30 Day Anime Challenge- Day 5

Anime You’re Ashamed You Enjoyed.

Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist

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I’m usually not one for “ecchi” anime, but this one got me.
I can’t even remember what got me to watch it…I think I may have just been bored one day and just started watching it.
It is so over the top…

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It is so immature…

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And so inappropriate for younger viewers…

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But, yes… it cracked me up…I’m not proud…it amused the hell out of me.

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Until next time: Happy viewing…Maybe not as happy as these people, you might get arrested for public indecency.

bara

30 Day Anime Challenge- Day 4

Favorite Female Anime Character Ever

Tie

Tomoko Kuroki and Olivier Mira Armstrong

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Two very different styles of female protagonists. They are my two favorite, but also for different reasons.

Tomoko Kuroki

Tomoko is the perfect definition of the socially awkward outsider looking in. She is someone who  halfheartedly tries thing to boost her social status to only have them fail miserably. She’s negative, anxiety-ridden, envious, perverse, and awkward.  She is what a lot of us experienced in our teen years, exaggerated sure, but honest. As an adult I can laugh at her exploits. My teenage son ,however, has a harder time not cringing unbearably.

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And she has one of my favorite quotes of all time.

On the other side of the spectrum:

Olivier Mira Armstrong

The commander of the North, Fort Briggs in FMA Brotherhood, is perhaps one of the baddest-ass female characters in anime.

A tough, uncompromising, fierce commander, that demands (and gets) absolute loyalty from her troops. She will put herself on the line to defend her troops, her duty , and what she knows to be right. She will not only command, but fight along side.

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So there you have it.

I couldn’t pick just one.

Two very different female characters. One representing all those human insecurities and failing for all to see. The other, a portrait of extreme strength, will, and leadership. Each an end of the spectrum portrayed really well.

Until next time: Happy viewing!

30 Days of Anime- Day 3

Favorite Male Anime Character Ever

Sakata Gintoki

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Even though I haven’t even come close to finishing the series, Gintoki is my favorite male character.

Loyal to his friends, honorable (in his own way), fierce warrior, lazy, pre-diabetic, inappropriate, and prone to rambling nuggets of wisdom. Gintoki is just an awesome, faulty, comedic hero.

 

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I don’t have much else to say. Gintoki speaks for himself. Now go watch some Gintama!

 

Until next time: Happy viewing!

30 Day Anime Challenge- Day 2

Favorite Anime You’ve Watched So Far.

Tie: 

 Puella Magi Madoka Magica and Bakemonogatari

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Both from Shaft, both favorites of mine.

Bakemonogatari was actually the first of these two that I watched. The art, well thought out story telling, and rapid fire dialog has made it a consistent favorite of mine.

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I initially resisted watching Madoka. I thought it was going to be too much of a “cutesy” magical girl thing that I wouldn’t like.

I was wrong.

I got to episode #??? (everyone knows! :D). And I was captured.

Now it’s a favorite without a doubt. I love the story. The art. The soundtrack.

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<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/137067783″>%5BLlPnF%5D Puella Magi Madoka Magica OP [CAT]</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user20100475″>Jo</a&gt; on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

I truly love this show.
I even cosplayed a character from it!
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Disturbing isn’t it? I called myself “Manny Tomoe”. My boys were delightfully embarrassed. I may do Madoka (or “Man-doka”) this year…

So that is my tie for favorite anime watched.

Until next time: Happy Viewing!

30 Day Anime Challenge- Day 1

Very First Anime You Watched

Clannad

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But this is not entirely true…Let me explain.

I was a fan of animation throughout a lot of my life and in the 90s I did watch a very scant amount of anime but never got into it because it was always at the rental store and was super hit or miss. So I got discouraged throwing money at titles I didn’t like and gave up.

 Fast forward 15 or so years. I now have children. They are starting to get into anime themselves. Dragonball, Naruto and the like. I still didn’t watch it with them.

 It wasn’t until I got a Kindle Fire that I had more own little way to watch shows for myself (after years of watching what the kids watched). I was browsing through my Amazon Prime video app that I came across Clannad.

 I thought: “Why not?”

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It caught my attention.

But it was strange. It was slowly paced. The storytelling was different to what I was used to. It grabbed me in a quiet controlled way. It made me cry.

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I started to watch it with my boys. By the time we finished Clannad- After Story we were all sobbing emotional wrecks. It is something I shared with my boys and something I continue to share with them to this day: anime.

 Clannad was my gateway into becoming an anime fan and holds a special place in my heart. I have watched, and enjoyed, both the subbed and dubbed versions. Have met a few of the English voice actors for the show and last year got to see a panel by Key (the animation studio responsible for the VN and show).

 I recently just purchased the Visual Novel on Steam: more feels, more fun.

I usually re-watch it once a year.

 Still to this day I still get a bit emotional listening to the music from the show.

 

 So I consider this my first anime.

Watch it if you haven’t. It’s a treat.

Until next time: Happy viewing!

I’m Guess I’m Up For a Challenge.

My blogging has been, admittedly, inconsistent, this year. I find that I can drive myself to distraction will tons of other pursuits (often complete time sinks of no real value). The end result of this is that I end up not writing anything for a month or so and then feel bad about it.

So I’ve decided to do the “30 Day Anime Challenge”.

I’ll do my first post on it tomorrow and we’ll see how well I keep up.

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Until then, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

I Don’t Have a Lot to Say, Except…

WATCH THIS!!!

IT’S AWESOME!!!

And it will only take 6 minutes of your time.
This a music video/ short film. It is for the song “Shelter” by Porter Robinson and Madeon. They collaborated with A-1 Pictures to make this animated music video.
My older son showed it to me the other day, and I love it!

Enjoy!

The video short is also being featured on Crunchyroll.

Reserving Judgement and The Benefits of Blogging

I am odd in how I watch anime…well, really any show for that matter.

Depending on my mood, or state of mind, will often determine whether I watch (or continue to watch) a show.

Judgement and preconceived notions take over about whether I’ll like a show.

However, many times, I have found my initial impression (and subsequent dismissal) of a show to be wrong or unfounded.

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Magical Girl Raising Project is a show that initially I had written off outright without even watching it. I assumed from the picture and the brief show description on Crunchyroll that it was just going to be some cutesy show that I’d have no real interest in. So I dismissed it. Until I saw an update on one of the blogs I follow that showed some images and talked about the darker themes and violence in the show. Had I not been someone who blogs (and follows others blogs), I would have passed over this one. I’m now watching (and enjoying) this little dark, and brutal show.

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March Comes in Like a Lion did not initially not grab me. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was my mood or mental disposition at the time. I didn’t even realize it was done by Shaft (which is one of my favorite studios) which my boys subsequently made fun of me for. One night,when I was bored, I decided to give it another try. It is now one of my favorites of the season.

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Mob Psycho 100 is another of those where upon watching the first episode, it didn’t grab me. I don’t know if it was my mood or my initial reaction to the animation, but I had decided it wasn’t for me. But there was a fair amount of “buzz” around it, so I forced myself to watch some more and ended up loving the show.

 

And it has been like this for me. Sometimes reserving judgement is the best avenue in approaching anime, shows, or life. Waiting to see how it actually reveals itself over a little time.

Just a thought.

Until next time: Happy viewing!

Evil: Who Wore it Best?

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Leviathans vs Kyubey.

Sometimes when I’m left alone with my own thoughts I go off on tangents that seem unrelated (and bit weird) on the surface, but make sense when given a little thought.

Aside from watching a fair bit of anime I have been slowly going through the Supernatural series. Currently I am somewhere near the end of the second season.

Last weekend I decided to re-watch Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion for no apparent reason (except that the Madoka series is one my favorite animes).

So, Monday morning, as I watched Supernatural and ate my breakfast, a thought occurred to me. The Leviathans on Supernatural and Kyubey (and the species of Incubators) are remarkably similar.

The thought came to me: They are both perceived as (and can be argued to be) evil. They, however, in both series can argue themselves to simply be pragmatists. Just doing what they need to do to survive.

Leviathans seek to fatten up the human race to use them as cattle for food. Incubators seek to use young teen girls as a power source that result in their death.

Now one may argue that the Leviathans are more evil because they want to eat everyone and that Incubators limit the damage: not so. Kyubey, by the end of the series, is looking forward to Madoka becoming the most powerful witch the world has ever seen, thus creating the largest source of power they’ve ever seen. BUT, her also becoming the most powerful witch also meant everyone on earth would be destroyed.  Kyubey viewed this as inconsequential, collateral damage.

Who is more morally corrupt? Leviathans or Incubators?

You may say: “But Incubators helped humans progress!!” True. Kyubey rationalized that the wishes they gave out helped forward humanity, thus they were being kind and treating humans well by allowing them to progress.

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Dick Roman, head Leviathan, also did things to “help” mankind. His agricultural company that he acquired  was tasked with making food additives (corn syrup, etc) safer and more healthy for people. His other companies were also acting to cure cancer and other diseases. Sure, it was also to make humans more tasty, but it was also done with the rationalization to “help” humanity.

Once again: Which is more evil? Still seems like a toss up.

There is also how they look:

Kyubey: Fluffy, cute, vacant eyes, weird ear thingys.

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Leviathans: Could be really anyone. The head one is Dick Roman. A handsome, well spoken, businessman/ humanitarian.
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Well…Leviathans are pretty creepy when they eat! True… but so is Kyubey when they eat their own corpse.
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Waste not, want not…I guess?

What about the trope that evil never dies? True. Leviathans are really hard to kill. Borax…decapitation. And Dick Roman they needed a bone, 3 kinds of rare blood: very complicated.

Incubators on the other hand don’t seem to be able to die. This is never made clear. Homura does manage to traumatize the hell out Kyubey by the end of Rebellion though.

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A final argument to say Incubators is less evil could be made suggesting that by the end of the original series that they are perfectly happy collecting energy via magical girls hunting wraiths. However, Rebellion nullifies this. The Incubators had trapped Homura before she became a witch and were seeing how they could harness they energy having her trapped in her own labyrinth. They were still basically seeing humans as lesser beings to be used as  a resource, much like Leviathans.

So…Who wore evil the best?

Was it evil?

This is what happens when the mind wanders.

Until next time: Happy viewing!

 

*images on this post are not owned by this blog*

 

 

My Son the Youtaite

Some followers of this blog may know that my son is active in the Youtaite community here in the U.S. and has his own You Tube channel.

What is a Youtaite?

“The word “Youtaite” is a fusion of the words “Youtube”, referring to the website, and “Utaite”, which is a term used to call cover singers and is used particularly in Nico Nico Douga. Youtaites are people who upload song covers, usually Vocaloid songs, Japanese songs and/or songs translated from Japanese, on Youtube.”-youtaites.wikia.com/

His most recent upload was his (T.V. size) English version of the “Yuri on Ice” ED: “You Only Live Once”.

I think he did a good job, thus this post. He said it was auto-tuned a lot, but still likes the end product and so do I.

Enjoy!

 

I will get to posting more again soon.