Bootleg Saber, Sunday Cleaner
Figured the last time I took the girls out for a spin, there was snow. Now it’s like 32C/90F on a sunny and humid Sunday. I totally didn’t realize this until after the fact. I write no figure blog, but I do like figures…when they fit my twisted definition of worth-buying.
I love this picture (below) because the mop goes exactly where you think it should go.
It’s Easy Listening
If you want to put on some refreshing but distinctively “hand-made” music, try this out:
Couple days ago I stumbled across a fan cover album, a collection of renditions of Maaya Sakamoto’s tracks. What’s so remarkable is the quality of these songs–it’s almost as good as those for-sale-at-Comiket fan albums. To be fair it was rough but let’s just say it’s worth your time to try it out.
Most of the tracks are from Sakamoto’s Lucy-Nikopachi-Shounen Alice era [affiliate links], and that’s fine vintage. The collaboration came about through the organization of a fan forum community, Maaya’s. You can read the thread here. (The YKDB thread also sheds some info too.)
If you want to grab a copy of this “First Live@Purple Pro Audio” (it is a live studio album), the best way to do it is via this zshare link, uploaded by one of the people involved in the project. By the way, they call themselves “The Other Side of Lucy.” Definitely fans alright. Annotated copypasta++ incoming:
- Vocals: Pippa (
England ) - Guitar: Jerome (
France ) [International collaboration!] - Mix and Master: Simon
- Where: Purple Pro Audio Studio (
Leeds ,England )
- Makiba!
Alice [Uncanny] - Kodoku
- Daniel […I can so use a Park Amsterdam cover]
- Pocketto wo kara ni shite [uhh. use a kazoo?]
- Chibikko Folk [enjoy your faceless male backup singing?]
- Yukka
- NO FEAR/aisuru koto
[not bad for a Yunagi Loop track, almost better than the original] - pilot
- here [I think this is a good song for a guy to sing, coincidentally]
- yoru [fierce]
- alkaloid
- yubiwa [the arrangement is worth it, let alone the other stuff]
- Gift [this song suddenly got a lot more creds]
- Secret Track: Gift ~why not? why not? version~ [Amusing secret track is amusing!]
Digging around on Maaya’s you can also find their older works, here. To download, you can sign up for an account on the forums. The tracks there includes Yoru, Gift, and Yubiwa, although I’m not sure if they are the same ones as I have yet got a chance to check.
Looks like I’m going to have to bust out that bootleg recording from that Shounen Alice Studio Live sometime soon; this is basically channeling all of that.
When it comes to things like this I’m not even half as critical as I normally am, so I’ll leave it up to the listeners to give this a shot and make their own judgment. It’s just that I really need to take a break from listening to Nyan Furo all the time…
The Facination with Objective Ranking
Objective ranking is like putting a score at the end of your review. The short of it is that it is fun and can be logistically useful, but it is often woefully inadequate as a form of expression. It has some material advantages but it also runs the risk of minimizing what makes one game attractive–in essence miscommunicating the point of your review to your readers.
One way to improve the use of objective ranking and minimize poor communication is to break it down into categories or sub-scores. However that can get hairy and inconsistent as the reviewers have to juggle a lot of math to get stuff right across many shows. Also these sub-scores often don’t reveal the big picture, at least they do no better than a single score would. There’s also a school of thought going in the opposite direction that encourages the use of simple objective criteria, such as thumbs up or down, to provide a simple “is this worth your time” result that readers look for in an objective rank review.
So let’s look at a new, proposed system:
Here’s a page taken 2 steps away from Jenkins, so there has to be some amount of credibility…so says Wikipedia on video game analysis and the divide between ludology and narratology. Short of quoting the article to you, you can think of narrativists that play the game for the plot, and ludologists for people that play the game for the gameplay.
In extension, these two seemingly-opposite perspectives drive not only game development, developers, and reviewers, but also players and their experience of the game. I am going to quote a bit of Jenkins (well, not directly):
Henry Jenkins attempts to find a compromise between ludology and narratology with the following points:
- Not all games tell stories
- Many games have narrative ambitions
- An analysis of storytelling in games can be done in more than one way
- The gaming experience can never be reduced to the experience of a story
- If games tell stories, it is unlikely that they do so in the same manner as other media
Many games can be seen in light of this compromise.
In essence, this possible weeaboo has stated the issue really well, in the context of an objective video game ranking system (thanks Tycho!). It inspired me to attempt to apply the same metrics to anime. Go ahead and skim that link right now.
The act of trying to give a ludological-equivalent score to anime seems unnecessary–after all, one could conclude that the conflicting perspective arose from the interactivity of games and a way to cope with that fact in a traditional review. However, invariably the audience’s interactivity has and will always be an important and tangible part of artistic evaluation. Just because the player has a big hand in a video game experience doesn’t mean the viewer of a play or the reader of a book can be effectively eliminated from a review.
In light of today’s new media and the entangling/mutating pop culture with the people within, it may be sensible to deploy such a metric. After all, fandom is about interacting with some piece of work, albeit in the meta level. (I think this is what he was trying to say regarding Lucky Star.)
And sometimes the interaction can take place even within the established framework of the work itself. Beyond magic shows where the performer solicits an accomplice from the audience, or the awes and gasps the storyteller get from her audience, some traditional works demand an interactive response. But more aptly, Real Drive episode 6 mentions this in the form of a novel. The ending of the book was a bunch of empty pages that you can remove and write your own. I guess we can throw text books into this category as well (and, almost by correlation, much of children’s literature).
I think all these are considerations to properly implement the proposed metric–in other words, to create a set of two values, one to evaluate the underlying story elements and the other to evaluate the quality of expression and interaction of said work–how the work “game” the viewer. Sort of like the divide best described by statements like, for instance, “good story, badly written”? Let’s hijack those bullet points from Wikipedia to illustrate this point further, and let’s see if they hold water:
- Not all anime tell stories
- Most anime have narrative ambitions
- An analysis of storytelling in anime can be done in more than one way
- The viewing experience can never be reduced to the experience of a story
- If anime tell stories, it is unlikely that they do so in the same manner as other media
Let’s start with an easy one: #5. Some anime tell stories just like other media–it can be even liken to a video game. But is this the common case or the exception? I think the answer lies somewhere in between. Unlike other medium, anime in particular has had some conventions unique to itself. Some shows embrace this fully (eg. Kaiba, Eiken), others approach the opposite extreme (eg. Nodame, Oofuri (yay license)). There are other reasons why the animation medium is preferred (eg. Satoshi Kon, Studio 4c) and these creators leverage the differences and advantages of the medium to their ends. In that sense, anime is no different than games in the way it tells a story–that it’s relatively unique. Still, I think #5 is easy because it doesn’t hold any water as it reduces the inquiry about the necessity of talking ludology about anime to a tee. Nonetheless, we have to see that anime does have those aspects to it. Some even in the meta.
Can the viewing experience be reduced to the experience of a story? I think question #4 hones in on the ludological (hmm need to think of a better word for that in this context)/narrative divide. I know a lot of people got into anime purely for this reason–they enjoy the story and their experience of the story is utmost important to them. But even among these serial-narrative nuts, many of them can discern the quality of storytelling and how it affects their ultimate enjoyment. I think I am being honest in saying that most anime have pretty silly stories. If you’ve had a hundred, nay, fifty titles under your belt, you can probably agree with this statement. What is so enjoyable, however, is those twists and turns within the story. Coincidentally, that also explains why a lot of anime TV serial narratives have crap endings–because the story is silly. At least, how I answer this question builds the foundation to a case for the bi-scoring analysis: in other words, how does an anime game its viewer?
I suppose #5 wasn’t that cut and dry, but #3 ought to be–actually, many anime tell their stories in more ways than one, and they can obviously be analyzed in more ways than one. My favorite title of all time is a master of this. The hard part is figure out just how many ways we can piece together stories (both different and same stories!) out of the same 26 episodes. Question #3 addresses the meta participation aspect. If ludology examines the the gameplay experience to a game, then whatever ludology equals in anime (or motion pictures in general) examines not just the meta fan response, but the condition of the show as the show left the viewer, and the state of the viewer in response to the show.
Question #2 ought to be easy–pretty much all anime have some kind of narrative ambition, right? But perhaps we can gain some insight by examining this question along with question #1. In as much as the audience can extract meaning from even simple games like tic-tac-toe or pong, or argue that Portal is some kind of message about lesbianism, it may very well be possible to say that there are no such things as games (let alone anime) that do not have any sort of story. But “narrative ambition”? It’s pretty clear some game do not have them. How about anime? Possibly so, but if they exist, I think they would be resigned to the realm of indie animation and fan doddling in general, with some exceptional shorts or music videos.
All of it seems inconclusive.
And at this point I’m just going to ask and answer two questions, for practicality’s sake:
1. Is a ludology-equivalent score meaningful in the context of anime?
2. And if so what is it a score of?
I believe it is clear that a ludological score method does not translate to anime directly, but one can apply the same concept to look at anime (in a very basic form, give a score for the story and a score for everything else). It may be some notion of style or artistic value. It could be a notion of “has this anime achieved what it set out to do” beyond its narrative ambition? It could include a reflection of the show’s production value, creativity and intelligence.
At the same time, one has to question just how much overlap is there between these two values. In terms of video games, there is definitely an overlap between a ludological and narrative perspective–they aren’t mutually exclusive. In the same way, how a story come out in an anime–ultimately what it expresses as theme and message–can and does exist outside the narrative. I previously note how the show “game” its audience is ultimately the equivalent, and to some ends that is what a reader is looking for in a review, and it may be meaningful if only at that. “How it games the audience” as “is it fun to watch”?
What it is a score of is something we just have to read the review for, I guess. this isn’t quite like scoring for figure skating, even if it does employ this metric.
Homework: I guess it makes sense to actually think of what one would consider to factor into a narrative or gaming score.
- Production value, artistic value, drawing, design, direction, music, sound, choreography: I think this is all non-narrative.
- Writing, dialog, character development, narrative voice, pacing: Narrative.
- Acting: Probably Non-narrative.
- Plot, character, theme, consistency: Narrative.
Effectively, if art can move people, it can do it through narratives (eg. a sad story about a thing) or through something else (eg. a sad picture about the thing). To differentiate the two has some value.
PanelCon Is Drama Nonetheless? Otakon Bloggers Get It Together?
The word is in that omo’s panel is not going to happen at Otakon. Our panel application has been rejected. However that shouldn’t stop us to attempt some kind of meet-up.
In the process of planning for the panel I got to talk to Super Rats and WAH as my co-conspirators. Well, WAH is lolz as always, but among such distinguished company I think we can do more than just call it a day. Hopefully it’s more fun than attending a panel that will ultimately result in a few of us sitting around and talk about growing your page views per day, finding the optimal number of posts per week, the editorial/review divide, and why TheBigN, well, is the Big N.
That also frees up my time to creep every single JAM Project activity. Hurrah.
I do want to know two things, however–
- Just what do you guys want to talk about at a panel? If there is a seminar on anime blogging, what would you like and expect to see? I would really like to know. Both for avid blog readers and bloggers alike (are they even different?).
- Do you guys want to hang out at Otakon anyways? I know I want to at least get to see Moy and JP/Hinano (sorry no AnimeNext for omo), and some others that I don’t remember off the top of my head. Would be nice to put a face to Super Rats too. And hopefully this guy would be less embarrassed and feel more welcomed than my heckling self alone. We are thinking let’s meet up Friday night after the JAM Project show, and maybe/maybe optionally hit up a bar or an eatery. If you got a better time slot just shout it out below. Actually, we will set the time for sure once Otakon puts out their first iteration of the schedule the week prior to the con, so I am sure you will hear from me again before the con. Say something if Friday nights are/are not good for you, though.
And since those precious Otakon panel slots are precious, I hope you can go say hello to MarisaTSO.
This relatively drama-less post ends with a tidbit about Tofusensei’s panel at Otakon. He’s been running this little operation for a while now, and he parties it up with a bunch of friends and acquaintances every year. There’s also a panel that goes with the operation, and having attended it a couple times I do think it’s a good crash course on digisubbing if you’re new to it.
This year, it seems, that he has something planned which is bigger than ever. But guess what, his panel has been denied too! I quote from the Otakon boards:
We were actually planning on having a panel discussion with members from the industry attending and discussing the issues with very experienced and influential fansubbers participating. I’m certain your convention is making a mistake by not tackling this issue.
If there is an explanation for why it was rejected, I’d like to hear it. Thanks.
A little more context: basically his digisubbing panel, which has ran for the past 6 years at Otakon, is denied and he wasn’t told exactly why. (FWIW I wasn’t told either for mine.) I would like to see Tofusensei vs. Otaking celebrity death match style…hmm. More impressions for Anime News Network!
As for the anime blogging panel…well, I’ve been thinking about it (out loud) since 2006, so there’s reason to take matters into my own hands again for 2009. I enjoyed what little work I’ve done this year, and I’m already half-surprised at the interest from you all in this little half-aborted thing. Hopefully next year will work out better.
A Date with 5 Centimeters Per Second - Part 2
Oh, hay, it’s June 16. Remember to say hello to this bloke for the rest of us in a few days? With a heavy, large stick nicknamed Envy? (Srsly, you UK fanboys ought to hang out and get it on more often. Enjoy your Shinkai.)
The months preluding to summer are rather busy; finding an appropriate Sunday evening to spend with the film was not easy. The warm air assaults outdoor travelers adjusting to the changing season but I’ve adapted rather quickly for a change. Perhaps a typical day walking the farm-lined country road of Tanegashima was not unlike the day I spent watching Baseball, doing errands, singing praises, and watching the struggle of Takaki Tono on a film-tuned HDTV running the BRD version of the film, 5 Centimeters Per Second. I had to feel comfortable about it, after all.
This time around I actually spent two hours watching both the Blu-Ray and DVD region 1 versions of the work, as I was joined by a co-conspirator who required subtitles. The re-tuned TV, as previously mentioned, is a Sony KDS 60A2000, to these specs. And sure enough, the opening scene in Okashou no longer pounces my visual senses like a sour Warhead. The interplay of the intermittent sunlight through the trees really stood out in the few scenes that offered the said visual magic. The scene when Akari pets the downtrodden Chobi was particularly exciting, which was a new find. (Well, as exciting as 5cm can be.)
The same goes for the surfing action; Sumida’s dark complexion remained both in her dusk-creeper mode and when she’s paying tribute to the ocean gods via her stretching exercises. The seaside glitter worked the same wonder as the twinkling stars–which now twinkle properly as she climbed the grassy knoll for the nth time.
It was also fun to just look at random things–the anti-theft mirror in the convenience store scene was a good example. The contrast between the lit train and the dark, snowy night was still appreciable but the night wasn’t as dark as I remembered. On the other hand, the train rides with the sun up was a little less exciting as the animation skipped out on some of the shadow animation coming in, at least some of the time.
It was like having a blown-up version of the pictures from Sora no Kioku in your living room, measuring 60″ from the diagonals. And having the ability to just hit pause and walk up to it was pretty awesome. I know I did that for a couple scenes. Like the shot from Okashou, entering the classroom in the morning–noticing the bags hanging from the desks and chairs, and reflection from the ceiling lights–it was sweet.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure it was all good. For example, the scene where Sumida’s sister admired her successful ride along the grassy shore was a little too windy that the grass can’t keep up? Or the simple character animation of making a paper plane…maybe Sumida needs to take notes from Alto Saotome. The simpleness contrasted with the elaborate details that confronted the viewer every five seconds, perhaps for the better, but I’m not sure.
Anyways, I enjoyed it, again. I have to apologize that there’s just no good way for me to make screen caps, so that promise may never be fulfilled. Instead, maybe it’s about time that I made a promise with a place beyond the clouds next?
