Monday, September 30, 2013

Anime Review: Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water

A long time ago, a young upstart animator named Hayao Miyazaki was hired by Toho to create a television series. Being a fan of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, he came up with an outline for a show called Around the World Under the Sea. The idea was that a pair of orphaned children got caught up in a conflict against a great evil and a rebel submarine crew. The idea was shelved and never developed, but Miyazaki would later take the concept and tweak it somewhat to make Castle in the Sky.



Jump to a few years later, where a new, flourishing animation studio called Gainax, known for having created the Daicon III and IV sci-fi promos, Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise and Aim for the Top! Gunbuster (and later would make such hits as Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann), was approached by Toho to make a TV show for Japan's public broadcaster, NHK. While digging around, the studio members found Miyazaki's concept and were captivated by it. Handing it off to Gunbuster director Hideaki Anno, they developed the series into one of the most popular anime of the early 90s, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.

Best Anime Series of 2007

After a few posts on AKB48, here it is back on an anime topic. Many people on the netsphere considers 2007 to be one of the best, if not the best years of anime. They certainly contain some of the most well-known animes, both widely and within specific anime community (Death Note, Gurren Lagann, Lucky Star, Nodame Cantabile among them). Therefore, this is the year that I am particularly interested in seeing which anime series comes out on top.Note that similar to other analyses I did recently, I am considering an anime to be of a particular year based on when it finished, thus Code Geass, Death note and Nana (all released in late 2006) are considered as 2007 anime in my book.



Without further ado:10. DENNOU COIL ()

The Anime Music Tournament 2013 Bracket Osaka

Like the post from the Naota bracket, I post here with of brackets completed, and the close to finishing. As were nearing the end of the first round, hopefully things will become a little easier to work on. As for now, here's some more interesting pieces to listen to.



BOR1P1

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Music Monday: Those Anime Music Composers

A week ago, my brother handed me a piece of paper, only accompanied by a meaningful look: on it, there was a list of songs he (I presumed) wanted downloaded. (Why a seventeen-year-old boy makes her sister do that for him is easy to answer - he's beyond lazy.)



It was mostly soundtracks, from anime, which made me realize how much I love some of those soundtracks. Usually serious anime have music much better composed than a simple cartoon. Usually, they have CDs published, one for an average of 25 episodes. I watch lots of series and well, and it's completely different, as those tend to have 'proper songs' by lesser or more well known bands as background music, and a few characteristic, but not too creative tunes. Anime music is usually over-the-top and really epic, more similar with film soundtracks than the music from various television shows.

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Nippon's Trident: A Monkey Wrench In The Anime Writer's Toolbox

NOTE: After noticing that the 3 components of Nippon's Trident formed a Venn diagram, I realized that Nippon's Trident could actually be applied to sequels and continuing story arcs in general. So the name Nippon's Trident doesn't quite fit anymore. Later I'll come up with a better one. For now, keep in mind that while I only exemplify Anime here, you should try applying it to stories of all mediums.



Videogames are unique in that they are part of both the technology and entertainment industries. Because of this, games generally share aspects from mediums in both industries. So every once in a while, it's worth examining how the techniques of other mediums crop up in games. So let's look at anime and manga for a moment. Many Japanese games use a manga art style (like anime) and many others will borrow anime's tropes, making Japanese videogames relation to anime and manga immediately apparent. Note I am not what one would call a "fan" of those mediums. I don't actively seek anime to watch or manga to read, nor do I keep up with current series. However, I have absolutely zero qualms against the mediums themselves and will watch shows at others' recommendation (usually after doing some kind of research on what I'm getting myself into). Some of these series, however, make my skin crawl. Namely the ones which seem to be competing for the coveted Longest Story Ever Written Award.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

OPENING PARAGRAPHHOW ARE TWO ROCK CD COVERS GENRE REPRESENTED AND HOW IT IS REPRESENTED IN VARIOUS WAYS?

Throughout rock bands of the century all of the cd covers genre is represented with different connotations like historic events on the artwork for example the rock band Led zeppelin did an album cover with a black and white image of the burning Hindenburg airship crashing. The image refers to the origin of the band's name itself as well and referring to the historic event it shows aspects of their genre by the audience seeing catastrophes and the zeppelin blowing up these are commonly related to hard rock or heavy metal. In other rock bands album covers there is bold iconic images such as in the band Pink floyd they have used a triangular prism dispersing light into all the colors of the rainbow this relates to the songs in the album of the "Dark side of the moon" for reasons such as all of the songs from "Breathe" to "Brain damage" show stages in the human life cycle and the problems and issues which occur throughout it, the style of the artwork indicates a hint to the audience of the genre which is progressive rock. The two rock bands cd covers I will be analyzing are one by Iron maiden this is "The number of the beast" album cover and the band called Area 11 with there "All the lights in the sky "album I will show how each of their genre are represented in different ways and how these ways differ from each other's style and meaning behind the artwork covers and the songs titles. For example "the number of the beast "album is represented as to show the idea of hell from an inspiration of a 1960's comic book this was of a villain dangling someone on some strings like a puppet as replicated in the artwork it is of Eddie controlling Satan like a puppet while Satan is also controlling a smaller Eddie this design highlights some meaning of evil in a chain of Eddie and Satan controlling each other and this concept is relative to its genre being hard rock as they tend to show images similar to this. When looking at the Area 11 "all the lights in the sky" artwork however this was designed based on a popular anime called 'Tengen toppa gurren lagann' this is noticeable at the start of the opening song where the scene in very familiar to the artwork of the album this is presented to the audience and from this they may get the meanings that all of their songs are about popular anime's. In the art work it shows a girl anime styled facing towards the sky into space from the planet this character and the place she is standing upon is darken this may be a technique to make it stand out above all the co lours on the artwork. Some connotations that prove its genres being a hybrid is the fact it is futurist, set in space and the colors are very vivid this hints the genre of electronic rock lastly the connotations to hint it being gaijin rock are the focus that the artwork is set in a scene from a anime which is part of Japanese culture also the character on the front is a Japanese styled anime character again referring to Japanese culture.
Full Post

Monday, September 16, 2013

THE GENRE OF MY CHOSEN TEXTS ARE: Firstly starting with Area 11 there focus in the genres are electronic rock and gaijin rock this is a hybrid type of band.Whereas Iron maiden has a genre covering the hard rock category or heavy metal.



THECODES AND CONVECTION'S TO THE GENRES THAT ARE FOUND IN BOTH ALBUMS OF THE BANDS ARE: To begin with Iron maidens "number of the beast"shows a vivid image of Eddie which has been the bands iconic figure shown in all of the albums produced.Because the band is heavy metal and hard rock the main image is very intense and has a lot of colours contrasting with each other to set the scene in a location where the world is ending by lighting in the sky,world burning and Satan controlling a smaller Eddie to do his work.Iron maiden tend to use Eddie to represent them instead of placing themselves on the cover like pop artists may do and they use realism of religious beliefs and historical events and recreate them to form a illustration of what happens.The artists name of iron maiden comes from the iron maiden torture device this is shown in bold red with a white outlining this stands out amidst the background of the album and gives a connotation of it being in the heavy metal genre.The album name is "the number of the beast" this is shown in a sort of blood writing with a red font because it is a heavy metal genre the font is intended to be shown like this to the audience scrawled on the left hand side of the album.When looking at the songs included in the album you notice they are all similar to the title of the album and its genre in many ways for example all the songs from "invaders" to "run to the hills"they all have a same sort of theme and within them they including historic events and religious issues the names given to each song sound action packed and by this you can tell that the bands genre will be heavy metal.When looking at the other album i chose this was "all the lights in the sky" by Area 11 this has some codes and convection's included. To start of with this cover shows a girl anime styled facing towards the sky into space from a planet this character and the place she is standing upon is darkened for effect there is colourful lights in the sky which make the cover stand out more and relate it to the albums title of "all the lights in the sky".Because of its genre being both electronic rock and gaijin rock there are some codes and convection's on the artwork with it being electronic rock the scene is futurist, set in space and the colours are very vivid and contrast well to catch the audiences eye, the connotations that hint it being gaijin rock is that the artwork is set in a scene from a anime "'Tengen toppa gurren lagann"which is part of Japanese culture also the character on the front is a Japanese styled anime character again referring to Japanese culture although the music itself is in English.The name of Area 11 comes from a reference to the anime "Code geass"this straightforwardly hints a connotation to its gaijin rock genre however when viewing the font style on the front of the cover it is done in a way which makes it appear futuristic it is also very bold in white with light shining out of it hinting towards the electronic rock genre.The albums name "All the lights in the sky"relates to one of the songs and the cover of the album linking it with the setting showing colourful lights pitched in the sky overhead of the anime styled character this is done in the same furistist format that the band name was done in however it is not emmiting light to not ruin how much the name stands out this is showing the genre of electronic rock.When looking at the songs included in the album there is a pattern included throughout them when listerning to "Shi no barado" to the song "Euphemia" you realise that they have a theme and throughout the songs they talk about iconic events within series of animes this again relates to the genre of gaijin rock.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Hm, I thought I published this on the weekends but apparantly I saved it as a draft. I might have had something more to write about but then it's already damn long and I can't think of anything that I was going to add. I would have remembered it if it were important anyway; so here goes:



TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN

Sunday, September 8, 2013

30-Day Anime Challenge, Day 27

When I first read this category, I thought to myself, "This has to be a Kamina scene." And sure enough, that opinion hasn't changed. But which one? There are so many to choose from. So I picked the most epic one, the one that was the most meaningful to the series. You know which one it is.



KAMINA'S GIGA DRILL BREAKER & DEATH (TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN)

Stubbs' Top 10 Favourite Anime

You can all read the title. I don't need to make a big introduction to this. Just know that this is only my top 10 personal favourites, not the top 10 best of all time. This is just my opinion. That said, here we go!



10) Gosick:

Am I an Anime Hipster?

And is there even such a thing as an "anime hipster"?



I have a very open (and sometimes vocal) distaste for the mainstream. To some that automatically labels me a hipster (which has become a running gag among my peers). I'm the guy who'd you be walking with through a theater, see a poster for the super popular Something-Something 3, and when you ask me if I wanna watch it I'd go out of my way to say "Nah. It's too mainstream". The same thing with books (especially since "Young Adult" has been in some sort of audience boom as of late). It's not as bad with music though, thankfully, since there is a genre for popular music.

Friday, September 6, 2013

Free! Episodes 8 and 9: The Good, the Bad, and the Medley

I was so angry about the cliffhanger in episode 8 that I took the week off, but this works out since now I can talk about the relay while knowing the outcome. Haruka is devastated by his loss to Rin and, being someone who's been swimming all his life for what is mostly the love of the water, is very confused. What Haruka does not know is that his mental distress is just a symptom of his mind becoming genre savvy.



See, in all sports anime, the absolute most important thing is teamwork. People will push themselves beyond boundaries they thought they had for the sake of making their team victorious. In Chihayafuru, this happens in a metaphysical sense, with characters like Sumire finding herself working hard for the team despite originally being apathetic, as well as a physical sense, with Chihaya continuing to playing with an injured hand. In Girls und Panzer, Miho joins the Panzerfahren team for her friends' sake and ends up finding a family in them that helps her grow to love the very sport she started out avoiding.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Romance: The Power of Excess in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

[Sigh.] Yeah Note: Another attempt at more-accessible diction/organization.



I spent Monday and Tuesday watching Blu-ray rips of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (the set was , to ). What made my experience so magical was the fact that I could watch the series at both the macro and the micro levels--and enjoy the series more thoroughly, at a level of thoroughness that very few anime titles ever seem to merit. Few series make you want to go through something again and again, the whole way through. As such, I'm a huge fan of spastically and repetitively re-watching 10 or 20-second snippets of a given series.