Of a Dying 2006 Pancake Jamboree
This is the season to bake a cake
With our Queen of all pancakes
Her batter is first-rate
But one thing we all hate:
Skip her jam; your life, it’ll take.
Of the flame of wintry passions
Few hotter is an odd fusion
Of sickeningly cute “moe”
Mixed with a rarer, “moe”
An odd 萌え 燃え confusion?
Makoto, right before the snow
covers her, as if winter knows
that next year,
like every year,
again, memories anew will grow.
But what of tears under half a moon?
Of wishes undying, lovers swoon
to an eternal pledge
and they jump off the edge.
No, I’m not laughing at Black Lagoon.
But of kisses, war and boobs;
Fewer confuses more n00bs
than the trap gallery
on board the flying gallery
of Arctus Prima, the shoujo test tube.
Still there is no understatement
To fandom’s greatest testament
When the morning comes
And your alarm hums
Nayuki’s trademarked statement.
Still, it’s better to sing a song
Even if you get it all wrong
Like a undine
With a karaoke machine
to where the tone-deaf have gone.
If all of that is a pain
Then watch some Soukou no Strain
It’s serious as pie
And full of oppai
It belongs in its own domain.
But of wrecks this year
Perhaps none can possibly compare
To a sequel
With no equal
Because, she sang, life is a canvas.
And with a strong kiss, she landed.
Smitten, like heavy irony, candid
Of Paprika
As Hayashibara
Daughters of moe have commanded!
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
When Renton did his flying round
For love
Kind of?
Death rained down all around.
If “pancake” was a code word
In this theater of the absurd
It’ll spoil the story
Of Jesus’ destiny
Savior of many, head of his herd.
Because we go to war over it
And idol singer acts for it
Awesome cameras
For positive otaku karma
Will FLAG as a banner, fit?
This deadly note must stop
But only because to slumber I drop
You can lament
In my comments
It’s a grand criticism swap.
Otakon 2006: An Average Story about a Convention
If words were enough to describe this convention, I wouldn’t need pictures. Even if words were enough, I’d still use pictures because I am lazy.
But some words are necessary. Like tags. Could be chronological:
Hot Thursday prereg, drinking, dinner, drinking; hot friday lineup, ticket, sat in line and watch anime, dealers, eat, Nobuteru panel, Madhouse panel, eat alone, concert, karaoke; Saturday ticket, dealers, Kawasumi panel, autograph, karaoke, fate meet, concert, mt meet, Geneon, Hellsing, dinner, art gallery, 4chan, Geneon panel; sunday karaoke, art gallery, hotel crap, karaoke, lunch, karaoke, home.
Or more descriptive:
Haruhi-tard, ETERNAL BLAZE, Hottest. Otakon. Ever., Kawasumi Ayako, Lafiel, Mahoro, Trap-chan, Raptor Jesus, Getsumei Fuuei, MUCC, fatigue, NO U, Free Stuff, Mihata no Moto ni, Pictochat, Geneon, Dan Kim, Futakoi Alternative, Touhou, Ever17, waiting in line, Nobuteru Yuuki, Nakazawa Kazuto, God Bless…
There were the usual amount of cosplaying. Without beating around the bush anymore, you can click on these links at your own risk. Traps, you know. I think the variety this year matches more my expectation from last year than this year.
A good meme from the con to recall is Web 2.0. It’s amusing how much I’ve changed in doing an otakon write-up over the last 9 years. And yet I’ve done it every time save my first Otakon, in a blog form. Instead of AMVs maybe I’ll do a trip down memory lane kind of thing. Some things, despite age, just don’t change time and time again.
Like hitting traffic on the NJ Turnpike.
But there are still stories left to be told of our battle last weekend. Yours and mine. Like how karaoke post MUCC concert means you can’t hear the monitor too well. Or our Canadian friend makes one helluva Trap-chan. Or how 4chan manages to transform time and space and bring anonymity to a convention line. Or how the panels I missed out I wish I could attend, or watch videos of. Or how I asked about Lafiel, and made a fool out of myself at the Kawasumi panel. Or how people should do more Nana Mizuki songs at the karaoke. Or just how much fun we had, or how we wish you were there, too.
I was actually looking for Os on Friday–imagine we were all in the Mad House panel…
Perhaps one more notable point to it all is how my friends played into the picture. There was a major blurring between my RL friends, different circles of RL friends, internet friends, and random people. It’s good to know people who know people but knowing so many people can make things difficult. This year marks a good, sharp distinction between people who I consider “con buddies” with “visiting friends” and “groupies.” It’s so important to have all three. Just don’t mix them up in the wrong categories… And keeping the right kind of stories to the right kind of crowd :)
And on that note, I wish you all would show at Otakon next year, because I have high hopes…
Millions of Jesuses, Jesuses for Me.
![Misuzu [Angel Mode]](http://omo.serenana.info/wp-content/photos/danbooru_unf_p_114102088070500.jpg)
The “Jesus” archtype in modern pop audiovisual narratives are not uncommon. They tend to evoke certain sort of mysteriousness so their uses are limited. People who live outside the box are probably the most common version. Alanis Morissette’s role in the film Dogma serves as the mode of operation for most other notables. In Buddhist literature as well as other religious stories, these types of people commonly exhibit that same traits that make us normal people feel a certain way.
Aside from the question that how extraordinary is Jesus in real life, the imagery of Jesus has become a type of savior-of-world-at-what-cost trigger. Imagine a mysterious girl in an anime whose past is hidden and no one knows or talks about; she would stare–into a book, into the horizon yonder the crashing waves, a pebble, whatever. A character tries to engage her and she’d not say very much, if anything at all. She’d say random things that makes no sense to the audience but it probably answer every question you’ll ever have and then some. She’d thread plots together like a self-insert fanfic writer from hell. She’d probably do an Obi-Wan, or maybe just disappear when the fight gets on; or maybe even pull a River. Wisdom and foresight, mediative and transformative, otherworldly surreal. She’s invincible, even if you kill her.
But in a love story where does our localized Jesus fit in? Eureka 7 made me ask this very question, and we’re given something of an answer that is not too far from Air’s Misuzu and Yukito. It’s reincarnated love. Eureka’s transformation and Renton’s (admittly in a very different way) coming-of-realization is as close as a positive retelling as it gets. Complete with kids of their own. Thankfully Renton doesn’t have to turn into a bird. He’s got good companies. Norbu comes to mind as the de-facto Jesus; but to stretch the analogy even more Norbu is the God-head. Jesus is Holland (especially with his relationship with Dewey). But who is the Holy Ghost? I don’t know.
Rahxephelion 3: The Second Summer of Love
I kid you not.
As much as I want to just do a stream of consciousness dump of my reaction to Eureka 7, and the trip that it is, I wanted to figure out just what will come out before I start.
Maybe it had to take 9 years to perfect The End of Evangelion? The brilliance in the magnificent construction of E7’s world and the underbellies is mind boggling complex. That would be my favorite part of the show except the music and designs are even better. I mean, seriously. Multiple-satellite-solar-powered orbital death ray meets under-ground earth? Standalone complex? Skateboarding giant robots? Tree of Life? Survival living? Monkeys? Soccer? Middle-school life? Rave music? Microwave pizza? Merger of religion and science? How can all these things be in the same show? Did I mention skateboarding giant robots?
But romance? Romance. A boy meets girl story? If you ignore the part that the girl is an emotionally underdeveloped killing machine from the native alien population. Or if you take the Dominic and Anemone parallel…gosh. The two of them are just better, more desirable foils. That’s not even talking about Charles and Ray. Holland and Talho are the adult version of our flailing protagonsts, I suppse?
Man, I feel sorry for Axel Thurston right about now. But in the same way I can feel how he feels, so it isn’t a bad deal after all.
Because, in the end, love is the answer. Only if the Second Impact involved more caressing and tender loving moments, maybe people won’t be depressed and act all crazy on internet message boards after watching that crap. It saved Sakuya. It saved Eureka. It saved Anemone. It may even have saved Ray and Charles. It certainly saved Holland and Talho.
The picture of life a loveless man painted is even more powerful; to that end Eureka 7 kind of failed to do a good job telling us Dewey’s story. Almost Monster-like, but alas, Holland isn’t born female.
So what does it say? Be a man! Go steal the heart of the girl you like! Love life! Kick ass and chew gum!
Emerging Trends - Reffing On Haruhi-ism
Day in, day out, a stereotypical wage slave minds his own business. He may chat up something with his cube mate, go out to lunch with some buddies in the neighborhood or within the same company. He would probably maximize his commute from home with a nice cellular phone plan or some time to himself and his car stereo.
But for someone who watches anime day in and day out, do we even go that far? Well-off aficionados deck out their dens with HDTVs, walls of shelving, and probably a portable DVD player so they can put in the time on the mill and squeeze in something while at it. Of course, the more deranged of us probably have room full of other stuff too; figures, hugpillows, drawn porn, what have you.
That’s nice and all, but somehow I feel we need to strive beyond that. Month by month? Year by year? How long down the road do our anime sugar daddies like, say, UFOTable, timetable their projects? Long-term corporate strategies? How to become a leader in the industry? Does the various anime companies have their hands on the otaku pulse? Or are they going after the big bucks a.k.a. the Mainstream?
For those of us who feel concerned about things like that, the immediate question is, why? Do we watch American Idol, caring about the slew of reality TV shows modeled after it? What are the implications? I think indeed if I spend so much of my time and attention, it’s gotta be worth the price. After all, that’s what TV ads are paying for. I’m sure some are worried about their wallet, too. There’s also the always artistic tension that exists in a mass media format; would artists be free and get paid? Will the networks and producers get paid?
The fact that Haruhi has taken the fandom by storm is probably one manifestation of some emerging trends. It also reassures me that I’m not alone. It seems that plenty of people, consciously or not, actually do mind emerging trends. They notice how things were, and how things are.
I am not sure just how popular Negima was. I am not sure just how Gundam Seed Destiny was. I am not even aware of all the shows they watch over there. But if they’re like me at all, they’re probably pretty tired of harems. They’re tired of comedy based on the same routine they can see on TV and in hundreds of episodes of other shows in the past. They want fresh. They don’t quite want realism, because that’s everywhere; even on TV. But like everybody we want to be able to sympathize and yet surprised and intrigued. Some things works; tried and true–like team para-para. Some things always work, like top-notch animation quality.
But that’s just scratching the surface of emerging trends. Dilbert, for instance, was a successful harvest of such collage of ideas and forging an identity. While that budding force got snipped when corporate America got nailed from 9/11, Haruhi-Ism is just starting. We’re at the forefront of something, if someone took charge to tend to it; to put a name and face to it.
Someone to ref it!
But that said, it can go either way. I am no oracle and I cannot see this bubbling wave’s eventual apex. It takes a lot of power and money to ride this kind of a wave. Not of water but of otaku mindpower and influence. Not for exhilaration (well, possibly) but for mass profit. But unlike a surfer, if you fall you’re not going to be able to just bounce back up and watch for the next Big One.
Or, rather, the likes of Kyoto Animation has been in the shallows chasing waves for a few years now. It’s just that they’ve finally tapped a new one. It’s not like Ghibli and their own private beach, nor are they Gonzo, who’s got some kind of jet ski thing going. Or Bones…I suppose they’re really reffing after FMA now, huh?
Ultimately I guess all I’m trying to say is…look at the big picture sometimes. Watching your favorite anime is not like watching Holland doing a nice drop back turn, but seeing Talho and the rest of the Gekko State doing an orbital launch. It’s a team effort–some guy out there has to have the IP bit, and everyone pitches in their work product, feeling their way. It marks the difference between an experienced, well-financed, well-managed group with a real good idea, versus anyone else.
