October 31st, 2007 by Brack
CLICK ON COUNT FLOYD
(AS EMBEDDING HAD BEEN DISABLED…)
Posted in Comedy, TV | Tags: Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Joe Flaherty, sctv | No Comments »
October 30th, 2007 by Brack
I was struggling to think of something to write tonight. The next CIOASIISAG entry will be somewhat longwinded (as it will be OHOTMU the RPG!) and so I want to do it around the weekend and my brain doesn’t want to do any UY family tree research at the moment.
Then I remembered I have every issue of the UK anime/manga magazine Manga Mania, and I thought it might be interesting to see what was going on in anime and manga when it started up, so here’s what was in news in the first issue of Manga Mania (July 1993):
I wouldn’t get into anime and manga for about over 2 years after this came out. The copy I’m cribbing this from was my little brother’s. Of those fanzines Trash City and Tales Of… were certainly kicking around when I became a fan of anime, but Trash City was the only one I ever read/bought. And is still ongoing as a website.
Posted in Anime | Tags: Manga Mania, Old News | No Comments »
October 29th, 2007 by Brack
kac62no2 posted this beauty. A whole bunch of animation clips in the Kanada School of animation. So movement, exaggerated perspectives, and stuff blowing up real good abounds. YAY!
According to the info on Youtube, this video contains work by:
Shinya Ohira（大平 晋也）
Hiroyuki Imaisi（今石 洋之）
Takeshi Koike（小池 健）
Akira Amemiya（雨宮 哲）
Masao Okubo（大久保 政雄）
Itsuki Imazaki（いまざき いつき）
Jun Arai（新井 淳）
Hideki Tamura（田村 英樹）
Keisuke Watabe（渡部 圭祐）
Mitsuo Iso（磯 光雄）
Shunsaku Koduma（上妻 晋作）
Shinya Hasegawa（長谷川 眞也）
Kou Yoshinari（吉成 鋼）
Masahito Yamasita（山下 将仁）
and, of course…
Yoshinori Kanada（金田 伊功）
Posted in Animation, Anime, MAD Monday | | No Comments »
October 28th, 2007 by Brack
Late in the day (it’s already been viewed almost half a million times) I’ve discovered this video for Dan Deacon’s Crystal Cat. I’ve been listening to the album since the summer on the recommendation of Pitchfork. This single is the best song of 2007 and the video is a wonderful day-glo kaleidoscopic mess.
This week’s The Sound of Young America has an interview with Deacon, so check that out too:
The Sound of Young America: Kenna
Posted in Music | Tags: Dan Deacon, TSOYA | No Comments »
October 27th, 2007 by Brack
GORG! GIANT GORG!
When I got home last night and saw that A-Classic had released a fansub of episode 1 of Giant Gorg I made with the “yay!”s. This was a series I’d wanted to see for about a decade. Ever since reading a review of the soundtrack in an issue of V-Max. And the only reason I had to want to see it was the name. GIANT GORG. That read like the best name for a robot show ever.
And so, ten years later, I finally get to see the first episode.
Following the instructions left by his dead father, Yu Tagami makes his way to New York to see his father’s student, Dr. H. Wave. On the way to Wave’s home he is almost accidentally run over by the delinquent Rod Balboa, heir to the GAIL conglomerate. At Wave’s home he meets Wave, Wave’s sister Doris and their dog, Argus. It turns out that GAIL are trying to kill Wave and Wave’s home is destroyed by a GAIL henchman. Our four heroes get away and Wave plans to enlist his friend Sensho to get to the mysterious Austral Island that Wave and Tagami’s father were researching. At GAIL HQ Rod is told that Austral Island holds secrets that could effect all mankind, and further arrangements are made to to kill the Waves. The Tagami and the Waves attempt to get across town to meet Sensho by dressing in fancy dress and taking part in a Halloween parade. But GAIL’s thugs find them and by the end of the episode they are trapped at the river’s edge and shot at by the chief henchman…
There’s a lot of portrayals of background black characters that look horribly caricatured in their drawings, however unlike the more recent Baccano! most of the white characters are likewise grotesque caricatures. Doris and Rod are probably the only white characters who look stereotypically “anime”, and even then they are designs you don’t see often nowadays. And Dr Wave is Woody Allen.
There also appears to have been an animator who was sneaking (?) drawings of dicks throughout this episode. Argus is a Great Dane, I guess as a Scooby Doo homage, but he’s occasionally drawn far more anatomically correct than Scoob ever was. But only occasionally, not all the time, which makes me think someone was diverting from the model sheet. I guess future episodes will bear this out. Also there was this costume in the Halloween parade…
All I’m saying is if that was meant to be a nose, why paint it that colour?
Also in the Halloween parade was this…
Are those names an in-joke or some kind of topical reference from Japan in 1984?
The animation in this first episode isn’t going to set the world on fire, but beyond the aforementioned penile goofery, there’s nothing really embarrassing here. The other two eighties shows I’m following at the moment, Urashiman and Lupin III Part 3 are a better choice for groovy animation though. However the background paintings in this episode are really neat, particularly early on when Yu is wandering through the ghetto. And as Yoshikazu Yasuhiko is directing, stuff gets blow’d up real good. Real good.
The eighties were arguably the golden age for robot shows (and anime as a whole), and so you were able to have an opening episode to an ostensibly giant robot show that doesn’t feature the robot at all. There’s plenty of action, and the episode whips through at a fair pace, but it’s all human level. Barring the design of GAIL’s HQ, which looks straight off an 80s sci-fi novel cover, there isn’t anything sci-fi or fantastic in this episode at all. It’s looking to be a slow build from where we start to the Daimajin tinged giant robot antics of the starting credits.
It’s great to see old shows like this get subtitled, this is exactly the sort of project that fansubbing should exist for.
Posted in Animation, Anime | Tags: 1984, Giant Gorg, Giant Robots, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2007 by Brack
By Furious Films:
Posted in Music | Tags: David Lynch, Eraserhead, Furious Films, Half Man Half Biscuit | No Comments »
October 22nd, 2007 by Brack
While the autumnal anime season hasn’t offered the massive dose of animation loveliness that the summer gave us, it has given me an anime about microbiology and this, an anime about game mechanics and probabilities. So it’s not all bad.
After 2005’s Akagi, Madhouse have assembled pretty much the same team to create an anime of Akagi creator Nobuyuki Fukumoto’s gambling manga Kaiji. Whereas Akagi’s title character was a cold fish, a man who could calmly bluff and cheat in the face of death, a genius at the game of mahjong, Kaiji’s title character is an emotional loser who finds himself thrust into a gambling tournament aimed the most desperate of competitors.
Kaiji, you see, foolishly co-signed a loan made to a former co-worker. This loan was made by the yakuza, and now they want their money back and can’t find the co-worker. Kaiji is given the option of paying it back over 10 years at a rate he can’t afford, or go on the ship Espoir and take part in the gambling tournament that takes place on there. If he wins, he clears the debt and gets to keep whatever else he wins. If he loses, he’ll be taken to parts unknown and made to work hard labour for a year. Or at least that’s what he’s told.
As a series about a man paying back a loan over 10 years would not be that exciting, Kaiji chooses Espoir, and finds himself taking part in a game of Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors.
Restricted Rock, Paper, Scissors. This is now my dream anime.
Kaiji (manga) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
The game featured in the gambling tournament the first night Kaiji spends on Espoir, with an average survival rate of 50%. The rules were outlined after the issuing of war funds, which were done in 2,000,000¥ and 10,000,000¥ increments referred to as the “lower” and “upper” bound, respectively. The money was in effect a loan, equalling the debt of the contestant and compounded at 1.5% every ten minutes for the four hour voyage; contestants who hold onto their funds for the length of the trip would have to pay 140% of what they invested, thus putting an incentive to finish games early. Money that exceeded the amount needed to repay the loan to the Espoir hosts would be pocketed by the contestant. This gamble is similar to the original game but with a twist - the hand gestures are represented by cards, and contestants are given four cards each with the same gesture for a total of twelve. Contestants are also given three plastic stars as collateral to bet on each round of play - whenever one loses a round, the winner gets a star from the loser. To survive the night, contestants must maintain their three star pendants and lose all of their gesture cards, while earning enough money to repay the interest owed to the Espoir hosts. Cards cannot be destroyed or thrown away, to do so is subject to instant disqualification. Unofficially, however, the star pendants can be traded using the war funds for around one or two million yen each, and they are typically how contestants manage to meet the interest demands of the Espoir hosts.
What makes this series great is how Kaiji’s mind works to find the way through the rules of the game, to find the best chance of surviving. At first glance the rules seem very constraining, but as desperation rises, Kaiji starts to see loopholes in the rules, and the clues in the game that will allow him to determine the best odds. As someone who can spend hours getting lost in the mechanics, logic and probability of games, I loved this. It will be interesting to see if Fukumoto’s story keeps this theme up throughout the series.
The animation improves on the standard set by Akagi. While it’s probably not everyone’s cup of tea, particularly those who only want the big eyes/small mouth look of “typical” anime, Yuzo Sato brings Fukumoto’s unique look to screen with aplomb. I hope that this and Akagi will be big enough successes that people will follow the lead of their characters and gamble on adapting other seinen series with unique visual styles, rather than the seinen moe series adaptations that seem to be the norm nowadays.
Posted in Anime | Tags: 2007, Kaiji, Madhouse, Nobuyuki Fukumoto, Yuzo Sato | No Comments »
October 21st, 2007 by Brack
Moyashimon Episode 1 - I loved this, mainly because I studied microbiology as part of my Food Science degree. It’s a comedy about an agricultural student who can see microorganisms with the naked eye. And he can talk to them too, and they can talk back. There’s a lot of stuff about fermented foods in this first episode, and a certain fermented food featured makes me pleased that natto was the most extreme food we tasted on my first year seminar on fermented foods.
Rental Magica Episode 1 - is, as I had surmised, a poor man’s Ghost Sweeper Mikami. The only good thing about it is the level of research into magic it has, but I would imagine that’s down to the original author of the novels it’s based on. Everything else was ferociously mediocre.
Genshiken Season 2 Episode 1 - this felt better animated than the first series on a technical level, but at the expense of the cartoon-y feel the best episodes of the first series had. The conclusion is that director Kinji Yoshimoto’s talent isn’t in directing sitcoms. As good as the story was, there was the nagging feeling that under the control of a director with a better head for comedy, it would be great.
Shion no Ou Episode 1 - More mediocrity. It wants to be some kind of gaming/suspense hybrid, but veers into melodrama at full speed. Oh and it has moe elements for good measure. It’s one thing to have a 10 year old orphan who is shogi prodigy, has never spoken since her parents were murdered in front of her, and a shogi king piece is the only clue to the murderer. But then it has the nerve to layer extra layers of ridiculous tragedy on top of that SPOILER ALERT her rival is a cross dressing teenager with a sick mother. And the animation is flat and dull. Watch Kaiji instead, which loads ridiculous layers of suspense, but isn’t trying to wring some kind of moe angst out of the viewer.
Posted in Anime | Tags: 2007, Genshiken, Moyashimon, Rental Magica, Shion no Ou | No Comments »
October 20th, 2007 by Brack
So I planned to go to this MCM Expo thingy today. I hear it’s a bit like the Peterborough Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fair, except without the great 15+ year-old poster of wizards and spacemen.
However, really I didn’t have much motivation for the shindig. The one earlier this year had Troma honcho Lloyd Kaufman attending and that one I’d have gone to had real life not interfered. Of this weekend’s guests only Dougie Braithwaite meant anything to me and he’d pulled out. So I was half heartedly dragging my ass to London. At least I’d get a change of scenery, some exercise and pick up a couple of manga volumes I thought.
Well I got to London and it hit me in the face this thing was on the wrong side of town for an easy trip. Especially as part of the Circle line was closed. I figured I’d get on the Central and go across town that way. Only Holborn had been evacuated, so I had to abandon that trip part way through. At this point I gave up on the whole Expo idea and got off at Oxford Circus and wandered along Oxford Street to Forbidden Planet and Gosh!
On the way I saw a man carrying a ferret. The ferret was wearing a high visibility lead. This suggests that the man has on occasion walked said ferret at night. Or it’s a professional ferret used for vermin control. I hope it was the latter, and it wasn’t an deliberately eccentric pet.
I picked up Monster Volume 10 but there wasn’t a Golgo 13 Volume 11 in sight. I grabbed a bite to eat, then figured I’d see about swinging by the Expo and seeing if I saw any faces I knew. So I got there mid afternoon, wandered around the ExCel centre for a bit, decided I wasn’t going to pay (especially as I was going to be charged to take money out) just to feel even more cynical and old than I was feeling already (the sight of Naruto headbands will do that to a man), took some photos of derelict riverside buildings and headed back.
So my Expo experience was all of 15 minutes!
So it was a lot like Peterborough Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fair, except without people I know dressed as vikings and hitting each other with real swords. And I bet there wasn’t LARPers trying to sell VHS copies of their own homemade Stargate film!
Posted in Vagaries | Tags: Ferrets, London, MCM Expo | No Comments »
October 19th, 2007 by Brack
—
THINGS I KNOW ABOUT BEARS #1
DON’T BONK THEM ON THE HEAD WITH MALLETS~!
Posted in Uncategorized | Tags: 2007, Bears, Kawaii Jenny, Puppets | No Comments »