Cast In The Name of God, Gundam F91 Ye Guilty (Now Apologize To John Williams Already)

Normally I have nothing but good things to say about the Gundam franchise, be it about it’s music, it’s mecha, it’s animation or it’s vision of the future, but today I’m going to hit it up a bit about something I’ve always found extremely irksome about one of it’s entries…namely Gundam F91.  This might actually be something that most people aren’t aware of or perhaps not, but the nerve it has in labelling it’s music as an Original Soundtrack when it’s clearly not visited me again last night while I was playing a G Generation game with my friend.  

The 08th MS Team Should Not Hold Gundam Back (A Few Reason Why People Need To Stop Asking For More Of It)

It’s Time To Let It Go People

After reading the latest demand for more 08th MS Team on Animesuki today, I figured I might as well just finally say it.  The answer to the question why they don’t make more 08th MS Team, and a further look at how their have in fact been tons of real robot grunt warfare type stories since 08th MS Team with of course some opinion added into the mix.  And yes this well feature some of my particular brand of angry and I’ll mention why a little in the actual text.

Straight Up Saturdays (Yasuhiro Imagawa Is The Director To Beat/A Further Look At Shin Mazinger)

Yep, I definitely think so.  I’m hard pressed to think of another director still in the TV anime business that is so capable of marrying style and substance for the purposes of creating a gripping opera full of both drama and comedy.  Consider this latest episode of Shin Mazinger:

Right from the start Imagawa is giving us a taste of what is yet to come by showing us the end of this latest arc.  Tragedy is in the air, but we know naught how we get there.  Such is the purpose of that which is yet to come

My little angel from the very first episode.  Here she actually has lines and we learn that her name is Lorelai and that she is at the Kurogane House doing an errand for her “papa”?  You don’t have to squint to notice something about the picture above and the adorable little girl shrouded in what may very well be Imagawa’s vision of heaven’s light.  The idea of Lorelai as a symbol of purity has been planted and yet it constrasts with what we see above…..or does it?

Shiro is immediately smitten and it’s love at first sight, hence the title of the episode “First Love? The Beautiful Lorelai”

Straight Up Saturdays (Congratulations)

Hey, so guess what, I actually have a positive entry for this weeks Straight Up Saturday which may or may not provide you all with a glimpse into what actually still manages to touch my cold hard blackened soul.  Some people might know I like music, but they may not know I have a soft spot for Techno and Electronica.  Well I’ve just been blindsided by something I attribute to that genre and it’s completely made my night.  I told Klashhikari this was going to be big, but he doesn’t really care for it.  Me however, I think I may have just found a potential candidate for opening of the year.  Want to know what it is?  Have you guessed yet?  In any case here you go:

Higurashi Opening – Superscription Of Data

MAN!  Right at the get go with the build up it’s just impossible for me to resist a head jerk, it’s just so infectious.  Then the vocals kick in and it starts to feel more like a Higurashi song.  I’m blown away.  I can’t even think of any other opening out there this year that is anything quite like this either.  So catchy, so powerful, such good vocals, it’s just unbelievable to me.  People who know me know that I rarely have such words to attribute to much, but this song is one of those rare times.  Join the eternal playlist Superscription of Data….join the eternal playlist, you have made it.

Straight Up Saturdays (Dear Internet But A Few Humble Requests)

– Please stop posting your Haruhi episode order theory lists.  Nobody actually knows the full breakdown of the episode order because somebody never bothered to make it official.  Plus nobody can predict the future, not even me.  How about some discussion on the episodes that we do have?

–  While you’re at it stop telling me that “The God Empress” (or whatever name you want to call Haruhi) is back with a caption from the show as some sort of required proof.  It’s like this you see…..I know already okay *gasp* .  Tell me what you think about it, I’m all ears, but not that it happened because we’ve been past that point for about a month.

– Enough with the character marriage list thing from 2ch and trying to analyze it as a source of scientifically confirmed data.  We might like to believe that these character marriage lists were based in some kind of forethought on the otaku’s part, but let’s just get real for a second here now, they are popularity polls.  On the girl’s side you have the popular shonen characters and on the men’s side you have the popular moe characters.  It’s a snapshot of a singular point in time, an uncontrolled study and very likely not even a proper cross section of the otaku population at that.  In short fun times, but please just stop trying to attach any sort of significance to it.

– Please stop telling me how hot Megan Fox is when splayed out over the hood of a car.  I’ve seen the picture, I get the idea here, but if all I cared about when watching my crappy incoherent over the top action blockbuster movie was a girl’s breasts then I would get myself a poster.  Though in all honesty I’ve gotta level here, I find Megan Fox entirely unattractive.  Shocking I suppose….

– Please stop trying to convince me that x company is trolling you, are the biggest trolls, whatever.  Companies make boneheaded marketing decisions all the time, shit happens, doesn’t mean they’re out there pulling a 4chan on you.  If they have a term for what they are doing (and by god I really hope they do and it’s as awesome as the one I’m about to come up with) then it’s probably some kind of business jargon and not netspeak, so let’s start calling what it is.  Telecommunication Restriction Operations Limiting Liability In Necessary Groups.

– Please stop telling me that I need to read the source material for an adapation to truly appreciate a given show.  If the show has something to prove I’m sure it can do it on it’s own without the help of its source work.  After all that’s the point of an adaptation, to transfer the content from one medium to another in a manner that makes the media content itself workable within that new context, be it a movie, a TV show, an audio drama, a game, or whatever.  If I need to know the source material before watching something then something has obviously gone wrong in this adaptation process.

– Finally please stop telling me that x show should be granted immunity from my analysis because it is what it is.  No duh a show is what it is, I’d be kind of bewildered if it wasn’t and I’m sure the fabric of space and time would rip apart from the resulting contradiction of realities, but more importantly and since I digress I’ll just say that it’s kind of beside the point.  A show being something doesn’t necessarily mean I find it entirely good at being that something, nor does it mean that I afford it an immediate dismissal either.  Taking things as they come and evaluating them on those grounds with an injection of personal preference (and a handful of media courses), that’s how I prefer to look at shows.  I’m no expert critic of course, but I do what I can and if I’ve misevaluated what a show is trying to be then by all means let me know, but do it make it convincing and be sure to show that you’ve put at least as much thought into the framework of said show as I have….preferrably more.

That is all.

Speechless Saturday’s (Behold It’s Glory, For Gundam Does Stand Up)

Words escape me, but I shall try…..

…..okay so I really don’t know what to say after all that could possibly do justice to the feeling I got seeing this video of people walking up to…..THE FREAKING GUNDAM!  Awe, disbelief, revery, all of these descriptors seem to be competing for a place in this paragraph, but none seem to fully convey what I want to say right now.  To even think that something like this giant robot could hold such a significant cultural meaning….one that breaks many boundaries of anime fandom and one to warrant such an undertaking as this Real G project……there’s nothing else quite like it.  How do you compete with that, how do you even begin to describe it?  It doesn’t go well……this doesn’t go well for me.  The….the level of detail, the size, THE PRESENCE, THE SPLENDOUR, THE GLORY!

GUNDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! *snaps fingers*

Straight Up Saturdays (Of Gods And Men: The Characters And Entity’s In Anime We Love To Deify And Why)

First off a what the hell moment:

The last time this happened was with my Code Geass posts, albeit on an even more perplexing scale of almost Top 10’s.  I didn’t get it then and I still don’t get it now.  What is it about this article that could have possibly warranted it being up there among the political musings that usually make the top 100?  Who is reading this stuff?  WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!  It’s like, the RNC is attacking Obama,  what are we going to do about Gitmo detainees…..oh and this guy talks about some TV show in Japan.

And now for something we hope you’ll really like.

Straight Up Saturdays (True Gar: Moments That Define A Hero)

No taunting Hockey Fans this time, just a moment of openness that is relevant to anime.  I’ve been marathoning Kotetsushin Jeeg all night and have been waiting for this moment since the very second after the very first scene depicting Hiroshi’s heroic sacrifice in the pre-title sequence of episode 1…..the moment when Hiroshi and Michie meet again after 50 years.  And finally it’s happened and exceeded all of my expectations as well as providing an example of what I like to call True Gar, something different but similar to what ghostlightning describes here.  I differentiate this from the more popular and well known loud screaming male character beating things up in that it cuts right to the heart of what it means to be a true hero….that being the brave heart to stand against villainy and the compassion to protect and treasure loved ones and justice.  The ability to meet an antagonist who would unjustly rob others of the joys of life with the ferocity of a lion on the battlefield, but also the ability to treat the ones that you care for with the gentleness of a cub in the moments that the hero fights for.  This to me is one of those True Gar moments that defines a hero:

Michie is much older then the last time they met and initially Hiroshi is blind after having been reawakened from his 50 year slumber after having been sealed in a zone where time does not pass.  Soon the truth becomes apparent to him as his sight returns.  See if you can pinpoint the exact moment where Hiroshi shows how impossibly manly he can be

It’s moments of passion like this that are the reason I watch Mecha anime.

Straight Up Saturdays (A Chat With Skyfall On International Hockey)

Latvians May Wear Moose Antler’s On Their Heads When Attending Hockey Games, But As A Representative Of Canada I Prove I Can Make Just As Much Of An Ass Of Myself Over Hockey In Other Ways