anime on bossa = wtf

I saw [Iwao Junko - Anime on Bossa] at the strangely-titled Akibanana, and decided to check it out. It's pretty weird, as expected. That's not to say that there's not good talent involved: the musicians have impressive chops, and Iwao Junko does something of an Astrud Gilberto impression. As a card-carrying member of the Jazz Police, however, I sense some faults in this album, on a deep, ideological level. First, these are anime songs (that I don't know, mostly), so they sound a bit funny (or a lot funny) when set against that swaying bossa nova beat. Second, a few of the tracks aren't bossa nova; they're that corny-earnest weird Japanese jazz.

Corny-earnest jazz is bad. It's insidiously bad. I can't really explain, it just twists me painfully inside. I've heard it in places like 99 Ranch, a CD full of "I'm playing with strategically added grace notes from a half step below, so it must be cool and jazzy now" piano schlock. So please stop making this stuff. Thanks in advance.

[This post was rescued from the drafts dustbin in May 2009, and the original link is dead.]

Aagh

I've been going a little crazy these past few days trying to find out when the 10th Haruhi novel is coming out. So far, no hard date. There's some news from last summer about it being delayed. This thing (described as a shareholder report by Babelfish) shows 涼宮ハルヒの驚愕 due sometime this month. However, given that there's been no massive ad campaign, it can't be arriving anytime soon.

I kind of feel that Tanigawa-sensei has written himself into a hole with the plot direction in #9. From past author's notes, Tanigawa-sensei gives the impression that he spends a lot of time in plotting and planning. Since #10 is supposed to be the conclusion of the arc started in #9, the only thing that could be holding it back so long is a massive replumbing job. At least that's my hope. #9 gets into dangerous territory, in that it focuses the overarching plot, introducing new characters and potentially expanding the SOS-dan. In previous novels we've spent a lot of time delving into things involving Yuki and Mikuru, and not so much the Haruhi=God supposition. By extension, we've yet to see much of Koizumi's secrets. I doubt this forthcoming novel will blow the whole thing wide open, but hopefully it'll answer more questions than it raises, without sinking the enterprise.

Hrmm

I took a look at To LOVE-Ru and saw the name Yabuki Kentaro. Flipping through the first chapter, I'm glad to say that I didn't see Train or Sven, but the bodyguard guys were awfully familiar... Well, typical shōnen fanservice manga I guess.

Then I came across this madness. Tokunan Seiichirō: Human Clock. It's seriously surreal: feels like Dali (art and film), Picasso, Miró, and whoever else did this sort of thing, along with a splash of French cinema. I can't tell if this is pure sloppiness or pure genius.

Comipress: Tokunan Seiichirō
Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Man a Machine, translated

Doujin Work

You would think that the whole making-doujinshi genre has been wayy overdone. It has, for sure, but somehow it's terribly enjoyable. I started watching Doujin Work again (after a hiatus), which consists of some amazingly low-budget animation. The first few episodes were pretty predictable, but I watched episode 4 last night and it was hilarious. The whole Cafe With Cat stuff was great. And ... :3



[I finally hooked up my big speakers. Earlier I played the ED from Noir, which had a rather scary presence. Now I found my Tenchi stuff. It's pretty nostalgic. The OP to Universe is rather amusing. More importantly, I need to find my Foobar settings...]

Geh, more anime

I'm glad there's not very much to watch this season. Maybe I can catch up with older stuff... primarily Dennou Coil.

I just watched the first episode of Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de / They are my noble masters. It's pretty darn trashy, but still entertaining. I confess that I do have an affinity for the ojou-sama setup, which is the primary reason for my interest in this anime. However, it may just be too trashy to endure. For example all the characters are uncannily derivative. Shinra (-sama) gives me Haruhi vibes, I can't place Hato but she seems awfully familiar, and the rest ... yeah. I like how Yume is into ham radio, but these randomnesses are just that: randomnesses. (According to Firefox spellcheck, it's a word. Woot.)

Last week I watched Minami-ke ~Okawari~. I couldn't stand last season's edition, but the new crew seems to have a better conception of the manga's unique characteristics. Just starting from the (pretty bizarre) opening, you can tell they're reaching for some OMGWTF. Then the pacing, the fast cuts, and the freeze-frames are all done in a way that reflects the manga's deadpan action. I think they got it right, along with the slice-of-life elements.

Tried Wolf and Spice. Seems pretty meh. I'm putting this series in the "going to read the novel someday" pile.

Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is awesome, no question. Haven't watched it yet, beyond a few minutes.

I finished Myself; Yourself a few weeks ago. It wasn't anything special, and I plan to hate on it sometime. Currently in the romance pile are Kimikiss, CLANNAD, and Tokimeki Memorial (surprisingly awesome, I swear), so I'm not sure about picking up either of this season's offerings. H2O has generic character design, pretty nice backgrounds, and maybe an interesting story, but I worry that it's cliché and/or depressing. True Tears seems like it has more ambitious direction, and from the description has the potential to be more heartfelt and slice-of-life-y. We'll see.

キミと夜空と坂道と

This song's been rattling around in my head. "Kimi to Yozora to Sakamichi to", something about You and the Night Sky and the Slope, if I'm parsing that correctly. "Slope" isn't very romantic, of course. Neither is most of Myself; Yourself. Okay, that was a bad segue; I'm still watching it after all. The good part: Nanaka miko banzai. The bad part: unlimited loli works. Okay, I'm stretching again, but to spend two episodes on whatshername offends my sensibilities. I guess you can't create a visual novel for the mainstream without hitting all the major demographics. And there's probably not enough plot to fill out 13 episodes otherwise, even though they've thrown in just about every cliché they could. Well, I take that back, they've got several characters' worth of plot left, probably; Ep 7 implies that there's even a path for Yuzuki-sensei. Admittedly the anime has made me mildly curious about the visual novel. For example, these frames are pretty much instant tsundere gratification.

(Slight change of topic) Looking at ANN, Nanaka's seiyuu, Ami Koshimizu, has done a lot of other roles. This season, she's also in Kimikiss, as Hoshino-san, a role that's close to that of Nanaka. Interestingly, she's also the voice of Tenma in School Rumble, quite a different character. Even more curiously, she's going to be Horo in Wolf and Spice/Spice and Wolf/Spicy Wolf, something of a teasing role. Well, next season should be interesting.

Oh yeah, the song. It's very catchy, particularly the refrain. For awhile I had "ボクらしく，そう，キミらしく，ただ夜空を見める" repeating endlessly in my head. That line pretty much sums up my romantic attachment to this song. Listening to it now, I can identify other catchy aspects. There's that guitar riff after the lead-in, which turns into a chromatic upward cadence -- it's a major rush. I've also started to notice the stunning effectiveness of simple backup voices, whether in harmony, or to add breadth to the melodic line. In this case there's a lot of groovy "whoo-hoo"ing which somehow works extremely well. Man, there's an organ in the mix too. These arrangements never cease to amaze.

The lately

I haven't been doing much of anything lately. Watched one or two episodes of Noir. Read the usual unending trickle of manga; some may be worth discussing in depth.

The only thing I really caught up on is Kimikiss. Certain portions are absolutely inane (you know, the frogs) but the rest is exactly the vicarious romance that the doctor ordered, in a variety of addicting flavors. (The worst part about romance material is withdrawal, after all.) Putting that matter aside, it seems that the production committee blew their budget on that sax CG. That said, it's actually pretty good CG for once, and musically accurate (disclaimer: the only wind instrument I play is the recorder). But the question is, why'd they devote the effort to it? Why go so far as to integrate a solo passage into the CG sequence? It boggles the mind.

Oh, since I was in the city today, I went to Kinokuniya. It seems they've expanded into the ground floor, basically directly below the second floor space, with a reduced footprint. The first floor is all manga, and the second floor is "other stuff". The expanded store might be larger than the San Jose location, but I'm not sure. I somehow felt that the manga selection wasn't as large, but that may be because I wasn't able to find Moyashimon.（Their website shows it in stock at SF, but I looked around the KC section several times and didn't see it. Maybe I should just ask next time. Or bring one of these along.) But I got the rest of what I was looking for, and resisted buying some mysterious $10 boxed Haruhi figure. (Seems to be the Solid Works Collection DX.)

The requisite picture:



I haven't been keeping up with news, so it was gratifying to see that Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is getting a second season. The volume of N.H.K. is for a friend who's also slowly learning Japanese. Minami-ke is just for staying current, even if I can't read it properly.

Mokke is definitely much better than the anime adaptation would lead one to believe. It feels like a seinen manga -- and I'm not talking about the lack of furigana.

All this manga piling up means that I need to start studying the language seriously. I've been sitting on this textbook for almost six months, sigh. Time to get cracking.