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.
Monday, September 30, 2013
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 ()
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
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Five Drinks Into Anime: Ten Anime in the First Ten Months of 2013
1. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Episodes: 27
Episodes: 27
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.
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.
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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.
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