Okinawa Jamboree
As I am writing this sentence, I am slowly working through a sata andagi. I’m pooped. I want to talk about and watch more Xam’d (it’s freaking cool). I also want to watch more Macross Frontier. Speaking of which, definitely go read this post; don’t you love it when a plan comes together? So much care and attention and love for a not-so-little franchise.
But because a sata andagi is NOT to be confused with a doughnut hole, I’ll do a photodump here. Incoming crappy cam pictures! (I really ought to go buy myself a Nokia N95 or something). So this post is going to be mostly pictures. Mostly from Xam’d.
I Got Xam’d
It would be a cruel joke if Sony’s E3 announcement 12 hours ago was a big prank; I’d have lost some sleep and gain a lot of unbridled disdain for them. On the contrary they delivered a day-date release of the latest Bones anime over their Playstation Network. I guess it’s something to do when the All Stars game drags its feet into extra innings on a Tuesday night.
Normally I won’t be so excited about another digitally-delivered world premiere, but here are some technical details should you wonder if your $3.99 for 24-hours rental is going to be worth it:
1. The series is called Xam’d: Lost Memories. A first glance will immediate evoke two shows (or more), but one that everyone will first pick up is Eureka 7. But more sinister is how gorgeous the stuff looks with its scenic oceanside view that reminds me of this other studio. The steampunk-ish airship is toned down from E7’s gaudy green-lit magic, but when you take her facial markings and stick it on her, you get our female lead (who’s mostly silent in the first episode).
2. The HD version is a rental–after you download it you got 14 days to watch it. Once you play it you got 24 hours until it locks. To be honest that is fine by me; I watch and delete as SOP anyways. But 24 hours is a little short I think. And $4 is pretty steep.
3. The HD version of episode one was 1520mb. Gia reports the SD version is a measily 400. I was pulling on average 250kb/s so it still took a couple hours. YMMV here of course.
4. And being slotted for 26 episodes, possibly released on a weekly basis (actually I have no idea about this), it’s steep. I’m really borderline as to if I’ll continue past episode 3 (they’ve got my money at least up to episode 2–damn double-episode pilots) at $4 a pop. That’s just … a lot for a rental. Maybe if I skip lunch once a week. Or buy less Rock Band DLC.
5. It comes with hard subs (and the subs are better quality than Bosttv subs, for a point of comparison).
6. HD version comes with 5.1 Japanese and 2.0 Japanese. Haven’t hooked up my receiver to the PS3 yet so I can’t review the 5.1 track for you, but the 2.0 sounds fine. Darn those older receivers that don’t have HDMI. Maybe, just maybe tomorrowlater today.
7. According to the PS3, video bitrate is around 10 megabits, good ‘nuf for me but it’s no 5cm.
8. You can watch it while it’s being downloaded, hurrah. Because it does take a couple hours to pull 1.5gb. I timed it at around 80% for my bandwidth? I hope they work in something more intelligent about that in a upcoming PS3 patch, where it’ll tell you when to start the movie…
9. Screenshots. So I am not set up to do this with my PS3 (…how many anime bloggers could?), the next best thing is … just my phone cam.
Of Children and Layered Reality
I started writing this post pretty much right after I saw Wall-E on opening weekend. It is now my favorite Pixar feature-length movie for several reasons. But I’m still having some trouble to come up with a narrative to describe what I want to say in response to seeing it.
We all know that Denno Coil is about today, more so than the future. In some ways it is a cautionary tale for children and parents, about getting lost within virtual reality and both the benefits and trappings an augmented reality brings to the next generation.
Augmented reality is a reality today. Just looking at what the various iPhone applications are out there, it brings me some degree of confidence that soon enough kids will play hide and seek with GPS, play catch with accelerometers, and tell ghostly stories with its reflective screen.
Just like the last generation of kids, I suppose.
But like Wall-E, Denno Coil’s story is a layered thing. I say layered rather than multi-faceted because one thing has to build on another. It’s not so much there aren’t aspects of Wall-E that are tangential (such as the romantic side plot), but there are both themes and settings within the show that commonly come in bundles. Nations run by corporations? A pollution-ravaged Earth? Mankind’s exodus into space? Intelligent robots doing our bidding? Rogue AI? Search for leafy vegetation? and All it needs is more sex, technobabble and a katana-wielding kayak maker. Or a GECK.
Denno Coil’s layering is probably just as ingenuous, but it’s not subtle. It paints a near-real-life picture with AR, but at the end it’s about a bunch of kids doing the Tom Sawyer thing about some urban legend. Parents are probably still better off spanking them and spending the time to figure out what is going on, rather than just letting them be kids. It’s quite Japanese in a way.
Where the two are different is in the order of things. For most people, Wall-E is a cute story about robots in love, about loneliness, about standing up for your inheritance, and the usual heroics. But its science fiction trapping paints a impressive and cautionary imagery about the world today–pollution, the addiction to luxury, and growing isolation of individuals with his or her heritage, neighbors, and the environment. Yea, the irony is there how it’s telling this to a bunch of theater goers and eventual couch potatoes.
Denno Coil, on the other hand, draws the viewer in with its imaginative altered reality. The murder(?) mystery element and its impressive setting are major draws. But the show is mostly about human relationships, about adolescence, and what happens if you do something dangerous on your own without heeding any warning. There’s the heroics and a very brave dog (Densuke FTW) but what of the actual human beings who suffered the very real consequences? That stuff is what is going on in the back drop of Denno Coil–a real person laying in a hospital room, in an unending coma.
What’s more disturbing? The happily glossed over, post-apocalyptic Earth? Or the fact that little girls can lose their lives to … internet predictors? I guess neither really is unless you pick them out like that.
I think the layering presentation is particularly good because it gives the audience a wide variety of takes. Making good children’s entertainment that adults can enjoy is hard; the layering allows people to combine ideas and filter the experience using the audience’s level of experience and sophistication.
This layering is characterized by the integration of common themes across layers, however. Without it we would just have a bunch of not-so-related ideas. I think Wall-E works because they do well integrating that whole theme about loneliness. In Denno Coil, a similar thing goes on with loneliness and that whole Japanese character stereotype with personal responsibility and no manYoko is an island.
It’s fair to say these two shows are examples of powerful storytelling styles and they use the form wisely in family entertainment. But what happens when these forms are powerless? We’ll find out hopefully in the sequel post of this two-part series. It should also answer how I stumble upon a way to focus on a narrative about Wall-E.
Satoshi Kon Covers It Himself
So Satoshi Kon came to NY for a visit a couple weeks ago. I went to the Friday showing with the on-stage interview of Paprika. I was also 45 minutes late…not that it matters considering I’ve seen Paprika on 35mm at least twice now. I did the usual recording thing and there were a lot of juicy stuff at the interview worth spinning out; it’s just the recording came out pretty badly. Because I was late I didn’t get a good spot; so yes, unlike Tokikake this showing had a good attendance.
So what do you do? You Google around to see if anyone else have done it. It’s about not reinventing the wheel.
And Satoshi Kon probably does the best job himself.
Short of copypasta, though, I’ll just list the questions that I recorded here. I apologize ahead of time for the crappy transcription.
Kon took the stage after a brief intermission at the end of Paprika. At the end of the intermission they played Kon’s Anikuri 15 clip “Good Morning.”
He then took the stage with applause with the MC and translator.
I wasn’t able to get the recording for the first bit of the interview, so from memory I recall… First he spoke about this retrospective, and mentioned something how he’s getting it in America with just 4 films. But was honored anyways and hope to have this again when he is properly old and got lots o film?
At any rate, the MC started to field questions, starting by asking Kon about the Anikuri 15 segment. I remember this well because he starts by panning NHK by saying how it is accused by the public for misappropriation of funds. In order to improve its image NHK asked the top animators to produce a short, and he was asked and he made a short.
I was able to get the recording thing going soon after that. I’ll try to paraphrase; the whole session was rather long IMO.
Why did Kon choose to be an animator? He likes it when he was little? Watching animation growing up, Kon makes a comment: the disposable nature of anime today; back in the days, there was more anticipation and fans digested each work better. (I agree; people consume anime very differently today.)
How was it being a mangaka and how does it compare? He said people always asked him about it, but he likes moving images so he likes making anime better.
How did he get to do Perfect Blue? He’s been doing a few things, and some producer approached him and they went ahead. Same with how he got to be an animator from being a mangaka. He is not ambitious and people approach him. [There was suppose to be a joke here.]
At this point we watched a clip of Perfect Blue; namely the lead up to the rape scene and the rape scene itself.
So how does he feel about it: He feels bad about putting that rape scene in for the main character now. He didn’t know very much as a newbie director. Originally they planned PB to be OAV so he/they wanted to add something that makes it stand out, so there was the rape. But it got turned into a theatrical piece half way so they kept it.
Role of pop culture in his show? [The question kind of got lost in translation]: Want to recreate the time and feel of Tokyo for BP.
Layer of viewing in PB: It reflects Kon’s own perspective. He works and draws, a part of him watches that and directs, another part of him watches the director, etc. [takes picture use audience as an example]. Just by taking a picture the audience is now being watched by Kon rather than Kon being watched. The shift in perspective is one way he communicates with his audience.
Control? Just partial. Full control is boring and no control is chaotic. 50/50, but sometimes it tilts. Perceive control versus actual control, etc.
We then moved onto a clip in Millennium Actress, around the part of the sennen tea.
Ever watch your own films? Just when it’s on TV when at home when it’s on, and he always finishes it, out of some misplaced sense of duty.
Japanese film history in your works? Didn’t start out MA with that in mind–was about dream and reality and movies, but it turned out that way. Ended up meaningful the way it evolved.
How do you categorize your film in terms of Japanese cinema? It’s kind of by itself even in terms of animation; a lost child. He would be honored that it can be considered as a part of Japanese cinema history in its small way!
How do you create a character, say, Hana? Not good at chara design. He does stories and plugs characters in. In TG, it’s characters drive the film, hmm. He doesn’t have any transsexual friends, so when he wrote Hana he did some research–dressed up like him once. (The audience lols, naturally.)
How was it writing for a TV series? Compact animation, in movies he can stuff it in; but in TV there are a lot of limits so he can only tell so much stuff at a time. The basic question for both is how to get the audience’s interest from the first scene. Solving and creating more mystery until the end.
How did you get to the end of Paranoia Agent? They want to create it piece-wise because they want to be in the audience’s shoes in not knowing how it’ll end. So they didn’t know. By episode 10 or 11 the crew realized they can’t wrap it up and the screenwriter was in a bind to try to wrap it up. At that point things feel really pressed; he needed to figure out how it end and there was a lot of stress; and it felt Shonen Bat may come. Sympathy for the characters.
The audience fields some question now.
Did Kon ever watch [Konishiba] [Can’t spell it right] (picture with rolling music)? No, not that old.
Music is uplifting and energetic but often opposite of what’s on the screen? For example, if for a sad scene, everything is sad, the feeling of sadness gets away. However if you flip the music so it’s not sad, it actually feel sadder. Juxtaposition.
Akiba knifing? Difficult situation; can’t explain. The perpetrator said that he couldn’t care who he kills, and likewise does it matter who the perpetrator is for this to happen? At first we thought about whose fault it was, but it’s still the actual person’s fault. What is striking is that the person looked like a stereotype of someone who committed a random crime and less as an individual person. It seemed it could have been anyone. No answers.
Otaku culture and his fans? Otaku has been around for 30 years; he’s a first gen otaku. It’s fine if it refers to someone who pursuit what they love very much. Kon is reputed to be critical of otaku in that it is not good to live an unbalanced life and unable to work with society at large. As long as you can function with society it’s fine.
A word for inspiring animator? Here or Japan? Japanese animators are super poor so I don’t recommend it. For someone who love to draw and animate, for CG or hand drawn stuff, as long as you love it very much pursuit it and everyday get a new feel and find a new way to look at it, you’ll be good.
Perspective, people see themselves–personal or abstractions? Becoming a public figure, there will be people who know the person of me but don’t know me, but there will people who know me better than I do. People closest to me probably have a different idea of me than myself. I have an idea of who I might be and it may be not very close; someone else may have a better idea of who I am than myself. That gap is something I want to show in my characters. Oversea or in Japan, I’ve had opportunity to meet fans. In Japan, 70% of the time his fans said he is actually scarier? It’s enjoyable to observe that gap.
[The weeaboo question which the recording didn’t get well.] Thanks for asking it in Japanese. I don’t think I purposely create anything complex; the stories are simple. The delivery is complex. [It’s in the flavor?]
That’s it!
At the end of the session most of the crowd took a stroll over next door to the theater. They have a bunch of Kon art on display, including that hawt Perfect Blue jigsaw puzzle picture. And it took the edge off my complaint how no one asked about his new work. What kind of fans are they?
Lastly, Reverse Thieves has the write-up for Kon’s Monday showing sponsored by ANA. Kon’s blog also lists more details on his trip if you dig around. If you have any question about my indecipherable transcription feel free to ask. I probably still have pieces of that stuff stuck in the back of my brain from two weeks ago.
This Is My Kind of Denpa Anime
Mission-E expands on the setting told to us through Code-E.
But what’s really strange is this is the setting Gunsmith Cats told us through … Gunsmith Cats.
Or was it El-Hazard?
Just gimme my 80s rock and transformable motorcycle already!
Momoi’s got it right–it’s got a good, easy feel, and we agree.
I think most people will still find Birdy up near the top of the list as their primary form of old-school, action anime entertainment this season, because Kazuki Akane is just better at this as a director and Studio Deen…is not the best group of people to be animating action-packed stuff. But Mission-E is 12 episodes ahead on the character development and making sure that omo will find Chinami totally adorable right off the bat. If you’ve seen Code-E already, you owe it to yourself to see how things turned out a few years down the road and have a bite at that dangling carrot hanging over our collective heads last summer. This was what most of us were half-expecting!
Of course I guess more of you didn’t watch Code-E, and that is okay. You can always go back to it; it’s slow and meticulous and mostly a romantic comedy that is more fustrating than romantic and more weird than funny, but it wasn’t bad. It definitely paid off for me, but it might not be worth your time anyways.
Actually, I take back one thing–Studio Deen does one kind of action well: car chases.
