Passing Judgement: Ahh Megami Sama TV

Once again I arise in order to blather insipidly on an anime subject of my choosing. Phe4r!

Thanks to a gift package from a friend I find myself with a continuing surplus of things to watch. That and a deep fondness for the manga brought me to view all ... oh 50 episodes of AMS TV.

Given what it is, the show is odd. It's episodes are basically rehashes of manga material already done, but the order is deeply out of whack, with a few new bit players added to the mix. The end result is a mixed bag. Series pacing, and larger arc of story is almost nonexistant. Episodes go from slow moving, to more action oriented without much warning. All in all, it just ends up feeling rather picaresque.

What hurts it more than anything, probably, is the surplus of characters who are introduced for a single episode, and then vanish, never to appear again. Over the course of the manga's life, this made more sense, as characters would be around for several months, then vanish with the beginning of a new arc. Somewhere in the back of your mind you'd think, "Oh, well they'll be back again, in a while." They never are of course, but the once a week snippets you're fed space it out enough you don't really notice.

As for art, music, and voices, I can't complain I guess. I sort of feel that it could have been better animated, and bell in particular often just looks ... I dunno, sort of half finished. Still, yay for animated Hild, even if they do tend to forget that most of the time she should appear as a child. In my humble opinion, one of the series best original stories is Hild "stealing" Keichi's affections. She does this by travelling back in time and inserting herself into his life, long before he met bell, long before he even left Okinawa.

There's a great deal wrong with every aspect of this premise, such as why the continuity change didn't affect K1's current situation, why Keima didn't notice, why Bell and company don't remember any of their new past, etc. It does set up a sort of predestination paradox concerning K1's wish, but I think this was almost entirely unintentional on the part of the story tellers.

Given that I normally savage this kind of nonsense, it may suprise you that I liked it. Honestly, I just thought it was interesting diversion, that I'd rather like to see played out in the manga. The episode arc itself was extremely short (2? 3?), and they could have squeezed an entire 12 ep ova out of it, if they'd really wanted to.

What bothered me most about the entire thing though, more than anything else, shoddy temporal physics included, was the climax. K1 see's bell trying to confess, and just brushes Hild off. His comment is, "Well, you don't really love me." Hild confirms this. That being the case, in the altered present, why didn't he immediately shake off Hild as soon as he woke up in the brave new world of the altered future?

I mean, I understand "needed it to happen for story purposes BS, whatever", but still. Hild's admission that she doesn't care is what compounds the issue. To carry off her little scheme, she spends at least 5 years with K1, and it's implied probably a great deal more in line with 10 to 20 years. That's a long time to fake a relationship with someone. Yes, she is the ruler of hell, but there have to more time efficient ways of ...welll ... passing the time. Moreover, K1 has proven himself to be an extremely lovable fellow to high order spirits, attracting as he has the open affection of two goddesses, temporary affection of at least 3 others, etc. etc. It just seems ...odd.

Again, I can understand that it was necessary for story purposes, but quite frankly, that's some trully shitty narrative there. I guess what draws me to the arc though, is the desire for a more well planned treatment of it. Who knows.

In other news, anyone ever watched the lord of terror arc and then the AMS movie back to back? Does your brain hurt yet? Also, Pop Quiz, since when can K1 fly under his own power?

Awesomeness

The ending sequence for Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu is legendary for its ability to incite otaku into getting their fat asses off their comfy chairs and goofy-dance to its groovy beat. Don't believe me? Watch the video and tell me it doesn't at least give you urges:



The clip below is probably the greatest parody of the Haruhi dance ever created. It totally rocks (ba-dum-ching!). Sera, I salute thee!

Live the Yankee Life

The above opening clip is from Spike's Kenka Banchou 2 ~Full Throttle~ for the Playstation 2. A banchou (番長/"group leader") is an authority figure in a group of juvenile delinquents -- specifically, the kind of delinquents who ascribe to the yankii (ヤンキー/"yankee") philosophy and dress code (think Onizuka from GTO). As a matter of fact, the tutorial portion of Kenka Banchou 2 will teach you about the rules ("no matter what happens, be a man! Establish your life around your manliness!") of yankii-hood and teach you some really classic maneuvers (such as the eye beam -- a banchou way of staring at somebody so intensely that the target breaks out in buckets of sweat). The loading screens will teach you some of the most important words in the yankii lexicon, such as otoko (漢/"man" in the context of one who lives his life honorably) and aniki (兄貴/"big brother" in the context of a senior delinquent of the same affiliation).

As for the game itself, it's said to play like a 3-D version of River City Ransom. I don't know about that, but then, I'm still chuckling over the whole idea of someone making a game series about yankii to begin with.

The opening theme, Otoko no Kunshou (男の勲章/"Emblem of Manhood"), is performed by Shima Daisuke. The song was originally released as a single in 1982 but has been co-opted recently as theme music for Shima's segment of the variety program Radical!!.

Update - Here's the opening video from the first Kenka Banchou PS2 game:

Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri

Got another vid for you guys: this is the opening sequence for the PS2 port of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (ひぐらしのなく頃に/"When Cicadas Cry"), which is pretty much the most acclaimed doujin soft product since Tsukihime. The PS2 version, dubbed Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Matsuri (ひぐらしのなく頃に祭/"When Cicadas Cry Festival"), contains the first seven chapters of the intense murder mystery (Onikakushi-hen/鬼隠し編/"Demon Hiding Chapter", Watanagashi-hen/綿流し編/"Cotton Drifting Chapter", Tatarigoroshi-hen/祟殺し編/"Curse Slaying Chapter", Himatsubushi-hen/暇潰し編/"Time Wasting Chapter" [nothing says "filler" better than this title], Meakashi-hen/目明し編/"Eye Opening Chapter", Tsumihoroboshi-hen/罪滅し編/"Sin Expiating Chapter", and Minagoroshi-hen/皆殺し編/"Wholesale Killing Chapter"), as well as three new chapters meant to resolve the storyline (Taraimawashi-hen/盥回し篇/"Tub Spinning Chapter", Tsukiotoshi-hen/憑落し篇/"Haunt Dispelling Chapter", and Miotsukushi-hen/澪尽し篇/"Channel Marking Chapter").



The opening theme, Nageki no Mori (嘆きノ森/"Lamenting Forest"), is performed by Ayane (彩音).

Rozen Maiden

A couple of opening sequences from the two PS2 installments of the Rozen Maiden franchise.

Rozen Maiden ~duellwalzer~:



Rozen Maiden ~gebetgarten~:



The first game takes place during the Rozen Maiden (first season) timeline, while the second is a retelling of the events of Rozen Maiden ~träumend~. Both games are hybrid types that are mostly visual novel and partly... something else. That "something else" is a (simple) shooting game in duellwalzer/Duel Waltz and a Mai-Otome ~Otome Butoushi!!~-esque aerial fighting game in gebetgarten/Prayer Garden.

The theme songs are performed by ALI PROJECT, whom most people remember for Kopperia no Hitsugi, the opening theme of Noir.

Learning Japanese: Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig

Before we begin, let me expound for a bit on learning Japanese.

First off, don't. I'm serious, barring a very good reason, there is no way that the time you spend studying Japanese will ever see anything even remotely comparable to an adaquate payoff. "Ahh, but I have a very good reason.", I hear you cry. Does that reason involve family, locational requirements, or business? If it does, then fine, you may proceed. If it doesn't, you should think long and hard as to why you're making the attempt. If it (your reason) in anyway includes that you wish to better appreciate various aspects of Japanese pop-culture (anime, video games, comics, or any of the number of reasons you might be reading this blog), then for the love of all that you hold good, STOP NOW!

Put simply, thanks to the growing popularity of such things abroad, and a large group of OCD fans, anything (pop culture stuff) that you might ever wish to read or watch in Japanese that is worth reading or watching, will probably be translated for you. There are other people out there who will gleefully do all the work of learning the language and painstakingly translating whatever it is you want. Why should you work when they're willing to do it for you?

Now, it can be argued tha the translations you get, even in products you paid for, is shaky at best. Still given the learning curve of Japanese, I'd take someone elses shaky for free over my own probably even more shaky cost me years of study.

That being said, let's get down to brass tacks. I have studied Japanese for many years, and I am not good at it. In fact, I am very, very bad at it. While expressive this is not perhaps accurate enough, I am so bad at the language that I have achieved a sort of legendary status among those unfortunate enough to have to deal with me in an academic environment.

Among my many woes with the Japanese language, is the small matter of Kanji. I hate Kanji. I hate them with a passion that burns like a thousand fiery suns. My hatred of Kanji is so great that by simple association, I also hate all other pictographic writing systems. Needless to say, my ability to write the blasted things is not particularly good.

So it was much to my surprise that I encountered James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. A random web browsing brought into my possession the free demo pdf that let's the uninitated take his style for a test drive. Intrigued, or at least really bored with doing whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing, I opened the file and started reading.

Heisig makes the claim that circumstances had him arriving late at a language school in Kamakura, so that he was unable to join that semester's classes. Still, everyone recommended that since he had many years of Kanji tedium ahead of him, he might as well start now. On his own, and without real academic guidance, he proceeded to master all 2,000 of the commonly used kanji in a month. It's about this point where any rational person should close the file, delete it, and never think about it again.

However, I was procrastinating, an activity I take rather seriously, so I pressed on. Things don't improve much as Heisig describes his method. He breaks all Kanji down into his own system of primitives; these primitives being unusual in that not all of them are an accepted Kanji radical, or a kanji in and of itself. He then assigns each of these primitives a single english word. Kanji are then built by memorizing a mnemonic story involving these words.

It sounds both terribly silly and incredibly roundabout as a way of doing things. Unfortunately, at least for me, it also seems to work. After 6 lessons in 4 days, totalling over 100 kanji I'm still going strong with almost no difficulty, despite what I said above. It seems, all in all, too good to be true, and for all I know, it may be. It could be that once I reach the higher numbers of kanji covered my brain starts to forget the stories of the earlier ones. I'll tell you when I get there.

Still, for all that I want to sacrifice goats in praise of Mr. Heisig, his method does have it's flaws. For one, no attention whatsoever is paid to the pronunciation of the kanji. His first volume covers solely remembering how to write them, something of perhaps questionable value (although, I must say that I wish I had discovered his book say ... during my freshman year Japanese, where it would have been of incalculable value on those kanji quizzes). While his second volume apparently addresses the pronunciation, I am not privy to that text and so can not adaquately (or arbitrarily) speak as to its effectiveness. Additonally, some of the stories that Mr. Heisig uses seem ... well ...awkward at best. Still, since he apparently stops giving them at some point, leaving you to craft your own, everyone will adjust as need be.

The only real remaining problem is the book's limited print run. As of this date, good luck actually finding a copy of his book from which to study. Amazon.com wants $300 for a single copy. While new prints are apparently on the way, word is that they won't be ready till at least May. Still, at such time as I can order a copy for around $40, I would gladly pay that price. And that's saying something.

Musou Orochi

Musou Orochi is a new game from Koei's musou series of mass-mayhem action games. The ancient god Orochi has risen from the depths and wreaked havoc with space-time, allowing generals from both Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors to co-exist and battle either for or against a common foe -- Orochi.

It sounds dumb, yeah, but as is the case with any crossover between popular franchises, Musou fans should love it.

I Salute You, Brian K. Vaughan

Marvel Comics hasn't been the same since the post-bankruptcy reorganization (a blight on you, Joe Quesada, for that awful Civil War crap!), but it's still capable of putting out a comic now and then that's worth reading (for example: Agents of Atlas). Runaways is one such title: I've read all 42 issues so far (published in two separate volumes), as well as the (immensely crappy) Runaways/Young Avengers: Civil War crossover and even the X-Men/Runaways mini-book they gave away during the Free Comic Book Day 2006 publicity event. I can't really say what fascinates so much about the series, since it doesn't do anything (i.e. plot, art, drama, romance, general suspense) exceptionally well, but if you dig deep down into my subconscious (stay out! It's not pretty down there), you'd probably find that I just appreciate a comic with characters who respond realistically to the problems heaped upon them through the wiles of the comic book gods. Also doesn't hurt that there aren't any, as David would put it, "narrative buzzkills" in sight.

Runaways is the story of six teens who, through mere happenstance, discover that their parents are super-villains plotting the destruction of the world. The original roster consisted of:

* Alex Wilder (16), the son of underworld mafia rulers.
* Nico Minoru (16), the daughter of dark sorcerers.
* Chase Stein (17), the son of mad scientists.
* Gertrude Yorkes (15), the daughter of time travelers.
* Karolina Dean (16), the daughter of space aliens.
* Molly Hayes (11), the daughter of evil mutants.

The teenagers ran away from home, decided to fight against their evil parents, and eventually succeeded. Then they had to deal with a slew of issues including being placed into foster homes by the Avengers, fighting crooks trying to fill the power vacuum left behind by their powerful parents, fending off a support group founded by former teenage superheroes, and combating an online cabal of role-playing geeks thinking they were the super-villains in that struggle against their "'rents." Two of the original members were killed off and replaced by:

* Victor Mancha (17), the cyborg son of Ultron.
* Xavin (???), the child of marauding Skrulls.

I recommend reading the newly released Runaways Saga for a quick "primer" on everything that's happened so far. Anyway, I like the way the series realistically portrays the doubt, confusion, and general insecurity of the Runaways. Hey, I was a teen myself not too long ago, so I can easily understand that how, in a situation like the one the Runaways found them in, the whole world would appear to them to have gone mad. Even though they hail from the same universe as such prolific superhero teams as the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and the X-Men, the Runaways are not one such team: they're just a bunch of frightened, confused kids who have come to distrust adults and who have no choice but to rely on each other for support. Most of their adventures have been entertaining and provide welcome catharses from the over-dramatic, poorly written (and incredibly poorly edited!) "flagship" titles Marvel produces nowadays.

Sadly, though, an era has just ended for the Runaways. Brian K. Vaughan, who created and wrote all 42 issues of the comic so far, is leaving the franchise for a while. In his stead, Runaways will now be written by...

...

...Joss Whedon. Supposedly the change will only last for one six-issue story arc, but this is Joss Whedon. One can't underestimate the amount of narrative damage Joss can inflict over six issues of a comic.

Please don't kill us all off, Mr. Whedon!