Amazon Recommends….

Posted on May 28, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Porno. I swear, I selected “DVD” and typed “anime” into the search box. That’s all.

Sheesh, talk about fan “service”…. What do they know about me, I wonder? (Yes, I know its hentai, not ecchi or fanservice. Work with me here, ok?)

(Edited to make the bad pun a little clearer.)

Update: I was just reading over at Instapundit, when I noticed the Amazon ad on the right side…. it had one book (which I already own), one anime (which I also own) and three other anime (which I had recently looked at). Obviously, it was tailored to my recent search/views. It occurred to me, “you know, Glen’s about one glitch–if that–away from having porno advertised on his site, and then the fur’s going to fly when someone’s parent complains to him, not realizing little Billy’s been checking out the animated boobies again….”

Posted in Random Nonsense | 1 Comment

Not Entirely In the Clear Yet . . . If Ever?

Posted on May 27, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Yes, I’m still alive, but I’m not sure how much anyone’s going to be able to notice, insofar as my posting might indicate life. There are some long-term changes underway. I have to say “don’t expect lots of posting” because I spend a lot of time working on each post and now I don’t have a lot of un-interrupted time.

As I mentioned long ago, my mother has lung cancer. Seeing as she’s in her 70’s and is still going two years after diagnosis, she’s doing pretty damn good. However, p.d.g. is relative, and when someone who’s already down to a fraction of their lung capacity gets pneumonia — and tries to ignore it — the situation can get pretty serious. That’s one way to describe “life-threatening.” I had to call in reinforcements to get her to see the light and go into the hospital, where they pumped her full of antibiotics and oxygen 24 hours a day. So in addition to her being in the hospital, I had two relatives staying with us at home.

The immediate crisis is past, but cumulative lung damage means that she’s now largely inactive, and a lot of things around the house (that I’ve had the luxury of ignoring) have fallen on my shoulders to get done, plus being caregiver for my mother. I share these duties with my brother, but of course it’s a “two-way street” in that each of us also contributes to the need for things around the house…. for instance, he cooks because he gets home earlier, but dear lord, what he does to a kitchen should be banned under the Geneva Conventions. My job is to clean up. And of course, I had lots of work to catch up.

I’ve found a bit of time to spare for a couple of posts on Houblog and blogHOUSTON, but haven’t had the drive/energy for Majou yet. Not that I’ve been watching much animé for that matter. It hasn’t helped that I’ve had 2 computers require a complete reload of the O/S. First off, the laptop’s HD decided to die, but at least it gave me enough warning to get the critical files off. However, since I’ve replaced it, the system won’t stop rebooting spontaneously. It even turns itself on. I don’t know if it’s some kind of battery problem (I pulled the battery while I changed the HD) or if somethings contacting where it shouldn’t on the HD. At the same time I was coping with that, I found out the hard way that Steven’s dislike of Bittorrent software is well-founded. Although to be fair, my mistake was in clicking on a fansub group’s url to their site. I was getting curious about the different groups, and I thought I’d see if they had a forum and check out their other series, etc. Wish I could remember which group now. For my curiosity I got a trojan, a shitload of spyware, and adware out the wazoo.

I installed the latest AdAware and even hauled out MacAffee, as much as I hate it, but it wasn’t enough to scrub the system. I finally had to nuke it and reload the O/S (yes, it’s still W2K SP4, Dr. Heinous!). Unfortunately, that left me unable to load the MB drivers for several days because I couldn’t find the right CD. “Download and USB,” says Dr.H. “Ouch!” I say, after smacking my head. Still, I can’t get the sound to work out quite right–the onboard sound has been faulty for years, so I installed a cheap card that causes no end of trouble to TeamSpeak, and that hasn’t changed. Can’t hear, can’t talk, but anyone else talking gets an echo. It’s like the Line In is hardwired to the Microphone. Bah.

I haven’t yet re-installed Azureas on that system and I’m not sure I want to, so no more “free” animé. Not that I’ve been in an animé mood lately–most of my spare time has been taken up by WOW, I admit. I’m just now getting to the level where I can administer some payback to those Alliance bastards who ganked us so many times…

I’ve watched maybe 2 more episodes of Outlaw Star, but I’m barely past the halfway point. Haven’t watched the end of Bakumatsu yet. (Aside: I think it lost something after the Revenge Troupe broke up. The story-within-a-story, story-as-reality, and reality-as-story angles seemed to give it a special zing, especially when reality intruded rudely into the play. After the troupe broke up, that was gone and it was just a typical animé swords-and-evil-spirits story, with a side of typical gimmicky animé villains taken straight from central casting and stuffed into British Marine uniforms.) Nor have I opened GITS:SAC, or DVD1 of Coyote Ragtime Show. Obviously I need some better animé to watch.

Well, if I’m not finding it to download, I’d best be ordering from Robert, then. To replace the crappy Chinese bootlegs, I pre-ordered the new thinpack of Vandred I & II. I also pre-ordered DVD 2 (special edition) of Haruhi Suzimaya. I’m really chapped at how they’re releasing it… DVD 2 SE has DVD 1 subbed and in the original broadcast order. So I have to buy BOTH the English and Japanese version and pay for a bunch of extras I don’t give a damn about. Like I’m going to parade about in an SOS armband at a convention. Sheesh. So anyway, after that, and the Divergence Eve soundtrack, I need something stupid and fanservicey. (I said stupid, not brain dead. Girls’ High is not in the cards.) Ikki Tousen ought to fit that bill just fine.

Personally, I blame Wonderduck for that choice.

Posted in Administrative, Upcoming Releases | 4 Comments

Hiatus

Posted on May 8, 2007 by Ubu Roi

It’s not just blah. Family medical issues, fairly serious. Unknown amount of time.

Posted in Random Nonsense | 2 Comments

Blah.

Posted on May 2, 2007 by Ubu Roi

I should be working on a post over at Houblog or blogHOUSTON far more than I need to be working on one here.

But I don’t care, really.

Well, maybe a little. But not enough to do anything about it.

Posted in Bitching, Random Nonsense | 4 Comments

Some More Thoughts on Shakugan No Shana

Posted on April 25, 2007 by Ubu Roi

This is going to end up being largely below the fold and even then, in blackout, because there’s just too much here that is spoiler-ish. For those with no prior exposure to this series, it is a 26 episode horror/teen angst show that aired in Japain in 2005, and is currently being released in the US on DVD. The 5th DVD will be out in May.

I can’t do a rundown of the major character without turning this into a full write-up, which I just don’t have time to do tonight. (OK, I suck, I’m playing too much WOW, but come on, those Alliance bastards deserve to die!) So I’m just going to cover the gist, and play off of some comments by Steven in our recent exchange of letters, and in his posts.

Earth is being preyed upon by beings from another dimension, called the “Crimson World.” From there, “Denizens” and their assistants “Rinne” cross over, freeze a piece of reality (the Japanese word used for this is “fuzetsu”), and devour humans — not their bodies, but their very existence. If a person is eaten in this fashion, it is as if they never existed. Everyone forgets them, and all evidence that they existed is erased. It’s terribly disruptive to reality, and has the potential to destroy our world. Some entities, called “kings” or “Lords” (although they rule nothing like a kingdom) oppose this, and cross over to our reality, partner with a human, who becomes known as a “Flame Haze,” and try to kill the Denizens. Whenever they can, they replace the destroyed existences with “Torches.” These are a simulacrum which burns out after a while; it serves to buffer the shock of the person’s destroyed existence and lessens the strain on reality. Some torches are special, and have powers or magical items, seemingly at random. They’re known as Mystes.

This show unexpectedly mixes two genres that seem to be oil and water: horror, and teen angst. I think it would have been a far better show if they’d stuck with only the horror, but on the other hand, it might have simply faded into the pack as “just another horror show.” Shana (a Flame Haze) and Yuiji (a Mystes) are both high-school age, and they’re caught in a very terrible sort of war, as Steven puts it “one in which it’s a victory when only a hundred people are destroyed and replaced by torches.” Shana chose it, but Yuiji was dragged into it, only to find out he had already been a victim, without knowing it.

Everything else starts getting into spoilers, so below the fold it goes… don’t go there if you don’t want some major plot developments to be given away, and some deep speculation. The worst stuff is also blacked out.

Continue reading →

Posted in Series Reviews | 4 Comments

Quick Thought on Shana

Posted on April 25, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Steven says in response to Wonderduck’s question on Shana’s assumption of Yukari’s existance:

The girl Hirai Yukari is consumed by a rinne (a servant of a denizen) in the first episode and is replaced by a torch. In the second episode that torch burns out right in front of Yuji. Shana is nearby when it happens, and captures a small ember on one of her fingers. The next day at school she’s there sitting where Yukari had been sitting, and everyone refers to her as Hirai Yukari….The reason that no one forgets about Yukari is because Shana is using her own power to maintain that past without it fading out. But also because of that, everyone accepts her as being Yukari and no one notices the replacement. That’s the nature of the magic involved.

Steven also has some serious problems with the contradictions in “Yukari’s” existence:

If, before she went away, Yukari lived alone then it means that the house is now completely vacant. A landlord or a bank or tax collectors or neighbors are going to notice and wonder. If Yukari was not living alone, then whoever she was living with (parents, siblings, servants, guardians) would notice that she was gone. In any case, eventually someone is going to file a “missing person” report with the police, and the most obvious first place for an investigator to look around would be Yukari’s school — where he’s going to be told that she’s been attending normally. Then he’s going to seek her out at the school and ask her why she hasn’t gone home.

The answer to all this is that I think it’s a misread of what Shana did. She didn’t maintain Yukari’s past; she took over Yukari’s present. She or Allistor altered Yukari’s past existence when she took it over. Her parents do not remember her, they have nothing to indicate they ever had a child, no one remembers them having a child, and everyone in the school knows her as “that orphan girl who lives alone.” There is no direct confirmation of that anytime, but we do see Shana’s apartment late in the series (she lived alone) — and my question is “how does she pay for it?” One of the things I looked for was whether it was actually Shana’s or Yukari’s, and there’s no clear indication. I got the feeling it was Shana’s, though.

As for Chigusa…. well, I’m going to let it wait until tomorrow and finish up the longer article I’m writing.

Posted in Episode Reviews | 2 Comments

A God or Not? (See Update!)

Posted on April 19, 2007 by Ubu Roi

Steven’s recent concern over the correct translation of “Brigade” in Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya turns out to be due to his worrying over his speculation on the “Kyon is God” theory being affected negatively by botched translations from the fansubbers. I think he’s being overly concerned; both a.f.k. and Lunar seem to be pretty good groups with good translations (not like Shining Forest or Doremai, which come out rather….Engrishy). But still it’s a good thing to check one’s assumptions and basic data.

As for Kyon’s status, been there, done that speculation, back when Houblog had anime. And as I have said elsewhere, it’s the events of Ep.11 (Day of Sagittarius) that first made me think seriously that he might really be the one doing it all. He may be the most ordinary of them all, but he’s the only one who can steer Haruhi when the chips are down.

But.

In the second half of the Island mystery, we see *something* happen in the cave. Haruhi has a sudden realization, and we see the world distort briefly. It is never explained. It doesn’t make the “Kyon is God” theory impossible, but it does lean against it if Haruhi suddenly changed things so that the whole episode was a prank/plot/distraction by the espers. On the flip side against that, we saw Yuki looking at the unmarked door and then at Kyon before this happened.

Is it a retcon if we see it preemptively? (Just kidding.)

I’m not going to discuss the books other than to say there is evidence both ways, but I think the anime leans against Kyon being God, and the books, based on one story in particular (Endless Summer), lean in favor. The thing is, the author had a great deal of input into the series, so I think he might have planted the cave scene to be ambiguous and/or confuse the issue.

Or we could be guilty of over-analyzing everything: What w said in the comments of Wabi Sabi’s excellent article …

‘I get the feeling most Japanese fans watch anime to be entertained first – case in point, one Japanese guy at the animesuki forums once commented in a thread where everyone was discussing stuff seriously: “Why are you guys taking it so seriously? It’s just entertainment, I dont’ see why foreign fans can’t just relax and enjoy it as it is”. Or something along those lines.’

It could be that neither the author nor KyoAni have any thoughts whatsoever on that, and nothing means anything in particular. Who knows? But we can have fun arguing it for a couple of years, at least.

As an aside, I found w’s next paragraph intriguing:

‘Interestingly enough according to the same 2ch guy I mentioned earlier, anime might be expereincing a good period now precisely because of overseas attention to it. Previously most people didn’t care so much about anime or it was generally kept as a quiet topic – but when foreign attention is given to anime suddenly more people start noticing it. If the foreigners like it it must be good! kind of thing. No other reason why GITS, which was financially a bomb in Japan, got no less than 2 26-ep TV series and an extra movie to boot, all with a very high budget. It’s been mentioned elsewhere that some shows would not turn a profit if it wasn’t for foreign licensing.’

I wonder if this is why we’re seeing so much more anime produced in Japan in the last year or two? It’s gone from 50 series a season to over 100 in only a couple of years, hasn’t it? Like Hollywood, they may now be trying to just break even in the domestic market and profit from the overseas revenue. Which leads me to the question: Which market was the recent Pizza Hut sponsorship deal with Code Geass really aimed at?

Well, if it’s true, this is great for us, especially if they start paying more attention to that Western Logic Wabi Sabi was talking about…

UPDATE 4/20: Robert came through in style with TSR DVD 4, several days ahead of when it was supposed to be available. The reason that’s important to this post: The trailer for Melancholy is on it — and they do say “SOS Brigade.” Accurate or not, it’s now canon.

And I hate Haruhi’s English voice. She sounds like a spoiled girl, not a megalomaniac.

Posted in Random Nonsense | 8 Comments