Haibane.info

Category: Anime

  • Robotech through the mirror

    Daniel has an awesome “slice” of SDF: Macross – the scene where (Rick) saves (Minmei) in mid-air. The only thing missing from his description is the part where Rick almost falls out of the cockpit himself, but is saved by the canopy glass. Of course, I am completely ruined as far as Macross goes, since that entire scene is firmly in the Robotech context for me. But his description is exactly as I remember it, even though I haven’t seen that scene since (at best guess) 1994.

    Where are all the Macross bloggers anyway? Daniel’s sincere appreciation of the series is pretty rare (I’ve yet to go through his archives on it). Almost everyone else seems to look down on it as some proto-anime-culture which everyone has long since grown up for (and yet, Ranma still makes the rounds??). Have we all forgotten just how much cooler 50-foot robots that transform into jet fighters are than silly schoolgirls’ underpants? (ok, I’m treading close to the border of otaku blasphemy here, but I am fearless).

    I should read more of that blog. Subscribing now. The title alone is worth extra points.

    UPDATE: Legend of the Galactic Heroes? I am intrigued.

  • Makoto, light!

    Astro and Nick have been talking about Makoto Shinkai for a while now. Astro’s pending review of a Place Promised in Our Early Days is one I am looking forward to, I just watched it two days ago myself and plan to rewatch today and take some screenshots. The thing that struck me the most about it was the way Shinkai is in love with light. He places the “camera” to capture the light in the most charismatic way possible, treating the light as if it were the main character in the frame. I need to snag some frames because while the plot was intriguing in its own way (I found it somewhat Kino-esque), it was really the visuals that took me in and have made me a Shinkai fan. I have quite a backlog to get through, though. I already know where I need to start.

  • Ranma disc 2

    Steven and I are eerily in sync on Ranma. I just finished the Martial Arts Gymnastics arc yesterday. In a nutshell, what he said, especially about the telegraphed (spoiler) plot development. Still, while Kodachi was a waste of screen time (imagine Greta from Sugar, but without any of the redeeming qualities, and a violent streak), I had to admit that the development of the love “hypercube” (as SDB put it) was fascinating. Oh, and the conversation of the St. Hebereke gymnastics team while, ahem, under cover, was hilarious.

    I still don’t quite get why Ranma doesn’t expose Ryoga, but I suppose this will become more clear.

  • rethinking Ranma

    I was not impressed with Ranma – I barely made it through the first disc. But Steven’s enthusiasm is somewhat infectious. I wonder if I approached it from the wrong perspective; it seems more like a recurring romantic sitcom than a genuine story arc-driven plot. If I treat it at the level I would, say, Three’s Company, then maybe it will work for me. It probably also helps that Steven started in season 2, where presumably the writers had long since hit their stride. Pete theorizes that this might be the best way to approach a long-running series (and they don’t get much longer than Ranma). So, I think I will give Ranma another chance.

    UPDATE: Steven discusses the plot structure:

    It’s more comedic and slapstick than Maison Ikkoku but the characters are far better conceived than in Urusei Yatsura.

    One thing becomes clear at this point: the series is constructed of a sequence of multi-episode story arcs. There’s an occasional one-off ep (like the “Ramen Delivery martial arts” story) but what you mainly have is arcs that cover 3-5 episodes. And that really does work pretty well. If the series were constructed entirely of one-ep stories it would come off as rather vapid. This way the stories are more deep. It keeps me coming back.

    I think “vapid” and “slapstick” accurately describe my impressions of Ranma after watching disc 1 of season 1. All the more evidence that Pete’s theory is generalizable to long series. The writers simply take time to mature into their characters and flesh them out. I know I still wince whenever I see an episode from season 1 of Star Trek: Next Generation…

  • A brief visual taste of Makoto Shinkai

    via Nick, who has been blogging about Shinkai and Byousoko 5 cm for a year now. The subtitles are, ahem. not officially sanctioned. The hype surrounding Shinkai as the next Miyazaki has definitely whetted my interest. I have also learned that you can’t go wrong with a Nick obsession 🙂

    UPDATE: Nick has a massive post with numerous shorts by Shinkai, and a link to an english fan site.

  • Closing thoughts on Dennou Coil

    I think Nick says it best:

    Sometimes, I wonder how the Japanese are able to show what are considered “children’s anime” which can deal with very serious topics. How do they allow shows that put their viewers through such an emotional roller coaster that are said to be aimed at elementary school students? And why don’t I see or hear about this in many modern American animations, unlike the American classics (recall something like Bambi, for example)? I don’t hear of anything that runs like Full Moon wo Sagashite in America today, but I have found another example of an emotionally tiring series in Denno Coil.

    Emotionally tiring, precisely because it’s a serious children’s anime. There is a lack of pretense and a willingness to treat children seriously that is the hallmark of the kind of anime I am drawn to. There are few to none of examples of this in American animation, though I think Pixar makes an effort. However, the closest analouge in our media would be children’s books, like Bridge to Terabithia or Holes (both of which have since made the transition to movie form; I’ve read both but only seen the former).

    Dennou Coil is definitely targeted at children, but it seemed a blend of a lot of more adult-level anime. The Haibane Renmei parallel is obvious, with a Reki-Rakka empath/loner pair joined by an emotional bond. There’s also the Serial Experiments Lain parallel, toying with the nature of reality and the implications of granting too much “reality” to cyberspace (I would argue in fact that Dennou Coil did a superior job of this than Lain). The magical girl concept is neatly transposed to the technological here, you could even argue for a hint of Someday’s Dreamers in there. But the point about Dennou Coil is that it manages to straddle all these genres of anime and yet establish it’s own unique identity on its own terms.

    I have to agree, this is one of the best anime I have ever seen. I have to rank it slightly more highly than Shingu, since it was equally enjoyable to watch but simply had greater heft, its backstory formly grounded in the rich human experience instead of needing to import aliens wholesale.

    I don’t have much to say about the ending, spoilerwise or otherwise. Some random screen shots below the fold… (more…)

  • Byousoku 5 centimeters

    I came across this fascinating anime movie via a banner ad of all things. It’s subtitled, “a chain of short stories about their distance” and is aboutfriends who grow apart over time, rather than closer. Here’s the summary from Anime News Network:

    A tale of two people, Tono Takaki and Shinohara Akari, who were close friends but gradually grow farther and farther apart as time moves on. They become separated because of their families yet continue to exchange contact in the form of letters. Yet as time continues to trudge on, their contact with one another begins to cease. Years pass and the rift between them grows ever larger. However, Takaki remembers the times they have shared together, but as life continues to unfold for him, he wonders if he would be given the chance to meet Akari again as the tale embarks on Takaki’s realization of the world and people around him.

    There’s also a trailer on YouTube:

    I like the style, and also the sentiment of the plot. I think I will add this to my netflix queue if I can find it there.

  • Yume returns

    yumeNew Someday’s Dreamers series to begin this summer!

    According to Moonphase, a new Someday’s Dreamers, (a.k.a. Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto), series has been greenlit for production and is set to begin later this summer season…

    The new series is entitled, “Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto ~Natsu no Sora~.” A formal announcement, according to this 2ch thread, will be made in the latest issue of Shounen Ace magazine — on sale March 26.

    (via Nick and AnimeNfo)

  • are fansubbers pirates?

    Shamus has a three part series on PC game piracy in which he makes some concrete recommendations to the game industry. Part of Shamus’ premise is simply that video game piracy is a problem partly driven by the industry itself, with ever-increasing paranoid reliance on clumsy copy protection and authentication schemes that treat ordinary users like criminals and which do nothing to deter the thieves. He argues that the industry should accept a baseline level of piracy and attempt to incentivize users to buy the product rather than attempt to forestall it completely. His specific recommendations are:

    1. Make sure the pirates can’t offer a superior product
    2. Get closer to the community
    3. Offer a demo
    4. Entice them with valuable updates
    5. Clean House

    How does this apply to anime? It occurs to me that the rationale for the fansub industry is quite similar to game piracy. Region-encoding, release schedules, and unequal pricing seem to be the methods by which the anime industry attempts to control their product and which has created the vacuum which fansubbers have rushed to fill.

    Do Shamus’ recommendations apply? It makes for an interesting thought experiment.

  • Dennou Coil 12: A Space Odyssey

    This episode was largely tangential, but it was a blast. I mean that literally:

    denno coil 12

    In a nutshell, Yasako becomes a God, literally. She communicates to her People, but they do not understand…

    denno coil 12denno coil 12

    and they reject her counsel and engage in ultimate folly:

    denno coil 12

    But ultimately they realize the error of their ways and embark upon a new age of enlightenment:

    denno coil 12

    This episode paid homage to grand epic science fiction and philosophical themes rather than trying to actively explore them in any depth. It was a lot of fun as an interlude – not much in way of the larger plot was advanced. I just had a big goofy grin on my face the entire time.