Tag Archives: anime

anime, badness, goodness, life, martial arts

Japan, you are loved

A 8.9 earthquake is really, really huge.  The scale America uses is scary because the intensity of a quake is measured with exponential values.  Meaning a 4.0 quake isn’t twice as intense as a 2.0 quake, it’s eight times more intense.  Now look at the number again: 8.9.  On a scale of 0-10.  Scary.  Plus, you’re a coastal country, so the tsunami that inevitably follows a quake of this magnitude only exacerbates the problem.

Japan is going to make it through this because the world needs their economy to get back on their feet, but also because the Japanese are an amazing group of people.  Period.  Who blogs about the amazing ideas Russia comes out with on a daily basis?  No one, because Russia sucks.  The Japanese have a repressed culture that somehow allows its people to think outside the box in ways the rest of the world marvels at.  And for that, we love them.

In honor of how awesome Japan is, here’s a list of ten reasons why I love Japan, in the order they occurred to me:

1. Anime

 

Paprika made my brain melt

Who the fuck would think that there could be billions of tiny, diverse ghosties floating around that effect us (Mushi-Shi), or that dreams could be your next form of therapy (Paprika), or that a young girl could work in a bath house run for (and by) spirits (Spirited Away)?  And who else would write a fully-realized, philosophically-driven, action packed science fiction series on the future of human-cyborg robotics (Ghost in the Shell) that actually makes sense?  The Japanese direct my imagination in directions I would otherwise never explore.  Thank you.

 

delicious

2. Sushi

I realize that raw fish has been a celebrated dish for (tens of?) thousands of years, but it was the Japanese who spread it across the globe for my pretentious Los Angeles palate to enjoy.  It’s a simple pleasure that always makes me think, “Wow, the Japanese are geniuses.  And bears.  Bears who eat salmon all day and sleep all winter.  Fucking genius.”

3. Cars

I’ve had two Pontiacs, and I’ve had trouble with them both.  My roommate has had her Honda for over a decade, and she bought it used, and it’s still running just fine.  Am I buying American again?  No way.  The Japanese know how to make a damn car.

 

adorable

4. Maru

The cutest, and most famous cat in the world lives in Japan.  He has his own website, loads of YouTube videos, and millions of fans.  His owner keeps us up to speed on his newest toys, favorite napping spots, and intense fear of crows.  He’s the only life form (other than his owner) who I feel like I’ve kinda gotten to know over the past year, so his well-being was one of the first things that occurred to me when I heard about the earthquake and tsunami (sorry humans!).  Turns out he’s safe, yay!

 

epic

5. Samurai, Ninjas, Martial Arts

Where do I begin?  The samurai bushido “way of the warrior” will never be replicated en masse the way it was in feudal Japan.  The intense philosophy that ran throughout every aspect of the samurai’s life from the way they fought to the way they ate and slept is just incredible.

Raise your hand if you never wanted to be a ninja.  You, you, and you; you’re all liars.  EVERYONE wants to be a ninja at some point. I just learned recently that ninjutsu is not a martial art, but an art of war.  Yikes.  Awesome.

I’ve been practicing martial arts since I was 14.  I earned two black belts, and now I work at a dojo where I get to teach kids how to be polite, work hard, and beat the shit out of their siblings who are too stupid or unlucky enough not to be included in class.  With all my experience, I can safely say that everyone on the planet would benefit from learning a martial art (especially a soft style like hapkido or aikido).

6. Nintendo

It’s not just some 8-pixel side-scroller.  It’s a virtual world.  My generation grew up with the gray-box Nintento, and Mario was as real a character as any idiot on reality TV today.  Nintendo set the bar for video gaming.  It started an entire sub-culture.  With a video game.  Cultural references to the original Mario Bros. will never end.  There will always be a “Sorry, Princess is in another castle” joke for unforeseen failure.  Coins will always be shiny, floaty thing we all yearn for.  Stars will always look like a chance at temporary invincibility.

 

ruuuunnnn!!

7. Godzilla

Haha, oh my god.  I can’t believe Godzilla is #7.  Where was my brain.  The Japanese took fear of giant monsters to the ultimate extreme.  So classic.  I still haven’t seen this movie, btw.  Must remedy soon!

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woah

8. Noh

If you don’t know anything about the theater of Edo era Japan, wake the fuck up.  The makeup, the masks, the nuances, the costumes, the stories… amazing.  Google it.  It’s the oldest form of theater (even older than the famous Greek tragedies).  Kabuki centered around drama, love and all that mushy crap.  Kyogen was mostly comedies.  The actors were huge celebrities.  Some even had trading cards.  It’s true!  And one of my favorite comics is based on the masks worn during these iconic plays.

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i will never understand it

9. Sumo

I wonder if this should go under martial arts… haha just kidding!  Can you picture one of these guys rounding a corner in full battle gear?  Hilarious!  But seriously, there’s a ton of ceremony that goes into every match, which are fun to watch.  Giant dudes pushing brutishly each other out of a small ring?  While the referee holds a fan and wears traditional robes?  And the attendees get crushed whenever one of the sumo guys tumbles off the platform?  What a sport!

10. Takeshi’s Castle

This is a little-known series that aired in 1989 that started the wave of shows that put normal people through ridiculous obstacle courses for the world to laugh at.  America has a show called Wipeout that does the same thing.  Genius.

I want to write more about each of these but I’m at work, and no one wants to read that much about this stuff (including me).  Suffice to say, the Japanese people have my adoration and respect.  Now if they could just give a serious apology about invading Korea, and the whole “comfort women” thing, that’d be great.

UPDATE: March 15, 5:32pm

Wait!  I thought of another reason to love Japan: the Polysics!

I mean people do fun, silly stuff people do in music videos.  The Japanese are clearly no exception, and for that, I love them.

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anime, badness, goodness

Slow death by filler episode

Here’s the problem with anime: filler. Filler episodes are what a good 80% of most anime TV series consist of. This is nowhere better demonstrated than in Dragonball Z, when whole episodes would be dedicated to someone try to fly to a location on the other side of a very small planet where a battle was going on. This “battle” consisted of only two people, who also spent a good two or three episodes “charging up,” or gathering energy for the (supposedly) ensuing battle.

The direct result of said filler episodes is that out of all the random Dragonball Z episodes I’ve managed to catch on Cartoon Network from my childhood up to now, I’ve never actually seen a battle. Such is the power of the filler.

Naruto Shippuden is also full of this crap. So when the last story arc ended, I was crushed. I would imagine I have some idea of what it must be like to watch my child excel in college, happily date, get straight A’s, and participate in multiple clubs and sports, only to return home after graduation, a single, ambitionless, unemployed, lumpy leftover person. That’s what I’m watching now. Leftovers of a superior series. Buh. Get it over with already. I wanna see Naruto and Hinata interact ONCE after everything went down (go Hinata! I QQd like a baby).

BUT NO, instead I’m stuck watching a talking ostrich reminisce to his kids about this one time Naruto was a jerk. No, wait, it’s not just any ostrich, that would be dumb. We’re dealing with a ninja ostrich. That’ll make it worth watching, right? [/scratches eyes out]

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The fetish surfaces

So… this is embarrassing to admit, but there have been several times when I have the feeling that if a cartoon character were to come to life, I would totally hit on him. I’m not talking about a common cartoon crush or whatever. I mean… crap, what do I mean…?
It must be the whole package I’m drawn to; the environment the character is in, the simplicity of the rules, and so on. No homeless people, no menstruating, no bad haircuts, none of that crap. This must be what it’s like to have a crush on a celebrity after watching a movie.
And so, without further ado, before I blush myself into oblivion, my list of cartoon dudes I would seduce the shit out of were I given two dimensions of a chance (and the show/movie they’re featured in):

Hatake Kakashi (Naruto)- I’ll never be cool enough for this guy. Boys and girls all over Japan agree: Kakashi is the coolest. Also, a pervert.

Vash the Stampede (Trigun)- Vash is so broken and innocent. I want to take care of him. Among other things.

Spike (Cowboy Beebop)- He’s the best at what he does. His intelligence and physical skill make him a highly desirable mate. What? I’m just saying…

Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke)- What can I say about this guy? He’s the outdoorsy type, the prince of his clan, he’s quick, courageous, animals trust him, and he’s voiced by Dr. Manhattan (that last part doesn’t actually do anything for me. Trivia!)

Needless to say all of these characters are a bit damaged, because who wants a man without a past? Not me, sister. They’re also drawn with special attention, none of that HUGE ANIME EYES baloney. Don’t get me wrong, their hair is all ridiculous, but that’s how anime distinguishes one character from another. I’m over it.

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Wolverine in Japan

Marvel is going anime again. I don’t want to get caught up in a typical fanboy comparison of all past iterations of this effort. Let’s discuss the teaser for the Japanization of Wolverine, which you can watch here. (Notice in the screenshot that his claws aren’t even coming out of the right spot on his hands. It’s like he’s holding a bunch of kitchen knives and posing for a myspace photo. Ugh.)

When I read that article about how Wolverine would be one of the first to be converted into an anime-style cartoon, I knew straight off the bat that there would be one big problem which should be obvious to anyone who watches anime, and one big upside, a bright spot in what seems like a really bad idea.

The Problem
If I had to name the manliest character in all the American comics I’ve read, I’d say hands down that Wolverine is it. He’s a remorseless, self-centered, devil-may-care, indestructible killing machine. He can be riddled with holes and survive to kill the guy who did it. He’s loved and lost; now he’s a jaded, motorcycle-riding, cigar-smoking womanizer. He’s what every man has at some point wanted to be.

Now let’s have a look at your typical anime manly-man:

–Naraku (Inuyasha)- Falls in love with a totally hot priestess, and gives his body to demons if they will give him the power to claim this woman. It doesn’t work, but throughout the series, he ends up killing tens of thousands of people (at least).

–Orochimaru (Naruto)- Betrays his entire village, slaughters countless people, all in a quest to achieve his own immortality. Overall a real asshole.

–Abel Nightroad (Trinity Blood)- A Methusela (vampire who feeds on other vampires) who is torn between his hunger for human blood, and the soft spot in his heart for one annoying girl (a NUN, no less).

Notice a pattern emerging here? Abel is possibly the most masculine-looking dude to make the list, and still, I could probably bench press this guy. All of these male characters could be mistaken for females on a good day. Anime men typically have effeminate faces, flowing hair, slender builds, and soft voices. [For some reason this is considered sexy in Japan. I don’t get it.] Now picture Wolverine with those traits. Yikes.

The Bright Spot
American cartoons are notoriously hammy. The creators refuse to kill off main characters, show blood, or frighten their viewers with suggestions of mutilation, violence, etc. I’m not saying I’m looking forward to watching Wolverine cut on a corpse for an entire episode (frankly, I think the Japanese could give the topic of rape a rest), but current American cartoons that feature Wolverine are… adorable. Which is very, very bad. The gore that’s allowed in anime is a perfect fit for Wolverine’s character, assuming he’s still allowed to be a crazed slicing, dicing madman on occasion. Personally, I can’t wait to watch him fuck some shit up anime style as long as there isn’t too much hair tossing.

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Black Holes, Anime, and Fuckin’ StarCraft II

StarCraft II
My boyfriend was nice enough to pick me up a copy of StarCraft II the night it came out. He’s been pretty excited to play it, and I can clunk through an RTS when I need to, so I wanted to experience it with him. But for the past two weeks I haven’t played SCII for more than ten minutes without buggy black screens, etc. fucking up my game play and making the simplest game aginst the AI impossible. I’m just trying to impress my boyfriend here, dammit. I am so full of hate for this game.

Anime
If it wasn’t apparent, I’m an anime fan. I’ve been following Naruto for… shit, for a few years now I guess. It’s a fun show with annoying patches of filler episodes (typical anime). It was really getting good for while there, too. The most recent episodes featured an entire city getting wiped off the map, main characters dying off left, right and center, huge fights, revelations, you name it. And just when we’re about to get into the final confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist… we jump back in time to watch Naruto and his friends do some ridiculous quest. Little kid Naruto is adorable, but WTF?! I just want to know what happens to the Hidden Leaf! What happens to Hinata? What do Naruto and the bad guy talk about? Do they reach a resolution? Do they fight? Does Naruto finally become Hokage? Double-U Teeeee Effffff

Black Holes
I work with kids part-time, which is really fun sometimes. You just never know what they’re going to say. Yesterday we were talking about outer space, and I mentioned black holes. None of the kids knew what a black hole was. I described it as “something that’s super tiny that can eat anything and everything up.” Then I told them that after something is eaten up, we lose track of it. No one on Earth has any idea where it goes. The kids could not believe what I had just said. A couple of them literally thought I was lying. I said, “Really! It’s a huge mystery. Even the smartest people in the world don’t know where it goes after it gets eaten up by a black hole.” Then I did what my dad used to do: I made them try to think up an answer all by themselves. I asked, “Where do you guys think it goes?” They were all quiet for a few seconds, until one boy said, “Maybe it goes into the future.”
Wow. Just… wow. I couldn’t believe he said that. How awesome is that kid’s brain that the future is the first thing he thinks of. Not a place, a TIME. HAHAHAHA!! Amazing!

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Ogami Ittō, I come for you!

I recently finished the first volume of Lone Wolf and Cub, a manga about a rogue samurai and his infant son, who, against great peril, travel the countryside murdering the shit out of people for a large fee. It’s pretty friggin’ sweet. The main character uses his son as part of his often intricate strategies to assassinate his targets. And the son seems semi-aware of the danger. Their bond is hard to describe, pretty bizarre, and totally, ruthlessly, brutally awesome.

But who knew that there was a 6-disc TV series created in 1974? Apparently this series was first published in 1970 in Japan, where it was HUGELY popular. The original publishing company, First Comics, folded, and Dark Horse, bless them, re-published the entire series (even the last issues that were unpublished by First Comics).

So I’m hooked. But why isn’t there a collection of this somewhere? I need a Hellboy: Library Edition-style publication of this series. Am I really going to have to buy all 28 tiny little books? Yes. Will I? Probably. I’m going to get through at least the first four, and go from there. Wish me luck, oh people of the internet (none of whom read my secret blog)!

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