My last two laptops have all been named for some dangerous feminine AI from anime (for very flexible definitions thereof): Ai, Lain, and Kusanagi. Now I'm looking for one for my new machine, and I'm leaning toward Kurumi, but there are other possibilities:

• Miyu, from Mai-HiME
• Chi, from Chobits
• Maico, from Anna Maico
• Mahoro, from Mahoromatic
• Jenny, from My Life as a Teenage Robot
• Kosmos, from Xenosaga
• Anevka, from Girl Genius
• Ping, from Megatokyo

So many possibilities! Anyone got a favorite or a counter-suggestion?

Tags: anime, geek
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Vision is a Naked Sword

Y'know what I like about manga? It dares to ask difficult questions. Questions like: "What if the Lone Ranger and Tonto were a pair of highly competent oversexed bubble-breasted nymphomaniac women?"

Y'know what I dislike about manga? Every yaoi artist out there sucks. Every one of them. Couldn't draw a nose that didn't look like a deadly weapon to save his life.

Tags: anime, life
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Billy Joel, Movin' Out

Someone recommended Shining Tears X Wind to me on the grounds that it would be perfect for me: "Bishii, Babes, and Furries." And sure enough, it's got all of the above: two cute guys who aren't aware they should be off somewhere else making out, two hot and busty high school senior chixxors who exist only to be demure damsels in distress, and so far at least one hyperactive catgirl.

It's too bad the best adjective I can come up with for this show is dorky. Because that's what it is. Disjunct, pointless writing, horrible art (the frame rate during the fight scenes is so bad it reminded me of 1980s American cartoons like Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors), characters that manifest new talents and bizarre behaviors totally out of character at the silliest moments, and poorly integrated and inappropriate CGI.

This show has a completely lack of respect for its audience: it's too mature for kids, and too stupid for adults.

Tags: anime, review
Current Mood: awake

If you've never read China Mieville, this won't make a whole lot of sense. China, in his New Cruzabon stories, has a clade of people called The Remade, people who have been found guilty of crimes against the city of New Cruzabon and who, in turn, suffer remaking: their bodies are warped by infectious magics, and they are melded with animals, with machines, with the animated corpses of their victims, with whatever the sorceror on hand found amusing and appropriate and utilitarian. Mieville's universe has strange and horrible monsters, and being Remade with one of those about results in some of the most disturbing images Mieville has given us.

Yesterday, I was looking through some on-line doujinshii. I'm not even sure where, now. I deleted the copy I was looking at. I just did not need to know what Remade prison sex looked like. Really.

Just thought I'd share.

Tags: anime, sighting
Current Mood: groggy
Current Music: Linkin Park, Under Command

So, I just mainlined the entire Evangelion original broadcast, all 26 episodes, no director's cut, no movies, in about eight solid hours. Up until about Episode 22 it was doing okay, and then it all fell apart. The end is a complete mess, the entire point of the show gets lost.

I even recognized the problem. The writer/producer/director thought he had something and then he woke up one morning, looked at his script, and said to himself, "I got nothin'." He flailed around for a week and then said, "I know, I'll tell everyone it's a deep mediation on the fact that I went through a really shitty depression phase in my mid-20s, throw out the story, and just mess with people's heads anyway." Who knows? Maybe Anno-san really did have something when he started and just ran out of steam. It was a beautiful, brilliant piece, it seemed to be going somewhere, and then... blah.

I also don't get why Ayanami Rei is such a popular character. She's a blank, a cipher, more annoying than Asuka ever could be. Part of the reason is that her relationship with Gendo is never clarified: why is she so damn perky in that one scene and then a complete waste the rest of the series?

And yet, I so wanted there to be more to this series. I'm so disappointed in it: I wanted Shinji to be more than a mouthpiece for Anno's fucking "I'm okay, you're okay" bullshit. I wanted Asuka to recover, and Rei to find herself, and all the other things that the characters deserved and didn't get.

I wanted to laugh, or cry, or have some reaction, however tritely elicited. Neon Genesis Evangelion failed, leaving me only annoyed and let down.

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and maybe piss someone off: Sousei No Aquarion is a better giant robot series than Neon Genesis Evangelion. The characters in Aquarion aren't as deeply wounded, and maybe that's to its detriment, but on the whole it's a better-made series. It has an arc, intent, and a proper ending, and, y'know, it's really made with as much courage, often for hilarity's sake as much as the dramatic ending, as Evangelion.

Tags: anime
Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Fly Me To The Moon

So, as I've been writing through this silly arc of stories, I've been asking myself, "Which couple here doesn't get the happy ending?" Because, y'know, they can't all have happy endings. Saul & Khrystyne are a good subject for a bad ending, but I really want Dove & The Twins to work, and Polly & Zia, and Illonca & Rhiane can't possibly go wrong; those two were written for each other. I suppose I could come up with new characters and relationships just to have things go sour on some people, but that feels like a cop-out. I disagree with Tolstoy; I think he had it backwards. Everyone is happy in their own unique way; it is in our misery that we are all similar. I think that's endemic to the human state: we are made to be anxious, miserable creatures, struggling against one another and our own natures (or, if you're religious, our own sinful state, or our attachments, or whatever); finding happiness and joy is so unlikely, so hard, and so fragile that it must be unique from human being to human being.

I was reminded of this consistent theme in my life this afternoon, oddly enough, while looking through a vast raft of Mai HiME doujinshi and I realized, after going through it, that the fans really, really wanted a happy ending for the most tragic couple in the series. Yukino and Haruka had two lovely tales; Mai and Mikoto had two jokey stories; there was a smattering of scenes for Chie and Aoi, and one nasty revenge story about Nao. And then there were nearly twenty stories about Haruka and Natsuko. If you don't know the storyline, every female character is a "magical girl," but Haruka is the only lesbian character; When Natusko tells her, "I cannot love you the way you want me to," she goes on a wild rampage with her magical abilities, killing far too many people before she's stopped. It would seem that the audience felt that that relationship, among all, was poorly handled. (Yukino may have been gay, or she may just have had a terrible case of hero worship for Haruka. I think I'd prefer the latter.)

So the big deal, of course, going back to my original point, is that for fiction to "feel right," the losers must deserve to lose, they must have some characteristic that makes them lose. Now I just need to figure out what that characteristic really is.

Tags: anime, writing
Current Mood: amused

Giving away even what about I'm about to give away amounts to a spoiler for the first episode, but I'm gonna do it anyway. The anime series Asatte no Houkou (link goes to a search for the series on my favorite anime site) is the sweetest, loveliest bit of anime to come by since Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto (aka Someday's Dreamers). And the English title's mangling is just as bad: The literal translation of Someday's Dreamers' native title was "Things Important to a Mage." The literal translation of Our Summer Story's native title is "The Direction Taken the Day After Tomorrow."

Karada is a young girl of 11 who lives with her brother Hiro, who's 19. She hates being treated like a child, and she agonizes that her brother has sacrificed so much to care for her since their parents died three years ago in an accident. Shouko is an unhappy woman of 19 who comes to the small town where Karada and Hiro live, and she tells Karada she came to this out-of-the-way place to start her life over. In the first episode we learn that Shouko and Hiro had some kind of relationship before he disappeared from her life-- and now she learns that he abandoned her to do the right thing and care for his sister.

After an evening of confrontation and argument, Karada and Shouko both end up in front of a Shinto shrine where they both issue secret prayers simultaneously. As the moon breaks over the shrine, they turn to one another-- and Karada has gotten her wish. She's suddenly aged eight years; she has her wish, people will treat her like an adult. Shouko, in turn, gets her wish as well: she's lost eight years. She has her chance to start her life over.

You'd think that this could be played up for ecchi fare with questionable loli content, but the writers clearly aren't going for that. If Someday's Dreamers made you feel all mushy and happy inside, Our Summer Story will make you want to tear up and cry at the end of each episode, but for a different reason, and not always because you feel sad. Both Karada and Shouko are freaking out learning to live with their new selves (the scene where Shouko realizes that, at 11, nobody will buy her cigarettes is quite nicely done), and Hiro is also freaking out because the little sister he's tried so hard to take care of has suddenly vanished.

Supporting these three are the sister & brother team Touko and Tetsumasa, both of whom are apparently close to the ages of Hiro and Karada (the sister is a year younger than Hiro, and the brother a year and a half older than Karada), and have been their moral (and sometimes physical) support for the past three years. They provide all sorts of useful roles: a contrasting "couple", greek chorus, comic relief, and subtle emotional tension.

Anime has gotten a bad rap recently. The last three seasons have been remarkably without the kind of lovely, emotional tones set by Someday's Dreamers, and while experiments like Simoun tried while tottering on the brink of absurdity, the current spate of violent, bloody, vampire and monster-laden flicks desperately needed something as sweet as Our Summer Story for balance. (Aria came close two seasons ago, but it was more a series of lovely vignettes with no real character conflict, no real emotional impact.)

Our Summer Story is also done well. The art is beautiful, with watercolor backgrounds and clean, well-drawn characters in an established, traditional style that goes well with the series. The music is beautiful, small-band piano style that never intrudes but always fits well.

Definitely worth a watch.

Tags: anime, review
Current Mood: happy
Current Music: The Art of Noise, Identity Crisis