The final last post ...

... I hope.

The problem with the new hosting service seems to have been resolved, so all further posts about animation, Japan and women with blue hair will be at my new weblog, The Kawaii Menace. (My non-anime weblog is also changing its name and moving. It's now Scuffulans hirsutus.)

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I am not happy

I am informed by AN Hosting that my account has been suspended for no discernable reason whatsoever. I have sent them a couple of angry emergency support tickets. Who knows when they'll bother to look at them? I had trouble earlier figuring out how to move my domain name. (It turned out to be a simple process, but I had never done it before.) It didn't help that in their welcoming email, the url for help in moving your domain leads to a 404. Idiots. I'm beginning to think that the deal really was too good to be true, even if it is recommended by WordPress. I may be cancelling my AN Hosting account soon, so don't be a hurry to change your bookmarks.

Update: "Your account was suspended due to the 5 000+ emails sent from your account public_html folder within an hour.... Please advise."

I have plenty to say, none of it printable.

Update two: The Kawaii Menace is up again.

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The last post

I've got my new anime weblog up and running. It's here. (If you get the 404 page from my long-abandoned GeoCities site, try again in a day or two after the change in nameservers has had a chance to propagate further.)

I'll leave beware the kawaii up for a while, but eventually I am going to cancel the account. I'll see if I can import the archives to my new site, but that might not be possible.

My email address has changed. Write me at tancos at tancos dot net. (I'll still get mail sent to my old address for a few months more, but I will not be renewing my dot.mac account this fall.)

Unrelated note: it's Friday the 13th of April, and it's snowing in Kansas. Good grief; what happened to Global Warming?

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Anime gallery #25

Noiseman Sound Insect

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No melancholy here

I watched the first episode of Lucky Star. The opening is terrific. As for the rest of it -- well, either here is some deep, arcane significance in the endless discussion of how to eat a chocolate roll that I'm missing, or something got lost in translation. It surely can't be that the show is truly pointless, can it?

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Anime Gallery #24

Kung Fu Love

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Bulletin

I've watched a few more first episodes, and some shows this spring might be worth following, after all. The most interesting thus far is El Cazador de la Bruja, the third of Koichi Mashimo's "girls with guns" trilogy. (I expect that Fellini 8.5 will have plenty to say during its run.) Even if it's ultimately disappointing, there's still the Yuki Kajiura soundtrack to listen to. Also showing some promise in their very different ways are Murder Princess and Kamichama Karin. So far there are no giant mechas in any of these, though there are killer loli robots in the schizotech Murder Princess.

The first episode I most enjoyed, though, was from an older series that the Bus Gas Explosion recently called attention to, Animal Yokocho.

Memo to fansubbers: if you use the H264 codec and the Matroska format, I will probably not be able to watch your work. I might be able to see Darker Than Black on my computer at the office during lunch -- maybe -- but I can't watch it on my aging Mac at home.

I'll write more when I have time -- I'm still getting caught up from last week.

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Anime gallery #23

Muteki Kanban Musume

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Anime Gallery #22

Kung Fu Love

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Thinking and feeling

Wabi Sabi compares and contrasts English-speaking and Japanese anime fans:

English-speaking fans tend to approach an anime series through the application of reason and logic. Japanese fans tend to approach an anime series through the application of emotion and feeling.

Research on topics like historic background, mythical symbolism are more common with English-speaking fans. If something is unclear, the tendency among English-speaking fans is to look it up, write it up and serve it up, whereas the tendency among Japanese fans is to let it pass.

You may call it the Rational Western Mind at work: on top of research, English-speaking fans like to take a body of details and develop theories of how these details are connected. After gathering the who, when, what, where and how, English-speaking fans want to know the why. I must say - although I frequent Japanese and Chinese fandoms as well, the most interesting analysis I have ever read all come from English-speaking fans.

The creative genius of English-speaking fandom lies in identifying and decoding of the elements of an anime. The creative genius of the Japanese fandom lies in fanart.

English-speaking fans are more sensitive to plot holes (ie. gaps in cause and effect), anachronisms (ie. failure to align time and space in the correct order) and supernatural intrusions into the material world (ie. the X factor that upsets the chain of causation). Many times have I seen English-speaking fans spotting obvious and not-so-obvious plot holes and anarchronisms which go unmentioned in the Japanese fandom. Also, English-speaking fans tend to react negatively towards the supernatural elements unless they see a good reason that justifies the incorporation of the supernatural. The dividing line between the supernatural and natural worlds do not seem to be as clearly marked for Japanese fans.

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Naze, anata wa Romeo!?

There's a look at the first episode of Romeo x Juliet at the Exploding Bus, which poses the question, "Is the story so stupid that it becomes entertaining?" I'll watch the first episode when it's subbed to see for myself just how bad it is, but I expect that this one will go on my never-mind list....

... along with almost every other recent series I've sampled. I've already mentioned the repellently gory Claymore. Idolm@ster Xenoglossia features little girls and big mecha; Heroic Age features magic indistinguishable from advanced technology (or vice-versa) and a big, mysterious mecha; Dancougar Nova features a big, mysterious mecha. I hate mecha.

Hayate no Gotoku! is the only one I have any hope for. It aims to be a silly show like Keroro Gunsou and Gintama, complete with an obtrusive narrator and a broken fourth wall. Nobody picks his nose in the first episode, which automatically makes it superior to Gintama. If it can avoid gross-outs and sentimentality and not be any stupider than it has to be, it might be watchable.

Otherwise, what I've mainly been watching when I'm tired of Photoshopping have been cheesy old, forgotten shows, e.g., Future Police Urashiman, Idol Defense Force Hummingbird, SF Saiyuuki Starzinger, Nurse Angel Ririka SOS. None of these are classics or, aside from Ririka, good enough to recommend. But they are entertaining, and it's refreshing to see young women who don't look like third-graders.

Nurse Angel Ririka SOS is Akitaro Daichi's version of Sailor Moon, more polished, perhaps better thought-out (I've only seen the first few episodes), not as funny. While I doubt that it's quite as good as Justin Sevakis says it is (and Sailor Moon is better than he thinks), mahou shoujo researchers might find it worthy of study.

I would like to see more of Master of Epic, but apparently the fansubbers have lost interest.

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Anime gallery #21

Code Geass

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Costume gallery III

I just uploaded 163 print-resolution images from Costume-Con (right-click on the thumbnail to save the picture to your computer -- you know the drill). Each should fit on a sheet of 5x7-inch paper. The first of the five pages is here.

Although the quality is surprisingly good for a toy camera (a Canon A430), I look forward to purchasing a proper DSLR (perhaps a Nikon D40x, but more likely I'll count pennies for a month or two more and buy the D80). Shutter lag is maddening -- I missed as many shots as I got -- and the flash, which takes forever to recycle, is too close to lens, guaranteeing red-eye and unflattering lighting.

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Animation in the Middle Ages

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Swords an' bags

Today is tartan day. Ah hud planned tae post puckle screen captures an' comment haur oan th' first episode ay claymair, which gits its nam frae th' scottish sword. however, it was tay grotesque tae enjoy, an' while it diz feature hooko kuwashima, 'er character is yit anither ay 'er "emotionless burds," albeit a half-human, half-monster thes time. it's a sham. kuwashima diz play silent introverts weel, but she's better when she voices someain livelier, loch shuurei in saiunkoku monogatori. mebbe by next year i'll fin' a better scotland/anime connection.

Owre oan mah other weblog aam participatin' in th' gaitherin' ay th' blogs. Ah posted midis an' mp3s ay scottish tunes i've arranged durin' th' pest few years. if ye loch odd arrangements ay traditional graphite loons, ye micht fin' them tolerable.

(Translation below)

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Anime gallery #20

Venus Versus Virus

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Anime gallery #19

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

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Costume gallery

Here is a selection of pictures from Costume-Con. The event was dominated by science fiction, fantasy and historical costuming, but there was some anime cosplay on display as well.

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Costume gallery II

More pictures from Costume-Con.

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Anime gallery #18

Muteki Kanban Musume

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