi Akio, who was both keyboardist and composer for the 1980s J-pop band REBECCA. (Incidentally, Vampire Bund’s opening is a cover of one of their greatest hits, Friends.) While Dobashi may have a knack for composing antiquated pop songs, he doesn’t seem to have much in the way of talent when it comes to composing engrossing background music. Thankfully, the music occupies the realm of passable-to-decent, but there are times when it just comes off as far too cheesy and lame. A scene I’m thinking of in particular is when Mina messes some baddies up in a warehouse, after being lathered in her special gel. The music accompanying that scene just falls flat, and doesn’t do anything to enhance the action on screen. It’s painfully mechanical. Perhaps SHAFT was going for the 80s action movie aesthetic, but I’m not really feeling it. Thankfully, the music doesn’t bother me too much, but I wish it was something I could get excited about, like the Tsukuyomi soundtrack.

Other questionable stylistic quirks can be seen in the show’s visuals. I’m typically a fan of whatever visual madness SHAFT does, and I can see what they’re trying to do by intentionally making the video look shoddy by way of a noise filter and a green glow that looks like it belongs on a badly dubbed VHS. I don’t think it looks bad per-se, but it certainly doesn’t encode well. However, by episode 4 it seems that they’ve hit a nice balance. It’ll probably look neat in Blu.

Aside from those qualms, I think SHAFT has done well to re-work the series to their strengths. Yuki’s narration (delivered by Saito Chiwa, who didn’t do enough talking in Bakemonogatari, obviously) helps to frame the show nicely, adding something of a personal touch to the story. An account of someone who’s actually “there”, if you will.

Alongside Yuki’s narration, the way in which SHAFT opens the show is far more inspired than the rather dry manner in which the manga opens. My kung-fu isn’t strong enough to claim that an otherwise “serious” anime opening with a satire of variety shows is unprecedented, but it’s not anything I’ve ever seen before, and it’s just plain funny. Similarly, the following episode has a lot more fun in introducing the characters. Mina’s not-very-good attempt at spying on Akira through the bushes, along with her dance atop the building while introducing herself to Akira play up Mina’s more childish side, a part of her that’s not really touched upon until volumes 2 or 3 of the manga. The only newly introduced aspect of the story that doesn’t really seem to add much is Akira’s amnesia, but perhaps they’ll touch upon that later on. There’s also a new character!

The show has some things going for it visually as well, putting aside the deliberate degradation of the video. After shows like Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Hidamari Sketch and Bakemonogatari, seeing SHAFT do some real backgrounds for a change is kind of nice. While a lot of the locales are anime standards, the shots inside Mina’s residence evoke the castle interiors in the opening episodes of Tsukuyomi. Except this time they’re lit up. I also like the odd use of photos for quick shots, even if I realize it’s really cheap. It’s neat.

Much like Bakemonogatari, Vampire Bund is “shot” pretty well. None of the compositions really hearken back to Shinbo’s Cossette or Soultaker days, but they make good use of the 16:9 aspect ratio, typically adhearing to the rule of thirds. To put it simply, the show tends to look cinematic. This keen eye for framing along with SHAFT’s newest habit of mimicking live-action camera work (Usually done by zooming in/tilting up on a charcater, but animating each and every frame instead of just zooming/panning up on a still image.) make for fairly interesting episode compositions.

The character designs evoke the manga art pretty well, but they have a touch more solidarity. In recent years SHAFT has kept the designs in their shows fairly close to their source material, but Vampire Bund sees a return to the aesthetic applied in Tsukuyomi, Pani Poni and Negima!?. What defines this style, I think, is a lot of roundness to the characters, while at the same time maintaining solidarity (ie, not becoming KyoAni-like blobs). A lot of detail is lavished upon hair, eyes, fabric folds, and there is a near fetishistic attention to the formation of hands and joints. It’s kind of strange how Tsukuyomi, Pani Poni, Negima!? and now Vampire Bund all share a lot of these traits, considering the fact that they don’t share a character designer as far as I know. I’m guessing it’s just a SHAFT thing. Perhaps Shinbo demands detailed hair and knee-caps.

Going back to important things–like the plot, I guess–to wrap this up, along with bringing Mina’s playful side to the forefront earlier on, the show is wasting no time establishing the main fixtures in the story. As early as episode two, the camera catches a glimpse of some villains, who the manga doesn’t even introduce until they actually do things. SHAFT is mostly likely taking the most important aspects of the manga, mixing it with their own stuff, and putting together a story that can be told nicely in the one-cour runtime (Of course, they’ll leave things hanging for a season 2…). It’s certainly more interesting than retelling the manga straight up because, you know, I already read that.

Scary and confusing things aside, I am more or less happy with how SHAFT’s version of Vampire Bund is turning out. I just hope when the action really hits hard, they’ll be able to deliver. We still haven’t seen many of the scenes from the PV, yet…

…the PV which seems to have disappeared completely from the internet…

Sunred was forsaken by the fansubbing community for a while after it hit, which is why I am thankful towards ANBU for being heroic enough to make this comedic gem available for English speakers. But along with praising their work, I do have a few bones to pick. Because that’s just how I roll.

But let’s start with the good. The translation they’ve stuck onto this show nearly perfect. While not 100% accurate, it captures the feel of the dialogue wonderfully. This is important, since Sunred derives a lot of its humour from just how conversational the script is, so a translation that reads exactly like normal English does wonders in helping the humour cross that often-difficult-to-breach linguistic boundary. It really is a shame that professional DVD translations don’t often reach this level of quality.

However, I think their translation localizes too much. Another thing that makes Sunred funny is how deep it plunges its heroes and villains into the stereotypically mundane Japanese lifestyle. As such, making the characters pay for things in dollars, as well as citing American brands as opposed to Japanese ones robs the show of its cultural flavour. Sunred thrives on references to local and nationally known things. This is a show that has three songs devoted to the city in which it takes place in, Mizonokuchi. I appreciate that they’re trying to communicate this same level of familiarity to American viewers by switching in American references, but it’s pushing things too far. They also make the characters swear too much. This is what I meant by “nearly perfect.”

Also, if they’re really shooting for professional quality on these things, why are they still doing ugly hardsubbed karaoke? Even the most newbie of new groups have gone to 100% soft subs.

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Tentai Senshi Sunred is, without a doubt, one of my most favourite comedy titles to hit in recent years. Along with all the other elements that come together to make each episode as funny as the last, there are two key things that make the humour really work–the voice acting, and the characters’ body language.

Sunred’s humour primarily relies on absurdity. It is a show about heroes and villains living typical mundane Japanese lives, after all. So rather than opting to have the characters deliver their lines in the typical polished anime voice acting style, they instead deliver with a noticeable level of naturalness. The voice acting isn’t rough or unpolished. Far from it. In fact, the acting is very good. However, the voices coming from the monsters and heroes in Sunred aren’t what you’d expect from heroes and villains, or the typical anime character. They’re the kind of voices you’ll hear if you speak to normal Japanese people.

It’s fair to say that the average Japanese girl does not sound the moe heroines that make up the bulk of female anime characters these days. By that same token, the average Japanese male does not sound like a brooding pretty-boy hero. Rather than mastering voices that are difficult to come by in the real world, the actors in Sunred instead deliver polished and professional performances that sound like, well, your buddies. However, in Sunred each character’s speech quirk is intentional. Things like mumbling are deliberate, and regional dialects are very much written in the script. Sunred’s punk-like cadence and Vamp’s near homosexual tone are especially well done. This perfection in delivering the imperfections of normal human speech is part of what drives home just how absurd the entire show is.

In addition to voice acting, the characters also have their own body language to match. While not the most well animated show, Sunred makes sure their characters express themselves both vocally and physically. In fact, the limited animation probably helps. Characters quickly changing between a few bold poses with no inbetweening does a good job of drawing one’s attention to the body language.

Much like the voice acting, the characters’ body language is also very natural. Convincing awkward mutters are matched with just as convincing fidgeting, and arguments between characters aren’t the typical talking-head shouting match. A great example of how well the body language works in Sunred can actually be found in the latest (not yet translated) episode–Sunred is confronted by another hero in a restaurant, and this hero asks Sunred for an awkward bit of advice. As the sketch begins, Sunred is looking around awkwardly, taking very annoyed puffs from his cigarette. This short cut of him just looking around, clearly looking as if he doesn’t want to be there, sets up the sketch perfectly.

Of course, what makes this all hilarious is that these are a bunch of freaks acting like normal guys. Especially a character like Khamenman, who sounds like some old guy, but still acts like a 20-something loser. The way in which these various factors contradict each other is key to how the show operates. And even though the show communicates quite realistic emotions through body language and voice acting, it doesn’t shy away from sweat drops or other examples of anime visual short-hand, which again contrasts nicely with all the stuff I’ve outlined above.

The are some other reasons why I find Sunred to be one of the best comedies out there, but this more or less covers why I think the show works as well as it does.

The anime calendar has been something of an addiction of mine for the past five years. It has gotten better over time–what was once four calendars a year has now turned into one–but I still love these things as much as I did when my set of coveted anime calendars arrived at my door during my senior year of high school.

For those who don’t know, the made-in-Japan anime calendars don’t really function as calendars. They’re giant B2 pads that contain seven pages illustrations; a cover page, and six other pages that cover two months each. Dates are shoved into a small area of each page, and aren’t easy to mark off to make a notes or something. These calendars are in effect a set of very nice posters that you change every two months, and what makes or breaks a calendar is obviously the quality of the illustrations at hand.

Generally the illustrations aren’t anything ambitious, but they tend to be a step up from generic stock artwork and sit more on level with anime magazine pinups. In the case of an otaku-oriented program like Sora Kake Girl, the pages of its respective calendar are all about the girls looking cute–often times in very little clothing.

The girls in Sora Kake Girl all sparkle with their own unique brand of cuteness, and each page does well to make sure their good sides are showing. These good sides are of course their breasts, butts and legs. Whether it’s Nami thrusting out her tight body while grinning maniacally, Itsuki adjusting her bikini bottom with her butt to the camera, or simply Akiha striking Japan’s favourite V-sign, each illustration is executed with professionalism.

It goes without saying that the quality of these illustrations is better than a random screencap. What’s on display here happily occupies the realm of DVD cover or Megami poster illustrations. The colours are rich and bright, and extra care is taken with the shading and lighting effects. The highlights glow, and the shades are made deeper with choice use of gradients. Dirty pencil lines are obvious up close, but that becomes a given when one’s room is filled with Megami posters. It’s nothing ambitious–like I said before–but it’s all well done.

There are some issues, however. Firstly, only five of the seven illustrations are originals (to my knowledge) and the remaining two are simply re-used Megami posters. They aren’t bad illustrations, but it is rather lazy. That said, the images are printed in the calendar’s larger dimensions, and their colouring comes out more brilliant than their respective Megami pinups’. Secondly, the paper isn’t really strong stuff. My Hayate no Gotoku and Zettai Karen Children posters from years previous were printed on more resilient stock. Because of this, the pages took something of a beating during shipping, and it shows if you look closely.

Putting those nagging issues aside, however, this calendar is a great buy if you’re both a fan of Sora Kake Girl and need a calendar for the year. It’s not the gold standard of anime calendars that Kyoto Animation calendars are, but it’s a nice set of cute T&A pictures to compliment all the others hanging up on your wall.

And since I couldn’t think of a good place to dump these, here’s some bad photos of each page. There’s no scan of this calendar to my knowledge, so if you want it, you have to buy it! Don’t worry! You still have until the end of February before that first page becomes useless!

Original Post

After running this comic by a few people last night, my hypothesis that I’m the only one who finds this comic funny was proven to be correct. It’s not terribly funny unless you find Shinbo getting on Yamakan’s case for storyboarding an episode of Chu-Bra funny, and I find that hilarious. I also think it’s funny for my cartoon avatar to pop out of the corner of the frame in his continuous journey to stalk Mr. Shinbo.

While I’m on the subject–and since I don’t think it really deserves a focused blog entry–Chu-Bra is somewhat disappointing. It is a little interesting how it’s taken a less fanservice driven route (don’t get me wrong, it still has a lot of panty-shots) and has instead decided to focus on the embarrassment that young girls feel about wearing underwear, as well as the mechanics of underwear. It’s interesting to make a show about these things in theory, but in practice it kind of falls flat, especially when I don’t find the characters to be that enchanting. So long story short, the show should be more about fanservice. I may stick around for Yamakan’s episode, but I’ll probably drop it.

That’s it! There may or may not be a comic next week. I haven’t sketched anything yet so I don’t know!

(Get it? He said “wah!”)

Tonight is Conan O’Brien’s last show as the host of the Tonight Show after just seven months of being on the air. But everyone knows that.

I’ve been watching Conan on-and-off since I was in middle school, and it really hurts to see him pulled in such a haphazard manner. Given that a good portion of my viewing diet is composed of anime series with set run-times, seeing a show I’ve  been watching for a good seven years get knocked off the air–and for stupid reasons–makes me feel a little down.

I won’t be able to watch his last show live as I don’t own a TV, but I’ll be sure to catch it on Hulu. Conan is undoubtedly one of the funniest entertainers out there, and I hope the same show he’s been putting on for nearly twenty years finds its way unharmed to another network.