dancing_moon | Entries tagged with anime

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B.L.Y.G
Boy's Love Yaoi Gakkai 2011 ~ 17-19 June, Skogås (Stockholm)

It's time again for Sweden's one and only yaoi/BL/slash convention and, since third time's the charm, we're going for the largest and bestest BLYG ever!

The homepage can be found at blyg.eu and is rather sparse at the moment. We have a bunch of stuff just waiting to be typed down, tho, and I really think this years BLYG has the potential to be amazing

If anyone is interested in holding a panel/round-table discussion/lecture on something yaoi, slash, yuri or otherwise fandom related, gimme a shout - I'm the one booking events =D

Arranging this year are by the by the non-profits Geikai (Anime/manga inspired crafts) and Raison d'être (Jrock/Jpop)

Yet another check out what ANN reviewed self-linking link. This time it's the article/book "Generations and Controversies: An Overview of Japanese Science Fiction, 1957-1997" I should take a closer look on. Author Takayuki Tatsumi

Of particular interest to anime and manga fans may be a term that Tatsumi uses to describe a characteristic of this fourth generation – “yaoi poetics.” Since he's writing in this article for an audience more acquainted with Western SF, Tatsumi calls it “the Japanese equivalent of the K/S [Kirk-slash-Spock] slash fiction aesthetic.” In other words, one of the characteristics of this fourth generation of Japanese SF is that it delights in reinterpreting and reusing previously existing characters and situations.

Wah, our hotel has Wifi, but not for free. So, hasty post!

J-popcon has been like the best karaoke experience ever so far! They've treated us really well, everything was in place when we got here (that's incredibly rare. Last Uppcon and now is like the only time. In 5 years...) and we got gophers helping out and all. The hall is also super sweet, big, airy and with lots of chairs ^_^

I haven't been around that much in the rest of the convetion area, because first we had to set stuff up, then we ate (pizza buffe, om nom nom) and then I've basically been singing with lots of happy Danish anime fans until it was time for bed. But it looks great, is amazingly close to the central station and I much look forward to looking around more tomorrow!

So far, everything spiffy. We'll see what there is actually to do tomorrow, since the night-work schedule = we are free to go look around the con! Holy crap

This weekend, I'll visit an anime con in Denmark for the first time! Raison d'être has been invited to J-popcon to arrange the karaoke. So me, Miko-chan (whom I haven't seen for ages ♥), Kinopio and Yuna will go there and arrange the late night karaoke~
Yes, for the first time, we're to try having karaoke pretty much throughout the night! It'll be really interesting and probably seriously exhausting. However, I much prefer it to such crazy notions as that we are to open the karaoke room at 8 o'clock in the morning, which one con managment told us (wtf? Nobody sings karaoke before 9.30 at the earliest)

Otherwise, we have a lot of free time during the day... So I'll try and check out Köpenhamn a bit. Of course also investigate the con itself. See what they have there and if any ideas are worth being inspired by! ^^

Have also almost finished several new Hetalia songs, and one Vocaloid(!)

Ehm, which also comes from a Hetalia fanvid but whatever... They released a lot of good songs while I was out of the fandom, so that's been really fun to come back to. And now that I live on my own again, and have internet, I can sit in my apartment and sing along (badly) while I code songs, hehee

Um. And I might buy a signed postcard or something by Humon...

ETA: Huh. It's not that bad an idea to actually have a link to the Raison d'être karaoke list in my sidebar, is it? Thought so.

Am I the only one who strongly dislikes the term "animanga"?

In particular when refering to anime and manga fandom where the sources are unrelated. But also where the sources are related, because unless you know something about that particular canon, it's a risky business to equate an anime with the manga of the same name when you do your meta.

But it basically boils down to this sense of unease I have. I'm not in any darn animanga fandom kthx!
I'm a manga fan and there are a bunch of anime I like. I know loads of people who are anime fans, with a few handpicked manga that they like. It's not like we talk about moviebook fans, or even comicartoon enthusiasts.

Anime you think had the best, or most intriguing art

Oh, this is an interesting question! I am mainly a manga reader (old shoujo manga is the best, really) but there's been plenty of well-animated stuff to enjoy through the years. But what is the best, how does one even measure that?

An aquiantance of mine who really knows amazing amounts of anime showed us Kamichu! which for him was an example of the overwhelmingly good animation. It's full of life, I agree, every lock of hair moves, every leaf rustles in the wind and every skirt flutters as if alive. But does that make it intriguing to my eyes? Not really; alas, this kind of well done but realistic animation doesn't interest me all that much. While I can definitely enjoy Satoshi Kon's movies from a story perspectiv, and I do find his Paprika a color-sparkling feast for the eyes, it's not the kind of anime that best captures my attention. But I don't really know what kind I like the best either...

Gankutsuou aka The Count of Monte Cristo (in spaaaace) had an interesting layering effect, but it was a bit too busy for me to really stick with it. Studio Ghibli has lovely old-fashioned hand animation and despite what Miyazaki feels, I think they use computer effects extremely well in most films too. A move like Princess Mononoke are just so beautiful it's eerie. Revolutionary Girl Utena still holds up, imo, as a great use of limited animation - but that is still only a trick to hide a lack of money and time, and there's just too many bloody repeated scenes in Utena for it to ever win any "pure animation" awards from me.

What Makoto Shinkai can do on a shoestring budget and a comp is damn impressive in itself, even though I don't really like his plotines (Voices of a Distant Star etc). The character design and glowing details in Umineko no naku koro ni was compelling and in several scenes hauntingly beautiful. Alas, the animation fails in key scenes to keep up with the ideas thrown out so that too falls a bit short.

When it comes to intriguing design, I think the short film Kakurenbo is one of the most remarkable. A short horror story about children playing in an abandoned city, where trolls hunt them, it has excellent lightning effects and a very convincing, mood-building design.

But for the overall prettiest, most gripping anime art? I think I'll have to go with Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi aka Spirited Away. It's not my favorite Ghibli movie, that honor goes to Porco Rosso, but it is definitely one of the most visually rich.

Day 19 - Mandatory swimsuit post

Higurashi no naku koro ni has the best obligatory swimming pool episode evah.

In other news, I'm sitting at work waiting for the sloooooow software to finish repacking the registers and then I can go home to read the bloody Bible for school tomorrow. WOE IS ME.

ETA: And then the friggin software crashes. *sends deathglares at computer*

Quick bookmark to myself. ANN has added another interesting column to their already good and varied group of scribblers ^_^

Brian Ruh, whom I have never heard of before (but then, I know very few names in anime/manga academia) is going to write about japanese media from a more studious perspective. He'll also present other interesting writings and starts of with Mia Lewis's study about kanji/kana wordplay in manga as used by CLAMP ~~to torture translators~~

Sounds great, I'll follow this column with interest.

Ohohohoho, moe? The budding/burning fan-service pandering that is either making or breaking the anime industry, depending on who you talk to....

First let me say, that with the exception of creepy-cute shows like Higurashi and Umineko no naku koro ni, I don't like moe-girls. They're small, speak in high-pitched voices and tend to be useless for the narrative except as objects to save, protect and drool over. If the drool potential isn't there, they're infinitely boring. Thus, me no likey.

But Japan is nothing if not gender-neutral when it comes to fan-service. Case in point, an article that ANN reported about a while ago from a mainstream woman's fashion magazine called An-an.

( What is moe for women? )
And there we have it: Axis Powers Hetalia, a series about as moe for women as you can get.

Within the swarm of moe that makes out Hetalia as a whole, one can find each and every cliche, often in several variations.

( Axis & Allies moe )

Appropriately enough, one of the most moe characters, Austria (glasses, young-lord-of-the-manor personality, frilly suits, emotional shyness, clumsiness, musical talent and funny hair-doink) is actually married to a full-blown fujoshi/slasher girl. Yay Hungary! She's also super strong and used to think she was a boy when she was a kid, and still is the one defending him with her military.

Then there's Prussia, a failed bad-boy (the mention the appeal of "rumpled suits" in the article too), soft-spoken and oft-forgotten Canada and a whole bunch of other characters.

While the Nordic countries haven't been in the series much, they easily form their own sentai-team.
Denmark is red, spiky-haired, wild and crazy. Finland, cute, kind, funny and easily embarrassed. He'd only need glasses and he'd almost be Miyuki. Sweden - big, strong, silent, wears glasses, cooks and fixes things, super-duper-shy. Norway, cool, blue (ok, they're almost all blue, so the color codes fail), converses with supernatural beings. Iceland, sarcastic, tsundere with a little-brother complex and slightly mysterious.

It all fits very well, because Hidekaz (the author) is excellent at picking out the historical stereotypes that supports his ideas and he's a very, very deft hand at recognizing moe-traits and combining them in appealing ways.

This, btw, is why I dislike those that sneer at Hetalia as a "show full of bishies" aka pretty boys. Part of the moe appeal, for both girls and boys, is that it's not just the perfect and beautiful that attracts. It's the imperfect that really makes one burn with passion, be it clumsiness and small breasts or stubborn stupidity and difficulty to connect with ones emotions. And one shouldn't sneer at things for the wrong reasion, dammit.

Entire anime meme here

Today I should post about my Favorite tsundere. The problem is that I don't really like the tsundere stereotype. It's only pretty recently that I've got some kind of a handle on the term at all, in fact.

To quote TVtropes:
The Japanese term tsundere refers to a character (usually female) who "runs hot and cold", alternating between two distinct moods: tsuntsun (aloof or irritable) and deredere (lovestruck). Claws out, then cute like a kitten, a friend once described the character type. If anything, I prefer the yandere trope (I think it's called "ax-crazy for love" or something like that in Western fandom?), at least as expressed in Higurashi no naku koro ni. Because little girls and a boys going frightfully insane in a "Groundhog Day" style universum was just amazingly creepy.

But apparantly Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion qualifies, so let's go with her. She's severely messed up in the head, but then, who in NGE isn't?

So for her, have the best - and probably one of the oldest too - anime music videos ever made:

Neon Genesis Evangelion - Engel

You go, Asuka ^_^

Day 14 - Current (or most recent) anime wallpaper

( Hetare Hetaliaaa~ )

I like it, it's just so happy. On my computer at work, I also have a Totoro wallpaper, because it's cute and not as busy.

Errr.... Most of these questions I found pretty good. You can give a short answer, post a pic or write a little mini-essay about your thoughts.

And then there's questions like this, I mean, wot? I'm not married to anyone on the astral plane, thank you very much.

However... if we're going with the anime character whom I have stayed in touch with the longest? The one I spent some years maintaining a website for, the one that is still on my default icons on both LJ and Facebook, I guess it'd be Jadeite from Sailor Moon.

Cosplay pictures? Well, as it happens, after some looking I managed to dig up these pics... From ca the younger bronze age, I'd say ;) Or more specifically, the re-opening of Östasiatiska museet in Stockholm.

Yes, that is me.

( Click for larger pic! )

The entire anime meme be here

Bit late, but...

Hard to pick one, but here's a pretty nice japanese fanart of Prussia from Hetalia. Dunno the artist, it came in a bulk from 4chan. And it's not really ecchi either, but I like it. Stylishly hot

Day 11 - Favorite mecha series

My favorite mecha series is without a doubt Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The other mecha series I like a lot (Code Geass and, back in the days, Gundam Wing) I liked despite the fact that they were mecha. Gurren Lagann is fantastic and it wouldn't be fantastic without the giant robots.

TVtropes describes it as: ...what happens when you ask Studio Gainax to create a Saturday Morning Cartoon. It's over the top, it's epic, it's funny, it's surprisingly touching and it's VERY entertaining. I also like most (all?) of the characters - Kamina, Simon, Yoko, Nia, Viral, Kittan.... Even Rossiu works great in the plot, though he's pretty darn stupid at times.

ETA: It also has equal-opportunity fanservice. Ok, so Yoko runs around in a bikini most of the time. But Simon, Kamina and Kittan also walk around shirtless in most scenes, so I guess it's just hot? Does look like a desert after all... Basically, thank god that the guys aren't wearing all-covering armor while the girls skimp around in nothing. "Studio Gainax: Bringing both-gendered skimp to the masses since 2008."

It also has an amazing soundtrack!

Tho the ending/opening themes are a bit meh. But. This is great fun, sci-fi world run on the rule of cool, epic battles, friendship that endures, super-catchy catchphrases and an endless amount of sheer hope. The only way you could have more coolness crammed into one 27-episode long series is if the mechas were run one pure awesome... Oh, wait. That's what they do!

Oh, this is easy! Lucky*Star!

I really don't like the (afaik) most popular slice-of-life anime, Azumanga Daioh. Lucky*Star however is mainly about four girls, one of them very nerdy, and their conversations which circle around nothing in particular. I know it has a tendency to merely be classed as "moe bait" by some, but I found Azumanga much more annoying. In Lucky*Star I (as a v. nerdy girl) can occasionally identify myself with the characters. In Azumanga, everyone is such a "screwball" or otherwise weird, that I can mostly laugh at the characters. And I don't like that kind of humor.

People tend to compare Lucky*Star to Seinfeld, which I guess is true in that both shows contain a lot of talk about absolutely nothing. However, I found the humor of Seinfeld much more mean-spirited (also, less jokes about collecting doujinshi and buying multiple copies of the same thing to get All The Fannish Extramaterial, which, heh, is something I can and do recognize myself in) so in another sense, they're not that similar at all.

Anyways. Lucky*Star is my favorite slice-of-life anime. My fav s-o-l manga is Flower of Life by Fumi Yoshinaga, btw.

It also has a very catchy intro!

The end of Grave of the Fireflies physically hurt. Just fyi

Still a very good movie.

Can't I just say all of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann? No?

(Actually, this belongs thematically together with another scene, a very touching death scene, but that would be a big spoiler so I won't post it. Also, can only find it dubbed on youtube)

Nanne Grönwalls Avundsjuk + Umineko no naku koro ni = AMV

Eh? Eh? Tell me it couldn't be brilliant, I dare you!

Aha, caught up, did I. Good, very good

Day 7 - Favorite anime couple
Errr. Right, except then it's a day when I don't really know.

Does Germany/Italy count? He proposes in the Buon San Valentino-chapter of the manga, but I don't think the anime came that far...

Otherwise, I tend to fall for the Seriously Twisted Couples. I mean, dude, when I think of anime romance, the old tragic classics come to my mind: Zetsuai, Ai no Kusabi, Tokyo Babylon...

Which actually reminds me of this amazing vid for Tokyo Babylon, so I guess I might as well call Seishirou/Subaru my favorite canon couple.

Overall, CLAMP has a lot of couples I like. That must be because they enjoy torturing them so much, ehehe~

Entire meme here

Ehehe. I have vacation this week, which has so far been spent doing... nothing much. Whatever happened to the days? 'neways, meme time!

( Day 5 - Anime character you feel you are most like (or wish you were) )

( Day 6 - Most annoying anime character )

This is also not quite meme-related, but I would like to point out that hating/loving certain voice actors (or even haircolors) isn't quite such an arbitrary point as hating/loving regular actors. Seiyuu (japanese voice actors) tend to be type-cast a lot more, just as anime tends to follow a dramatic color scheme, or the seme/uke lenght pattern or other things. They're animated characters, after all, so why not draw them in a way that is a short-hand for how they behave? Of course, if you invert it, you can easily play with the audience's expectations.

Thus, when a cute girl opens her mouth and has a high-pitched, slightly whiny voice, it sets my teeth on edge and I know I probably won't like her. The same way when one of the guys ~~is voiced by Koyasu Takehito~~ has a smooth, darker voice and a slightly creepy laugh? I know he's most likely to be a cool villain, an anti-hero or at least on the side of good, but still somewhat of a bastard and I'll probably like him...

And then of course we get characters like Gokudera, who has gray hair. Wtf? He's a hothead who fights with dynamite, how can he have gray hair -_-

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The Garden of Discordia

Entries tagged with anime

[Anime & Yaoi] : B.L.Y.G'11

Self - read that

J-popcon @ internet that costs money

J-popcon

[anime snerkage] Might be betraying my age here, or something, but -

Anime meme: Day 23

Anime meme day 19 (what? missing 15 days? I have no idea what you mean....)

Interesting column: Brain Diving [anime academia]

Anime meme, day 18: Something moe

Anime meme day 17

Anime meme 14

Anime meme day 13 - Cosplay of your "waifu" or "Husbando"

Day 12 - An ecchi picture from your favorite series

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!"

Day 10 - Favorite slice of life anime

Day 9 - Saddest anime scene

Day 8 - Most epic scene ever

brilliant! if only I could make vids...

Anime month meme - Day 7

Anime meme - Days 5 & 6

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May 2012