Holy cow. Normally I wouldn’t dedicate a single post upon listening to an anime OST unless it was damn good (e.g. Baccano, Bamboo Blade, Cowboy Bebop) or simply sounded like a normal concept album that I’d actually pick up and listen to, and not some kind of string of musics that were obviously written for a section of an episode.

My ears nearly exploded when I heard Koutei Oudan Kousoku Tetsudou (track 10). It was a mind-bending, psychedelic, free jazz song crushed into a minute, written to sound like a song that a Japanese Alan Pasqua that couldn’t catch the train fast enough and had dropped his favorite pastry in the process, thus making him miss the opportunity to play in the Mahavishnu Orchestra resulting in a bad mood, would have written. For some reason I don’t recognize the track at all. Which is a probably a big indicator that I haven’t finished the series. I should promptly get on that, but there’s so much other things to do. Like play Skyrim and Vindictus.

The rest of the OST is unfortunately very much OST-like, and just sounds like the sound engineer dicking around with a chaos pad, sine waves, moderate amounts of experimental Polka beats, and a little bit of bossa nova for good measure. It’s all appropriate for what the show was and somewhat entertaining to listen to, but it ain’t some magical score that elevates a show to higher tiers of awesome. It also has a track that suddenly gets all Andy McKee on us. What.

Additionally, the Goshiki Agiri character album has a prime example of the silly voice within an anime getting a song completely not befitting of it’s primary function. Maybe it’s just me being a faggot for the very heavy usage of traditional Japanese scales combined with dat moé pop sheen music production, along with Takabe Ai’s Agiri voice. But dammit, “Teenage High School Ninja Girl” is such an earworm of a song. It’s a very potent mixture if you can appreciate a joke song coincidentally being written by professional musicians. Go find the FLAC files for it because the placebo effect of realizing it’s 31MB for a 4 minute song will probably help. The lyrics sound inane, but who cares? It’s like Agiri whispering into your ears. It’s very pleasant to listen to, as well as highly arousing. (YMMV)

And have a Sonya tripping over herself in a moé fashion because all maids do it so they can sue you for logistical, geographical and philosophical harassment.

The ED is also good. Go memorize that dance and perform it live at AnimeExpo 2012; you’ll be youtube superstars.

-maserbeam

I would have never thought I’d be able to use Eldritch Moe Blobs as a post title. But now I am, after despicable me has cast mine eyes on such an abomination. What happens when you view such a thing? This:

Read the rest of this entry »

-maserbeam

XEBEC, you’re not allowed to break this rule. You are NOT supposed to have all three heroines late for school, running and eating toast. Do you have three male characters that compliment each one? No. What do you expect us to see? All three of them bump into each other and make out later in yurilicious fashion?

… oh yeah.

We’re eleven episodes into Rinne no Lagrange. It still hasn’t let up with the pace it started with, and more surprising, it’s been trying to ramp it up. Episode seven felt like a filler episode, but with a dash of Muginami character development. I like this technique a lot since it allows those short bursts backstory and exposition to settle in without having overstayed their welcome. Often I see this kind of filler/development episode just fall flat, but with the setting Rinne no Lagrange has, it just feels natural. Why would this technique seem okay when Rinne no Lagrange does it and maybe not another? If you pick a similar episode in a separate series that also involves young characters that need to overcome friendship hurdles, and an unexplained backstory (to the other characters), it is often a sequence of evenly spread out character driven flashbacks and events which I think results in the dilution of the intended effect. If the rest of the series properly sets it up, then maybe it’s not much of an issue. That much is obvious.

But the big robot genre tends to collide with this very issue — often enough that I can’t stomach watching a new one, despite having enjoyed the robot anime genre for a while now. A series that needs an entire episode of flashbacks (heaven forbid more than one) is usually a multi-cour series. When was the last time you enjoyed a full episode of exposition and flashback that was intended to push the “This is why you should care” button? I certainly don’t remember any at all because I probably dropped those series due to such pacing issues, which does not help this post reinforce the issue I’m trying to argue about. A cheap shot would be mentioning any long running shonen anime. I remember Bleach being a repeat offender of this. I think I’ve already addressed the problem however. An anime done right should not have to push that “This is why you should care” button, because the second you’re able to recognize such character and plot function, it’s failed it’s job. Caring about a character should come naturally with the flow of the story, otherwise it’ll just feel bad. Should one not care about the character, it should at least shed light on the current situation. It’s what exposition is supposed to be. The thing I’m trying to say is that backstory, is just that. It’s backstory. It’s not the main story, so don’t shove it into the spot light.

I believe that a slice of backstory should not be an entire episode. Even as an entire episode, I don’t think it should be even in multi-cour(2+ cours worth) series. A counter point might be that there surely are entire episodes made as dedicated flashback/backstory episodes that, if removed, would have greatly impacted the strength and flow of a series. I say to that, if it fit well enough that removing it would have changed the pacing significantly and any intended effects, then it’s no longer backstory.

Ask yourself after watching episode seven of Rinne no Lagrange, what was the point of Lan mishandling eels? Nothing. (Fanservice.)

I loved that eel scene with Lan. Oh god.

It’s probably evident that I’ve written this when episode seven came out. I have stuff bottled up since then, and I’ll address it once the series closes. Unless I’m severely underestimating the amount of episodes.

And the post misspelling is intentional.

-maserbeam

I started this website for nostalgic reasons. If I had to point to a starting area, it would have to be the 90s. That’s more than a decade ago. Makes me wonder why I’m still watching anime after so long.

Often, I’ve had to introduce myself at my college’s anime club as someone who started watching anime thanks to Guyver. But I can’t say I really saw the show. The best I can recall end up as vague memories of a fantastical show with an armored human who shot lasers and/or rockets from his chest. The second detail that really stuck to me was a scene where (I’m assuming it was the main protagonist.) someone threw a punch towards another. There was 2 seconds of speed lines behind the flying fist, and it connects with the second character’s face. Neither of the characters moved for a while after that. The camera was focused on the result of the punch for a good 10 seconds. At least, that’s how it played out in my head.

Nothing much happened after that. I continued to be a normal kid. I grew up on SNES, Genesis, Pop-tarts, Saturday morning cartoons, and after school tomfoolery. Things like the Playstation and DVDs were interesting. Jumping forward several years yields a more tangible result; I downloaded my first anime episode over a file sharing program. Boy, was that a huge mistake. It would drastically shift my interests from their current foundations.

I would spend a majority of my time visiting the local rental place for anime. A meager selection of anime was on display. I didn’t complain. There was at least an entire isle of anime, and my Fridays encompassed the act of wondering what I would watch over the weekend. I did not have a very reliable internet speed during this point in time. Being able to download an entire episode’s worth of show was mind-boggling — at least in retrospect. After realizing my internet wasn’t very good for downloading large amounts of anime, I had to resort to other people who had watched these shows way before I could have. This meant going to a website specialized in episodic summaries and plot deconstruction, and finding a new type of website: the anime blog.

I can only recall two blogs today that have drastically affected my thought processes while I watch anime. Jeff Lawson’s Anime Blog and Memento were my two main gateways to the anime I would end up watching. I can’t discount the other blogs I had visited so many years ago, but none fill my memory with much clarity, I can only appreciate those who have spent the time to write about anime.

Jeff had a style of writing that slowly ebbed me into the warmth that some anime focused on. There was show about sad girls in snow that I occasionally found hard to watch, but Jeff somehow knew how to soften the blow. He watched, and wrote, with an intellect I didn’t have. It guided me on what was magical about the anime I watch. The great anime masterpieces all had it. At first I didn’t know where to look, but it was evident that having someone intellectualize each episode in a series helped a ton. Hard to recall if Jeff did any episodic analysis, but nonetheless, his blog was influential to me. I’m not so sure I’d be able to sit down and watch something like Aria the Animation or Mushishi if it weren’t for Jeff and other bloggers like him.

My experience with Memento’s blog was more akin to picking up a magazine. It was reliable, had just enough text, and more importantly, SCREENCAPS! Memento’s blog was one of the first anime blogs I frequented that had numerous screencaps.  At first I tried not to look at screen captures of an anime I was interested in because at this point, I was able to discern the plot from a sequence of screencaps alone. But I am a superficial person — sometimes the visual elements alone are enough to convince me to watch a show. Sometimes you’d rather not suffer the art and animation. If you think like me, the visual aspect of anime is almost more important than any effort invested in the story. I believe that skillful storytelling paints the visuals as well. Thus, visuals can tell a story. Despite this derail, it was thanks to Memento that I found Honey & Clover, Mushishi, and Kekkaishi.

There is an anime named Trapeze. Now that is one anime that is a favorite for the sole reason of it’s visual impact. I really do question my taste in anime sometimes, and when I realize I like this show and don’t have a very good explanation why, it undermines my goal of having a sophisticated mind like those before me who write with eloquence.

***

What does all of this reminiscing do for me? Not much, other than realizing I still haven’t gotten anywhere near my intended goal. Currently, my site is mainly my area to stomp my feet in anger and post on blog, or bask in the glory of some epic anime that makes me appreciate the go-getters in life, and perhaps become one myself.

-maserbeam

“Unresolved conflict. Zero tension. Maximum pretty star effect. J.C. Staff’s watercolour palette.”

It’s really what I’d call this show. It’s a traditional id software code throw back to a type of anime I’ve never seen. And because I’m writing this while I’m sick, my ability to create comprehensive thoughts are shoved through a window made out of air. This implies that this window doesn’t exist, and more of a hint that a rectangular hole revealing the outside is in place. So what is Kill Me Baby, and why should anyone care? Truth is, you still won’t know what it is after watching, nor will you care afterwards after claiming you do. It’s so narrow in its idea of appeal, that only those who have a reckless taste in brain-foaming, sedative induced laughter would entertain the idea of watching this show for recreation.

And by golly, this show is perfect for me.

Yasuna’s stupidity and Sonya’s twintails of murderous intent is where it’s often focused, but there’s a lot surrounding it in a strange plastic wrapping. You know that feeling of peace and warmth you get when you climb into your bed after slogging through a cold wintery outside? None of that is here. It’s all awkward and full of Kyon-kun’s eye glazing humor, while lacking in the actual Kyon department. And every time I mention Kyon, I realize how much of a mancrush Ariolander has on Crispin Freeman. I’m lucky enough to have a female seiyuu I semi-obsess over, and it’s Satomi Arai — her voice, even in small vocal quips, always make me post on my blog. I’d have no idea how to react if Tomokazu Sugita actually had a character in Kill Me Baby. It didn’t help that Kugyuu (Rie Kugimiya) is also in this show, as the new character in episode 3. Get a Mr. Sakaguchi Daisuke in there and Patsuwan it up.

I might be a lost case to the seiyuu faggotry that invades a Japanese’s otaku’s mind. But I attempt to allay these fears by playing FPS games loaded with explosions, and punching for victory in Vindictus with Karok’s new weapon.

The music is rather apt for the show, nailing it’s non-Kyonitivity. Anyone who doesn’t like the opening and closing songs are actually allowed to. Because when haters realize they’ve fallen into the pit of “Yeah, you’re supposed to react like that.” they’ll feel stupid. I have a brain optimized for both musician and non-musician inklings, so I tend to enjoy liking music when others hate it just to spite them. And in this bad habit of mine, I discovered that I whatever I enjoy, I enjoy. I’ll be damned if I couldn’t properly explain why such music is still enjoyable even without a hint of academic music theory in my bones.

Is BONES doing anything this season? I need another middle-of-the-road, generic, robot drama with an OP that has copious amounts of interpretive dance.

Honestly, I’m writing this while sick. Why I could write more than usual is probably explained by my lack of judgement.

-maserbeam