2D > 3D

To commemorate Funimation’s license of Gunslinger Girl yet again (they got the first season as well), I’ll be writing up something on the 2nd season OP single, which I’ve been listening to over and over and over again (and have actually been singing it in the shower lulz).

The cover artwork is drawn incredibly well and mimics the mosaic-style artwork found in the OP sequence which you can view on YouTube over here. You can also listen to the full song over here. Since the 2nd season focuses on Triela’s inner and physical struggle against Pinnochio, she is aptly shown on the CD cover reflecting on her past actions and mistakes.

Both songs on the disc are sang by KOKIA. This is my first time listening to her songs even though according to the Wikipedia article, she is supposed to be quite popular beyond the Japanese visual culture world.

I have always liked songs that use a strong piano base (including Hirano Aya’s Bouken Desho Desho, the Haruhi OP). In Tatta Hitotsu no Omoi ( たった1つの想い), KOKIA combines her powerful voice with persisting and echoing electric guitar rifts. In fact, a huge part of what makes the song incredibly enjoyable are the guitar rifts. While the guitar seems like generic support at first, a guitar solo is played just before KOKIA lets rip the decisive bridge of the song, which I actually enjoy much more than the bridge itself. In fact it is only upon re-listening to the song a second time that it dawned on me that the guitar is the true melody of the song and the piano only acts as a mere base. Something I would have never realised had I not purchased the OP single and listened to the song fully on a competent sound system.

This became even more obvious when the off-vocal version of the song started playing (track 3). In fact, the off-vocal versions are so well composed that they do well to stand alone as isolated instrumentals. Upon recognising this, I let the CD repeat itself anytime between 10-20 times as I lay on the bed with my eyes closed, savouring the musical splendour.

In stark contrast to the main single, the accompanying single (track 2) was slow and sorrowful instead of being fast-paced and decisive. It radiates its own unique beauty and reflects Triela’s other non-violent side: the role she plays as an older sister and emotional guardian to the other cyborgs.

Needless to say if you’re a Gunslinger Girl fan, you should procure this CD asap. Even if you have issues with the 2nd season, I’d say it acts as a good auxillary image album for Triela even if you just read the manga alone. Order a copy now, I swear you won’t regret it.

F*CK YEAAAH!!!!!

I’ve been checking the Funimation website for for sometime now after I read this post from ANN.

As a rather huge Gunslinger Girl fan, I’ll be preordering the first DVD/boxset as soon as its available. A shot of my collection from ages past to post in some forum:

What!? No figurines, you ask? Well I think I’m one of the only anti-figurine Otaku in existance. Yup I really don’t like them.

Oh and I’m actually ommiting some non-figurine stuff, but I’ll be covering them in the next few posts, I hope.

Have only watched the first 3 episodes of Il Treatino so far, so I guess I’ll be holding the fansubs off till the DVDs arrive

I recently completed my first tutorial lesson in the National University of Singapore (NUS) as an electrical engineering student. Interestingly, it has nothing to do with mathematics or science, but rather on critical argument:

Critical Thinking and Writing (EG1413)

This course aims to foster the critical thinking, reading and writing skills which engineering students need to be successful in the university and in the engineering profession. Learners are taught the fundamentals of analyzing written ideas/arguments of others and they simultaneously practise writing approaches typical of the academic and professional settings: exposition, evaluation, analysis, argumentation and research.

Of course this course isn’t only for engineers. It will allow anyone who studies it to be able to identify fallacious arguements (in the blogosphere) and thus avoid being tricked by them as well as being able to attack them/fight back. Which can of course lead to much needed blogger dorama if things get to quiet around here.

Anyway, given the openess of blogs it is easy for them to mislead readers. For example, I am aware that my initial post on Osouji Sentai Clean Keeper is getting a shitload of hits. Most probably because I’m one of the only English bloggers in the world that has covered it, which can lead to everyone thinking the Wii is actually getting a 18+ game (when it isn’t) if they don’t read the post properly. The damage has already been done and I can’t just change it now as it will lead to even greater confusion. This is why I feel it is essential to keep the comments function open so that other bloggers can correct another blogger. Counter-posts/snipes are helpful as well. Afterall, no blogger is perfect.

In fact, I feel one of the best ways to do well at this module is to start a blog in a suitable blogosphere. Afterall when you blog argumentatively, you are actually putting your ass on the line for readers and bloggers alike to pummel with your blog’s credibility at stake. I like writing argumentatively, thus I know how the feeling is like. As for any NUS students or anime bloggers to be, do take note as you might want to take this as a supplementary module.

As I have mentioned, one of the first skills we are taught as a critical thinker is to identify fallacies in arguements. I’ll just highlight a few interesting ones I’ve learnt so far:

1. Appeal to Ignorance (Ad Ignorantiam): The appeal to ignorance consists in arguing that because a claim has not been demonstrated to be false, the claim is true. For instance,

Of course I believe in ESP. No one has ever demonstrated that it doesn’t exist.

4. Appeal to General Belief (Ad Populum): This fallacy consists in asserting that a claim is correct just because people generally believe it is. Such an inference is an error because we have no reason to take what most people believe as a reliable indicator of what is true.

5. Appeal to Popular Attitudes and Emotions (also called Ad Populum): Popular attitudes and the emotions associated with them can be manipulated to incline people to accept claims that have not been demonstrated.

I find fallacies 4 and 5 highly applicable to the modern world especially when you look at all the Bleach and Narutards around. In fact, there are actually 2 Bleachtards in this class, and I wonder whether the course can help un-tard them. It seems that the reasoning for most Bleachtards is:

Everyone is watching Bleach. It is selling really well. Therefore it is good.

And:

Almost no one is watching Kanon. It isn’t selling very well. Therefore it must suck.

Which will undoubtly earn you a big fat F if you apply this train of thought while undertaking this module.

Also applicable to the gaming world where:

Everyone is playing WoW. It is selling well. Therefore it is good.

When actually, there are a lot more MMORPGs out there that are a lot better. I have a friend who is a hardcore MMO purist and he always reminds me that “WoW is for f*cking MMO noobs”.

What actually happened was that we were being forced to introduce ourselves by the lecturer and there were these two guys that said they were “interested in Japanese culture… cartoons actually” and I was thinking to myself “whoo hoo, fellow Otaku?” so I wrote something on the back of my tutorial booklet and flashed it over at them and said “know what’s this?”:

They replied “Eroge? What’s that?” to which I had no choice but to say “errr, never mind.”

And this is what I call the eroge-test to identify fellow Otaku. Try it, its fun.

Oh and I didn’t introduce myself as someone who “liked Japanese visual culture”. I just said something along the lines of “I play tennis, and I’m a trained guard dog handler.” Sufficient to satisfy the tutor and most of the class. I mean, I really don’t want the Bleach-tards to think I like Bleach or anything like that because I freaking don’t!

Needless to say, posting on this blog might slow down since I’m still adjusting to school life from pure working life. I’m still keeping my job part-time anyway, so rather I’m adjusting to school+work+blogging life. And, no, I’m not some super duper intelligent Masters graduate like Impz is, so don’t expect me to churn out blogposts as frequently as in the past as I do have to keep my grades up.

As most male Otaku should know, there isn’t really anything in this world that can beat a good moe-bishoujo game adaption like Kanon. However, I don’t go around declaring this to every single person I meet because humans have an in-built dimensional superiority complex. You can read more in the about page, but to make things easier I’ll just summarise this superiority complex below:

“Ok we are all 3 dimensional beings. As everyone should know, the first two dimensions are of course length and breadth. The 3rd dimension is height.

Ever felt inferior to someone that is taller than you? Since girls are more societal creatures compared to men, they are more dimensionally-entrenched, and thus feel the crunch harder. This is why high-heel shoes exist.

Since all of us are more or less affected by dimensionality, this explains why people think cartoons and anime in general are dumb. It is a fact that cartoons are 2 dimensional and thus possess no height.”

I have argued that even though 2-dimensional entertainment isn’t popular, it is superior to most other forms of entertainment. However, there is one critical loophole in this arguement that I wish to address in this blogpost and in doing so will reinforce my arguement: why are some cartoons so phenomally popular and are accepted in pop culture?

Firstly, to highlight something closer to Japanese pop culture, there is stuff like Naruto and Bleach. It is fact that these two animes are so damn popular the world over and even 20+ or even 30+ males and females are watching it with a considerable level of interest. Heck back in my Military Police days almost the entire platoon could be talking about how powerful this guy was and there was this section mate that would keep saying “Ban-Kai!” and use it for all kinds of inappropriate applications. He would say things like:

Friend: Do you know what you get when you ban-kai Beckham?

Me: What?

Friend: Eric!

Ok, Beckham was this guard dog that was scared of cars (serious!); basically the most whimpy guard dog in the entire wing. And Eric was the freaking fiercest, biggest, black german shepherd you would have ever seen. And the reason why we were having this retarded conversation was because I am a guard dog handler and I was on a perimeter patrol with Beckham as my dog and my friend as an escort.

Most of the older ones are probably just following a trend as no one wants to be left out right? The thing is that Naruto and Bleach cater to this dimensional superiority complex perfectly. Look at Naruto’s f*cking stupid face above. He is actually an attention-seeking idiot that not many of the older ones would take seriously. Subsconsciously, it feeds their need for dimensional superiority.

Most of the more hardcore Bleach fans would tell these trend-chasers not to bother with the anime and just read the manga as the animation quality is going downhill. But the replies that I’ve heard these Bleach fans would get is “I don’t care about animation quality” and guess what? This caters directly for the need to be dimensionally superior as an excuse to watch a Japanese cartoon.

The second example I would like to raise would be The Simpsons. Heck, everyone knows The Simpsons. It was even featured in an opinionated piece in a local paper recently and is societally accepted. Why is that?

Because The Simpsons are F*CKING UGLY yellow excuses of human beings. I’m not sure whether Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, was aware of dimensional superiority but he sure as hell played his cards right. By mixing ugly yellow pieces of shit with a satirical twist on current affairs, he hit big. Its the perfect formula for popular 2-dimensional sucess with the larger dimensionally entrenched world population.

Lets look at the average character design of a fairly unpopular eroge like Yotsunoha (compared to currently top-selling eroge greats like AIR and Kanon):

I think the picture speaks for itself. The problem is that when most “normal” people sample entertainment that does not automatically satisfy this dimensional superiority complex, they will experience an automatic feeling of instant disgust and repulsion instead of thinking “this is awesome stuff”.

There are so many examples that I want to raise but I’m sure anyone can think of more. One is why Mickey Mouse is so insanely popular and is recognised world-wide. The faster ones can probably guess before reading the next line: ITS BECAUSE HE IS A FREAKING MOUSE. When human beings see Mickey Mouse, they will actually be subconsciously thinking about a filthy mouse scurrying around without even realising it. This allows them (or us, actually) to universally accept a stupid mouse as a mascot character for a multi-million dollar company.

However there IS a reason why this dimensional superiority complex exists and its because it counter-acts a drop in reproductive rates. Its a human thing, really. The damn problem is that 2D girls can be drawn extremely well and this definitely sets them apart from 3-dimensional pornography. In fact, I would go so far as to say that eroge is a significant contributing factor to Japan’s low birth-rates.

There is a certain kind of pureness in this kind of moe that can’t be found anywhere else, and even though the larger western world is unaware of this, things are changing. As Jeff Lawson has raised in this post, the American anime DVD market is shifting towards Bishoujo game adaptions with the recent slew of Bishoujo anime licenses like AIR, Kanon and Shuffle! I’m not really aware of the wider social implications in this trend, but I’d say at least another superpower is accepting that contravening your own dimensionality brings about more intense personal satisfaction than behaving otherwise.

In other words, the moe-otakus are winning. And given how the older generation is technophobic (and generally think Japanese cartoons can’t be insightful at all), and how the american anime fandom is built around the internet, there isn’t much that can stand in our way.

While Hinano is most likely evaluating the Sniper-type animeblogger Ani-nouto’s decision for cutting off any comments on his/her blog, it has raised another interesting issue in the animeblogosphere in general: blogging Shounen or Shoujo anime or manga.

In fact if you’ve been keeping up with the blogosphere, it is kind of obvious that it is way better to be a male animeblogger than a female animeblogger. Female animebloggers have the tendency to want to blog Shoujo (as well as Josei) anime since, well, they are female after all. Even really mature female bloggers (congratulations on finally deciding to get married to jpmeyer, btw) like Hinano will want to voice their opinions on the better Shoujo stuff like Shugo Chara.

Personally, my modern Japanese visual culture diet is primarily Seinen, since I’m a 20 year-old-male. But I’ve given Shoujo Shugo Chara a short attention span of 3 episodes because my favourite mangaka duo Peach-Pit (drew Rozen Maiden) was behind the original manga. However due to the simplistic nature of Shoujo (AND Shounen) manga, I couldn’t find the drive to continue with the anime. Too busy with work, eroge/doujin VNs, my huge pile of anime-related CDs, my DVD/Blu-Ray disc collection, artbooks/bishoujo gaming mags, blogging (and reading blogs), and my recently purchased Japanese Wii (don’t worry, I’ll be covering my experiences on the Wii soon).

Anyway, back to the blogsphere. You’ll notice hardly anyone blogs Shounen or Shoujo stuff. Most of the stuff the average reader gets are real-life editorials, news updates (and editorials pertaining to these updates), and then there are the episodic anime summary and/or editorial posts. And most of the time, these posts cover Seinen anime.

Why? Firstly, it is really difficult to blog Shounen or Shoujo anime insightfully. Respectfully Hinano is an exceptional and experienced blogger. However much of her comments are usually comparisons to the original manga, rants/flames, or Seiyuu praises/flames. I doubt you can produce an editorial that is of the quality of any of Hop Step Jump Seinen editorials for a Shounen or Shoujo anime (and yeah, Jeff Lawson’s diet is mainly Seinen as well).

Discussions for Shounen (action/adventure) anime usually centre around crap such as “xxx is so powerful! He pwns xxx anytime! xxx anime is the best I give it 5/5″ without much backup evidence or intelligent reasoning. You can see these retarded discussions in any Naurtard or Bleachtard infested forums. I’ll just highlight a few threads for evidence.

The thing is that even though a huge chunk of Shounen/Shoujo manga/anime are retarded, they are capable of inducing an indescribly orgasmic feeling to the intended demographic they target. I mean I LOVE my Seinen media. KeyAni adaptions rawk. I have re-read all my Gunslinger Girl and Azumanga Daioh manga about 6 times already and I do frequently play eroge demos even though my Japanese stinks (went for 2 lessons in basic Jap so far). I can even faintly remember a time when I thought Bleach was the best freaking cartoon on the face of this planet, and I believe I was 17.

This holds true for Shoujo media. Many females online have professed that when they were younger, they wanted to be magical girls like Amu in Shugo Chara. I believe its probably the same feeling I get when I experience huge moe gushes when I watch Seinen stuff like Manabi Straight! or Clannad.

The fundamental problem with blogging Shounen or Shoujo media is that the internet is a freaking huge wide open space that anyone can tread across, even to those that have not fully matured and are blindly idolising Kurosaki Ichigo or some magical girl. Most male animebloggers are instantly immune to such frustrations that Hinano has to face since moe instantly turns most young (immature) guys off. And due to the nature of moe, it isn’t really possible to draw violent comments from girls such as “IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT THEN DON’T WATCH AND DON’T TALK ABOUT IT!” like Shugo Chara or Special A can.

In fact most anime bloggers will usually generate really huge walls of words that the immature/uneducated generally do not entertain. This serves as an instant force field against immaturity.

So this serves as a general warning for would be dedicated Shounen/Shoujo editorial writers: DON’T. Firstly, there isn’t really much to discuss about, unless you are one really freaking HUGE Seiyuu junkie which most Otakus are generally not (one good reason to watch Shounen/Shoujo is really for your favourite Seiyuu). Secondly, prepare for an exceptionally hellish blogging experience unless you switch of your comments like Ani-Nouto does.

Thus proclaims Alex Lo, Senior Writer at the South China Morning Post.

I was flipping through the 1st of May edition of the paper on my flight home from Hong Kong and choked on my wine when I was halfway through the article. A few small tears streamed down my eyes as I chuckled to myself.

Ok, I never ever got into Keroro Gunsou (promotional move poster above) because I have huge issues with the character designs of both the manga and anime iterations. On top of that, it is devoid of moe and bishoujos which definitely doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, I’ve heard tons of good stuff about it but sadly, I guess just pure humour alone with a bunch of weird and endearing aliens doesn’t appeal to a moe-bishoujo addict like me.

Anyway, I do know quite a bit about Keroro Gunsou off hand before reading the article which led to freaking burning wine in my nostrils, and these are some of the facts about the series:

//

The Keroro Gunsou manga was serialised in Shounen Ace. Now, Shounen Ace is targeted at an “older Shounen” audience, which may lead to a spillover into the Seinen category.

For those not acquinted with anime/manga demographics, Shounen media is intended for “boys no older than 17″ while Seinen media is intended for a more matured audience of “males 18 and above”.

While normal and explosively popular Shounen magazines (like Shounen Jump for example) are slanted towards a 12-15 years old male audience, Shounen Ace attempts to bridge that tricky gap between Shounen and Seinen (16-17 years old audience) which can actually lead to close to or completely Seinen serials. For example, Welcome to the N.H.K. was serialised in Shounen Ace and if you ask me it isn’t freaking Shounen, but Seinen. Scan from a volume I own below:

This makes Shounen Ace an extremely interesting manga magazine and aside from Welcome to the N.H.K., many of the manga serialised within are in my opinion truly “older Shounen”. In fact, check out this bit of info from the NHK wiki:

“In North America, the manga is licensed by Tokyopop, and the first volume was released on October 10, 2006. It is one of the first manga published by Tokyopop to be rated M, for an 18 or older audience (Happy Mania, Battle Royale, Yubisaki Milk Tea among others, have also earned this rating from Tokyopop). Tokyopop also released the novel on October 9, 2007. ADV Films announced at Anime Central that they acquired the rights to the anime, and they released volume one on October 2, 2007 with volume two released on December 4, 2007.”

One extremely good example as a good transition manga would be Keroro Gunsou. Guys that are below 18 are generally not matured enough to enjoy moe-bishoujos. I mean I know how it felt like in the past but that feeling is fading since I’m freaking 20 now. When I was younger and more immature, I thought that anything that contained Bishoujos were for girls, when in fact most girls seriously dislike watching an anime filled with perfectly drawn females and only 1 or 2 guys.

Keroro Gunsou fits the bill of “older Shounen” well and helps 16-17 year olds adjust into the moe zone. Keroro and his friends are arguebly rather cute, but not overtly moe. The plot itself isn’t immature shit like “normal Shounen” or “normal Shoujo” and is rather complex while retaining mature themes such as sadomasochism as well as unique humour.

//

I’m just personally glad that in all my years of reading the local Singaporean Straits Times, which I do without fail when I’m in Singapore everyday, I’ve never seen an opinion piece written without thorough research. Heck, when Andy Ho (Senior Writer for The Straits Times) churned out anti-Odex opinion pieces during the peak of the Odex Saga, he didn’t write anything that was factually wrong (CARTOONS FOR CHILDREN, Mr. Lo says), even to a discerning hardcore Otaku like me. That’s pretty amazing stuff if you think about it, and shows that the man has done his research. He wrote freaking long opinionated pieces on ODEX if fellow Singaporeans recall. In true Singaporean spirit, get that man a Tiger! lol.

The fact is Keroro Gunsou isn’t for kids. Happy Lesson isn’t for kids. ARIA isn’t for kids. I think we need a closet Otaku in any of the major censorship boards to indeed point out the dangers of modern Japanese visual culture that is easily mistaken as for kids due to our dimensional superiority complex. As I’ve said before, I don’t freaking want my future kids (if I do have any) to be reading freaking eroge-to-manga adaptions just because the authorities irresponsibly dismiss “childish-looking” Japanese comics for as intended for kids.

My father recently acquired a 37 inch full-HD (1080p) HDTV and a Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray disc player. Thus I’ve been playing my collection of anime DVDs on it, which is partly the reason why my posting has slowed. My collection consists of R1 (American), R2 (Japanese) and R3 (local, Taiwanese), DVDs.

I contemplated providing pictures to support this, but I don’t think the picture quality of a normal digital camera will be able to differentiate the animation quality between the different regions.

The Blu-Ray disc player I own can play Blu-Ray discs that are region A, which is essentially all Blu-Ray discs that I am interested in purchasing as Region A include America, Japan and South-East asia. It can also play all DVDs from all regions, which was an important factor in helping my father choose the player as I own DVDs from almost all regions.

As most High Definition entertainment enthusiasts should know, a Blu-Ray disc player can upscale DVDs from their original 480p quality (already much higher than fansub quality) to a sub-HD quality of 720i (HD qualities are from lowest to highest: 720p, 1080i and 1080p).

Knowing this, I eagerly popped in my Clannad R2s and gave it a spin. I wasn’t that impressed by the image upscaling and was rather dissappointed actually. After watching the imba animation quality scene of the moe loli beckoning to her robot and the OP a few times, I ejected the disc and inserted a Kanon R1.

Surprisingly, the quality of the Kanon OP from the R1 was much better than the Clannad R2. I was shocked because on my DVD players the R2s are always superior to the R1s in terms of both picture and sound quality. While the Clannad OP was rather grainy, the Kanon OP was very clear and quite obviously much better than the many DVD iterations that I have watched.

After watching 2 episodes of Kanon (4 and 5), I popped in a R3 copy of local licensor Blue Max’s A Place Promised in Our Early Days (directed by Makoto Shinkai). I noted the upscaling was rather similar to the R1 upscaling, but perhaps slightly less clear. Much better than the R2 upscaling though.

I don’t know much about how the different region DVDs work, but aren’t the different regions just meant to be economically distorting restrictions? I don’t think they should actually affect picture quality, but this is a Blu-Ray player utilising new technology that we’re talking about. Perhaps there could be a slight difference in the optical disc technology used.

Also, when I checked my player’s user’s manual, my Blu-Ray disc is not supposed to be able to play R1 and R2 DVDs. This is rather confusing, because the R1 DVD picture quality was the clearest.

Just a little something to note if you are an avid purchaser of R2s and are thinking of upscaling them with a Blu-Ray disc player, because it isn’t going to wow you at any rate if you ask me. Really a pity though, because even though R2s are the most expensive DVDs, they still offer the most collector’s value compared to R1 and R3 releases.