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Just Another Anime Site Blog
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Things I Want to Remember

There's a Haruhi Suzumiya movie called the Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya that premered in Japan early this year. LA will have a screening this month, hopefully it'll come out on DVD soon then.

Right Stuf picked up the Antique Bakery anime series. When will it come out though?

Ooku: The Inner Chamber is a manga series by Fumi Yoshinaga and a live action film is being made in Japan, set to be released in Japan October 2010.

There's a few things I have to obtain on DVD. I still need Magic User's Club vol. 3 and 4. And I have this obsessive tendancy to buy smaller re-release sets of anime, instead of having all induvidual releases taking up space on my shelf. X just came out. Need to get Le Chevalier D'Eon, Scrapped Princess, Ergo Proxy, Cowboy Bebop, Spice and Wolf, Last Exile. 

The Eureka Seven movie is out on DVD, but I can't really bring myself to buy it. I really didn't like it when I saw it in theaters, even though I love the series. 

It really pisses me off how companies keep releasing different box sets. I have the 2 Ouran High School Host Club box sets, and now there's a complete set out? sheesh.

That's all I want to remember for now. And damn it, I wish Demon Flowers vol. 5 would come out. Will it ever?!


Posted by Elodee at 7:41 PM PDT
Updated: Thursday, June 24, 2010 8:40 AM PDT
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Friday, November 20, 2009
Wolf and Spice - Spice and Wolf

I first saw an episode of the anime On Demand. Spice and Wolf, the story of a traveling merchant named Lawrence who meets a wolf who has helped a village for hundreds of years with their wheat harvest. But Horo is no ordinary wolf, more like a spirit or god, and can take the form of a human girl, with ears and a bushy tail that is. Horo convinces Lawrence to take her along on his travels, and ultimately she wants to find the land where she originally came from.

After a bit of research, turns out Wolf and Spice originated as a picture novel (not manga), and currently has 7 volumes. Then came a manga series in 2007, currently at about 3 volumes. Then there's the anime series, 2 seasons (first season 2008 - 13 episodes, season two 2009 - 12 episodes). Funimation is releasing the first season of the anime December 22nd, Yen Press is releasing the first picture novel December 31st. The first manga volume comes out April 30th, 2010, from Yen Press. So many ways to get the story, I'm curious to see them all, but the story may get boring, seeing it three different ways. You can find the manga on some scanlation websites like OneManga.

Funny thing about Yen Press' release of the first novel. They changed the cover art, but fans complained, so they will be including a slip cover of the original art, but only if you buy from participating online dealers. Sounds like a collectors item. Read more at Yen Press.

I like the story so far, it has an appeal, Horo is cute and mysterious, I wonder if it'll keep my interest. 


Posted by Elodee at 11:40 PM PST
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Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Inspirational characters
I grew up watching Sailor Moon. In middle school and high school, I began ordering fansubs online. During the hard times in my adolescence, I tried to remember Sailor Moon. Her positive attitude, her will to go on against all odds, and her unconditional love of others. As corny as some concepts of friendship and love may seem, deep in my heart, I believe in them. And I think its because of what I exposed myself to as a teenager. From Sailor Moon I moved on to Magic Knight Rayearth, which has a trio of friends who fight evil with all their hearts. There's the ridiculously cheery lead character, Hikaru. Then I found Revolutionary Girl Utena. Utena was a strong female lead, often acting as a male, and trying her hardest to be true to herself and to protect those she loved, while also growing up and finding out that upholding such ideals isn't always easy. I always love the strong shojo lead. Are these characters created to inspire young girls? I have found a well of strength in anime and these characters, it's really amazing. I keep thinking of one of the final scenes in the Ouran High School Host Club anime. Haruhi riding on a horse to bring Tamaki back from leaving. All these images stick in my head. I need to remember that strength.

Posted by Elodee at 8:55 PM PDT
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Friday, October 16, 2009
Kite Liberator

Being a fan of Kite, I was surprised that there was a new OAV called Kite Liberator. I think just by looking at the DVD I knew it didn't follow the original OAV, but I thought I'd give it a try. My first annoyance with it was the use of computer animation. I rarely ever like computer animation in my anime, especially when it's tacky and clashes with the rest of the animation. There were some scenes in space in this movie, a lot of which was computer animated.

This Kite story follows a young girl assassin, Monaka. Her father lives on a space station and by eating a lot of space food meant to only strengthen his bones, he transforms into a monster; a giant bone monster. It's quite silly really. So he ends up coming back to Earth and stumbles upon Monaka who was sent to destroy him, though at first she doesn't know it's her father.

This hour long OAV has no conclusion and leaves a lot of issues unresolved. I really don't know why anyone bothered making another Kite movie. This seems like it should at least have another installment. I guess I just went into it expecting more. A little disappointed, but I don't care that much. 


Posted by Elodee at 10:41 PM PDT
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Thursday, October 15, 2009
Kanji nightmare
So I've never studied Japanese. I've only picked up a few study at home books and at one point familiarized myself with hiragana, which I've actually now forgotten because I stopped practicing. But I was on the Shinshokan website looking for anything I could find on Empire of Midnight by Hakase Mizuki. I basically navigate my way through a Japanese website by remembering how particular kanji look (like Hakase Mizuki's name, or the comic title Mayonaka no Teikoku). I come across some issues of Wings where she has other stories printed. So I'm trying to translate what these story titles are. I take my handy dandy Berlitz Japanese Dictionary and actually try to look up the kanji. At the beginning of the dictionary there is a list of 1,945 common kanji (called Joyo Kanji). It is organized by how many strokes it takes to write the kanji, so it goes from 1 to 23 strokes. So I look at a kanji in the story title, try and estimate how many strokes it took to write it, and begin browsing through the dictionary, looking for a symbol that matches what I'm looking up. Tedious! I'm decoding some secret language to me, when there are actually millions of people out there who can do it relatively easily. haha, its like a big joke. But I suppose its how I occupy my time. It's sort of fun.

Posted by Elodee at 10:37 AM PDT
Updated: Thursday, October 15, 2009 10:38 AM PDT
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Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Maybe it is worthwhile

I wanted to cry. I was doing some digging on Hakase Mizuki's Empire of Midnight and found a fanpage on Facebook. In one of the wall posts someone linked my Empire of Midnight page as a good source for information. I work on this website once in a while, and tell myself its my own personal database, I don't think anyone comes across it very often. What with much more extensive and professional websites like Anime News Network out there, who needs to read through a fan site that's built on simple HTML?

I'm happy some people can find my info useful. 

Here's the Facebook group link: Hakase Mizuki is a Badass!

 


Posted by Elodee at 12:34 PM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 12:41 PM PDT
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Friday, September 25, 2009
why yaoi?

Reading the first few chapters of The Tyrant Falls in Love volume 1, There's basically this rape scene, but when its two guys, why is it so hot?

The story, a spinoff series of Challengers by Hinako Takanaga, is about a man named Tatsumi who hates gay people because his younger brother was seduced and had fallen in love with one, but his best friend Morinaga is gay. Tatsumi is violent and pig headed when it comes to gays, but still spends his time with Morinaga, who has actually loved Tatsumi for five years now. The first volume of their series, The Tyrant Falls in Love, begins with Tatsumi getting distraught that gay marriage has been legalized in LA, where his precious younger brother and lover are living. Morinaga offers to spend the night drinking with Tatsumi to help him forget his worries. But back at Morinaga's place, Tatsumi gets his hands on an alcoholic aphrodisiac that Morinaga had hidden. It seems to have no effect on Tatsumi, but in the middle of the night Tatsumi wakes up aroused. Causing an awkward ruckus trying to get to the restroom, Morinaga finds out Tatsumi's situation and forces himself on him, offering to just relieve him. Since he's finally living out a fantasy he's had for five years, he can't stop himself with just jerking him off, but full on rapes Tatsumi. Morinaga was always kind and extremely tolerant of Tatsumi's hatred towards gays, so seeing him being forceful with the helpless jerk Tatsumi was great. At one point Tatsumi says, "If you go any further, I won't fogive you!" To which Morinaga replies, "Even if I stop here you won't forgive me anyways." Go Morinaga!

I read plenty of erotic yaoi, and a lot of it out there is disappointing. I'm tired of all the cliched yaoi characters, even though these may be cliched characters as well, they're ones I haven't seen as often. I'm so happy Hinako Takanaga has written a story that exites me again. But the series being five volumes long, will it be able to hold my interest?

But anyways, the point is, as I'm reading this, why am I able to enjoy someone being raped when its two men? Is that the appeal of yaoi for girls? If it were a story of Tatsumi being a girl, and Morinaga going after her as she says "no" and "stop" repeatedly, stuggles like mad, and has this horrified look on her face, that would be unbearable. I would think, "that poor girl. how horrifying" and I would hate Morinaga. So why am I rooting for Morinaga? Maybe its also Tatsumi's personality that makes it okay... he's such a closed minded jerk to Morinaga, that I feel Morinaga deserves to take this opportunity, if anything, just to show Tatsumi "this serves you right you asshole!" hm... something to think about. Maybe thats why girls like yaoi? Its not as offensive or scary to see a man raped? We see men fall into the position of women and we enjoy it. haha, god, how morbid. Maybe thats not why girls enjoy yaoi, just me. But I'm not a man hater! hahaha.


Posted by Elodee at 10:41 AM PDT
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Thursday, September 24, 2009
So, the Eureka Seven movie...

Exciting, I got the chance to see the Eureka Seven movie in one of my local theaters tonight. I don't get out much to do stuff like that, public anime related stuff that is. Anyways, I go into this knowing its not a continuation of the series, but a different version of the basic storyline. A retelling. Me and a couple of my friends went and at the end, we were just left with, "huh. Could have been better...". Right now its all sort of a jumble in my head. One thing I didn't like was the whole "larva stage" Nirvash. It was like a pokemon, saying the same nonsense word over and over. It was fun that the Nirvash had a voice when Renton was piloting it, that there was a voice in the movie where in the series they always talked of this voice that we never heard, but if the voice was an obnoixuos voice like it was in the movie, then it was best left in the heads of Eureka and Renton in the series. Holland and the Gekko State were all victims of government experiments as children that made them age quickly and they had to take medication to halt their aging. Their mission was to capture Eureka and use Renton, a crew member of theirs and the one Eureka loves, as guides to get them to the world they've read about, where time will stand still and they won't suffer from their ailment anymore.

As in the series, Renton and Eureka love each other and Eureka is whiney and selfish and always feels sorry for herself. Ack, I'm being a little hard on her, but I always hated how she'd push Renton away when she was feeling so low on herself. There were too many times in the movie when Renton and Eureka's "I love you" scenes were far too dramatic and mushy, and I'm a sucker for much and true love and all, but only when its sweet, not so sweet I could vomit or punch someone in the head.

In the movie humanity is fighting an invasive species called Azo (basically coralians) and Eureka is a messenger from the Azo to gather data on humans. The government has decided to launch a massive solar beam (was it called "the hammer of god"?) onto the earth to wipe out the Azo once and for all, but will also cast the earth into an ashy darkness, devestating the land and causing massive casualties. The Gekko is out for its own crews survival, which was disappointing, being that I admire the Gekko State in the series as a croup of people who wanted mankind to know the truth of the coralians and to coexist with it, but instead in the movie the Gekko crew was only out for themselves. I guess its a quest to make oneself happy, not to save humanity. 

It's all mixed up in my head. I'm tired and can't remember it straight and barely know what I think of it yet. I'll have to see it again. I just know that it was pretty obnoxious and I had higher hopes for the movie. I was happy to see Dominic and Anemone, them being my favorites from the series, and that they were the level headed people in the movie, realizing the bigger picture of what's going on around them. 

I wonder what everyone else who saw it tonight thought of it?


Posted by Elodee at 10:30 PM PDT
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Saturday, September 12, 2009
Oh yeah, I remember

Since I was seven, I always said I wanted to draw for a living. I've forgotten all that. Used to draw some in high school. Ugly mimic of anime style. I've always wanted to develop my own style of the human form.

I found Jaryu Dokuro's website, was looking at her art (is it a girl?). I've read Sugar Milk (yaoi from Digital Manga Publishing) and have downloaded some scanlations of some of her other work, and I just love her art style and her story telling. Looking at the images on her website made me feel excited about drawing. I want to draw!

But I get discouraged so easily when I do, cuz I'm a lousy artsit. But its cuz I never practice and haven't tried. I've never been a very diligent artist, not too self motivated. I just don't have an obsessive drive to draw. All excuses, huh?

I think we all want to be heard, feel we're worth knowing, want others to want to know what we're thinking and to care about what we think and know.

Someday, I'd just like to put out some fuckin comics. But people who don't try don't accomplish much, eh chickadee?

Oh yeah, and finding out Dokuro was born in 1985 really bummed me out. The chicks my age... shit. She's living my dream baby. But she's worked for it, haha, I'm a loser.

Here's her website (in Japanese), click pics to look at her art: msic


Posted by Elodee at 11:22 PM PDT
Updated: Saturday, September 12, 2009 11:28 PM PDT
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Wednesday, July 15, 2009
The amazing library

I've never been a big library goer, I don't read books much, just my comics. But then my boyfriend showed me that libraries have comics. I've been impressed by the amount of manga the one closest to us has, not an awful lot, maybe 100 books or so, but after years of spending hundreds on manga series I find I don't even like that much, this is a welcome change in manga reading.

Well I decided to check out the library near my work and my heart was a flutter. They had a wall with twice as much manga as my local library. Plus a section of over 200 anime DVDs. holy moly! I'm signed up at Rentanime.com and have to wait weeks to finish series becuase the demand for some is so high and their stock is low. The library didn't have many series on my rental list at Rentanime, but series I've been curious about at some point in my life none the less. Its amazing! To suddenly have all this at my fingertips, for free!! Anime and manga/comics is such an expensive hobby. Rentanime was a huge change in my anime watching life, before then I'd have to buy DVDs of series I'd only read articles about. 

But one of the funniest things was one set I saw there. They have Sailor Moon Sailor Stars on DVD at this library. Sailor Stars is the last season of Sailor Moon, one which was never dubbed in English and never even released in the U.S. on TV or DVD or anything. They must be copies of fansubs. Years ago (6 or 7 years?) I had to hunt down VHS fansubs of Sailor Stars, and poor quality at that, and it was so thrilling. Now they just have these fansubs chillin' in the local library, I cracked up like a mad woman on my drive home. I am indeed easily amused.

Life is good!


Posted by Elodee at 8:09 PM PDT
Updated: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 8:13 PM PDT
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