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

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.

Note: I’m basically talking out of my butt for this one. If there are any big mistakes, let me know.

When I watch 90s anime it’s always kind of a weird experience. Despite growing up with the stuff, each time I start on any given 90s title, I feel a little lost. This is probably because when I’m watching a 90s show, I’m watching it completely out of context.

Let me explain. If I were to watch something made in the 1960s, I’d watch it knowing that a lot of the shows made in the 60s were Astro Boy clones. If I were to watch something made in the 1970s, I’d watch it knowing the climate of fandom in the 70s, and so on. I’ve learned about various decades’ fandom through literature and anime like Genshiken and Otaku no Video, but each time I turn on some 90s show, I come to the realization that I know almost nothing about that decade’s fandom in Japan. Aside from reading the Notenki Memoirs, my knowledge of 90s fandom is very limited. As such, I’m wondering– are there any anime or manga titles that depict fandom in the 1990s?

(more…)

I present to you anime beauty, perfected. Well, I’m bias, since I have thing for ’90s designs. But she’s pretty hot, yeah?

Talk about nostalgia, I just watched the first Tenchi movie, TENCHI MUYO IN LOVE (what a lovely Engrish title.) This movie holds something of a significant meaning for me, since it was the first anime I ever watched UNCUT AND UNEDITED. Many (if not all) of you readers probably don’t know this, unless you’re one of my friends who was also there on the fateful night of my 13th (?) birthday, when a friend of mine brought over the dubbed VHS from Potomac Video…

(more…)

Original Post

Was kind of bored so I just decided to post this comic up. It’s my generic Gundam ranting, with fairly uninpsired artwork. I didn’t really have any ideas at the time, but wanted to make a comic, so I did this. It’s ok, I guess.

Oh, a podcast happened.

Been watching the Tenchi TV series lately, while neglecting new anime like Bokura No and Seirei, because quite frankly I’m not interested in either of them. I miss the look of these old 90s cel productions. They have a certain quality to them that I really dig. Kind of sad that cel animation was dumped right as they perfected it. My favourite part thus far has been the episodes devoted to Kiyone, given she is my most favourite character. The others are quite good and funny, but those Kiyone-centric ones give me warm fuzzies. She was the first 2D girl I feel in love with, after all.

Aside from watching old shows from the mid-90s, I watched Lucky Star episode 12 today. Highlights being the entire Comike part (especially with Tomokazu Sugita’s cameo) and the really surprising Godman reference right at the end. Funny stuff.

Ok, another short one this week. I have like 5000 blog posts planned out, but no time to write them.

Items I’d like to get to:

• Death Note Review
• Mid-season evaluation
• Directing in anime
• Why I love 2D girls

Anyway, that’s all for today.

Been watching the Tenchi TV series lately. I had started to watch the original OVA a while back, but it got lost in the crowd with all the other things I was watching. I recently got the TV series collection for my birthday, and just decided to watch that given I like it a bit more than the OVA. Watching it now, I find the animation isn’t especially good, but it’s not bad either. It’s rather charming though. I simply love the look of these 90s cel-done productions, even if they are a little uneven at times. This is also the first time I’m watching it in Japanese, and I like it a lot better than watching it dubbed on the Cartoon Network and on VHS.

(more…)