Category Archives: English Language Modern Visual Fandom

May 19, 2013

Wai AnimeSols Akari AnimeSols Daisuki

By omo

datedatedatedatedaisukidakara.jpg

I think I’m going to have a good time making fun of Daisuki. Daisuki, the international effort of a Japanese congolmerate trying to promote digital streaming distribution overseas, opened its doors last Thursday and featured a sampling of free streaming anime with both new shows like Gundam Seed HD and Lupin the III 2nd season. I mean, that’s quite a range; you could be crawling in your skin watching Sword Art Online one moment and slapping away with Zeta Gundam the next.

Launching the site also means playing most of its hand. The design of the site seems to break down into a video section and a store section. The FAQ page lists various generic Q&As that a retailer site would have. It also answers questions about a potential pay-subscription service. None of those things are available yet. In fact, other than some hiccups, there’s not much to say about Daisuki itself right now.

The one thing that can be said is DRM. At least, I am assuming this is why Daisuki’s video playback require flash, and local storage via flash. So if you can’t get that to work, no video for you. Which also means no video for most devices running Android 4.1+ or any iOS devices.

A very different story happened 2 days earlier when AnimeSols launched. The half-kickstarter, half-free-streaming site launched with 8 titles from the wayback machine. I watched an episode of Creamy Mami and I am like, hey this is not entirely terrible. It uses only HTML5 which means it works on everything other than Firefox and some versions of IE. They are essentially streaming without DRM.

It isn’t to say AnimeSols don’t have (serious) problems. The website looks like a fan site from 6 years ago, the pledge mechanism could be better (eg., can’t freely cancel pledge before deadline). The fatal flaw is a general lack of understanding why successful crowdfunding projects are successful. It didn’t launch with some key components like FAQ and the like (some were added afterwards). There are simply too many launch pledge titles, there is next to zero discovery mechanism, and generally does a poor job of marketing any of their pledge drives (in fact I don’t even know how it is suppose to work, who is running them, etc). Well, it’s hard to say what is what without knowing the constraints Daisuki and AnimeSols had to work with, but AnimeSols is like that beautiful paper airplane from ef, except it’s gonna crash and burn.

I think there’s a half-empty, half-full approach to look at these two new ventures. On one hand, anime is kind of an insular business, especially since Japan can’t be counted on to produce a catchy tech business, let alone revolving around children’s cartoons. Outside of Japan, there are probably too few people to really call on in order to make something really top notch. At least, not after Crunchyroll–arguably the only legit startup in the business. That Strike Witches joke from Seizon season one, heh, strikes again–it takes more than one person to make an anime; it takes also more than one person to sell it.

But I would love to be proven wrong.

These two sites are just getting started. Time will tell. Meanwhile go sign up on Daisuki, win some prizes and vote on what you want to see. If you want junk from anime studios’ storage closets in the form of “vintage merchandise” from shows back in the 70s, go back some stuff from AnimeSols.

PS. The post topic is brought to you by this adorable twitter bot. This post is brought to you by the need to pun.

PPS. The ANNCast with Daisuki rep is unfortunate. I’m not sure anyone took note or what, but if there’s one takeaway, it’s that old Toei titles are all open game (eg., people will really daisuki for Daisuki when it becomes the one place that shows Sailor Moon), except of whatever that may be blocking their way.

PPPS. Hi there.

http://twitter.com/epitanime/statuses/335580302992887808

4 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom

May 16, 2013

Flood OreImo Web Radio with Your Overflowing Affection

By omo

“Otakus of the world, unite!”

DJ KURONEKO is probably a real DJ.

Should I put a [sic] there? I guess not. Anyway, Oreimo season 2 web radio has this corner where they are reading international fan mail. So it’s really neat. What’s even more awesome is how the web radio page got a translation so you can just waltz over and type in nonsense and hit submit. I think it would be great if all the oversea viewers of OreImo got to send their messages to the radio show.

To do it right, I think you also need to try a few things.

  • If you have some Japanese ability, try to write your message in Japanese. It’s okay to use terrible Japanese if you are a legit gaijin, and I think it’s kind of a good thing, as that gives them something to talk about. But it’s also impressive if your written Japanese is top notch.
  • Approach the message like a letter. Write a “Dear Miss Taketatsu and Miss Hanazawa” in there or something. It’s okay to close with “sincerely yours” but it’s probably not as important as the initial bit of the letter. It’s tempting to treat it like an internet blog comment, but this is a radio show still, folks.
  • Include where you are from in the letter. And generally stick to topic.
  • Additionally if you can handle listening to the previous episodes (well, just ep 2 and 3), give it a spin and hear what they say about the segment to give you an idea what to write.

I ended up using machine translated text. Great thing about Google’s web interface is that it has text-to-speech, so I can translate the text and hit playback to at least make sure what I wrote sounds okay, even if I can’t read it.

Most of these tie-in radio shows are pre-recorded, and so is this one. New episodes come out twice a month on alternating Thursdays (Japan time), but it makes me think that they’re recorded at the same time. At least, given episodes 1 and 2. I’m guessing if we submit comments to the show today, it probably won’t show up in the next week’s episode.

I think this is a great way to show that oversea fans can represent. They’re asking for it. Let’s give it to them.

PS. Just want to document this … thing some more.

https://twitter.com/oreimo_anime/status/335005608908582912

3 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, Seiyuu, Idol, Pop

May 9, 2013

Jojo Generation

By omo

Lisa Lisa

I was listening to this at some point before my trip in which the interviewee, a internet-popular personality defines meme as an idea that passes through generations a way DNA does, but just faster. Then I thought about Jojo.

I viewed Jojo TV marathon-style, but in sprints. The first 6 episodes I took it weekly, then I watched like 7-14 in one shot, and then 15 to the end after maybe a 3-month gap. I thought it worked well, except that the last chunk of it I was kind of just plowing through while half-tired and jetlagged, on a plane.

Feeling tired while watching the climatic end to Jojo made it a little less dramatic. But watching it marathon style does nothing to hide the feeling that the same formula in which the same kind of thing happens in the first arc was used in the second arc. Maybe it’s a good way to see how the 1800s isn’t so different than the 1900s. I don’t know if it’s true or not, at least when it comes to the content of our heroes’ hearts and the curse of the super-species of man that started eons ago.

It feels like memes are the anachronism for the future? Like, it is both a pot mark in the past in which the future can “understand” (eg., via name dropping) and also a way in which the future can connect to the past (eg., generational). It’s just the vantage point differ, since there’s that arrow of time and all.

 

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Jojo no Kimyou na Bouken

April 26, 2013

FREE Willy, the Swimming Anime

By omo

I think I can make 99 jokes based on FREE, the newly announced Kyoto Animation project. This TV anime will hit the airwaves in July 2013. It’s roughly the same anime people have been clamoring for since the Animation Do KyoAni commercial of the same subject matter aired a couple months ago. Today, the characters have names, voice acting, and are part of some story.

I don’t know, really. After Tamako Market I’m definitely skeptical about another original Kyoto Animation work. I still like/am biased towards original works, so I’ll definitely be watching it when it comes out, even if the visual signals are clearly saying it’s not for me. And it isn’t as if Tamako Market was not fun to watch; just nothing special short of that one episode.

As for the ongoing discourse, to put it broadly, it’s all about Kyoani putting their foot down on female-targeting fanservice. There’s a lot of different reactions out there actually, but what is kind of amusing and bothersome at the same time is the meta-ness of it. There are probably more blog posts and reactions about people who might be against this manflesh anime pandering than actual complaints about the anime, let alone complaints about the anime being manflesh pandering. I’m sure there’s a healthy contingent of whiners, those so-called moe otaku or whatever, but isn’t that true for just any other anime out there? Shouldn’t all this complaints be characterized in a way where it’s normalized against some average? At this point it feels like people are just having fun against a strawman, and yeah, arguing against a strawman is pretty fun.

The way I see, it’s a simple formula of KyoAni fanbase clashing with the truth that there are probably a helluva lot of girls actually working at Kyoto Animation, slaving away at your Hyouka or Chuu2Koi, and now they are doing a project that flies their flags, so to speak. That goes against the typical work Kyoani has produced, so naturally some people are kind of irked. Like all those people hoping for a Full Metal Panic work. (Funny thing is you can’t even really make fun of these guys (at least not full bore) because FMP is at least a cut above, say, an eroge adaptation). I like this–this flag flying–because people tend to draw their best when they draw stuff they like. But, really, just how many girls are working at Kyoani today? Why do I get the impression there are a lot of them?

To take even a bigger step back, I feel this is just an anime hipster kind of thing to do. It’s like there’s this overarching dialog over there in the video game scene about women and sexism, and anime peeps are just making their own version up, in a monkey-see-monkey-does kind of way. I mean, it’s too disingenuous to even call it prosecution. It’s just silly. It doesn’t even address any of the core issues, or real issues involved.

For one, this is about fanservice. It’s clearly not about moe (or anti-moe or whatever). Yet moe gets flagged, why?

Second, more people need to watch Tsuritama. Or KimiBoku. It’s not otaku entertainment if it doesn’t have discourse, and without familiarity of the discourse I don’t know if you can really make sense of it. Like a good doujinshi, it needs context, it’s from fans, to fans. You really get a nice dose of it in the promo material for FREE. In fact I think that’s part of the problem–so far the various promos offer little in terms of what the show will be like besides the fanservice part. There are high schoolers swimming, and…?

To circle back about fanservice and moe, I think maybe it’s more about misidentifying Kyoani fandom? There was all this hoopla about Little Buster and Air and Kanon, after all. I think it’s just yet another chapter in KyoAni’s varied history–from Munto to the Kanon remake to Haruhi-isms to Yamakan. Now this.

And like every misleading narrative, it distracts attention from real issues, like the regularly-issued bomb threats for Kuroko’s Basketball events, or, well, Kyoto Animation hasn’t been able to do an original anime to make a living off of. Will whining about whiners whining about the homoerotic undertones or manflesh or whatever of Free, change any of it? Or improve the lives of women interacting with anime? Doubtful, unless you count the good feels those tumblr campaigns or laughing at internet strawmen bring home. It’s normal for guys (especially nerds) to get squeamish about the naked body; it’s not normal for BL doujin events to get canceled because of bomb threats. I think it’s just sad when people can’t get that straight.

TL;DR – just another day on the internet.

5 comments | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, FREE, Tamako Market

March 18, 2013

From Up on Flag School

By omo

"Back in the days."

From Up on Poppy Hill hails as the first full-length animated feature helmed by a father-son combo. The Miyazakis did a pretty good job here, with its usual features that we’ve came to expect of the typical Ghibli production. Even if it’s an adaptation.

The US dub is, as usual, competent. It falls just short of being a really great dub, but I think it suffices quite well nonetheless.

Watching it on debut weekend on the coattails of the NYICFF takes a bit of air out of it because the screening didn’t count for the box office numbers. It’s kind of weird but those screenings are eligible to be watched by festival pass owners (It’s like $250 or something). Maybe that is why they counted separately.

The real angle I have on this movie is that it has a strange cultural bubble that the narrative swims in. My first reaction after finishing the film was “man, I need to get the JP version and rewatch it.” Thankfully, it will make a fun rewatch. The subdued and awkward teenage drama is as cute as quaint can get. I mean, only if Hyouka was even 10% as cute as this. It’s too restrained to catch up to Whisper of the Heart but this might be the very first Ghibli film since Kondo’s masterpiece which attempted at real teenage awkward-laughing-at.

Poppy Hill makes a very strong parallel with Umi’s home at the Coquelicot Manor and the Quartier Latin, one that is made explicit half way through the movie. I guess it’s typical for the movie to help us out in this way.

In Porco, there was a scene (or two?) where you see these shiny American bombers doing rounds in the sky. I wonder if this is how it feels when Poppy Hill shows us its smoky, 1964 landscapes in Yokohama. It’s all this figurative “flag language” that surrounds the film which makes it doubly more interesting if you knew what it spoke.

PS. I wonder if we can say, fairly, that the difference between Miyazaki Sr.’s film and Jr.’s film being the difference between Shun and Oreki.

Leave a comment | posted in English Language Modern Visual Fandom, Kokurikozaka Kara