Tag Archives: anime

goodness, humor, manfolk

Japan, you sexy weirdo

I found an app a while back called Sleepy-time Boyfriend, and yes, it’s just as amazing as it sounds.  It consists of about a dozen anime-ish drawings of Japanese men in various states of recline, each of which have a series of phrases that match their persona.  One is a flirty girl-boy named Sosuke (“Just being with you makes me very happy” and “I guess I should get into bed so you don’t feel lonely”).  Another (and my personal favorite) is Sei (voiced by Takaya Kuroda), a kimono-wearing DREAMBOAT with a voice like butter (“Come closer.” YESSIR).

But the one that gave me pause (between laughing hysterically and legitimately getting a little turned on) was this guy, Satoru, whose quotes have to do with being stressed at work, and how he wishes he could spend more time with you, his favorite lover:

he's a slave to his job... and his heart

he’s a slave to his job… and his heart

Is this a thing?  Do Japanese men fly off the handle at their partners when they have a bad day at work so often that apologies are a sexual fantasy?  And seriously people, up your standards.  My dream man does not apologize for getting angry at me for forgetting shit.  He doesn’t get angry at all.  In fact, there’s very little talking involved.  He’s more a man of action… *cough*

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anime, goodness, martial arts

Oh, Yoshimi

I’m addicted to a new (old) song: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots part 1, by The Flaming Lips.  It’s a hilarious, adorable, excellent song, and it’s about me!  Get it?  I’m a black belt, I defend my man with my awesome karate skills, and I might as well be Asian (what with all the food, anime, manga, martial arts stuff I do).  Bam.  I’m thinking the pink robots are a metaphor for something.  Ex-girlfriends maybe?

workin’ for the citeh

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goodness, nerd

I love you, Japan

by Kono Bairei

The art of the Japanese woodblock print is a fantastic demonstration of how, with very limited means, humans make spectacularly beautiful art.  Woodblock prints are some of the most delicate, intricate works produced from Japan.  They’re just gorgeous.  Hokusai’s Great Wave of Kanagawa is probably the most famous, and it’s not hard to see why.  [Then there’s the erotic woodblock print genre, which is pretty hilarious, and occasionally horrifying, but I digress]

I found today a series of classic video game characters (Samus, Megaman, Link) illustrated in the style of traditional Japanese woodblock prints.  They’re so silly and cool.  Nerds are the best.  Japan is the best.  I love you, Japan.

I remember playing through the first few hours of Metroid Prime (which I need to replay, what a great game) before Diminutive Roommate told me that Samus was female.  I’ve played so many male characters, I was super excited to play a lady.  I became attached to the game, fond of it even.  It’s an old friend who made me die a lot, and freaked me out with space pirates.  Good times.

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family, goodness, humor, life, manfolk, nerd

The one percent

I was looking through my iPhone photos this morning, and a random thought occurred to me: what would my life look like if I could only see every hundredth photo?  I recently cleaned out my phone of extraneous contacts, photos, emails, apps, etc., and the aftermath is just over a thousand photos of the past year and a half.  Here’s what one percent of my life looks like:

#1
I have to include number one; it’s a good starting point.  My mom gave me her iPhone 3g when she got a Blackberry from work, so I inherited some of her photos, and haven’t had the heart to delete them.  She travels for work (too much), and took this shot at a waterfall.  It was nice to turn on my “new” iPhone for the first time, and see that my mom has a good eye.

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#100
I work at Karate Job in Redondo Beach three times a week now, and there’s a pretty strong jalopy following down there.  I used to see at least one every few weeks.  This one was particularly shiny and handsome.  The owners are always  happy to let me snap a quick shot.  It’s like a car version of really good cosplay; they put a ton of work into it, and are happy to share their enthusiasm with others.

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#200
I’m your average nerd in a lot of ways: table top/online/video gamer, cosplayer, renaissance attendee (with costume), BSG fan, anime fan, manga reader, etc.  When I bought some go-karting tickets for Boyfriend for his birthday, we decided to go with a group of friends, who promptly decided it would be fun to dress up like Mario Kart characters.  Some of us bought our costumes, others made theirs from whatever they had lying around.  I did a combination: I painted an old helmet like an 8-bit piranha plant, bought a green spandex body suit, and voila!  A costume I could wear on the track without using any of the public equipment.  This is the helmet in-progress.  It turned out really well.

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#300
My friends are (of course), nerds too, bless their little hearts, and for a while, Wrath of Ashardalon was our game.  We couldn’t get enough.  I even drew my own character art, and wrote a dozen spells specifically for him.  This is one of those games where you pick your final boss at random.  Our first game, we pulled the game’s namesake: the main boss, Ashardalon, a giant fire-breathing death lizard.  His character dwarfed ours.  We were honestly a little scared.  It was a close one, but we pulled it off!  A very exciting game, and one that I felt the need to document.  As you can see, one of us has already died, while another has just rolled horribly.  Note the cave-in in the adjacent room.  That was a fun series of disasters.

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#400
I love the Renaissance Faire.  It’s so harmless and fun.  Women dress like tarts and men dress like warriors, and no felony sexual assault results.  People walk around fully armed with many very sharp swords and daggers, and no one fights.  Everyone is friendly, even to that one guy who dresses as a ninja, or that other dude who came as Captain Kirk that one time.  Everyone is so wrapped up in admiring costumes, eating turkey legs, playing games, and going to hilarious shows that a sense of good will permeates the fair grounds, and one feels out of place without a smile.
Boyfriend couldn’t make it to last year’s fair, so I took this photo to remind him of how pretty I look wearing girly stuff.

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#500
Diminutive Roommate has been on the hunt for a house for the past year or so, and most of the houses within her price range are in the valley.  I like to go with her whenever I can go give her a second set of eyes, and just to hang out.  Of course, it’s sweltering hot in the valley half the year, so on our way back from visiting one of her prospects this past summer, she blurted out, “Let’s get a watermelon!”  I said, “You’re a genius.  You’re my favorite person right now.”  We pulled over at a Trader Joe’s, grabbed this little guy and strapped him into the back seat.  I’m still pretty protective of my new Fiat, and Diminutive Roommate was eating raspberries or something in the front seat, and had her hands full.  So I improvised.

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#600
I can’t believe it took six hundred photos to randomly fall on one of Calico, Diminutive Roommate’s adorable cat.  She’s like a dog trapped in a feline’s body.  She flops over to have her tummy rubbed.  She loves smelly feet.  She begs when we eat delicious meats.  She’ll cry until we feed her, or if she just wants some company in the morning.  She tackles our legs with all the force her little body can muster, and sometimes it’s really scary.  She’s very sweet, and super cute.  She loves her tennis ball, and she occasionally chirp/meows at the birds outside.  She had just gotten trimmed before this photo, so she looks tiny.  She’s usually pretty poofy.

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#700
My room needs some overhead lighting, so when Dad and I went to Ikea to pick up some cabinets for the apartment we’re fixing up, we decided to see if they had any cool light fixtures.  In order to get to the lighting section, you have to pass through the entire store, so like most people in Ikea, we went a little crazy.  Dad has a great sense of humor, so when he saw these stuffed sharks, this is the first thing he did.  I made him freeze so I could snap a quick photo.  Y’know, for posterity. (note the Lanikai Canoe Club hat 🙂 )

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#800
My family has had a rough time this past year and a half, but this Christmas was really nice.  Mom asked Sister and me to spend the night Xmas eve, and sleep in our old beds, just like when we were little.  She coerced us with a promise of pancakes and bacon in the morning.  It’s a commonly-known fact that my mom’s pancakes are the best pancakes.  You didn’t know?  Yeah, they’re the best.

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#900
Diminutive Roommate and I used to go grocery shopping together all the time, and we always had a blast.  It was like going to a theme park.  Every isle held something fun and stupid to laugh about.  It was a golden era; we were both dating nice guys named John, we shared a room in a pretty gated community in Culver City, we were still in school, and everything was as it should be.  This talent to find fun in ordinary places is one she and I have retained, but when we found a hat in the shape of a giraffe at Joanne’s while hunting for fabric to cover my couch, the pieces sort of fell into place on their own.  I think it really suits her.

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#1000
I just took this photo last night!  Diminutive Roommate’s coworker came over a couple weeks ago to play poker, and mentioned that he had taken up playing the ukulele.  He’s the outdoorsy type, and wanted an instrument he could take with him on backpacking trips and the like.  I said I had always wanted to learn to play the uke, and he offered to teach me.  Diminutive Roommate said she wanted to learn too.  My Lanikai uke just arrived yesterday; hers is arriving tomorrow.  I can’t wait to jam with her and her friend.

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A quick summary of the first thousand photos on my phone:
Mom has quite the artist’s eye on her travels.
Jalopy’s are fun and remind me of Archie.
Go-karting is a perfect venue to show off your love for Mario Kart.
My friends and I love our table-top games.
The Renn Faire is the only place I feel comfortable dressing like a lady.
Watermelons are the ultimate summer snack.
Calico is as adorable as she is deadly.
Dad allows himself to be mauled by a shark to keep us sane at Ikea.
Mom makes a delicious Xmas morning breakfast.
Diminutive Roommate does her part to maintain tradition of being weird and fun.
I love my new uke.

I’m pleased with the turnout here: family, hobbies, friends.  It’s a happy collection, but I’m disappointed at the locality of them.  New goal for the next thousand: exotic locations, new experiences.

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anime, goodness, nerd

Spooky manga!

nothing like a creepy doll peeking through the window to keep you up at night

I showed Diminutive Roommate some manga the other night, specifically Mail of the horror genre, and let me tell you: she is freaked out.  It’s about a detective whose clients hire him to exorcise ghosts.  Spooky!  Diminutive Roommate is currently reading through the second issue in as many days.  She came into my room last night to sit on my bed with me while we both read our respective ghost stories because she didn’t want to read it alone.

One chapter involves a little girl who was stuck in an elevator.  As she climbed out, the elevator drops and chops off her legs.  At first, the ghost of just her legs is occasionally seen standing around in the elevator.  But the little girl dies a few years later, and a ghost of just her upper half can be seen dragging itself around the building in search of her legs.  Yikes.

Naturally, there was an article in the LA Times this morning about a woman who was in an elevator that got stuck between floors.  Apparently, she “climbed out of the elevator, but the car started moving again…The car dropped onto her, crushing her.”  She died.  I sent the article to Diminutive Roommate.  We may or may not be sleeping with the lights on tonight.

The Mail series is really excellent.  If you want to be spooked without too much gore, this is perfect.  There is, of course, death, and some murders, but the majority of the stories center around the mysterious circumstances surrounding the hauntings.  The author, Housui Yamazaki, is also the illustrator, so he gets to do exactly what he wants with each page.  The result is some of the scariest page-turns I’ve ever experienced.  Once, I was so spooked, I literally burst out laughing and had to put the book down for a minute while my heart hammered in my chest.  And it wasn’t gross or gory, it was just a well-done story arc that climaxed at a page turn and freaked me out.  Highly recommended.

heeeeere kitty kitty kitty

As long as we’re on the topic, I have to mention The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.  Housui Yamazaki illustrates this one, too, and it’s pretty great.  It has more gore than Mail, but there’s a surprising amount of humor in it.  I found myself laughing aloud at the dialog in every issue.  The premise is that a group of college graduates are having trouble finding work, so they group together to use their weird abilities (dowsing for bodies, speaking to the dead, etc.) to help the dead reach a place where their souls can rest, often resulting in shenanigans and various tom-foolery.  It’s a good, spooky time.

If you’re not into manga, I understand, really.  But these two are worth a shot.

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anime, goodness, humor, life, martial arts, nerd

I am many nerds

I’m a nerd in a lot of ways; I read comics, play computer games, play video games, read Tolkien, read manga, watch anime, watch sci-fi, play table-top games, attend (and dress up for) Renaissance Faires… the list goes on and on.  I pulled out my keys the other day and noticed that some of my nerd-dom was fully on display, and had been for quite some time.

the weighted companion cube was a gift from Diminutive Roommate 🙂

Behold!  My awesome nerd keychain crap!   A Weighted Companion Cube from Portal, a light I got at ComicCon from the Battlestar Galactica booth, and a little carrot icon from the old days when a carrot on a stick was the most valuable item you could pick up at Gadgetzan in Tanaris from that one goblin, and god help you if you actually got those blue goggles instead, because that 3% meant life or death on a PVP server.

I get made fun of (mostly by Sister) for being a nerd, but she can eat shit for all I care.  I’m having a blast.  I’m not shutting myself in my room every weekend, hunched over a comic or my computer, avoiding sunlight and making no attempt at human interaction.  I am not a Gollum-nerd.  I am a modern-day nerd, enjoying my nerd friends and my eclectic interests.  Plus, I have a few anti-nerd weapons I can whip out: I’m female, I’m attractive, do KARATE HAI-YA!, I have many friends, I go out, I have an (attractive) significant other, I socialize easily with strangers, etc.

I am many nerds, and I am happy.

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anime, badness, goodness, nerd

Stop it, anime

So, *sigh* I was poking around Things from Another World, when I came across some anime inspired figurines of Catwoman and Wonder Woman.  Which, in a nutshell, means their outfits are even more impractical, Wonder Woman’s sword is absurdly large, and Catwoman is inexplicably wearing semi-mechanical-looking claw-shoes.  And of course they have to wear heels.  The thought dawned on me, “Stop it, anime.  Stop throwing up on everything.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yet… I like Catwoman’s getup.  For a futuristic reboot, it totally works.  But for a present-day re-imagining, it doesn’t make sense for her character.  She’s a self-made, single-minded crook.  She doesn’t need or want a fancy costume; she’s a ninja that steals shit.  And in case you didn’t know, she’s the best character in the DC universe.  So stop fucking her up, anime.  ^__^ lol

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Anime Mascot #1: Giant sword dude

Apparently people are finding my blog by searching for stuff like “giant sword” and “tentacle hentai.”  While there will be no phallic tentacles on this site, I like to give the people what they want, and parodying anime is just too easy.

May I introduce Anime Mascot #1: Giant Sword Dude
His bad attitude and drive to complete his unexplained quest is dwarfed only by his ridiculously huge sword.  It’s just way too big.  Naturally, he’s standing in a pool of blood, and scowling with his weird-colored eyes at the shiny energy/fire he can create when he gets super pissed during drawn-out fights with his arch enemy.  His hair is blue so you can tell him apart from his twin brother who we meet in season three.  His loincloth is always perfectly placed (no up-the-skirt shots for men), and the giant scar across his chest just shouts, “Don’t you dare fuck with me.  My hair is blue, and my hands shit fire.”

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Anime night!

I invited a bunch of work folks over to watch some anime.  I sent out a mass email invitation complete with offers of deluxe home-made ramen, their choice of mochi ice cream flavor, and about a dozen synopses of some movies and TV series the anime first-timers might enjoy.

I got one response.  Thank god it was yes.  I’m a little sad.

why is it wrapped up? wtf?!

I understand why people are hesitant to watch anime.  I get it.  Really.  They picture the giant eyes, and the impossible hair, the enormous swords, the subtitles (how dare they make us read for entertainment!).  As an avid anime fan, I’ll be the first to say it: anime can be weird and off-putting, just like any other genre.

But it also allows us to think outside the box like no other medium.  It’s a cartoon!  Anything can happen!  Who wouldn’t love that?  The cost of an anime movie is a lot cheaper than a live-action movie, so technically we’re getting more fantastic stories that look amazing from anime per dollar.  That’s five amazing animes for the price of one live-action film!  I’m totally making these number up, btw.  I’ll have to do some research.

totally, completely accurate

RESEARCH COMPLETE

Ok, so it looks like the budget for Spirited Away was ¥1.9 billion, which converts to roughly $23 million.  Scratch together two times that amount, and you could almost afford to hire Eddie Murphy to ruin your film (and that doesn’t even cover the cost of a fat suit).  Inception had a budget of $200 million.  Paprika, an anime movie on the same topic (dream-based science fiction-action-thriller-mystery!) was supposedly made for around $3 million.  And Paprika was part of the inspiration behind Inception!

In case you’re still not convinced that anime is worth your while, AMERICA, here’s a screenshot I took of how Naruto hoped he would look once he was transformed into a cat:

initiate heart melting

P.S. Like how I blamed my coworkers’ lack of interest in anime night at my place entirely on anime?  I’m sorry, my friend, but it’s you or me!  lol

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I WIN!!

Last night I went to Meltdown Comics for an anime-themed benefit event for Japan.  I couldn’t believe how many otaku showed up.  So cool!!!

There was art on silent auction in the back room (I bid $50 for a Fullmetal Alchemist cover signed by the entire English dubbing cast, no word yet on who won it), and a bunch of voice actors in the front sitting to sign whatever the fans brought.  There was a tip jar at the beginning of the line with more than a few $20 bills in it.  Wow.  I love the anime crowd.  They have so much love in their hearts.

All proceeds went toward rebuilding Japan, so everyone was very generous.  I chased down the lady selling raffle tickets just before they stopped selling them, and bought $20 worth.  I won a “small prize,” which turned out to be a bag of anime dvds!  Awesome!

badass

Ergo Proxy (complete series)- This has been on my amazon.com wish list for… I’m gonna say a year.  So the fact that I got to donate to Japan and got this in return is pretty much the definition of serendipitous.  Win!

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Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens (complete series)- This looks kind of adorable.  Looking forward to watching.  And I always like owning the complete series of anything.

we're 12 years old! hooray! lol

yikes

Gurren Lagann (season three)- This looks like complete trash, first of all.  Maybe the synopsis is just awful.  Second, season three?  What am I supposed to do with this, LOL!  I said, “Why would they give away season three of anything?  Why would they do that?”  Boyfriend: “Because it’s free.”  Oh.  Right.

The Story of Saiunkoku (season one)- This is going to be what fills my Fruits Basket void.  Something completely silly and so thoroughly anime, it’ll make make my eyes bleed.  Can’t wait.

Afterward, Boyfriend and I got ramen downtown at Daikokuya.  Delicious.  They had a box on a chair near the door for donations for rebuilding Japan.  My heart is breaking for the people over there.  The last death toll I read about a few days ago said 3,500.  This morning’s toll: 7,000, with 10,000 still missing.  I wish I could fix it.

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