The Apple of My Eyes
Future idol is past identity,
Of both adorable in nature, and
Of dreams not fulfilled, to entertain many:
Of one, or few, maybe countless like sand.
The amount of entertainment is based
On amount consumed; these days everything
Is vetted through computer systems–cased
In context, personal or group thinking.
Like Futurama’s talking heads? Preserve
Past celebrities beyond relevance,
Reinterpreting, a satire with curves.
We crave it like search engines, relevance.
Still: none does better than Japanese toons.
I too want to see the Macross films, soon.
A Yuri Epiphany, Podcasts Ship
It took me nearly 3 years to realize why Simoun is so awesome. Partly because I had to borrow something that didn’t exist until just recently.
It is Marimite plus Macross Frontier.
I was going to talk about yuri but I think talking about Simoun is just a lot more fun for me. And maybe for you, too. Because it’s a great show even if you can care less (like I do) about yuri. I suppose that is the one of the two obvious ways to approach the subject.
The purity of yuri is an attractive notion. Mouryou no Hakou gives us a glimpse as to the madness of such and somehow that show never gets subs! (What gives?) Hallucination mixes well with flowery and poetic images, and such are of note for the somewhat-famed director Akiyuki Shinbo. It’s not a surprise Maria+Holic turned out the way it did if you are familiar with both the source material and that SHAFTxSHINBO nonsense. Perhaps what is surprising is how much it is like Shinbo’s prior works. Few would ever compare Hidasketch manga with Maria+Holic manga, to put things in perspective. The audience needs no understanding of yuri to enjoy it, even if not fully.
But as much as the yuri fanbase is generally enamored with Utena, it makes you wonder why nobody (of course the yuri fanbase wouldn’t, but nobody?) champions Melody of Oblivion with the same vigor. Is it just me who enjoy anime for their animated nature? Of direction, scripting and acting? The fancies of designs? The love for spontaneous transformation into motor vehicles? The things that separate one medium from another? Dare I say, edgy stuff?
Maybe that ambiguity, that emotional tension which threads the drama within the Chor Tempest is what pulled me through Simoun like few other anime has. And the same can be said of many of these yuri-licious dramas that focus on the interdependence within these select societies. Perhaps that is why people watch these shows. And maybe that is why yuri cannot be so simplified with terms like homosexuality, even if that is part of its essence. A Maria+Holic juxtaposition is very anime-like; taking familiar tropes and give them new life by playing shuffle with its elements. The first question of the series is simply to ask who is the wolf in sheep’s skin?
And that is just a reworded way to ask who is the harem lead?
Why, it’s clearly FloeWauf! Nev-chan is definitely Sheryl and Aeru can fight Lodoremon for Ranka’s spot. Not sure where to put Dominura, Ozma maybe?
A love for the drama and of socially relevant issues? Count me in. And despite that it feels like people pissing in the pool I swim in when some go the distance with shipping in Aria, it’s almost curious to see this cultural exchange between young American people trying to fathom ancient concepts of love that forms the core of the Japanese notion of such ideals.
But sometimes Japan is only doing its usual tricks of shuffling cultural expectations and extracting its own meaning from within. It’s like how Golgo 13 works no matter where he is.
Year in Review: Sunshine & Kisses Drive to Origination, Shrine Maidens Lost Memories in Coded Euphoric Frontier
Running for your lives.
With style.
Year in Review: She’s Going the Distance, a Great Feat of Strength
Going to mention a list of 12 lists of 12 items each. So a nested list. All 144 items. Annotated for the most part. Don’t ask me why I use these pronouns the way I do…
The Retail High Striker Sings Aimo For Christmas
There was a news byte on ANN today that caught my eye, where it listed the high rollers in DVD/BRD, CD and merchandise sales in anime-related categories for Amazon Japan. I presumed they did not combined DVD and BRD SKUs, and bunched LE and RE together.
It wasn’t a very long time ago since when buying large number of copies of a single or a CD for your favorite artist/show/character became the “in” thing, the badge of fanboy’s pride for those Akiba-kei types. But I don’t think you needed to take that into account to see why Macross Frontier tie-ins destroyed the top 10 charts for CDs. Amazon Japan is one of the more preferred outlets for this kind of aggressive number-pushing too.
Indeed, if we wait another 3 weeks the 6th place winner may very well be Nyan Tama. (Watch out for the CDJapan referral links!) Well, I actually doubt that because it is still mostly a “best of” album with tracks from the previous CDs.
But first, let’s get our fellow bloggers out of the way:
Indeed, the real strength behind sales comes from the organic groundswell that pushes a memorable title and a smartly designed cash-milking campaign to the fore. Was Macross Frontier the most memorable anime in 2008? I don’t even know. But if there was a thing that sold music better in recent memory, I do not know about it.
What’s the secret?
Is it just because Shoji Kawamori is working with the right people towards the right product–a musical? Or because he took it seriously unlike this guy? And it’s not just in CDs; if we recall correctly, Macross Frontier is the title that set in stone the Blu-Ray::anime correlation (in Japan). There’s a lesson here that probably deserves looking into further.
Especially if you are Sony…
As you know, a high striker gets progressive harder the higher it reaches. Do you think this rests on the apex? (And if you want to go in and split that four ways, let me know…)
[edit: Mai’s site now has a more detailed drill-down on the Amazon listing, plus some Oricon Year-to-date numbers for you]
